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"Arthur."
Arthur grumbled to himself and tried to pull his blankets over his head, hoping that whoever was calling for him would go away. He was warm, comfy and sleepy, and he wasn't moving for anyone.
"Arthur."
Actually, Arthur thought, he was cold, uncomfortable and had aches in all sorts of unexpected places. There was also a distinct lack of blankets. He couldn't smell horses so that at least meant he hadn't passed out drunk in the stables, small mercies he supposed. He still wanted to go back to sleep though.
"Arthur, I swear, Once and Future King or not, if you don't get up this minute I'm going to get a bucket of cold water and pour it over your head!"
Arthur sat up promptly. His head spun disconcertingly when he opened his eyes so he closed them again until it stopped.
"I'm fairly sure there are laws against threatening your King with buckets of cold water this early in the morning," he mused.
"Royal impunity. Besides, you've been asleep for a good fourteen centuries, that's officially the longest lie in the history of the world," responded a familiar voice.
She had a point, Arthur admitted, trying to focus on the young woman in front of him. She had in fact, he noted as his vision cleared, an entire sword there. He'd always had a weakness for a woman who was good with a sword.
"Gwen," he asked cautiously, "why…?"
At which point memory assailed him. Like the vast majority of assaults it was significantly unpleasant, involving as it did quite a lot of death, destruction, betrayal and battles. So that was why he'd been asleep for over a millennium. He still had some other questions in need of answering. They could wait, for now, Albion had need of him and Gwen was looking impatient.
"Lead on my lady, Albion has need of me," he said solemnly. Gwen sniggered slightly. "So," he continued, "that sounded just as ridiculous outside my head as it did inside it, good to know."
"Yes sire," replied Gwen laughing in earnest as she helped him to his feet. Pulling him into a hug she continued more seriously, "I've missed you, Arthur."
"I've missed you too, Guinevere." He hugged her back, she looked a little different, sounded a bit different - that was reincarnation for you, he supposed - but she was still fundamentally, undeniably Gwen. "Come on, let's go and see what utter carnage Merlin and Morgana have caused this time."
They stood together outside the tomb, looking out over Albion. Or what had once been Albion. It looked more like a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Mainly because that's what it was.
"I've missed the end of the world haven't I?" he asked, fatalistically, "I slept in and missed the apocalypse."
"So it seems," murmured Gwen. She didn't sound too shocked, so Arthur figured this probably wasn't a huge surprise to her.
"Wasn't Merlin supposed to wake me before we got to this stage?" asked Arthur with a sinking feeling. He knew where this conversation was heading.
"He was. He just wouldn't admit that this was actually the apocalypse and therefore the time to wake you up."
"Right," replied Arthur slowly.
"And Morgana was fairly certain that you would wake up yourself if it was really Albion's greatest hour of need."
Arthur and Gwen shared a look at the preposterousness of thinking that Arthur would wake up by himself any morning, never mind one after being injured.
"So you decided to wake me up yourself. Good thinking, Guinevere. I must say though, your timing is usually better than this. You're usually the queen of the last minute, eleventh hour save," he teased.
"Guess I must be out of practice," she responded with a small smile, before swinging another sword off her back and handing it over. "Besides, I didn't think there was much point waking you without having this first, and Morgana wouldn't tell me how to get it back."
Arthur swung Excalibur experimentally, feeling bits of himself sliding back into place with every swing. "Well done, how did you get the Lady of the Lake to give it up?"
Gwen shrugged. "She remembers Merlin's friends fondly. Also, I think I'm the only person who still remembers her name."
Which she wasn't sharing, Arthur noted. He made a mental note that next time he had to hide Excalibur and wasn't mortally wounded he was going to have a chat with its guardian and ask her name. In the meantime, he stood on the hill, stared into the middle distance and tried desperately to figure out how to save his kingdom. Well, first rule of good kingship was delegation.
"I blame Merlin," he said, "I blame Morgana a bit too, but mostly Merlin."
~
"It's your fault," declared Merlin petulantly, "I can't believe you actually brought on the end of the world."
"My fault!" objected Morgana vehemently. "You're the one who refused to accept that I was capable of ending the world and insisted it wasn't time to wake Arthur."
"You didn't think we should wake him up either," protested Merlin.
"Yes, but I thought he would, you know, arise in time of need, I didn't think you'd have to actually go and physically wake him up."
They stared at each other for a long time as they both contemplated Arthur's attitude to mornings.
"How long had you and Arthur lived together before I came to Camelot?" asked Merlin, a smirk playing around his mouth.
Morgana responded by smacking him on the back of his head and muttering, "excuse me for thinking he might have outgrown his adolescent laziness."
Their amusement faded slowly. Certainty settled upon them.
"Gwen's going to kill us, isn't she?" Merlin said.
"Slowly," agreed Morgana, "possibly with Excalibur."
"Why would she have Excalibur?" asked Merlin. "How would she get Excalibur? The Lady of the Lake wasn't all that keen to give it back to me last time we needed it."
"That's where she went. She said if we refused to acknowledge the end of the world she was at least going to have the best sword possible. Personally I don't think she's ever forgiven us for that time the dead rose in the 18th century."
"It was nice to see Freya out of her lake again though," mused Merlin.
"I think they bonded back then, Gwen goes to visit and catch her up on the latest gossip every few lifetimes. I don't imagine she'd have much difficulty persuading her," said Morgana.
"Don't suppose she went and woke Arthur herself?" asked Merlin hopefully.
"Due to a lack of the day having been saved, I'm going to say I think we convinced her it was only you who could wake him," accused Morgana.
"Damn. Gwen really is going to kill us."
"Oh yes."
~
"Wasn't Lancelot supposed to be looking after you?" asked Arthur as they picked their way down the hill to where the boat was waiting to take them back to shore.
"He was. He did. He stopped reincarnating after he and Merlin had words about five hundred years ago," responded Gwen distractedly, more concerned with not falling over a treacherous tussock in the lingering twilight.
"Words?"
"I believe the conversation ended along the lines of: 'Wake me up when you wake Arthur for the Apocalypse and not before.' I think he hoped if Merlin and Morgana had to look out for me they would stop fighting for a bit."
"Aaah, I see." Arthur paused in his efforts to drag the boat back into the water to continue. "Hold on, so for the last five hundred years you've had no one sane to talk to?"
"Pretty much. Mortals tend to think you're mad if you start talking about Camelot as though you were there. It's been better the last century or so, they've developed these people called psychiatrists, they still think you're mad but if you pay them a ridiculous amount of money an hour they'll pretend to believe you and won't put you in an asylum," said Gwen with a wry smile.
"Exactly how did you manage not to murder the pair of them centuries ago?" asked Arthur, holding the now floating craft still for Gwen to climb into.
"No idea. I killed Nimueh a few times though. I missed him most on the quests. Say what you will about Lancelot, he was always a good man to have by your side on a quest." observed Gwen helping Arthur haul himself up in turn.
"I've always said so," Arthur agreed as they settled themselves at the oars.
~
Albion wasn't exactly the biggest country in the world, but it was still a long way from the island of Avalon to where Camelot once stood. It wasn't as though they were short of time now that they'd missed the end of the world, but it was a long walk, it was threatening to rain and the clouds looked a bit toxic. Arthur suggested stealing a couple of horses until Gwen pointed out that at this juncture the only horsemen they were likely to encounter would be riding in a group of four and if they met them then stealing their horses would be the least of their problems. They went with Gwen's plan, and stole an abandoned car. It took Arthur roughly ten minutes to go from dubious disbelief, to abject terror – clinging to the seat edges and muttering darkly about 'unnatural sorcery' – to delighted speed freak. Gwen gave him credit for adaptability and refused point blank to let him drive.
By rights the car should have been a Mustang or at the least come sort of classic British effort. It was in fact a third hand Sunbeam – probably built in up north in Linwood which was something - which Gwen picked on the basis of its almost non-existent blind spots, she muttered incomprehensibly about reverse parking and zombies when pressed, so Arthur backed off and trusted her judgement. It had a tape deck though which was about as futuristic a technology as Arthur could cope with yet. Arthur rifled through the glove box and found some tapes; sliding one into the machine a distinctive guitar riff greeted them from the tinny speakers. Gwen had been half expecting a Brian May effort rather than Kirk Hammet so was quite relieved to be spared having to recount the story of the time she and Lancelot were accidentally sent forward in time, by some idiotic plot of Merlin and Morgana's that had backfired, and had hidden from a somewhat panic-stricken pair of sorcerers at a Queen concert. She smiled to herself at the memory, she'd dragged Merlin along to one of their gigs when the three of them were in the 1980s fulltime, but it hadn't been the same without Lancelot's unabashed head banging. Arthur meanwhile had tipped his chair back, closed his eyes and was tapping his foot along to the rhythm. Gwen hoped desperately that he had more of a plan than she did. She wasn't convinced that her usual method of banging Merlin and Morgana's heads together and shouting at them to "fix this mess, NOW" was going to cut it this time.
~
Say what you might about the end of the world, you got lovely sunsets, thought Merlin morosely, staring out at the ruins of the town. Across the courtyard he could see Morgana looking out over the surroundings from the roof of the Westgate, her hair streaming out behind her in the wind, contrasting nicely against the noxious sky. It was, he mused nostalgically, almost like old times.
Except for the fact that neither Gwen nor Arthur was coming to pull them apart, lecture them on fighting like rats in barrel and force them to think of a plan to fix this. For all their fatalistic talk earlier, they both knew that if Gwen hadn't pulled off a last minute save it meant she either hadn't been able to wake Arthur or she'd never reached him. Which meant they'd either have to wake Arthur themselves and explain they'd destroyed the world, and that no, they didn't have the faintest idea how to fix it or they could wait for Gwen to reincarnate, which, given the miniscule surviving population of the world was clearly going to take a while. Morgana might claim she was content to wait but Merlin was fairly sure she shared his conviction that if anyone could finally kill them permanently it would be Gwen. Or, worse, she'd be so cross she'd simply refuse to talk to them, and would just sit on the other side of the world taunting them with her presence and ignoring them.
There was nothing for it. The unthinkable had finally happened. They were going to have to fix this one on their own. The thought filled Merlin with dread; suddenly death by vengeful Gwen in a generation or so sounded strangely appealing.
~
Morgana had always liked Queen Eleanor's garden and she liked it even better now that grass had started to overgrow the gravel paths, giving her somewhere to snooze in peace. She knew Merlin preferred the Great Hall with all its echoes of past glories, but it was too quiet for her, the absence of those she remembered having once inhabited it too raw and grating even after all this time.
The dream sneaked up on her, nothing like the usual rush of emotions, knowledge and, lets be honest, gut wrenching fear. Somewhere in the distance a steadily moving point of red was heading through the ruins. Around it the ruins of Winchester seemed to raise themselves up to their former glory and Camelot's standard flew over the restored Westgate. She watched the small red car wind down distant twisting roads from her vantage point and remembered days long past when the red of Camelot approaching had meant home and safety and belonging rather than fear and hate and vengeance. For the first time in long years she woke with a smile on her lips even though she was certain her dream was true.
"Chop-chop Morgana, anyone would think it wasn't the end of the world out there the way you pair are lazing about the place," said Arthur, frowning down at her.
Morgana extended her hand and let him pull her to her feet, taking care to ensure she kept her balance. Pleased though she was to see him alive and evidently with plan, she still wasn't going to let him know that.
"Arthur," she said smiling brightly, "you're late."
"Slight detour. Gwen and I decided we needed to get some serious research in first to sort this one out," responded Arthur with a grin that could only be described as smug, as they returned to the castle, walking arm in arm.
Morgana had a sudden premonition that had nothing to do with her gift as a seer, rather one borne of long experience of Arthur. There were going to be a lot of books in her immediate future, she could just tell.
"Don't just sit there moping, let's fix this thing." Arthur shouted across the hall to a still stunned looking Merlin. Gwen glanced up for long enough to share a wry smile and an eye roll with Morgana before going back to explaining something to Merlin as he dazedly levitated the round table down from the back wall.
She had no idea what mad plan to fix everything Gwen and Arthur had concocted on the way here from Avalon, but she was looking forward to finding out.