Gun shots rang out through the valley, as Mickey laid down cover fire. "The bullets aren't touching them!" He shouted.
Hearing Mickey's words, Gwaine recalled Mitchell and the others discussing how their bullets passed right through the hologram of the Black Knight. He threw aside his firearm and drew his tactical knife. With only the seven inch blade, he used every ounce of his training from both time periods to fend off the bandits. Rolling under the wide sword swing of a scruffy-looking man, he came up behind the enemy and stabbed.
The bandit fell to the ground with a scream. "Use a blade!" He hollered at Mickey.
The darker man scowled, as another bandit moved towards him. As of yet, he was unwilling to give up his firearm, a weapon similar to the P-90's used by the Stargate Program. Instead, he used the butt of the gun, and slammed it into his assailant's face. "Yeah, man! Clubbing them over the head works, too!"
Gwaine grinned in understanding. It seemed these bandits didn't have the same immunity to mundane weapons as the holographic knight that Mitchell and Arthur had faced.
"Gwaine!" Like an echo of the past, the scream of his best friend pulled his attention away from the bandits in front of him. He spun to see a large ruddy fellow with very few teeth, standing menacingly over Merlin's frail form.
Gwaine managed to shove aside another bandit who had come upon him. He rushed towards the ugly man, towering over Merlin, just as the villain's sword rose. In a flash, Gwaine vaulted off a boulder and landed on the bandit's back, his knife catching the man under the chin.
With a realistic gurgling sound, the bandit's sword dropped, and he fell to the ground. Others, upon seeing the largest of their companions fall, began to flee into the forest. For perhaps the first time, Gwaine noticed how little blood there was on the ground, around the few bandits that had fallen. He shook his head at the realization. Gwaine knelt down to check his friend over. "You alright?"
Merlin closed his eyes and nodded.
"So, I don't get it. If these guys are holograms, like the Black Knight was, why do they run away?" Gwaine asked, his eyes scanning the nearly invisible trails left by their enemies flight.
Mickey snorted, "It's a classic video game mob programming. You bring the enemy down in health to a certain point, or you do something to cause their morale to drop...they automatically retreat."
Gwaine fell back on his ass, chuckling. It all made too much sense. The thieves and rogues in this area of the kingdom had always seemed like an oddity...at least the ones who had thrived there, when Morgana's goons weren't skulking around.
Cracking one eye open, Merlin evaluated the younger men. "They'll be back with more." He commented, in a breathy whisper.
"Well, yeah." Mickey agreed, as if he knew more about the situation than either Merlin or Gwaine. "That's how those games work. They retreat. Pull more mobs, come back to the same spot, and try again. Which, if this is programmed the same way, we should probably get moving so we're outside of their agro range when they come back."
"Agro range?" Gwaine asked, with a raised eyebrow.
"Mobs?" Merlin asked, giving Mickey a similar look of confusion.
Mickey blinked, and thought about how to respond, "'Mobs' are the creatures you fight in the games. 'Agro range' is how far away they can sense or see you before they attack. So..." He moved over to Merlin's stretcher and waited for Gwaine to do the same. "We need to move away from this area before they come back."
"I don't think we can make it to cave before dark." Gwaine said, lifting Merlin up from the other side. "We should probably find a place to make camp soon, and then continue on at first light."
The staccato rhythm of Arthur's heel tapping against the floor, while his knee bounced anxiously, was grating on her nerves.
After a few intense moments at the hospital, where Martha had threatened both Arthur and Leon with an invitation for an extended stay of their own, Laney had decided they should all adjourn to her house to discuss things in a more private setting. Martha had glared over her shoulder at Dr. Lam, for helping to facilitate her husband's abduction from the hospital; while Laney had ushered them to the car, leaving Carolyn to deal with the hospital staff on her own.
The ride back to the house was extremely uncomfortable.
Martha was fuming silently, as was Laney. The two men were stuck in the backseat, with two booster seats stacked between them, and unknown food substances sticking to their trousers.
At the house, Percival began to question their return. Arthur held up his hand, indicating that he would fill the large knight in later. He now sat on the couch, sandwiched by his two largest knights, and the former king felt like a child under the glare of his best friend's wife.
"Well?" She finally demanded, turning her gaze upon Leon. "Are you going to take me to my husband, or bring him back here? Of all the stupid things...What were you thinking...letting Gwaine take him?"
Leon's mustache twitched, his eyes shifted sideways.
"Don't you even look at him for an answer!"
Arthur stood suddenly. "Alright. Let's go. If we move quick enough, we can catch up to them easily."
"Excuse me?" Martha was stunned by the sudden change of mind by the former king. "Are you saying you were wrong in your decision?"
"...Only so far as letting Gwaine go with him alone, even if he was planning to meet Mickey." He nodded at Leon, signaling his intention. "Lady Elaine, thank you for your hospitality once again." Arthur gave Laney a full smile, and nodded his head at her.
She rolled her eyes. Offering him a tight-lipped smile, Laney waved a futile goodbye as the beam took the king, his knights, and Martha.
Walking into the kitchen, she found her coat, and started to pull it on; planning to make her way outside. "Sure, just leave me by myself to hold down the fort...and try to explain to three kids why we're going to be moving...AGAIN! Mother fracking hell!" She heard a chuckle and spun around to see her oldest son standing in the doorway. "I mean...Mother flipping...Oh, damn it..."
Toby snickered at his mother's attempt to cover her cursing. "Mom, I'm almost fourteen. I've heard it all before...mostly from you."
"Well, shit." Laney snorted and shook her head, as she hung her coat back on the chair. It was hard to remember sometimes that her first baby was now a teenager.
"We're moving?" Toby finally asked. He looked around the room in confusion. "Where did everybody go?"
Laney sighed. She went to her cupboard and pulled out a bottle. "I may as well go ahead and tell ya. Sit down.
"Your dad..." She paused, attempting to find the right words. The man was an ass, but she wasn't about to call him that in front of her boys. When they were old enough, they could make up their own minds.
"...Is a jerk and he ran off to Thailand."
Laney's brown eyes narrowed, "She told me Mexico..."
"I saw the boarding pass on his phone. He was going to Thailand. I guess...he hasn't paid anything in a while either, huh?"
She shook her head sadly. "Plus side: I've got the number of a lawyer who's going to be able to make sure he can't come back for anything...unless, you kids want to see him"
Toby gave his mom a smile of understanding. He shook his head, indicating that he currently had no desire to see his dad. "So, where are we moving?"
"Home..." She said softly. "...The place I think of as home, that I haven't seen since I was about your age."
"You mean England?" His eyes widened and his jaw nearly hit the table. "Seriously?!"
"There's a lot of stuff you boys are gonna have to find out about..."
"...Like Uncle Gwaine being the real Sir Gwaine, and the other guys are all out of some weird portal from a different time?" He said with a smirk.
Laney stared at her son. She started to wonder how many conversations over the past months he had overheard. "You're too much of a smart ass for your own good."
"I learned from the best."
"Ha!" She finally poured herself a glass of the liquor. She turned to him. "Want a drink?"
"Mom...I'm thirteen."
"Right. Good boy."
Toby sat back in his chair. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. After a moment, he sat forward, leaning his elbows on the table. "Mom...we need to talk about your friend."
"What 'friend?'" Her eyebrows pinched together above her nose.
"Mr. Leon."
She held her breath, but tried to appear casual about the subject. She had been extremely careful to not do anything with him when the boys were home. When Gwaine was home, Leon and Percival would come around and hang out, or go riding in the fields. Laney didn't think her kids had noticed anything, but now, it was obvious Toby was a bit more observant than she had imagined.
"I like him, Mom." He said, standing up from the table. The teenager made his way over to the refrigerator, and pulled out a soda. He tapped on the top of the can absently. "He makes you smile in a way Dad never did."
"They definitely came through here recently." Percival said, examining the ground. "It looks like there was a fight."
"A fight with what?" Martha asked, swinging her torch around the forested area. She had an arm wrapped around her midriff, trying to keep the fluttering nervousness she felt at bay. It had been nearly dark, when Leon had beamed them down to the same area that he had, just a few hours earlier, sent Gwaine and Merlin. It took them less than an hour to reach the place of a recent fight.
"Bandits?" Percival asked more to himself.
"By all accounts, there are no such things as bandits roving the forests anymore." Arthur commented. His eyes scanned the trees, searching for an explanation. His sword was in one hand, and a battery-powered flashlight in the other.
Leon crouched down to study the branches. "It looks like they went this way." He wasn't as experienced in tracking, as he used to be. Percival went over and confirmed the older knight's find.
They followed the trail, mostly in silence. Arthur held up his hand, and listened. He brought up his sword, and his body tensed for a strike.
With a calculated swing, he jumped around the tree.
Gwaine cursed and jumped back. "Bloody hell! What are you guys doing here? I just about took your head off!"
Arthur glanced down at the military issue knife in the knight's hand. "With that?" He snickered, "You were going to take my head off...with a knife?"
Gwaine shrugged, and sheathed his small blade. He threw a wink at the blond man. "You know I could." He looked around and caught Martha's eye. His shoulders visibly relaxed. "Actually...really glad to see all of you. Come on, Merlin is...not doing so hot." He motioned for them to follow him off the path, and deeper into the forest.
Mickey was waiting next to a small campfire. At the first sounds of someone approaching, he had his gun drawn and pointed toward them all. He swung the barrel up, as soon as he recognized his friends.
Martha pushed her way past them all, rushing to the prone form lying on the ground, wrapped in a thermal blanket.
"Merlin?" She shook his shoulder softly. There was no response. "Build up the fire and get me some light over here." Her authoritative voice spurred them into action.
"What else do you need?" Percival asked, shining his light down on his friend.
"His pulse is faint. His body temperature is too low." She went through a checklist of things, while examining him "Merlin? Can you hear me?"
"He was holding up, until after the bandit attack." Gwaine began explaining, "We were trying to find a place to make camp, and then exhaustion hit him. We finally managed to find this level spot. Well, I did. Gimpy over there, is another story."
"Hey!" Mickey protested. It was then that the others noticed the young man hadn't actually moved from his seat near the fire. He held up his hands, when Martha turned her gaze on him. "I'll be fine for now...Twisted my ankle, is all. Focus on taking care of your man there."
"Well, if I don't get him to a hospital now..." Her voice was choked with emotion. Martha batted away the tears forming in her eyes. "Leon, could you..."
"No. There's some sort of filtering shield in the area. We'd have to head back to where we beamed in."
"You can't take him away from here." Gwaine said firmly.
"The hell I can't, Gwaine! He's my husband!"
"Gwaine's right." Arthur stated thoughtfully.
Martha turned to look at him. She was shocked that they would prevent her from trying to save Merlin. Opening her mouth to protest, Arthur moved forward and placed a hand on her shoulder.
He took his sword and laid it under the blanket on Merlin's chest. "Merlin said he needed to come here for a reason. He has spent more time looking after himself, than any of us can begin to imagine...well, except Leon. I think we need to trust, that after fifteen hundred years, he knows what he's doing."
"...And, if he dies because of this? What, then? What am I...are any of us...supposed to do, then?" Arthur refused to meet her eyes, so she turned to the others. Each one of them had gone quiet, and she thought her words had reached them.
"Then, we will mourn a great man, who has been a dear friend, and lived long enough to make a difference in our lives beyond our imagining." Leon said, looking into her soulful brown eyes. "There have been many days, I would have welcomed such a fate for myself."
"I can't even begin to imagine what you guys have seen. I don't think any of us could." Gwaine said, twisting his hands together and staring into the fire. "He's my best friend. I know he loves ya, Martha...loves you like no other...but, he's an old man. Old men get tired sometimes." His emotions were compounded by the loss of his grandfather, only months previous.
"Martha, we discovered recently that he isn't immortal, like he had suspected, but he's not human either. It's a complex situation. One which I barely have a grasp on. One thing I do know..." Arthur's eyes were filled with love and concern for the man who laid between them. "...I will do whatever I can to fulfil his request, even if it is his last."
"...Boat..." Came a surprising whisper. They turned to see Merlin's eyes, struggling to open.
"What's that?" Arthur asked, barely able to contain himself.
Merlin's breath was pained and shallow. "If you are all planning my funeral...I want to be cremated like the Vikings...in a boat...with a harem of women surrounding me...and lots of vodka."
"Merlin, buddy...That's my dream not yours, remember?" Gwaine said with a smile and a wink.
"Oh...yeah..." His eyes were unfocused, and his head moved weakly to the side, so he could see Gwaine.
Martha caressed his cheek and he turned his face to her. "Martha..."
"It's alright, I'm here. Save your energy. We're going to to figure out a way to get you back to the hospital."
"No."
She smiled patiently. "Merlin, you need to get somewhere for proper medical care. I can't treat you out here in the dark. Maybe Leon knows of a nearby planet with more medical advances, than we have..."
"Martha...Go home."
"We can get you home...Might be better for you, anyway...nice and quiet."
"No." Merlin tried to take a deeper breath. "You...go home."
Her eyes widened. "Excuse me?"
His blue eyes, the ones she loved more than any others, held no sign of the warmth she cherished seeing, when he finally met her eyes. They were dark and unreadable. "Go home...or somewhere. I don't want you here."
Her bottom lip quivered, and she shook her head, trying to will away the tears. "It's just the sickness talking, love. You don't mean that."
"Yes, I do." He said so quietly, she barely heard him. He chuckled softly, but there was no warmth in the sound. "Martha, you haven't known me long enough to understand anything about me."
Before Martha could argue, Arthur took her by the elbow, and led her away from the camp.
She was too stunned to put up a struggle at first. When they were a little ways off, she shook free of his grasp, and hugged herself tightly. "This isn't like him, Arthur. I don't understand what's going on with him."
"I do."
Spinning around to face him, she allowed her anger and confusion to show in her eyes. "What do you mean?"
The former king sighed and ran his hand through his blond hair. "I wouldn't want Guinevere to see me like that."
"So, it's a macho thing, is it?"
Arthur gritted his teeth. "That is not what I meant."
"Since you arrived...I have basically lost my husband, before I even had a real chance to be with him. Now..." She threw up her hands in defeat. "Now, he's pushing me away, and you're helping him. He's going to die if he doesn't get help. Yes, Gwen told me. Merlin wouldn't even tell me! He used to confide in me. We were happy."
"That is not my fault!"
"Isn't it, though? I think I've been beyond patient, with all of this shite. Merlin and I had plans. I've seen so much. Before I met him, I had seen so much darkness in the universe...including the literal end of humanity...far, far into the future. He was going to show me the world through his eyes; the world of magic and life. Now...I just want to be by his side, but you men are even keeping that from me."
"Despite what you are implying, I did not come back from the dead just to ruin your marriage." Arthur growled.
The sound of flint striking against steel, caused them both to turn. Gwaine was cupping his hands in front of his face. Martha's jaw dropped when he moved his hands away, and blew out smoke; the white, pencil-width cylinder of a cigarette in his fingers. "Don't mind me...Just thought I'd grab a smoke break, and watch the fireworks show."
"Gwaine, what are you talking about?" His head shifted to the side, as Gwaine inhaled and found a fallen log nearby to sit down on.
Martha sank against the trunk of a nearby oak. The branches above her were thick with new spring leaves. Their soft rustling, in contrast to the argument she and Arthur had been having, made her realize how loud the two of them had become. "Did everyone hear?"
Gwaine shrugged and took another drag. He blew it out slowly, before tapping the filter. The ashes floated to the ground, and disappeared into the dirt and moss. "Does it really matter?" He brought the filter to his mouth and inhaled again. "Did Merlin ever tell either of you about the last time he and I saw each other...before all this mess?"
Arthur stood off to the side, his arms crossed in front of his chest. He shook his head. "Camlann?"
"Nope. Before that. Merlin came to me, with a request. He wanted me to bring him here. Well, not here, but a place nearby. There's a cave." He chuckled, "You know, last night was the first night...since that last time I was here, that I actually got a decent night's sleep, without needing to be drunk, drugged, or completely exhausted."
Martha's look softened to one of compassion, having witnessed the mental state Gwaine had been in when she first met him. "You've come a long way from that."
Snorting, Arthur rolled his eyes.
Gwaine ignored it, understanding it was Arthur's way of coping with uncomfortable subjects. "Anyway. I didn't find out 'til Merlin and I were talking, just before we found out about the pods. Morg..." He paused and shook his head. Gwaine saw Arthur's eyes narrow. He knew the former king had caught the name slip up. "Someone snuck a creature into Camelot, and it stole Merlin's magic. That's why he said he wouldn't go to Camlann with ya. He was afraid he wouldn't be able to protect you without it. He asked me to help him get here, because he had a theory about getting it back.
"Being who I was, and knowing history...I had kind of guessed what was going on...but, back then, he didn't confide in anyone. Long story, short...Merlin is Merlin. We're lucky he broke down and asked for help at all, again. Martha, he's crazy about you, despite having his panties in a bunch right now. He just can't figure out how to tell ya. Arthur's right in that he just doesn't want you to see him weak like that." He waved away her unspoken protest. "Yeah, it's a 'man thing.' The thing is, we guys have been together, dealing with this stuff and fighting bandits side-by-side for years."
He dropped the cigarette to the ground and stomped it out. "If you come with us, he's gonna stress about you being there; not being able to protect you if something happened, and worry himself back into a coma. He needs to focus on himself right now."
"Merlin doesn't know how to focus on himself." Arthur commented. He smirked, recalling how many times his friend had given of himself without a thought to others. Although he hadn't noticed the magic, Arthur hadn't been completely blind to the kind and courageous man who had always been at his side.
Through her tears, Martha chuckled, "Well, at least we can agree on that."
Gwaine smiled slyly. His diversionary tactic had been successful. "So, I'll tell you what we need to do to get him back. You, need to be somewhere else. It doesn't really matter where." He said, looking at Martha. Turning to Arthur, Gwaine continued, "...and, except for Mickey, the rest of us will leave once we get him to the cave, capeesh?"
Reluctantly, they both nodded.
Arthur finally relaxed his stance. He turned to Martha, an idea forming in his mind. "Take Percival, and make your way out of whatever is preventing the teleportation. Have him take you to the house. I don't know where Merlin might have put it, but there is a staff I need you to find, and then wait for us there."
"What sort of staff?" Her eyes widened, "Wait, do you mean the one he's been searching for? You think he found it?"
Arthur nodded in affirmation. "Guinevere said she would be returning to the house when I spoke to her earlier today. She can help you." He paused and studied the ground for a moment. When he looked back up, there was a slight distance in his eyes. "She probably knows Merlin's secrets better than anyone else, even if he never really told her any of them."
"You have got to be joking!" Arthur yelled out, bracing himself against the brutal down swing of a holographic sword. While he knew now that the bandits were not necessarily real, it didn't make the quivering in his arms from fending off their attacks feel any less significant.
"This way!" Gwaine suddenly called out.
Arthur's eyes darted quickly to his companions. They had given up on the backboard, and Leon currently had Merlin's body slung across his shoulders. Gwaine was waving them toward a rock face. Mickey had the supplies weighing him down. His ankle, still throbbing from the night before, didn't appear to be slowing him down. With a loud battle cry and a wide swing, Arthur managed to break off from the bandits, and follow his men.
The cave was dark and shallow...Certainly not what Arthur was hoping for, but the entrance was narrow enough that two men could easily defend it, while two others rested. It seemed, for the moment at least, that the bandits had retreated.
"If they do come here, we're going to be in a load of trouble...with no way to go." Mickey said, dropping the gear on the floor, and then allowing himself to fall, rather ungracefully, into a seated position against a wall.
"Yes, but it will at least give us time to catch our breath. How did you know about this place Gwaine?" Arthur slid his sword into its scabbard.
"I didn't." He shrugged, helping Leon ease Merlin to the ground. For a half a second, Merlin tried to steady himself upright, but his legs gave way, and he slumped in Gwaine's arms. "...Saw an old man waving to me, and figured it couldn't get any worse."
"An old man? Are you on the cider? Why the hell, would there be an old man waving at you in the woods?"
"I don't know, Arthur. Why the hell, would there be the same bandits we fought two years ago, over a thousand years in the future?"
Arthur's mouth snapped shut.
"...Doesn't matter." Merlin breathed out. "We're here."
"Merlin, I don't know if you're blind, as well as an idiot, but there isn't much to this cavern. It's more like a hole than anything."
"Arthur...Shut up. Help me stand."
Leon automatically took up Arthur's place at the entrance, while Arthur moved over to Merlin. Between him and Gwaine, they managed to haul the warlock to his feet.
Motioning with his head, Merlin directed them to the back wall. He placed a trembling hand against the stone. They waited, and nothing happened.
Merlin huffed in annoyance. "Bugger all. I don't know if I have enough left in me to even open it."
"In the library on the Camelot planet, you said when you used the words, it didn't appear to take the energy your normal magic did."
Tilting his head to the side, Merlin seemed to mull over his friend's words. Pressing his palm against the stone, he gave it another try, "Alysan duru ronne."
The wall shimmered out of existence, revealing an arched doorway into a brightly lit cave beyond. "That actually worked." Merlin said, sounding more surprised by the outcome than his friends appeared.
Arthur beckoned to Leon and Mickey with his head. The five men cautiously moved through the opening.
Beyond the wall, a bluish light emanated. Arthur pondered on how similar it was to the watery colours of an active Stargate event horizon. He couldn't see anything that looked like the massive rings, but the cavern they stepped into was huge. A staircase, cut directly into the stone, led them downward. Cropping up from nearly every surface, were crystals. He suppressed a shiver. Even without the ability to actually sense magic, he could feel the power swirling.
In his mind, he could almost hear one of the scientists telling him how it wasn't really magic. More than likely, what he was feeling was something called an EM field, affecting his mind and interfering with something electric in his brain...or his ears. He wasn't able to remember which. He glanced at his knights. Mickey was staring in wide-eyed fascination at the faceted, crystal surfaces surrounding them. Leon was sporting an awestruck grin, as if he had just discovered the most brilliant treasure room he could have imagined.
Gwaine was squinting his eyes and trying to keep his attention focused on the steps. The stairs were narrow, and they had to turn sideways to carry Merlin in between them. It wasn't the most dignified of situations for the warlock to be in, but he offered no complaint.
They reached what appeared to be the bottom of the cavern. If Gwaine remembered right, from that point there should have been another path, leading up toward the right, into a tunnel that seemed to be melted through solid crystal. Beyond that, was the room with the Stargate. Unlike the SGC and most of the Gates scattered throughout the Milky Way, the Gate here resembled the ones in the Pegasus Galaxy, which were updated versions of the portals. More crystalline than naquida, and without the standard pedestal Dial Home Device, they were controlled by interfaces with nearby crystal structures.
When he had first been thrown into this cave, back in the sixth century, the Ancients' city of Atlantis had not yet been discovered. There had been no information about a different type of control panel for the Gates.
They sat Merlin down for a moment, and the warlock reached his hand out toward the nearest crystal. He smiled, as his hand caressed the smooth, glassy surface like a long, lost lover.
A shimmering visage caught his eye. Merlin looked up into a face that he had never expected to see again. He chuckled breathily.
The other men followed Merlin's gaze, and saw the holographic form of an older man standing by patiently.
"Father..." Merlin managed to whisper, before sleep claimed him.