Conflict of Interest (3/?)
Title: Conflict of Interest (3/?)
Fandom: Silent Witness/Merlin (Modern AU)
Characters & Pairings: Morgana/Nikki (with side Arthur/Gwen and past Gwen/Morgana)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,616
Summary: When Uther is found dead, Morgana is at the top of the authorities' list of suspects, despite her insistence that she has been set up. But there is one person who believes her, even when the evidence against Morgana seems conclusive.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Merlin or Silent Witness, this is not for profit, just for entertainment!
Note 1: A special thanks goes to bree_fan88, my knight-in-shining-armour last-minute beta!
Also, just a quick plea to all of my readers to take the time to comment. I have counters on my fic and know that a lot more of you are reading than are commenting. Keep in mind that I am busy and that the more comments I get, the more motivation I have to get the chapters up quicker.
A good deal of money in the bartender's pocket later, Nikki was completely past caring that she shouldn’t be talking to Morgana. They were tucked away in a private booth; high heels abandoned on the floor and legs folded up beneath them. They lounged in one corner alone of the sizable booth, a wealth of space around them and not very much at all between them. Morgana’s hair was loose and wavy, falling over her almost bare shoulders in pitch black stark contrast to her pure white skin. She was recounting a childhood story in which Arthur had broken her arm by pushing her off a large rock; one hand wrapped elegantly around her glass of wine, the other engrossed in animating her story as Nikki laughed and wondered when it was exactly that she too had made the switch to wine.
Nikki was sure that she was in a much worse state of dishevelment than her drinking companion. She had accidently caught sight of herself in the ladies’ mirror. Generally, she made a point of not looking at herself in a mirror when she was out, then she could go on pretending that she looked the same as she had when she left the house. Her hair was falling down in golden strands around her face and her cardigan was making its way down her arm. Not exactly perfect, but the alcohol and company had somehow managed to make her not care.
Harry would kill her if they got another call and she couldn’t take it because she’d had a couple of glasses of wine... three glasses. Or was it four? Five, maybe? She looked at the two empty bottles on the table and groaned.
“I have to work tomorrow.” Her head fell into her palm, shaking slowly as she made another sound of displeasure at the thought. Looking at her watch only caused her more pain. “It’s three AM, what time does this bar stay open until?”
“I’m guessing not much longer,” Morgana said, smiling as she poured Nikki another glass of wine. “And you work with the dead, I’m pretty sure they won’t mind if you’re a little hung-over.”
Narrowing her eyes in insincere annoyance, Nikki looked up at Morgana. “That’s not the point.”
“No, I guess not.” Morgana laughed. “Still, one more drink won’t make it any worse.”
Nikki wasn’t sure why, but she was smiling. “One more?”
“One more.” Morgana confirmed, clinking her glass with Nikki’s.
“So,” Nikki began, “how’s life in a private lab?”
“Thrilling.” Sarcastic.
“Yes well, you are voluntarily working in the fascinating world of microbiology,” Nikki teased.
Morgana’s eyes went wide with indignation. “It is fascinating! It’s better than cutting up dead people!”
“I’d rather be solving crimes than waiting for a vaguely green liquid to drip through an immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography channel,” Nikki said, finding it hard to get her mouth around that sentence in her current state of non-soberness.
“How do you know that’s how I -”
“It came up in the investigation,” Nikki lied, taking a large gulp of wine.
“How exactly?”
“You know, in the... background checks.” She was a terrible liar when she was inebriated. Actually, she wasn’t much better when she was sober, and she didn’t really think that was a bad thing.
Morgana raised an eyebrow.
“And I may have typed your name into PubMed...”
Rich laughter erupted from Morgana. “You read that article? Well, I think that brings the count up to three; Arthur, Gwen, and you. It wasn’t exactly published in Nature.”
“No, well, it was a good first go.” It sounded a lot less patronising in her head. “And it is microbiology.” All she could do was laugh.
“With a medical application!” Morgana defended, mercifully laughing as well. “It could save thousands of lives!”
Ceasing her laughter and looking at Morgana carefully, Nikki said, “Do you really think it’ll work?”
“Yes.” Morgana smiled. “I think it will, eventually.”
“Then you’re doing a lot more good than I am,” Nikki said, smiling sadly. She had been wondering about a change of career lately, she very rarely got that rush from closing a case anymore. Maybe, she was thinking, she wasn’t doing that much good after all. And it wasn’t as if this is how she had envisioned her career.
“That’s not true,” Morgana said, her eyes holding Nikki’s intently; her hand on Nikki’s arm, thumb brushing back and forth. “You give people closure. You bring justice to those who’ve died, and sanity to those left behind. You do more than good.”
Nikki breathed in shakily. The world around them seemed to have come to a stop, things in her peripheral vision moving in inconsequential and unnoticeable slow motion. The part of her brain that wasn’t overly fond of logical thinking was screaming at her to kiss Morgana. She was so close, she smelled so good, her thumb was sending shivers through her body and those eyes... There were a hundred and one perfectly good reasons not to, not least of which was her involvement in Nikki’s case. Every sane part of her told her not to, but those objections were awfully quiet next the screaming part that was telling her to just go for it and worry about the consequences in the morning.
So she kissed her. And it was good.
It had the hazy edge that came from too much good wine, slow and languid in a way that first kisses rarely were. There was a hand on her cheek and another one on her thigh, making her heart beat faster and faster until it teetered on the edge of unbearable. It was all in that part that was so close to excruciating that it felt so good.
Morgana broke the kiss.
“You sure?” Morgana asked.
“No,” Nikki admitted, not moving. “This is a really, really bad idea,” she said, smiling and leaning in for another kiss.
When Nikki entered work the next day, she wore a secret smile. She had just finished changing to do the autopsy of a suspicious death that had come in early that morning, when her phone buzzed and lit up in her open back, trying to get her attention.
Flipping it open, she read the text:
Had a really good time last night... and this morning.
M XX
She blushed and smirked, checking she was alone before typing a reply:
Me too.
Another message came quickly:
Are you on call again tonight?
XX
Nikki mentally went through her work schedule before replying:
No, why?
Another:
Fancy coming around after work?
XX
She knew she should say that she couldn’t, she could so easily lose her job over this. But instead she said:
See you at eight?
A final message:
See you at eight. BTW, I found your necklace amongst the bed sheets.
XX
Nikki reached for her necklace, finding nothing. She hadn’t noticed it was missing, she definitely didn’t remember taking it off. But then again, she probably wasn’t the one who had taken it off.
Heat crept up her spine as she let herself dwell on her memories of the night before. Guilt bubbled low in her stomach. She ignored it.
“What’s got you smirking?”
Morgana looked up from her morning paper - which she hadn’t been reading - to find her brother and sister-in-law standing in the doorway of her new make-shift office. It was beginning to become a pattern, people in doorways interrupting her scarce moments of relaxation (which may or may not have been on company time). She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head to the side questioningly.
“What’s going on?” she asked warily.
“I asked first,” Arthur said, crossing his arms.
She sighed, “It’s a long story.”
“Well, it’s a good job we’re taking you out to breakfast then,” Arthur said, smiling. There was definitely something going on here and she was pretty sure that she wasn’t going to like it. She never did when Arthur got that smile. And it had to be big for Arthur to forget his fathers...
Making an effort, Morgana smiled and reached for her bag. “If you’re paying, baby brother, how could I to refuse.”
“’Morning,” Nikki said, sitting down on the stool opposite Harry and sipping the coffee that was waiting for her. “What’ve we got?”
“Body found in the woods by a late night runner. Male, early twenties, Caucasian, gunshot wound to the chest,” Harry summarised.
“Gang related?”
“Looks like it, though we don’t have an ID yet so...”
Nikki yawned.
“Late night, was it?” Harry raised an eyebrow at her, smiling slightly. “You party on into the night after I left?”
She smiled noncommittally, remembering again how exactly her necklace had ended up tangled in those sheets.
“Nikki Alexander, did you pull last night?” His eyes were wide with exaggerated shock, an open mouth finishing the look.
She had to hide her smile, taking a sip of her coffee. “Have you completed the preliminary examination? Sent trace evidence off to the lab?”
“As always.”
“Good, then let’s start, it’s Friday and I want to finish at a decent time.”
Morgana really, really didn’t like this. She was sitting on one of the supposedly comfortable sofas of her regular Starbucks, espresso in hand, watching Arthur and Gwen, who were sitting very close together on the opposite sofa. It was after ten, so they were pretty much alone in the back of the coffee shop. A quiet location wasn’t a good sign. Neither was the fact that Arthur was wringing his hands in what looked like a mixture of nerves and excitement. She could hear her heartbeat.
“Get on with it,” Morgana said, not unkindly.
“I -err - Gwen and I - We...” Arthur began, his mood shifting a little more towards nervous.
“I’m pregnant,” Gwen said, meeting Morgana’s eyes.
After a long moment in which her heart sunk a good few centimetres below its usual home, Morgana smiled in a way that she hoped was convincing. “Wow, congratulations!”
“I told you she’d be happy!” said Arthur, leaping to his feet and pulling Morgana up into a hug. “You’ll be a great aunty!”
Morgana met Gwen’s eyes over Arthur’s shoulder. Gwen looked away.
“Of course I’m happy!” Morgana said, pulling back from Arthur and giving him a bright smile. She hugged him again, this time closing her eyes to avoid Gwen’s gaze. “Just don’t expect me to babysit. Me and kids are not a good combination.”
She took a deep breath and steadied herself.
“Like I’d trust you to babysit,” Arthur said teasingly. “Okay, I’m off. I have a meeting that I’m already late for. Gwen, you’ll drive Morgana back to work, right?”
Gwen nodded, smiling a not quite genuine smile. “Of course.”
“Great. Well, I’ll see you later.” He bent down to kiss Gwen before bouncing out of the coffee shop like the Andrex puppy.
With a puff of air, Morgana sat down heavily on her sofa and reached for her coffee. She would give anything for it to be Irish right now.
Logically, she had known that this day would come. Gwen had always been a family girl and she had never hidden her desire to have children, neither had Arthur. But there was just something about it that made Morgana feel... left out. It had been years since she and Gwen had been together, and even then it had been more of a ‘best friends taking things too far’ thing than a whirlwind romance. They had wanted different things out of life, or at least they had back then, and neither of them had been willing to compromise. It was all so long ago and they had been so much younger then. Morgana had been more concerned with the world’s injustices than life planning and Gwen had a stubbornness that had mellowed in the intervening years. Realistically, at no point had their relationship been going anywhere, and Morgana had been genuinely happy for Arthur and Gwen when they got married, but this was something different. This was where it got complicated.
“I wanted to tell you on my own, but Arthur wouldn’t have it. He’s so excited.” Gwen didn’t look at her. Instead she seemed to have found something very interesting in the bottom of her teacup.
“Sorry,” Morgana said, shaking her head, “I really am happy for you.” Somewhere, Morgana thought, somewhere deep down. She sat forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “I’m just being stupid.”
“I understand. I’d be lying if I said that you weren’t the first person I thought of, after Arthur,” Gwen said, looking at Morgana this time. “But I’m still your best friend Morgana, and nothing will ever change that, not Arthur and not the baby.”
Morgana smiled weakly. “I know, and I won’t let anything change it either. It’s just stupid sibling rivalry stuff, ignore it.”
Gwen smiled. “Good, because I want you to be the godmother.”
Morgana got shivers. “Really?”
“Of course.” Gwen laughed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Who else would I want? Come on Morgana, you should know by now that you’re still one of the most important people in my life, and I’m really not looking to change that. You were here long before Arthur.”
A genuine smile pulled on Morgana’s lips. “Good, because I would really hate to lose you. No one can shout at me for being an idiot better than you can, I wouldn’t listen to anyone else. And I think I may have done something kind of stupid, but I can’t seem to get myself to feel bad about it, or try and stop it happening again. In fact, I seem to be actively perusing it. So I think you need to shout at me.”
“Go on.”
“Do you remember the pathologist?”
“Why do I have the horrible sinking feeling that I know where this is going?” Gwen asked.
“Because you know me better than anyone?” Morgana hedged, smiling in a way she hoped came across as endearing. “It wasn’t intentional. We met in a bar last night, after Arthur cancelled on me - the reason for which I’m pretty sure I know now - and her friend got called away. She bumped into me, literally, and knocked my drink straight out of my hand. She bought me another one... which turned into a bottle... which turned into two...” Morgana sighed. “Okay, so maybe I flirted with her a bit in the beginning, but I was only doing it to try to get her on my side and then we started talking and we just... clicked. I know it sounds like a cliché, but we had so much in common and it felt so easy, talking to her. We got closer and closer, and then she kissed me, which ended up with us kissing in a taxi, and then on my doorstep and then... Well, let’s just say that I ended up making her breakfast. And I may have invited her over tonight. I really like her.”
Gwen laughed. “Oh, Morgana. You are so much like your brother.”
Grumbling like a chastised teenager, Morgana fell backwards against the cushion. “I know.”
Again, just a quick plea to all of my readers to take the time to comment. I have counters on my fic and know that a lot more of you are reading than are commenting. Keep in mind that I am busy and that the more comments I get, the more motivation I have to get the chapters up quicker.
.
Fandom: Silent Witness/Merlin (Modern AU)
Characters & Pairings: Morgana/Nikki (with side Arthur/Gwen and past Gwen/Morgana)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,616
Summary: When Uther is found dead, Morgana is at the top of the authorities' list of suspects, despite her insistence that she has been set up. But there is one person who believes her, even when the evidence against Morgana seems conclusive.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Merlin or Silent Witness, this is not for profit, just for entertainment!
Note 1: A special thanks goes to bree_fan88, my knight-in-shining-armour last-minute beta!
Also, just a quick plea to all of my readers to take the time to comment. I have counters on my fic and know that a lot more of you are reading than are commenting. Keep in mind that I am busy and that the more comments I get, the more motivation I have to get the chapters up quicker.
A good deal of money in the bartender's pocket later, Nikki was completely past caring that she shouldn’t be talking to Morgana. They were tucked away in a private booth; high heels abandoned on the floor and legs folded up beneath them. They lounged in one corner alone of the sizable booth, a wealth of space around them and not very much at all between them. Morgana’s hair was loose and wavy, falling over her almost bare shoulders in pitch black stark contrast to her pure white skin. She was recounting a childhood story in which Arthur had broken her arm by pushing her off a large rock; one hand wrapped elegantly around her glass of wine, the other engrossed in animating her story as Nikki laughed and wondered when it was exactly that she too had made the switch to wine.
Nikki was sure that she was in a much worse state of dishevelment than her drinking companion. She had accidently caught sight of herself in the ladies’ mirror. Generally, she made a point of not looking at herself in a mirror when she was out, then she could go on pretending that she looked the same as she had when she left the house. Her hair was falling down in golden strands around her face and her cardigan was making its way down her arm. Not exactly perfect, but the alcohol and company had somehow managed to make her not care.
Harry would kill her if they got another call and she couldn’t take it because she’d had a couple of glasses of wine... three glasses. Or was it four? Five, maybe? She looked at the two empty bottles on the table and groaned.
“I have to work tomorrow.” Her head fell into her palm, shaking slowly as she made another sound of displeasure at the thought. Looking at her watch only caused her more pain. “It’s three AM, what time does this bar stay open until?”
“I’m guessing not much longer,” Morgana said, smiling as she poured Nikki another glass of wine. “And you work with the dead, I’m pretty sure they won’t mind if you’re a little hung-over.”
Narrowing her eyes in insincere annoyance, Nikki looked up at Morgana. “That’s not the point.”
“No, I guess not.” Morgana laughed. “Still, one more drink won’t make it any worse.”
Nikki wasn’t sure why, but she was smiling. “One more?”
“One more.” Morgana confirmed, clinking her glass with Nikki’s.
“So,” Nikki began, “how’s life in a private lab?”
“Thrilling.” Sarcastic.
“Yes well, you are voluntarily working in the fascinating world of microbiology,” Nikki teased.
Morgana’s eyes went wide with indignation. “It is fascinating! It’s better than cutting up dead people!”
“I’d rather be solving crimes than waiting for a vaguely green liquid to drip through an immobilized metal ion affinity chromatography channel,” Nikki said, finding it hard to get her mouth around that sentence in her current state of non-soberness.
“How do you know that’s how I -”
“It came up in the investigation,” Nikki lied, taking a large gulp of wine.
“How exactly?”
“You know, in the... background checks.” She was a terrible liar when she was inebriated. Actually, she wasn’t much better when she was sober, and she didn’t really think that was a bad thing.
Morgana raised an eyebrow.
“And I may have typed your name into PubMed...”
Rich laughter erupted from Morgana. “You read that article? Well, I think that brings the count up to three; Arthur, Gwen, and you. It wasn’t exactly published in Nature.”
“No, well, it was a good first go.” It sounded a lot less patronising in her head. “And it is microbiology.” All she could do was laugh.
“With a medical application!” Morgana defended, mercifully laughing as well. “It could save thousands of lives!”
Ceasing her laughter and looking at Morgana carefully, Nikki said, “Do you really think it’ll work?”
“Yes.” Morgana smiled. “I think it will, eventually.”
“Then you’re doing a lot more good than I am,” Nikki said, smiling sadly. She had been wondering about a change of career lately, she very rarely got that rush from closing a case anymore. Maybe, she was thinking, she wasn’t doing that much good after all. And it wasn’t as if this is how she had envisioned her career.
“That’s not true,” Morgana said, her eyes holding Nikki’s intently; her hand on Nikki’s arm, thumb brushing back and forth. “You give people closure. You bring justice to those who’ve died, and sanity to those left behind. You do more than good.”
Nikki breathed in shakily. The world around them seemed to have come to a stop, things in her peripheral vision moving in inconsequential and unnoticeable slow motion. The part of her brain that wasn’t overly fond of logical thinking was screaming at her to kiss Morgana. She was so close, she smelled so good, her thumb was sending shivers through her body and those eyes... There were a hundred and one perfectly good reasons not to, not least of which was her involvement in Nikki’s case. Every sane part of her told her not to, but those objections were awfully quiet next the screaming part that was telling her to just go for it and worry about the consequences in the morning.
So she kissed her. And it was good.
It had the hazy edge that came from too much good wine, slow and languid in a way that first kisses rarely were. There was a hand on her cheek and another one on her thigh, making her heart beat faster and faster until it teetered on the edge of unbearable. It was all in that part that was so close to excruciating that it felt so good.
Morgana broke the kiss.
“You sure?” Morgana asked.
“No,” Nikki admitted, not moving. “This is a really, really bad idea,” she said, smiling and leaning in for another kiss.
When Nikki entered work the next day, she wore a secret smile. She had just finished changing to do the autopsy of a suspicious death that had come in early that morning, when her phone buzzed and lit up in her open back, trying to get her attention.
Flipping it open, she read the text:
Had a really good time last night... and this morning.
M XX
She blushed and smirked, checking she was alone before typing a reply:
Me too.
Another message came quickly:
Are you on call again tonight?
XX
Nikki mentally went through her work schedule before replying:
No, why?
Another:
Fancy coming around after work?
XX
She knew she should say that she couldn’t, she could so easily lose her job over this. But instead she said:
See you at eight?
A final message:
See you at eight. BTW, I found your necklace amongst the bed sheets.
XX
Nikki reached for her necklace, finding nothing. She hadn’t noticed it was missing, she definitely didn’t remember taking it off. But then again, she probably wasn’t the one who had taken it off.
Heat crept up her spine as she let herself dwell on her memories of the night before. Guilt bubbled low in her stomach. She ignored it.
“What’s got you smirking?”
Morgana looked up from her morning paper - which she hadn’t been reading - to find her brother and sister-in-law standing in the doorway of her new make-shift office. It was beginning to become a pattern, people in doorways interrupting her scarce moments of relaxation (which may or may not have been on company time). She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head to the side questioningly.
“What’s going on?” she asked warily.
“I asked first,” Arthur said, crossing his arms.
She sighed, “It’s a long story.”
“Well, it’s a good job we’re taking you out to breakfast then,” Arthur said, smiling. There was definitely something going on here and she was pretty sure that she wasn’t going to like it. She never did when Arthur got that smile. And it had to be big for Arthur to forget his fathers...
Making an effort, Morgana smiled and reached for her bag. “If you’re paying, baby brother, how could I to refuse.”
“’Morning,” Nikki said, sitting down on the stool opposite Harry and sipping the coffee that was waiting for her. “What’ve we got?”
“Body found in the woods by a late night runner. Male, early twenties, Caucasian, gunshot wound to the chest,” Harry summarised.
“Gang related?”
“Looks like it, though we don’t have an ID yet so...”
Nikki yawned.
“Late night, was it?” Harry raised an eyebrow at her, smiling slightly. “You party on into the night after I left?”
She smiled noncommittally, remembering again how exactly her necklace had ended up tangled in those sheets.
“Nikki Alexander, did you pull last night?” His eyes were wide with exaggerated shock, an open mouth finishing the look.
She had to hide her smile, taking a sip of her coffee. “Have you completed the preliminary examination? Sent trace evidence off to the lab?”
“As always.”
“Good, then let’s start, it’s Friday and I want to finish at a decent time.”
Morgana really, really didn’t like this. She was sitting on one of the supposedly comfortable sofas of her regular Starbucks, espresso in hand, watching Arthur and Gwen, who were sitting very close together on the opposite sofa. It was after ten, so they were pretty much alone in the back of the coffee shop. A quiet location wasn’t a good sign. Neither was the fact that Arthur was wringing his hands in what looked like a mixture of nerves and excitement. She could hear her heartbeat.
“Get on with it,” Morgana said, not unkindly.
“I -err - Gwen and I - We...” Arthur began, his mood shifting a little more towards nervous.
“I’m pregnant,” Gwen said, meeting Morgana’s eyes.
After a long moment in which her heart sunk a good few centimetres below its usual home, Morgana smiled in a way that she hoped was convincing. “Wow, congratulations!”
“I told you she’d be happy!” said Arthur, leaping to his feet and pulling Morgana up into a hug. “You’ll be a great aunty!”
Morgana met Gwen’s eyes over Arthur’s shoulder. Gwen looked away.
“Of course I’m happy!” Morgana said, pulling back from Arthur and giving him a bright smile. She hugged him again, this time closing her eyes to avoid Gwen’s gaze. “Just don’t expect me to babysit. Me and kids are not a good combination.”
She took a deep breath and steadied herself.
“Like I’d trust you to babysit,” Arthur said teasingly. “Okay, I’m off. I have a meeting that I’m already late for. Gwen, you’ll drive Morgana back to work, right?”
Gwen nodded, smiling a not quite genuine smile. “Of course.”
“Great. Well, I’ll see you later.” He bent down to kiss Gwen before bouncing out of the coffee shop like the Andrex puppy.
With a puff of air, Morgana sat down heavily on her sofa and reached for her coffee. She would give anything for it to be Irish right now.
Logically, she had known that this day would come. Gwen had always been a family girl and she had never hidden her desire to have children, neither had Arthur. But there was just something about it that made Morgana feel... left out. It had been years since she and Gwen had been together, and even then it had been more of a ‘best friends taking things too far’ thing than a whirlwind romance. They had wanted different things out of life, or at least they had back then, and neither of them had been willing to compromise. It was all so long ago and they had been so much younger then. Morgana had been more concerned with the world’s injustices than life planning and Gwen had a stubbornness that had mellowed in the intervening years. Realistically, at no point had their relationship been going anywhere, and Morgana had been genuinely happy for Arthur and Gwen when they got married, but this was something different. This was where it got complicated.
“I wanted to tell you on my own, but Arthur wouldn’t have it. He’s so excited.” Gwen didn’t look at her. Instead she seemed to have found something very interesting in the bottom of her teacup.
“Sorry,” Morgana said, shaking her head, “I really am happy for you.” Somewhere, Morgana thought, somewhere deep down. She sat forward and rested her elbows on her knees. “I’m just being stupid.”
“I understand. I’d be lying if I said that you weren’t the first person I thought of, after Arthur,” Gwen said, looking at Morgana this time. “But I’m still your best friend Morgana, and nothing will ever change that, not Arthur and not the baby.”
Morgana smiled weakly. “I know, and I won’t let anything change it either. It’s just stupid sibling rivalry stuff, ignore it.”
Gwen smiled. “Good, because I want you to be the godmother.”
Morgana got shivers. “Really?”
“Of course.” Gwen laughed as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Who else would I want? Come on Morgana, you should know by now that you’re still one of the most important people in my life, and I’m really not looking to change that. You were here long before Arthur.”
A genuine smile pulled on Morgana’s lips. “Good, because I would really hate to lose you. No one can shout at me for being an idiot better than you can, I wouldn’t listen to anyone else. And I think I may have done something kind of stupid, but I can’t seem to get myself to feel bad about it, or try and stop it happening again. In fact, I seem to be actively perusing it. So I think you need to shout at me.”
“Go on.”
“Do you remember the pathologist?”
“Why do I have the horrible sinking feeling that I know where this is going?” Gwen asked.
“Because you know me better than anyone?” Morgana hedged, smiling in a way she hoped came across as endearing. “It wasn’t intentional. We met in a bar last night, after Arthur cancelled on me - the reason for which I’m pretty sure I know now - and her friend got called away. She bumped into me, literally, and knocked my drink straight out of my hand. She bought me another one... which turned into a bottle... which turned into two...” Morgana sighed. “Okay, so maybe I flirted with her a bit in the beginning, but I was only doing it to try to get her on my side and then we started talking and we just... clicked. I know it sounds like a cliché, but we had so much in common and it felt so easy, talking to her. We got closer and closer, and then she kissed me, which ended up with us kissing in a taxi, and then on my doorstep and then... Well, let’s just say that I ended up making her breakfast. And I may have invited her over tonight. I really like her.”
Gwen laughed. “Oh, Morgana. You are so much like your brother.”
Grumbling like a chastised teenager, Morgana fell backwards against the cushion. “I know.”
Again, just a quick plea to all of my readers to take the time to comment. I have counters on my fic and know that a lot more of you are reading than are commenting. Keep in mind that I am busy and that the more comments I get, the more motivation I have to get the chapters up quicker.
.