No Emergency Exit; Merlin Modern AU
Title: No Emergency Exit (15/21)
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 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
Part Fifteen
The next morning after Gwen had woken up the first thing she did once she’d turned on the kettle was phone her father. She didn’t need Merlin telling him every aspect of her life before she did.
“Hello?”
“Hi Dad, it’s me,” she announced down the phone as she pulled a pair of mugs out of the cupboard.
“Morning Sweetheart, alright?”
Gwen grinned down the phone resting against the kitchen counter with one hand resting on her stomach, “Yeah, really well thank you, you?”
“All the better from hearing from you,” she could feel the smile on his face coming through in his voice, “Got a lot of hassle from a client at the moment. It’s not my fault their previous electrician screwed them over,” he sighed.
“I’m sure they’ll appreciate your work when it’s done to the highest standard,” Gwen assured carrying on with her tea making. She could happily listen to her father’s grips all day. Though it reminded her how much she as missing when she didn’t speak to him, it made her even more grateful to have a parent who was as understanding and thee for her as Tom was.
“Yeah,” he paused on the end of the line as Gwen poured milk into the two cups, “I assume there was a reason you called,” Tom laughed down the phone.
Gwen winced, “What makes you say that?” feeling automatically guilty for not calling more often than she knew she should have.
“I know you love me and you are the best daughter a father could have, but you do tend to get a bit caught up in the world before your old Dad.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay; I’d be worried if you still relied on me,” she heaved a sigh of relief, “so what is it? It’s not bad is it? The baby is okay?”
“The baby is fine. It’s nothing bad,” she laughed down the phone fiddling with the teaspoon she’d been holding. Absent-mindedly tapped the new band of metal on her finger against it.
“Don’t keep me in suspense, pumpkin.”
“Arthur asked me to marry him,” she blurted subconsciously looking at her left hand and moving her new ring with her thumb.
“Congratulations, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“When do you plan on actually getting married?” she could hear the doubt in his voice. She knew he wanted her to be sensible about it, but she’s who she was - most of the time - sensible Gwen, who didn’t accidentally get pregnant after sleeping with her boss…
“Not until after the baby is born, don’t worry,” she reassured him, “I don’t think I could cope becoming a mother and Mrs Pendragon all in one go.”
“And Arthur?” her father implored.
“He thinks he’s ready for it.”
“He’s probably spent ten years planning it.”
“I don’t think so, Dad,” she laughed pouring the hot water from the kettle into the cups, the teabags floating to the top of the liquid.
“Sure about that?” he asked her sceptically, she cold hear the amusement in his voice.
“Yeah,” she poked the teabags around in the cups to make it brew faster.
“Sorry, pumpkin, I better go. I have to be at their house for seven or they get tetchy.”
“Okay, Dad,” she cringed, she could always get away with being late, but it had never been much of a surprise. The hospital was a busy place and people hardly noticed if you were late on the best of days, but it helped that Arthur had always had a blind spot to Gwen’s negative features, “I’ll speak to you soon, okay?”
“Okay, sweetheart, bye.”
“Bye, Dad. Love you,” she said balancing the phone between her ear and her shoulder so she could remove the teabags from the cups.
“Love you too, pumpkin.”
They both hung up at the same time. Gwen discarded the phone on the side and picked up the two cups and headed towards their bedroom, “Time to get up,” she urged placing the mugs on the side and prodding him in the side with her ringed finger on her left hand.
“Good morning, my future wife,” he grinned sleepily as he rubbed his eyes.
“Sleep well, future husband?” she grinned in return. He reached out his hand to massage her bump. She interlocked her fingers with his and placed her left hand on top looking down at the newest development in their relationship.
“Best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time.”
“Me too,” she picked up her cup of tea and smiled as her engagement ring clinked on the china, “But we have to go to work.”
“Shame.”
“I know, and as much as I would love to sit here all day, we have news.”
“Can’t I just have you all to myself?” he probed running his thumb over the back of her hand.
“I’m all yours, until death do us part, remember,” she leant forwards and pressed her lips to his, “I’m happy, I just want people to know.”
“Your wish is my command”
“I like that.”
“Don’t get used to it. It’s a honeymoon period thing, I’m sure of it,” a grin broke out over Gwen’s face again and she pulled him up from the bed to kiss him again, “Though, when you put it like that, I’m sure I can make the period stretch as long as possible.”
x
Gwen burst into the Doctor’s lounge and let out a frustrated sigh. Morgana looked over at her from her seat on the lumpy sofa and smiled at her sympathetically, “Tough day?”
“I can’t see my feet, and they hurt. My legs hurt. My back hurts. I can’t concentrate for my than a minute and Arthur’s really starting to get on my nerves,” Gwen vented feeling a little better after she was done.
“Really?” Morgana raised a sceptical eyebrow and smirked, “That’s why you’ve got a new ring?”
Gwen looked at her hand and smiled, “I was going to tell you.”
“It’s okay,” Morgana raised her hands and clapped them together, “you’ve not had five minutes to do so yet. How about we do this again and you can tell me?”
Gwen laughed and dealt, shaking Morgana’s hand. She turned back to walk out of the Doctor’s Lounge and shut the door again. Leon gave her a questioning look having just seen her go in, “Don’t ask.”
She re-entered the lounge with an amused smile on her face, “Hi Morgana.”
“Gwen! Fancy seeing you here!” the pair of them laughed, Gwen sat down on the sofa next to her and held up her hand, “Oh my god,” Morgana gasped dramatically grabbing Gwen’s hand and pulling it towards her, “When did he ask?”
“Last night.”
“What did he do? What’s the story?” Now she genuinely was interested. She’d known he was planning on it, anybody who knew him at all knew it was coming; she just hadn’t expected it quite yet. She knew that Gwen had had reservations about further developments.
“We were having a bath-“
“TMI, Gwen,” Morgana jokingly covered her ears and shook her head trying to rid herself of the mental image, “Tee. Em. Eye.”
“Well we were!”
Morgana held up her hands in protest to any further images of her brother and her best friend nakedly cajoling in water bubbly water, “Carry on.”
“We were discussing Blobby’s allegiance to either football or rugby-“
“Arthur was football,” Morgana confirmed, knowing him all too well.
“Of course, and when we were relaxing he asked me.”
Morgana’s shoulders sagged, “That’s it?” she replied disappointed expecting some large romantic affair with speeches and serenading. She wasn’t ashamed to admit she had read Arthur’s diary when they were younger. Back in the day when he’d kept one, anyway. Back in the day when neither of them knew Gwen. Morgana was surprised to find out that her step-brother was actually quite the soppy romantic.
“There was bit of a speech. Anyway, he’s asked me before.”
“Whoa! What? When?” Morgana exclaimed, astounded that she wasn’t already privy to this golden nugget of information.
Gwen shrugged, “About a month ago when we were painting the nursery.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I said no,” despite telling Morgana this information now she knew the actual engagement news would outshine it when she next saw Arthur so wouldn’t tease him too badly about it.
“Why?”
“Because we were inhaling paint fumes and he hadn’t even got a ring.”
“All about the ring?” Morgana smirked, “Gwen your shallowness shocks me.”
“That wasn’t it at all,” Gwen hit her upside the arm and laughed before returning to complete seriousness once again, “I didn’t feel ready to be anybody’s wife. I barely feel ready enough to be somebody’s mother, both at once was a bit too much.”
“And now?” Morgana asked intrigued as to what had changed in the lat few weeks to make Gwen change her mind.
“Now? I thought screw it. We don’t have to get married right away, and I know I love him. I know he loves me, so where is the harm in it? Where’s the harm in being engaged to the man I plan on spending the rest of my life with?” It wasn’t something she ever thought she would say, but that was life for you; always taking you in directions you never thought you would go in.
“I’m happy for you, Gwen,” she pulled her friend into a tight hug.
“What about you and Merlin?” Gwen teased. Morgana pulled away from her and smiled awkwardly.
“Let’s not go there. Me and Merlin? We’re happy where we are; unlike you two we’re happy taking our time.”
“Hey!” Gwen pouted at her friend but only laughed. Gwen had never thought that she would be the girl with the unconventional life. She saw herself aged thirty getting married to some chilled out artistic type and maybe having a child or two after a few years living the happily married life. She had never seen herself engaged to Arthur Pendragon and already expecting their first child at the age of twenty-six. It certainly wasn’t what she had expected, but most of her wouldn’t have it any other way (the uncertain part of her still wanted the artistic type and kids after thirty.)
“You’re the one that got pregnant out of wedlock and without a boyfriend,” her friend had a point. Gwen could see how anybody outside of their troupe could think the whole ordeal a little odd.
“At least he wasn’t a stranger.”
“Good job the pair of you belong together,” Morgana got up from the sofa in order to pour herself a cup of coffee from the pitiful supply in the pot, “even if you did hate him at the time.”
“I did not!”
“Yes you did,” Morgana turned back towards her friend and pointing her bony finger at her accusatively. She remembered all too well quite how ‘disgusted’ with herself Gwen had been when she first admitted to Morgana what had happened. Truth be known the raven haired beauty didn’t know who she felt more sorry for, her traumatised friend or her step-brother who had finally gotten what he had always wanted only to have completely cocked it up leaving the girl thinking that he thought it was all a big mistake.
“If I hated him I wouldn’t have gone and gotten drunk with him.”
“Or had mad passionate sex and kept the baby,” Morgana said punctuating her sentence by taking a sip from her cup.
“It sounds completely insane when you put it like that.”
“It is completely insane,” Morgana raised an eyebrow at her friend. They looked at each other for a second before bursting into laughter.
“I’ve obviously lost it.”
“They say love makes you do crazy things.”
x
One thing Gwen never thought she’d find amusing to watch was Arthur trying to follow instructions. They hadn’t lasted long. He’d thrown them away after deciding that attempting to follow them would cause him more confusion than they would help.
He wasn’t doing too badly in all honesty. It was mostly going to plan. He was currently using a mallet to hit a dowel into place-
“OWHFUCKWANKSHITBUGGERINGOWH!”
“Arthur, stop it,” Gwen chastised, hitting him around the back of the head with the rolled up instructions he had chosen to ignore, “the baby will hear you!”
“I hit my finger,” Arthur said as he sucked on the appendage, making his words slurred and near inaudible.
“I gathered that from the swearing,” Gwen poked. Despite not using the instructions, he wasn’t doing a bad job of fixing together the flat pack crib that they had decided on. It wasn’t complicated by any means, but Gwen was convinced he’d missed out something somewhere. Arthur wasn’t Mr Fix-it at all.
“It hurt.”
“I got that too,” she took his hand from his mouth and placed a kiss to his injured finger, “Better?”
“A bit,” he replied coyly.
She kissed his finger again, each of the three falanges that made it up, followed by the palm of his hand, “Nearly,” she shook her head once and laughed before pushing onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek, “Still hurts a bit,” he mumbled once she’d planted her feet back on the floor. He stooped and placed a light kiss to her lips.
“Better y-“
He caught her lips again running his tongue over her bottom lip. He pulled away again and stepped away when Gwen moved to kiss him again, “I think I’m okay.”
She glared at him and pushed on his arm, “Build,” she ordered and headed over to the sofa to watch.
“Yes boss.”
“No talking,” he zipped his lips and turned back to his work. He lifted one of the sides to another aligning the dowels to the holes so he could attach them, “You’re doing it wrong.”
“Shut up.”
“Well if it all falls apart…“
He ignored her.
x
Somebody was frantically knocking on the door. Arthur knew it would be one, or two, of three people. His father, who would usually phone before arriving, Morgana, who wouldn’t, or Merlin, who would probably be with Morgana anyway. They were the only people who would come up without ringing having been let in by the doorman.
“What are you guys doing here?” Arthur asked as he opened the front door to be greeted, to no surprise, by his sister and her boyfriend.
“Well for once we all have a day off and it’s sunny for the end of September,” Morgana said inviting herself in through the door, “So, we thought that we would treat the pair of you to a picnic in the park.”
“We’ve got strawberries,” Merlin waved the punnet in the air and smiled, “And cream. Tea, chocolate, biscuits. Every other unhealthy picnic food under the sun.”
“Somebody mentioned Strawberries and cream?” Gwen appeared from the bathroom, her hair still damp from her shower and tied back in a low ponytail with a few escaped hairs hanging around her face, “I’m there.”
“Arthur?”
“Sure, why not,” he gave in heading over to pocket his wallet, Blackberry and keys.
x
“I thought you said you could play Frisbee?” Merlin shouted at Arthur after he legged it after the disc Arthur had just thrown towards him. It had spun out thirty metres the wrong way.
“I can. I meant to do that,” Arthur said defensively as he jogged back over to the two females who wee sat gossiping on the picnic blanket as they watched the two males throw the Frisbee at each others heads with as much accuracy as they could muster.
Arthur flopped down to the ground next to his fiancée. He took a swig of water from his bottle and settled himself.
Gwen shifted so she was sat in-between Arthur’s outstretched legs on the tartan blanket that the other couple had provided. They were sat in the middle of the grass in Hyde Park on a weekday afternoon surrounded with half eaten plates of food and half-empty bottles of mineral water and unhealthily sugary fizzy drinks.
“I swear you are like the most prepared parents I’ve ever met.”
“And how many of your friends have kids, Morgana?” Gwen asked her as Merlin walked back to the group of them twirling the Frisbee around on his fingers.
“None, but we meet a lot of expecting mothers in our line of work; and they always seem to not have anything ready. You two have the nursery ready; you have names; you pretty much bought the entire content of Mothercare-“
“That was you,” Gwen stated reaching forwards to grab another strawberry from the speedily emptying punnet.
“Not the point,” Morgana raised her hands in innocence from her leant back position soaking up the last of the summer sun, “You have everything now apart from the baby.”
“We don’t get a lot of time,” Arthur reasoned with his hand resting on Gwen’s midriff, his drink clasped in the other, “We had to grab it when we had it.”
“And thus are prepared how many weeks in advance?” Morgana asked shading her eyes in order to look at the expecting couple in font of her.
“Only ten,” Gwen defended, to her, compared to the thirty weeks she’d already endured - granted only twenty-two of those actually be aware of the situation - of her pregnancy ten weeks wasn’t that long.
“Ten? That’s two and a half months. You’re going to get so bored.”
“It would be a nice chance to relax.”
“Of course.”
“If we hadn’t pretty much gotten everything ready yet we wouldn’t be here now,” Arthur stated finally.
“You mean you wouldn’t,” Arthur looked down at Gwen with a raised eyebrow in question to her comment, “Strawberries and cream.”
“Not forgetting chocolate and tea,” Merlin offered after a silence; the pair of ex-roommates high-fived.
“Your cuteness, it kills me,” Morgana laughed, “Why were you never this adorable, Arthur?”
“Because unlike Merlin; I’m manly. Manly men don’t get called cute.”
“No,” Morgana snorted a laugh, “they just get called brutish and annoying.”
“And what does that make you, the non-cute females?”
“Sassy and amazing,” she held her hands out and flexed her fingers in a jazz-hand movement.
Arthur visibly considered her words with a slight tilt of his head with an unsure smile on his face to annoy her, “One out of two, perhaps.”
“More than I thought you’d give me. Don’t tell me you’ve grown as a person?” she feigned shock and held her hand to her chest.
“Then I won’t,” he replied smugly swiping a biscuit from the packet.
“Wow, Gwen, you’ve made the annoying step-brother less, um, annoying.”
“Eloquence and Morgana; a match made in heaven,” he uttered sarcastically with a smirk on his face. Gwen hit him hard in the stomach.
“And the jerk returns,” Morgana snidely raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips.
“What can I say; you make me a worse sort of man.”
“So easily influenced, dearest brother.”
“So easily annoyed, dearest sister.”
“Screw you,” she flicked a crumb at him. He fell back in a mock death, pulling Gwen down with him. She struggled against him and let out a shrill laugh.
“And then world war three broke out and we all died. The end,” Merlin concluded reaching out for the flask of hot water.
Gwen righted herself and edged towards the younger male, “One can only hope.”
“Tea?” he offered holding out a plastic mug to her.
She accepted it gratefully, “Thought you’d never ask.”
“Not offering around, Merlin, that’s very rude,” Arthur pushed himself up onto his elbows to chastise his friend, poking him with the toe of his shoe. Merlin batted him away and looked at him unimpressed.
“It’s a grown up drink, for grown up people,” Merlin said through squinted eyes.
Arthur raised an eyebrow and laughed, “The runt says to the attending doctor?”
“Pfft, don’t pull rank,” Merlin disregarded and gave Gwen a teabag to put into her water-filled cup.
“Why not?” Arthur shrugged still laying back on the grass, “Works.”
“Makes you come across as a bit of a prat,” Gwen couldn’t help but smile at the pair of them. Arthur sat up to defend himself, dislodging Gwen slightly from her seated position. She batted him away as he slipped his arms back around her.
“And for that you,” Arthur pointed at Merlin, “are on bedpan duty for a week.”
“Oh the pain,” Merlin offered the milk to Gwen who poured it into her plastic mug and stirred. She only added one sugar and settled back against Arthur, “when am I not?”
“It will be all you do, all week.”
“Sounds like a challenge. Bring it.”
“And so it starts,” Morgana stated stealing the chocolate bar from Merlin’s hand that he had just picked out of the picnic basket.
“Hey!”
“Who bought it?”
“I did.”
“Liar.”
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 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14
Part Fifteen
The next morning after Gwen had woken up the first thing she did once she’d turned on the kettle was phone her father. She didn’t need Merlin telling him every aspect of her life before she did.
“Hello?”
“Hi Dad, it’s me,” she announced down the phone as she pulled a pair of mugs out of the cupboard.
“Morning Sweetheart, alright?”
Gwen grinned down the phone resting against the kitchen counter with one hand resting on her stomach, “Yeah, really well thank you, you?”
“All the better from hearing from you,” she could feel the smile on his face coming through in his voice, “Got a lot of hassle from a client at the moment. It’s not my fault their previous electrician screwed them over,” he sighed.
“I’m sure they’ll appreciate your work when it’s done to the highest standard,” Gwen assured carrying on with her tea making. She could happily listen to her father’s grips all day. Though it reminded her how much she as missing when she didn’t speak to him, it made her even more grateful to have a parent who was as understanding and thee for her as Tom was.
“Yeah,” he paused on the end of the line as Gwen poured milk into the two cups, “I assume there was a reason you called,” Tom laughed down the phone.
Gwen winced, “What makes you say that?” feeling automatically guilty for not calling more often than she knew she should have.
“I know you love me and you are the best daughter a father could have, but you do tend to get a bit caught up in the world before your old Dad.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay; I’d be worried if you still relied on me,” she heaved a sigh of relief, “so what is it? It’s not bad is it? The baby is okay?”
“The baby is fine. It’s nothing bad,” she laughed down the phone fiddling with the teaspoon she’d been holding. Absent-mindedly tapped the new band of metal on her finger against it.
“Don’t keep me in suspense, pumpkin.”
“Arthur asked me to marry him,” she blurted subconsciously looking at her left hand and moving her new ring with her thumb.
“Congratulations, sweetheart.”
“Thanks, Dad.”
“When do you plan on actually getting married?” she could hear the doubt in his voice. She knew he wanted her to be sensible about it, but she’s who she was - most of the time - sensible Gwen, who didn’t accidentally get pregnant after sleeping with her boss…
“Not until after the baby is born, don’t worry,” she reassured him, “I don’t think I could cope becoming a mother and Mrs Pendragon all in one go.”
“And Arthur?” her father implored.
“He thinks he’s ready for it.”
“He’s probably spent ten years planning it.”
“I don’t think so, Dad,” she laughed pouring the hot water from the kettle into the cups, the teabags floating to the top of the liquid.
“Sure about that?” he asked her sceptically, she cold hear the amusement in his voice.
“Yeah,” she poked the teabags around in the cups to make it brew faster.
“Sorry, pumpkin, I better go. I have to be at their house for seven or they get tetchy.”
“Okay, Dad,” she cringed, she could always get away with being late, but it had never been much of a surprise. The hospital was a busy place and people hardly noticed if you were late on the best of days, but it helped that Arthur had always had a blind spot to Gwen’s negative features, “I’ll speak to you soon, okay?”
“Okay, sweetheart, bye.”
“Bye, Dad. Love you,” she said balancing the phone between her ear and her shoulder so she could remove the teabags from the cups.
“Love you too, pumpkin.”
They both hung up at the same time. Gwen discarded the phone on the side and picked up the two cups and headed towards their bedroom, “Time to get up,” she urged placing the mugs on the side and prodding him in the side with her ringed finger on her left hand.
“Good morning, my future wife,” he grinned sleepily as he rubbed his eyes.
“Sleep well, future husband?” she grinned in return. He reached out his hand to massage her bump. She interlocked her fingers with his and placed her left hand on top looking down at the newest development in their relationship.
“Best night’s sleep I’ve had in a long time.”
“Me too,” she picked up her cup of tea and smiled as her engagement ring clinked on the china, “But we have to go to work.”
“Shame.”
“I know, and as much as I would love to sit here all day, we have news.”
“Can’t I just have you all to myself?” he probed running his thumb over the back of her hand.
“I’m all yours, until death do us part, remember,” she leant forwards and pressed her lips to his, “I’m happy, I just want people to know.”
“Your wish is my command”
“I like that.”
“Don’t get used to it. It’s a honeymoon period thing, I’m sure of it,” a grin broke out over Gwen’s face again and she pulled him up from the bed to kiss him again, “Though, when you put it like that, I’m sure I can make the period stretch as long as possible.”
x
Gwen burst into the Doctor’s lounge and let out a frustrated sigh. Morgana looked over at her from her seat on the lumpy sofa and smiled at her sympathetically, “Tough day?”
“I can’t see my feet, and they hurt. My legs hurt. My back hurts. I can’t concentrate for my than a minute and Arthur’s really starting to get on my nerves,” Gwen vented feeling a little better after she was done.
“Really?” Morgana raised a sceptical eyebrow and smirked, “That’s why you’ve got a new ring?”
Gwen looked at her hand and smiled, “I was going to tell you.”
“It’s okay,” Morgana raised her hands and clapped them together, “you’ve not had five minutes to do so yet. How about we do this again and you can tell me?”
Gwen laughed and dealt, shaking Morgana’s hand. She turned back to walk out of the Doctor’s Lounge and shut the door again. Leon gave her a questioning look having just seen her go in, “Don’t ask.”
She re-entered the lounge with an amused smile on her face, “Hi Morgana.”
“Gwen! Fancy seeing you here!” the pair of them laughed, Gwen sat down on the sofa next to her and held up her hand, “Oh my god,” Morgana gasped dramatically grabbing Gwen’s hand and pulling it towards her, “When did he ask?”
“Last night.”
“What did he do? What’s the story?” Now she genuinely was interested. She’d known he was planning on it, anybody who knew him at all knew it was coming; she just hadn’t expected it quite yet. She knew that Gwen had had reservations about further developments.
“We were having a bath-“
“TMI, Gwen,” Morgana jokingly covered her ears and shook her head trying to rid herself of the mental image, “Tee. Em. Eye.”
“Well we were!”
Morgana held up her hands in protest to any further images of her brother and her best friend nakedly cajoling in water bubbly water, “Carry on.”
“We were discussing Blobby’s allegiance to either football or rugby-“
“Arthur was football,” Morgana confirmed, knowing him all too well.
“Of course, and when we were relaxing he asked me.”
Morgana’s shoulders sagged, “That’s it?” she replied disappointed expecting some large romantic affair with speeches and serenading. She wasn’t ashamed to admit she had read Arthur’s diary when they were younger. Back in the day when he’d kept one, anyway. Back in the day when neither of them knew Gwen. Morgana was surprised to find out that her step-brother was actually quite the soppy romantic.
“There was bit of a speech. Anyway, he’s asked me before.”
“Whoa! What? When?” Morgana exclaimed, astounded that she wasn’t already privy to this golden nugget of information.
Gwen shrugged, “About a month ago when we were painting the nursery.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I said no,” despite telling Morgana this information now she knew the actual engagement news would outshine it when she next saw Arthur so wouldn’t tease him too badly about it.
“Why?”
“Because we were inhaling paint fumes and he hadn’t even got a ring.”
“All about the ring?” Morgana smirked, “Gwen your shallowness shocks me.”
“That wasn’t it at all,” Gwen hit her upside the arm and laughed before returning to complete seriousness once again, “I didn’t feel ready to be anybody’s wife. I barely feel ready enough to be somebody’s mother, both at once was a bit too much.”
“And now?” Morgana asked intrigued as to what had changed in the lat few weeks to make Gwen change her mind.
“Now? I thought screw it. We don’t have to get married right away, and I know I love him. I know he loves me, so where is the harm in it? Where’s the harm in being engaged to the man I plan on spending the rest of my life with?” It wasn’t something she ever thought she would say, but that was life for you; always taking you in directions you never thought you would go in.
“I’m happy for you, Gwen,” she pulled her friend into a tight hug.
“What about you and Merlin?” Gwen teased. Morgana pulled away from her and smiled awkwardly.
“Let’s not go there. Me and Merlin? We’re happy where we are; unlike you two we’re happy taking our time.”
“Hey!” Gwen pouted at her friend but only laughed. Gwen had never thought that she would be the girl with the unconventional life. She saw herself aged thirty getting married to some chilled out artistic type and maybe having a child or two after a few years living the happily married life. She had never seen herself engaged to Arthur Pendragon and already expecting their first child at the age of twenty-six. It certainly wasn’t what she had expected, but most of her wouldn’t have it any other way (the uncertain part of her still wanted the artistic type and kids after thirty.)
“You’re the one that got pregnant out of wedlock and without a boyfriend,” her friend had a point. Gwen could see how anybody outside of their troupe could think the whole ordeal a little odd.
“At least he wasn’t a stranger.”
“Good job the pair of you belong together,” Morgana got up from the sofa in order to pour herself a cup of coffee from the pitiful supply in the pot, “even if you did hate him at the time.”
“I did not!”
“Yes you did,” Morgana turned back towards her friend and pointing her bony finger at her accusatively. She remembered all too well quite how ‘disgusted’ with herself Gwen had been when she first admitted to Morgana what had happened. Truth be known the raven haired beauty didn’t know who she felt more sorry for, her traumatised friend or her step-brother who had finally gotten what he had always wanted only to have completely cocked it up leaving the girl thinking that he thought it was all a big mistake.
“If I hated him I wouldn’t have gone and gotten drunk with him.”
“Or had mad passionate sex and kept the baby,” Morgana said punctuating her sentence by taking a sip from her cup.
“It sounds completely insane when you put it like that.”
“It is completely insane,” Morgana raised an eyebrow at her friend. They looked at each other for a second before bursting into laughter.
“I’ve obviously lost it.”
“They say love makes you do crazy things.”
x
One thing Gwen never thought she’d find amusing to watch was Arthur trying to follow instructions. They hadn’t lasted long. He’d thrown them away after deciding that attempting to follow them would cause him more confusion than they would help.
He wasn’t doing too badly in all honesty. It was mostly going to plan. He was currently using a mallet to hit a dowel into place-
“OWHFUCKWANKSHITBUGGERINGOWH!”
“Arthur, stop it,” Gwen chastised, hitting him around the back of the head with the rolled up instructions he had chosen to ignore, “the baby will hear you!”
“I hit my finger,” Arthur said as he sucked on the appendage, making his words slurred and near inaudible.
“I gathered that from the swearing,” Gwen poked. Despite not using the instructions, he wasn’t doing a bad job of fixing together the flat pack crib that they had decided on. It wasn’t complicated by any means, but Gwen was convinced he’d missed out something somewhere. Arthur wasn’t Mr Fix-it at all.
“It hurt.”
“I got that too,” she took his hand from his mouth and placed a kiss to his injured finger, “Better?”
“A bit,” he replied coyly.
She kissed his finger again, each of the three falanges that made it up, followed by the palm of his hand, “Nearly,” she shook her head once and laughed before pushing onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek, “Still hurts a bit,” he mumbled once she’d planted her feet back on the floor. He stooped and placed a light kiss to her lips.
“Better y-“
He caught her lips again running his tongue over her bottom lip. He pulled away again and stepped away when Gwen moved to kiss him again, “I think I’m okay.”
She glared at him and pushed on his arm, “Build,” she ordered and headed over to the sofa to watch.
“Yes boss.”
“No talking,” he zipped his lips and turned back to his work. He lifted one of the sides to another aligning the dowels to the holes so he could attach them, “You’re doing it wrong.”
“Shut up.”
“Well if it all falls apart…“
He ignored her.
x
Somebody was frantically knocking on the door. Arthur knew it would be one, or two, of three people. His father, who would usually phone before arriving, Morgana, who wouldn’t, or Merlin, who would probably be with Morgana anyway. They were the only people who would come up without ringing having been let in by the doorman.
“What are you guys doing here?” Arthur asked as he opened the front door to be greeted, to no surprise, by his sister and her boyfriend.
“Well for once we all have a day off and it’s sunny for the end of September,” Morgana said inviting herself in through the door, “So, we thought that we would treat the pair of you to a picnic in the park.”
“We’ve got strawberries,” Merlin waved the punnet in the air and smiled, “And cream. Tea, chocolate, biscuits. Every other unhealthy picnic food under the sun.”
“Somebody mentioned Strawberries and cream?” Gwen appeared from the bathroom, her hair still damp from her shower and tied back in a low ponytail with a few escaped hairs hanging around her face, “I’m there.”
“Arthur?”
“Sure, why not,” he gave in heading over to pocket his wallet, Blackberry and keys.
x
“I thought you said you could play Frisbee?” Merlin shouted at Arthur after he legged it after the disc Arthur had just thrown towards him. It had spun out thirty metres the wrong way.
“I can. I meant to do that,” Arthur said defensively as he jogged back over to the two females who wee sat gossiping on the picnic blanket as they watched the two males throw the Frisbee at each others heads with as much accuracy as they could muster.
Arthur flopped down to the ground next to his fiancée. He took a swig of water from his bottle and settled himself.
Gwen shifted so she was sat in-between Arthur’s outstretched legs on the tartan blanket that the other couple had provided. They were sat in the middle of the grass in Hyde Park on a weekday afternoon surrounded with half eaten plates of food and half-empty bottles of mineral water and unhealthily sugary fizzy drinks.
“I swear you are like the most prepared parents I’ve ever met.”
“And how many of your friends have kids, Morgana?” Gwen asked her as Merlin walked back to the group of them twirling the Frisbee around on his fingers.
“None, but we meet a lot of expecting mothers in our line of work; and they always seem to not have anything ready. You two have the nursery ready; you have names; you pretty much bought the entire content of Mothercare-“
“That was you,” Gwen stated reaching forwards to grab another strawberry from the speedily emptying punnet.
“Not the point,” Morgana raised her hands in innocence from her leant back position soaking up the last of the summer sun, “You have everything now apart from the baby.”
“We don’t get a lot of time,” Arthur reasoned with his hand resting on Gwen’s midriff, his drink clasped in the other, “We had to grab it when we had it.”
“And thus are prepared how many weeks in advance?” Morgana asked shading her eyes in order to look at the expecting couple in font of her.
“Only ten,” Gwen defended, to her, compared to the thirty weeks she’d already endured - granted only twenty-two of those actually be aware of the situation - of her pregnancy ten weeks wasn’t that long.
“Ten? That’s two and a half months. You’re going to get so bored.”
“It would be a nice chance to relax.”
“Of course.”
“If we hadn’t pretty much gotten everything ready yet we wouldn’t be here now,” Arthur stated finally.
“You mean you wouldn’t,” Arthur looked down at Gwen with a raised eyebrow in question to her comment, “Strawberries and cream.”
“Not forgetting chocolate and tea,” Merlin offered after a silence; the pair of ex-roommates high-fived.
“Your cuteness, it kills me,” Morgana laughed, “Why were you never this adorable, Arthur?”
“Because unlike Merlin; I’m manly. Manly men don’t get called cute.”
“No,” Morgana snorted a laugh, “they just get called brutish and annoying.”
“And what does that make you, the non-cute females?”
“Sassy and amazing,” she held her hands out and flexed her fingers in a jazz-hand movement.
Arthur visibly considered her words with a slight tilt of his head with an unsure smile on his face to annoy her, “One out of two, perhaps.”
“More than I thought you’d give me. Don’t tell me you’ve grown as a person?” she feigned shock and held her hand to her chest.
“Then I won’t,” he replied smugly swiping a biscuit from the packet.
“Wow, Gwen, you’ve made the annoying step-brother less, um, annoying.”
“Eloquence and Morgana; a match made in heaven,” he uttered sarcastically with a smirk on his face. Gwen hit him hard in the stomach.
“And the jerk returns,” Morgana snidely raised an eyebrow and pursed her lips.
“What can I say; you make me a worse sort of man.”
“So easily influenced, dearest brother.”
“So easily annoyed, dearest sister.”
“Screw you,” she flicked a crumb at him. He fell back in a mock death, pulling Gwen down with him. She struggled against him and let out a shrill laugh.
“And then world war three broke out and we all died. The end,” Merlin concluded reaching out for the flask of hot water.
Gwen righted herself and edged towards the younger male, “One can only hope.”
“Tea?” he offered holding out a plastic mug to her.
She accepted it gratefully, “Thought you’d never ask.”
“Not offering around, Merlin, that’s very rude,” Arthur pushed himself up onto his elbows to chastise his friend, poking him with the toe of his shoe. Merlin batted him away and looked at him unimpressed.
“It’s a grown up drink, for grown up people,” Merlin said through squinted eyes.
Arthur raised an eyebrow and laughed, “The runt says to the attending doctor?”
“Pfft, don’t pull rank,” Merlin disregarded and gave Gwen a teabag to put into her water-filled cup.
“Why not?” Arthur shrugged still laying back on the grass, “Works.”
“Makes you come across as a bit of a prat,” Gwen couldn’t help but smile at the pair of them. Arthur sat up to defend himself, dislodging Gwen slightly from her seated position. She batted him away as he slipped his arms back around her.
“And for that you,” Arthur pointed at Merlin, “are on bedpan duty for a week.”
“Oh the pain,” Merlin offered the milk to Gwen who poured it into her plastic mug and stirred. She only added one sugar and settled back against Arthur, “when am I not?”
“It will be all you do, all week.”
“Sounds like a challenge. Bring it.”
“And so it starts,” Morgana stated stealing the chocolate bar from Merlin’s hand that he had just picked out of the picnic basket.
“Hey!”
“Who bought it?”
“I did.”
“Liar.”