As promised, we're back in Camelot this time, which somehow felt like I was starting a whole new story and maybe contributed to a bit of foot-dragging that delayed this chapter's release a couple days past what I was hoping for…but it's here now. I'm also messing with the timeline a bit, as this takes place during the time skip between the end of LIC and the first chapter of TLK; to maintain proper linear chronology, this should've come first, but I thought it would be better to answer the question of what happened to Bo before getting into the first Camelot arc.

I'm also taking liberties with the plot and timeline of s3, because this time around there's no evil Morgana causing trouble and no Merlin in Camelot either, but Lancelot and Kenzi are there, so there'll be some changes due to the cast being different than what we had in the show. And then there are instances where I'll just blatantly tweak certain details to make it fit what I want to happen, like I do here.

Lancelot had just gotten into bed and was about to blow out his candle when a knock on his door stopped him. Dispelling the breath he'd been about to aim at the flaming wick through his nose instead, he got back up and took the candle with him as he made his way to the door, which he opened to reveal a worried-looking Gwen.

"Is Kenzi here?" she asked without preamble, already peering past him as if seeking to answer her own question before he could get a word out.

"No." He stepped aside so she could verify this for herself, though she didn't need to take more than a single step over the threshold to do so; his room in the servants' quarters was slightly smaller than the one Merlin had occupied above Gaius' workroom, certainly not big enough for a person to hide in, even one of Kenzi's diminutive stature. As Gwen glanced around, taking in the room's meager contents and establishing the truth of Kenzi's absence with a single sweep of her gaze, he asked, "Has she gone out again?"

"I'm afraid so," Gwen replied with a heavy sigh.

It had been three weeks since Merlin, Morgana, and Dyson had flown off on Kilgharrah, taking Bo with them – three long weeks with no word of their whereabouts, no way of knowing for certain whether their friends were even still alive, and while it hadn't been easy for any of them, Kenzi was taking it the hardest. Even though she cared deeply for all their absent comrades (except the dragon), her closest friend in the bunch was Bo, whose situation was also the most precarious. There was a good chance that all of them would end up facing unknown perils on their journey, but whereas Merlin, Morgana, and Dyson only had to worry about surviving whatever they encountered out there, in Bo's case their dangerous trip was a race against time, and the extra uncertainty over her fate was clearly preying on Kenzi's mind.

Adding to her troubles was the fact that everyone else who had been left behind in Camelot had other things to occupy them; Gaius still had his patients to tend to, Lancelot and Gwen had their jobs, and Arthur had his duties as crown prince, which had recently included dealing with Uther's demands that he lead the knights in scouring every inch of the kingdom for Morgana, pacifying the king when their efforts inevitably failed to turn up any trace of her, and trying to persuade his father not to keep pouring all their resources into what he knew was a futile hunt (with a dragon as her mount, Morgana was almost certainly long gone) when there were still other matters that needed attending to.

Kenzi, on the other hand, had no such distractions available to her. Ladies of the court weren't expected to work, naturally, so she had mostly filled her days by hanging out with Bo and Morgana, and assisting in dealing with supernatural threats to the kingdom. Now that both of her fellow noblewomen were gone – there were other ladies in the castle, but their only hobbies seemed to be needlework and gossip, which she wanted no part of (well, at least not the needlework, and there was no gossip juicy enough to make her put up with that) – her remaining friends' jobs kept them too busy to fill the void, and no monsters or evil sorcerers had seen fit to attack Camelot lately, she had found another way to alleviate her boredom, loneliness, and worry over Bo: going to the tavern almost every night and drinking until the proprietor kicked her out or someone came to drag her back home.

Upon hearing that she had apparently fallen back on her new favorite pastime once more, Lancelot frowned. "I thought Arthur had spoken with the barkeep about not serving her anymore."

"He did at the Rising Sun, yes," Gwen confirmed, yet her face was still pinched with worry. "But there are other taverns in the city."

Lancelot understood her concern; while there were indeed other taverns in the city, not all of them were suitable environments for a lady, and given that most of the knights and guards favored the Rising Sun, there was no guarantee that there would be anyone in any of those other, rougher establishments who might come to Kenzi's aid if she got into trouble. "Let me get dressed," he said quickly, "and I'll help you find her."

###

As they set out into the darkened streets, Lancelot asked, "Do you think we should've brought Arthur?"

"No. I mean yes, maybe we should have, but Arthur has enough on his mind right now with this upcoming melee tournament. You know the king wanted to cancel it and send all the knights on another search for Morgana; it was all Arthur could do to convince him that if she wasn't in any of the outlying villages last week, or the week before that, she won't be there now, and that everything can't grind to a halt just because she's gone. Life has to go on, including this tournament – the competitors' entry fees have already been paid, and the people look forward to this entertainment every year."

Realizing she was babbling, Gwen cut herself off, then glanced sideways at Lancelot with a curious expression that held an edge of concern. "You know," she began hesitantly, "I haven't wanted to say anything that might sound like prying, but… Honestly, I'm surprised Kenzi's been seeking solace for her troubles in the taverns so often. I would've expected her to turn to you more than drink. Is everything…all right between the two of you?"

Lancelot glanced sideways at her in turn, caught her look of concern, and heaved a sigh in response. "I suppose that depends on how you define 'all right'. That first week after our friends left, when she first began frequenting the taverns, I tried to talk to her about it, and, well…"

He found her slumped over her table with her head in her hands, the breakfast tray Gwen had recently delivered pushed off to one side, untouched, though he wasn't sure whether this was due to a headache from her heavy drinking the previous night or if she was simply depressed. Either way, he made sure to keep his voice soft as he called her name. "Kenzi."

She slowly lifted her head and turned her face toward him, revealing bloodshot eyes that held none of their usual sparkle. That sparkle had been absent for some time now, and Lancelot missed it more than he wanted to admit. "Lance," she said dully. "What's up?"

"Kenzi…" Approaching cautiously, as if any sudden movement might scare her off, he sat down on the edge of the chair next to hers. "I'm worried about you. We all are," he hastily amended, not wanting to be too forward or make it sound like he was the only one who cared. "It's been hard for all of us since Merlin, Morgana, and Dyson took Bo away…but I can't help noticing that you seem to be having a particularly difficult time coping with her absence." And not handling it in a very healthy manner, he thought, but refrained from saying that part out loud so as not to sound judgmental.

"Of course it's difficult for me, Lance," she snapped, and he was relieved to see her eyes light up with a spark of annoyance, though he was sorry to have provoked her ire. "Being friends with Bo, helping her protect humans from the fae… It was the first time I ever really felt like I was part of something, you know? Like I could do something that mattered. Bo gave me that, and she's the best friend I've ever had – the only person in my whole life that I always knew I could trust one hundred percent to have my back no matter what, that wouldn't ditch me or backstab me when it was convenient, that wasn't out to use me. Everything good in my life was because of her…and now she's gone."

She ended her last sentence with a slight sniffle, and Lancelot felt something inside his chest twist painfully; it really was heartbreaking that she had only had one person in her life who made her feel truly valued when she deserved to feel that way all the time. In any event, she was wrong – Bo wasn't the only one who cared for her the way she described. If only he could find the right words to tell her that, if she gave him a chance, he would be happy to offer her the same level of devotion…

Summoning his courage, he reached out and laid his hand over hers; for some incomprehensible reason, the simple act of extending his hand those few inches was exponentially harder than charging at a griffin, or facing down any of the numerous murderous thugs he'd tangled with throughout his life. "Kenzi, I…"

A shock went through her at his touch, as if his skin carried an electric charge, but she quickly shook it off. With all her grief and anxiety over Bo, she didn't have the emotional energy to deal with the sparky sensations she was getting from a fake boyfriend she had maybe sort of started to develop some not-so-fake feelings for who was too wrapped up in his unrequited love for Gwen to ever return said feelings. Frankly, the whole drama seemed pretty stupid when Bo could be dying out there in the middle of nowhere, so she slid her hand out from underneath his, tucked it into her lap, and sat up straighter in order to face him head-on.

"Arthur and Gwen aren't here, you know. I thought we agreed on no touching off camera."

"We did," he agreed, trying not to show how much her pulling away stung. "I was just-"

"Being a friend, I get it – and you are a good friend, Lance…so how about we just leave it at that and pull the plug on the whole fake dating thing? I think Arwen are solid enough now that they can handle you being single without feeling like they have to break up so they're not rubbing your face in how barf-inducingly happy they are…and honestly, I can't do this anymore." Not only did she not have it in her to keep up the act any longer, watching him fake feelings for her that she knew perfectly well weren't real and never would be (even though the guy was a surprisingly convincing actor for someone who didn't have a deceitful bone in his body) was starting to give her achy twinge-y feelings in her chest, which was the last thing she needed right now. There were enough sources of pain and angst in her life as it was.

Her words hit him like a slap in the face, effectively cutting off anything else he might have said. After his talk with Bo on the road to Idirsholas forced him to confront the possibility that he truly had moved on from Gwen without consciously realizing it, that in trying to ensure her happiness he might have accidentally stumbled upon the key to his own, he had begun to hope something similar might have happened for Kenzi, that the closeness they had shared while perpetrating their ruse for Gwen and Arthur's benefit might have given rise at least to the beginning of something real…

Of course, he should have known better. She had been very clear all along that this was only a performance, that she only saw him as a friend; it was foolish to think that would change just because they had spent more time together and shared a few intimate details of their lives in order to lend greater authenticity to their act.

"As you wish," he said softly, turning his eyes away from hers so she wouldn't see in them the anguish he was fighting to conceal. He had thought nothing could ever hurt as much as the moment he'd realized Gwen would never truly love him, that her heart belonged to Arthur, but this certainly came close. "I won't impose on you any longer, my lady, but I hope you know I'll always be here if you need anything."

Then, summoning the stoic façade he'd developed over years of loss and loneliness, he got up and walked away, never letting himself look back.

"Wait a minute," Gwen said when he finished recounting his attempt to confront Kenzi about her recent behavior, her dark eyes wide with shock. "Are you saying there was never really anything more than friendship between you? That the two of you only pretended to be falling for each other as some sort of ploy to ease Arthur's and my guilt over how I treated you?"

When he admitted as much with a guilty nod, she shook her head in disbelief. "Lancelot! I can't believe it – I never thought you could be capable of such deception!"

"I know, and when she first proposed this insane scheme I didn't want any part of it, but somehow she made it sound perfectly reasonable…" He spread his hands helplessly, part of him still at a loss even now as to how he'd let himself get drawn into such shenanigans.

"Ah, I see." Gwen nodded understandingly. "Yes, she does have a way of doing that." After all, Kenzi had once talked Gwen herself into helping her launch an investigation into the king's new lady friend – which ended up being a very good thing since the lady in question had turned out to be a troll, though they'd had no reason to suspect her at first – so she was no stranger to the quirky girl's powers of persuasion. "I suppose she thought she was helping…in her own eccentric fashion."

And despite the fact that she was now miffed at having been deceived, Gwen had to admit that Kenzi's bizarre plot had helped; thinking that she hadn't doomed Lancelot to a life of loneliness and misery had gone a long way toward lifting the crushing weight of guilt off her shoulders so that when Arthur finally confessed his feelings for her, she had been able to take him back with a clear conscience.

"I think so too," Lancelot agreed. "That's how she convinced me to go along with it, because all I wanted was for you to be happy, Gwen, and if Arthur makes you happy, I didn't want to be responsible for keeping you apart…at least that was all I wanted at the time. The trouble is, in the course of putting on this performance for you and Arthur, I became better acquainted with Kenzi, and now…"

"The feelings you were only pretending to have became real?" Gwen surmised. "You truly do want to be with her?"

Lancelot nodded almost sheepishly. "I think I do, yes. Unfortunately, I took too long to realize it; by the time I did, half of our friends were gone, and she said she didn't want to keep up the pretense any longer."

"But she didn't explicitly rule out the possibility of the two of you having something real, did she?" Gwen pointed out.

"Well, no, I suppose not," Lancelot said thoughtfully, replaying Kenzi's words in his head. He had taken them to mean she didn't return his feelings, but when he reexamined them more carefully, he supposed she hadn't actually said that. All she had really said was that she didn't want to pretend anymore. "Do you really think…?"

"I think you owe it to her, as well as yourself, to tell her how you feel. Whatever she decides to do then, if you don't end up together, at least you'll know it wasn't because of a silly misunderstanding," Gwen said firmly. After all the trouble Arthur had caused by trying to push her and Lancelot together, she didn't have much patience for people who were seemingly determined to ruin their own happiness through misguided notions of selflessness or assumptions that they knew what was best for the person they loved rather than simply being honest and letting that person make their own choices.

"But first," she added, "we need to find her and get her back to the castle so she can sober up. It's no good trying to have a meaningful discussion with someone while they're drunk."

###

Though the pair searching for her had no way of knowing it, Kenzi actually wasn't as intoxicated as Gwen's pessimistic predictions would suggest. Upon entering the tavern – she hadn't paid attention to the name on the sign above the door; all she knew was that it was somewhere on the edges of the lower town, and it was smaller, dingier, and seemed to cater to a shadier clientele than the Camelot crew's usual watering hole, but the proprietor was perfectly willing to serve her, which made up for all its shortcomings – she had indeed gone straight for the booze, but after her first tankard of mead, she'd found a new diversion.

A small group of guys were playing some kind of card game at a table near the back of the main room, and after taking a few minutes to observe them and learn how it worked, Kenzi got in on the action. Eventually the players dwindled down to just her and two men as everyone else either lost their betting money or went home for the night, and Kenzi's sixth sense for when one of her scams was about to pay off, which she likened to a shark's ability to smell blood in the water, told her she was about to win big. The big, smelly twosome playing against her didn't look like the sharpest tools in the shed (though they were definitely tools), and were so focused on trying to peek down her dress and crudely, clumsily attempting to hit on her that they didn't even realize they were getting hustled.

With a flourish, she laid down her last card, beating them handily. "Sorry, boys – guess this wasn't your night after all." Grinning broadly, she reached out to rake the coins in the center of the table toward herself, only to feel her grin slip away when one of the men seized her wrist.

"Hold it, girl. You don't think we're going to let you walk away with all our money, do you?"

"Well, since I won… Yeah, I do." Never mind the fact that she had intentionally held back from playing her best cards a few times in order to get them to keep raising their bets; if they weren't familiar with that tactic, it was their own fault for being such easy marks.

"How about this? We'll let you have the money if you come up to our room for a little fun," the other man suggested with a leering grin that exposed a mouthful of crooked yellow teeth, much to Kenzi's disgust.

"Gross. Get out of my face and tell your putrid pal to take his grubby mitt off me before I hurl right in the middle of this table."

"You know, you're not very friendly," the first man complained. Tightening his grip to a painful degree, he started to pull her toward him.

Oh, crap! was the first thought that skittered through her mind as it occurred to her that she might be in real danger, being backed into a corner with two men who were both much larger than her, and no Bo to step in and help. As she mentally reviewed the list of moves she could make from her current position – of which there weren't many, since it was hard to launch an assault while sitting unless you were strong enough to flip the table on your attackers, and why oh why hadn't she thought to bring a weapon, any weapon? Oh yeah, because I was only planning on getting wasted, not starting a bar brawl, she wryly answered her own question – she quickly concluded that her best bet was to scream. While it was doubtful at best that the patrons of this fine establishment would care about a screaming woman, much less rush to help her out, maybe it would give them pause for a second or two, just long enough for her to break free…

Before she could draw in the air required for a good, loud shriek, however, another hand landed on the arm of the man grasping her wrist, causing both of them to look up into the coldly furious face of Lancelot. "You heard the lady," he said in an icy tone Kenzi had never heard him use before, which sent not-entirely-unpleasant shivers down her spine. "Remove your hand, or I'll remove it for you."

His threat yielded mixed results, since the man did indeed let go of Kenzi as he'd hoped; unfortunately, he only did it so he could draw his knife as he stood up to confront Lancelot. His friend got up as well, taking out his own weapon in the process, and Lancelot started to think that maybe he should have brought Arthur along after all, or at least taken a moment to grab a sword, a dagger…anything. Alas, he had thought the biggest problem he'd have to face would be persuading Kenzi to abandon her drink and come home, and so was completely unarmed.

He ducked under the first man's opening swing and kicked him in the back of the knee, using his opponent's own momentum against him to send him crashing to the floor, his back now exposed to Lancelot, but then the second man lunged at him, his knife slicing through the air in such wide arcs that it was all Lancelot could do to stay out of the blade's path. The situation began to look dire indeed when the first man picked himself up, his red face contorted in fury, and moved to rejoin the fray – until another man who was seated nearby suddenly got up and blocked his attack on Lancelot.

"Looks like you could use a hand, my friend." Luckily, he was armed, and even had a spare dagger which he tossed to Lancelot, evening the odds considerably.

Kenzi watched in surprise as the two of them took on her would-be assailants together while everyone else in the tavern either moved as far from the brawl as they could get or left altogether; she'd seen the dark-haired stranger when she first came in and thought he had briefly checked her out, and later he'd been part of the card game for a while before apparently deciding he was more interested in drinking than gambling, but he'd never actually said a word to her, nor she to him, so she had no idea why he would want to help her, or rather to help Lancelot help her. She was glad he did, though, since he seemed to know what he was doing in a fight, and she didn't want Lance to get hurt while coming to her rescue in that irritatingly chivalrous way of his. The stranger was pretty hot too, and if it wasn't for the fact that she hadn't yet progressed beyond the 'drowning her sorrows' stage of grief to the point where she was ready to take her mind off things by indulging in a one night stand, she might have been tempted to flirt with him…

Her musings on the man who had unexpectedly come to hers and Lancelot's aid were interrupted when one of the thugs staggered backward toward her, propelled by a punch to the jaw from said stranger. Never one to waste an opportunity when it presented itself, Kenzi snatched up the pewter pitcher of ale from the center of their table and, jumping onto a chair so she could reach, brought it down on top of his head. The man swayed drunkenly for a second before collapsing with a loud thud, leaving the stranger staring at Kenzi through the empty space where he had been, obviously taken aback, though he recovered quickly.

"Thanks, my lady," he said with what he clearly thought was a charming grin, which at least didn't look as sleazy as what most guys in dives like this thought passed for charming grins. "Nice one."

"No prob- Hey, look out!"

Alerted by Kenzi's shout, he turned around just in time to duck as the remaining man took a moment to throw a plate at his head before focusing his attention once more on Lancelot, who was coming at him with his borrowed blade. Before they could get close enough to exchange another round of blows, however, Gwen, who had been inching around the edges of the fracas in an effort to get to Kenzi, pushed a chair in front of the thug, causing him to trip, do a rather spectacular belly-flop over its seat, and land at Lancelot's feet. Lancelot promptly took advantage of his opponent's disorientation to knock him out with a well-placed blow.

"Yeah!" Kenzi cheered, pumping her fist triumphantly. "Take that, assholes! Can we get something to tie them up with so we can make a citizens' arrest? That's a thing in Camelot, right?"

"I take it this means you're all right, then," Gwen said dryly, having observed that Kenzi was a lot more coherent than she had been on several of the previous occasions when she'd had to be dragged out of various taverns. "And to think all it takes to sober you up is a good fight – not that there's anything good about what those men tried to do to you, of course."

Lancelot, meanwhile, offered his borrowed dagger back to its owner. "Thank you for the loan of your blade, and for your help; I fear things might have gone much worse had you not been here."

"Yeah, but why'd you jump in like that?" Kenzi demanded, her eyes narrowing slightly. As she'd once told Bo, normal people did not go around rescuing strangers. "You didn't even say a word to me when you played with us earlier. Who are you anyway?"

"Name's Gwaine," the stranger replied, sweeping his longish dark hair out of his face with a certain roguish flair, "and I'm always happy to help a-" He abruptly broke off as his leg suddenly buckled under him. It was only then that they noticed the liquid soaking through his pants leg; its color was hidden by the dark cloth, but when Gwaine reached down to check the area, his fingers came away bright red, confirming that it was indeed blood, and lots of it. He inspected his stained fingertips with an almost comical expression of surprise, then uttered a single word – "Damn." – before passing out.

Gwen rushed to make an impromptu bandage out of the only thing she had on hand, which happened to be her shawl, but it was soon saturated. "He's losing too much blood! We have to get him to Gaius."

Lancelot threw the unconscious man over his shoulder, and they hurried out just as the tavern's owner, having ascertained from the cessation of loud noises and shouting that the fighting was probably over, finally gathered the courage to stick his head up from his hiding place behind the bar and surveyed the damage to his establishment with a look of utmost dismay.

"Hey, who's gonna pay for all this?!"

###

The two troublemakers, whose names were later revealed to be Dagr and Ebor, were each sentenced to three days in the stocks for disturbing the peace and attempting to assault a lady of the court. Uther asked Kenzi if she wanted a harsher punishment, like flogging, but she didn't have it in her to ask for them to be whipped, especially since they hadn't actually done anything worse than grabbing her wrist. During their time in the stocks, however, no one was more enthusiastic about pelting them with rotten tomatoes than her.

By the time they were released, Dagr and Ebor had been thoroughly humiliated, which some men might have taken as a sign that they should consider mending their ways. For these hardened reprobates, though, the ignominious punishment they had suffered only stoked a burning desire for revenge.

Of course, the fact that the person against whom they were seeking vengeance was of higher status than either of them meant they had to proceed carefully, so upon their release, they visited an old man in one of the outlying villages who was rumored to deal in magic, for the right price. After double crossing and killing the old man, they took the blood crystals he'd provided and used them to take on the appearances of two knights who were traveling to Camelot for the upcoming melee tournament.

"This tournament's the perfect cover," Dagr gloated to his friend as they admired their new (younger and handsomer) reflections. "There's foreign knights coming in from all over to take part, so no one will question our presence. Then, while everyone's distracted, we'll give that uppity bitch and her friends what's coming to them."

Hmm, maybe Kenzi shouldn't have been so gleeful about chucking those tomatoes.

For those who remember the original 3x04, yes I relocated the introductory scene with Gwaine and our villains of the week from a remote village Arthur and Merlin were passing through to Camelot's lower town and changed the circumstances of the initial face-off so that it's Kenzi (and Lancelot and Gwaine) the bad guys have beef with instead of Arthur, because I wanted this arc to focus on her since the complicated emotional space she's in provides better story fodder than Arthur's current lack of personal crises. Hope you enjoy this alternate episode.