A/N: Since this fic had its darker moments, I thought a goofy, light-hearted ending was in order. I hope you -the readers- agree this was a good call on my part. Please enjoy the final chapter of "The Rescue"; and thank you VERY MUCH for all of your wonderful support for my little story!

~Chapter 10: Gwaine and Arthur are Surprised~

HE SHOULD HAVE left, Merlin knew, as soon as Freya was situated and both Evoric and the least reputable-looking of the burly fellows who frequented The Rising Sun were wholly aware that if anything even remotely bad happened to her in their tavern -if anybody messed with the pretty faced new barmaid- he'd be coming after their sorry backsides with a vengeance.

He should have done.

But, of course, he didn't.

He knew Arthur needed him, and was probably getting more furious in regards to his absence with each second that went by, but he felt the most irresistible urge to linger. After what he'd gone through, taking on Morgana and Agravaine and the knights of Camelot, the cheery tavern seemed an awfully nice place to be at. Everyone was friendly (well, that was hardly surprising, they were all drinking, after all) and Freya's smiles, which she frequently directed at him, looking over her shoulder as she carried trays or cleaned tables, only got sweeter as the day dragged on.

Surely Arthur could wait just one more day... Gaius would be worried, of course, but he'd soon remedy that...

Yes, he'd stay and keep an eye on Freya a little longer. One more day here, then back to his life as Arthur's manservant.

And, in the meantime, it couldn't hurt to have a quick drink...

Merlin figured his labors earned that much, at least.

ARTHUR HAD GOTTEN tired of waiting. And, perhaps, some small part of him was a little worried -uncertain, to be more exact- that something was wrong. He would never have admitted it, but deep down, when Merlin was away for longer than a day or so, he always felt a little twinge of fear he couldn't explain. It was a tiny thing, barely noteworthy, and he mostly tended to just brush it off. After all, what was there to worry about? What was there to fear? Merlin was in the bloody tavern. He knew he was. That was always where Merlin slunk off to. So long as he didn't open that big mouth of his and get himself into a bar-fight, he was probably just fine.

That was the real reason Arthur was often so cross when his manservant returned from his little tavern adventures. That stupid, nagging worry that came out of nowhere, turning out to be for no reason, as he'd known -logically- all along it would. He blamed it on Merlin. Stupid Merlin, who had made him worry needlessly.

And that was in addition to the aggravation of having to make do without a servant until he decided to find his way back...

This time, he decided, he would go and fetch him. He'd been going to send Gwaine to fish Merlin out of The Rising Sun, but then he had thought about what that meant. Sending Gwaine into a tavern with only vague instructions to order his manservant to get his lousy backside back to work... Gwaine, of all people. Nope, that wouldn't end well.

He would end up out a manservant and a knight when he needed them most.

Gwaine would indeed go, but Arthur would accompany him, dressed in the plain blue cloak Merlin had loaned him some years back when he'd wanted to go about in the lower town unnoticed while he was staying with Gwen. Purely as a precaution, of course. Just to make sure Gwaine didn't get distracted by a tankard of mead -or some giggling common girl with a nice face hanging out her laundry- himself.

And so, it was no more than an hour till noon when the the king (Gwaine at his side) reached The Rising Sun, none the better for the walk, ready to kill himself a manservant.

A large number of scruffy-looking fellows were slumped outside of the tavern. Some willingly, because they deemed this -for whatever reason- the more comfortable place to mill about aimlessly, and others by force, because Evoric had kicked them out for starting trouble too early.

Gwaine waved to a few of his friends in this group, only two of which were actually sober enough to return the gesture.

"Come on." Arthur grabbed the knight's arm and tugged him along.

They stepped over the threshold and were greeted by Evoric himself, just as he finished settling a debate between two large guests who had been arm-wrestling in the corner nearest the door.

"Greetings, gentlemen. What can I get for you today?" Evoric didn't know Arthur's face at once as the king, but naturally he knew Gwaine straight off. "Who is your friend, Gwaine?"

Arthur cut him off before Gwaine could answer, lest he start ordering them drinks. "I'm afraid we aren't staying. We're looking for someone."

"We get a lot of people..." began Evoric.

"No, you'd remember this one," Arthur assured him. "Lanky, dark-hair, big ears. Appalling manners. Shabbily dressed. Seems to spend most of his time here, actually."

Evoric considered. All except that last one, about frequent visits to his tavern, sounded an awful lot like...

"His name's Merlin," Gwaine volunteered.

"He's around here somewhere," Evoric sighed. "Probably still making eyes at that new barmaid he brought here."

Gwaine's interest was caught. "New Barmaid?"

Evoric chuckled. "Your man came in here with her, holding hands, and now he won't leave her side. Always flirting with her, trying to touch her, or gazing across the tavern with this lovesick look on that face of his." She was on a break, at the moment, so he was almost certainly with her now...

Arthur nodded grimly. "Thank you."

"My pleasure." Evoric shrugged. "Be sure to let me know if you require anything else."

"I would love a-" started Gwaine, whose throat was feeling a bit parched from the walk.

Arthur shook his head.

Gwaine sighed and followed him towards the back of the tavern to look for Merlin.

At last they spotted him. He was in a locked embrace with a small, dark-headed woman, kissing her repeatedly on the mouth, while they leaned against the wall.

Gwaine smiled. "Way to go, Merlin!" he muttered under his breath.

Rolling his eyes, Arthur marched over to them, glowering, just as the woman was locking her wrists behind Merlin's neck, pulling herself further still into his grasp, returning his kisses.

It was the mysterious young woman who noticed first. One of her eyes opened a crack, and she realized Arthur and Gwaine were standing right there. Gwaine looked pleased, but Arthur -who she recognized immediately as the man who'd struck her a mortal blow when she was a Bastet all those years ago- seemed none too thrilled, albeit a little shocked as well.

Blushing, Freya pulled away from Arthur's manservant and lowered her eyes respectfully from the king's gaze.

Merlin grimaced. "Arthur is standing right behind me, isn't he?"

Freya flinched sympathetically and nodded.

Slowly, he let go of Freya's elbows, which he'd still had a light grip on even though she'd pulled away, and turned to face his master. "Hello, Arthur."

Gwaine, meanwhile, was staring at Freya in pure bafflement. How was this even fair? The last barmaid he'd been served by at this very tavern had looked like a blasted elephant... This girl, on the other hand, was beautiful, to put it lightly. Merlin sure could pick them. If these were the kind of girls he ran into on his little adventures whenever Arthur couldn't find him, it was no wonder he was always taking off like he did!

"Arthur!" Merlin exclaimed, grinning sheepishly. "I was just on my way back."

"Yes, I can see that." Arthur folded his arms across his chest.

"Really, I was..." he tried.

Gwaine gave him two thumbs up.

Freya's blush darkened and she slunk as far into the shadows as possible, embarrassed to be the cause of all this. If it weren't for her, Merlin would have never left Camelot to begin with, much less have been discovered here at the tavern at the worst possible moment.

Arthur tapped the toe of his boot on the tavern's wooden floor impatiently and arched an eyebrow.

"I'm in a lot of trouble, aren't I?" asked Merlin.

"Figure that out all on your own, did you?" Arthur snapped.

"There is...a perfectly logical explanation for this..."

Gwaine was muttering to himself. "She's Merlin's girl... She's Merlin's girl..."

Arthur ignored him. "And I look forward to hearing it. Right after you get out of the stocks."

"The stocks?" Merlin's voice got a little higher pitched with indignation. With my luck, I'll end up with some crazy farmer pelting me with a fresh potato!

"The hell with it." Gwaine nudged his way past Arthur and offered his hand to Freya. "Hello, I'm Gwaine."

"Hello," Freya managed shyly, taking a step closer to Merlin despite the fact that she knew perfectly well Arthur would be taking him away any second now.

"You look like a princess," Gwaine stated.

Looking back at her over his shoulder, Merlin whispered, "Told you."

"So I'm guessing," he went on, "your name's something grand, like Sophia or Esmeralda. Or Elaine." Winking, he proclaimed, "Yes, that must be it. Princess Elaine!"

People were starting to stare, making her more and more uncomfortable. "I'm Freya," she squeaked out.

"Well, Freya," Gwaine sighed, seeming to get the hint that there was only one man she was interested in, and it wasn't him, "Merlin's a lucky man."

"After I'm through with him," Arthur swore, "you aren't going to be able to say that." He grabbed Merlin by the ear and started pulling him away. "Say goodbye to your...erm...lady friend, Merlin." Like Gwaine, he was still secretly trying to work out how Merlin had gotten someone like her. "We're leaving."

Somehow or other, Merlin managed to break loose from Arthur's hold on his ear while he was temporarily distracted by a short, stocky-looking man who reeked of fumes from the brewery, coming in with a barrel of ale and accidentally bumping into him.

He ran back to Freya and kissed her goodbye.

Arthur grabbed him again -this time by the upper arm- and pulled him all the way out of the tavern.

"I'll see you soon," he called back to her.

"Yes," Arthur agreed sardonically. "I'm sure she'll be first in line to pelt you with fruit this afternoon."

They had finally gotten out the tavern door, when Merlin noticed a pair of familiar faces standing there, as if waiting for him.

To anyone else, they would have looked pretty inconspicuous. No one would have suspected what Merlin knew: that they were actually smugglers, taking quite a risk coming here, showing their faces in Camelot.

Of course, though, they were disguised; they weren't idiots. Isolde was in a reddish peasant dress that looked like something a handmaid might wear, and Tristan had a false scar drawn on one cheek, as well as ashes in his hair to make him look older than he really was (with his somewhat weather-beaten, serious face that looked older than his partner even under normal circumstances, on the best of days, this seemed to work out marvelously).

But, wondered Merlin, what could they want here in Camelot?

"Merlin, there you are." Isolde shot over to his side. "Glad we caught you. We're moving out. Going home to our village."

They had no village, but it was a good pretense. Merlin nodded as though he personally knew the village they were referencing.

"But we have something for you." She gestured over to Tristan, who Merlin now saw was carrying a fair-sized object wrapped in a faded blue cloth.

"A present," said Tristan, half-grinning as he pulled off the cloth and set the object down by his feet. "For the little one."

It was a baby's cradle, one beautifully crafted from dark rose-wood. What was most remarkable, however, was that the headboard was carved in the shape of a dragon, mouth opened, spewing out engraved whiffs of smoke.

A dragon... Merlin's eyes widened. Did they suspect...? Or had they secretly known what Aithusa was all along but never said anything?

His gaze shifted to Isolde, whose eye twitched into a little wink.

Arthur's face had gone pale, like someone had just dumped a bucket of water over his head.

Tristan chuckled at his shock, and Merlin suddenly realized that Tristan had no idea who this was. He had no idea that this man -dressed in a plain cloak and out among the common people- he was laughing at in easy amusement, was the king whose taxes he so despised.

As for Gwaine, who had also heard, he looked from Merlin's face (which was quickly getting red), to Freya the barmaid (she was standing in the tavern doorway, having followed them out to watch Merlin go, also still blushing madly), and then back again.

"You, Merlin," he said, gasping to catch his breath, "are my new hero."