A big thank you has to be said for my new Beta Eris Dea Disaccordo!

Chapter 3: Your First Staff Meeting

"So? How'd you like your first day at the café?" Will asked as Merlin piled into Will's dark green car after work. Merlin had been procrastinating over his driving lessons for ages now, so Will still have to come pick him up, and as Will had verbalized on many occasions Merlin was a lucky bastard to have Will as his best friend.

"Not bad. My dish went over well," Merlin grinned, fishing his reading glasses out of his coat and grabbing the newspaper Will still had in his car. "I'm still a bit shell-shocked of course, but the Albion's kitchen is a dream though."

Will scoffed, rolling his eyes and making the car swerve a bit as he did so. Hand-eye coordination at its finest. "Well, of course your dish did well. You did the Blanquette, didn't you? What surprises me is the fact that Prince Arthur told you it was actually good! Next thing we know, you'll be skivvying for the Pratly Prince." Will shook his head and turned into the road that housed Merlin's apartment. "So should I pick you up again tomorrow, Your Majesty?" Will asked as Merlin climbed out of the green car.

"Well, I don't plan on getting a license in the middle of the night, Will," Merlin grinned, reaching back inside for his bag. "And don't we have a staff meeting tomorrow morning? Late morning? What time is the staff meeting? I think I overheard Morgana talking about it to the ginger waiter man."

Will gave a loud laugh, tossing back his head. "I'll be sure to let Leon know you think of him as the 'ginger waiter man'," Will said, grinning as he handed Merlin his coat when Merlin made a move to go back and grab it. "But yeah we do, so you better get some sleep—these things can get pretty rough."

Merlin laughed. "Night, Will." He waved and started walking away once Will waved back and pulled out into the road again. He turned toward his apartment door, fishing his keys out of his pocket and unlocking the door. As he stepped inside and shut the door behind him, his blue eyes swept over the chaos that was his new apartment—those pesky packing boxes still lurking in the corners and his books and papers stacked up in messy piles across the floor.

Keeping his keys in hand, he dropped his bag and coat on his overly plush blue arm chair and walked into his small kitchen. A large brown box rested on the counter top, marked 'Cooking utensils/pots' in board black letters. Merlin pulled up one of his keys and placed the sharp edge to the brown scotch tape, and—in one swift motion—cut it open. Setting his keys aside, he started digging around in the box, looking for his non-stick skillet and his cooking tools. He gave a short cry of triumph when he found them and placed them on the cook top, then turned to pull tofu and vegetables out of the small fridge.

The tofu and vegetables were stirred around in the pan with the only utensil Merlin had been able to find in the box—a metal spatula. They started to pop and sizzle as Merlin poured in some sesame oil into the hot pan and stirred the contents around, making sure the oil coated everything.

Humming soon filled the kitchen as Merlin finished up cooking the food and pouring it in the bowl he had managed to find. Merlin quickly started to eat his food remembering all the times Gaius had heard him hum while he was cooking — He had always tried to tell Gaius it had to do with the good smelling food making him happy.

Merlin smiled as he shoved the last bit of food in his mouth, still chuckling a bit at the memories of the first time Gaius had heard him hum while he cooked, he put the dishes in the dishwasher and headed up to get ready for bed. He finished his nightly rituals fairly quickly and bunked down under his blankets. As a second thought, a long arm shot out to set the alarm for the next morning, then twisted slightly to turn out the small lamp casting the room into darkness.

He fell into dreamland almost immediately.

§O§

The staff meeting wasn't going very well.

Will had given up all pretenses and was simply leaned back in his chair, fast asleep. Gwaine was once again trying to flirt with Freya, and Lance was making goo-goo eyes from across the table at Gwen, who—unfortunately for him—was too engrossed with the fashion magazine she and Morgana were reading under the table, and was therefore not paying him any attention. Merlin had a large leather-bound cookbook on the table, his reading glasses perched on his face and his eyes darting back and forth over the open pages.

So pretty much Leon was the only one paying a shred of attention to Arthur.

"Morgause is coming back into town!" Arthur finally exclaimed, giving up on reading the letter Uther had sent to him about the new shipment of supplies soon to be delivered to the restaurant. "And Father wants us to whip up some new items for the menu and take out the ones that aren't as popular anymore. But we'll deal with that later."

That got the reaction Arthur was looking for—Will snapped awake then, Morgana and Gwen both looked up quickly from their fashion magazine, Gwaine and Freya stopped their flirting and, if possible, Leon sat up even straighter. In fact, only Merlin seemed completely nonplussed at the news.

"What's Morgause doing back in Paris so soon? I thought she was trying to steal some chef from some posh English restaurant?" Gwen asked, her confusion written over her exotic features. "There's not even a food festival going on."

Arthur shook his head and shrugged in confusion. "I don't know—Father didn't really mention much about her. He just put in that one sentence really."

Merlin raised a hand trying to get everyone's attention. "Am I the only one who has no idea who Morgause is?"

"Merlin! Did Gaius never mention Morgause Lothian to you before?" Arthur asked, his face scrunching up in an almost comical expression of bewilderment. "I thought he would've warned you about Paris's resident witch."

"Arthur, stop it! She's not a witch; she's actually quite pleasant once you get to know her," Morgana defended, green eyes blazing at the blonde man before she turned to look at Merlin. "Morgause Lothian is the owner and restaurant manager of The Idirsholas, ever heard of it?"

"That's a French restaurant. Gaius took me there once, but he never told me about Morgause. Well, unless," Merlin trailed off, wiping away a stray lock of black hair from his forehead.

"Yes, Merlin?" Arthur drawled, resting his chin on his fist.

"Well, Morgause wouldn't happen to be the 'Evil Witch,' would she?" Merlin asked. Everyone was still for a moment, before they all started laughing loudly. Even Morgana couldn't help but join in on it, after she realized that no one was paying attention to her glare.

"Yes, Merlin, that would be Morgause," Arthur managed to say eventually, still laughing as he folded up his father's letter and walked away from the table they were all situated at. "Well, that was a semi-successful staff meeting, wouldn't you all agree?"

§O§

AN: I edited this story so that Morgause does not work at the Café d'Albion I did this so that my plot works better, so if anyone is confused you may have to go back and read the edited chapters :)

Please read and review MesAmours!