Timing is Everything; Merlin Modern AU
Title: Timing is Everything (1/5)
Authors: mydoctortennant
Pairings/Characters: Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Morgana. Special guest appearances from Gwaine, Lance, Leon, Percy, Freya and Uther. Plus others inc OCs. (Eventual Arthur/Gwen and Merlin/Morgana. Slight Gwaine/Gwen and Merlin/Freya)
Warnings: Occsional spouts of bad language.
Disclaimer: Not real. Despite birthday wishes and night time prayers to Santa (all Hail Amy Pond!) Merlin still isn't mine!
Rating: PG13
Summary: Their lives were never meant to be intertwined... but you can't rewrite destiny.
Author Notes: Today, December 2nd 2010, is my one year Merlin fic anniversary! Woohoooo! To celebrate I am starting to post my 50,000 NaNoWriMo story that I wrote for the gorgeous Queen of Jenalot; mustbethursday3.
As usual these days, thanks go to sgmajorshipper for her beta work on this part.
My Merlin Prompt Table
PART One | Two | Three | Four | Five a | Five b
In a stadium full of a few thousand spectators there are horses circling ready to start the cross country course at Badminton in the south west of England. The riders have been training with their horses for this for the last few months but they all know who the top-runner to win is. He has won the last two years and it’s not unlikely that he’ll win again.
His horse is strong and forward going and once he starts going the stallion doesn’t stop until he reaches the stadium again to cross the finishing line.
The horse, competing name Camelot King, loves it when they reach the water, cantering through, splashing his rider, but they keep going powering on.
But the pair of them were ready to go, circling around the arena. He gets the nod and his name is announced; “Arthur Pendragon riding Camelot King, horse number thirty,” and they were off, he kicked on his horse and the world around him was gone. When he was riding the world around him disappeared. He was no longer the country’s finest horse rider; he was a man on a horse.
Arthur Pendragon had been riding horses since he was six years old. He came from a privileged background; he’d lived in a house with four acres and six stables. Once he was tall enough - and had the confidence to ride an animal twice his height - he’d taken to the stables with his nanny, Sophia, and the hired stable hand that looked after the horses from day to day.
It hadn’t taken him long to end up spending day after day down with the horses. He helped Millicent exercise them, each day becoming a stronger rider.
It hadn’t been something his father had supported straight away; but once he’d won his first few competitions - taken there by Millicent and Sophia - he had accepted that his son could make a name for himself with it and it made him happier than he had ever seen his son in his early childhood. Had he refused to let him carry it on he wouldn’t have heard the end of it from Gaius or Sophia.
At present he was thundering around the cross country course, mind focused on the prize at hand. He didn’t like to lose and today wasn’t going to be any different.
x
In the midst of Bath city there is a school. Working there is a woman, twenty-four years old and fresh out of university. She stands in the middle of a circle of eleven and twelve year olds wearing a pair of scruffy jeans and a flowing arty top. Her hair was a mad array of dark curls that complemented her darker complexion. She was the typical image of an erratic drama teacher and that was exactly what she was.
All the kids there like her.
New teachers usually feel the brunt of it. The older kids will play them against the other department teachers and wing it so they can get out ten minutes early, but none of them tried it with her. The boys were behaved if a little crude sometimes and the girls all loved the way she presented herself.
She quickly became their role model.
When the posters went up about the summer play she got more responses than any other drama teacher had in the last decade. And it wasn’t like she had chosen a play that was that well known to the children. None of them had seen - a lot hadn’t heard of it either - Blood Brothers. She’d had to do the auditions over two lunchtimes. The Head of the Department, Mr Peter Ellis, had told her she’d be done in ten minutes and she’d have to cast the best of the worst in the lead roles.
How wrong he had been.
“Well, Miss Leodegrance, you have proven me wrong,” and with a beam on her face she admitted that she had. She had found it near impossible to cast the children. She’d ignored Ellis’ suggestions because one of the kids had come to her saying that she knew exactly who would get the main parts because of the favouritism that had been shown after the last few years and she had promised to ignore his every suggestion.
Right she was to do so too.
Every suggestion Ellis made had been exactly who the girl had told her about. Yet from the auditions she had seen they weren’t the best. Not only was she going to be fair; she was going to be honest to.
Her weekend was going to be full of casting and recasting and scribbling out names and putting them back.
X
The last jump was in sight as Arthur guiding his horse over the penultimate gate and into the arena. Woops and cheers could be heard but he didn’t have a clue what his time was like but he’d not picked up any penalties on the way around. It had been a dream run.
The final fence was ten metres away. Five. They were nearly on top of it and his horse jumped, he rode it through into the landing with precision. He allowed himself a smile and rubbing Camelot King beneath his mane, “Good boy. Good run. Good boy.”
He reached the exit and dismounted his horse in one fellow swoop. Greeted almost immediately by his half-sister and competition companion, Morgana. She had the biggest grin on her face and kissed Camelot King on the nose before scratching him over the star between his ears; “Good boy, CK.”
“How did we go?”
“You’re in first place. Impressive run brother.”
“We’ve still got the Jumping Test tomorrow,” he reasoned as the pair of them gave CK to the handler and headed into the competitor changing rooms; “It can still go down hill.”
“You got top in Dressage and it’s going to take something special to beat that.”
“It’s not impossible.”
“Be optimistic, Arthur, come on. Now shower. Dad’s waiting for you.”
“Oh fantastic.”
The pair of them took off their separate ways; and for the first time that competing weekend Arthur let himself smile. He could win this again.
This was his biggest competition each year. It was his most local championship. He enjoyed it more than any other knowing he had the support of ‘his people’. He’d been on the local news several times over the last year and he could see himself being on it within the next week if he won again.
x
Sunday evening came around quickly for Gwen. She’d agreed to meet Merlin for their regular Sunday night drink and pub quiz. They were determined to win and they hoped that maybe this was their week. It never had been so far.
Merlin was her best friend and had been through university. He’d studied at Bath University having moved there from Cornwall whilst she’d been there as her local university and the easiest place for her to study at the same time as keeping her part-time job to fund herself through. All she wanted was to get through university so she could move onto a better job and now she was working in one of the nicest schools in the city.
They still met at least once a week; often for the quiz.
“You know,” Gwen started as she pushed through the door of the near empty pub, “We should invest in some more team mates. Then we’d have a bigger knowledge base.”
“Yeah, but then we’d get less prize money,” Gwen laughed and punched him gently on the arm. A grin split across his face, “Not all of us have our dream jobs yet.”
“If we ever win, Merlin, I’ll give you all the money, deal?”
“I’d feel bad then,” they reached the bar then and Merlin pulled out his wallet, “What you having?”
“Orange Juice and Lemonade please.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah; car is around the corner so I can’t drink.”
“Not just one?”
“Better not.”
“Oookay,” he ordered from the man behind bar and was quickly given their glasses. He grabbed an answer sheet from the end of the bar and readied himself for the thirty questions they were going to be asked, “Phones at the ready?”
“Cheat.”
“Oh yes,” he grinned again and slurped from his drink, “Tonight we shall win.”
X
The rain had started to come down at precisely 8:21pm that night. It covered the roads causing those roadside waterfalls down the hills. Bath, a particularly hilly place, could be dangerous in the wrong sort of weather.
Arthur, Morgana and their small group of friends had made their way out. It had been a hectic morning and afternoon for the siblings but they’d manage to cut loose from the journalist wanting a word with him about his win that afternoon and they’d escaped to their local pub to celebrate in their own ways.
Arthur had his pint in his hand as Gwaine clapped his hand down on his shoulder; “Good job mate,” he flicked his head around with his longer hair flicking around into his fingers. He blew it out of his eyes and took a long swig from his pint-glass-with-a-handle.
“Nice to know somebody is celebrating,” Arthur laughed noting his friend was on his third pint. They’d only been there for half an hour, if that.
“I’m happy for you,” the Irish man drawled and finished the rest of his pint, “Who wants another drink.”
He disappeared back towards the bar on his new quest to find another pint of Guinness and probably a new female friend for the evening; it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he came back with her already with her name and number. He would never leave with her and he would never call her nor would he remember her name the next morning, but no harm would come of it.
“Maybe one of us should look after him,” Morgana said looking towards the bar towards their friend.
“He’ll be fine. He usually is.”
“Right,” she yawned and slowly stretched out her arms behind her head, “Urgh, do you want to go soon?”
“Yeah; I could do with my bed,” he finished the rest of his pint - one to Gwaine’s three - Lance, a man with short black hair and designer stubble over his cheeks, was sat with them with a bowl of chips smothered in tomato ketchup and he waved a offhanded farewell at them as they rose from the table.
“See you later,” he said with three chips in his mouth and his hand held up in front of it so he didn’t spit all over them, “Congrats again mate.”
“Cheers. Bye mate,” he pulled his car keys out of his pocket and headed towards the exit with Morgana hot on his tail, “I can’t wait until my head hits that pillow.”
“You should have said, we could have celebrated tomorrow,” she squealed at the heavy rain hit her face. She pulled her jacket up over her head and ran the few steps across the pavement towards the sports car Arthur drove. He jogged passed her trying to avoid getting too wet but the rain was coming down in what felt like golf ball sized drops, and he was already soaked to the bone.
“Wouldn’t matter then, would it? The world would be over it.”
“The world is already over it. The people of the riding world might worship you for another three hours… that’s all,” Arthur let out a hearty laugh as he jogged in-between his car and the large white van he had parked behind to the driver’s side. He didn’t look as he emerged between the two vehicles.
Morgana stood, bouncing by the passenger door. He clicked the unlock button as late as he could to annoy her. She smirked at him sarcastically thanking him as she pulled open the door. She didn’t see him step into the road.
She didn’t see the car coming down the road clip his leg as he jogged out in front of it. She only heard his cry of pain as he crashed into the side of the car and slipped on the slight hill of the road in the weather. It was his side crashing into the bonnet that alerted her to the problem making her jump out of her skin; “Arthur!”
She was out of the car quicker than she had clambered into it and in the rain to check on her half-brother; “Arthur!” she called again.
“Fuck!” he shouted out, now leaning against the side of the car now he had landed. Morgana ran around the car as quickly as her heels would allow her to and ducked into a crouch beside him.
“Are you okay?”
“Fuck me-”
“Rather not.”
“-my leg!” he went to bend it to look at it but cried out in pain.
“Shit Gwen!” another male voice came from the car that had skidded to a halt not far down the road from them, “You hit him!”
“He ran out in front of me! I didn’t see him,” she ran from the driver’s side of her car, leaving her car door open to run up the road to Arthur’s side, “Are you okay?”
“He’s fine,” Morgana answered for him only to have him start mouthing off.
“You’ve broken my fucking leg!”
“I’m so sorry. We should get you to the hospital. I’m so sorry! You ran out in front of me! I didn’t mean to hit you. And at east you’re not dead. You didn’t hit your head did you? Oh god, what if you’ve got a concussion that sends you into a coma later on?”
“He’s got a couple of scraps, otherwise he’s fine,” the raven haired beauty said over her blonde haired brother’s complaints.
“We should get you in my car, the hospital isn’t far!”
“Shit Gwen,” Merlin said again, ever-do-helpfully, “That’s the rider bloke,” Gwen looked up at him through the rain, his usually fluffy hair slick o his forehead in the rain, she had no idea what he was on about, “I’m Merlin. Nice to meet you.”
“No offence, but get the fuck away from me.”
“Arthur, play nice,” Morgana said helping him to his good foot, “This lovely lady is offering to help you. Take her up on it. You don’t want blood in your car.”
“This lovely lady ran me over!”
“You ran out in front of me!”
“I’ll drive,” Merlin smiled running back to Gwen’s car and pulling open the back door, “We’ll be there in minutes.”
“I’ll follow in your car,” Morgana said plucking Arthur’s keys from his hand before he could complain.
Arthur reluctantly allowed himself to be pushed into the back of Gwen’s car. It was full of boxes of assorted materials and costumes that Gwen had collected ready to take into school the next morning, “Oh god, we need to stop the bleeding,” Gwen said, her first aid training finally kicking in once she saw the injury she’d inflicted in the light of her car. She grabbed one of the costumes and held it tightly to his bleeding leg over his ripped trouser leg.
“What the hell is all this stuff?” Arthur asked; mainly to stop himself from making a sarcastic comment about women drivers. Arthur moved so he was sitting in the middle of the backseat, leaning up against one of the boxes I the seat next to him, squishing in so Gwen could fit in next to him with the white costume pressed to his leg quickly turning red.
“Costumes. I’m a drama teacher.”
“Great. I got run over by a drama teacher.”
“Yes. What do you do?” she snapped. Being a teacher wasn’t something she was ashamed of, nor was it something she thought anybody should be ashamed of.
“He’s an eventer!” Merlin said excitedly as he started to drive down the road, “Horses and shit,” it then loomed on Gwen that she made have ended whatever career this stranger had had before now, “He wins a lot of stuff. Was at the Olympics in 2008!”
“Why do you know this?” She said, ignoring the subject and squinting at Merlin; why couldn’t he have this useless knowledge for the pub quiz?
“I spent a lot of time watching the Olympics that summer. He got interviewed a lot. Britain’s best chance at gold. Hey, were you at the horse trials today?” Merlin rambled off looking at Arthur in the rear view mirror.
“Yeah, all weekend,” Arthur managed through gritted teeth. Gwen had just pressed down harder on his leg to try and stop the bleeding.
“Sorry.”
He scared her into silence with a glare and carried on talking to Merlin, “Jumping trials today.” Talking stopped him from thinking about the intense pain he could feel in his lower limb. The heat it was already creeping up through his thigh, soon he was sure that his whole leg would feel like it was going to fall off.
“How’d you do?”
“I won,” he said almost bitterly. As if Gwen didn’t feel guilty enough about hitting this man, knowing this was making her feel worse still. She bit down on her lip. She could apologise all day long, it wouldn’t stop the guilt from coursing through her.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, nothing you can do about it now, is there?”
Gwen felt a twinge of annoyance at him; it wasn’t her fault he hadn’t looked where he was going and had ran out in front of her car as she was doing less than the speed limit, caught his leg and ended up having him bleeding in the back of her. No; it wasn’t her fault at all and she’d be damned if she was going to let him tell her otherwise.
“Are we nearly there, Merlin?” Gwen asked looking towards the front of the car. She saw the red light he was stopped at, “Road works? Seriously?”
“There are no cars coming.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake! Just go through then!”
“I can’t, it’s illegal.”
“Merlin!”
“Alright, alright!” He made to move off only to emergency stop a second later.
“MERLIN!” Gwen said having slipped forwards, at this rate she wouldn’t be making it to the hospital in one piece either. Her lungs would be bruised from the amount of times they were getting left behind as her ribcage came rocketing forward each time Merlin put his foot to the brake.
“CAR!” he shouted back.
“Then be careful!”
“You said go!” he said looking back over his shoulder at her.
“I didn’t mean without looking first! And you said nothing was coming!”
Arthur phone rang in his pocket. He fidgeted to grab it out, “Hello?” he said through gritted teeth as he got jammed forwards once again as Merlin came to an abrupt stop at a light that changed as he came to it.
“You should have just ran it,” Gwen complained having been thrown into the back of the drivers seat once again.
“It was red.”
“Only when you got to it. General driving safety, if you have to emergency brake to stop at a light: don’t.”
“Yes, Morgana. I know, he’s driving like a twat-“
“Hey!”
“We’re getting there,” Gwen said harshly, glaring at Arthur. They were helping him - after being his original hindrance but he should have still treated them with a bit more maturity.
“Here, she wants to speak to you,” he held the device out to Gwen who looked at it, bewildered.
“Me?” Arthur shrugged. Gwen took the phone from him and balanced it between her ear and her shoulder gripping the costume back to the bleeding, “Hello?”
“Don’t let him give you a hard time.”
“I’m not.”
“Just hit him if he’s rude.”
“Right.”
“I better go, no headset.”
“Okay, bye,” Gwen let the phone slip from her shoulder only to be chastised by Arthur who grabbed at it fro his lap where it had landed. She rolled her eyes; surely he had bigger things to be worrying about right now?
“We’re here,” Merlin declared as he wrenched on the hand brake.
‘Oh thank God,’ Gwen thought to herself. Now she wouldn’t have to deal with the attitude she was getting fro him. She didn’t know now if it was because she hadn’t recognised him - she still didn’t know his name - or because she’d broken his leg. Potentially, quite badly.
They scrambled out of the car ready to help Arthur out and towards the door. Gwen looked at the looming hospital. She hadn’t been there in a number of years and she hadn’t had any intention of coming back. The doors taunted her. It was time to face facts and go across the threshold of fear and face her past.
Once Gwen and Merlin had helped Arthur into the reception of the A&E department of the hospital he had been taken off their hands by a nurse with a wheelchair who had reprimanded them about not calling out an ambulance. So much for not wasting council resources.
Morgana had appeared two minutes later looking simply divine despite being drenched from head to foot and it wasn’t hard to notice that ever male member of staff - and Merlin - had been checking her out. In the hospital light she looked like a model with her long black hair braided and resting over one shoulder.
Instead of asking at the desk she approached Gwen and Merlin, “Sorry, got stuck behind a lorry after the roundabout,” with an outstretched hand she introduced herself, “I’m Morgana,” she offered taking Merlin’s hand from his side when he didn’t take hers straight away.
“Mer-Merlin,” he managed with a faint smile on his face and pink-tinged ears.
Morgana turned her smile on Gwen, “Guinevere.”
“Nice to meet you. Where’s Arthur?”
So that was his name. Gwen, uncomfortable in her plastic seat, pointed towards the curtain that had been pulled around the horseman, “Over there. He’s waiting for a doctor,” they had been waiting with him but he’d been nothing but sarcastic and rude and Gwen really didn’t want to spend more time with him than necessary. The sooner she could get away and forget it ever happened the better.
“Are you okay?” Morgana asked her with a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.
“Bit shaken but fine,” it wasn’t all the accident either.
“You’ll make sure she gets home okay?” she asked Merlin.
“Yeah.”
“Cheers. You don’t have to wait around if you don’t want to,” Morgana said with a sympathetic look in her eyes. This Guinevere looked perfectly terrified. “It wasn’t your fault. He might be pissed, but he won his big comp. I wouldn’t worry.”
“Can you tell him I’m sorry, again?” Gwen pleaded looking over to the curtain he was behind. She’d contemplated going over herself, but he had made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t welcome to breathe near him let alone talk to him directly.
“Will do,” Morgana offered her a sympathetic smile and gently squeezed her wrist, “Don’t worry. He’s a stubborn arse, but he’ll get over it.”
“I’ve potentially ruined his career…”
“It’s not the end of the world. He’ll be fine. I’ll be honest I’m ore worried about you and your mental state than I am about his…”
“I’m so sorry,” Gwen said again.
“You should have a cup of tea before you go, calm down a bit.”
“I’d rather not stay here if I can help it,” Gwen said shifting in her seat and looking towards the door, “I really don’t like hospitals.”
“Completely understandable,” Morgana said, not even knowing why, “Be careful alright?”
“Yeah,” Gwen stood and shook her head and started towards the door, assuming Merlin was following her.
“Merlin?” He turned back to Morgana, “Can I have your number? I’ll let you know how he goes.”
“Yeah, sure,” he typed his number frantically into the phone and returned it to her promptly, “I’ll speak to you later. I better go.”
x
Merlin, ever the good friend, offered to drive the still shaky Gwen home. It was only a minute walk from her flat to his and the rain had died down a lot that he wouldn’t resemble a drowned rat when he reached his home.
“I can’t believe I ran over an Olympic gold medallist,” Gwen said staring out of her car window and up at the night sky.
“He’ll be fine,” her best friend reasoned as he pulled up into her parking space outside of her flat building and turned the car off.
Gwen let out a long sigh, blowing out her cheeks and letting out the raspberry of a breath, “The whole country is going to want my blood if he can’t compete again,” she said melodramatically hitting her head repetitively against the passenger side window.
“Don’t worry about it, Gwen,” Merlin pulled his friend away from the window and forced her to look at him, “seriously. He’s what, twenty-something. He’s not likely to take ages to heal and it really wasn’t that bad. Stop panicking about it!”
“Easy for you to say!” she said with pleading eyes, “This is going to be in the papers tomorrow!”
“Nobody cares that much about horse riders, Gwen. I wouldn’t worry,” People did however care about those who could win titles for their country which Arthur Pendragon certain could, and did. Saying that, however, wouldn’t help Gwen.
“Why didn’t we just stay behind to finish the rest of the quiz?” Gwen questioned looking over at Merlin as if it was his fault, “I would never have hit him then!”
“Because after the first section of not knowing the answers: we gave it up as a bad job. We weren’t going to win.”
“And hitting a bloke with my car is winning, is it?” Merlin snorted a laugh; it was still pretty funny though his eyes. She was so worried about it and in god’s honest truth it really wasn’t that big a deal. Pendragon wasn’t in a coma, nor did he have any bigger injuries than a broken leg apart from perhaps a bruised ego. No; he would be fine and back on his horse by the end of the summer. Gwen had nothing to worry about.
X
The next morning as Merlin passed the newsagent; he thought it a good idea just to pop in and see what headlines there were, just in case Gwen had been right and they’d decided to publicly humiliate her. He bought an armful of them and headed out; he had a couple of streets left before work and with more time than usual left he would get to check them out.
With a black coffee in one hand and his pile of papers in the other Merlin made his way into his small office off of the side of the lab he worked in. Later he’d be blowing things up in the name of maths and science but for now he was going to wake up and see what havoc the headlines were causing on the fine Monday morning.
His mobile phone vibrated in his bag, alerting him to a new message.
Hey Merlin, Morgana here. Arthur’s fine.
Leg is in a cast. Petitioned for pink. He
said no. Six weeks recovery tops. He’s on
local news tonight. Might be best to stop
Gwen watching it. M.
Merlin chuckled to himself. He’d given Morgana his number on the way out so she could update him on the situation. Gwen had had her head somewhere else since the accident. He didn’t want to be left unknowing of what happened to the Olympian. As much as he had told Gwen nobody cared about sportsmen such as Arthur Pendragon, if he wasn’t able to compete again somebody might be out for blood.
Hey Morgana, thanks for letting me
know. G was worried about the papers.
Nothing so far. Merl.
The young scientist loaded up his laptop, loading his internet browser and tapping impatiently at the Google search bar at the top of it until it would let him type in it.
Arthur Pendragon; he typed in at expert speed.
The results were instantaneous. It helpfully provided him with a link to the images of him winning several cups and a picture of him accepting his gold medal back in 2008, looking a little younger then he did now; and like a deer in headlamps at the ordeal.
Merlin clicked on the first website link to Wikipedia. There wasn’t a whole lot on him; born October 29th 1984, making him twenty-five years old. It spoke about his childhood in Bath. He went to the school Gwen taught at by some bizarre coincidence and grew up around horses. The only thing it said about his personal life was that he was close with his half-sister Morgana. There was a whole section about his win in Beijing but other than that the search proved kind of unfruitful.
He hit the back button. He noticed a few links down that the search engine had highlighted ‘latest news’ and lo and behold; the headline read what Merlin had been searching the papers for that morning; Badminton Winner Breaks Leg.
Merlin winced. He didn’t know if clicking on the link and reading the article was a good idea. Maybe it wouldn’t even mention Gwen and the accident at all. Against his better judgement; Merlin clicked the link.
Spotted early this morning leaving Bath RUH on a pair of crutches and a cast on his left leg; it would appear that Olympic gold medallist Arthur Pendragon’s luck might be about to take a turn for the worst. After his win at Badminton Horse Trials yesterday afternoon Pendragon had celebrated with half-sister Morgana Pendragon in their usual haunt, a source tells us.
It is unclear what happened between his early departure from the pub and his leaving the hospital. Could this be the end of our hopeful’s career before it’s even truly begun?
Well, at least they hadn’t mentioned Gwen. That had to be something, right? It would come out soon enough, especially if he was going to be on Point West tonight. Merlin opened a new tab in his browser and opened his email, quickly creating a new one. He pasted the article link into it and added a smiley face to the end of it and sent it to Gwen.
Hopefully she wouldn’t freak out too much about it.
A minute later and he got another text through;
You’re not funny. G x
Merlin laughed to himself again and took a long swig from his coffee. All would be fine with the world. Maybe he’d asked Morgana out for a drink sometime. Maybe he’d Google her first just to check for any signs of a boyfriend…
X
At twenty-five years old Arthur Pendragon had never broken a bone before that faithful Sunday. Not even a finger. Given the amount of times he had fallen off a horse in the past he had never had so much as a bruise given to him from the animals. So now he had a broken leg because of some idiot girl driving a car he wasn’t best pleased.
And now he had to do television interviews looking like a gimp with a pair of crutches and a cast that was so over-sized it was embarrassing. It wasn’t even like it was a cool accident where he had come tumbling off a horse into the water at the horse trials. No. He’d been hit by a car by a drama teacher of all people.
“Can I sign it?” Morgana had asked him sarcastically once they’d gotten in the front door of their shared house. Arthur glared at her, “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Take it as a ‘Fuck off Morgana’.”
“Somebody’s touchy.”
“My leg is killing me and you won’t let me take any more of my pain meds,” Arthur complained as he through his crutches down onto the sofa next to where he was planning on collapsing for the next few hours before he had to head to Bristol for the news cast in the evening.
“It’s not midday yet,” Morgana said, tempted to reiterate the doctor’s instructions at him for the fifth time, “Get over it.”
“But I’m in pain. What are you some kind of sadist?”
“Damn, foiled,” Morgana smirked. She could have fun with this at his expense. She loved her dear half-brother more than she probably should have done being the elder sibling, but she wanted him to suffer a little too. It would do him the world of good not to get everything he wanted all of the time, “You still aren’t having them.”
“It hurts, Morgana, gimme the bloody painkillers!” he shouted as she started to walk away from him.
“No. Along with the rest of this I’m not having you depending on pain meds; you’ll ride it through without. We need you clean, remember.”
“It’s not like they will stay in my system that long, and I can’t compete for a good three months now anyway thanks to that idiot of a woman,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Her name is Gwen. She’s lovely.”
“She ran me down with her car!”
Morgana beamed, “Remind me to send her a thank you card!”
“Why do I let you run my life, again?”
“Because I’m better at it than you are,” Morgana left him then. Leaving him with his thoughts could do one of two things. Either it would make him realise that he owed Gwen an apology and he’d get off his proverbial high horse and be nice to her. Or he would stew on blaming her and only get worse. Morgana hoped for her new friendship state that he chose the former.
The horseman’s assistant and sister pulled her mobile from her bag and started to type in a message on the touch screen;
Arthur’s a whiney bitch. Could do with
a drink later. I’ll fill you in. xxx
Hitting send she waited for a reply. She didn’t have to wait for long which made her happy. She’s had enough of idiotic men for one day.
Sure thing. Just tell me where. What’s
happened to Arthur now? Love you. x
She opened a new message quickly and replied at high speed.
I’ll tell you later. Love you too xxx
X
The children of Kingswood school had never seen their drama teacher in such a foul mood before. She had been spotted first thing pinning up a copy of the cast list to the drama notice board but she hadn’t stopped to talk to any of the students who greeted her like she would usually. She looked any but her usual friendly and upbeat self. She looked guarding and moderately annoyed.
Ellis had taken to making her cups of coffee without saying anything and carrying on with what he was doing on his side of the Drama office.
“Miss Leodegrance?” one of the older students had spoken up in her first lesson of the afternoon, “Are you feeling okay?” Gwen had smiled at pleasantly as she could muster at the lad. He was only trying to be polite.
“I’m fine thank you, Thomas. I’d love for you to show me what you’ve got,” the class had been working on monologues for a special performance for the parents and teachers on the evening of the Student Award Ceremony. As the parents entered they would dot the students of the Sixth Form class down the entry hall and as the audience entered they would spout off their monologues for the pleasure of the passing parents and faculty. It was something both Ellis and Gwen had been keen to do and the Head had finally given them the nod of approval after fighting for the event for the last few months at their weekly staff meetings.
The event was looming, as was the pending rehearsals for the school summer play; yet for the first time since starting her job, all Gwen could think about was the poor man whom she had hit with her car at twenty-six miles per hour the night before.
X
Gwen got home just after six that evening. When she’d walked in the door of her flat she had headed straight for the kettle, filling it and whacking it on. She grabbed the remote from the kitchen table and flicked on the television and over onto BBC One for the news. The local news would start in ten minutes. That’s all she was really interested in.
She liked hearing about local heroes and developments. Anything else in the national news she would just watch Mock The Week for on Thursday night; it would give her the basic gist of it and she’d understand it more because they’d make it humorous.
The kettle popped.
Gwen spent the next the minutes milling about in the kitchen portion of her open planned kitchen-diner-lounge poking her head in all the food storage trying to figure out what she could have for dinner that wasn’t too much effort.
It wasn’t until she heard a familiar voice on the television that she looked back up at it.
“Oh fuck,” her jaw dropped and she glared at the screen wide eyed.
Arthur Pendragon sat, crutches leant next to him, on the news readers sofas next to them with a smile on his face. He was being praised for his expert skill.
“I must ask you, Arthur,” the female presenter started, “Yesterday you won the Badminton Horse Trials; how is it today that you are on a pair of crutches?” Gwen noticed his smile falter, thoughts bombarding him.
“I had an accident with CK after the trials last night,” he lied swiftly. She couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief. It would be the icing on the cake if Arthur started a witch hunt off his own accord.
“You were lucky it wasn’t during your run on the jump course.”
“Yeah,” he faked a laugh. The news readers knew it. Still, the lie had slipped from his tongue so smoothly. Gwen would have believed it had she not known the explicit truth of the situation.
“And how long do they expect you to be out of competitions?”
“A good few months.”
“Giving somebody else the chance to shine,” the man joked. It fell on deaf ears though; it didn’t grant a laugh from neither Arthur nor the female presenter.
Morgana stood out of shot and gently hit herself on the forehead. This had been the most terrible idea. Arthur wasn’t in the mood for the interview and now the news reader was making an arse of himself by making lame jokes that nobody found fun.
She noticed the director ordering the interview to be cut short from out of the corner of her eye and she couldn’t say she blamed him. The interview had gone from bad to worse in a matter of a minute.
Once he was out of shot and no longer in the focus of the cameras at all Morgana waved for Arthur to come to her. He grabbed his crutches as silently as he could but waited for them to cross over to one of their readers in the field before he made to go to her. He didn’t need unwanted attention on him. It would be more embarrassing that being on crutches already way.
The handles of the transport were already starting to rub at the palm of his hands. Morgana had suggested that he bound a few pairs of socks to them to cushion them, but that would just be a needless annoyance. Arthur didn’t have the patience to fiddle with things like that; undoubtedly the things would only come off and he’d had to constantly be reattaching them. He would just suffer, and not in silence.
“What was that?” Morgana asked hitting up side the head as they walked out of the studio, the runner opening the door for them with a smile on his face. Morgana thanked him and continued to lead Arthur towards the reception desk so they could leave.
“What was what, Morgana?”
“That shambles!” She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder back towards the studio door. He infuriated her so much sometimes with his stupid ways. He wasn’t as untouchable as he liked to think. The previous night had proven that.
“They were asking stupid questions,” he shrugged her off as he reached the desk and waited for the receptionist to give them their marching orders.
“’What does it feel like to win?’ ‘Grunt’,” she copied, “Yeah, great answer. Eloquent.”
“Can I have my pain killers now?” he asked pointedly ignoring her.
“No. Eight.”
Arthur rolled his eyes and quickly signed out and handed back his pass and huffed towards the doors of the building. He didn’t want to talk to her, not today. Once they were back at their house he was going to his room, plugging in his console and having a good game of Crash Bandicoot; maybe he’d convince Gwaine he wanted to come over and they could have a good few games of Worms Armageddon…
“You know, you should talk to Gwen,” Arthur raised an eyebrow at his half-sister, “Apologise.”
“Apologise for her running me over, I don’t think so.”
“You did run out in front of her. You should have looked where you were going. You properly shook her up,” Arthur snorted in response and shook his head. Morgana rolled his eyes. As much as she did adore him, she wanted to hit him about the head with one of her old and heavy university textbooks. It would hurt him and it would please her. Endlessly. “Dad wants to see us.”
The childhood home of Siblings Pendragon was a grand affair. They would keep CK there if it didn’t mean travelling so far every day and they both liked the city far too much to live in the middle of nowhere. The nearest pub was miles away and full of fuddy duddies.
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“I imagine it might be something to do with you being on the news with a broken leg.”
“Right,” Arthur groaned. The wrought iron fence opened automatically as they approached it. Arthur had always thought it over-kill but whatever made his father happy with his seemingly endless supply of old money.
“I told you to tell him first.”
“I forgot.”
“No, you put it off, which is typical of you.”
“Don’t start, Morgana, I’m about to get ‘the speech’ from Dad and I don’t need it from you too,” she pulled up in front of the garages to the side of the house. The gravel crunching beneath the wheels. She got out and pulled Arthur’s crutches from the backseat as he opened his door.
“Here,” she thrust the first at him then the second. He looped his arms through the holes and slowly brought himself to standing.
“Thanks.”
“So it does have manners,” Morgana said sarcastically before slamming the car door behind him and taking off towards the house at a faster speed than Arthur.
“That’s not fair!” he complained, the gravel was making it harder for him to move at a great speed.
“Then don’t run out in front of cars in the future.”
x
Uther Pendragon was a powerful man. He had money invested everywhere. If you weren’t sure if he owned a share of your company or project chances were he did; even if he didn’t make it well known. He knew where to put his money; his cushy lifestyle was enough to tell you that.
To say he was an absent father would probably be laughed off as an understatement. A big one. He saw his children once a week, if that, and they were usually under the care of hired help. It had taken him a long while to realise that his only son was fascinated by horses. It had been one afternoon when he had arrived home from a charity conference earlier than he had anticipated and nobody was around the house.
Sophia, his children’s nanny, had left a note on the kitchen counter telling Uther, should he arrive home, exactly where the three of them were. Down the stables.
He had wondered down through the house gardens. He could hear the beating of hooves on the hard ground as one of the horses undoubtedly thundered about the sandy training ring. Uther had never used it, nor had he intended to. It had come with the house along with the stables so he thought he’d fill it. He made a healthy profit from having Millicent teaching local children and adults how to ride.
He had never thought she would extend that to his own kids.
Uther had clapped eyes on his son just as he jumped a four foot fence. His daughter cheered him from the sidelines, surprisingly not riding too. Uther clapped. Morgana’s head whipped around at the noise. She grinned and ran up to him, he put his arm about her shoulders as he continued back down towards the arena, “Very good, son.”
“Thanks,” Arthur said quietly looking to Sophia and Millicent for support.
“Mr Pendragon.”
“Sophia. Millicent,” he greeted, acknowledging the both in turn, “What wonders are you working on my son?”
“He was quite the natural, Mr Pendragon.”
“Is he now?” he said sceptically.
“Yes, sir. He has a competition in a week.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And nobody sought to tell me this?”
“You’ve been busy, Mr Pendragon. And Arthur was worried you wouldn’t agree to it.”
“He would be right.”
“There is nowt wrong with riding,” Millicent argued, “The lad is good at it. Very good. Bordering on fantastic. It wouldn’t be wrong for you to support him, Mr Pendragon.”
Of course it had taken Arthur winning three consecutive podiums for Uther to see sense. He’d never agree to Arthur being able to miss school or for him to indeed drop out earlier than getting his A-Levels for him to pursue his chosen career, but he had started to appreciate his son’s flare with equines.
“Dad?” Arthur called out as he reached the open front door. Morgana had already disappeared inside without a trace.
“Study,” was the only reply he got.
“Dad?” he pushed open the door to the study, carefully resting his left foot on the floor before gently pushing into the room with his crutches. When he was younger he had barely been allow to touch the door let alone go in there. It was only when they were being told off that he would sit them in the chair by the door and give them long, lecturing speeches about right and wrong. It was that chair that his father had sat him in to tell him all about the birds and the bees and how they remotely related to fantasising about the opposite sex (a girl called Imogen Waye to be precise).
“Sit down,” Morgana wasn’t in the room, undoubtedly already sent away so he could talk ‘privately’ with his son. Arthur visibly gulped and complied leaving the door open just in case he needed a speedy escape, “What happened?”
“I broke my leg,” Arthur said pushing himself out of his chair and seating himself more comfortably.
“I can see that,” his father said sternly, “How?”
“I got hit by a car.”
“You got hit by a car?” Uther repeated slowly.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Was it speeding?”
“No. I wasn’t looking where I was going and stepped out in front of it.”
“What did you do that for?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“Did they stop?”
“They took me to the hospital.”
“No ambulance?”
“We were only ten minutes away. It was easier.”
“And how shall they be compensating you?” he plucked a pen from the pot on the top of his table and started to scribble notes down on a notepad he had on his desktop.
“By never being in my life ever again?”
“This could have harming effects on your livelihood. We should talk to our lawyer.”
“No, Dad, there’s no point. It’s not that bad. Clean fracture. A bit of blood where I hit the tarmac. Nothing six weeks on crutches won’t fix.”
“The point still stands.”
“No, Dad. You’re not doing this. I’ve got enough to survive on for the next decade. I don’t need to leech off of a drama teacher. That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair, Arthur, is your disability,” Arthur scoffed. He really was over doing this. He had always been good at making more of a situation than he should have.
“You’re talking as if I lost a leg. It’s fractured. It hurts a bit but I’m fine. I didn’t even hit my head.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes, Dad, I’m sure. Christ, just drop it will you? Can’t you ask me how I am rather than try and sue some perfectly nice,” well, maybe, “girl who didn’t mean to do it? It wasn’t her fault,” he could admit that to his father but not to her. He’d rather leave her to sweat and let her take all the blame he was laying on her. He knew perfectly well it was as much her fault as it was Hammond’s fault he crashed the jet car, “it was an accident. Let it go.”
“Accidents shouldn’t happen.”
“And it’s my fault it did,” Arthur pushed himself out of the car with the aid of his crutch and went to move towards the door, “If that’s all you wanted, I’m going.”
“You won’t get far without Morgana.”
“You’re right,” he hollered his sister’s name at the top of his lungs.
“Whaaat?”
“Time to go.”
X
One good thing that Morgana got out of Arthur being out of competitions for a few weeks was a bit more time to herself. She didn’t have to configure flights and currency. She didn’t have to plan her life around Arthur; instead she could plan Arthur around her life for a change.
“Going out!” she shouted up the stairs to her brother who at present was playing computer games with Gwaine who had come over with a six pack only to find out that Arthur couldn’t have alcohol whilst on his pain killers. Morgana didn’t even get a reply.
She shrugged and walked out, slamming the door behind her.
She sped off in her car heading towards the town centre before veering off to go to the Motorway; it was the quickest way to get to Bristol at this time of day. Otherwise she’d spend half an hour extra sitting in a queue trying to get out of Bath.
She pulled up to an apartment building in the suburbs of Bristol. She frowned; somebody was parked in her boyfriend’s car parking space. He didn’t own a car so usually it was empty for her to use when she came to visit. She pulled up to park behind it, keeping her car out of the way as much as possible. She’d just have to check where she could park.
When she reached the front door she pressed his buzzer.
No answer. She knew he would be in; it was one of his days off.
She buzzed again.
“Hello?” he sounded gruff as if he was half asleep.
“It’s Me.”
“Morg?”
“Yeah,” he’d sounded shocked, panicked almost. “Can I come in?” she asked with an attempt to laugh when he didn’t open the door straight away.
“Sure,” a louder buzzer sounded and she pushed in through the door. Morgana walked quickly up the stairs and down the first floor corridor to flat 2B. The door wasn’t unlocked and ajar when she got to it like it usually was when he buzzed her up. She frowned. She knocked three times.
When the door finally opened her boyfriend was pulling a hoodie over his head. It wasn’t particularly cold. It was rather warm outside and by the feel of it even warmer inside his flat, “Are you okay?”
“Can’t be warm,” he said. She’d have believe him, but he didn’t look sick, “Been feeling rough for days.”
“You didn’t say, I would have brought you some soup or something,” he laughed feebly and kissed her on the forehead.
“I hate soup.”
“I know, Al, but you know, the sentiment is there.”
“Yeah. You’re sweet,” he didn’t make to move from the short corridor they stood in. His bedroom door was closed. Surely if he was that ill he’d have been in bed, and he never shut the doors.
“Do you need me to do anything? Laundry? Washing up?”
“I’m fine, Morg, really. Just need sleep.”
“Is that a hint for me to leave?” she laughed. She didn’t get time off often, all she wanted was to spend a bit of time with him before she was jet setting off to France or Germany or wherever it was Arthur’s next competition might take her. She’d be bogged under by paper before then.
“Sorry, babe.”
“Right,” her expression fell, rejected. She turned back towards the door. She wasn’t going to stay if he didn’t want her to. She caught a glimpse of red out of the corner of her eye. It was a coat she realised once she focused on it. A coat that wasn’t hers.
Al realised what she had stopped to look at the second he followed the direction of her look, “Morg-“
“Right,” the realisation hit her square in the face; the car; the coat; the ‘cold’; “Well now I know. See you around, you jerk.”
She didn’t feel the need to cry. The whole thing had been over for months. He didn’t like her loyalty to her brother. He often called him a ‘prat’ and a ‘tosser’. The two of the had met once and taken an instant dislike to the other. Morgana would have found it amusing if they didn’t keep trying to play each other off against the other. Arthur had given up pretty quickly when he realised that he did always tend to win when it came to who got more time with Morgana, but he would never support a relationship with somebody he deemed as ‘creepy’.
Arthur wouldn’t be surprised - and would probably say ‘I told you so’ - if she went home and told him. She’d just have to potter around in the city for a while then go home.
x
“Go, go, go, go, go!” Gwaine shouted at the top of his lungs as he continually poked the ‘x’ key of his controller. Like Arthur, he didn’t go all out on gaming etiquette. He didn’t know what square, circle and triangle did all he knew was the ‘x’ made him go faster and the arrow keys manoeuvred him left and right. If they were playing ‘Tekken’ then he’d merely button smashed until he found a combination that did something cool.
Arthur was very much the same.
It worked well for the when they got together. They usually ended up playing the more strategic games like Worms - somewhere amidst the guns and sheep bombs they promised there was some sort of logical way to play the game so you manage to kill your opponent and not your own Worms. Morgana called it ‘aim’. Arthur and Gwaine called it ‘skill’.
“Noooo!” Gwaine had managed to crash his game car - for once they had decided to play racing games instead - and Arthur crossed the finish line breaking his own personal record, “So what you were saying is some hot girl ran you over?”
“No, what I’m saying is some moderately plain looking girl did,” Arthur threw down his controlling onto the carpet. He could see his friend’s mind working. The way it always did. Tick; girl. Tick; pretty? Tick; yes. Tick; Number. Tick.
“And you didn’t get her number?” He was predictable.
“No.”
“Why not? You could have given it to me.”
“Like you need the help.”
“That much is true; but if this girl is willing to run you over then tend to your every need I’d like her number. That and I’d like to high-five her for crippling you,” Arthur punched his friend hard on the arm.
“Thanks, so much.”
“Any time,” he took a swig from his beer, “Do I get to meet her?”
“No, why would you?”
“She sounds like fun.”
“I didn’t get her number and she ran me over. Why would I ever see her again?”
“She sounds like fun?” Gwaine repeated, “Tell me again why you didn’t get her number?” he joked. Arthur punched back, “You don’t know how to have a good time.”
“I know how to have a good time.”
“No? You’ve not ridden a horse today and you’re all doom and gloom. It’s not the end of the world if you spent twenty-hour hours away from Creepy Knight.”
“Camelot King.”
“Whatever. You can go to the yard you know. To have your freaky affair,” Gwaine clicked; a thought occurred to him, “That’s it! You need to get laid!”
“With a cast? Really sexy.”
“When was the last time you had a night out that didn’t end with you leaving with Morgana?” when Arthur didn’t answer him right away he interjected, “Exactly. Maybe you should sleep with Gwen, was it? She won’t mind the cast; it’s her fault after all.”
“No, Gwaine, no,” Arthur picked up his controller and clicked through the menu, “Get ready to play, Mr Goodsir.”
“Changing the subject won’t make the problem go away.”
“This time it will, prepare to lose.”
END NOTE: Peter Ellis is based off of my drama teacher from sixth form, Duncan Ellis. He was the best thing that happened to our drama department so massive nods to him! Also; Goodsir is the surname of one of my friends, Tom. Considering 'good sir' would be what ladies called knights etc I thought it fitted Gwaine rather well. It certainly suits Tom...
PART Two
Authors: mydoctortennant
Pairings/Characters: Arthur, Gwen, Merlin, Morgana. Special guest appearances from Gwaine, Lance, Leon, Percy, Freya and Uther. Plus others inc OCs. (Eventual Arthur/Gwen and Merlin/Morgana. Slight Gwaine/Gwen and Merlin/Freya)
Warnings: Occsional spouts of bad language.
Disclaimer: Not real. Despite birthday wishes and night time prayers to Santa (all Hail Amy Pond!) Merlin still isn't mine!
Rating: PG13
Summary: Their lives were never meant to be intertwined... but you can't rewrite destiny.
Author Notes: Today, December 2nd 2010, is my one year Merlin fic anniversary! Woohoooo! To celebrate I am starting to post my 50,000 NaNoWriMo story that I wrote for the gorgeous Queen of Jenalot; mustbethursday3.
As usual these days, thanks go to sgmajorshipper for her beta work on this part.
My Merlin Prompt Table
PART One | Two | Three | Four | Five a | Five b
In a stadium full of a few thousand spectators there are horses circling ready to start the cross country course at Badminton in the south west of England. The riders have been training with their horses for this for the last few months but they all know who the top-runner to win is. He has won the last two years and it’s not unlikely that he’ll win again.
His horse is strong and forward going and once he starts going the stallion doesn’t stop until he reaches the stadium again to cross the finishing line.
The horse, competing name Camelot King, loves it when they reach the water, cantering through, splashing his rider, but they keep going powering on.
But the pair of them were ready to go, circling around the arena. He gets the nod and his name is announced; “Arthur Pendragon riding Camelot King, horse number thirty,” and they were off, he kicked on his horse and the world around him was gone. When he was riding the world around him disappeared. He was no longer the country’s finest horse rider; he was a man on a horse.
Arthur Pendragon had been riding horses since he was six years old. He came from a privileged background; he’d lived in a house with four acres and six stables. Once he was tall enough - and had the confidence to ride an animal twice his height - he’d taken to the stables with his nanny, Sophia, and the hired stable hand that looked after the horses from day to day.
It hadn’t taken him long to end up spending day after day down with the horses. He helped Millicent exercise them, each day becoming a stronger rider.
It hadn’t been something his father had supported straight away; but once he’d won his first few competitions - taken there by Millicent and Sophia - he had accepted that his son could make a name for himself with it and it made him happier than he had ever seen his son in his early childhood. Had he refused to let him carry it on he wouldn’t have heard the end of it from Gaius or Sophia.
At present he was thundering around the cross country course, mind focused on the prize at hand. He didn’t like to lose and today wasn’t going to be any different.
x
In the midst of Bath city there is a school. Working there is a woman, twenty-four years old and fresh out of university. She stands in the middle of a circle of eleven and twelve year olds wearing a pair of scruffy jeans and a flowing arty top. Her hair was a mad array of dark curls that complemented her darker complexion. She was the typical image of an erratic drama teacher and that was exactly what she was.
All the kids there like her.
New teachers usually feel the brunt of it. The older kids will play them against the other department teachers and wing it so they can get out ten minutes early, but none of them tried it with her. The boys were behaved if a little crude sometimes and the girls all loved the way she presented herself.
She quickly became their role model.
When the posters went up about the summer play she got more responses than any other drama teacher had in the last decade. And it wasn’t like she had chosen a play that was that well known to the children. None of them had seen - a lot hadn’t heard of it either - Blood Brothers. She’d had to do the auditions over two lunchtimes. The Head of the Department, Mr Peter Ellis, had told her she’d be done in ten minutes and she’d have to cast the best of the worst in the lead roles.
How wrong he had been.
“Well, Miss Leodegrance, you have proven me wrong,” and with a beam on her face she admitted that she had. She had found it near impossible to cast the children. She’d ignored Ellis’ suggestions because one of the kids had come to her saying that she knew exactly who would get the main parts because of the favouritism that had been shown after the last few years and she had promised to ignore his every suggestion.
Right she was to do so too.
Every suggestion Ellis made had been exactly who the girl had told her about. Yet from the auditions she had seen they weren’t the best. Not only was she going to be fair; she was going to be honest to.
Her weekend was going to be full of casting and recasting and scribbling out names and putting them back.
X
The last jump was in sight as Arthur guiding his horse over the penultimate gate and into the arena. Woops and cheers could be heard but he didn’t have a clue what his time was like but he’d not picked up any penalties on the way around. It had been a dream run.
The final fence was ten metres away. Five. They were nearly on top of it and his horse jumped, he rode it through into the landing with precision. He allowed himself a smile and rubbing Camelot King beneath his mane, “Good boy. Good run. Good boy.”
He reached the exit and dismounted his horse in one fellow swoop. Greeted almost immediately by his half-sister and competition companion, Morgana. She had the biggest grin on her face and kissed Camelot King on the nose before scratching him over the star between his ears; “Good boy, CK.”
“How did we go?”
“You’re in first place. Impressive run brother.”
“We’ve still got the Jumping Test tomorrow,” he reasoned as the pair of them gave CK to the handler and headed into the competitor changing rooms; “It can still go down hill.”
“You got top in Dressage and it’s going to take something special to beat that.”
“It’s not impossible.”
“Be optimistic, Arthur, come on. Now shower. Dad’s waiting for you.”
“Oh fantastic.”
The pair of them took off their separate ways; and for the first time that competing weekend Arthur let himself smile. He could win this again.
This was his biggest competition each year. It was his most local championship. He enjoyed it more than any other knowing he had the support of ‘his people’. He’d been on the local news several times over the last year and he could see himself being on it within the next week if he won again.
x
Sunday evening came around quickly for Gwen. She’d agreed to meet Merlin for their regular Sunday night drink and pub quiz. They were determined to win and they hoped that maybe this was their week. It never had been so far.
Merlin was her best friend and had been through university. He’d studied at Bath University having moved there from Cornwall whilst she’d been there as her local university and the easiest place for her to study at the same time as keeping her part-time job to fund herself through. All she wanted was to get through university so she could move onto a better job and now she was working in one of the nicest schools in the city.
They still met at least once a week; often for the quiz.
“You know,” Gwen started as she pushed through the door of the near empty pub, “We should invest in some more team mates. Then we’d have a bigger knowledge base.”
“Yeah, but then we’d get less prize money,” Gwen laughed and punched him gently on the arm. A grin split across his face, “Not all of us have our dream jobs yet.”
“If we ever win, Merlin, I’ll give you all the money, deal?”
“I’d feel bad then,” they reached the bar then and Merlin pulled out his wallet, “What you having?”
“Orange Juice and Lemonade please.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah; car is around the corner so I can’t drink.”
“Not just one?”
“Better not.”
“Oookay,” he ordered from the man behind bar and was quickly given their glasses. He grabbed an answer sheet from the end of the bar and readied himself for the thirty questions they were going to be asked, “Phones at the ready?”
“Cheat.”
“Oh yes,” he grinned again and slurped from his drink, “Tonight we shall win.”
X
The rain had started to come down at precisely 8:21pm that night. It covered the roads causing those roadside waterfalls down the hills. Bath, a particularly hilly place, could be dangerous in the wrong sort of weather.
Arthur, Morgana and their small group of friends had made their way out. It had been a hectic morning and afternoon for the siblings but they’d manage to cut loose from the journalist wanting a word with him about his win that afternoon and they’d escaped to their local pub to celebrate in their own ways.
Arthur had his pint in his hand as Gwaine clapped his hand down on his shoulder; “Good job mate,” he flicked his head around with his longer hair flicking around into his fingers. He blew it out of his eyes and took a long swig from his pint-glass-with-a-handle.
“Nice to know somebody is celebrating,” Arthur laughed noting his friend was on his third pint. They’d only been there for half an hour, if that.
“I’m happy for you,” the Irish man drawled and finished the rest of his pint, “Who wants another drink.”
He disappeared back towards the bar on his new quest to find another pint of Guinness and probably a new female friend for the evening; it wouldn’t surprise anyone if he came back with her already with her name and number. He would never leave with her and he would never call her nor would he remember her name the next morning, but no harm would come of it.
“Maybe one of us should look after him,” Morgana said looking towards the bar towards their friend.
“He’ll be fine. He usually is.”
“Right,” she yawned and slowly stretched out her arms behind her head, “Urgh, do you want to go soon?”
“Yeah; I could do with my bed,” he finished the rest of his pint - one to Gwaine’s three - Lance, a man with short black hair and designer stubble over his cheeks, was sat with them with a bowl of chips smothered in tomato ketchup and he waved a offhanded farewell at them as they rose from the table.
“See you later,” he said with three chips in his mouth and his hand held up in front of it so he didn’t spit all over them, “Congrats again mate.”
“Cheers. Bye mate,” he pulled his car keys out of his pocket and headed towards the exit with Morgana hot on his tail, “I can’t wait until my head hits that pillow.”
“You should have said, we could have celebrated tomorrow,” she squealed at the heavy rain hit her face. She pulled her jacket up over her head and ran the few steps across the pavement towards the sports car Arthur drove. He jogged passed her trying to avoid getting too wet but the rain was coming down in what felt like golf ball sized drops, and he was already soaked to the bone.
“Wouldn’t matter then, would it? The world would be over it.”
“The world is already over it. The people of the riding world might worship you for another three hours… that’s all,” Arthur let out a hearty laugh as he jogged in-between his car and the large white van he had parked behind to the driver’s side. He didn’t look as he emerged between the two vehicles.
Morgana stood, bouncing by the passenger door. He clicked the unlock button as late as he could to annoy her. She smirked at him sarcastically thanking him as she pulled open the door. She didn’t see him step into the road.
She didn’t see the car coming down the road clip his leg as he jogged out in front of it. She only heard his cry of pain as he crashed into the side of the car and slipped on the slight hill of the road in the weather. It was his side crashing into the bonnet that alerted her to the problem making her jump out of her skin; “Arthur!”
She was out of the car quicker than she had clambered into it and in the rain to check on her half-brother; “Arthur!” she called again.
“Fuck!” he shouted out, now leaning against the side of the car now he had landed. Morgana ran around the car as quickly as her heels would allow her to and ducked into a crouch beside him.
“Are you okay?”
“Fuck me-”
“Rather not.”
“-my leg!” he went to bend it to look at it but cried out in pain.
“Shit Gwen!” another male voice came from the car that had skidded to a halt not far down the road from them, “You hit him!”
“He ran out in front of me! I didn’t see him,” she ran from the driver’s side of her car, leaving her car door open to run up the road to Arthur’s side, “Are you okay?”
“He’s fine,” Morgana answered for him only to have him start mouthing off.
“You’ve broken my fucking leg!”
“I’m so sorry. We should get you to the hospital. I’m so sorry! You ran out in front of me! I didn’t mean to hit you. And at east you’re not dead. You didn’t hit your head did you? Oh god, what if you’ve got a concussion that sends you into a coma later on?”
“He’s got a couple of scraps, otherwise he’s fine,” the raven haired beauty said over her blonde haired brother’s complaints.
“We should get you in my car, the hospital isn’t far!”
“Shit Gwen,” Merlin said again, ever-do-helpfully, “That’s the rider bloke,” Gwen looked up at him through the rain, his usually fluffy hair slick o his forehead in the rain, she had no idea what he was on about, “I’m Merlin. Nice to meet you.”
“No offence, but get the fuck away from me.”
“Arthur, play nice,” Morgana said helping him to his good foot, “This lovely lady is offering to help you. Take her up on it. You don’t want blood in your car.”
“This lovely lady ran me over!”
“You ran out in front of me!”
“I’ll drive,” Merlin smiled running back to Gwen’s car and pulling open the back door, “We’ll be there in minutes.”
“I’ll follow in your car,” Morgana said plucking Arthur’s keys from his hand before he could complain.
Arthur reluctantly allowed himself to be pushed into the back of Gwen’s car. It was full of boxes of assorted materials and costumes that Gwen had collected ready to take into school the next morning, “Oh god, we need to stop the bleeding,” Gwen said, her first aid training finally kicking in once she saw the injury she’d inflicted in the light of her car. She grabbed one of the costumes and held it tightly to his bleeding leg over his ripped trouser leg.
“What the hell is all this stuff?” Arthur asked; mainly to stop himself from making a sarcastic comment about women drivers. Arthur moved so he was sitting in the middle of the backseat, leaning up against one of the boxes I the seat next to him, squishing in so Gwen could fit in next to him with the white costume pressed to his leg quickly turning red.
“Costumes. I’m a drama teacher.”
“Great. I got run over by a drama teacher.”
“Yes. What do you do?” she snapped. Being a teacher wasn’t something she was ashamed of, nor was it something she thought anybody should be ashamed of.
“He’s an eventer!” Merlin said excitedly as he started to drive down the road, “Horses and shit,” it then loomed on Gwen that she made have ended whatever career this stranger had had before now, “He wins a lot of stuff. Was at the Olympics in 2008!”
“Why do you know this?” She said, ignoring the subject and squinting at Merlin; why couldn’t he have this useless knowledge for the pub quiz?
“I spent a lot of time watching the Olympics that summer. He got interviewed a lot. Britain’s best chance at gold. Hey, were you at the horse trials today?” Merlin rambled off looking at Arthur in the rear view mirror.
“Yeah, all weekend,” Arthur managed through gritted teeth. Gwen had just pressed down harder on his leg to try and stop the bleeding.
“Sorry.”
He scared her into silence with a glare and carried on talking to Merlin, “Jumping trials today.” Talking stopped him from thinking about the intense pain he could feel in his lower limb. The heat it was already creeping up through his thigh, soon he was sure that his whole leg would feel like it was going to fall off.
“How’d you do?”
“I won,” he said almost bitterly. As if Gwen didn’t feel guilty enough about hitting this man, knowing this was making her feel worse still. She bit down on her lip. She could apologise all day long, it wouldn’t stop the guilt from coursing through her.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, well, nothing you can do about it now, is there?”
Gwen felt a twinge of annoyance at him; it wasn’t her fault he hadn’t looked where he was going and had ran out in front of her car as she was doing less than the speed limit, caught his leg and ended up having him bleeding in the back of her. No; it wasn’t her fault at all and she’d be damned if she was going to let him tell her otherwise.
“Are we nearly there, Merlin?” Gwen asked looking towards the front of the car. She saw the red light he was stopped at, “Road works? Seriously?”
“There are no cars coming.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake! Just go through then!”
“I can’t, it’s illegal.”
“Merlin!”
“Alright, alright!” He made to move off only to emergency stop a second later.
“MERLIN!” Gwen said having slipped forwards, at this rate she wouldn’t be making it to the hospital in one piece either. Her lungs would be bruised from the amount of times they were getting left behind as her ribcage came rocketing forward each time Merlin put his foot to the brake.
“CAR!” he shouted back.
“Then be careful!”
“You said go!” he said looking back over his shoulder at her.
“I didn’t mean without looking first! And you said nothing was coming!”
Arthur phone rang in his pocket. He fidgeted to grab it out, “Hello?” he said through gritted teeth as he got jammed forwards once again as Merlin came to an abrupt stop at a light that changed as he came to it.
“You should have just ran it,” Gwen complained having been thrown into the back of the drivers seat once again.
“It was red.”
“Only when you got to it. General driving safety, if you have to emergency brake to stop at a light: don’t.”
“Yes, Morgana. I know, he’s driving like a twat-“
“Hey!”
“We’re getting there,” Gwen said harshly, glaring at Arthur. They were helping him - after being his original hindrance but he should have still treated them with a bit more maturity.
“Here, she wants to speak to you,” he held the device out to Gwen who looked at it, bewildered.
“Me?” Arthur shrugged. Gwen took the phone from him and balanced it between her ear and her shoulder gripping the costume back to the bleeding, “Hello?”
“Don’t let him give you a hard time.”
“I’m not.”
“Just hit him if he’s rude.”
“Right.”
“I better go, no headset.”
“Okay, bye,” Gwen let the phone slip from her shoulder only to be chastised by Arthur who grabbed at it fro his lap where it had landed. She rolled her eyes; surely he had bigger things to be worrying about right now?
“We’re here,” Merlin declared as he wrenched on the hand brake.
‘Oh thank God,’ Gwen thought to herself. Now she wouldn’t have to deal with the attitude she was getting fro him. She didn’t know now if it was because she hadn’t recognised him - she still didn’t know his name - or because she’d broken his leg. Potentially, quite badly.
They scrambled out of the car ready to help Arthur out and towards the door. Gwen looked at the looming hospital. She hadn’t been there in a number of years and she hadn’t had any intention of coming back. The doors taunted her. It was time to face facts and go across the threshold of fear and face her past.
Once Gwen and Merlin had helped Arthur into the reception of the A&E department of the hospital he had been taken off their hands by a nurse with a wheelchair who had reprimanded them about not calling out an ambulance. So much for not wasting council resources.
Morgana had appeared two minutes later looking simply divine despite being drenched from head to foot and it wasn’t hard to notice that ever male member of staff - and Merlin - had been checking her out. In the hospital light she looked like a model with her long black hair braided and resting over one shoulder.
Instead of asking at the desk she approached Gwen and Merlin, “Sorry, got stuck behind a lorry after the roundabout,” with an outstretched hand she introduced herself, “I’m Morgana,” she offered taking Merlin’s hand from his side when he didn’t take hers straight away.
“Mer-Merlin,” he managed with a faint smile on his face and pink-tinged ears.
Morgana turned her smile on Gwen, “Guinevere.”
“Nice to meet you. Where’s Arthur?”
So that was his name. Gwen, uncomfortable in her plastic seat, pointed towards the curtain that had been pulled around the horseman, “Over there. He’s waiting for a doctor,” they had been waiting with him but he’d been nothing but sarcastic and rude and Gwen really didn’t want to spend more time with him than necessary. The sooner she could get away and forget it ever happened the better.
“Are you okay?” Morgana asked her with a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.
“Bit shaken but fine,” it wasn’t all the accident either.
“You’ll make sure she gets home okay?” she asked Merlin.
“Yeah.”
“Cheers. You don’t have to wait around if you don’t want to,” Morgana said with a sympathetic look in her eyes. This Guinevere looked perfectly terrified. “It wasn’t your fault. He might be pissed, but he won his big comp. I wouldn’t worry.”
“Can you tell him I’m sorry, again?” Gwen pleaded looking over to the curtain he was behind. She’d contemplated going over herself, but he had made it perfectly clear that she wasn’t welcome to breathe near him let alone talk to him directly.
“Will do,” Morgana offered her a sympathetic smile and gently squeezed her wrist, “Don’t worry. He’s a stubborn arse, but he’ll get over it.”
“I’ve potentially ruined his career…”
“It’s not the end of the world. He’ll be fine. I’ll be honest I’m ore worried about you and your mental state than I am about his…”
“I’m so sorry,” Gwen said again.
“You should have a cup of tea before you go, calm down a bit.”
“I’d rather not stay here if I can help it,” Gwen said shifting in her seat and looking towards the door, “I really don’t like hospitals.”
“Completely understandable,” Morgana said, not even knowing why, “Be careful alright?”
“Yeah,” Gwen stood and shook her head and started towards the door, assuming Merlin was following her.
“Merlin?” He turned back to Morgana, “Can I have your number? I’ll let you know how he goes.”
“Yeah, sure,” he typed his number frantically into the phone and returned it to her promptly, “I’ll speak to you later. I better go.”
x
Merlin, ever the good friend, offered to drive the still shaky Gwen home. It was only a minute walk from her flat to his and the rain had died down a lot that he wouldn’t resemble a drowned rat when he reached his home.
“I can’t believe I ran over an Olympic gold medallist,” Gwen said staring out of her car window and up at the night sky.
“He’ll be fine,” her best friend reasoned as he pulled up into her parking space outside of her flat building and turned the car off.
Gwen let out a long sigh, blowing out her cheeks and letting out the raspberry of a breath, “The whole country is going to want my blood if he can’t compete again,” she said melodramatically hitting her head repetitively against the passenger side window.
“Don’t worry about it, Gwen,” Merlin pulled his friend away from the window and forced her to look at him, “seriously. He’s what, twenty-something. He’s not likely to take ages to heal and it really wasn’t that bad. Stop panicking about it!”
“Easy for you to say!” she said with pleading eyes, “This is going to be in the papers tomorrow!”
“Nobody cares that much about horse riders, Gwen. I wouldn’t worry,” People did however care about those who could win titles for their country which Arthur Pendragon certain could, and did. Saying that, however, wouldn’t help Gwen.
“Why didn’t we just stay behind to finish the rest of the quiz?” Gwen questioned looking over at Merlin as if it was his fault, “I would never have hit him then!”
“Because after the first section of not knowing the answers: we gave it up as a bad job. We weren’t going to win.”
“And hitting a bloke with my car is winning, is it?” Merlin snorted a laugh; it was still pretty funny though his eyes. She was so worried about it and in god’s honest truth it really wasn’t that big a deal. Pendragon wasn’t in a coma, nor did he have any bigger injuries than a broken leg apart from perhaps a bruised ego. No; he would be fine and back on his horse by the end of the summer. Gwen had nothing to worry about.
X
The next morning as Merlin passed the newsagent; he thought it a good idea just to pop in and see what headlines there were, just in case Gwen had been right and they’d decided to publicly humiliate her. He bought an armful of them and headed out; he had a couple of streets left before work and with more time than usual left he would get to check them out.
With a black coffee in one hand and his pile of papers in the other Merlin made his way into his small office off of the side of the lab he worked in. Later he’d be blowing things up in the name of maths and science but for now he was going to wake up and see what havoc the headlines were causing on the fine Monday morning.
His mobile phone vibrated in his bag, alerting him to a new message.
Hey Merlin, Morgana here. Arthur’s fine.
Leg is in a cast. Petitioned for pink. He
said no. Six weeks recovery tops. He’s on
local news tonight. Might be best to stop
Gwen watching it. M.
Merlin chuckled to himself. He’d given Morgana his number on the way out so she could update him on the situation. Gwen had had her head somewhere else since the accident. He didn’t want to be left unknowing of what happened to the Olympian. As much as he had told Gwen nobody cared about sportsmen such as Arthur Pendragon, if he wasn’t able to compete again somebody might be out for blood.
Hey Morgana, thanks for letting me
know. G was worried about the papers.
Nothing so far. Merl.
The young scientist loaded up his laptop, loading his internet browser and tapping impatiently at the Google search bar at the top of it until it would let him type in it.
Arthur Pendragon; he typed in at expert speed.
The results were instantaneous. It helpfully provided him with a link to the images of him winning several cups and a picture of him accepting his gold medal back in 2008, looking a little younger then he did now; and like a deer in headlamps at the ordeal.
Merlin clicked on the first website link to Wikipedia. There wasn’t a whole lot on him; born October 29th 1984, making him twenty-five years old. It spoke about his childhood in Bath. He went to the school Gwen taught at by some bizarre coincidence and grew up around horses. The only thing it said about his personal life was that he was close with his half-sister Morgana. There was a whole section about his win in Beijing but other than that the search proved kind of unfruitful.
He hit the back button. He noticed a few links down that the search engine had highlighted ‘latest news’ and lo and behold; the headline read what Merlin had been searching the papers for that morning; Badminton Winner Breaks Leg.
Merlin winced. He didn’t know if clicking on the link and reading the article was a good idea. Maybe it wouldn’t even mention Gwen and the accident at all. Against his better judgement; Merlin clicked the link.
Spotted early this morning leaving Bath RUH on a pair of crutches and a cast on his left leg; it would appear that Olympic gold medallist Arthur Pendragon’s luck might be about to take a turn for the worst. After his win at Badminton Horse Trials yesterday afternoon Pendragon had celebrated with half-sister Morgana Pendragon in their usual haunt, a source tells us.
It is unclear what happened between his early departure from the pub and his leaving the hospital. Could this be the end of our hopeful’s career before it’s even truly begun?
Well, at least they hadn’t mentioned Gwen. That had to be something, right? It would come out soon enough, especially if he was going to be on Point West tonight. Merlin opened a new tab in his browser and opened his email, quickly creating a new one. He pasted the article link into it and added a smiley face to the end of it and sent it to Gwen.
Hopefully she wouldn’t freak out too much about it.
A minute later and he got another text through;
You’re not funny. G x
Merlin laughed to himself again and took a long swig from his coffee. All would be fine with the world. Maybe he’d asked Morgana out for a drink sometime. Maybe he’d Google her first just to check for any signs of a boyfriend…
X
At twenty-five years old Arthur Pendragon had never broken a bone before that faithful Sunday. Not even a finger. Given the amount of times he had fallen off a horse in the past he had never had so much as a bruise given to him from the animals. So now he had a broken leg because of some idiot girl driving a car he wasn’t best pleased.
And now he had to do television interviews looking like a gimp with a pair of crutches and a cast that was so over-sized it was embarrassing. It wasn’t even like it was a cool accident where he had come tumbling off a horse into the water at the horse trials. No. He’d been hit by a car by a drama teacher of all people.
“Can I sign it?” Morgana had asked him sarcastically once they’d gotten in the front door of their shared house. Arthur glared at her, “I’ll take that as a no.”
“Take it as a ‘Fuck off Morgana’.”
“Somebody’s touchy.”
“My leg is killing me and you won’t let me take any more of my pain meds,” Arthur complained as he through his crutches down onto the sofa next to where he was planning on collapsing for the next few hours before he had to head to Bristol for the news cast in the evening.
“It’s not midday yet,” Morgana said, tempted to reiterate the doctor’s instructions at him for the fifth time, “Get over it.”
“But I’m in pain. What are you some kind of sadist?”
“Damn, foiled,” Morgana smirked. She could have fun with this at his expense. She loved her dear half-brother more than she probably should have done being the elder sibling, but she wanted him to suffer a little too. It would do him the world of good not to get everything he wanted all of the time, “You still aren’t having them.”
“It hurts, Morgana, gimme the bloody painkillers!” he shouted as she started to walk away from him.
“No. Along with the rest of this I’m not having you depending on pain meds; you’ll ride it through without. We need you clean, remember.”
“It’s not like they will stay in my system that long, and I can’t compete for a good three months now anyway thanks to that idiot of a woman,” he said through gritted teeth.
“Her name is Gwen. She’s lovely.”
“She ran me down with her car!”
Morgana beamed, “Remind me to send her a thank you card!”
“Why do I let you run my life, again?”
“Because I’m better at it than you are,” Morgana left him then. Leaving him with his thoughts could do one of two things. Either it would make him realise that he owed Gwen an apology and he’d get off his proverbial high horse and be nice to her. Or he would stew on blaming her and only get worse. Morgana hoped for her new friendship state that he chose the former.
The horseman’s assistant and sister pulled her mobile from her bag and started to type in a message on the touch screen;
Arthur’s a whiney bitch. Could do with
a drink later. I’ll fill you in. xxx
Hitting send she waited for a reply. She didn’t have to wait for long which made her happy. She’s had enough of idiotic men for one day.
Sure thing. Just tell me where. What’s
happened to Arthur now? Love you. x
She opened a new message quickly and replied at high speed.
I’ll tell you later. Love you too xxx
X
The children of Kingswood school had never seen their drama teacher in such a foul mood before. She had been spotted first thing pinning up a copy of the cast list to the drama notice board but she hadn’t stopped to talk to any of the students who greeted her like she would usually. She looked any but her usual friendly and upbeat self. She looked guarding and moderately annoyed.
Ellis had taken to making her cups of coffee without saying anything and carrying on with what he was doing on his side of the Drama office.
“Miss Leodegrance?” one of the older students had spoken up in her first lesson of the afternoon, “Are you feeling okay?” Gwen had smiled at pleasantly as she could muster at the lad. He was only trying to be polite.
“I’m fine thank you, Thomas. I’d love for you to show me what you’ve got,” the class had been working on monologues for a special performance for the parents and teachers on the evening of the Student Award Ceremony. As the parents entered they would dot the students of the Sixth Form class down the entry hall and as the audience entered they would spout off their monologues for the pleasure of the passing parents and faculty. It was something both Ellis and Gwen had been keen to do and the Head had finally given them the nod of approval after fighting for the event for the last few months at their weekly staff meetings.
The event was looming, as was the pending rehearsals for the school summer play; yet for the first time since starting her job, all Gwen could think about was the poor man whom she had hit with her car at twenty-six miles per hour the night before.
X
Gwen got home just after six that evening. When she’d walked in the door of her flat she had headed straight for the kettle, filling it and whacking it on. She grabbed the remote from the kitchen table and flicked on the television and over onto BBC One for the news. The local news would start in ten minutes. That’s all she was really interested in.
She liked hearing about local heroes and developments. Anything else in the national news she would just watch Mock The Week for on Thursday night; it would give her the basic gist of it and she’d understand it more because they’d make it humorous.
The kettle popped.
Gwen spent the next the minutes milling about in the kitchen portion of her open planned kitchen-diner-lounge poking her head in all the food storage trying to figure out what she could have for dinner that wasn’t too much effort.
It wasn’t until she heard a familiar voice on the television that she looked back up at it.
“Oh fuck,” her jaw dropped and she glared at the screen wide eyed.
Arthur Pendragon sat, crutches leant next to him, on the news readers sofas next to them with a smile on his face. He was being praised for his expert skill.
“I must ask you, Arthur,” the female presenter started, “Yesterday you won the Badminton Horse Trials; how is it today that you are on a pair of crutches?” Gwen noticed his smile falter, thoughts bombarding him.
“I had an accident with CK after the trials last night,” he lied swiftly. She couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief. It would be the icing on the cake if Arthur started a witch hunt off his own accord.
“You were lucky it wasn’t during your run on the jump course.”
“Yeah,” he faked a laugh. The news readers knew it. Still, the lie had slipped from his tongue so smoothly. Gwen would have believed it had she not known the explicit truth of the situation.
“And how long do they expect you to be out of competitions?”
“A good few months.”
“Giving somebody else the chance to shine,” the man joked. It fell on deaf ears though; it didn’t grant a laugh from neither Arthur nor the female presenter.
Morgana stood out of shot and gently hit herself on the forehead. This had been the most terrible idea. Arthur wasn’t in the mood for the interview and now the news reader was making an arse of himself by making lame jokes that nobody found fun.
She noticed the director ordering the interview to be cut short from out of the corner of her eye and she couldn’t say she blamed him. The interview had gone from bad to worse in a matter of a minute.
Once he was out of shot and no longer in the focus of the cameras at all Morgana waved for Arthur to come to her. He grabbed his crutches as silently as he could but waited for them to cross over to one of their readers in the field before he made to go to her. He didn’t need unwanted attention on him. It would be more embarrassing that being on crutches already way.
The handles of the transport were already starting to rub at the palm of his hands. Morgana had suggested that he bound a few pairs of socks to them to cushion them, but that would just be a needless annoyance. Arthur didn’t have the patience to fiddle with things like that; undoubtedly the things would only come off and he’d had to constantly be reattaching them. He would just suffer, and not in silence.
“What was that?” Morgana asked hitting up side the head as they walked out of the studio, the runner opening the door for them with a smile on his face. Morgana thanked him and continued to lead Arthur towards the reception desk so they could leave.
“What was what, Morgana?”
“That shambles!” She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder back towards the studio door. He infuriated her so much sometimes with his stupid ways. He wasn’t as untouchable as he liked to think. The previous night had proven that.
“They were asking stupid questions,” he shrugged her off as he reached the desk and waited for the receptionist to give them their marching orders.
“’What does it feel like to win?’ ‘Grunt’,” she copied, “Yeah, great answer. Eloquent.”
“Can I have my pain killers now?” he asked pointedly ignoring her.
“No. Eight.”
Arthur rolled his eyes and quickly signed out and handed back his pass and huffed towards the doors of the building. He didn’t want to talk to her, not today. Once they were back at their house he was going to his room, plugging in his console and having a good game of Crash Bandicoot; maybe he’d convince Gwaine he wanted to come over and they could have a good few games of Worms Armageddon…
“You know, you should talk to Gwen,” Arthur raised an eyebrow at his half-sister, “Apologise.”
“Apologise for her running me over, I don’t think so.”
“You did run out in front of her. You should have looked where you were going. You properly shook her up,” Arthur snorted in response and shook his head. Morgana rolled his eyes. As much as she did adore him, she wanted to hit him about the head with one of her old and heavy university textbooks. It would hurt him and it would please her. Endlessly. “Dad wants to see us.”
The childhood home of Siblings Pendragon was a grand affair. They would keep CK there if it didn’t mean travelling so far every day and they both liked the city far too much to live in the middle of nowhere. The nearest pub was miles away and full of fuddy duddies.
“Did he say what he wanted?”
“I imagine it might be something to do with you being on the news with a broken leg.”
“Right,” Arthur groaned. The wrought iron fence opened automatically as they approached it. Arthur had always thought it over-kill but whatever made his father happy with his seemingly endless supply of old money.
“I told you to tell him first.”
“I forgot.”
“No, you put it off, which is typical of you.”
“Don’t start, Morgana, I’m about to get ‘the speech’ from Dad and I don’t need it from you too,” she pulled up in front of the garages to the side of the house. The gravel crunching beneath the wheels. She got out and pulled Arthur’s crutches from the backseat as he opened his door.
“Here,” she thrust the first at him then the second. He looped his arms through the holes and slowly brought himself to standing.
“Thanks.”
“So it does have manners,” Morgana said sarcastically before slamming the car door behind him and taking off towards the house at a faster speed than Arthur.
“That’s not fair!” he complained, the gravel was making it harder for him to move at a great speed.
“Then don’t run out in front of cars in the future.”
x
Uther Pendragon was a powerful man. He had money invested everywhere. If you weren’t sure if he owned a share of your company or project chances were he did; even if he didn’t make it well known. He knew where to put his money; his cushy lifestyle was enough to tell you that.
To say he was an absent father would probably be laughed off as an understatement. A big one. He saw his children once a week, if that, and they were usually under the care of hired help. It had taken him a long while to realise that his only son was fascinated by horses. It had been one afternoon when he had arrived home from a charity conference earlier than he had anticipated and nobody was around the house.
Sophia, his children’s nanny, had left a note on the kitchen counter telling Uther, should he arrive home, exactly where the three of them were. Down the stables.
He had wondered down through the house gardens. He could hear the beating of hooves on the hard ground as one of the horses undoubtedly thundered about the sandy training ring. Uther had never used it, nor had he intended to. It had come with the house along with the stables so he thought he’d fill it. He made a healthy profit from having Millicent teaching local children and adults how to ride.
He had never thought she would extend that to his own kids.
Uther had clapped eyes on his son just as he jumped a four foot fence. His daughter cheered him from the sidelines, surprisingly not riding too. Uther clapped. Morgana’s head whipped around at the noise. She grinned and ran up to him, he put his arm about her shoulders as he continued back down towards the arena, “Very good, son.”
“Thanks,” Arthur said quietly looking to Sophia and Millicent for support.
“Mr Pendragon.”
“Sophia. Millicent,” he greeted, acknowledging the both in turn, “What wonders are you working on my son?”
“He was quite the natural, Mr Pendragon.”
“Is he now?” he said sceptically.
“Yes, sir. He has a competition in a week.”
“Really?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And nobody sought to tell me this?”
“You’ve been busy, Mr Pendragon. And Arthur was worried you wouldn’t agree to it.”
“He would be right.”
“There is nowt wrong with riding,” Millicent argued, “The lad is good at it. Very good. Bordering on fantastic. It wouldn’t be wrong for you to support him, Mr Pendragon.”
Of course it had taken Arthur winning three consecutive podiums for Uther to see sense. He’d never agree to Arthur being able to miss school or for him to indeed drop out earlier than getting his A-Levels for him to pursue his chosen career, but he had started to appreciate his son’s flare with equines.
“Dad?” Arthur called out as he reached the open front door. Morgana had already disappeared inside without a trace.
“Study,” was the only reply he got.
“Dad?” he pushed open the door to the study, carefully resting his left foot on the floor before gently pushing into the room with his crutches. When he was younger he had barely been allow to touch the door let alone go in there. It was only when they were being told off that he would sit them in the chair by the door and give them long, lecturing speeches about right and wrong. It was that chair that his father had sat him in to tell him all about the birds and the bees and how they remotely related to fantasising about the opposite sex (a girl called Imogen Waye to be precise).
“Sit down,” Morgana wasn’t in the room, undoubtedly already sent away so he could talk ‘privately’ with his son. Arthur visibly gulped and complied leaving the door open just in case he needed a speedy escape, “What happened?”
“I broke my leg,” Arthur said pushing himself out of his chair and seating himself more comfortably.
“I can see that,” his father said sternly, “How?”
“I got hit by a car.”
“You got hit by a car?” Uther repeated slowly.
“Yes, Dad.”
“Was it speeding?”
“No. I wasn’t looking where I was going and stepped out in front of it.”
“What did you do that for?”
“I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“Did they stop?”
“They took me to the hospital.”
“No ambulance?”
“We were only ten minutes away. It was easier.”
“And how shall they be compensating you?” he plucked a pen from the pot on the top of his table and started to scribble notes down on a notepad he had on his desktop.
“By never being in my life ever again?”
“This could have harming effects on your livelihood. We should talk to our lawyer.”
“No, Dad, there’s no point. It’s not that bad. Clean fracture. A bit of blood where I hit the tarmac. Nothing six weeks on crutches won’t fix.”
“The point still stands.”
“No, Dad. You’re not doing this. I’ve got enough to survive on for the next decade. I don’t need to leech off of a drama teacher. That’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair, Arthur, is your disability,” Arthur scoffed. He really was over doing this. He had always been good at making more of a situation than he should have.
“You’re talking as if I lost a leg. It’s fractured. It hurts a bit but I’m fine. I didn’t even hit my head.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Yes, Dad, I’m sure. Christ, just drop it will you? Can’t you ask me how I am rather than try and sue some perfectly nice,” well, maybe, “girl who didn’t mean to do it? It wasn’t her fault,” he could admit that to his father but not to her. He’d rather leave her to sweat and let her take all the blame he was laying on her. He knew perfectly well it was as much her fault as it was Hammond’s fault he crashed the jet car, “it was an accident. Let it go.”
“Accidents shouldn’t happen.”
“And it’s my fault it did,” Arthur pushed himself out of the car with the aid of his crutch and went to move towards the door, “If that’s all you wanted, I’m going.”
“You won’t get far without Morgana.”
“You’re right,” he hollered his sister’s name at the top of his lungs.
“Whaaat?”
“Time to go.”
X
One good thing that Morgana got out of Arthur being out of competitions for a few weeks was a bit more time to herself. She didn’t have to configure flights and currency. She didn’t have to plan her life around Arthur; instead she could plan Arthur around her life for a change.
“Going out!” she shouted up the stairs to her brother who at present was playing computer games with Gwaine who had come over with a six pack only to find out that Arthur couldn’t have alcohol whilst on his pain killers. Morgana didn’t even get a reply.
She shrugged and walked out, slamming the door behind her.
She sped off in her car heading towards the town centre before veering off to go to the Motorway; it was the quickest way to get to Bristol at this time of day. Otherwise she’d spend half an hour extra sitting in a queue trying to get out of Bath.
She pulled up to an apartment building in the suburbs of Bristol. She frowned; somebody was parked in her boyfriend’s car parking space. He didn’t own a car so usually it was empty for her to use when she came to visit. She pulled up to park behind it, keeping her car out of the way as much as possible. She’d just have to check where she could park.
When she reached the front door she pressed his buzzer.
No answer. She knew he would be in; it was one of his days off.
She buzzed again.
“Hello?” he sounded gruff as if he was half asleep.
“It’s Me.”
“Morg?”
“Yeah,” he’d sounded shocked, panicked almost. “Can I come in?” she asked with an attempt to laugh when he didn’t open the door straight away.
“Sure,” a louder buzzer sounded and she pushed in through the door. Morgana walked quickly up the stairs and down the first floor corridor to flat 2B. The door wasn’t unlocked and ajar when she got to it like it usually was when he buzzed her up. She frowned. She knocked three times.
When the door finally opened her boyfriend was pulling a hoodie over his head. It wasn’t particularly cold. It was rather warm outside and by the feel of it even warmer inside his flat, “Are you okay?”
“Can’t be warm,” he said. She’d have believe him, but he didn’t look sick, “Been feeling rough for days.”
“You didn’t say, I would have brought you some soup or something,” he laughed feebly and kissed her on the forehead.
“I hate soup.”
“I know, Al, but you know, the sentiment is there.”
“Yeah. You’re sweet,” he didn’t make to move from the short corridor they stood in. His bedroom door was closed. Surely if he was that ill he’d have been in bed, and he never shut the doors.
“Do you need me to do anything? Laundry? Washing up?”
“I’m fine, Morg, really. Just need sleep.”
“Is that a hint for me to leave?” she laughed. She didn’t get time off often, all she wanted was to spend a bit of time with him before she was jet setting off to France or Germany or wherever it was Arthur’s next competition might take her. She’d be bogged under by paper before then.
“Sorry, babe.”
“Right,” her expression fell, rejected. She turned back towards the door. She wasn’t going to stay if he didn’t want her to. She caught a glimpse of red out of the corner of her eye. It was a coat she realised once she focused on it. A coat that wasn’t hers.
Al realised what she had stopped to look at the second he followed the direction of her look, “Morg-“
“Right,” the realisation hit her square in the face; the car; the coat; the ‘cold’; “Well now I know. See you around, you jerk.”
She didn’t feel the need to cry. The whole thing had been over for months. He didn’t like her loyalty to her brother. He often called him a ‘prat’ and a ‘tosser’. The two of the had met once and taken an instant dislike to the other. Morgana would have found it amusing if they didn’t keep trying to play each other off against the other. Arthur had given up pretty quickly when he realised that he did always tend to win when it came to who got more time with Morgana, but he would never support a relationship with somebody he deemed as ‘creepy’.
Arthur wouldn’t be surprised - and would probably say ‘I told you so’ - if she went home and told him. She’d just have to potter around in the city for a while then go home.
x
“Go, go, go, go, go!” Gwaine shouted at the top of his lungs as he continually poked the ‘x’ key of his controller. Like Arthur, he didn’t go all out on gaming etiquette. He didn’t know what square, circle and triangle did all he knew was the ‘x’ made him go faster and the arrow keys manoeuvred him left and right. If they were playing ‘Tekken’ then he’d merely button smashed until he found a combination that did something cool.
Arthur was very much the same.
It worked well for the when they got together. They usually ended up playing the more strategic games like Worms - somewhere amidst the guns and sheep bombs they promised there was some sort of logical way to play the game so you manage to kill your opponent and not your own Worms. Morgana called it ‘aim’. Arthur and Gwaine called it ‘skill’.
“Noooo!” Gwaine had managed to crash his game car - for once they had decided to play racing games instead - and Arthur crossed the finish line breaking his own personal record, “So what you were saying is some hot girl ran you over?”
“No, what I’m saying is some moderately plain looking girl did,” Arthur threw down his controlling onto the carpet. He could see his friend’s mind working. The way it always did. Tick; girl. Tick; pretty? Tick; yes. Tick; Number. Tick.
“And you didn’t get her number?” He was predictable.
“No.”
“Why not? You could have given it to me.”
“Like you need the help.”
“That much is true; but if this girl is willing to run you over then tend to your every need I’d like her number. That and I’d like to high-five her for crippling you,” Arthur punched his friend hard on the arm.
“Thanks, so much.”
“Any time,” he took a swig from his beer, “Do I get to meet her?”
“No, why would you?”
“She sounds like fun.”
“I didn’t get her number and she ran me over. Why would I ever see her again?”
“She sounds like fun?” Gwaine repeated, “Tell me again why you didn’t get her number?” he joked. Arthur punched back, “You don’t know how to have a good time.”
“I know how to have a good time.”
“No? You’ve not ridden a horse today and you’re all doom and gloom. It’s not the end of the world if you spent twenty-hour hours away from Creepy Knight.”
“Camelot King.”
“Whatever. You can go to the yard you know. To have your freaky affair,” Gwaine clicked; a thought occurred to him, “That’s it! You need to get laid!”
“With a cast? Really sexy.”
“When was the last time you had a night out that didn’t end with you leaving with Morgana?” when Arthur didn’t answer him right away he interjected, “Exactly. Maybe you should sleep with Gwen, was it? She won’t mind the cast; it’s her fault after all.”
“No, Gwaine, no,” Arthur picked up his controller and clicked through the menu, “Get ready to play, Mr Goodsir.”
“Changing the subject won’t make the problem go away.”
“This time it will, prepare to lose.”
END NOTE: Peter Ellis is based off of my drama teacher from sixth form, Duncan Ellis. He was the best thing that happened to our drama department so massive nods to him! Also; Goodsir is the surname of one of my friends, Tom. Considering 'good sir' would be what ladies called knights etc I thought it fitted Gwaine rather well. It certainly suits Tom...
PART Two