AN: This story was originally posted over on my AO3 account (oflittleuse) back in August as part of Paperlegends 2012. For more information about this story such as links to the amazing artwork done by noneofthesort (seriously check out her stuff - it's mind blowing!) and various things - the link to my livejournal account is in my profile. And finally, thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing all my old fics! It seems like there has been a recent swell in readership and it's such a compliment to know that even after all these years people are still enjoying these stories. Hopefully you will also like this one too!

The road Arthur Pendragon found himself driving down was not for the faint of heart. It twisted and turned on steep ditches and blind cliffs, its gravel loose and lethal. The forest that lined the sides hid any stray car or animal ahead, making each bend a nerve-wracking experience. Arthur's knuckles were white against the steering wheel as he slowed to a crawl at a particularly nasty hundred-and-forty degree turn in the road. The road was disused, forgotten, and had weathered roughly from lack of care. Large pot holes darted the path, filled with recent rain water, and the sides of the extremely steep parts had started to erode. Arthur was careful not to get too close to the shoulder for fear of it giving away.

Cars weren't too much of a problem. There was only one house at the end of this road.

As for the wildlife: Arthur had already had to stop for two deer, a racoon and porcupine.

The nearest town was twenty minutes in the other direction.

Perth might take ten minutes to drive through and that was being generous. The town was a mishmash of houses as if someone had just dropped random buildings in the middle of a forest and hoped it would work. All the streets were named after trees. Elm Street connected to Maple which was one way and even though the map said it met up with Willow Lane that part of the road had been torn up when a new grocery store had been built. Maps always forgot to update the streets of Perth – and Arthur figured it was partially because no one cared about Perth.

For entertainment it boasted a bowling alley that had four lanes which were smoke stained and smelled like cheap whiskey. The other was a community theatre that put on the same three plays every year with the same four people at the local high school. The main street had exactly twenty store fronts. Ten of them were closed, their doors locked up when the owners realised there were no tourists and not enough locals to sustain their business. The only stores still open were a bookstore, cafe that boasted the best coffee in Perth (the only one as far as Arthur could tell), three used clothing stores, a flower shop, a toy store, and three catch-all stores whose business model seemed to be carry everything because something will eventually sell.

Arthur wasn't sure what bothered him the most: the fact that Perth was so small, or the fact it was the closest sign of civilization.

"Fuck," he swore as his tires lost traction on the loose, untended gravel. Making sure to gently ease on the breaks and ignoring the impulse to over steer, Arthur managed to keep the car on the road … barely. He made a mental note to phone Lancelot and Gwen when he got to the cabin, they had been kind enough to volunteer to bring the moving van with the rest of his belongings tomorrow, but now that Arthur was faced with the conditions of the road, he didn't feel comfortable letting them risk their lives delivering it.

It was with a sigh of relief that Arthur finally reached the last harrowing bend in the road and the cabin came into sight. It had been eleven years since Arthur was last there. At fourteen the cabin had seemed like a jail cell, keeping him far away from his friends, and the one land-line had been watched over by his father. Arthur felt the sharp stab of grief hit him at the thought of his father. Fourteen-year-old Arthur hated it here, twenty-five-year-old Arthur hoped it would save him.

The cabin was nestled in the dense forest. Its charming log frame had weathered over the years and the front porch which wrapped around two sides of the building was in a desperate state of repair. The furniture inside was covered in sheets that had a layer of dust two inches thick. The only true, stable part of the sloping three bedroom hut was the fireplace. The massive stone structure held the place together, as the floor sloped away from it at a precarious angle which was one step away from a fun house. The small garden which had once been tended with care in the back was now reclaimed by the wild, the delicate flowers overpowered by weeds and grass.

"Home sweet home," Arthur muttered to himself, glancing at the ramshackle building in front of him.

What am I doing? Arthur thought, not for the first time. He had had the same thought when he sold his fancy, state-of-the-art condo. It had crossed his mind when he gave up his modern furniture, sold his father's townhouse, Caribbean vacation home and his international downtown London flat, and gave up the share of his father's company that had been willed to him.

"Arthur," Gwen had said, gently laying a hand on his arm. "Don't you think you should wait before deciding these things? Why don't you stay with me and Lance for a while?"

But Arthur had been adamant. With the death of his father still a fresh wound, even all these months later, Arthur had given it all up. He was no longer that rich city-slicker with the fancy car and crazy nights out on the town. He was now that rich crazy guy that was going to sink all his money into a cabin which should just be torn down. He wondered if a mid-life crisis could happen when you were still in your twenties.

Staring up at the cabin, Arthur grimaced and ran a tired hand over his stubbled face. Murmuring to himself, he said, "Welcome home Arthur ... you're insane."

"He's not insane," Gwen said, not sure who she was trying to convince more: herself or Lance. Glancing over at her fiancée, Gwen smiled tightly. They were both worried about Arthur.

Glancing back out the front window Gwen closed her eyes as they took another tight corner. Lance had been silently making his way down the curvy path.

"I can't believe Arthur moved out here," Lance finally said.

"I wish he was closer," Gwen admitted, the journey so far was at forty-five minutes and there was still a bit to go. It wasn't a completely unreasonable distance, but there would be no crashing on each other's couches or showing up with take-out for random movie nights. Gwen was going to miss him, but she could understand needing to get out.

Five more minutes and they were finally there.

Gwen wasn't sure what she had expected. She knew Arthur had said it was a bit run down, but this was Arthur Pendragon. He had thought his old TV had been outdated because they had come out with flat screens that were a quarter of an inch thinner than his. Gwen had assumed that his concept of a "run down cottage" was what a normal person might consider a beautiful country home. Apparently she had underestimated him.

For a minute, neither she nor Lance moved, they were both just staring at the decrepit building in front of them. The silence was broken when Lance started to laugh.

"It's not funny," Gwen tried to scold through her own giggles. "He's obviously having some mental break down."

"Love, there is no way he is going to last two days here," Lance said. "This is Arthur. The man can barely work a toaster. He's going to be back, crashing at our place before you know it."

"I hope your right."

Gwen quickly hopped out of the truck. At the sound of car doors, Gwen could see Arthur's blonde head peek out from behind the screen door.

"I told you guys not to bother driving up today!" He called out, jumping over the front steps.

"Yeah, well, when have I ever listened to anything you told me," Lance said, grabbing Arthur into a one-armed hug.

"It's …" Gwen tried to think of something nice to say about the place, as she hugged him "very rustic."

"Here, let me give you guys the tour."

As far as Gwen could tell the inside was not much better than the outside. It didn't win her over any when she realized there was a very large groundhog that lived under the porch and would glare at them as they approached. The inside was small, a staircase greeting them. Off to the right was a small sit-in kitchen and to the right was a decent-sized living room with a massive fireplace which seemed to dominate the room. Through the kitchen, Arthur showed them the dining room which overlooked an overgrown garden which had been let go many years ago. The entire place felt abandoned. Gwen didn't know how Arthur had stayed here one night alone. She would never have been able to, but then again, Arthur had come here as a child.

Upstairs there was a narrow hallway. On the one side three doors: one leading to a pink room.

"This your room Arthur?" Lance asked.

"This was Morgana's, but I was thinking it would be a perfect room for you if you stayed over," Arthur quipped.

Arthur was staying in the furthest door. The bedroom was very small, barely squeezing in the single bed, desk, closet and bookcase. It was a bit like stepping into the past. There were sports posters on the wall, and the bookcase had never grown out of the prepubescent books and toys on its shelves. It was a weird Arthur time capsule for his pre-teen self.

In between both rooms was a small bathroom which looked … disgusting. It wouldn't surprise her if some animal had made its home in there. Gwen made a mental note not to use the washroom here.

"Yeah, the plumbing is a bit of an issue right now," Arthur said, noting his friends' dubious glance at the outdated fixtures.

As they finally made their way down to the living room Gwen had never been more worried about Arthur.

"Arthur, you know you can always stay with us, don't you?" Gwen said, as they brought in the boxes out of the back of the van. Arthur just shouldered past her to help Lance with one of the heavier ones. "It's just … if you needed a place to stay for awhile as you wait for this place to be habitable."

"It's habitable," Arthur grunted.

"Really?" Lance asked, looking dubiously at the dirt stained windows and broken banister.

"Not you too. Come on, it's not that bad," Arthur argued dropping his edge of the box down onto the foyer floor, causing a large dust cloud to appear. "All it needs is a bit cleaning and a fresh coat of paint."

"This place needs more than a fresh coat of paint Arthur," Gwen said quietly.

"We're not saying that you should give up on this place," Lance said passively. "Just, maybe hire someone who could fix it up for you. This is a lot of work for someone who had to phone us up to learn how to fix light bulbs."

"Hey that was some weird ass light bulb for that lamp," Arthur defended himself. "I can do this. I need to do this. Okay? So stop worrying about me and just help bring in the rest of the boxes."

In the end there was nothing Gwen or Lance could say. They dropped off the rest of the boxes, making sure to keep the conversation light. Afterwards, as Gwen hugged Arthur one more time and climbed into the truck, she sat in silence.

"Okay, maybe he's a bit insane," Gwen said, smiling slightly over at Lance. He lifted her hand up and pressed two soft kisses to her knuckles.

Arthur had a list.

The list contained the various tools that he would need to fix the cabin. Arthur wasn't even sure what half of them were, but according to the wisdom that was Google, these were apparently the basic tools that everyone should own. His attempt to change the cabin into a place fit for habitation (not that it was inhabitable right now) was as overwhelming as the foreign words on the piece of paper. Perhaps Lance had been right; maybe he should just hire a contractor.

Turning onto Willow Street for the seventh time, Arthur tried to spot Fournier's Hardware. According to his printed out sheets from Google Maps it should be halfway down this street. However, his slow crawl still turned up nothing. Arthur cursed Perth, with its stupid hidden hardware stores. Reaching the end of the street Arthur punched the steering wheel in frustration.

Glancing down at the map on the passenger side, Arthur barely had his eyes off the road for more than a second when there was a heart-stopping thud. He hit the brakes as something big tumbled off the hood of the car and hit the road below.

Arthur couldn't move. His hands were glued to the steering wheel, his eyes wide and straight in front of him, and his heart beat loudly in his chest. He had just hit someone.

"Oh no," Arthur muttered, his hands shaking as he tried to take off his seat belt. It seemed fussed with the seat, unable to come off as Arthur pulled against it. "Fuck, no, come on."

With a final click he stumbled out of his vehicle, he could see some people start to wander out of their homes, wondering what the thud and screeching tires had been. There was talking, one of the men rushed over and told Arthur he had already called the paramedics, but Arthur could barely understand him. All of his senses were in shock. His gaze seemed to hone in and lock onto the crumpled figure on the road. Arthur could not look away from it. The crumpled figure wore a tunic, pants of a weird material and had some hipster-like scarf around his neck. None of that mattered though, because Arthur could only see the trail of blood dripping down the side of his face.

The entire content of his stomach turned over and Arthur had to close his eyes to keep from getting sick.

"Everyone needs to please back up," a voice demanded. "Sir? You the driver?"

Arthur glanced up and saw two police officers. The one man talking was fairly tall, but nothing compared to the giant beside him.

"Um, yeah," Arthur stuttered out, clearing his throat to try and gather his nerves. "I'm Arthur Pendragon."

"Well, Pendragon, I'm officer Valiant," the man sneered, making a show of flipping open his little black notebook and making notes. "This is officer Percival. We just have a few questions for you."

"Right, sure."

"Okay, why don't you just walk us through the incident," Percival murmured, glancing nervously over to the prone body which was being tended to by the paramedics who had finally arrived on the scene.

"I was just trying to find the hardware store and I glanced down at my directions, it couldn't have been more than a second. This guy just appeared out of nowhere. Honestly, it happened so fast I don't … is he okay?" Arthur pressed a hand over his eyes, trying to remember something, anything. The last few minutes seemed to a blur in his mind.

"He just appeared?" Officer Valiant sneered. "Well unless we have Harry Potter over there unconscious I think you might need to come up with a better answer. If you were looking for the hardware store, why were you here? Fournier's Hardware moved over to Maple Lane about ten years ago now."

"I didn't … Google maps said it was here," Arthur said defensively, not liking Valiant's tone.

"I'll be sure to check that."

"Have fun." Arthur bit out.

"Valiant, why don't you go talk to the rest of the witnesses and I'll finish getting Mr. Pendragon's statement," Percival said, smoothly coming between the two of them. With a final sneer in Arthur's direction the man stomped off into the crowd of people. "Sorry about him."

"No, its fine," Arthur lied, eyeing the massive man in front of him. "I just moved here, the map said the hardware store was on this street and I was about to give up when he just … appeared."

"Ok," Percival said calmly. He appeared much more accepting than his partner. As if reading Arthur's mind, Percival quickly added, "Valiant likes to think he's some big city cop. Not much happens out here in Perth, just ignore him. He likes to think he's some action hero."

"Right," Arthur ran a tired hand in front of his eyes. "Is there anything else you need?"

"I think we just need your contact information and we'll let you know if we have any extra questions," Percival said. As he noted down Arthur's phone number and address. "Okay, I think that will be everything."

"Thank you officer," Arthur muttered watching as the ambulance started its siren as it tore off down the street.

"Please, just Percival," he said. He paused slightly before laying a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "I wouldn't worry too much. I'm sure he'll be alright."

"Right."

It didn't help the deep weight which had settled in the pit of his stomach. As Arthur got back into his car, he tried not to notice the glares of the locals. He had been here for not even three days and already he had almost killed one of their local boys. Maybe he had killed him.

As he started to inch the car forward he felt intensely aware of the car underneath him. His eyes darted frantically to both sides of the road, his nerves shot as he waited for something else to jump out at him. It took him two streets to speed up to just below the speed limit. As he got to the outskirt of town he stopped. The image of the blood dripping down the pale face haunted him.

Arthur didn't even realize he had turned back into town until he was on the main street and frantically looking for a sign of where the hospital might be. Unlike the hardware store, there were plenty of signs which led Arthur to an aging hospital which sat nestled between the community rink and a senior home. It looked like a 1950's reject, with pale-pink faded facade and peeled letters which proudly announced it was the hospital for the entire surrounding county. The visitor parking lot was gravel. Cars were parked along the edges and a few brave ones had simply parked in the middle where the owner had simply decided there should be a parking space. Arthur crawled along; trying to find a spot and avoid the ominous potholes.

The waiting room matched the outside facade of the building. Soft pink plastic seats made up the ER waiting room, with sea-foam green and white patterned floors and walls. Against one corner was a vending machine which was probably the most up to date part of the entire space. Leaning against it was one grey-grizzled man who seemed perfectly healthy except he winced whenever his right arm moved. A young woman was bent protectively over her baby, glaring at the man across the room that kept wheezing and coughing, as if her body could protect from any germs floating in the emergency room. Behind the glass partition was a middle aged nurse who was staring pointedly at her computer screen.

"Excuse me," Arthur said, leaning against the reception desk.

"How can I help you?" the nurse asked, reluctantly tearing her eyes away from whatever she was doing on the computer.

"A man was brought in, he was hit by a car, I wanted to know how he's doing."

"Mmmhmmm," the woman nodded non-committable and started to type frantically on the computer screen and click her mouse. "He's with Doctor Gaius. Are you a family member?"

Arthur paused. He had seen enough movies and television shows to know that they usually had some arcane rule about family members only in situations like this. Arthur should just tell the truth and leave his contact information, or even phone Percival tomorrow and get an update on how the man was doing.

"I'm his brother," Arthur blurted out. Then he remembered the dark hair and skinny, pale figure sprawled on the roadside. Knowing his luck everyone in town probably knew him. "Step-brothers."

"If you just head up to the third floor, the waiting room is just beyond the elevators," the nurse explained, much kinder now that she thought he was some poor family member. "I'll let Dr. Gaius know you'll be there."

It wasn't until Arthur was in the elevator that he started to worry if the man's real family would already be there. He could just picture being surrounded by accusing glares. Luckily as the elevator pinged its arrival and the metal doors slide open the family room seemed to be deserted.

Arthur paced the room, refusing to sit in the couches which lined the room. The sting of disinfectant stung his nose and memories of the last time he had paced a waiting room waiting for his father to get out surgery came swarming back to him. Unbidden emotion clawed at the back of his throat. Arthur swallowed thickly trying to contain his emotions. He had always hated hospitals and the past year had only added to his phobia.

"Ah! You must be the brother?" A voice asked from behind him. Swirling around Arthur was greeted by an older man, with white hair and wrinkled face. "We've put your brother into a small coma due to his head trauma but as we wean him off the medication he should slowly come to. Probably in the next few hours. Is there any medical history we should be aware of? Allergies? You wouldn't happen to have his health card, would you?"

"Actually," Arthur fidgeted. Dr. Gauis's eyebrows reached impressive heights as he regarded Arthur falter under his gaze. "I'm not actually his brother."

"I see ... and who might you be then?"

"I'm Arthur Pendragon. I was the one who, you know, hit him." Arthur admitted sheepishly.

"I see," Dr. Gaius's stare was unnerving. "Well, the man that was brought in had no ID on him so we've been unable to contact his family."

"But he'll be okay, right?" Arthur asked.

"He won't be awake for a few hours, probably not until this evening. We won't know the full extent of his injuries until then. If you leave your contact information with me, I'll call you as soon as he wakes." Dr. Gaius offered.

"Thank you."

As Arthur walked back into his run down cabin, jumping over the broken middle step on the front porch, he dropped his keys on the kitchen table. Walking over to the sink to splash some water on his face, the pipes gave a struggling gurgle before the trickle of water died completely. Slamming his hands against the faucet, Arthur sank to the floor and tried to tell himself that everything was going to be alright. It wasn't helping him at all though.