It would have made sense for the most important night of all- the night fate and magic twisted together in the bonds of time and sealed the fate of the world- it would have made sense for that night to be marked with a special...something. Anything to mark it as a day outside of the usual- something to make it stand out amongst the blur of all the other inconsequential days.

You'd have thought it'd be remarkable.

And it was- but not for reasons one would have come to expect. It wasn't particularity foggy that night, or clear, or cold, or rainy, nor did it have any of the other signs one comes to expect from such a destined night. In fact, had the king not been away at the borders, the night wouldn't have been unexceptional at all. Well, until the births.

The physician stood over the bed they laid on, his wrinkled hands slowly setting the damp cloths he'd just used to clean the fluids from them on the table at the beds head, his ocean eyes unable to tear away, entranced with the small saviors on the bed before him.

Such big destinies for such small, beautiful people.

Their mother's hideous wailing cut into his consciousness, replanting him in the present.

"My Queen- please, you will only damage yourself, be still."

The Physician's sister's voice drifted softly across the room, her gentle murmur hardly more than a whisper above the queen's screams. The Physician glanced over the princes to ensure their safety, though at their mere minutes old they were months away from mischievous movements. Then he turned away from them and to his sister standing over the Queen, looking helpless, as she writhed and screamed, sobbing in anguish beneath her.

The Physician shuffled over to them, laying a hand on his sister's shoulder in comfort. She turned to him, meadow green eyes, burning with confusion, seared into his calm-before-the-storm-blue and they conveyed the silent sort of messages only eyes of close loved ones can convey.

The Physician let his hand fall and his sister slipped back behind him to attend to the princes. He stepped up to her side, looking down at her. The comforting peace and the youthful, bubbly excitement that had coursed through his blood a few moments ago, filling his creaky bones with energy and his aged mind with clarity and purpose, all of the wonderful, awakening emotions the sight of the saviors had brought to him- flooded out of him at the sight of their mother, leaving him feeling depleted and empty.

Her sunshine hair lay splayed out on the pillow, her hands twisting and clawing at the sheets draped over to preserve her modesty as she curled in on herself, erupting with a loud, hideous sobs and hysterical nonsense.

"Your Highness, what is wrong? I don't understand- your sons are healthy-" At the words 'sons' she let out a terrible, ugly cry.

"I have born him demons! Uther!- my poor Uther! I have born him demons!" She let out an animal scream and curled in on herself.

Had the Physician been any less accustomed to dealing with her fits, he might have let the shock of surprise at her words show, but he knew better.

The stories. She believes the stories.

"My Queen, I can assure you, those myths have no founding. There has been no proof that multiple births mean that one is possessed... when the King gets home-" The Physician began, meaning to placate her, to tell her her husband would confirm his testament.

But instead the Queen bolted upright- her sheets sliding down to her middle, revealing the scantily covering birthing gown. But she took no notice, instead her dark eyes locked on his, looking wild and crazed.

"He's not home..." She breathed heavily, her eyes no longer seemed quite so wild. There was a hint of control behind the hysterics- making them seem beyond crazed, beyond crazy ... dangerous.

"Your Highness-"

But she overrode him- a smile shakily stretching across her face, her breath huffing out in a strangled, maniacal sort of laugh.

"He doesn't know!" She breathed.

The Physician's brow wrinkled over his eyes as he tried to decipher her meaning.

What could she mean? What did it matter if he didn't yet know his sons were born?

A heavy rock settled at the bottom of the Physician's stomach. Something was wrong. He looked at her crazed eyes and beaming smile and the rock inside twisted.

Something was very wrong.

"My Lady, I don't understand. The king is on his way back as we speak- he knows you were close to labor when he left... he will surely see you are no longer pregnant-!" The appalled Physician began, but the Queen stopped his words in his throat with an airy wave of her hand. He waited. A sickening, for-boding feeling writhing within him. She laid back against her pillows, sitting up shoulders squared, not even bothering to readjust the sheets resting in her lap, her face had been wiped clean of all expression. Except a slight, warm glint in her eyes, nearly hidden behind her expressionless mask.

Relief.

She folded her hands in her lap and looked up expectantly at the Physician.

"Show me the demons." She ordered.

The Physician nodded once and turned away. Somewhere in the back of mind he was grateful to have such sharpened instincts. Because if he hadn't, he wouldn't have had the mental faculties to move. His mind was spinning, leaving him no room for original thought, as his heart began to thud painfully against it's batterings and adrenaline began to pump through his veins.

This was not good.

Only moment ago she'd been in shambles because she believed she'd born demons for heirs -she still believed that, so why did she want to see them? What had she decided that suddenly left her peaceful?

The Physician didn't know, but the rock of dread in his stomach tightened.

He walked over to his sister, who stood above the babies, looking over at him questioningly. The Physician gave the barest trace of a nod, hopefully indecipherable from the Queen's bed. He slowly strode to her side, automatically looking down before stopping in surprise, all pounding questions dissipating at the sight.

He'd placed the babies about a foot away from each other just as a precaution so they wouldn't accidentally hurt their brother, despite the babies being far too young to move. But- they had.

They lay curled up together, each little head gently resting against the other's, their tiny fingers curled together. The blond lay, sound asleep, with both his hands, the entwined and the free, and his right leg, draped across his brother, coincidentally seeming to be in just the position over his brother's vital organs. As if he'd positioned himself to protect his brother. But what was somewhat even stranger, was that his small brother, seeming even more fragile curled up inside the blond's protective cocoon, was simply watching his brother. While his guardian, assured that his brother would be protected, fell asleep, the little one looked up at him, just watching, his big cerulian eyes seemed sad, but the Prince didn't utter a single complaint or cry. Only watched.

The Physician turned to look at his sister, his surprised eyes probing hers, questioning. Had she moved the Princes? She met his gaze and again the years of knowing each other communicated without words. No.

The Physician turned back to the boys, their sweet tableau still frozen in time, they only sign they were even still affected by it was the slow, synchronized movement of their chests.

This shouldn't be possible. He could feel his sister's eyes burning back into his, soundlessly conveying the thought. The Physician turned slightly to face her and nodded, answering her unheard thought.

It shouldn't. But then, their destinies shouldn't either.

But yet his people's survival depended on them doing the impossible.

"Now." The Queen's voice barked across the room and cutting through his thoughts, snapping him back to the present.

Right.

Without even having to look at his sister, they both reached for the princes. His sister reached for the blond, gently scooping his soft hands underneath the baby, cupping her palm behind the prince's head before gingerly pulling the infant toward her, disentangling the brothers. The baby's amber eyes opened slowly, his white brows bending over his eyes in confusion as he looked back at his brother below. He whimpered, reaching out his hand as if to take his brother's, but she continued to pull him away. Whimpering turned to wailing which turned to screaming, and she immediately cupped the little red faced Prince to her chest, stepping away from the bed and bobbing up and down, muttering soothing sounds to the sobbing baby. The Physician looked down at the tiny raven haired babe still on the bed, the breakable infant looked up at him, his expression mournful. Tears in his eyes making the deep blue a kalidascope. But even as they streaked down his cheeks he didn't make a sound. The Physician bent down, ignoring the ache in his back, and slid his wrinkled fingers beneath the child.

"I'm so sorry, little one. Everything's going to be okay, I promise. You'll be back with your brother in a moment. He's fine, just high standards for his naptime." The Physician whispered his meaningless nothings under his breath as he tucked the crying Prince into the crook of his arms and hobbled after his sister to the Queen's bed.

"My lady, did you wish to hold them?" His sister asked, her fingers carding the blond fuzz on the still screaming Prince's head as she swayed to an unheard rythym.

The Queen's composure slipped, her panicked disgust spilling through the cracks before she shook her head tightly, glaring up at the young blond.

"Will he ever shut up?!" She growled.

The Physician almost gasped, biting his toung sharply to stop himself, a metalic taste filling his mouth.

Beside him, his sister paled and a tremour seemed to shake through her body.

But she bowed her head reverently, seeming to rock the inconsolable infant fiercer.

"I'm sorry, M'lady... I-I can't seem to quiet him..."

The Queen scoffed in disgust. At the baby or his sister, the Physician couldn't tell

"That wretched noise day and night- absolutely not!" Then she twisted abruptly to the Physician, or, rather, the Prince in his arms.

The dread curling in his stomach spasmed as her eyes hardened as they landed on her baby.

"That's it? That's all of him?! Heavens he'll be dead in a week!" The small infant's gasps for air were the only sounds to fit with the shaking sobs wracking his little frame as the Queen swivled back to his brother.

Annoyance glinted in her eyes.

"Aung... his incessint screams will have to do..."

Perhaps if his mind were as young as his sister's he'd understand what the Queen meant? But he shifted slightly toward her and her brows were bent in confusion as well.

"My Queen... do you mean.... to make the blond prince heir?" The Physician asked slowly. His mind churned like a butter mill, but his heart sunk like an anchor.

Something's wrong. Something's wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. WrongWrongwrongwrongwrongwrong

"Of course I do-!" The Queen scoffed.

The vice-like-grip on the Physician's heart loosened and relief flooded throughout his old body- only to be stopped cold be her next nonchalant words.

"-The other one will be dead."

No amount of training could stop his reaction.

His and his sister's gasps echoed throughout the chamber as both doubled back. The Physicain couldn't draw a breath and his sister's eyes bugged like she'd be struck.

"Dead?!" her words were pinched and shrill with the horror the Physician felt coursing through him.

"Obviously he's going to be the one you'll kill, he wouldn't last a day anyway, then the Demon's hold will release on the surviving brat, Uther will never know I've shamed him and Camelot will have it's heir."

No.

No.

No!

The Physician looked down at the helpless infant nestled in the crook of his arms. At the tears streaking down his feather-soft cheeks, while he sobbed silently, as if he already knew his terrible fate. At the big innocent eyes. At the Prince who was destined to save his kind and free the world. At the Prince who hadn't had more than five minutes of life. Never smiled. Never laughed. Never played. Never danced. Never loved. Never lived.

And now life was being ripped away from him before he ever could.

And his heart broke.

Stabbed. Bled.

Shattered.

No,no. No. no.no.no.nononononono

Obviously no! His Sister's voice filled his mind, a determined bite in it.

"Of course, M'lady. A wise choice." She said aloud, her voice deceptively humble and submissive. Praising.

The Physician's heart swelled with hope.

His sister hadn't failed in anything she'd set her heart too in her whole life.

What can we do? She's the Queen. If we're caught...

But his heart was ready, willing, already anticipating.

We don't get caught.

"Gaius, I can't seem to calm him." She said, turning to the Physician, her voice meek and helpless. Her eyes burning with determination and fire.

"Here, I'll take his Highness," The Physician said, holding out his free arm and pulling the red, wriggling infant again his chest, before proffering his other arm. She gracefully- gently- took the sweet baby, pressing him to her chest and rocking softly as she rubbed his back.

The Physician's arm felt strangely empty without the weightless person cradled in it.

He wrapped the spare arm around the scared blond, wishing with all his heart he could tell the little Prince that his brother would be okay.

"And I'll take the runt." She finished, to unacostumed ears, her voice probably sounded cold and distant. But the Physician had played pretend with her far to often in youth. He knew it was love.

"Excellant- and be quick about it- Uther could be home any moment!"

His sister nodded, bobbing her head at the Queen before turning for the door. Their eyes electric green met ocean blue and worlds of words passed between them. Then with a flash of vanilla and the brush of her purple skirts against his leg she was gone, vanished out the door for what his heart knew was the last time for a long time to come.

Hunith-

Yes, brother?

Ealdore. Go to Ealdore.

A laugh like tinkling bells chimed in his head.

I always was, brother.

The lump in his throat was raw as tears leaped to his eyes. He blinked them away before the Queen could see.

I love you, Hunith. He knew she had to go- was eternally greatful that she was- but every step she took his heart broke.

And I love you. But don't say it like you saying goodbye, silly old coot. We'll be back.

They chuckled, his more of a dying wheeze and then she was gone.

He was drawn back in time not by the twisting, sobbing baby in his arms, but the complaints of his mother.

"Honestly- shut that thing up before I do!"

He crushed the Prince to his chest even tighter, bending next to the infant's ear with the only comfort either of them had.

"Don't cry, little Prince. They'll be back."