"I thought you had the key." Her arms full of bags, Gwen glared at Merlin who was rummaging through his huge backpack. "I asked and you said you had it."

"I thought I did!" He turned his bag over and dumped everything onto the floor. Various notebooks, a half-eaten energy bar, his tablet and an assortment of stationery tumbled to the ground in a cloud of crumbs.

No key.

Sheepishly, Merlin glanced up at her. "Oops."

"It's a weekend, Merlin! It'll take forever for the building manager to get back to us with the extra keys," said Gwen as she thought mournfully of her hungry stomach and the frozen pies in the refrigerator.

"Percy!" said Merlin.

For a moment, Gwen's spirits lifted. Percy would have better food than frozen pie in his kitchen, then she remembered it was Saturday night and he always spent it with her brother.

"Well, how about that old man who lives upstairs? Killy's owner?" Merlin suggested when Gwen told him Percy was unlikely to be home. "You're friendly with him."

Gwen raised her eyebrows. "Only if by friendly, you mean waving to him in the mornings at the bus stop. And we might as well wait here. It'll just be awkward upstairs."

"I suppose," said Merlin, pouting slightly as he stuffed his things back into his bag. "I thought we could visit Killy.'

"Oh, alright. Come one," said Gwen, shifting so the bags felt more balanced. "Let's visit Killy. We can call the building office from his place."

Linking his arm through hers, Merlin grinned. "Good enough. Come. Perhaps he will share his lunch with us."

As they trudged up the stairs, ladened with their groceries and other shopping, Merlin went back to their previous topic, which was whether they should buy a rice cooker or not. Gwen's stance was that a rice cooker would be more than useful to have around, seeing that it could be used to cook more than rice. Merlin's stance was that their kitchen was too small for even more appliances.

"Anyway, aside from the pies you seem to like to bake, we barely cook. And we have Percy now."

"Percy's not our private chef," said Gwen even as she had to admit that Percy often cooked enough to feed them as well. "And if we get a rice cooker, we can cook one pot meals in them and we won't have to depend on Percy."

"That's a terrible idea," said Merlin. "Why would we want to discourage Percy from cooking for us? The way I see it, the more pathetic we seem, the more Percy will cook for us. Then we will all be happy bunnies."

"Happy bunnies." Gwen pressed her lips together as she shot Merlin a doubtful look, which was roundly ignored by Merlin.

"Have you ever seen an unhappy bunny?"

"I can't say I have but those with droopy ears don't seem very happy."

"Pfft," said Merlin with a wave of his hand. "Don't be fooled by their appearances."

"Ok, bunny expert," laughed Gwen. "I think this is Gaius's place."

When they knocked the first time, there was no answer, but Gwen could hear noises from within. She told Merlin to knock again. This time, Gwen heard latches and locks and after what seemed like several minutes, the door cracked open.

"Who is it?"

"It's Gwen and Merlin. Remember we looked after Kilgarrah for you before?"

The door swung open and Gaius popped his head out, a frown on his face. "Who's the skinny lad?"

"I'm Merlin. I looked after Killy."

"Killy?" Gaius's frown got even deeper even as he pulled the open further and stepped aside, gesturing them to enter. "You call Kilgarrah, Killy?"

Merlin shrugged. "He seemed to like it."

The apartment was smaller than Merlin's and the furniture sparse, although what furniture there was, Gwen was pretty sure was expensive. But it wasn't the furniture that caught her eye. It was the wall lined with photos of who Gwen assumed was a younger Gaius, dressed in the most eye-catching bright robes, a wizard's hat haphazardly placed on his head. Perched on his shoulder was Kilgarrah.

"Ah." From the armchair where he was now sitting, Gaius gestured to the photos. "When I was younger. People don't appreciate the fine art of magic nowadays."

"Close your mouth," hissed Gwen to Merlin who stood beside her. Then she turned and smiled widely at Gaius. "It looks like you were very successful."

He nodded but still squinted suspiciously at her. "I was. Why are you two here?"

Gwen explained not having their keys with them as Merlin stared at the photos, his mouth, despite her reminders, still open slightly. She thought that she should count her blessings that Merlin wasn't stroking the photos.

"I want to learn how to do magic," said Merlin suddenly, swinging around. "This is awesome. I want to learn it too."

Gaius didn't look too pleased at having a potential apprentice. Gwen tried to tell Merlin to stop it with her eyes but Merlin being Merlin merely widened his grin and started chattering about how he used to love to watch the magicians on television when he was a kid and how it would be so brilliant to be able to do some card tricks.

When Merlin finally ran out of breath, Gaius had one eyebrow raised and a contemplative look on his face. "I suppose I could do with the company."

"I'll pay you, of course," said Merlin, nodded vigorously. "And I have my own pet iguana now."

The building manager finally arrived a good two hours later and Gwen was half-dozing on Gaius's sofa and half-texting Lance. Around the large dining table, Gaius gave Merlin a speech about the magician's code, then taught him some simple card tricks. Gwen sighed. She was going to be subject to 'pick a card' for the next few weeks at least.

Gaius might have been generous in teaching Merlin magic, but he didn't offer them lunch so the moment the building manager opened up their flat, Gwen went straight to the kitchen and opened the fridge.

"Want an apple?"

"No thanks! Don't you think visiting Gaius was a great idea?" Merlin hopped onto the bar stool and propped his face on his hands. "It's fate."

"I never knew you were interested in magic," said Gwen as she bit into the apple.

Merlin's eyes twinkled. "I was when I was a kid. And you know what is even better?"

"What?"

"This is going to annoy Arthur so much."

Two days later, Merlin came back, tossed his things onto the sofa and declared solemnly that Arthur had banned magic in the office.

Four days later, Gwen woke up in the middle of the night to get a drink and found Merlin and Morgana hunched over their dining table, playing with cards.

"Isn't Merlin's magic cool?" Next to Morgana, Merlin shot Gwen a smug look.

Rubbing her eyes, Gwen asked, "I thought you two just liked the sex."

"The magic is pretty good too," said Morgana. "Almost as good as the sex."

Gwen grabbed a bottle of water, shook her head then went back to sleep.

Two weeks later, Gwen found Lance watching Merlin in awe as he did another of this tricks.

"Not you too!"

Laughing, Lance pulled her to the sofa, kissed her and tucked her close to him. "He's good. It's like he's a natural."

"Gwen is very unimpressed," said Merlin, layering his voice with a thick coat of sadness.

Gwen grabbed a cushion and threw it at Merlin.