We Stand

Summary: Because good men are always taken advantage of. He is not good – Arthur is. OneShot- Lancelot, Guinevere. Arthur.

Warning: Messy relationships, nothing explicit.

Set: Somewhere along the movie?

Disclaimer: Standards apply.

A/N: Sept 2013. Part of a massive upload session. All the fics posted this month were started sometime this year and only finished recently. Don't expect me to do this often. :)

The wind was cold.

"You should go inside again," he told her.

Guinevere just tucked a lock of her wind-swept hair behind her ear and shrugged. The wind blew it back immediately. Lancelot's fingers ached to touch her red-and-golden locks. Instead, he waited. Frozen. He'd never thought of himself as particularly cold. Suddenly he felt it.

"You're his best friend," the woman ventured. Her dark eyes stared at him directly.

"Did he say so?"

She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. "I can see it."

"Well."

So she had watched his commander. It was just the thing Lancelot did, he always watched Arthur. Because… There was this urge to explain although he had absolutely no obligation to her. He would leave her to die without a second glance. Arthur was the better one of them, he always had been. It was the reason why Lancelot followed him, the reason why fifteen years had been enough to root him to a place that wasn't his home: idealism, even if dulled, was dangerous in their world. Sometimes he forgot who protected whom: whether it was Arthur who protected him from a life without reason or he who protected the Roman knight from the truth of his own ideals. He strongly suspected it was the first rather than the latter but he liked to think he had some worth. Somehow, however little.

"He is lucky to have you."

Lancelot snorted. "He's a passable leader."

"He is more to you." She gazed at him, through him, with an intensity that made him feel uncomfortable. He wished she would look somewhere else. "You follow him, don't you? You trust him. All of you do. But you more than some of the others."

"All of us are loyal to Arthur," Lancelot said, feeling anger rise. "He has saved us more than once. In return, we have saved him. He won't betray us."

"Not even for his dream of Rome?"

Guinevere tilted her head back, her hair falling down onto her shoulders gracefully. A bit of her throat was exposed, white and perfect. His hand itched.

"Not even for his own happiness?"

"What," Lancelot asked and felt his jaw tighten, "Are you implying, woman? Arthur won't betray us. Ever."

He thought how good it would feel to close his hands around her neck. Feel her heart beat under his hands, see her lips shape the last words that escaped her. Her lips-

"No," she said, incredibly quiet. "No, he won't."

Something in her voice made his anger dissipate. Lancelot looked at her – dark hair, dark eyes, milky skin – and suddenly there stood more than just the skinny, proud woman they had rescued from the hellhole the monks called a God's House. He saw a Princess. No, he corrected himself. A queen.

"Where does your loyalty lie?" He asked her.

She looked at him, her eyes derisive.

"I am loyal to my people, knight."

"And to Arthur?" He moved nearer, into her personal space, until they stood chest to chest. He had to look down to face her, she was smaller, fragile, strong. Contradicting. Her scent was sweet and sharp. "Why are you loyal to Arthur, woman? To a Roman? Why are you helping us?"

There was the situation: she wasn't helping them, except that she was, he could feel it. The Saxons were hard on their heels and there was a reason why she hadn't left them yet, a reason why she was standing in the middle of a snowy forest with him now, talking, waiting. Lancelot imagined his hands on her neck again, on her breasts, in her hair. She was beautiful. She also was nothing he coveted. What he wanted was something else.

"He will change everything," she returned, not backing down, not moving back. Her dark eyes shone with the reflected light of the moon. "I am helping you, yes. The Romans are leaving this Island. We need someone to lead our people. Arthur is the best there is."

"He won't do it."

"He won't?" She tilted her head, looking up at him from underneath her eyelashes. "You know him best, Lancelot. Will he leave us in the face of danger?"

"What is Merlin planning?"

"We are planning to fight."

"This is not our fight."

"Of course not. But it will be Arthur's. He will make it his. He won't leave us behind to be slaughtered. It is the way he is, and you know it."

She was right. She was right, Lancelot knew it, and the thought made bile rise in his throat. Arthur would stay and aid her people; he would throw away his life for them because it was what Arthur did. He hadn't even been able to disobey a direct command even though it had clearly been illegitimate. Lancelot did not care for Rome, or for Britannica, as it was. Arthur cared too much. He was a good man, too good, too kind. Lancelot scorned good people. They always were taken advantage of. But Arthur… With Arthur, it was different. With him Lancelot felt as if he could be more than a cynical, homesick, cold man who laughed at other peoples' pain and joked at their expense.

"You…" Lancelot chose his words carefully. "You will not use Arthur for your plots." He balled his fists.

"Will I not?" She lifted her arms, let them fall again. "It is not my decision to make. It is his destiny."

"There is no destiny." No matter how different they were, no matter how different their beliefs, it was what they all believed in. There was nothing that could make a man what he was – only a man could make himself.

"Look at him, Lancelot." Guinevere swept a hand into the distance, where the dim fire still glowed at the campsite. The sounds of the forest were alive all around them. "I don't need to push him to do anything. He is already in the middle of it."

Lancelot's hand went to the single sword he carried tonight. "It will kill him. He will die, and he won't care as long as he thinks the cause is one good enough."

"And is it not? You, Lancelot, more than all the others – don't you want to return home a free man? See your sister, hold your mother's hand?"

"You…" In helpless rage, he stood before her, shaking. Unable to form a coherent thought, too shocked to wonder how on earth she knew. "I won't let him die."

"Then stay by his side, Lancelot." Suddenly her voice was soft. "You love him. You won't let him die."

Lancelot reached forward and balled his fist in her cloak. Pulling her towards him he stopped only when their lips were mere millimeters apart. They now stood so close he could feel her breath, hear her heart beat. Frozen, a few seconds, half an eternity. Then, as sudden as he had grabbed her, he pushed her away again. His hands were not gentle. He was breathing hard.

"No." Lancelot didn't look at her.

"You are a good man, Lancelot," he heard her say. "I know you will fight with him."

Without looking back, he turned and left. The wind was cold. Lancelot did not feel it anymore.

…

"Where were you?"

Lancelot stepped out of the shadows of the tent flap. He had waited for Arthur to come – had waited and waited and waited and, at the same time, had hated himself for it. But there was only so much a man could stand and somehow Lancelot seemed to have reached his limit.

Arthur threw him a weary look and unbuckled his sword belt, Excalibur slid to the ground with a metallic sound. Arthur's cloak followed. This was nothing new, this he's just a man, too, sometimes Lancelot forgot that his commander and best friend had earned his title the hard way. They all had and still it seemed strange, sometimes, every time Arthur shrugged out of his armor the same way Lancelot remembered himself doing so many times before. They could have been brothers except they weren't, not in the deeper sense of the word. The last thing he wanted was to be Arthur's brother. Lancelot suppressed the thought – it held too many things he did not want to think about. In the dim light of the moon and the stars, Arthur looked more than weary. He looked exhausted, his eyes sunk and dark, his stubble casting shadows onto his face. He looked older than he was. Lancelot wanted to reach out-

"Where have you been?" He repeated, hard, angrily.

"I met Merlin."

Lancelot stared, his mouth agape. "You did what?" His friend had done many things, many of them brave and reckless, some of them stupid, but none of them outright idiotic. "The Saxons are hard on our heels and you take a midnight stroll to meet the man we've been fighting against for the last fifteen years?" He wanted to add The man who killed your mother but he caught himself before the words left his mouth. It was a good thing, or perhaps it could have been one. Lancelot was used to the fact that his words hurt others. He did it deliberately, sometimes. There only was one person in the world he did not want to hurt and this person sat before him and fumbled with his boots.

"He was alone. There was no threat."

"What did he want?" Images of Guinevere danced through Lancelot's head, dark hair, white skin, her eyes. You love him. You won't let him die. "Whatever it was, I hope you told him to go to hell!"

Arthur straightened again without looking at him. "Yes."

"You did?" Relief flooded Lancelot, hot and fluid. "I knew it. I told her-"

"Told whom?" A sharp look accompanied the question.

"The woman. She said…" Too late, he shut up again. Lancelot had known his friend for fifteen years. The snap that went through him – through bones and sinew, ran through him like a shockwave – made his back straighten and his shoulders tense. Arthur's eyes were light grey on normal days. Now they were dark and deep, angry.

"What did she say, Lancelot?"

His mouth was dry and he licked his lips. "She said…"

"Answer me." Arthur's commanding voice. A part of Lancelot felt disdain for this man who thought his presence alone would inspire the truth from others. Another part – the greater one – knew that Arthur never thought of himself that way but demanded the same he demanded of himself: loyalty, duty, truth. A tiny part of him screamed that it was why he loved him.

"They want you to fight for them." He didn't stop to wait for Arthur's reaction, only registered the intake of breath that followed his rushed confession. He stumbled on, pathetically. "They want you to stay and fight their wars. They want you to lead them against the Saxons. It's a good thing you said no, it's pure suicide, there is no way-"

He stopped when he saw Arthur's face. His heart missed a beat and then continued hammering away, twice as fast. Painfully.

"Tell me you didn't."

Lancelot only realized he had grabbed Arthur's shoulders and was shaking him when Arthur said nothing, only looked at him.

"It's insanity, Arthur, even you must know that. Your God won't help you against the Saxons-"

"I did not tell them I would fight for them."

"Oh." He dropped his hands, stupidly. "You did not. Well, that is… That is…"The only sane thing you've done for quite some time. Why did he still sense the cold feeling of dread in his stomach, an iron fist clenching around his heart? Fifteen years, fifteen, they had fought and rode side by side, there was nobody who knew Lancelot better than Arthur, nobody who knew Arthur better than him, they had seen so much and lived through so much- "What did Merlin want, exactly?"

Arthur shook his head, slowly, as if he couldn't remember correctly – or couldn't believe. "He wants me."

In another place, at another time – Lancelot would have laughed. Laughed, snorted, insinuated. Something, though, made his hands shake today. He balled them into fists.

"For what?"

"Did you know she was his daughter?" Arthur stood up from his low cot again and walked to the tent entrance. His breath coalesced into clouds of steam in front of him, in the darkness, he was a still shadow. "Not by birth. But she grew up with Merlin as her father. Strange how…" His voice trailed away.

"How what?" Lancelot challenged him, needing to hear him say the words. It was Arthur's punishment, he thought, and at the same time punishment for him. "What is strange?"

"How things happen, I guess." Arthur did not notice, did not feel his anger. He never did. It made Lancelot want to grab him and scream at him until he understood, sometimes. "Her parents were killed by Roman troops. My mother was killed by Merlin's people. And here we are."

Lancelot swallowed. "So they want you to lead them against the Saxons. And then?"

"I don't know." Arthur shrugged. "Settle down, if I survive. Maybe grow some crops."

"You will never return to Rome when you chose them."

Arthur turned and the tent flap fell closed again. His smile was a ghost of the child Lancelot had gotten to know so many years ago. "We both know that Rome never was my home."

But you dreamed of it, he wanted to shout. You wished for it. More than you ever wished for anything else.

"They will want to keep you," he heard himself saying instead. "They'll marry you to someone's daughter. Preferably an ugly one with many warts and you will spend the rest of your days drinking in order to forget her face."

Arthur gave a short chuckle. "That, my friend, hopefully can be avoided."

"Pray for it," Lancelot returned and again saw Guinevere's face, her strong gaze.

"Lancelot," Arthur said and took a step towards him. "Whatever I choose, you are not bound to my choice. You are not bound to me. I know how much you miss your home and I will not stand in between your dream and you. If we have to decide… To take sides… I want you to do what your heart tells you to do."

Lancelot nodded. There seemed no suitable response. How strange to be given a choice when none existed, really.

"But right now we have other matters to attend to," Arthur continued and turned away. "We are leaving at first light tomorrow. You should get some sleep. God knows we will need it."

In the tent entrance, Lancelot turned around one last time. Arthur sat on his cot, his head in his hands, and seemed to be praying. Once again. The pendant in his pocked radiated cold. The night was light with the reflected light of the moon on the white snow. Somewhere in the dark, a wolf howled. Then fast, almost unreal:

A flash of white-washed blue, dark brown.

From the corners of his eyes Lancelot saw Guinevere enter Arthur's tent.

…

There was little Guinevere hadn't seen before. That was why she wasn't stuck by the sight of Lancelot falling – dying – or by Arthur grieving over his best friend. Yet she had never felt the grief so bone-marrowingly deep as she did now.

Lancelot looked peaceful in death. Arthur was deaf and blind to the world around him.

"It should have been me. It was me who should have died. He shouldn't have been there at all!"

Numbly, she thought Lancelot had been exactly where he had wanted to be.