"…so I need to go back to Ealdor. I'm sorry Arthur," Merlin said, sincerely. He was on the bus to Ealdor already. After receiving the text from his mother, he hadn't slept well the entire night, and he had called his mother early the next morning to find that his mother had collapsed at work. Hunith had been extremely reluctant to spoil his son's plans, but Merlin had not listened to a word of it and caught the first bus out to Ealdor. He had called Arthur from the bus.

"But you're coming back after you have seen her, right?" Arthur asked, still sounding hopeful. Merlin hated himself for blowing out the candle.

"I would if I could, Arthur," he tried to explain. "But she's my mother, I have got to look after her before anyone else. You understand?"

There was silence for a second on the other side before Arthur replied. "I'd do exactly the same."

Merlin huffed in relief. He was worried more than he realized that Arthur would take offence.

That was the last they had spoken. Merlin dedicated the next few days into looking after his mother. There were things to fix at his home, supplies to buy, bills to pay and he tried to do all of them together, and it often left him no time to himself. Christmas day came and went, and Merlin tried his best to cheer himself up with the fact that it was the first time since he had arrived that Hunith had moved to the living room from the bedroom all by herself, and Merlin spent the day watching all the movies on TV with his mother, trying not to think about what might have been.

He spent a lot of time with his mother, mostly beside her bedside, talking about his life at university. He felt like a little boy again during these moments. His mother smiled at him when he told her about Arthur's phone calls, and he realized that she was only reflecting his own smile which had unconsciously popped up just at the thought of Arthur.

In the midst of all that, Merlin hardly got to talk to Arthur. He did try calling to wish him a good Christmas, but Arthur seemed strange and preoccupied. Merlin tried not to read too much into it, figuring that Arthur would be out partying with his mates.

It was the day before New Year's Day when there was an unexpected knock at the door, and Merlin opened the door to find Arthur standing there.

"Surprise!" he said, looking quite pleased with himself.

"Arthur!" Merlin blinked, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. "What… what…?"

Arthur chuckled. "May I come in?"

Merlin moved aside automatically, making way. "What are you doing here?" he finally asked.

Arthur shrugged. "I decided to come home for New Year's after all," he said, trying to brush away the fact. "And since you were here too, I thought I'd come say hello."

"But… but you said you wanted to party and Ealdor cannot possibly match up to London and there was no way you were coming back for the holidays—"

Arthur kept his back to Merlin, so he couldn't see his face but he heard what his friend said anyway and it made him stop in his tracks.

"Well, I decided to make an exception."

Arthur stayed all through the day at Merlin's though, following him around as he went all over the house doing chores, even sitting by his mother's bed and delighting her with tales of London as Merlin watched on with a fond smile. Even though they had been on the phone constantly with each other throughout the previous semester, this was the first time in ages that Merlin was actually spending time with Arthur, and it was strange and wonderful, and he did not want it to end. They talked about everything and nothing all through the day, and when Arthur regretfully declared that he was expected back at home for dinner, Merlin couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment that he wouldn't be spending the night.

On New Year's Eve, Arthur turned up just after lunch with his laptop bag in tow.

"Morgana's being a bitch," he said by means of greeting.

Merlin chuckled as he let him in. "Hello to you too, Arthur."

"She's miffed that Morgause couldn't come for the holidays and she has to spend it with Father, so she convinced him that New Year's should be a family affair this year, and I have to be at home for dinner again," Arthur grumbled as he sat down on the loveseat and began to set up his laptop on the coffee table.

Merlin smiled, because it made him strangely happy that Arthur would rather have spent the night with him. He was distracted again when Arthur began to boot up his laptop and connect flash drives to it.

"What are you doing?" he asked when Arthur failed to explain voluntarily.

"I wanted to show this to you before we rung in the New Year but I guess that's not happening, so it has to be done now," he said cryptically. Merlin frowned in confusion.

"Aha!" Arthur exclaimed after a couple of minutes, and then looked up to find Merlin still standing and watching him. "Well, come on," he said, impatiently waving Merlin closer until he sat down beside Arthur.

"What is it?" he asked, but Arthur only shushed him and pointed to the screen as the video player started playing. There was just static at first, and then Arthur's face filled up the screen.

"Is it recording?" on-screen Arthur was saying. "Merlin, can you seeee meeee?" he said to the camera and giggled at himself. "I'm sorry we started drinking without you so I'm a little unstable right now," he said a little more seriously, stumbling adorably away from the camera. And then he stretched his hands out suddenly and declared, "This is your New Year's party! Welcome to London!"

"Oh god, I was so drunk," the Arthur sitting beside Merlin commented, chuckling at his own screen version. Merlin could hardly move, though, frozen to the seat. Waves of affection crashed through his body, and all the words in his head got stuck in his throat.

"It's basically me and Gwaine and Percy, and I guess Leon was there for a while too, going to all the pubs we wanted to hit on New Year's Eve," Arthur went on to explain, possibly taking Merlin's silence as confusion. "The video is very poor because we were very drunk, but yeah," he finished.

The video had been going on to show snatches of what looked like an eventful night. Arthur made everyone say hi to the camera, so Merlin knew who they were, and then the boys entered what Merlin presumed was the first of several pubs. They had a continuous conversation on-going between themselves but Arthur kept turning to the camera from time to time and speaking to Merlin, small things like "That's so stupid, right?" and "Don't listen to him Merlin, that's total bullshit." Arthur pressed pause after about five minutes. He closed the program and turned to look at Merlin. "It goes on for quite a while," he said.

"Um. Are you alright?" Arthur asked when Merlin hadn't said anything for a while. Merlin wanted to say several things, 'Thank you' and 'Why me?' being the top contenders. "Why did you stop it?" he asked instead.

"Oh, because I've got to go," Arthur replied, expression turning pained. "Father is throwing this family dinner thing, didn't I tell you? I am being forced to dine with ancient uncles and aunts I didn't know were still alive or even existed in the first place. It's going to be simply horrible," he moaned, while he switched off his laptop and unhooked the flash drive. He held it up in front of Merlin.

"Here you go," he said. "You'll watch it tonight, yeah?"

"Of course," Merlin grabbed at it, almost grabbing Arthur's hand in the process. "I… thank you, so much!"

Arthur only smiled at him before getting up to leave. He paused at the door, however, and looked at Merlin for a moment before saying, "Hey, um, call me." Before Merlin could figure anything out, he had turned and left.