Hello everyone. Welcome to my collection (in the making) of one-shots. This story is kind of in line with Just Another Normal Day, but contains all kinds of interesting situations that will never fit in with that story, so I put them here. You can think of it as outtakes. Most of these one-shots will take place after Just Another Normal Day (I got that story all planned out in my head), but there won't be any major spoilers in here. These pieces are from various POVS, taking place in both Britain and Camelot. Enjoy and let me know what you think.
Pairings and main characters: Hinted Merlin/Jo, Ros
Timesetting: AU for Just Another Normal Day, probably taking place after that story
Summary: Merlin and Jo visit a French restaurant on an operation.
Chapter 1
I'm eating… what?!
The restaurant Jo had taken him to was screaming expensive at him from every corner. He could finally pride himself in having some basic knowledge of the twenty-first century, apparently enough for Harry to request that he accompany Jo on a routine surveillance-and-bug-planting-job. Ben and Lucas were both needed elsewhere and the head of Section D wanted a date for his female officer who also had some experience in the field. Who was he to refuse?
Arthur had made quite a fuss, muttered excuses along the lines of Merlin needing to wash his clothes, but in the end he had given his permission. Not that he had much of a choice, not after Harry had come all the way to Camelot to ask for it. That very fact made Merlin suspect that there was something more to this than just a routine surveillance job, but he hadn't been protesting at all. If he had the choice between washing Arthur's stinking clothes or dining in an expensive restaurant with a good friend, he would choose the restaurant any time.
It didn't even matter that he carefully needed to watch his tongue tonight, having to remind himself to call his friend Jane and listen up whenever she called him Matthew. It didn't matter either that he had to plant a bug underneath that table in the corner when he would walk over to the toilets in about ten minutes' time. Jo had guaranteed him the food here was unlike anything he had ever tasted. That should be worth it.
They let a waiter guide them to their table near a window, offering them a view of the busy, but charming street outside. It was already dark and past the time people here apparently called rush-hour, but there were still a lot of people about. How there could be so many people living in one single city was still entirely beyond him.
'You know what to do?' Jo checked after the waiter had left, taking their coats with him. The area around their table was not yet occupied and the soft music playing inside the building guaranteed that no one else could listen in on this conversation. No one except Ros Myers, of course, who could hear every word they said, thanks to the microphones hidden away in their clothes.
'Of course I do, I'm not an idiot,' he replied with a tone of fake hurt.
'Allow me to disagree,' Ros's voice muttered in his ear.
He was seriously tempted to give a witty remark, but then stopped. It wouldn't do to get seen talking to apparently nobody, on the off chance anyone was looking in his direction. There weren't many people in here yet, but it wasn't entirely empty either.
'I'll go there in about ten minutes,' he announced, consulting the watch around his wrist, another great future invention. To keep himself busy he started studying the menu that the waiter had left in front of him. He shouldn't have bothered. He didn't understand a single word of what was written there.
'What on earth is all that supposed to mean?' he hissed at Jo, who was studying her own menu.
'It's French,' she explained.
As enlightening as that might be (because he could remember reading something about France some time ago), it still didn't help him understand the words that were staring back at him from the very expensive looking menu. He may be able to put a name to the language, but it didn't change the fact that he didn't speak one word in French, let alone that he knew what all these ridiculous long words meant.
'I'm never going to be able to make a choice from a list I can't even understand!' he moaned softly. 'At least not without making a fool out of myself.'
'As amusing as I am sure that would be, we can't allow you to attract attention in there,' Ros's voice cut in. By the sound of it she was already thoroughly amused. No surprise there.
'Standard spooks protocol,' Merlin muttered in reply. That lesson had been drilled into him ever since he had first agreed to help Section D. Although, looking back on that decision now, he had no idea it would involve eating in places like this, feeling completely lost and out of place. What on earth had happened to just catching the bad guys?
'I can choose for you, if you like,' Jo offered. 'I do have some basic knowledge of French.'
'And have the waiter think I lost my tongue, letting my girlfriend speak for me?' he shot back. He noted her cheeks coloured bright red at the mention of the girlfriend. 'Strictly operational speaking,' he added quickly, feeling his own cheeks flush as well.
Ros's laughter in his right ear told him exactly how much she believed of that speech.
'There he is,' Jo pointed out, making a subtle movement with her head to signal the waiter's arrival.
Merlin consulted his watch again. It was still a little too early, but that didn't really matter anyway. Now was as good a time as any. And at least it would spare him the confrontation with the waiter, effectively preventing him from being the kitchen's staff laughing stock. He had too much of that in Camelot already.
'I think I need to go to the toilets, darling,' he said, using the last word only because the waiter was already within earshot. 'Will you please order for me?'
She offered him her sweetest insincere smile. 'Of course, dear,' she replied. Merlin strongly suspected she would have winked at him had the operation not dictated otherwise. 'Take your time.'
Merlin walked slowly through the restaurant, taking his time like Jo had said. No one was watching him now and he intended for it to stay that way. His hand slipped into the pocket of his jacket, making sure the listening device was still there. It was. It was a shame really that Camelot had no electricity. It would have been so much easier if he would just have been able to place a bug in a suspicious person's room every now and then instead of having to resort to sneaking through corridors and listening at doors and windows, all the while risking someone seeing him.
He glanced quickly at the table he was supposed to bug. It was just another ordinary table, made for two persons only. It had already been set and there was a candle burning on the side that bordered the wall and a vase with beautiful, but obviously plastic flowers on the other end of it. The only thing that set it apart from all the other tables in this place was the number thirteen, the number of the table, that was engraved on the vase.
From the corner of his eyes he could see Jo chatting happily to the waiter, making sure the man kept his eyes on his supposed partner and not on anything else, including him. Merlin smiled to himself. He was really getting the hang of this. If he wasn't careful, he would start liking it.
Oh, who was he fooling anyway? He already liked it here. Twenty-first century London was a marvellous place, with interesting people and mysterious technology. He actually loved exploring it, especially now it was clear that this place and its inhabitants didn't present a threat to Camelot. It was an added bonus that he didn't have to keep his magic hidden for the members of the team the way he had in Camelot.
Okay, and if he was being honest, he also liked the thrill of an operation. Merlin had never been one to avoid trouble (he attracted it most of the time) and the people in this time seemed to share that attitude, which was why Section D requested his help so often these days. Not that he minded.
This time it was some kind of secret weapon deal between the Russians and some suspicious British citizen who they suspected had close links with Al-Qaeda. Attempts to bug the house of this individual had been unsuccessful thus far, so when they had discovered this dinner party it had been the answer to their prayers. Bugging a restaurant was so much easier. And since the involved parties didn't think MI-5 knew about the meeting, no one would suspect anything, which was even better.
He forced himself not to look around him again. That would probably raise some questions with the staff. He just knelt down beside the table to tie his shoelaces again, but in the meantime he quickly glued the first bug underneath the table. As he got up, he attached the second one to the inside of the vase. There was no water in there anyway, so the listening device would be safe there. After that he just walked on at a normal pace.
'I don't like to say it, but that was extremely well done,' Ros complimented him as he entered the toilets. She would have been able to follow all his movements on the CCTV cameras in the room.
Checking that the room was indeed empty, he asked: 'Was that actually a compliment?'
'Just get on with it, will you?' came her reply.
Merlin couldn't help but grin. In some ways Arthur and Ros were very much alike, even though they would probably be the last persons to admit it. Their refusal to admit that they actually cared about people was just one of those things.
'It was, wasn't it?' he pressed.
He could almost picture her face right now. 'Don't you have a girlfriend to get back to?' she inquired in a sweet voice. 'I think your dinner's being served.'
He checked his watch. How on earth could it be that the quarter of an hour had already passed? 'So soon?'
'Not everyone takes as long to prepare dinner as you do,' Ros replied.
'And here was me thinking you didn't do gossip,' he muttered. She must have heard that from Arthur.
'No, but Joanna does,' the Section Chief countered, referring to the one and only time Merlin had tried to cook in a modern day kitchen. That was one thing he wasn't eager to repeat. If there was one thing he hated about this time, it was the complexity of it all. Some things were just easier in Camelot.
In order not to have to give a reaction to that he walked back into the actual restaurant again, noting with interest that the table he had bugged not so long ago was now taken. Both the chairs were occupied by what looked like businessmen to him, but probably were something else entirely.
The man facing him looked like what Ros would describe as a bank manager. Merlin recognised him from the photograph he had seen in the meeting room. He was a high-ranking officer of the FSB (to which Connie still referred as the KGB, although he had no idea why she did that). This was definitely one of the suspects.
The one sitting with his back to him was also dressed in a crisp clean suit, but wasn't originally British, judging by his looks. Although he couldn't see his face, Merlin was sure this was the Al-Qaeda man.
He nodded at them by way of a greeting and walked back to Jo, who was waiting for him, the plates with the dishes already on the table.
'Done,' he reported.
She smiled, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. 'You took your time.'
He shrugged. 'You told me to,' he reminded her, before adding in a softer tone: 'You're just like Arthur; there's just no pleasing you sometimes.'
'You did well,' Jo said. 'According to Malcolm they have an exceptionally clear reception.' The elderly technician was currently with Ros in the surveillance van, listening to the actual conversation taking place. That meant that their part of the job was practically over, but to leave now, before they had dinner, would most certainly create some suspicion. Their suspects were already bordering on paranoid. They hardly needed to give them another reason to be wary.
Merlin glanced at his plate, frowning at its contents. It looked like a collection of shells. 'I'm going to eat shells?' he asked, eyebrows raised in a manner that closely resembled Gaius's.
Jo's smile widened. 'Just try,' she urged him. 'I'll tell you what it is later.'
That didn't do anything to solve this mystery, but knowing Jo he knew for sure she wasn't going to tell him until she was ready. And at least it wasn't rat. It couldn't possibly get any worse than that.
So he started his struggle to get his meal out. That was a job in and out of itself and when he finally got the contents out of the shell, it didn't look very appetizing either. 'Are you sure this is edible?' he asked.
She nodded. 'Pretty sure. They wouldn't serve it otherwise.' She risked a quick glance at the terror suspects. 'Our Russian friend has it too.'
Why didn't that sound reassuring at all, he wondered. He looked down at his food, took a deep breath and put it in his mouth. Ugh, not only did it look bad, it tasted not so good either. It felt slimy on his tongue and he swallowed it as quickly as possible, even though what he wanted most was to spit it back out again.
He grasped his glass and took a huge sip to get the taste out of his mouth. He just didn't realise his drink was alcoholic. Oops. 'What is that?' he demanded.
Jo chuckled. 'They call it white wine.'
He shook his head. 'Not the wine, the food,' he clarified.
'That is what they call escargots in France,' she told him.
He gave her a confused look. 'Escargots?' he repeated, trying to pronounce it the right way. 'Is that French?'
The way she avoided to meet his eyes told him there was something very important she was not telling him. The fact that Ros and Malcolm were laughing confirmed it. Why did he suddenly feel like they were pulling a prank on him?
'Yes,' Jo replied, cutting her own meal. Whatever it was she was having, it looked ten times better than what he had. Merlin swore a silent oath never to let her decide again what he was having for dinner. If they ever were going to have dinner, that is.
'And what does that mean in a language that we can all understand?' he asked.
'Snails,' she replied without looking up.
'Snails?' he echoed, not yet fully understanding what it was that she was saying. 'Snails?' Then it struck him. Those weren't shells on his plate.
He jumped up, pushing his plate away from him as far as he could. He didn't care their terrorists would see this or that he was attracting attention in a way Harry had specifically told him not to do. Standard spooks protocol could go to hell. 'Are you telling me that I have been eating a real snail?!'
That's the first one. More are to follow, although I don't have a regular update scheme for this. I'll just update as soon as I got a new one-shot. I do take prompts on this one, though, so if you have an idea for something you want me to write, just let me know and I'll give it my best shot. Please review?
