I'm back! Although, I don't really feel that it's a good thing at the moment. Devon was a hell of a lot more... quiet etc. And it was fun, even if my foot did practically collapse, rendering me nigh on useless for the majority of the week. But, ah well, can't be helped.

This chapter wasn't meant to be as short, but I couldn't think of what else to put in it.

Again, thank you for the reviews, and for being patient. And, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know, I can feel some slash coming on – not just the airy-fairy skirt around the truth stuff I've been lumbering you with up until now.


Chapter Nine

I swear it was like divine inspiration. An insane thought that burst into terrific existence in my head, linking back to something I'd noticed before -

My first recognition of Merlin's baggy and tattered clothes, and now the ironing note. And then back to my previous thought about those clothes looking good on Merlin. It was all too perfect. My mind was screaming that it wouldn't be enough. But I didn't need it to be. If only it provoked some awareness that I wanted Merlin alive, not dead. Surely that was more than enough. Surely he would hear the apology in that; surely he would see its sincerity.

I was certainly allowed to hope. Allowance was vital. Allowance gave me its own special permission to let the hope fill me up, swell and flourish inside me. As hope always should. No matter how small the problem.

I threw the note back down on the jacket, and searched through my wardrobe. I can't say I've ever felt my heart beat as fast as it was beating then. My rapidly blinking eyes seemed to be ignoring everything except the clothes I was looking for, because I remember seeing no others. Latching my fingers onto something soft that bled bright and beautiful colours around my hands, I pulled it away from any other insipid attempts at colour and held the red ruffled shirt out in front of me, and then folded it on my bed, and returned to find the breeches. Perfect. Always perfect.

But then my attention was drawn away as I heard the knock. Always a knock to seize the attention, always a knock, always intending to make you think twice. But dazed and harrowed minds don't bear the capacity to think twice. So fate's endeavour came to nothing.

"I'm leaving now," Morgana said, her pretty features showed no emotion. And her voice echoed the nonchalance and distance she was striving for. Flat and boring tones would only ever say disinterest, and disinterest was all that I heard.

I wasn't angry at her for doing something that could be perceived as running, in fact, at the time, I was all for her going. One less person to negotiate. Although, I'd like to make something very clear - I don't blame her for not trying to comfort me yesterday, this had never been up to her. She shouldn't feel the need to help. Because it's not her job. I'm old enough to look after myself now - despite the phrase itself sounding childish. This in tow, I nodded.

"I wanted to wish you luck," her head twitched as she spoke, betraying the tiniest flicker of feeling, and her hands clasped themselves plainly in front of her stomach as they would usually be found. Cogs ticked over inside my skull, trying to work out what it was that she meant, what it was that I needed luck for. "But I hope you realise that Merlin deserves better." She gave a small smile, and awaited my reply.

My tongue flipped back in my mouth and blocked any breathing for a second; I coughed and took a wary step forwards, "You know how I feel?" It was a risk - if I had it wrong, and she was merely falling into the uncaring grasp of coincidence, then she would demand my reasoning, and, by God, her icy claims would steal it for her. If I had it right...

"Of course. Anyone who knows you would be able to work it out. You're so subtly unsubtle." She giggled, a little too smug, but then seriousness took her face as she watched the floor with unfocused and suddenly teary eyes, "I spoke to him this morning," her features were long, and my heart had skipped so many beats I forgotten the fingers to count, "and he still thinks you're leaving with me."

"I'm not."I replied quickly - hastily correcting any misconceptions before unintended mistakes could be made.

"I know, Arthur." She breathed, and my restarted it's heavy slow clicks as I realised - she'd accepted that I wouldn't be coming, she'd come to that deduction the second she'd assumed my feelings. That was something I'd never properly understood about Morgana - she showed such bitterness, so many morals and persistent harshness, but she was forever capable of exceptional compassion. "He's taken my suitcase down to the carriage, and I expect you to wave me off. He'll be there as well. Gaius will want him to be gracious." She stated, tilting her chin upwards in finality. "Don't blow anymore of your chances, hmm?" Her lips twitched in sweet and sour threat before she turned away from me and glided with her usual Morgana elegance out of the door.

I nodded and watched her leave, smiling as I recollected the finer details of our conversation, of its situation, as I recollected the fact that her hair had been behind her shoulders. She'd obviously decided that she no longer needed that 'tool'. Not with Merlin on the loose - or rather, on my heart. There was something so incredible about that woman, not that I knew what it was. Just that it never failed to wow me.

Within half an hour, I followed her down to the hall.

Merlin stood by the front door, having already taken the baggage out and placed it cautiously on the back seats, his hands were held behind his back by his own nervousness as Arthur descended the stairs. His eyes never made contact with the man's who he still wanted to call the inspector, but that wasn't to say he wasn't watching him, nodding as the blond made to pass him. Uncertainty once again overwhelmed him as, with the vision of Arthur Pendragon before him, he remembered the betrayal, remembered how angry he'd felt at the deceit, realised how that anger no longer even touched him. However, he knew Arthur still expected him to be angry. A small smile flicked his upper lip as he thought of all the ways Arthur might try to make it up to him. It was safe to say, he'd be disappointed by a simple bouquet of flowers. Betrayal required so much more than that...

Arthur held a hand out to help Morgana into the carriage, feeling her cold and metal smooth skin against his own, and finding no pleasure in it. Not as he had as recently as the beginning of last week. With a brisk and curt nod he motioned the driver to prepare to leave, who tightened the reigns he was holding. He turned to his sister and whispered a few final words. Letting the beauty and bliss that begged to befall him as he spoke them, befall him. "Tell father I won't be coming back,"

The polite smile left her face, and was replaced by a small and furrowed expression of longing. Of something that she yearned for but could not let herself have - Arthur blinked and he missed it, "I'll miss you."

He laughed, the sound rippling across the deserted driveway, carried away on a desolate breeze that seemed to weave its way over the quilts of hills - because Merlin heard it seven times over. "I expected nothing less."

She placed a hand on his shoulder and muttered a conclusive 'Good luck', then let the carriage pull her away.

The image shrunk, the further away she got, and Arthur let out a sigh of suppressed release. He watched the trees swaying gently and heard their whisper, and to that, the lengthening grass seemed to reply with a parallel tranquillity. A tranquillity that Arthur would venture to find within himself, using a key that was ready crafted with exquisite shape and gold glint. The key being Merlin.

I won't deny being scared for him - no one should feel the need to hide something that eats away at them with quite that amount of vigour. A father should be prepared and willing to understand - and I won't deny being scared for Merlin. I feared that the desire I had seen and heard and imagined in him to be loved would overwhelm his sense of judgement. How could anyone possibly know if Merlin returned Arthur's fervour?

However, these past two days had given me reason to think for myself. To realise a fear that should have spiked more recognition than it did. If Arthur could forget and put behind him his irrational fear of magic and his father, then why couldn't I? Why couldn't I accept something that I was?

If I went through with the confrontation I was preparing myself for with Uther, Arthur might be seeing me a lot sooner than he'd concluded. If I went through, that is, with my confession to Uther... That I had magic...

Arthur's eyes were held by the empty space for a second longer, trying not to think about and turn to meet the confused and anxious gaze that would be watching him.

"I knew you wouldn't leave." Was the only thing that he heard, the width of the sound convinced him Merlin was smiling, and the grin that he was presented with as the boy rounded him did not disappoint on any level: heart-draining sadness, uncontainable joy, and blissful peacefulness.

Arthur so wanted to ask 'Am I forgiven?' but he was too scared that the answer would be 'no'. To fall at the first hurdle would indicate that he'd never really been in the race, "Really?"

"Yeah." The tone to Merlin's voice would have fitted so perfectly as a response to the question Arthur had wanted to ask, but instead its meaning was trivial. Trivial in comparison. But Arthur still found himself clinging to the very sound.

"Merlin?" He suddenly thought, taking this time as good as any, but didn't wait for the 'yes' that was inevitably coming, "I..." He paused and half-smiled, "Follow me." He darted towards the house; he leapt up the porch steps and around the open door, catching a loose flap of sleeve on the wood. Hearing the servant hot on his heels (only with less impressively stable and rhythmic footsteps) rammed butterflies and roses - thorns and all - into his chest, and he did all he could to follow them with more. The clacks brought with them the concept of someone. The concept of someone wanting to follow them, the concept of someone that is willing to follow them, the concept of never having to hear a single set of footsteps to feel that you are but one person. And the concept choked the both of them.

Gaius' eyebrow was raised as they passed him on the landing.

Arthur stopped when he reached his bedroom, turning to see the pink-cheeked Merlin stumble in after him five split-seconds later.

"Well," Merlin said, "That was childish," he leaned against the bedpost to gather his breath, always watching the already-composed sorcerer-hunter.

Arthur threw his head back and laughed, letting the joy flood down his throat from the pleasure that his eyes were being allowed to behold to the fidgety unsettling that crushed the balance in his feet.

Merlin grinned back, but his eyes quickly reverted to the floor. Again, when the vision of Arthur brought back the memories of betrayal.

Impulse drove Arthur's next words, an impulse that fought to fizzle out any remaining ice with heated clawing fingertips, "I can't expect you to forgive me, Merlin. Ever." He smiled, and watched Merlin duck his head, "but I... I don't want you to hate me-"

"Arthur, don't be stupid, I don't hate you." His head snapped up as quickly as it had lowered and a hand elaborately portrayed his truth, enough that Arthur saw nothing but.

"Well, you should."

"Well, I don't."

Arthur stared for little more than a moment, eagerly lapping up that smile and the words that denied all hate - because that was what his next actions were meant to achieve. Only, they had already been achieved. Nevertheless, he spun around, grabbing the clothes from the place where he'd folded them neatly on his bed. Disregarding his earlier attempts at being domesticated. Before breathing deeply, tightening and then relaxing his grip on them - exerting any doubt and diminishing and nerves - and then turning to give them to Merlin.

"What's this?" Merlin looked genuinely confused, as if he'd never seen clothes before. Arthur looked his up and down, acknowledging the rags the boy wore - no, I don't suppose he has.

"I'd like you to put them on." He said, keeping his voice surprisingly soft and tender. The only tone he thought anyone should ever have to use with Merlin.

"What?"

"I thought, a few days ago, that they'd suit you. So, I'd like you to wear them."

Merlin blushed, grinning like an idiot. His hand stuttered by his side, as if deliberating over whether or not this was a good idea. Judging by the hot skin that brushed Arthur's finger, stealing his breath, a minute later, he'd decided to damn good ideas.

Nodding his thanks, he left to change.

And Arthur watched lustrous ebony hair and a thin un-muscled body disappear into the bathroom, grinning like the idiot that he'd seen in Merlin's grin minutes before.

The boy was back within five minutes, returning just as he was finishing fastening the top button.

"No, no, come here." Arthur beckoned with his hand, but made a few steps towards the boy anyway, brushing Merlin's fingers off the button and undoing it. "There. You don't look so much of an idiot now,"

"But I did before?"

"No... But now, you look..." He stepped back to admire it. The glimpse of pale skin where he'd just opened the button, the cling of the material around his skinny wrists and lean waist. The way his legs looked even thinner in the darker cloth. The unconfident uneven weighting that he stood with... That wouldn't do... "You look good." He coughed and scratched the back of his neck, "You look good."

"Thanks... Um... When do you want them back?"

"Back? Oh, I don't want them back," he stepped towards him again, not needing to outstretch a hand to brush a crease out of the material on the shoulder. He noted how Merlin's eyes widened - probably to do with the gift, not the proximity.

"Arthur, they're too expensive for a servant," he whispered, his breath pattering against Arthur's face - a sensation Arthur didn't intend to forget.

Then came Arthur's next slip, spilling from his mouth as if the mere feel of Merlin so close was messing with his head, "Nothing's too expensive for you." ... Ah...

Merlin blushed and turned to face the door, desperately trying to hide how much that statement stirred within him - even though he'd soon resign himself to the supposed reality that it had either been sarcasm, or a friendly note. "Are you sure about that?" He asked, prying for an answer, prying and praying that Arthur would say much more with a similar delicacy. Slinging one leg over the other, he sat himself on Arthur's bed, contently watching, "I mean, would your father agree with you?"

"Merlin, I don't care about Uther. If he knew you then he'd realise." Arthur said without a second thought - second thoughts only caused doubt - and slumped beside the thinner boy. He leant forwards, maintaining a safe distance by a straitened arm locked in place by the bed. He hoped the intensity he could feel in his own gaze might convey the truth his tongue was too cowardly to speak.

"Realise what, exactly?" Still praying, and still unable to manage anything above a whisper.

The blond thought, and despite his position of great control, he took the way out that his tongue had chosen. He chose to push himself away, turn his eyes to something else - something he saw less interest in - and turn his voice to something he hated to talk about, "That not all sorcerers are evil."

Merlin laughed softly, "Great."

"Merlin, I don't think he... Well, I..." Arthur stammered, not sure how best to phrase his pathetic attempt at reassurance - and maybe something more, if only he dropped his guard.

"You want me to keep the clothes?" Merlin tried - his question seemingly innocent. But he and Arthur both heard the silent understanding that was passing between them, and it felt like so restraining to keep that pointless pretence that may as well have been silence. Merlin wanted so dearly to feel something, something that resembled bravery, that would let him speak his mind, let him ask the questions he was dying to ask. But, regardless of the fancy clothes that would surely make him appear upper-class, he was still a serving boy in rags. No serving boy should speak those sorts of thoughts.

"Yeah, something like that." Arthur smiled, and Merlin nodded to leave the room. Arthur didn't try to stop him, believing, with a strangled reluctance that some things are better left unsaid.

At least for now.


My eyes are nearly closed – too much Graphics coursework and I've already missed the deadline. Not a good situation to be in, if you ask me. So, that's my pathetic excuse for why the end of this chapter (and probably the rest of it) is more than a little bit rubbish. I do apologise, but I owed you a chapter, I tried my hardest, honest.

Please review and I'll try to make the next better,

Oh, and very very very excited about Glee tonight! I think I might write a fic about Kurt, because, well, let's face it, he is spectacular! (There is surely no other word to describe him)

Sorry, I'm waffling...