Chapter 1

"Captain Pendragon, I'm picking up a large mass in the next star system."

"Take us on course to perform a full analysis," said Arthur, his bored expression barely shifting.

Over the first two weeks of Arthur's captaincy, Space Vessel Camelot's science and exploration team had surveyed three new planets. One of said planets showed every sign of being a valuable resource investment, although little else. The other two were just bare rock, without even an atmosphere or the ancient presence of water to make them interesting.

When the 'large mass' turned out to be a planet with an atmosphere, water, oxygen anddefinite indications of life, Arthur announced that he was going down with the away team.

There was the expected chorus of protests from the rest of the crew on the bridge. Merlin didn't even bother making the effort, occupying himself with trying to remember where he'd put Arthur's biosuit. The crew were no match for Arthur's will.

"What? I've been stuck on this ship for a month now. I'm bored silly. It's not like I suddenly became less competent just because I was promoted to captain."

Arthur didn't give them the chance to respond, sweeping out of the room and dragging Merlin along in his wake.

Arthur stood straight and still as a sword, eyes fixed firmly on the wall, while Merlin yanked the lower part of the biosuit up Arthur's legs to settle around his waist. He raised his arms on cue as Merlin pulled the top half over him and smoothed it down.

Merlin struggled with the belt clasp for a minute or so before Arthur lost his patience and batted Merlin away, a rude comment lost under his breath.

"Honestly, Merlin," said Arthur, as he straightened the tunic.

Merlin handed him the gloves to put on and occupied himself unclasping the fastenings on Arthur's boots.

Once the boots were on and Arthur was admiring himself in the mirror, somehow managing to make the biosuit look attractive, Merlin turned to leave.

Arthur cleared his throat. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I was going to work on my reports?" said Merlin.

"You're coming with me," said Arthur. His tone implied disbelief that Merlin could ever have thought otherwise.

"What? But I--"

"Do you think I'm going to carry everything on my own? You're my personal assistant. You're coming with me."

Merlin rolled his eyes, but pulled on a biosuit all the same.

Arthur lounged against the wall and looked bored. "Hurry up, Merlin, we don't have all day. I want to be there before they decide to leave without me for my own protection."

The sad thing was that it probably would be for Arthur's protection and not out of spite. For whatever reason, it seemed the crew of the Camelot were actually fond of their captain.

They landed in a clearing edged on one side by a lake and on the others by forest. (The plant-life looked like trees and brush, at least on a superficial level, so Merlin felt perfectly justified using the word "forest".)

The away team separated into pairs, assigning Merlin and Arthur the least treacherous stretch of forest. Arthur marched off before Merlin even had a chance to heft his backpack onto his shoulders.

Trying to keep up with Arthur on an unfamiliar planet while dragging a heavy backpack of scientific equipment around was... a welcome change after a fortnight of paperwork and an increasingly irritable Arthur.

Merlin took deep scans and pictures of interesting-looking plant life while Arthur wandered off ahead and told him what he should be examining next. Merlin mostly ignored him.

Merlin's geo-scanner showed an odd heat patch ahead. He absently hushed Arthur and pushed ahead through the brush (carefully, he didn't want a repeat of the time he'd torn his biosuit and had to spend a week in the infirmary dying of alien fever).

The creature was easily Merlin's height. It had at least six limbs, and appeared to be covered in some kind of stringy hair. It looked like a cross between a camel and a rabbit, with maybe a bit of deer and kangaroo thrown in. It had been peacefully grazing on the grass (or whatever), but it looked up as Merlin entered the clearing.

Merlin started to circle the creature, turning on the scanner's immersive recorder.

Behind him, he heard the soft click of the safety being removed from a gun.

Practically on instinct, Merlin sped up his perceptions so that he had time to act. He dropped the scanner and his backpack on the ground and leapt on Arthur, using a swipe of telekinetics to take his feet out and knocking Arthur flat on his back. The creature let out a blood-curdling shriek and leapt directly over them as it escaped.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" yelled Arthur, struggling beneath him.

"You were going to shoot that thing!" said Merlin.

"Of course I was!" said Arthur. "A genuine alien specimen? My father would be thrilled!"

"You can't just go shooting alien creatures! What if it had been sentient?"

"That thing?" said Arthur, incredulously.

"You can't judge by appearances," Merlin insisted, shaking Arthur's shoulders.

"Apparently. For example, anybody looking at you might somehow pick up the impression you had some small degree of intelligence," snapped Arthur.

Merlin made a wordless noise of frustration. "Fine, what if you just wounded it and it went insane with pain and killed us both?"

"I hardly think that's likely," said Arthur. "I'm a good shot."

They glared at each other for several minutes.

The world fell silent and still, like it was waiting for something. The rocks and grass (or whatever) were digging into Merlin's knees and he could feel Arthur breathing, little pulses of movement beneath him.

Arthur shifted beneath Merlin uncomfortably and cleared his throat. "Uh, Merlin, I don't suppose you'd like to get off me," said Arthur, attempting to sit up.

Merlin felt his cheeks flame and scrambled backwards. He picked up his scanner and backpack, shooting Arthur a worried glance.

Arthur didn't seem to have taken any damage from his fall. He was staring at the disturbed brush through which the creature had disappeared.

"I got a recording?" Merlin offered, hesitantly. He could have kicked himself a moment later. The recorder would probably also have recorded Merlin's little attempt at heroics. The last thing he needed was Uther Pendragon having evidence of Merlin using psionics. "I'll, er, edit it first," he added quickly. With any luck Arthur would think it was to save Arthur the embarrassment.

Arthur grunted something unintelligible in acknowledgement.

"Did something happen?" asked Lancelot, in a low voice, when the team regrouped.

"He had his worldview challenged again," said Merlin, in a long-suffering tone.

"Ah, culture shock," said Lancelot. "I understand how he feels."

Merlin supposed that being the son of Uther Pendragon was probably not that unlike being an artificially-intelligent robot, at least when it came to relating to normal human beings.  

--

Merlin liked the ship's pool. The Camelot was outfitted with every piece of fitness equipment money could buy, but the pool was barely long enough to swim three strokes before you had to turn around and only deep enough that it reached Merlin's neck. It was too cold to use for relaxing, too small for anything else.

Merlin liked the pool because it was completely ignored by everybody else on the ship and it was the one place he could get some privacy.

It seemed that this wasn't to last.

"Oh, here you are, Merlin," said Arthur, bursting into the room. "I've been calling for you for fifteen minutes."

Merlin had left his communicator scrunched up with the rest of his clothes. He had heard it beeping, despite his best efforts, but... "It's my break," he pointed out.

"You don't get breaks," said Arthur.

"I think you'll find that I..."

"You don't get breaks when I have a very important message to send to my father regarding the effect that last asteroid we indexed will have on a very important trade deal he is currently trying to negotiate with a very important client. Come on, Merlin, I can't wait all day." Arthur rolled his eyes.

Merlin dived under the water to hide his groan and resurfaced somewhere around the stairs out of the pool.

"Merlin," said Arthur, in a slightly choked voice, as Merlin climbed out and headed for the drying chamber. "What are you wearing?"

Merlin glanced down at himself. "Swimming trunks?" They seemed not to have fallen down or anything, so he wasn't sure what Arthur's problem was.

Arthur was turning ever so slightly pink, which clashed horribly with his red uniform. "Ah," he said. "Well, if you would like to get into something more comf-- decent, maybe we can get some actual work done." He sounded like he was trying to be pointed, but failing miserably.

Merlin rolled his eyes and shut the door to the drying chamber behind him firmly. Whatever Arthur's problem was, he would have to deal with it himself.

As he was struggling out of his wet shorts, he remembered lying with Arthur on the ground on the alien planet and thought, 'wait, maybe Arthur is attracted to me?' His foot snagged in his shorts and he fell, hard, against the wall.

Merlin woke in the infirmary.

"You know, when I said I needed you now I didn't mean I needed you to knock yourself unconscious for half an hour," said Arthur, conversationally.

"Um," said Merlin. Arthur wasn't actually looking at him. His gaze was focussed somewhere above Merlin's head.

Gaius shouldered Arthur out of the way so that he could shine a light in his eye and ask a few questions about Merlin's current state of being, eventually proclaiming him concussion-less.

"I have a headache," said Merlin, miserably.

"But no brain damage," said Gaius.

"Not that we'd be able to tell," said Arthur, which was such an obvious comment that it wasn't even clever, whatever, Merlin didn't care about Captain Arthur Pendragon at all.

Merlin focussed pleading eyes on Gaius.

"But I'd like to keep him under observation for another hour or so," continued Gaius.

Arthur looked directly at Merlin for the first time since Merlin had woken up, then looked quickly away again. "Fine," he said. "Let me know when he's ready to stop being a waste of company resources." He stalked out of the room without a backwards glance.

"Prat," said Merlin. He, at least, had the bump on his head as an excuse for the lame comeback. Really, of all the insufferable, ungrateful...

The contents of the table next to the infirmary bed lifted themselves several centimetres into the air and then dropped with an alarming clatter.

"Um," said Merlin.

"Merlin!" Gaius hissed.

"It wasn't me!" Merlin hissed back, just as his pillow burst into flames.

They managed to smother the fire with the sheets before the alarm went off, but it was a close call.

"I swear, I didn't--" Merlin began as Gaius' chair began to beat itself against the wall repeatedly.

"Merlin, your powers are out of control!"

Trying to stop the chair from moving just caused the bed to start bucking beneath him.

"Merlin, calm down," said Gaius, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him.

Merlin screwed his eyes shut and tried to imagine floating in deep space, silent and still.

He opened his eyes again. Nothing moved.

Gaius was running a scanner over the back of his head again. "Of course, we still know practically nothing about how psionics work," he muttered. "But I think it's safe to say that your little knock to the head did more damage than we thought."

Merlin groaned.

"I'm afraid I'm confining you to your quarters until you've healed," said Gaius.

"But you heard Arthur!" Merlin protested. "I have work to do! He's already annoyed with me!" Even working for his infinite pratness was better than being confined to his quarters.

"He'll be a hell of a lot more than annoyed if he finds out you have psi abilities," said Gaius. "You should count yourself lucky. If his father were on board I'd be sending you off-ship."

"You get to tell Arthur," said Merlin.

--

From Arthur, Merlin got a terse note wishing his intense desire that Merlin stop being such a bloody idiot and to be more careful in future.

From Lancelot he got an actual "get well soon" card (printed on actual physical paper!) and a personal visit.

Lancelot was an android and he did a better job of acting like a decent human being than Arthur did.

Lancelot had taken one look at Merlin and spouted off some babble about neural synapses being interrupted and hypersensitivity and it probably taking a couple of days to sort out. Merlin barely understood it. "Honestly, you should be Gaius' apprentice, not me," said Merlin, thoughtlessly.

"I didn't want to be a medical droid," Lancelot reminded him, evenly. "I want to be an explorer."

"I know," said Merlin, apologetically.

Lancelot shrugged. "There's really no need to lock you up though, you should still have enough control not to hurt anybody."

"It's Arthur," said Merlin. "He can't know about my psi abilities."

"Why not? He accepted me," said Lancelot.

"Eventually," said Merlin.

"That was Uther," said Lancelot. "I think Arthur would have been happy to take me on earlier if it hadn't been for his father."

"I rest my case," said Merlin. "Uther has spent years raising Arthur to hate psionics. You have skills and knowledge that make you pretty much irreplaceable. I'm just a mostly-incompetent secretary."

"I think you underestimate him," said Lancelot.

Merlin sighed a little to himself. Clearly Arthur had gained himself another fan.

After Lancelot departed, he got a call from Gwen. They weren't close enough to a relay station for him to be able to get a video feed, so he was limited to a static image and audio.

"You're too late," he told her. "Lancelot just left."

Gwen babbled incoherently for a moment before managing to get out, "I was calling to check up on you. Morgana said you aren't well."

"Was Arthur whining at her?" asked Merlin.

"Anyway," she said, which he took as a 'yes', "I thought I would call to see how you were doing."

"It's not a big deal really," said Merlin. "Gaius just thinks my head will explode if I have to deal with anything too stressful."

She squeaked.

"How is the ship going?" said Merlin, quickly. "Is Morgana liking the new job?" He couldn't imagine that Morgana could not be happy to be out from under Uther Pendragon's control, particularly if Gaius was right about her 'nightmares'.

"Oh, it's amazing," she said. "I mean, not that it wasn't good being on the Camelot with you and Arthur and that, but the Avalon is so beautiful and the crew are fantastic and Morgana is loving being captain. Er, not that the crew on the Camelot isn't--"

He grinned, and let Gwen babble.

--

Merlin was awoken from a nightmare about Uther discovering that Merlin was a psion and shoving him out the airlock to suffocate and slowly expand into nothingness by the sound of a loud banging.

He clawed his way out of his sheets just as the door beeped and slid open with a faint hiss.

Merlin stared wide-eyed at Arthur, who was looking around the room in astonishment.

At some point during his nap, every object in Merlin's room that wasn't nailed down had redistributed itself to the floor. Merlin braced himself for impact.

"Merlin, this room is--" There was the faintest possible pause, and Merlin hoped he didn't look as terrified as he felt. "--tiny," Arthur finished. "Why haven't you said anything?"

Merlin stared at him.

"No, seriously, did this used to be the broom closet or something?"

Merlin cleared his throat to stave off a coughing fit. "I think it's supposed to be the nurse's station," he said. Gaius hadn't known where else to put his new 'apprentice', and Uther hadn't had any room to spare elsewhere on the ship.

"Well, whatever it is, it's completely inappropriate for the captain's personal assistant. You can have my old room. Grab your things and follow me." Arthur made as if he expected Merlin to immediately get up and obey.

"Technically I'm still on bed-rest," said Merlin. "Er, not that I'm disagreeing with you. I've been stuck in this room for two days, I know exactly how tiny it is."

"I'll talk to Gaius," said Arthur, dismissively. "You start packing." The door shut behind him with a faint hum.

Merlin dug his battered suitcase out from under the bed and stared at it blankly for a moment. Was Arthur moving him permanently, or just for the duration of his "illness"? Should he pack everything or just the important things?

After a moment's thought, he dug around under the mattress until he found his book on psionics. He wrapped it in a particularly hideous striped shirt and shoved it in the bottom of the suitcase before dropping the rest of his effects on top.

Arthur reappeared at Merlin's door, Gaius in tow.

"Just don't let him stress himself," Gaius was saying.

Merlin rolled his eyes and snapped his suitcase shut.

"Be careful, Merlin," Gaius told him.

"I will, I promise," said Merlin.

Although it had been unoccupied for a month, traces of Arthur's presence in the room still remained. There was an intricately embroidered wall hanging in Arthur's favourite shade of red above the bed. The bed covers were also made out in red and gold and probably had ten times the thread count of Merlin's old bedding.

As a whole, it was a little more friendly than the bare metal of Merlin's previous room.

He'd been to this room before, of course. Arthur had an annoying habit of making his P.A. help with everything imaginable, including assembling dress uniforms and tuxedos for official business meetings. Merlin had spent many hours in here with Arthur half-dressed and making sarcastic comments about Merlin's inability to remember the particular order of layering required for each of Arthur's outfits. (And they were all different, of course.)

The far wall was taken up by an actual desk. He was beginning suspect that Arthur had ulterior motives - the new room was right next to Arthur's, and the desk meant he'd be able to work at all hours without disturbing the rest of the crew.

There was no en suite, so he'd still be using the communal washrooms. He spared a moment for wishing he was on the Avalon, which by all accounts had individual showers and toilets in every sleeping quarter. SV Camelot might be the flagship of the Pendragon fleet, but Avalon was the most luxurious. Gwen had all the luck.

Merlin was so relieved to have a room in which he couldn't touch two parallel walls at the same time that he only put up a token protest when Arthur left him a small catalogue of mission reports to summarise for Uther.

It felt a little weird to be sleeping in the bed that his brain still insisted belonged to Arthur, however.

--

Things returned to normal at the usual pace. A day after Gaius had given him the all clear you would hardly know that Merlin had ever been gone except for the huge backlog of work he had to do, plus the additional work of correcting everything Arthur had stuffed up while trying to do it on his own.

Arthur seemed to expect him to make up for his absence by working sixteen hours a day, so Merlin made a point of only working eight, plus a lengthy lunch break.

Away missions became a semi-regular occurrence. Arthur had had his taste of freedom now and he wasn't letting it go, no matter how much the crew protested.

In a way it was even better than before Arthur became captain of the Camelot, because Arthur made a point of only tagging along on the interesting missions, which meant they very rarely found themselves trying to make several hours exploring bare rock not sound like a complete waste of time.

On the down side, "interesting" also meant "potentially dangerous".

Or, if not actually dangerous, definitely "potentially embarrassing".

This particular planet, for example, apparently had a problem with quicksand.

Merlin was currently up to his shoulders in lukewarm alien mud, while Arthur stood on dry ground in his pristine red uniform and tried not to look like he was holding back laughter.

"If you're quite finished, I wouldn't mind a hand getting out," said Merlin, acidly. "Suffocating in mud is not really the way I want to go."

Arthur blanched, and fetched Lancelot.

By the end of it, Arthur was the only person who wasn't covered in mud, whether from falling victim to the ground suddenly disappearing beneath their feet or from helping out their comrades. Merlin kind of hated him.

The bio-suits kept out or destroyed most biological threats, but they weren't waterproof. Consequently, Merlin found himself waiting outside the communal bathrooms, a dirty puddle forming around his feet, while the rest of the crew cleaned off.

"Oh, there you are, Merlin," said Arthur. He'd changed and showered, by the looks of things, when the only damage he'd taken was maybe possibly working up a slight sweat. "Why are you still covered in mud?"

"I'm waiting for a shower," said Merlin, tightly.

Arthur looked him up and down slowly. "You can use my en suite," he said. "Come on."

Merlin winced as he tracked muddy footprints across the carpeted floor of the captain's quarters. Well, never mind, he would probably end up being the one scrubbing it clean anyway.

He left his clothes in an untidy pile on the floor of the bathroom and stepped into the shower gratefully. It was a long time before the water spiralling away through the floor started running clear.

Merlin rested his head against the wall of the shower and let the heat of the water work the tension out of his shoulders.

When he'd finished the drying cycle and stepped out of the shower cubicle, he realised he'd made a slight miscalculation.

His clothes were in no state to be worn again, so he grabbed what appeared to be Arthur's bathrobe (it was red and gold) from a hook and threw it on, the sleeves falling over his wrists to greet his fingertips. It made him feel like a little kid playing dressup. Oh well, his quarters were right next door, with any luck nobody would ever have to know.

He gave his hair a cursory comb with his fingers, stepped out of the en suite and paused. Arthur was sitting on the bed, reading, and looked up as Merlin stepped into the room.

"Um," said Merlin. "I didn't have anything to get changed into." He tugged at the bathrobe self-consciously.

Arthur's expression was faintly possessive as he got to his feet.

"I'll just... borrow this, while I got get some clothes," said Merlin, starting to edge towards the door.

"Wait," said Arthur. He took a few steps, bringing him right into Merlin's space.

Merlin swallowed, suddenly very aware of how he must look, still flushed from the shower and dressed in a tent that was masquerading as a bathrobe, compared to Arthur in his perfectly tailored uniform.

Arthur's next step brought his lips into contact with Merlin's, and then the next thing he knew he was getting a blowjob on the counter in the en suite of the captain's quarters.

This turned out to be a precursor to getting fucked on the captain's bed.

When Merlin finally regained his sense of self, he opened his eyes to discover that every door and drawer in the room had opened itself. As far as he could tell the contents of the drawers remained intact.

"Um," he said.

Arthur propped himself up on one elbow to survey the damage. After a moment, he flopped back onto the bed and put an arm over his eyes. "I have an idea. How about you tidy up in here, and then I can pretend I never saw anything and therefore don't have anything to tell my father about."

Merlin blinked at him.

"Do you understand me, Merlin?" said Arthur, with a hint of impatience.

Merlin leapt to his feet. "I'll get right on it."

--

Merlin spent the rest of the day wondering if everything he did screamed "hi, I shagged the captain!" and wondering if (hoping) it would be a regular occurrence.

He was convinced that everyone knew and that any minute now Gaius or one of the members of the crew was going to take him aside and have a little talk about appropriate behaviour with the captain.

As it turned out, either the crew didn't know or they didn't care. And sex with Arthur happened completely at random, whenever they had a little time and some privacy. Arthur's quarters; Merlin's quarters; Arthur's office (on his desk); the pool (Arthur had said he needed to shower with Merlin to make certain he didn't knock himself out, but whatever, he was utterly transparent), and on one memorable occasion in Arthur's quarters while Arthur shared a particularly vivid fantasy about having Merlin on his lap while sitting on the captain's chair. Merlin still had a tendency to blush when he looked at that chair.

Merlin made a better attempt to control his psionics in, er, the heat of the moment, and that particular topic didn't come up again.

He was currently watching Arthur watch the viewscreen on the bridge and having a certain amount of trouble paying attention to the discussion he was supposed to be making notes on. He'd just have to try and make sense of the recordings later.

From Arthur's distracted expression he suspected Arthur wasn't really paying attention to the discussion either. There was the faintest furrow in his brow to show that his mind was elsewhere.

Pellinor cleared his throat. "Sir," he said. "Sorry to interrupt. I'm picking up the signature for a Jump Point up ahead."

There was silence on the bridge for a moment.

"I could pretend I never said anything?" said Pellinor, hurriedly.

Arthur sighed. "No, set a course for it and ready the Jump drive. It's time to catch up with my father."

"We've probably got another twelve hours before we reach it," said Pellinor.

"Noted," said Arthur. "Sorry gentlemen, we'll have to finish this discussion later. Merlin, come with me please."

"Er," said Merlin, hurrying after him. "If we're reporting back to your father soon, I have a billion reports to finalise, I have to edit some video, I..."

"Come on, Merlin," said Arthur, grabbing him by the wrist. Merlin felt his cheeks heat in anticipation.

Afterwards, Merlin rolled onto his side and poked Arthur until he opened his eyes again. "What do you think your father will say?" he asked, a little worried.

Arthur groaned. "Merlin, you make the worst pillow talk."

"Well, it's obviously bothering you," Merlin retorted.

"We've done pretty well, I think," said Arthur, slowly. "He seemed fairly happy with the summary reports we've sent."

"So you think he'll let us jump back here?" said Merlin, hopefully.

"I doubt it. He'll probably send me on an annual inspection circuit first," said Arthur. "By the time we've finished that it will be the end of the year and I'll have the social circuit to run. After that, who knows?"

Merlin made a face.

--

The planet that formed the home for Pendragon Corporation was another day's travel from the nearest jump point. Merlin spent the entire time finishing reports, sending them to Arthur for approval, redoing the report, sending it to Arthur, fixing some minor errors and then finally putting it in the "completed" pile.

Arthur was vicious with his corrections, too. It was hardly Merlin's fault that he'd been on this expedition for not even a year yet, whilst Arthur had being doing it, oh, his entire life.

When they arrived at Planet Camelot, Arthur gave the crew two weeks holiday.

This did not include Merlin, but Arthur surprised him by giving him a week off anyway.

"I want to see you in my office at eight o'clock sharp next Monday, do you understand me, Merlin?" Arthur drawled.

"Prat," said Merlin.

Merlin quickly found that he didn't actually know what to do with time off.

He took advantage of the planet having an actual vid phone antenna that had actual bandwidth to call his mother (twice), Will, Gwen, his mother again, Gwen again.

He got a haircut. It made his ears stick out more, but at least his fringe wasn't falling in his eyes any more.

He did housework at Gaius' place using psionics until Gaius walked in and almost had an apoplectic fit.

"How am I supposed to learn to control it if you won't let me practice?" muttered Merlin.

"Not on Uther Pendragon's home planet," said Gaius, firmly. "Go, I don't know, take a tourist bus or something. I'm sure Lancelot hasn't had the chance to leave the city yet."

Lancelot was happy to accompany Merlin on the Enclosed Vehicle Tour of Planet Camelot.

Camelot had lost most of its glamour since discovering that he was public enemy #1, but Merlin could still admit that it was a beautiful planet. Inside the dome, the gardens were perfectly manicured, the streets were clean and the people, for the most part, happy.

The dome was built in the middle of a massive desert. On the far side of the planet it was a mass of jungle with a mountain range rising in the middle, snow on its peaks. Camelot's native flora was mostly a startling shade of reddish purple and the familiar blue and white of the rapid rivers in the mountains seemed startling in the mass of alien vegetation.

His guide talked for a while about the preservation efforts of Pendragon Corporation, but Merlin mostly tuned it out. He'd heard it all before. Lancelot was listening with an expression of interest, but it was impossible to tell what he really thought.

"I suppose you already knew all that," said Merlin, when they got off the bus.

"Most of it," said Lancelot. "The story about the dog and the tree was new. And I'd only seen vids of the planet's surface, it was interesting to see it with my own eyes."

Merlin nodded. "It's a pretty amazing place," he said, wistfully.

Lancelot nodded soberly.

"Are you glad you came back?" asked Merlin.

"I'm glad Arthur was still willing to give me a place on the Camelot," said Lancelot. "It turns out that Uther Pendragon may be a lone island of hatred for psions, but the rest of the known universe seems to share his low opinion of androids."

"But are you enjoying it?" Merlin insisted, and then felt silly asking an android about its emotions.

Lancelot just smiled and nodded. "It's what I wanted to be doing. And perhaps one day I'll be the one to identify a sentient alien race."

"Arthur thinks it'll be a while before we do any more exploration work," said Merlin.

Lancelot shrugged. "I have time. I have my foot in the door now."

Merlin left Lancelot at the crew's quarters and headed back to Gaius' apartment.

He called his mother again, who answered the phone with "Merlin," in fond exasperation and ended the call with, "It's not that I don't love to hear from you, but I have heard all this before. I have work to do."

Gaius was out and not expected back until late, so he spent the evening in his boxers watching movies and dropping snack food into his mouth with psionics.

He dozed off somewhere in the middle of a medieval sword and sorcery adventure and dreamt uneasily of magic and knights and Prince Arthur Pendragon.

Merlin awoke with a start when the front door opened.

Arthur entered the apartment, Gaius leaning on him and stumbling along by his side.

"Merlin," said Arthur, stopping short.

Merlin was more concerned about Gaius. "Is he all right?" he asked, staggering to his feet and blinking rapidly as his vision started to black out.

"Drunk," said Arthur. "Father asked me to see him home."

Merlin fetched some water from the kitchen and helped Arthur put Gaius to bed, forcing Gaius to drink the water first.

When that was done, he fetched another glass for Arthur and a third for himself. He felt weirdly embarrassed being with Arthur dressed only in boxers, given that Arthur had seen him naked and all.

"What are you doing here, Merlin?" asked Arthur.

"I live here?" said Merlin.

Arthur stared at him. "Why?"

"Well, it's not like I have anywhere better to go," said Merlin, tartly.

"You're working for the Pendragon family. Accommodation is included. Honestly, Merlin, didn't you even read your contract? "

"I was too busy being horrified at having to work for such a prat," said Merlin.

Arthur's lips pressed into a thin line, and Merlin felt a little guilty. "I don't think I've ever seen Gaius drunk before," said Merlin, quickly.

Arthur leaned back on the couch and closed his eyes. "Today is the anniversary of my mother's death," he said. "Otherwise known as my birthday," he added, with a self-mocking smile.

Merlin put his glass down. "Did your father..."

"He was drunk. He told me what a great son I was," said Arthur, quietly. "How talented, what a credit to the Pendragon name I am." His eyes opened again, staring at the ceiling. "Usually I try to be off-planet." Arthur closed his eyes again, then shook his head rapidly. He gave Merlin a long, searching look.

"You--" he started, but Arthur leaned over and kissed him firmly.

This wasn't something Merlin had any intention of continuing with Gaius asleep in the next room, but he half led, half followed Arthur into Merlin's bedroom and curled up with him on the bed, kissing languidly and stilling Arthur's straying hands until Arthur fell asleep.

Merlin continued to lie there, stroking Arthur's hair gently, until he too fell asleep.

He was alone in the bed when he woke.

He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and pulled a t-shirt on before leaving his bedroom. He found Arthur sitting on the couch, staring at the muted television.

"Couldn't sleep?" he asked, flopping on the couch next to Arthur.

"Your bed is tiny," said Arthur.

Merlin shrugged. "I don't feel the need to compensate for anything," he said, tartly.

"I..." Arthur began. "Never mind. I'm going home, I'd better be there before my father gets up."

Merlin nodded slowly.

"I'll talk to you later, Merlin." Arthur got to his feet and he strode towards the door with a determined air.

Merlin gave him a half-hearted wave, but Arthur didn't look back.

"Was that Arthur?" said Gaius, walking into the living room and looking very confused, like a man for whom coherent thought was still not quite possible.

"He was too tired to drive home last night," said Merlin. "I let him sleep here."

"On the couch?" said Gaius, scandalised.

Merlin muttered something that he hoped sounded affirmative.

"He could have stayed for breakfast," said Gaius.

Merlin shrugged. "I'm going back to bed."

--

Arthur returned after lunch, announcing that he was taking Merlin flat hunting. "It's not appropriate for my P.A. to be sharing a flat with a physician," he said, when Merlin just stared at him.

"I like it here," said Merlin. "It keeps me from getting lonely. Besides, what's wrong with being a physician? If I ever finish my apprenticeship I'llbe a physician."

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Come on, Merlin."

The first three places Arthur showed him to were all penthouses with three separate bedrooms, at least two bathrooms, a spa, and near-360 degree views over the city and/or river.

"Does my contract even cover this?" said Merlin, awed in spite of himself.

"Your contract covers whatever I say it does," said Arthur, dismissively.

Merlin sighed.

He let Arthur show him to two more similar places before he put his foot down. "Arthur, I don't need a place like this. I'm going to be here, what, maybe two, three months of every year? I'm not going to have any houseguests, I don't need a view, I'm not going to be entertaining... I just need somewhere I can sleep and maybe watch some telly."

Arthur stared at him like he was speaking in tongues.

"You know, back home my mother and I shared a one-bedroom flat," said Merlin, conversationally.

Arthur winced. "At least let me get you something better than that."

It took a few more tries, but Arthur finally managed to land on something that wasn't likely to make Merlin acrophobic or agoraphobic, and Merlin said he'd have it just so that he could take a rest.

Arthur had the paperwork signed and everything ready in under an hour.

"Now, furniture," said Arthur.

"I'll order online," said Merlin, hurriedly.

Arthur gave him a horrified look.

"Arthur," said Merlin. "Please."

"Your taste is appalling, Merlin," said Arthur. "You can't be trusted to choose anything decent." He looked around the room and tapped a finger against his chin thoughtfully. "I think a red and gold colour scheme would look good."

Merlin told himself that frivolously killing the heir to the Pendragon fortune would not look good on his permanent record.

--

Merlin arrived at eight o'clock on the dot on the Monday morning to find a large collection of folders on his desk.

"Those are the sites my father wants me to inspect," said Arthur. "Review them and let me know if there's anything important in there."

"What, all of them?" said Merlin.

"We leave next week," said Arthur. "Get them done by tomorrow." His tone implied that he thought Merlin was incapable of it.

Merlin was familiar with the tactic and had no desire to give Arthur the satisfaction. Arthur would receive his files at C.O.B. tomorrow, no earlier.

Whatever it was they'd started on SV Camelot, it didn't seem to exist on Uther's home planet, in Uther's home.

Arthur spent most of his time in his own office, but he would occasionally come out and look over Merlin's shoulder at his current project. He inevitably offered some scathing comment about Merlin's spelling or grammar or, on one memorable occasion, his choice of font.

This pattern continued over the next two days until Merlin learned that he could get several hours worth of good behaviour out of Arthur by opening a job search site in the web browser and guiltily closing it when Arthur looked at his screen.

On Friday Arthur called Merlin into his office.

"Merlin, I've been thinking about your salary," said Arthur, very casually.

"Oh," said Merlin.

"Are you happy with it?"

"I don't really get much of an opportunity to spend any of it," said Merlin, carefully.

Arthur's brow furrowed.

Merlin waited patiently.

Arthur tried another tactic. "Merlin, why are you working for m- us?"

"Well, your father offered me the position, and I wasn't really in a position to refuse it," said Merlin. At Arthur's expression, he quickly continued, "I was pretty useless as Gaius' assistant anyway. Although I'm getting better."

He was expecting Arthur to come back with a comment about how Merlin was also pretty useless as Arthur's P.A., but Arthur just looked slightly pained.

"I see," said Arthur, after a moment's silence.

"We're going off-planet again next week, aren't we?" said Merlin, wistfully.

"We're scheduled for take-off at six AM, which you'd know if you'd read the last briefing I gave," said Arthur.

"It was a rhetorical question," retorted Merlin. "You really are a prat."

Arthur glared at him and Merlin just stared back until he lost patience. He locked the door and walked around Arthur's desk so that he could kiss him and somehow ended up taking Arthur over Arthur's desk.

Arthur didn't ask him to stay, and Merlin didn't tell him he wasn't going to leave.

Merlin didn't go home that night.

He woke disgustingly early in an unfamiliar (but deplorably comfortable) bed. He recognised the soft sounds coming from behind him as Arthur, still asleep.

Merlin carefully rolled onto his back and stared in the direction of the ceiling.

It wasn't the first time he'd woken in a bed beside Arthur, but it hadn't happened often. Even if they both happened to fall asleep, Arthur was usually up by the time Merlin woke (often because Arthur had shaken him awake and ordered him to work).

He really wasn't looking forward to explaining this to Uther in the morning. He rolled over and stared at the clock on Arthur's bedside table. 5 o'clock.

Merlin carefully slipped out from under the covers and gathered his clothes from where they lay on the floor, like a breadcrumb trail leading to the door. Arthur didn't stir.

The Pendragon manor was silent as he padded out the front door and drove back to his apartment.

It felt very empty as he lay down on his own bed and drew up the covers.

Chapter 2

"This is Space Vessel Camelot, requesting permission to dock at Stirling Station," said Geraint into the microphone.

There was silence on the other end.

Geraint cleared his throat. "This is Space Vessel Camelot," he repeated carefully, "requesting permission to dock."

"We hear you, Camelot," came the hurried reply. "We were - not expecting you so soon."

Arthur raised a brow. "We're here within the period we told them to expect us."

Geraint repeated this through the microphone.

There was silence on the other end again.

Geraint cleared his throat again. "Stirling Station?"

"Permission granted to dock, Space Vessel Camelot. Welcome to Stirling Station."

Arthur leaned back in his chair with a smug expression. Merlin had to fight the urge to roll his eyes.

According to the files Stirling Station was attached to an asteroid in orbit around a nearby star. It was rich in minerals and home to ten mines. The actual mining was handled by robots, but the station had a large crew in order to maintain the robots and analyse their findings. The major demographic was young singles, but there were a few families on board.

When the Camelot was docked, Arthur and Merlin were greeted at the airlock by a man in a crisp Pendragon Corp. uniform.

"Young master Pendragon," he said. "Welcome to Stirling Station. My name is Gariosso Morganza, I'll be your guide for your inspection."

Arthur shook his hand. "Pleased to make your acquaintance," he said. "This is my assistant, Merlin."

Merlin gave a little wave, but the other man barely glanced at him.

"I must apologise for the delay, we were not quite prepared for your visit," said Gariosso, with a smoothness that was belied by the way he wrung his hands nervously.

Arthur gave him a tight smile. "Apology accepted."

"Let me tell you about our station," said Gariosso, and launched into a rapid retelling of the station's history that matched the contents of the files almost word for word. The station's interior was well maintained, with whitewashed walls and carpeted floors. Potted plants were placed occasionally along the corridor. Windows on the outer wall allowed a look out into space.

"This is the mess and kitchens," continued Gariosso, leading them through a set of double doors into a large chamber filled with benches and tables. He babbled for a bit about the kind of food they served and the schedule of meals.

Merlin saw Arthur surreptitiously hide a yawn.

Over the next hour, Gariosso showed them to the rec rooms, some unoccupied residential quarters, the hydroponics garden, the cinema, the engineering room, the labs, the council chambers and several other boring but necessary parts of station life.

Arthur occasionally murmured things to Merlin to note down, but Merlin suspected it was mostly for show. The station seemed a picture of good maintenance.

And yet, Merlin felt uneasy.

The tour finished back at the airlock. "I'd like to fetch some of my team before we visit the mines," said Arthur.

"Of course," said Gariosso. "Buzz us again when you're ready to begin."

"He's hiding something," Merlin blurted out as the airlock doors whooshed shut behind them..

"Yes, thank you Merlin, I'm not stupid," said Arthur. "He can't wait to be rid of us."

"The station is very nice," said Merlin, a little wistfully.

"It's the best we've seen," said Arthur. "Which makes me even more curious about what they're hiding. I bet we'll find it in the mines."

Arthur assembled two teams from the crew on the Camelot, and recruited Lancelot to join Merlin and Arthur "because he's a three-person team all by himself".

Merlin glanced over to catch Lancelot's reaction, but Lancelot just looked amused and a little touched. Of course, Lancelot was very good at controlling what emotions he actually showed.

Merlin didn't know very much about mining, although he'd seen enough of them over the past month that he was starting to learn all sorts of incredibly specific information about the structure and maintenance of asteroid mine tunnels.

The three they were shown to seemed pretty much like every other mine tunnel Merlin had been in. Yet, Arthur seemed to have plenty to say about them and Lancelot occasionally offered his own opinion. Merlin made notes and tried not to look too lost.

When they were done, the teams regrouped to compare notes on the nine mines they'd examined. From what Merlin could pick up, all was well.

"And the tenth mine?" said Arthur, pointedly.

Gariosso looked a little uncomfortable. "I'm sorry, there is no tenth mine."

"Really? Because I could have sworn the documentation on Stirling Station mentioned ten mines."

"Uh," said Gariosso, and Merlin could almost hear him thinking frantically. "I meant that the tenth tunnel is currently closed for maintenance. We, uh... we had a collapse."

"What could cause a collapse?" asked Lancelot, his brow furrowing in a good approximation of human confusion. "Mine tunnels are reinforced and constantly scanned for weakness. A collapse should never occur under normal operation."

"I think we should inspect this mine," said Arthur, firmly.

"It's not safe, young master!" said Gariosso. "The mine could collapse further at any moment."

"Perhaps you can bring up the mine terrestrial interface for us," said Lancelot. "That should let us identify the danger zones."

The terrestrial interface turned out to be the digital map of the mine tunnels.

"It's a peculiarly localised collapse," said Lancelot, zooming in on a red spot on the map. "No sign of any fractures in the... There's a person in there!"

"What?" yelled Arthur.

Gariosso winced.

"A child, by the looks of things," Lancelot continued, his voice steady.

Arthur turned white.

Gariosso sighed heavily. "It's true. It's the daughter of one of our scientists. She ran into one of the mines and became trapped when it collapsed."

Arthur spluttered incoherently. "How can you just... why aren't you..."

"We've done everything we can!" said Gariosso. "The robots aren't strong enough to break through the rock without explosives, and we're afraid if we use the explosives it will cause further collapse."

"Why didn't you tell me this the moment we arrived?" demanded Arthur. "SV Camelot has more than enough equipment to be able to handle this."

Nobody even argued when Arthur led the charge into the mines himself. He was like a small god or a king, determination radiating from every pore.

"Be careful," said Lancelot, as they approached the collapse site. "We still don't know what caused the original collapse."

"Telekinetics," Merlin blurted out. "Psionics. It has to be."

Arthur stared at him.

"It's easy to see how it could happen. It finally comes out that she's a psion when the son of Uther Pendragon is expected to arrive at any moment. They argue, she gets scared and runs away into the mines."

"She collapses the mine behind her to stop anybody following, and then she doesn't have enough control of her powers to break out again," finished Lancelot. "Yes, that fits perfectly."

"You're telling me one little girl caused a mine tunnel to collapse?"

"It wouldn't take very much," said Merlin, hesitantly. "It's fairly easy to break through forcefields with psionics."

"The forcefields are integral to the structure of the tunnel," added Lancelot.

Merlin really wished Gaius had come with them from planet Camelot. He would know the best way to handle a child with dubious control of her psionics.

When they reached the pile of rubble that marked the start of the collapsed area Lancelot spent a few minutes examining it from various angles before directing the rest of the rescue team's efforts with drills and laser cutters.

It took about half an hour of cutting and putting up temporary emergency forcefields to hollow out a person-sized hole and widen it enough to allow convenient passage.

Arthur was the first to go through, despite numerous protests. When Merlin finally managed to squeeze through the hole, he found Arthur kneeling in front of the girl, talking to her quietly.

She stared at the rest of them, her lip quivering.

"Everybody out," said Arthur, in his most commanding tone. "Merlin and Lancelot can stay."

The stationers gave him a doubtful look.

"Can't you see you're scaring her?" said Arthur.

Merlin's sympathies lay with the miners, even though he was reasonably certain Arthur wouldn't do anything to harm the girl. They weren't to know that.

When the room was empty, Arthur took the girl by the hand and led her towards the entrance. She followed hesitantly.

When he looked at the girl, Merlin's head felt tight and sore. Whatever she looked like on the outside, inside the girl was wound tight as a spring.

"What's your name?" asked Arthur.

"Viviane," said the girl. "What's your name, mister?"

"I'm Arthur Pendragon," said Arthur, absently. He seemed completely unprepared for the girl to stop walking and stare at him in a mixture of horror and betrayal.

"NO!" she shrieked.

Merlin felt the world around him shift, and reacted instinctively to contain it.

When his vision cleared, he found Lancelot holding the girl in his arms. "Nobody's going to hurt you," he was murmuring, in his most soothing tones.

"I've got it contained," said Merlin, through gritted teeth. "Take her further up the tunnel, I don't know how much longer I can hold it."

Arthur was staring at Lancelot and the girl as Lancelot took her up the tunnel, still struggling and wailing.

"Arthur," said Merlin. "Move!"

Arthur turned to look at him blankly.

"If you don't get yourself behind me in three bloody seconds so help me I am letting this tunnel collapse on top of you," Merlin said, conversationally.

Arthur moved.

Merlin let go. He had barely enough time to scramble out of the way before the roof of the tunnel collapsed and the tunnel filled with rubble.

Merlin coughed and sneezed in the dust cloud that ensued.

By the time they caught up with the rest of the group the girl had her arms wrapped around the legs of a man who was obviously her father.

The father gave Arthur an uneasy look as he approached.

"For heaven's sake," Arthur snapped. "I'm not going to do anything to her." He ran a hand through his hair, making a face when it came out covered in dust. "I'm going to have a shower," he said, firmly, "and then I'm going to decide how much of this to put in my report." He rubbed his hands on his trousers and started to walk in the direction of the docking bay.

Merlin followed at a discreet distance.

Arthur waited for him to catch up at the airlock, pushing him up against the wall inside and kissing him hard as soon as the doors shut.

He pulled away before the doors on the other side opened.

In Arthur's chambers, Arthur drew Merlin into the shower with him and took him against the shower wall with surprising gentleness.

When he finally switched the water off, Merlin felt a little weak in the knees, which he firmly told himself was due to the heat.

The two of them stumbled to Arthur's bed and dozed, Merlin nestled around Arthur in a way that he fervently hoped wasn't too obviously comforting.

Lost in his own thoughts, it took Merlin a moment to notice Arthur was speaking.

"I've never had somebody react to my name in fear before," Arthur said, wonderingly.

Merlin didn't say anything.

"She should get training," Arthur said. "She collapsed a mine tunnel! Twice! Isn't there a school for psions or something out there?"

Merlin cleared his throat. "Her family probably can't afford it."

Arthur rolled over to look at him curiously.

"It's a long way from here. Space passage is expensive, not to mention the entrance fees and board. She'd be a long way from her family without any way to get back.

"But you went, didn't you?" said Arthur, sitting up with a confused expression.

"Oh, so we're talking about this now?" said Merlin. "No, of course I bloody well didn't go to Corbin."

"But..."

"I was worse than she was, as a child," said Merlin. "My mother was terrified for me." He leant against the wall and stretched his legs out over Arthur's bed.

"For you," said Arthur.

"I got the hang of not exploding things whenever I got scared," said Merlin. "Eventually."

"So... she'll be all right if we leave her?"

"I wasn't living in fear trying to keep it secret, though," Merlin added, thoughtfully.

Arthur made a strangled noise.

"I could give her a copy of Gaius' book on psionics," Merlin suggested hopefully. He was sure Gaius would understand.

Arthur stared at him. "You have a book."

"Yes?"

"On psionics. On my father's ship."

"You can thank that book on psionics for your life," said Merlin, folding his arms.

"I just... are you an idiot? My father would have you thrown in the brig and shipped out at the first opportunity."

"It's not something I can just ignore," said Merlin. "And it isn't going to go away. It's a part of me, and I don't know how to use it." He coughed. "Don't look at me like that. It's not that bad."

Arthur had his head in his hands. "I've changed my mind, we're not talking about this any more."

--

They returned to Planet Camelot with fifteen genuine reports and one slightly-falsified report. Uther accepted them for review without comment other than a slight against the time taken.

Arthur had accepted the criticism stoically at the time, but now Uther was demanding further information about the contents of the reports.

Merlin stared at Arthur, aghast. "You're going in there alone?"

"He's my father. He isn't going to do anything to me."

"He once locked you in the brig for three days for insubordination."

"That was different. This isn't even my fault."

"You think your father has never shot the messenger?" said Merlin.

"He's my father, I'd thank you to show some respect."

Merlin scowled. "Your father is--"

"My father is waiting for me," interrupted Arthur, pointedly.

Merlin stomped into Arthur's office to find Gwen lounging on the visitor's chair.

She leapt up and wrapped him in a hug the minute she saw him.

Merlin was surprised into a laugh and unsuccessfully tried to manoeuvre himself out of her arms. "When did you get in?" he asked.

"The Avalon docked late last night," she said. "Uther wanted Morgana back for the season."

"Arthur too," said Merlin. "He said something about the social circuit."

"Every year," she said. "He takes Arthur and Morgana around to all his business partners' end of year celebrations."

"Great," said Merlin. "Formal uniforms?"

Gwen looked a little starry-eyed. "Like you wouldn't believe."

Merlin cleared his throat. "I imagine the lady Morgana looks quite fetching in formal attire."

Gwen looked slightly panicked. "Oh, no, it's not... I mean, that's not what I... I don't..."

Merlin burst out laughing and let his head come to rest on her shoulder. "Gwen, I missed you."

Somebody cleared his throat behind them.

"Captain Pendragon!" said Gwen.

Arthur gave them a pointed look, and Gwen disengaged herself from Merlin, smoothing the folds of her dress uncomfortably.

"Merlin, I..." Arthur began, all regality and zero-tolerance, and Merlin really wasn't in the mood to deal with it right now. Let Arthur take out his anger on something else for a change.

"Can surely spare me for an hour or so," said Merlin, hurriedly. "Come on, Gwen." He grabbed her by the hand and led her out the door.

"But, I mean, is it all right for us to... Won't he think we..."

"I'll make it up to him later," said Merlin, and then felt his cheeks heat up.

"Merlin, are you blushing?" she asked.

Merlin found them a coffee shop not too far from the Pendragon offices.

"So," she said, turning her cup of coffee in her hands. "You and Arthur."

"I don't even know what it is," said Merlin. "Please don't ask me to explain it. Tell me about the Avalon."

Gwen was more than happy to talk about Avalon, or more accurately, its captain. She detailed Morgana's achievements as captain with great enthusiasm. They'd identified three new significant resource nodes, a whole bundle of new alien fauna, and two new jump points.

When his coffee was finished and the dregs stone cold, Merlin started to feel a little guilty.

Gwen finished a story about Morgana besting a recalcitrant space hermit in a battle of wits to glance at him curiously. "What's wrong?"

"I think I should get back to Arthur," he said. "He had a meeting with his father this morning."

"And you left him?" she blurted out, before putting her hands over her mouth in apology.

"We may have argued about it a little," said Merlin.

Her expression was verging on long-suffering.

"I'll, I'll just go now, shall I," he said. "I'm glad you're back, Gwen."

Merlin walked into Arthur's office and shut the door behind him gently.

Arthur was staring at his monitor, but a slight redness across his forehead implied he'd had his head on the desk shortly before.

Merlin cleared his throat apologetically, but couldn't think of what to say. He wrung his hands helplessly.

"It was the usual," said Arthur. "He wanted to know why I wasn't more harsh on Stirling Station for letting the mine collapse. He wanted to know why I didn't try to put the fear of god into Carlisle." Carlisle's output had reduced by a factor of 17% in the last twelve months. "The usual."

Merlin gripped his hands together tightly and cleared his throat again.

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Merlin, stop hovering and sit down."

Merlin tottered over to the visitor's chair and sat on his hands.

"How is Gwen?" asked Arthur, with a somewhat strained expression.

"Fine," said Merlin. "She really liked serving on the Avalon with Morgana."

Arthur hesitated. "Are you all right with that? I know you and she are... close."

Merlin blinked. "Of course I'm--" He blinked again as Arthur's meaning finally hit. "It's not like that!" Was it his imagination, or did Arthur look faintly relieved. "Do you really think I'd -- with you -- if I was with Gwen?" he demanded.

Arthur seemed frozen in place. For several long moments the only sound in the room was their own breathing. "I don't even know what you think we're doing," said Arthur, slowly.

Merlin suddenly found himself absolutely, positively and completely not wanting to have this conversation. "Does it matter?" he asked, quickly.

Arthur's expression was confused and slightly pained. "I suppose not," he said, stiffly.

"I-I'll go work on some reports, shall I?" said Merlin, stumbling to his feet and stepping back out into his own office before Arthur could say another word.

He buried his face in his arms on top of the keyboard.

What was he to Arthur? Human stress relief? More? Less? He turned each option over in his mind.

Every single one of them terrified him.

--

Things between Merlin and Arthur were chilly for approximately twelve hours before they drifted back into their old pattern of battles of wit and occasional mind-blowing sex.

Merlin added "verbal punching bag" to his mental list.

He was only on duty at the Pendragon offices for half days. The rest of the time he was performing his 'real' job as Gaius' apprentice. Merlin was slowly starting to be able to at least pretend to some competence as an apprentice physician, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that Arthur usually kept him too busy for him to put the work in on studying.

Arthur greeted him one morning by informing him that Uther would be flying SV Camelot out to planet Tintagel in three (3) days time and that Arthur and Morgana would be accompanying him.

"Of course, that also includes you and Gwen," said Arthur. "And Gaius, naturally."

"Lancelot?" said Merlin, hopefully.

"My father's staff, only," said Arthur, flatly.

"I see," said Merlin.

"Pack your formal uniform," said Arthur.

Merlin hesitated. "The hat?"

Arthur's lips twitched slightly. "The hat is a part of the uniform, is it not? And no, you can't accidentally let it get sucked out the airlock."

Merlin bit his tongue and resolved to come up with some more original fates for the hat.

Merlin's job at business functions was to stand around the edges of the room and watch Arthur like a hawk in the hopes that he would somehow psychically know when Arthur needed him to mark something in his calendar or write something down or fetch him some more champagne, please. (Weren't there perfectly good catering staff for that? Ones that wouldn't trip over their own feet and spill champagne all over a dress that was worth more than Merlin's entire yearly salary?)

He endured an hour of people glancing at his head (his hat) and turning away to hide their amused smiles before he took off the hideous monstrosity and hid it behind a plot plant while Arthur was in the loos.

He waited patiently for Arthur to see him and order him to put it back on. He was almost looking forwardto it.

After fifteen minutes, he was starting to feel a little uneasy. After half an hour, he sidled over to where Gwen was standing, watching Morgana with a silly little grin.

"Gwen," he said, quietly. "Have you seen Arthur?"

"No?" she said. "Well, not recently? Obviously I saw him earlier, when we--"

Her voice faded out as Merlin headed in the direction of the loos.

The back wall of the venue was mirrored, and the loos were hidden behind an almost invisible door set in the mirror.

The other side of the mirror was slightly translucent, so that you could look out while you were doing your business and watch the people milling around, blissfully unaware.

Merlin was vaguely horrified.

Arthur wasn't in any of the cubicles.

Merlin shut himself in one of the empty cubicles and closed his eyes, wishing he'd spent the time to practice the technique in Gaius' book that talked about finding people.

Well, the first step to successful psionics was always to stop panicking. He took a deep breath and pictured wrapping himself in a blanket of stars, soft and warm.

People rose in his consciousness, most like tiny distant stars, but others like a campfire or a comforting winter blaze. Morgana was the brightest in the room, a flare of bright light reigning like a queen with all the other points of light bowing before her.

None of the people in the main room felt like Arthur. Merlin relaxed more, let himself look further out.

There were little flickers of other unfamiliar people throughout the complex.

He'd almost given up when a blaze of light at the very edge of his senses caught his attention. It was hard to concentrate with all that brightness distracting him, but he thought... at the very centre...

It felt like Arthur. It felt right.

Merlin opened his eyes and got to his feet. He flushed the loo for the appearance of the thing, washed his hands and skidded out the door.

He kept part of his mind focussed on that feeling of Arthur as he fought his way through the mass of people and out into the corridors.

Trying to find Arthur with only a compass-point direction in the complex was a little like trying to find the North East point of a maze. He quickly found himself hopelessly lost.

He finally managed to find a major thoroughfare with a map, and concentrated on it until he was reasonably certain he knew where Arthur was.

It was the spaceport.

This was not a good sign.

Merlin started to run, completely ignoring anybody he ran into on route who yelled after him.

There were three giant pillars of light just off the spaceport, and by their side, Arthur. His presence felt strangely quiet, like it was being suppressed. Of course, they were psions, that was why they burned in his mind's eye. Mentalists? Merlin hadn't even begun to study that art.

The ship was docked at bay thirteen. The gate was locked, but Merlin had been able to open locks with his mind since he was seven.

Most of the ship's crew were normals, and Merlin took them down without thinking about it.

He followed his instincts until he found three psions standing outside what looked like a holding cell.

"Let him go," said Merlin.

The three turned to stare at Merlin, startled.

Merlin suddenly felt very alone. He wondered if he should have grabbed backup - but how would he have explained to Uther about how he knew where Arthur was?

He could feel them reaching for his mind, slippery fingers trying to distort and change his thoughts. Merlin concentrated on burning them away, feeling nothing but satisfaction as they hissed in pain and drew back.

"You are a psion," one of them said. "Why are you doing this?"

"I work for him," said Merlin. It didn't seem like quite enough. "He's my friend."

"No Pendragon is a friend to psions," one of them scoffed.

"Arthur Pendragon is not his father," said Merlin.

One of them spat on the floor. "He is of Pendragon blood. He is exactly like his father."

"Uther Pendragon took over the mines at Alban and threw us out on our own. My family starved to death because we hadn't the money to survive. Nobody wants to hire one of Uther Pendragon's rejects," said another.

The others murmured in sympathetic agreement.

"When Arthur takes over the company that won't happen any more," said Merlin. He was certain of it. "Arthur learns from his mistakes." he continued. "He listens to people."

They were looking at him with pity in their eyes. "You are young, yet. We can help you."

"I don't need your bloody help!" Merlin yelled. "I need Arthur!" He gulped. "I mean... the universe needs Arthur! He's going to be the greatest leader this galaxy has ever known and you are going to let your blind hatred--"

Pain exploded behind his eyes.

--

Merlin woke in a grey, featureless room. "Fuck," he said. "Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck fuck."

The sound of someone clearing his throat interrupted his spew of profanity.

"How long has it been?" he asked Arthur. "Are we still in port?"

Arthur raised an eyebrow at him. "I think we made lift-off about five minutes ago."

Merlin slumped against the wall. "We're a while from a jump point, aren't we," he said, thinking hard.

"Merlin, listen, did you... Did you mean what you said? About n-- about me being the greatest leader the galaxy has ever known?"

Merlin stared at him. "No, I just said that because I was trying to save your life," he snapped.

"Well, great job you did there, then!" said Arthur. "You bloody idiot, why did you come alone?"

"Who was I supposed to tell?" said Merlin, hotly. "Your father would have me thrown out the airlock if I said I found you with psionics!"

They glared at each other.

"You're the only-- Morgana," said Merlin.

"What?"

"Shut up," said Merlin. "I'm thinking." He closed his eyes, willing his heartbeat to slow and calm to flood his mind.

It was even harder from this distance. The sheer emptiness of space meant that the effect of distance was reduced, but he was still a bloody long way from the function centre.

He found Morgana at last, shimmering faintly on the edges of his mind.

Morgana, he placed in her mind. Morgana, you have to help.

He could feel her confusion swirl around him.

Merlin sent her images of where they were and where the ship had been docked.

He withdrew from her mind to scan the surface thoughts of the normals on the ship until he knew where they were headed, and then he sent her that too.

He kept sending her information as he found it until black spots grew behind his eyes and he fell into unconsciousness.

--

Merlin awoke in a featureless white room.

"You stupid idiot, what did you think you were doing!" said Gaius. "You almost died."

Merlin blinked slowly. "Where am I?"

"The hospital on Tintagel," said Gaius, shining a light into Merlin's eyes.

"Arthur?" said Merlin, desperately.

"He's fine," said Gaius. "Better than you are, in fact. He's in the next room over." Gaius put the light away and sat back on the chair by the bedside. "You'll be pleased to know that the authorities have the kidnappers in hand."

"Oh," said Merlin. He tried to think of an excuse to get up and check on Arthur.

"Is he awake? Can we come in?" came a female voice from the side of the room.

"He's awake," said Gaius.

The door hummed open and Gwen tumbled in, followed by Morgana at a more sedate pace.

"How did the authorities know how to find us?" asked Merlin, disingenuously.

"Don't play dumb, Merlin, it doesn't become you," said Gaius.

"I told them to try the latest departed ship," said Morgana, in a very quiet voice. "And then I... guided them until they located it."

"Merlin, really, why didn't you tell me," said Gwen. "I wouldn't have said anything to Arthur!"

"Arthur isn't who I'm worried about," said Merlin. "I'll bet Morgana didn't tell you either."

"Morgana had no idea that she had a psionic ability," said Gaius, reproachfully.

"I knew it was something..." said Morgana, softly. "I had dreams about people's lives sometimes, things I had no way of knowing. But I never knew for certain."

"What are you going to do now?" asked Merlin.

"Morgana and I have that in hand," said Gaius. "And you need to get some more rest. You've been out for a day."

Merlin nodded obediently. "Yes, Gaius."

Gaius narrowed his eyes at him, but shooed the girls out, closing the door behind him.

Merlin gave it five minutes before he opened his mind to reassure himself that nobody was around. He could feel Arthur burning his presence into Merlin's awareness, just a few metres away.

He didn't bother moving quietly, because he was rubbish at it anyway and he already knew there was nobody around to hear him.

Arthur's room was locked, for all the good it did.

"Merlin?" said Arthur, as Merlin closed the door behind him.

Merlin hadn't quite expected that Arthur would be conscious. "Um," he said.

"You bloody idiot, what the hell did you think you were doing?" said Arthur. "You almost died."

"That's what Gaius said," Merlin blurted out.

Arthur looked somewhat mortified.

"And to answer your question, I was saving your life," he continued. "Thanks for noticing."

Arthur glared at him, but the effect was somewhat muted by the fact that Merlin could feel Arthur in his head, worry and fright and affection and very little actual anger.

Merlin sighed, and sat on the edge of Arthur's bed so that he was cradled up against Arthur's shins.

"I lied," said Merlin.

Arthur's expression didn't change an inch, but Merlin could feel his thoughts freeze.

"When I told you I just said it to save your life," said Merlin. "I lied."

"You told them you needed me."

So Arthur had heard that. "I meant that I... Fuck." He tried to think of a way to turn it into a joke, or an argument, or whatever he could do to get out of this.

"Your ears are turning red," said Arthur, warm with amusement.

"Shut up," said Merlin.

"But you're right," said Arthur. "I am going to be the greatest leader this galaxy has ever known."

Merlin rolled his eyes. "If I'd known you were listening..."

Arthur held up a hand. "But only if you're there at my side."

Merlin's breath caught in his throat.

Arthur was staring at him intently. "Do you understand, Merlin?"

Merlin cleared his throat. He wanted to say something like "I'm glad you finally appreciate my skills" or "of course, you'll need all the help you can get".

Arthur's aura of seriousness was fading into disappointment and a vague sense of frustration.

"I'm not going anywhere," Merlin promised.

He rather thought he preferred kissing Arthur to arguing with him anyway.

Chapter 3: Notes and Acknowledgements

This, like so many other things, is Lazulisong's fault. I like to think of it as her revenge for the Merlin / Kingdom Hearts crossover. I started it in early January, and here I am in early March with the longest piece of fanfiction I've written since 2003.

I would particularly like to thank:
- Kelene, for betaing and putting up with my flailing and debate via email for roughly two weeks straight.
- My other betas, Sami and Velithya
- Lazulisong again, for saying "Lancelot" when I said "Character in Merlin most likely to be an android?" and thus leading to the creation of Android!Lancelot, of whom I am inordinately fond.
- Everyone who commented when I posted the first few parts to my LJ in January and also everyone who said "oh, that sounds cool" when I talked about it.
- Everyone in the OTW Coders chatroom, for not strangling me when I constantly went off-topic.

I chose Arthurian names with very little regard for their meaning, but if you were wondering...

Gariosso of Morganza lied to Uther about an affair he was having with a woman and got the other guy dragged by horses
Tintagel: This is where Arthur's mother was from - it all seems to be rather messy.
Alban: Uther won a battle at a place called Verulamium that is now St Albans
Corbin: Home of the Holy Grail