Dear all,

We come to it at last, the epilogue and the end! Gosh, it's been a whirlwind ride... On with the fic now, but final A/N is at the end.

No chapter warnings. For disclaimer: see Chapter one. Once more italicised text represents Latin.

Enjoy.

Epilogue - Where The Heart Is

It took two weeks of recovery before Gawain was well enough to even get out of bed, and he hated every second. Every day of weakness and pain, and every meal of thin stews instead of meat, water instead of wine. The other Knights slowly relaxed their constant presence at his bedside, though coming to terms with his return from the dead presumably took a little longer. Gawain would often catch their glances in his direction before the watcher would quickly look away, and it was frustrating and comforting all at the same time.

After he was allowed to leave the infirmary, Gawain wandered the fort, while the others sparred and drank and went out on missions he was barred from. For the first week he was not alone, as Arthur too was on leave from active duty as his own injuries healed. They didn't really talk about what had happened. There were too many emotions there to really be vocalised and too much knowledge that such circumstances could easily happen again, were almost inevitable. This was just a reprieve, nothing more. Arthur brought up the subject only once, when Gawain was, unusually, called to his office in the praetorium. A watching centurion sat in a corner chair, and the Knight sensed that the trouble Arthur had been keeping at bay on his behalf had finally caught up.

"Gawain..." Arthur laid down the paper he held, and looked up. Only the fact that Gawain had known the man for four years helped him recognise the slight tension in the way Arthur moved, and it put him on the alert. The fact the Commander then addressed him in Latin was as good as an alarm bell. "Thank you for coming. There are a couple of points I need to clarify about your...misadventure. Please, sit."

Gawain gave the watching centurion another glance and sat, uneasy. Clearly the Latin was for the Roman's benefit. Whatever Arthur was discussing had to be witnessed.

"When you awoke in the valetudinarium, you told me that you were held captive by Woads, for a day and a night."

Gawain said nothing, waiting patiently. Arthur hadn't asked anything yet. The Commander continued, cautiously.

"There are Roman laws regarding contact with the enemy. Any soldier deemed to have fraternised with Woads or passed on information, even under torture, is considered treacherous to his garrison and is to be transferred and interrogated. You understand these laws?"

Gawain answered, slowly. "Yes. I understand."

Arthur nodded, and Gawain could tell he was phrasing his words very carefully. "I want you to know that I trust you beyond question and there will never be a doubt in my mind as to your loyalty, as there should not be in any other's. However, I am asking you this because I have to. Did the Woads learn from you any sensitive information regarding this outpost?"

"No, Arthur. Nothing."

Arthur wrote something, and continued. "In addition, Dagonet told me that your wounds had been stitched, and that you couldn't have treated them yourself. Gawain, were you aided by Woads?"

The wound in his stomach throbbed painfully in response to the elevation of his heart rate, but there was nothing he could do about it. He trusted Arthur implicitly.

"Yes."

The centurion shifted, but Arthur continued, quicker now. "And to your knowledge, what did the Woad leaders intend to do with you before you escaped?"

"They were going to kill me."

"When?"

"At dawn."

"So their treatment of your wounds would have allowed you to survive until then?"

Gawain nodded, but relief was already flowing through him. The questions had been perfectly phrased so that he neither had to lie, nor incriminate himself. He was glad Arthur had waited until the other Knights were all out patrolling; he doubted if any of his usual shadows would have been patient enough to let Arthur see this through.

"One last question, Gawain. Apart from your physical injuries, did the contact you had with the Woads result in a situation that could compromise you in battle?"

Gawain thought back to Rian and Fiachra, and the way they had saved his life. But he too had saved theirs. That debt was paid, on both sides. A clean slate, for whatever might come.

"No," he answered calmly, looking the centurion firmly in the eye.

Arthur nodded, scribbled one or two more lines, handing the paper to the other Roman. The smile he gave his Knight was relieved and genuine.

"Thank you, Gawain. You may go."

It took Gawain longer than he would have liked to stand up, and by the time he'd limped to the door, the centurion had already left with the papers.

Arthur was waiting by the doorway, and as Gawain arrived, he grasped the Knight's good shoulder tightly.

"I'm sorry that I had to do that, Gawain." He said, dark eyes serious. "But I'm really glad you're alright."

Gawain smiled a little. "You too."

Arthur nodded, and that was that.

Except it wasn't really, because the next evening Gawain couldn't help but mention the dead, almost like a confession. Did Arthur remember Agravaine, and how unnaturally good he had been at finding his way? He was never lost, not once; it was as if he'd had a map laid out in his head that he never forgot. And did Arthur remember the way Dinaden used to call everyone "boy" even if they were older than him? And how Erec used to laugh, and the way Tor would to sneeze if he had to ride near the fields when they were harvesting? Arthur had listened to the memories as they poured out from him, just little things, odd characteristics of those long gone. Things the Knights all remembered but never, ever spoke of. And then Arthur had said, yes, he missed them too, and then he and Gawain had quietly toasted their dead brothers long into the dawn.

Gawain welcomed that easy companionship while it lasted, but within a week, Arthur was fit enough to ride with the Knights again, and Gawain was left once more on his own. For the other Knights, Arthur's return was a sign life was returning to normal. For Gawain, it meant a lot of time to think.

Tristan was still on his mission and the Knights were out chasing down bandits that were harassing local villages, when a messenger arrived with news of General Arpagius, the Roman bastard that had caused everything in the first place. Gawain felt a little panicked; Rome would recall Arthur for a hearing or something and the Knights would be split up and sent off across the Empire and...And why did the thought of that bother him so much? Servitude here or anywhere else was still servitude. It was still not Sarmatia. Home. But even the thought of returning to the Black Sea was not as comforting as it once was.

The sight of Vanora appearing round the corner of the building carrying a basket of clothes broke his melancholy thoughts. Vanora. Wonderful, fiery Vanora. Lover of Bors and, whatever Lancelot claimed, a sister to the other Knights (and more often than not a mother as well).

He smiled at her as she approached, and quickly moved his hand away from pressing his healing wound. "Vanora. You look stunning today, my fairy..."

She snorted, seeing the movement. "Gawain, you're looking shitty today, my boy."

He huffed a laugh.

"You really know how to make a person feel special, Van..."

"Take it like a man, Gawain."

She sat down beside him in the pale sunlight, fussing with the angle of his sling. He let her.

"Did you hear the news?"

"The messenger from Arpagius?" He shook his head.

"He's still talking with Arthur, but the word is out. The Roman general is dead."

Gawain breathed out, slowly. "He couldn't have made it to Rome..."

Vanora shook her head. "Never even got to Eboracum. Someone said Saxons got him. But the messenger's guard said his horse was attacked by a hawk and threw him."

A hawk...Gawain met her eyes, sharply, remembering the words he'd heard that Tristan had uttered; "You deserve to die for what you did today." Could he have...?

He saw the same question on her face, but neither of them put words to it. They sat in silence for a few minutes, before Vanora sighed.

"They're good men, Gawain. I didn't like what happened to them when you were gone." She turned to him, intent and angry. "Don't you bloody dare do that again. You hear me?"

Gawain didn't meet her eyes, looking away. The setting sun was lengthening the shadows across the courtyard. Evening was drawing close. "You know I can't promise that, Vanora. None of us can. Not me, not Bors, not even Arthur." He sighed, but smiled a little ruefully. "Death will catch us all up in the end."

"I know," she said, and brushed his cheek where the wolf's claws had left their mark. "Just...try not make it too soon, okay?"

A gust of chill wind whistled through the yard, and they both shivered a little. "Better get moving. I'm expecting eight or nine empty stomachs on legs to return any time now, and there's nothin' ready to eat yet." Vanora gave Gawain's mop of hair an affectionate tug. "You should come inside the tavern brother; you'll catch your death out here."

"Stop fussing, woman," he grumbled. "Or it's you who'll be the death of me."

Ignoring him, she pulled a blanket from the basket at her feet and wrapped it round Gawain's shoulders. He grumbled again a little just for show, but Vanora wasn't fooled. Laughing, she walked away to the tavern.

As predicted, the Knights returned not an hour later, and the quiet was broken by laughs and yells and teasing as Gawain was soon being given an enthusiastic retelling of Bors's complete inability to shoot a bow. The ale and wine flowed, and an hour later Arthur joined them, followed by Tristan who'd also just returned from the south. Gawain watched him carefully, but Tristan kept all his secrets well and responded to his glance with a nod of greeting and silence.

It was in that moment, as the tavern settled into its usual nightly routine that Gawain finally came to a realisation. His hallucination had been telling him the truth, all those weeks ago.

"Come," The Arthur of his mind had said. "You are nearly home," and he hadn't meant Sarmatia.

This place of death and suffering and fog and snow had taken them in as children and forged them into the men they were now. Even if they'd grown up twisted, bloodstained, they'd grown up here, in the rain and the mists and the trees of Britain. But more importantly, they'd grown up here as brothers. Could they willingly walk away from that? For years, the thought of 'home' had kept them fighting, kept them living, and winning. For Perceval and for Galahad, the youngest of them, the illusion was still powerful enough, but it was still just a dream. But Gawain felt old, and the vision of 'home', that fantasy of safety and comfort, was seeping from him like blood from a wound. When Vanora sang about home, he was sure he wasn't the only one who wasn't thinking about horizons of barely remembered Sarmatian grass, but of the faces of those who now lay under mounds on the hillside. If blood justified your claim to the land, then the blood of enough good Knights had been spilled here to own this island three times over. Home. Not where you were born, or where your ancestors lived, but where your heart is, and your passion and everything you live for. That was where he wanted to be.

Gawain watched the scene of friendly chaos that only ever occurred at the tavern, and quietly revelled in every sensation that came with it. He watched Bors rocking baby Eight, unaware of Gilly and Two crawling silently under the table to tie Jols' boot laces together. He smelled wine, leather grease and woodsmoke, meat, straw and horses, and far away, the distant scent of pines in the wilderness. He heard Kai saying something to Lancelot that made him nearly choke with laughter; two children ran after a dog, and a woman's scolding voice cut the air. Gawain watched Dagonet talking quietly with Arthur over a map, and heard the Commander sigh, but contentedly, and the torchlight glinted off the hilt of Excalibur, back at its rightful place at his hip.

Gawain turned his gaze inwards too; noticed the bitter taste of numbing herbs on his tongue that went hand-in-hand with the dull ache of wounds that were finally healing. The skin of his back tingled slightly where the warmth of the torchlight clashed against the cold of the autumn breeze that sighed over the Wall from the north, and he pulled the blanket a little tighter around his shoulders. He heard the rattle of gaming pieces on wood as Tristan and Perceval ganged up to win against Ector, and the Knight mocked their fleeting success with sharp wit. Somewhere inside the tavern, Vanora was singing. The wind gusted a little more and Gawain smelled the sharp bite winter on the air, and finally, his eyes fell on the last Knight in the company and he saw Galahad watching him. The young man stood and wove his way through the crowd, sitting quietly down beside his friend.

"Gawain? You alright?"

We will go home...

Gawain smiled at Galahad and nodded, blue eyes bright with contentment.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm alright."

He could never go home. He was already there.

FINIS

Wow. It's over, and I actually feel kind of heartbroken! This is what it must feel like to have you kids leave home...

Once more, I want to thank everybody who read and reviewed, particularly you guys who came back to support me chapter after chapter (you know who you are!). In a very real sense this story would not exist without your constant kind words and encouragement, and I feel very privileged to have been able to share it with you. We fans of KA may be few but what we lack in numbers, we more than make up for in heart.

Deepest affection to you all, and I hope to be back one day soon!

~Nienna Eleniel.