No Emergency Exit; Merlin Modern AU
Title: No Emergency Exit (10/21)
Authors: mydoctortennant
Pairings: Arthur/Gwen, Merlin/Morgana
Warnings: None for this chapter.
Disclaimer: Not real. Despite birthday wishes and night time prayers to Santa (all Hail Amy Pond!) Merlin still isn't mine!
Rating: Previous chapters make it NC17
Summary: Sometimes relationships just don't work in order. Or so they find out when one mistake leads to a life altering experience.
Author Notes: For the lovely noodlesishere; this is a modern AU based loosely off of the Abby/Luka storyline in ER series 12/13. Some medical info I have taken from ER, so it's totally their fault if it's wrong! Other stuff I researched myself, which may not be 100% correct but I tried my hardest =]
Also; totally OUT of my comfort zone with this, so I worked extra hard. Hope it pays off.
Thanks to mustbethursday3 for reading over it for me (and suggesting Costa should sponser me for mentioning it so much XD) and purely_distel for the name =]
My Merlin Prompts Table
| Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Part Ten
It was beautiful. The trees were in full plume, with an array of wild flowers in the woodlands. There was a breeze over the water that was cooling in the summer heat. In the midst of all things, Guinevere Leodegrance knew she was incredibly lucky; currently stood in the arms of her partner without as much as a care in the world.
Well, maybe one:
“I’m not calling it Junior,” Gwen stated sternly as she looked out over the lake, Arthur standing behind her with his arms tucked around her midriff, gently massaging his hands over her baby bump.
“Good job I was joking,” Arthur laughed into her ear.
They stood silently for a minute, listening to the nature that surrounded them. It felt strange to be away from the hubbub of the Emergency Room and the city. Gwen was in no hurry to get back, taking every moment they had there for what it was worth; enjoying every second of their time together.
“What about Daisy?” Gwen asked breaking the silence. Arthur had an image of a small blonde girl throwing Lego bricks at him in pre-school and he shuddered. She was an evil child and there was no way he was naming his little girl after her.
“No.”
“Why not?” They’d been playing this game for hours and had still come no closer to any conclusions.
He wasn’t about to admit to discarding a name because a girl used to pick on him when he was three, “Just no.”
“Chris?” Arthur had no reason to dislike the name; he just didn’t want something quite so common.
“No.”
“Thomas.”
“No,” he didn’t want to name their child after any of their parents, it wouldn’t seem right and it could get mightily confusing.
“Ava?”
“Stop switching genders,” he chastised jokingly as he placed a soft kiss to the sensitive spot behind her ear.
“I’m just saying them as they come to me,” Gwen divulged. She turned her head to look at him and placed a soft kiss to his lips, “I think Ava is pretty.”
“Agreed. It’s a nice name. Ava Leodegrance-Pendragon?” Arthur enquired leaning away from her slightly so he could focus on her face without going cross eyed.
“Ava Pendragon,” Gwen confirmed, with a sedate smile on her face, “It’s cruel to give a child a seven syllable surname.”
“Really?” Arthur implored with a smile on his face. Gwen had decided that Merlin had had a point. She didn’t intend on her child growing up with one parent. Nor did she intend to live her own life without Arthur.
“Mhmm,” she smiled, a giggle of a laugh escaped her lips before Arthur stooped, tilting her chin with his finger and placed a kiss to her lips.
-
They walked down the small path that led towards the brook side. Gwen was wearing pair of bright purple Wellingtons over her maternity adjusted skinny jeans along with a baby doll shirt in the warm weather.
Arthur hopped down the small ledge and held out a hand to Gwen. She took it and looked for an appropriate way to step down without creating too much of a hard landing. Arthur smirked and turned to face her completely, placing her hand around his shoulder, making her crouch. He hooked his other arm around her knees and lifted her from the muddy ledge.
She squealed, quickly getting her other hand to clasp to his shoulder.
“You’re a lump, you know that?” Arthur joked as her slowly swung her around to carry on their walk.
Gwen batted him on the back with a smile on her face, “If I’m too heavy you could always put me down.”
“And not be your knight in shining armour?”
“Not Prince Charming?”
“Prince Arthur? I like it, him too,” Gwen wriggled in his arms, kicking out her feet, “Stay still,” he adjusted his grip, holding her tighter to his chest.
“You know, the point of a walk in the countryside is to walk, right?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Gwen squirmed again, “Fine, I’ll put you down,” he gently lowered her feet back to the ground and kept an arm around her shoulder to ensure she was balanced.
She stood and looked up at him with a blissful smile on her face. Gwen swallowed the lump in her throat and studied his tranquil features. She’d never seen him look quite so calm. Not in his comfort zone and not by cover of the hospital, not stressed and no immediate need to be anywhere or do anything.
With blue locked on brown he frowned slightly, “What?” Gwen gently shook her head not breaking eye contact with him. He laughed slightly. He leant down, tilting his head to kiss her. Gwen stopped him an inch away, smile on her face remaining.
“I love you,” she moved to close the gap only to have him keep it again.
“I love you too,” he moved to kiss her this time.
“Urgh!”
“Yuk!”
The pair of them looked towards the two voices to see a pair of kids, no older than six and eight.
“That’s grooooosssss!” the youngest elongated from behind the tree.
“Shut up, Troy!” the elder one shouted, hitting who the couple assumed was his brother around the back of the head.
“Hey, there’s not need for that,” Arthur commanded, still with his arms around his girlfriend.
“Sorry Mister,” the oldest boy said looking at the floor and digging his toe into the dirt.
“What are you kids doing out here on your own anyway?” Gwen asked, shifting away from Arthur and approaching the kids who were stood up on the ledge Arthur had carried her down from minutes before.
“Playing hide and seek,” the younger boy answered coming out from behind the tree.
“On your own?”
“We were playing with the older boys,” Troy replied again, “But we hid for ages and they never came. Scotty came to find me and we got lost.”
“Where are you guys staying?” Arthur asked approaching the kids after Gwen.
“Over in the campsite by the lake,” Arthur knew it, he’d made some friends in the place when he was younger and he’d been dragged with his family on holiday or small weekend breaks they took to the house.
“Come on, we’ll take you back,” Arthur offered, Scotty’s face brightened slightly before he frowned at the man before him.
“How do we know you’re not going to kill us?”
“I’m a doctor. She’s a nurse. People trust us with their lives. You can trust us to take you back to camp,” Arthur reasoned only to have the boy continue to squint at him, “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Okay, but - just so you know - I can scream really loud so don’t try nothing.”
“We won’t,” Arthur reassured.
“Thank you, sir,” Scotty mumbled, dragging his brother by the arm to his side.
Gwen and Arthur made their way back up the ledge, having to walk around and up a shallower hill and back to the two boys.
“Excuse me, lady?” the eldest of the two boys called out as they walked. Gwen looked at him with a friendly smile on her face.
“Gwen,” she introduced, her fingers interlocked with Arthur’s as they walked through the trees and under brush towards the camp site.
“Gwen,” he smiled, “Troy wants to know if you have a baby in your tummy,” her smile widened as she grinned at the two boys, one hand resting over her shirt as they walked back towards the edge of the woods.
“Yeah,” she answered, squeezing Arthur’s hand.
“How did it get there?” Arthur coughed, choked on his own breath, Gwen’s grip on his hand tightened as she laughed lightly.
“I think that is something you should ask your Mum,” she answered feeling it wasn’t her place to tell them.
The youngest boy whispered something to his brother, “Troy says he thinks that when you touch mouths that the baby is given from Daddy to Mummy.”
“Something like that,” Gwen smiled. She looked at Arthur, he was a doctor; things like this shouldn’t make him so uncomfortable. She tugged on his hand and he looked at her, “You’re gunna have to answer these questions one day.”
“Yeah, in like eighteen years,” he replied nodding in the direction of the two boys. He could never remember his own father sitting him down and telling him about ‘the bird and the bees’. It had been something that Uther had left to somebody else, mainly his son’s school, which according to the senior Pendragon had done more than enough in his education.
Gwen shot him an incredulous look, “Plenty of time to prepare an answer then.”
“And if they ask you?”
“I’ll send them to you, naturally,” she laughed only to have her attention pulled back to the two young boys.
“Are you married?” Troy asked innocently walking beside his brother as they neared the edge of the wood.
“No, we’re not,” Arthur stated to them, looking at Gwen. She was looking at the two boys with a smile on her face.
“Not yet,” she added. A warmth swelled in Arthur’s chest. They were getting there, they really were. One day he’d build up the courage to ask her, but until then, he just felt lucky to have her.
“Are you allowed to have babies when you aren’t married?” he asked as he jumped over a tree root. Arthur went to answer when the young boy ended up landing knees first. He cried out and tears started pouring down his face.
Arthur dropped Gwen’s hand and headed over to the young boy, “What hurts, buddy?” he asked, crouching down in front of him.
“My knee, it really hurts,” he managed through his tears, his breath caught in his throat as he tried to breathe through his tears. He pulled it up and looked at his knee to see a gasp on his leg dribbling blood down his leg, the sight of the red made him cry harder.
“Here,” Gwen handed Arthur a tissue which he quickly ran up the boys leg and held to his knee.
“Can you hold that in place, Troy?” he asked, moving his hand so the boy could hold it down. He nodded vigorously through his tears and held it firmly to his knee, “Have you got anything else?” Arthur asked Gwen, she shook her head, “Okay, buddy, I’m going to help you into camp okay. You see that over there?” he pointed to a row of tents, “That’s the edge of the camp.”
“’Kay,” the small boy nodded, his tears gradually stopping.
“Keep pressure on your knee and we’ll get you back to your Mum, okay?”
“’Kay.”
“Scott? Troy?” A woman called. Gwen looked to see a feminine figure heading into the woods with a teenage boy in tow.
“Over here!” Gwen called out, waving her arm in the air. The woman saw her and hurried over, shouting at the older boy as they approached. The teenager was looking at the forest floor, dragging his feet.
“Mummy!” Troy shouted letting go of the tissue. It was stuck to the blood. Arthur reached to hold it back on, “Oh, sorry,” the little boy clasped his small hands to the tissue.
“Hi, I’m Mrs Wexler,” the woman mentioned in a clipped tone not offering her hand to either of the other adults.
“Doctor Pendragon,” Arthur offered in return, “he fell over when we were showing them back to the camp.”
“Thank you,” she squinted at him and turned to her eldest son, “Danny here thought it would be funny to send them off to hide and leave them on their own,” she glared at him, who on closer inspection looked about sixteen.
“I didn’t think they’d do it,” the teen mumbled talking at his feet.
“We’ll they’re back now,” Arthur offered with a polite smile on his face.
“Danny, take your brother back to camp. Clean him up. You should have kept an eye on him,” Arthur handed off Troy to the teenager, offering him a reassuring smile and ordering him to make sure the boy kept his hand on the tissue.
“Scotty, come here,” his mother ordered, eyeing Arthur suspiciously through still-squinted eyes, “I’m sorry if they bothered you,” she said curtly, “Come on, Scott. Let’s go.”
She hurried the boy off back towards the camp without casting a look backwards. Gwen raised her eyebrows and let out a long exasperated breath, “If I end up like her, please shoot me.”
“Certainly,” Arthur agreed looking down at her.
“Not so much as a thank you,” Gwen commented turning around and walking back the other way.
“I think she thought I was a pedo,” Arthur mentioned contemplatively before he shrugged his shoulders and took Gwen’s hand back in his own.
“A pedo with a pregnant girlfriend and a doctorate? You don’t exactly look like a pedo.”
“If a pedo looked like a pedo they’d never do any pedoing!” Gwen laughed, interlocking her fingers with his and carrying on back towards the house they were staying in. Uther’s house that he had allowed them to live in for the weekend.
“You know what I mean.”
“She was worried about her kids,” Arthur said, swinging their hands between them, “I feel sorry for the other kid. He’s going to get a bollucking for letting his brothers near a pedo and his pregnant girlfriend.”
“I’m sure she didn’t think that,” she mused looking up at the sky through the canopy of the trees.
“I bet you any name you like she did.”
“Really?”
“Actually, no, knowing you you’ll name Blobby ‘Ewan McGregor the Second’ and he’ll be doomed.”
“And that’s worse than Blobby?”
“It is if you’re me.”
-
Gwen walked down another corridor and finally found the main room she was looking for after wondering around for five minutes completely confused. The house was a maze. More often than not Gwen found herself in the wrong corridor or opening the wrong door. She could have sworn every time she went to use the bathroom she used a different one.
“You know, most people’s holiday homes are smaller than their actual house.”
“It is,” Arthur stated looking up from the book he was reading to look at her, “Smaller than the country house anyway,” he reasoned with a laugh.
“I swear that place is a palace, or a castle or something like that,” Gwen laughed pushing Arthur’s feet off the end on the sofa and sat down. He went to move his feet back to rest on her lap, “Try it and I’ll bite you.”
“Tempting,” he smirked. He checked the page number and dropped his book onto the table beside him. He moved down the sofa to sit next to Gwen, he leant his arm on the back of the sofa, sitting on his foot with his leg on the sofa facing her, “How about we skip that part?”
Gwen grinned and leant forwards to kiss him. With the arm that was resting on the sofa cushions, Arthur reached forwards to tangle his hand in her loose hair, pulling her closer to him. With his other hand he guided her legs around so she was facing him.
“Mmm, Arthur,” she mumbled against his lips. Reluctantly he pulled away.
“Sorry,” he hung his head slightly before he looked at her.
“No, don’t be sorry, it’s just, uh,” she cleared her throat, and look down at her hands as she pulled on her ring on her right hand. Arthur noticed the movement, he rarely noticed her wear it anymore, but she always did. His eyes drifted to her left hand briefly and noted again that it was still bare, “The sofa isn’t as comfortable as the bed.”
-
In Arthur’s opinion, best thing about being in the middle of nowhere in a house that was surrounded by fields and a lake was that you could walk around completely stark naked without being seen.
“Wakey, wakey, rise and shine,” Arthur called out walking back into their bedroom for the weekend with two cups of tea in his hands without a stitch of clothing on.
Gwen stirred; she wiped her eyes and turned to face him as the bed sank beside her, “What time is it?”
“Just after ten,” he offered. Gwen pushed herself up in the bed, leaning against the head board, she adjusted the duvet about herself and accepted the cup of tea. She balanced it on her baby bump and took a sip.
“That’s perfect, thank you.”
“Anything for my perfect girlfriend,” he grinned. He handed her his cup and climbed over her. She tried to balance the near full cup.
“Arthur, careful,” she said sternly as he bounced the mattress crawling under the sheet.
“I distinctly remember you saying that last night,” he shot her pert look as he settled. She shot him an incredulous look as she passed him her tea, “Thank you,” he pressed a sweet kiss to her bare shoulder.
“What is the plan for today?” Gwen asked tipping her cup again to take another sip.
“I was thinking of heading back about six so you can sleep in the car on the way back and we’ll get back about nine, maybe ten. I don’t mind what we do until then.”
“Maybe we could just relax, spend the day curled up with a good book and a constant supply of tea?”
“And who would be making this tea?”
“You?” she smiled into her cup slurring more of the brown liquid.
“Oh really?” he asked, placing his own cup down on the side, shifting onto his side to look at her.
“You do it so well,” she smirked, looking down at him.
He slipped one hand underneath the duvet and traced his finger from her knee up the inside of her bare leg. He felt her muscle flex beneath his touch her back going a little straighter, “That’s not the only thing I’m good at.”
She visibly swallowed which planted a smirk on Arthur’s face. He pushed himself up to kiss her. She moved to place her tea on the bedside table not even half drunk. He ran his tongue over her lip and moved his hand further up her thigh. She gasped into his mouth as he massaged a finger over her clit in a series of strokes.
Gwen modified her position on the bed to run her own hand under the sheets to start her own one handed gratification adventure. She took his already hardening cock in her hand and began her own teasing strokes as he continued to massage at her centre without entering into her.
With one particularly pleasing move on his fingers Gwen’s hips involuntarily bucked against his hand. She looked him in the eye, watching his expression as she fastened her pace on his erection.
Her head lolled against her pillow as he entered a finger into her, her core begging for his attention to stay within her, as it did when he pushed another finger into her. She moved in tandem to his fingers, working her hand over his own excitement as he returned the favour.
Tea going cold and forgotten, the pair of lovers hit the spot, with one final buck of her hips, the energy Gwen had preserved from sleeping left her leaving her a rest-less mess and in want of nothing more than to crawl up back to sleep again.
Gwen reached past her cold tea to pull a couple of issues from the box. She cleaned up her own hand and passed the other tissue to Arthur. Once satisfied, she screwed up both tissues together and launched them at the bin beside the radiator.
“Now what was it you said about relaxing?” Arthur asked nuzzling his nose into the crook of her neck, spooning her, holding her close to him.
“Relaxing with a good book and a satisfied sex drive,” she adjusted, “And with the threat of velociraptors gone I can sleep without worrying that they’re going to eat me.”
Arthur quietly agreed to her conclusion before it dawned on him what she had said, “Wait, what?”
“Jurassic Park dream. There was long grass and raptors, followed by slushies and a shopping centre,” she mumbled into her pillow, tracing her fingers gently over his knuckles.
“Somebody has spent far too much time watching TV,” he gently hooked one of his fingers around hers and massaged small circles on the back of her hand.
“More than likely,” she yawned, mumbling out her garbled words as she fell asleep against one of his arms that was acting as her pillow.
-
“What about Hope?” Arthur asked as he presented Gwen with another cup of tea. They were due to leave in another hour after they had spent the remainder of the day how Gwen had originally planned after waking up at midday.
“No. Any child I have ever treated that was called Hope, or Destiny or Charity or Angel has died a horrible death. I’m not doing that to my child,” Arthur contemplated it, she had a point. The last child he had had die on his watch had been a seven year old girl called Chastity. She’d been kidnapped and raped before being found and had died on the table.
“No, better not,” Arthur concluded, “Angie? Angela? Angelina?”
“Never really got along with this one nurse I knew when I was training who simultaneously went by all three names at once,” Gwen admitted, and what made it worse, the woman had had the worse moustache in the world and a mole with a giant hair growing out of it. She was repulsive in nature as well which made her near unbearable.
“Abigail?”
“That nurse up in the ICU that just had a baby called her little girl Abbie,” Gwen said as if it was the most obvious reason not to call a child by the name.
“It’s a shame we know a Freya,” Arthur recalled, “I quite like the name.”
“I think Morgana would maim, quarter, oil and fry us if we did,” Arthur sighed at his sister’s need, accidental or purposeful, to ruin all his plans. She had been that way all their lives, a thorn in his side from the age of four when she stole his toy sword and refused to give it back.
“I bet she’s still got it,” Arthur grumbled.
“Who’s got what?” Gwen enquired her brow furrowing in confusion.
“Never mind. What about Rosie?” He asked, racking his brain for any example he could give against it and finding none.
“She was the crazy cat lady on mine and Merlin’s street.”
“Seriously? You had a crazy cat lady?”
“We had a crazy cat lady. She was lovely, don’t get me wrong, but she was crazy as a box of gerbils.”
“How many cats did she have?”
“About twenty? They all had the same name,” Gwen laughed, “All called Patchwork the Third.”
-
A car past with its full beams still on, “Turn them off you wanker,” Arthur mumbled under his breath and he flashed his own at the offending car. He’d have shouted but Gwen was asleep in the seat next to him, the headlights illuminating her face as the car past.
“Inconsiderate bastards,” he blinked a few times in quick succession. Blinded by the light with his eyes watering slightly.
“Robin would be a good name, boy or girl,” He said to himself as he continued on the drive back to the capital city, “Though I guess boys wouldn’t be as appreciative. Still,” he carried on talking to himself as he drove, keeping himself occupied as Gwen slept and he played classic fm on the radio to soothe her.
“And you know, I quite like flowery names. I could see myself having a few daughters all with flowery names. Like Rose, and Lily and Poppy; just not Daisy,” he shuddered, “Maybe, I dunno. Boys are harder, I think anyway. You get all the old names like Colin that would be good names when their older, but could you imagine calling a baby Colin? Or Russell. Then there are names that sound good for a baby, but not older people, like Alfie or Archie. Though, Archie is quite a good name,” he rambled to himself as he approached the motorway.
He sighed and stifled a yawn. He still had another few hours of driving to go before he could tuck himself up in bed and sleep through until tomorrow. He looked over at Gwen as a light flashed over her sleeping form, and he wondered which god had bless him with a gift as good as her.
END NOTE: Yes there are shameless references to Primeval, Jurrasic Park and OFC Being Human. I couldn't help it. Nina's line is one that makes me laugh every time! The Raptor thing was something I wrote when I was half asleep and I had meant to write something else but I was so out of velociraptors came out... I as so confused but then the next day i read over it and was like WTF? Oh I'm keeping it XD
Next Part
Authors: mydoctortennant
Pairings: Arthur/Gwen, Merlin/Morgana
Warnings: None for this chapter.
Disclaimer: Not real. Despite birthday wishes and night time prayers to Santa (all Hail Amy Pond!) Merlin still isn't mine!
Rating: Previous chapters make it NC17
Summary: Sometimes relationships just don't work in order. Or so they find out when one mistake leads to a life altering experience.
Author Notes: For the lovely noodlesishere; this is a modern AU based loosely off of the Abby/Luka storyline in ER series 12/13. Some medical info I have taken from ER, so it's totally their fault if it's wrong! Other stuff I researched myself, which may not be 100% correct but I tried my hardest =]
Also; totally OUT of my comfort zone with this, so I worked extra hard. Hope it pays off.
Thanks to mustbethursday3 for reading over it for me (and suggesting Costa should sponser me for mentioning it so much XD) and purely_distel for the name =]
My Merlin Prompts Table
| Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9
Part Ten
It was beautiful. The trees were in full plume, with an array of wild flowers in the woodlands. There was a breeze over the water that was cooling in the summer heat. In the midst of all things, Guinevere Leodegrance knew she was incredibly lucky; currently stood in the arms of her partner without as much as a care in the world.
Well, maybe one:
“I’m not calling it Junior,” Gwen stated sternly as she looked out over the lake, Arthur standing behind her with his arms tucked around her midriff, gently massaging his hands over her baby bump.
“Good job I was joking,” Arthur laughed into her ear.
They stood silently for a minute, listening to the nature that surrounded them. It felt strange to be away from the hubbub of the Emergency Room and the city. Gwen was in no hurry to get back, taking every moment they had there for what it was worth; enjoying every second of their time together.
“What about Daisy?” Gwen asked breaking the silence. Arthur had an image of a small blonde girl throwing Lego bricks at him in pre-school and he shuddered. She was an evil child and there was no way he was naming his little girl after her.
“No.”
“Why not?” They’d been playing this game for hours and had still come no closer to any conclusions.
He wasn’t about to admit to discarding a name because a girl used to pick on him when he was three, “Just no.”
“Chris?” Arthur had no reason to dislike the name; he just didn’t want something quite so common.
“No.”
“Thomas.”
“No,” he didn’t want to name their child after any of their parents, it wouldn’t seem right and it could get mightily confusing.
“Ava?”
“Stop switching genders,” he chastised jokingly as he placed a soft kiss to the sensitive spot behind her ear.
“I’m just saying them as they come to me,” Gwen divulged. She turned her head to look at him and placed a soft kiss to his lips, “I think Ava is pretty.”
“Agreed. It’s a nice name. Ava Leodegrance-Pendragon?” Arthur enquired leaning away from her slightly so he could focus on her face without going cross eyed.
“Ava Pendragon,” Gwen confirmed, with a sedate smile on her face, “It’s cruel to give a child a seven syllable surname.”
“Really?” Arthur implored with a smile on his face. Gwen had decided that Merlin had had a point. She didn’t intend on her child growing up with one parent. Nor did she intend to live her own life without Arthur.
“Mhmm,” she smiled, a giggle of a laugh escaped her lips before Arthur stooped, tilting her chin with his finger and placed a kiss to her lips.
-
They walked down the small path that led towards the brook side. Gwen was wearing pair of bright purple Wellingtons over her maternity adjusted skinny jeans along with a baby doll shirt in the warm weather.
Arthur hopped down the small ledge and held out a hand to Gwen. She took it and looked for an appropriate way to step down without creating too much of a hard landing. Arthur smirked and turned to face her completely, placing her hand around his shoulder, making her crouch. He hooked his other arm around her knees and lifted her from the muddy ledge.
She squealed, quickly getting her other hand to clasp to his shoulder.
“You’re a lump, you know that?” Arthur joked as her slowly swung her around to carry on their walk.
Gwen batted him on the back with a smile on her face, “If I’m too heavy you could always put me down.”
“And not be your knight in shining armour?”
“Not Prince Charming?”
“Prince Arthur? I like it, him too,” Gwen wriggled in his arms, kicking out her feet, “Stay still,” he adjusted his grip, holding her tighter to his chest.
“You know, the point of a walk in the countryside is to walk, right?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Gwen squirmed again, “Fine, I’ll put you down,” he gently lowered her feet back to the ground and kept an arm around her shoulder to ensure she was balanced.
She stood and looked up at him with a blissful smile on her face. Gwen swallowed the lump in her throat and studied his tranquil features. She’d never seen him look quite so calm. Not in his comfort zone and not by cover of the hospital, not stressed and no immediate need to be anywhere or do anything.
With blue locked on brown he frowned slightly, “What?” Gwen gently shook her head not breaking eye contact with him. He laughed slightly. He leant down, tilting his head to kiss her. Gwen stopped him an inch away, smile on her face remaining.
“I love you,” she moved to close the gap only to have him keep it again.
“I love you too,” he moved to kiss her this time.
“Urgh!”
“Yuk!”
The pair of them looked towards the two voices to see a pair of kids, no older than six and eight.
“That’s grooooosssss!” the youngest elongated from behind the tree.
“Shut up, Troy!” the elder one shouted, hitting who the couple assumed was his brother around the back of the head.
“Hey, there’s not need for that,” Arthur commanded, still with his arms around his girlfriend.
“Sorry Mister,” the oldest boy said looking at the floor and digging his toe into the dirt.
“What are you kids doing out here on your own anyway?” Gwen asked, shifting away from Arthur and approaching the kids who were stood up on the ledge Arthur had carried her down from minutes before.
“Playing hide and seek,” the younger boy answered coming out from behind the tree.
“On your own?”
“We were playing with the older boys,” Troy replied again, “But we hid for ages and they never came. Scotty came to find me and we got lost.”
“Where are you guys staying?” Arthur asked approaching the kids after Gwen.
“Over in the campsite by the lake,” Arthur knew it, he’d made some friends in the place when he was younger and he’d been dragged with his family on holiday or small weekend breaks they took to the house.
“Come on, we’ll take you back,” Arthur offered, Scotty’s face brightened slightly before he frowned at the man before him.
“How do we know you’re not going to kill us?”
“I’m a doctor. She’s a nurse. People trust us with their lives. You can trust us to take you back to camp,” Arthur reasoned only to have the boy continue to squint at him, “I’m not going to kill you.”
“Okay, but - just so you know - I can scream really loud so don’t try nothing.”
“We won’t,” Arthur reassured.
“Thank you, sir,” Scotty mumbled, dragging his brother by the arm to his side.
Gwen and Arthur made their way back up the ledge, having to walk around and up a shallower hill and back to the two boys.
“Excuse me, lady?” the eldest of the two boys called out as they walked. Gwen looked at him with a friendly smile on her face.
“Gwen,” she introduced, her fingers interlocked with Arthur’s as they walked through the trees and under brush towards the camp site.
“Gwen,” he smiled, “Troy wants to know if you have a baby in your tummy,” her smile widened as she grinned at the two boys, one hand resting over her shirt as they walked back towards the edge of the woods.
“Yeah,” she answered, squeezing Arthur’s hand.
“How did it get there?” Arthur coughed, choked on his own breath, Gwen’s grip on his hand tightened as she laughed lightly.
“I think that is something you should ask your Mum,” she answered feeling it wasn’t her place to tell them.
The youngest boy whispered something to his brother, “Troy says he thinks that when you touch mouths that the baby is given from Daddy to Mummy.”
“Something like that,” Gwen smiled. She looked at Arthur, he was a doctor; things like this shouldn’t make him so uncomfortable. She tugged on his hand and he looked at her, “You’re gunna have to answer these questions one day.”
“Yeah, in like eighteen years,” he replied nodding in the direction of the two boys. He could never remember his own father sitting him down and telling him about ‘the bird and the bees’. It had been something that Uther had left to somebody else, mainly his son’s school, which according to the senior Pendragon had done more than enough in his education.
Gwen shot him an incredulous look, “Plenty of time to prepare an answer then.”
“And if they ask you?”
“I’ll send them to you, naturally,” she laughed only to have her attention pulled back to the two young boys.
“Are you married?” Troy asked innocently walking beside his brother as they neared the edge of the wood.
“No, we’re not,” Arthur stated to them, looking at Gwen. She was looking at the two boys with a smile on her face.
“Not yet,” she added. A warmth swelled in Arthur’s chest. They were getting there, they really were. One day he’d build up the courage to ask her, but until then, he just felt lucky to have her.
“Are you allowed to have babies when you aren’t married?” he asked as he jumped over a tree root. Arthur went to answer when the young boy ended up landing knees first. He cried out and tears started pouring down his face.
Arthur dropped Gwen’s hand and headed over to the young boy, “What hurts, buddy?” he asked, crouching down in front of him.
“My knee, it really hurts,” he managed through his tears, his breath caught in his throat as he tried to breathe through his tears. He pulled it up and looked at his knee to see a gasp on his leg dribbling blood down his leg, the sight of the red made him cry harder.
“Here,” Gwen handed Arthur a tissue which he quickly ran up the boys leg and held to his knee.
“Can you hold that in place, Troy?” he asked, moving his hand so the boy could hold it down. He nodded vigorously through his tears and held it firmly to his knee, “Have you got anything else?” Arthur asked Gwen, she shook her head, “Okay, buddy, I’m going to help you into camp okay. You see that over there?” he pointed to a row of tents, “That’s the edge of the camp.”
“’Kay,” the small boy nodded, his tears gradually stopping.
“Keep pressure on your knee and we’ll get you back to your Mum, okay?”
“’Kay.”
“Scott? Troy?” A woman called. Gwen looked to see a feminine figure heading into the woods with a teenage boy in tow.
“Over here!” Gwen called out, waving her arm in the air. The woman saw her and hurried over, shouting at the older boy as they approached. The teenager was looking at the forest floor, dragging his feet.
“Mummy!” Troy shouted letting go of the tissue. It was stuck to the blood. Arthur reached to hold it back on, “Oh, sorry,” the little boy clasped his small hands to the tissue.
“Hi, I’m Mrs Wexler,” the woman mentioned in a clipped tone not offering her hand to either of the other adults.
“Doctor Pendragon,” Arthur offered in return, “he fell over when we were showing them back to the camp.”
“Thank you,” she squinted at him and turned to her eldest son, “Danny here thought it would be funny to send them off to hide and leave them on their own,” she glared at him, who on closer inspection looked about sixteen.
“I didn’t think they’d do it,” the teen mumbled talking at his feet.
“We’ll they’re back now,” Arthur offered with a polite smile on his face.
“Danny, take your brother back to camp. Clean him up. You should have kept an eye on him,” Arthur handed off Troy to the teenager, offering him a reassuring smile and ordering him to make sure the boy kept his hand on the tissue.
“Scotty, come here,” his mother ordered, eyeing Arthur suspiciously through still-squinted eyes, “I’m sorry if they bothered you,” she said curtly, “Come on, Scott. Let’s go.”
She hurried the boy off back towards the camp without casting a look backwards. Gwen raised her eyebrows and let out a long exasperated breath, “If I end up like her, please shoot me.”
“Certainly,” Arthur agreed looking down at her.
“Not so much as a thank you,” Gwen commented turning around and walking back the other way.
“I think she thought I was a pedo,” Arthur mentioned contemplatively before he shrugged his shoulders and took Gwen’s hand back in his own.
“A pedo with a pregnant girlfriend and a doctorate? You don’t exactly look like a pedo.”
“If a pedo looked like a pedo they’d never do any pedoing!” Gwen laughed, interlocking her fingers with his and carrying on back towards the house they were staying in. Uther’s house that he had allowed them to live in for the weekend.
“You know what I mean.”
“She was worried about her kids,” Arthur said, swinging their hands between them, “I feel sorry for the other kid. He’s going to get a bollucking for letting his brothers near a pedo and his pregnant girlfriend.”
“I’m sure she didn’t think that,” she mused looking up at the sky through the canopy of the trees.
“I bet you any name you like she did.”
“Really?”
“Actually, no, knowing you you’ll name Blobby ‘Ewan McGregor the Second’ and he’ll be doomed.”
“And that’s worse than Blobby?”
“It is if you’re me.”
-
Gwen walked down another corridor and finally found the main room she was looking for after wondering around for five minutes completely confused. The house was a maze. More often than not Gwen found herself in the wrong corridor or opening the wrong door. She could have sworn every time she went to use the bathroom she used a different one.
“You know, most people’s holiday homes are smaller than their actual house.”
“It is,” Arthur stated looking up from the book he was reading to look at her, “Smaller than the country house anyway,” he reasoned with a laugh.
“I swear that place is a palace, or a castle or something like that,” Gwen laughed pushing Arthur’s feet off the end on the sofa and sat down. He went to move his feet back to rest on her lap, “Try it and I’ll bite you.”
“Tempting,” he smirked. He checked the page number and dropped his book onto the table beside him. He moved down the sofa to sit next to Gwen, he leant his arm on the back of the sofa, sitting on his foot with his leg on the sofa facing her, “How about we skip that part?”
Gwen grinned and leant forwards to kiss him. With the arm that was resting on the sofa cushions, Arthur reached forwards to tangle his hand in her loose hair, pulling her closer to him. With his other hand he guided her legs around so she was facing him.
“Mmm, Arthur,” she mumbled against his lips. Reluctantly he pulled away.
“Sorry,” he hung his head slightly before he looked at her.
“No, don’t be sorry, it’s just, uh,” she cleared her throat, and look down at her hands as she pulled on her ring on her right hand. Arthur noticed the movement, he rarely noticed her wear it anymore, but she always did. His eyes drifted to her left hand briefly and noted again that it was still bare, “The sofa isn’t as comfortable as the bed.”
-
In Arthur’s opinion, best thing about being in the middle of nowhere in a house that was surrounded by fields and a lake was that you could walk around completely stark naked without being seen.
“Wakey, wakey, rise and shine,” Arthur called out walking back into their bedroom for the weekend with two cups of tea in his hands without a stitch of clothing on.
Gwen stirred; she wiped her eyes and turned to face him as the bed sank beside her, “What time is it?”
“Just after ten,” he offered. Gwen pushed herself up in the bed, leaning against the head board, she adjusted the duvet about herself and accepted the cup of tea. She balanced it on her baby bump and took a sip.
“That’s perfect, thank you.”
“Anything for my perfect girlfriend,” he grinned. He handed her his cup and climbed over her. She tried to balance the near full cup.
“Arthur, careful,” she said sternly as he bounced the mattress crawling under the sheet.
“I distinctly remember you saying that last night,” he shot her pert look as he settled. She shot him an incredulous look as she passed him her tea, “Thank you,” he pressed a sweet kiss to her bare shoulder.
“What is the plan for today?” Gwen asked tipping her cup again to take another sip.
“I was thinking of heading back about six so you can sleep in the car on the way back and we’ll get back about nine, maybe ten. I don’t mind what we do until then.”
“Maybe we could just relax, spend the day curled up with a good book and a constant supply of tea?”
“And who would be making this tea?”
“You?” she smiled into her cup slurring more of the brown liquid.
“Oh really?” he asked, placing his own cup down on the side, shifting onto his side to look at her.
“You do it so well,” she smirked, looking down at him.
He slipped one hand underneath the duvet and traced his finger from her knee up the inside of her bare leg. He felt her muscle flex beneath his touch her back going a little straighter, “That’s not the only thing I’m good at.”
She visibly swallowed which planted a smirk on Arthur’s face. He pushed himself up to kiss her. She moved to place her tea on the bedside table not even half drunk. He ran his tongue over her lip and moved his hand further up her thigh. She gasped into his mouth as he massaged a finger over her clit in a series of strokes.
Gwen modified her position on the bed to run her own hand under the sheets to start her own one handed gratification adventure. She took his already hardening cock in her hand and began her own teasing strokes as he continued to massage at her centre without entering into her.
With one particularly pleasing move on his fingers Gwen’s hips involuntarily bucked against his hand. She looked him in the eye, watching his expression as she fastened her pace on his erection.
Her head lolled against her pillow as he entered a finger into her, her core begging for his attention to stay within her, as it did when he pushed another finger into her. She moved in tandem to his fingers, working her hand over his own excitement as he returned the favour.
Tea going cold and forgotten, the pair of lovers hit the spot, with one final buck of her hips, the energy Gwen had preserved from sleeping left her leaving her a rest-less mess and in want of nothing more than to crawl up back to sleep again.
Gwen reached past her cold tea to pull a couple of issues from the box. She cleaned up her own hand and passed the other tissue to Arthur. Once satisfied, she screwed up both tissues together and launched them at the bin beside the radiator.
“Now what was it you said about relaxing?” Arthur asked nuzzling his nose into the crook of her neck, spooning her, holding her close to him.
“Relaxing with a good book and a satisfied sex drive,” she adjusted, “And with the threat of velociraptors gone I can sleep without worrying that they’re going to eat me.”
Arthur quietly agreed to her conclusion before it dawned on him what she had said, “Wait, what?”
“Jurassic Park dream. There was long grass and raptors, followed by slushies and a shopping centre,” she mumbled into her pillow, tracing her fingers gently over his knuckles.
“Somebody has spent far too much time watching TV,” he gently hooked one of his fingers around hers and massaged small circles on the back of her hand.
“More than likely,” she yawned, mumbling out her garbled words as she fell asleep against one of his arms that was acting as her pillow.
-
“What about Hope?” Arthur asked as he presented Gwen with another cup of tea. They were due to leave in another hour after they had spent the remainder of the day how Gwen had originally planned after waking up at midday.
“No. Any child I have ever treated that was called Hope, or Destiny or Charity or Angel has died a horrible death. I’m not doing that to my child,” Arthur contemplated it, she had a point. The last child he had had die on his watch had been a seven year old girl called Chastity. She’d been kidnapped and raped before being found and had died on the table.
“No, better not,” Arthur concluded, “Angie? Angela? Angelina?”
“Never really got along with this one nurse I knew when I was training who simultaneously went by all three names at once,” Gwen admitted, and what made it worse, the woman had had the worse moustache in the world and a mole with a giant hair growing out of it. She was repulsive in nature as well which made her near unbearable.
“Abigail?”
“That nurse up in the ICU that just had a baby called her little girl Abbie,” Gwen said as if it was the most obvious reason not to call a child by the name.
“It’s a shame we know a Freya,” Arthur recalled, “I quite like the name.”
“I think Morgana would maim, quarter, oil and fry us if we did,” Arthur sighed at his sister’s need, accidental or purposeful, to ruin all his plans. She had been that way all their lives, a thorn in his side from the age of four when she stole his toy sword and refused to give it back.
“I bet she’s still got it,” Arthur grumbled.
“Who’s got what?” Gwen enquired her brow furrowing in confusion.
“Never mind. What about Rosie?” He asked, racking his brain for any example he could give against it and finding none.
“She was the crazy cat lady on mine and Merlin’s street.”
“Seriously? You had a crazy cat lady?”
“We had a crazy cat lady. She was lovely, don’t get me wrong, but she was crazy as a box of gerbils.”
“How many cats did she have?”
“About twenty? They all had the same name,” Gwen laughed, “All called Patchwork the Third.”
-
A car past with its full beams still on, “Turn them off you wanker,” Arthur mumbled under his breath and he flashed his own at the offending car. He’d have shouted but Gwen was asleep in the seat next to him, the headlights illuminating her face as the car past.
“Inconsiderate bastards,” he blinked a few times in quick succession. Blinded by the light with his eyes watering slightly.
“Robin would be a good name, boy or girl,” He said to himself as he continued on the drive back to the capital city, “Though I guess boys wouldn’t be as appreciative. Still,” he carried on talking to himself as he drove, keeping himself occupied as Gwen slept and he played classic fm on the radio to soothe her.
“And you know, I quite like flowery names. I could see myself having a few daughters all with flowery names. Like Rose, and Lily and Poppy; just not Daisy,” he shuddered, “Maybe, I dunno. Boys are harder, I think anyway. You get all the old names like Colin that would be good names when their older, but could you imagine calling a baby Colin? Or Russell. Then there are names that sound good for a baby, but not older people, like Alfie or Archie. Though, Archie is quite a good name,” he rambled to himself as he approached the motorway.
He sighed and stifled a yawn. He still had another few hours of driving to go before he could tuck himself up in bed and sleep through until tomorrow. He looked over at Gwen as a light flashed over her sleeping form, and he wondered which god had bless him with a gift as good as her.
END NOTE: Yes there are shameless references to Primeval, Jurrasic Park and OFC Being Human. I couldn't help it. Nina's line is one that makes me laugh every time! The Raptor thing was something I wrote when I was half asleep and I had meant to write something else but I was so out of velociraptors came out... I as so confused but then the next day i read over it and was like WTF? Oh I'm keeping it XD
Next Part