Mr Patel spent more time talking about his wife, his children and his grandchildren than he did asking questions about the house. He also immediately assumed that Arthur and Gwen were a couple and his constant chatter made it difficult for Gwen to disabuse him of that notion. Arthur was too busy sniffling and hiding his cough to actually pay attention to the potential buyer.

When Arthur sniffed yet again, Gwen scowled at him. He'd played the obedient patient for one night, during which he'd stayed in bed, occasionally asking for water and painkillers. Then, in the morning, with a red nose and a cough, he declared himself well again and that they were expecting a Mr Patel, a potential buyer, to come over to see the place which then led to him attempting to make the house look presentable. Gwen should really have just ignored his foolish ass but when he started coughing as he scrubbed the coffee table, she cursed her soft heart and spent the rest of the morning helping him straighten the place out.

"I like this place. Very quiet, nice land at the back. Shameetha - she's just turned 4 - would love the space, and we could get her a dog, only my daughter Lakshmi is allergic to dogs. Maybe hamsters? Would someone allergic to dogs be allergic to hamsters?"

Gwen frowned. "Uh, I am not sure."

Mr Patel smiled and patted her shoulder. "I like you. You are honest."

Beside her, Arthur coughed and rubbed his chest.

"Well, I should leave you two alone. Your husband seems unwell," said Mr Patel. "It's a nice place but the asking price is a little high. I will have to discuss this with my family."

"Of course." Gwen opened the door for him, then stood there with Arthur by her side, waving at Mr Patel until he drove off. She turned and glanced at Arthur's pale face. "Happy now? You're still unwell so I don't know why you won't stay in bed."

"I got sick of canned soup."

"Fine. You can cook lunch then." She should have flounced off then, but instead she reached out and touched his forehead. "Your fever is gone."

"Told you I'm fine," said Arthur, attempting a smirk.

Gwen rolled her eyes and walked into the kitchen. She poured a cup of water and handed it to Arthur without a word.

"Thanks."

"Now will you rest?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Good idea. How about some nice chicken soup in bed?"

"You just complained about soup."

"But I'm hungry. And there's nothing else around. Plus, I'm sick."

Gwen stared at Arthur. Was he actually pouting? "Doctor Arthur Penn, you claimed you were well just this morning and now you're sick again and asking me to serve you soup in bed?"

"Please? My chest hurts. It must be all the coughing." He looked at her, his eyes widening in accompaniment to his pout.

"I don't believe you. I told you that you should have said no to that guy's visit."

"I need to sell this place," said Arthur. "And it's not like there's a queue of buyers at the front door."

"Are you in debt?"

"What? No? I'll have you know that I'm financially very stable."

"Then what is the hurry?"

Arthur stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and broke eye contact with her. "Because I need to move on."

"Oh." It was all Gwen could think to say. She remembered him saying once that he'd hated the place, although in the last week or so, he hadn't seemed to mind it that much. There was obviously some history here that she was not privy to, although there was no reason for Arthur to tell her anything. They were barely friends, thrown together because of unfortunate timing.

Arthur retreated to his bedroom and Gwen put the soup on the stove to heat up. Morgana's reference to a relationship gone wrong made Gwen wonder if this house was related to that relationship, hence Arthur's desire to quickly sell it. She stirred the soup a little and wondered if she'd had a close shave. It was one thing to indulge in some fun between the sheets with a man she found attractive. It was another to indulge in it with a man who was clearly carrying a lot of baggage from another relationship, in the house where all the baggage apparently lay.

Plus, after spending so much time with Arthur, Gwen wasn't sure if she could be physically intimate with him without getting emotionally entangled. She liked him far too much.

So, it was a good thing that the two of them had established that nothing would happen between them.

As if to taunt her resolve, Arthur sat propped up in bed shirtless, his blanket around his hips. His eyes lit up when he saw her enter and he shifted, allowing the blanket to move even further down. She kept her eyes on his face, noting that while he still looked paler than usual, he no longer looked as tired as he did the night before.

"Soup and some water. Do you need more painkillers?"

"No. Thank you."

She placed the tray on his side table, but when she turned, Arthur snagged her wrist. Slowly, she turned. "Did you need something else?"

"How about some company?"

"Are you contagious?" His fingers were still wrapped around her wrist, and his thumb was stroking her skin, sending warm tremors through her.

"Probably, but if you were going to catch anything, you'd probably have caught it by now." He tugged on her arm. "If you're not busy, sit and tell me more unicorn stories."

"You're a terrible doctor. You should care about my well-being." But she'd sat on the edge of the bed and was smiling.

He smiled back at her. "So where were we? I think Jess was about to elope with her unicorn boyfriend. I have a bad feeling about him though."


"Merlin!" Arthur tucked the phone between his ear and shoulder as he tried to fry an egg. It was supposed to be a sunny side egg but the yolk had broken, so it looked like an egg that couldn't decide if it wanted to be scrambled or not. "Hang on. I've got a message."

Arthur turned off the flame, then looked at his phone. A message from his father. Great.

"Did you call to tell me my father was summoning me back to work?"

"Yeah," said Merlin. "Sorry but with Elly quitting and Young's pregnancy complications, we're short-handed. But it's just for the week. Then you can go back to playing house with Gwen."

"We're not playing house. She is doing her writing and I'm trying to sell this place."

"Right. So you can do the morning shift tomorrow?"

"Yeah, fine." Arthur heard Gwen's door open. "Look, I have to go. See you tomorrow."

He turned around to see Gwen in her oversized t-shirt and tiny shorts shuffling to the kitchen. She ran a hand through her hair and squinted at him. "You're out of bed."

"I'm feeling much better. And this time, I'm not lying. Sit." He waved at the breakfast bar. "I figured I owe you breakfast at the least."

She didn't sit. Instead she sidled up to him at the stove and touched his forehead. This time, without his illness as a barrier, her touch was what made his skin heat up. "No fever. You're going to offer me that as reward?"

"It's not that bad," said Arthur as he lifted the pan and dumped the contents onto a plate. So maybe it was a little burnt and maybe the yolk was all over the place, but Arthur was sure that it was edible.

"Thank you, I guess." She took the plate, grabbed a fork then settled at the bar. "Some coffee would be good."

Once he made the coffee, Arthur sat down next to Gwen. "How is it?"

"Don't give up your day job." She pushed the eggs around the plate a little more, then grimaced at Arthur. "The coffee is good though."

"Thank you," he said. "For putting up with me the last two days."

She shrugged. "It wasn't terrible although you tended to fluctuate between being a bit whiny and insisting that you weren't sick."

Somehow, he'd a strand of her hair wrapped around his finger. He rubbed it, enjoying the softness. "Thank you. A plate of eggs probably isn't enough to thank you, but it was that or more soup."

Gwen shook her head and laughed, the strand of hair slipping out from his grasp. "No, I think I don't want to eat more soup for a while. But what will we do about lunch? I think there's stale bread -"

"We could go to that cozy Italian place I mentioned, before I got sick."

He tried to say it casually. After all, they had countless meals together, both in the cottage and in town over the past week. But Gwen must have sensed something different in his tone, because she stared at him, her eyes wide and Arthur could see her thinking.

He remembered her offer of casual sex, something to ease the desire that sparked between them. In the time since their first few days of friction, Arthur thought that they had developed some sort of affection, but her hesitation at his invite made him wonder. Perhaps she was simply being nice because she was staying at his place, rent free.

"It's just lunch, between friends. I figured you seeing me at my lowest means we're friends for life now."

Her smile didn't reach her eyes but she nodded. "Sounds nice. We can pick up something easy to make for dinner. I wanted to try one of those microwave chicken dinners."

"Uh, about that. I'm going to be going back to Camelot after lunch."

It was somewhat gratifying to see the disappointment that fluttered across Gwen's face. "Why? I thought you had at least another two and a half weeks off."

"The ER is short-handed. But it's just for a week. I'll be back in your hair next week."

Gwen covered his hand with hers. "You'd better."

"Someone has to protect you from the murderous unicorns that lurk around the lake."

That made Gwen laugh as she hopped off the seat. "If the Great Unicorn had not interfered in their lives so much, they may not have become murderous."

"Tell that to my father," muttered Arthur. "Let me wash up."

Arthur watched as Gwen picked up her half-finished coffee and went back to her room. Maybe at lunch, he'll get a better idea if Gwen was still open to something more than friendship with him, because right now, he wasn't sure anymore.

EatHere had called the restaurant charming. Arthur felt run down was probably more truthful. The paint was peeling at some parts of the walls, the tables were scratched and menus were dog-eared and stained. At least, it looked clean enough and Arthur wasn't about to look any more closely. None of this, however, seemed to bother Gwen who was reading out the menu to him.

"We could go to the pub," Arthur said quietly, aware that the owner was hovering near them, unsurprisingly since they were the only customers.

"No," said Gwen. "Did you see how happy the owner was when we entered? We can't leave."

Arthur rubbed at a water stain on the table. "Ok, are you ready to order?"

For a restaurant with no other customers, the food took a while to arrive. As they waited, Arthur urged Gwen to tell him how she became an author.

"You can't make a full-time living as a fantasy author, you know. So I do some other writing on the side - for magazines and blogs."

"I remember. That's how you got to know Morgana."

Gwen smiled. "Yes. Would you believe that I was afraid of her in the beginning?"

"I'm still afraid of her," said Arthur with a laugh. "She bullied me through our childhood. Unlike what they say, motherhood has not softened her at all."

"No. Frankly, I'd be more afraid if Morgana suddenly became the quiet, nurturing sort. It might signal the end of the world."

"She's still a good mother, though. Gerty seems happy and healthy. Anyway, we're getting off topic. You were supposed to tell me what made you decide to become an author."

And as they waited for their food, Gwen launched into her story. Arthur wasn't in the least surprised to learn that Gwen had been an A student, even though after her mother's death, she became her younger brother's main caretaker as her father worked two jobs. She shared about her teenage days when she escaped the druggery of her life by imagining new worlds. It was only after she started working at Camelot Talks, a tabloid newspaper, that she began to actually write about all these things that she imagined.

"It took a while, but my first book was published and fairly well-received." She laughed quietly. "I enjoyed the success for a while. Then, my father got sick. Since I had the job with the flexible hours, I did most of the caretaking."

Arthur took her hand. "It must have been hard on you."

"It wasn't easy. Dad was grumpy and angry. Elyan wanted to pretend this wasn't happening and I became more and more resentful. And, don't take it personally, but hospitals are awful places." She turned her hand around, and threaded her fingers through his. "He is currently in remission and feeling better so I thought I'd take a break and try and live a little, for myself."

"And that meant breaking into my house," Arthur asked as he ran his thumb across the back of her hand.

"You have to admit that that's exciting," said Gwen with a grin. "What about you? Did you become a doctor because of your family?"

Before Arthur could answer, their food finally arrived. Thankfully, the food smelled and looked much better than the restaurant.

"Well?" asked Gwen as she took a mouthful of pasta. "Did you always want to be a doctor?"

"As you can imagine, my father was very keen that I follow his footsteps and it was easier to just do what my father wants."

Gwen tilted her head to the side. "Are you happy being a doctor now? Morgana speaks highly of you, says you're one of the best emergency doctors she knows."

"I enjoy working in emergency so I guess it worked out well."

"Only your father wanted you to do something else?"

He poked at his steak and looked away from Gwen. "Yeah. And as I mentioned, it's always easier to do what my father wants, because right now, he's constantly going on about changing specialties, going behind my back to speak to people about taking me into their specialty, arranging surprise meetings with other doctors. It's a pain."

What Arthur didn't tell her was how his father had paid Sophia to persuade him to change specialty and how, to please her, he had almost done just that. Until he overheard a conversation between Sophia and her friend. A loud argument had ensued, and although Sophia had begged, cried and promised that she would return the money, Arthur had told her to pack and leave the apartment they had shared for 3 years.

Gwen nodded. "Your father does sound like a pain. I'm glad you stuck to your guns. Can't have been easy."

They spent the rest of the meal bantering about unicorns and tossing about ridiculous ideas of how to include Merlin into her next book.

"Every suggestion I have given, you've shot down." Arthur held the door open for Gwen, then they stepped out into the fresh air.

"As I said this morning, don't quit your day job, doctor." She leaned into his side, and it seemed natural for Arthur to sling an arm across her shoulders. "I will miss having you around."

Arthur stopped walking. A few people walked past them, but none took any notice. Gently, Arthur urged Gwen closer to the building, away from the road. She watched him curiously, but didn't pull away.

"I will miss you too. Gwen, you know that conversation we had a long time ago. The one in which we agreed to be friends without benefits?" Arthur wasn't sure Gwen could hear him above the pounding of his heart.

Her eyes widened, but she nodded.

Slowly, giving her time to move away, he lifted his hand and cupped her cheek. "I was wondering if we could change the terms of our friendship."

"You want benefits?" Gwen sounded less than keen and whatever confidence Arthur had escaped like air from a deflating balloon. And put that way, whatever he was about to suggest sounded sordid, and sordid wasn't what he wanted. Arthur wasn't exactly sure what he wanted.

Arthur swallowed, trying to wet his suddenly dry throat. "Not benefits, really. But I like you and well, I really want to kiss you."

She chewed on her bottom lip and Arthur was pretty sure she was wondering how to turn him down gently. It was a good thing that he was leaving that afternoon. He could return to Camelot and lick his wounds in private.

Then, she fisted her hand in his shirt, tugged him to her and after all his fantasies, her warm, soft lips were finally pressed against his. Sliding his free arm around her waist, he pulled her closer and deepened the kiss. She tasted like the cheesecake they had shared earlier and the scent of her perfume teased his nose. He dug his hands into her hair, loosening the pony tail and letting her hair spill over his hand. Desire swelled in his trousers and sent heat rushing through his veins.

She giggled, then pulled away, not far enough that Arthur didn't try to recapture her lips.

"Gwen," he groaned when she pressed a palm against his chest to stop him. Then, he let his forehead fall forward, resting it against hers.

"We can talk about it when you return next week," she whispered.

"What was that? A teaser?"

Her smile lit up her face and she stepped away from Arthur. "It's something for you to remember."

Quickly, he took her hand, and with their fingers entwined, they walked down the main street together, to the supermarket for Gwen to stock up, then back to the car.

For the first time in a long time, Arthur actually felt a sense of hope and happiness.


AN: FFnet is not publishing reviews which makes me sad. But I did get your reviews in my email! Thank you so much for them. They really encourage me.