It was the day, after a week and a half, it was finally the day. Merlin sat in the rec room, fingers fiddling with the keys of the piano, but every so often he would check his watch. 4:30 PM was when their plane got in, which means, as it was half passed five, they should be here any moment. They hadn't called or anything, to say they had returned safety. Uther had only called Arthur once the whole time, to, in Arthur's words, 'make sure they weren't dead.' Now, Merlin could understand they were on their honeymoon and whatever, but that just made it seem, even more so, that they didn't really care.

There was loud banging coming from outside, and Merlin knew his own personal vacation was over now. He got up and headed out, knowing that if he did what they did and didn't go see them, and did not fake that he cared, well...then he was just rude and ungrateful. So, Merlin walked into the foyer, to shouting as the front door burst open, as Hunith stomped in and slammed the door behind her.

"Pack!" she yelled at Merlin and for a second, he was taken aback by this. He hadn't done anything to warrant this, so he only stare at her. By now, both Arthur and Morgana walked in. Arthur from the sitting room and Morgana from upstairs. Hunith glared at each of them equally, which made Merlin feel a little bit better, honestly. "Cheating scum!" she continued to yell and Merlin wasn't sure if she meant him or not, but then she continued. "I did not know your Father cheated on his first wife!"

"My mother?" offered Arthur, with his own level of confusion. "Yeah..."

"I thought she had just died!"

"No...I mean, where do you think Morgana came from?" offered Arthur. Hunith frowned and gave him a very dirty look.

"I thought you had the same mother and she had just died..."

"No," said Arthur, glaring back now, too. Because, it was kind of rude to keep bringing up the fact that Arthur's mother was dead, Merlin could easily see Arthur was getting annoyed with it. "Morgana doesn't look anything like us. My hair is blond and my dad's is...was dark brown. Where did you think she got her black hair from?"

Hunith pondered this for a long time, then shot Morgana a nasty look and rushed up stairs. The three of them looked at each other with confusion, and then the door flew open again, and this time Uther came in. Throwing their luggage onto the ground. "Where did she go?!" he demanded, as he did this. Merlin pointed up stairs, Uther shook his head and aimed a kick at one of the suitcases. "Insane bitch, has been on my case the whole trip...said I looked at our waitresses backside on our first night...didn't let it go after that."

"Why is she talking about Morgana's mum?" Arthur asked and Uther looked stressed enough to smoke something and shook his head.

"I made an offhanded comment, I hadn't been thinking..." said Uther. "It wasn't as if I hid it from her, I thought she knew. I'm sure I told her you two had different mothers, but oh did that do her in..."

Uther sighed dramatically and went up the stairs now, leaving the bags on the ground, forgotten. Morgana waited until they were sure he was up the steps before she said anything. "Typical," she commented and Arthur nodded. "She has been waiting for this."

"She's sowing those seeds already," said Arthur now. "I must say, she has balls...starting after two weeks of marriage, the last woman at least waited three months before starting the bullshit."

"I can only hear the story she'll be telling the lawyers," retorted Morgana now, and Merlin didn't know what to say, he only just stood here watching them. This was his mother after all, and he thought he should be defending her at least a little, but the sad truth is he agreed with them. "He's a cheater...well, no shit, lady!"

"HE'S CHEATING ON ME!" said Arthur in a loud, girly voice. "I CANNOT TRUST HIM EVER AGAIN, HE LOOKED AT THE ASS OF ANOTHER WOMAN, RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME...UGH!" Arthur faked a gasp and held his chest. Morgana rolled her eyes at him. "...maybe this time he'll learn."

"He won't, he's never going to," complained Morgana. "I don't doubt, four months after this, he'll bring home another stupid bitch wanting his money or his country."

Arthur sighed, almost as dramatically as Uther had and his eyes finally landed on Merlin. "I think that in the divorce settlement we should get custody of Merlin..."

Morgana looked over at Merlin then, and she smiled at him. "I think so, if not...we'll just have to steal him."

"Um," Merlin muttered. "Thanks, I think...?"

There was no peace in the house even after days. Whenever Hunith or Uther were around there was just an energy that was very off, the tension was high between them and Merlin took to staying away from them even more so than he did usually. Hunith refused to talk to anyone and Uther was now convinced he could make this better if he just showered his new wife with gifts. He brought home flowers every day and some days he also brought home small boxes of jewelry. More than once Merlin had seen his mother throw away the flowers, but still pocket the small boxes. Even after a week of this, the same fight could still be heard down the hall when Merlin walked from his bedroom to the loo and then back. It could still be heard now, a Saturday, an entre seven days since they had returned. Merlin tried to ignore it, as he sat, once again, in the rec room, fiddling with the piano keys.

Arthur had walked in, after abut an hour of Merlin being there, he looked somewhere between annoyed and amused. He shut the door behind him and came and sat down next to Merlin on the piano bench. He touched one of the lower keys as he sat and laid his head down on Merlin's shoulder. They didn't speak at all as he had done this. They hadn't really spoken about much, not about Gwen and not about what happened in the loo. And Merlin didn't want to admit that what had happened in the bathroom helped him...not forgive Arthur, but kind of, a little. Not entirely of course, but it helped Merlin stop focusing so harshly on it. Whenever he looked at Arthur, he didn't just see him with Gwen now, he also saw that moment and maybe that was a very bad thing, Merlin really didn't know. But he could also see that Arthur was genuinely sorry, he had not meant to hurt Merlin and Merlin, so used to his mother hurting him and not caring, he couldn't see that for a while. He did now, and in no way did he forget about it or the hurt he felt, but he was willing to let it go, knowing Arthur understood it had hurt him and that hadn't been his intention, and also the kissing was really, very nice and it kept him awake most nights just thinking about it. So, that did something to take his mind off it.

"What are you doing?" asked Arthur then, as if it was unclear what Merlin had been doing. Merlin smirked.

"Stuff..."

"What kind of stuff...?"

"Just...stuff."

"Song stuff?"

"Maybe," commented Merlin, offhanded. And then, Arthur looked up at him, with a real smile and the brightest, purest eyes Merlin had ever seen anyone have. It was as if the person who owned these eyes was the purest person in the entire world. Which, as Arthur was a Pendragon, and Merlin knew him, that was not true in the slightest.

"You could write me a song?" he offered then, and Merlin pulled a face.

"Why would I want to do that?" he asked, but he wrote songs about Arthur all the time. Not that he would ever admit that, not ever.

"I don't know..."

"Your ego is big enough."

"Ooh....not very nice, are we, Merlin?"

"No," Merlin retorted.

"That's very rude, I would write a song about you, if you asked me."

Merlin rolled his eyes, very dramatically. He thought, if he really wanted to be literal, pretty much every song Merlin wrote, if about feelings at all, was about Arthur. Arthur really, just had no idea. Merlin toyed, for a second, with what it might be like to tell Arthur this, to just say; 'I'm kind of a little bit crazy about you...in the worst way possible,' and then Merlin thought that these were pretty good song lyrics. So, the problem of all of the songs he writes being about Arthur, only continued.


(A/N: Happy Halloween! I hope you all enjoy this chapter, it's kinda short and not very important, but don't worry, the storms are brewing. Enjoy!)