UPDATE: May 24, 2012, I edited this and added a few more lines. Just wasn't quite finished yet. New chapter should be coming soon!

New fic :D Hi!

So first of all, I promise I'm still writing Have Been and Could Be. Actually, the dream sequence of Morgana's I wrote for that fic is actually what inspired this. It'll be a collection of one-shots, all dreams of one character about another, especially certain characters I feel have unfinished business. If you've read my other story, you already know I'm a sucker for conversation and character study, so a lot of this will be like that. Pairings only implied for this one.

Disclaimer: Merlin not mine. Warnings: Unbetaed. This one's been stirring around in my head for a while, I hope I did Arthur's POV justice, it's new territory, so PLEASE review, let me know if I did. Enjoy!

Setting for this first one: After Arthur banishes Gwen in Season Four, Lancelot appears to him in his sleep.

Arthur And Lancelot

"You haven't been sleeping well, sire."

Arthur jolted awake. His enormous pillows leapt off the plush bed as he found the source of the voice and scrambled back so fast that he slammed himself against the headboard with wide, straining eyes. Past the wooden posts and canopies was a shadowed man in glinting chainmail that somehow, when he moved, did not rattle as chainmail should. It made no sound.

"You're dead," was all Arthur could get out. His heart was beating too fast.

Lancelot's face moved into the moonlight and he shook his head. "Not to you, clearly," he said with a smile. Arthur remembered that smile…muted and warm, so deceptively gentle for a man who could kill better than the rest of the army.

"Maybe not," Arthur replied slowly, easing himself off his headboard and trying not to shake, "—but that doesn't mean I want to see you," He could only hope his voice sounded sturdier to the ghost than it did to his own ears.

"You never wanted to see me, Arthur," Lancelot said softly. Arthur shook his head dizzily, only dimly recognizing that as true. "Not until now, at least, else I couldn't be here," the ghost amended.

Arthur still couldn't think of a word to say.

"…You should have been able to look me in the eye, you know." Lancelot went on slowly. "I swore an oath to you and I meant it."

"You broke that oath the moment you laid a hand on her," Arthur hissed. Lancelot's stare pierced his eyes.

"If that's really what was bothering you, you'd be seeing her now, not me," his voice was less surreal now. Arthur remembered that foreign, easy voice, so quiet and gentle, unlike Arthur's own, "—And I wasn't talking about when I came back again, I meant before. From the moment I answered Merlin's letter, even while you were knighting me, I remember how you could hardly stand the sight of m—"

"—The woman I loved got her heart broken when you left her because of me," Arthur shouted. "How could I look at you after that?"

Lancelot turned his gaze on him and Arthur remembered again to be afraid. Yelling at ghosts couldn't be the best idea. "I suppose you have a point, there." The dead man walked easily to the end of his bed and sit down beside the quivering king's feet.

"Well…now she's gone," Arthur spat, hating the way his voice nearly broke. "You got your wish," Arthur felt hollowed out as the words left his body and he could have sworn he saw Lancelot wince.

"She wasn't my only wish, Arthur. Don't pretend you didn't know that. I wanted to be a knight, I wanted to be someone who mattered to a kingdom."

Arthur hummed a bitter laugh and turned away. "I don't know when she fell in love with me after you left the first time but, her and I, we could never talk about you. Your name didn't come up once."

Lancelot looked down at the floor. "Arthur…"

"—The look on her face, when you and Percival knocked that rock over, I knew I was so close to losing her. So I kissed her in front of all of you. If she had to hide for me for one more second, with you there, I couldn't keep her,"

"—You're still a king, Arthur," he interrupted, face set and steady, "I was nothing compared to you."

Arthur's vision started to blur as he stared at the floor with him. "No," he found himself saying. "That's not true…if you hadn't left, she wouldn't have needed to deal with my father. Or Morgana. Or the rest of the court gossiping about her. She was nearly executed and she had to wait for me," he trailed off, somehow feeling better and worse for realizing it out loud, "It wouldn't have been that hard with you. I was the one who made her go through hell."

Lancelot shrugged. "She wasn't alone in that. You went through the same things."

Incredulously, Arthur laughed. "I'm the reason for both your deaths and you can still say something like that to me?" he shook his head, "You know, you're everything I was ever told to be, except you were never told to be so." Lance's mouth shifted into a smile, and Arthur had the sneaking suspicion that the knight was trying not to laugh at him. "What?" he asked irritably.

The knight shook his grinning head in reply. "Only a king would ever blame himself for deaths like mine."

Arthur blinked. "What are you talking about?"

"It wasn't your fault. I chose to become a knight and I chose to leave Gwen. I also chose to step through that veil. You never had a choice, you were born into that crown, and so was Gwen. She was always meant to be a queen."

There it was, the truth he'd been afraid of, and it hurt Arthur more than anything. "…Why could you see that before I even glanced twice at her?"

The smile vanished from Lancelot's mouth. "I don't know."

For a while, neither of them said a word until Arthur could no longer stand the room that silence gave him to think. "Do you regret it?" he asked, "Those choices you said you made?"

Something flickered in Lancelot's almost black eyes. "After I came back, I only kissed her once the way I wanted to and it wasn't even my doing," he looked down at the floor, "We all gave up so much for this kingdom…I held back so much…even though I wasn't controlling the body, I can't say I regret any of what happened the last time you saw me."

"No, I'll bet you don't," Arthur said darkly. He remembered how Guinevere cried for him…not controlling the body, what nonsense. But when he turned back to Lancelot, he realized he'd never seen the knight look angry before.

"Use your sense, Arthur," he seemed to make an effort to control his tone, "If Gwen and I were having an affair, why would we stage it in the throne room when I could have just gone to her house all the way in the lower town where you'd never see us?" He looked vaguely disgusted. "Think what you will of me, at least realize that she's smarter than that."

Something twisted inside Arthur's chest. "And you were too," he whispered.

Lancelot's eyes were distant. "I got to do some good before I died. You're all alive, and Merlin made sure I went in peace. Believe me, it's more than I ever could have asked for."

"Do you always have to be so bloody honorable all the time?" Arthur asked incredulously.

He looked back at the king, "It's how I was built, I guess," his eyes twinkled.

Arthur stared at him and leaned forward over his own hands. "You mattered to this place, Lancelot. It shouldn't have been you…you shouldn't have died, you were worth—"

"—More than you ever wanted to know?" he smiled gently. "Thank you, sire," Arthur nodded and stayed quiet until Lancelot spoke up again. "I'm not the only one in your kingdom like that, Arthur. Keep an eye out, you'll see what I mean."

He turned to go. Without thinking, Arthur called after him. "She's innocent, then?"

"What do you think?" Lancelot answered back over his shoulder

"Then what does that make me?" Arthur pleaded. But the dead man kept walking and was gone, vanished into the black.

Hours before Merlin came to wake him, Arthur opened his eyes and looked out the blinding bright window. The world looked different somehow that morning, as if it were even more out of his hands than it had been the days before, but he didn't remember dreaming a thing.

The Next Dream: Gwen is transported back to a memory.

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