This Isn't Camelot (and We Have No Excalibur)
by misscam

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

Author's Note: Set as a (possible) missing scene during "Let No Man Put Asunder".

II

There are many things Olivia should probably feel in this moment – shame, failure, desire – but most of all, she just feels an almost deafening sense of relief.

She has fought it so long. Now she won't have to. Now she can lean in, close her eyes and kiss Lloyd Simcoe, who isn't quite Lancelot and won't bring down a kingdom.

Bring down a marriage, that he has a lot of help with. Hers, Mark's, the future's – even Dylan's and Charlie's a little. It all seems to have come together to this, and here she is, not pulling away and not walking away.

Lloyd is right. It's not an accident.

Lloyd's hand is warm as it brushes against her neck and she lifts her own to settle at the base of his neck. The other hand remains linked with his resting on her knee, and she can feel his thumb gently caress her skin even as the kiss grows more forceful and less tentative.

She hasn't allowed herself to think what a kiss between them might be like, so she has no preconceptions to compare it to and she doesn't want to use Mark as a standard. (Not fair to Mark. Not fair to Lloyd. Not fair to her.) What it is, is pleasant and wanting and a very good invitation for revisiting.

What it is, is not enough. She wants more.

She shifts slightly as she leans back against the pillows of the couch, Lloyd following her without breaking the kiss. After a few seconds, he does pull up slightly, touching her cheek so carefully she wonders if he thinks she might break.

"Olivia," he says, her name sounding like a caress. "Dylan is sleeping, but maybe we shouldn't... I have a bedroom, we could... I mean, I don't want to assume..."

"I want," she says, reaching up to kiss him again before she starts thinking. He responds eagerly, parting his lips and running a hand up along her back, supporting her up from the couch. She hooks her own arms around his neck as he begins to back carefully in a direction she assumes is towards the bedroom.

She knows he's been so careful not to quite make a move on her for so long, just as she's been so careful to avoid him. They've both failed, and she wonders briefly if they've both wanted to just enough to succeed.

Because here they are, and Lloyd closes the bedroom door behind them while she lowers her hands to his chest and starts unbuttoning his shirt. She already knows what his chest looks like, she still lowers her gaze for a moment to see.

This is it, then. This is her future, built brick by brick by every moment of her present. This is as she saw it, and will be as she felt it.

"Lloyd," she says, tasting his name on her lips as his lips wander down the side of her neck. Her eases her jacket off and fumbles with her scarf for a moment, making her laugh softly. He smiles at the sound and she lets herself think it a lovely smile, as she's tried to avoid noticing in the past. His smile fades when she lifts her arms and yanks her sweater off in one smooth motion, and he swallows a little as he looks at her.

"Are you sure?" he asks, his voice dark and slightly hoarse.

Later, when they're both fucked and sweaty and his skin is clinging to hers as they both lie breathless, she will be sure this isn't the closure to whatever undefined between them that they've both seen is there. For now, she can just watch him tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear almost gently, a strange contrast to what she wants him to do to her right now, and how.

"You're in that room on April 29th," she says, repeating his own words. After a moment he nods, before kissing both her eyelids, and her nose, and her jaw, and the corner of her mouth, darting his tongue across her lips.

When he kisses her, she pushes him back against the bed with his arms around her; they both fall.

II

There are many things Lloyd should probably feel in this moment – happiness, out-shaggedness, exhaustion – but most of all, he just feels an almost deafening sense of relief.

He's felt guilty and sorry for the increasing inconveniences he's caused Olivia enough already, at least now he has something proper to put on his CV of sins. (Right next to 'amplifying a global blackout causing the deaths of 20 million', but he's used to that one.)

Olivia is silent as she rests her head on his chest. Her face is still a little flushed, and her skin feels warm against the hand he's resting on her naked back. He can't think of anything clever to say – at least without evoking either the space-time continuum or Merlin and magic.

Both might make her laugh, of course, and he thinks he likes to see her laugh. He thinks he might even love it.

"I have to go soon," she says instead. "Charlie has a carnival tomorrow, I have to finish her costume."

"Oh-okay," he says, her breasts brushing against his chest as she shifts to look at him.

"What happens now?" she asks quietly.

"I don't know," he admits. "We don't exactly have a Camelot to deal with, though I suppose trying to prevent another blackout is a sort of quest for the holy grail."

"I think we should kill that metaphor with extreme prejudice," she says, a faint smile at her lips. He has to kiss her for that, and then just because it's hard to stop wanting to. When he finally does pull back, his breath feel ragged and she looks at him through lowered eyelids.

is why he'll be in her bedroom on April 29th, he thinks. Because he can sleep with Olivia Benford once and find it just not enough. Might never be enough.

He doesn't say that. Not yet. They might both have seen the future, but they're still building the present, still forming whatever this thing between them is. (Love, he doesn't think. Not yet.)

"I really have to go," she says after a moment, sitting up. She doesn't look at him as she gathers her clothes, while he keeps his gaze on her throughout.

"Olivia?" he asks, and it takes a moment before she does look at him again. "When will I see you again?"

He waits, and when she still says nothing, he gets up and walks up to her, not caring that he's quite naked.

"We shouldn't," she says, probably thinking of Mark and her marriage, as he would rather not think of at all.

"We shouldn't," he agrees, because she is right . "But we're going to, aren't we?"

Later, he'll wonder what this really is, this thing between them, half pre-destined and half free will and all confusion and emotion. For now, he just leans in as Olivia kisses him, just a touch desperately.

"Yes," she says quietly, "we are."

FIN