Just something I thought I might as well post if I'm never actually going to get around to editing anymore. I hope it was worth the wait! Enjoy.

The first thing he noticed was her laugh. Not that it was a particularly pretty sound, nor that it lit up her face, or brightened the world around her, or any of that nonsense. No, Sir Leon noticed Merlin's laugh first, because none of Prince Arthur's previous servants had ever had cause to laugh outright in his presence. This was partially a matter of decorum and respect – they were not there to befriend the prince, but to do his bidding, however menial, tiresome or plainly irritating the task.

As a boy, Arthur had highly valued his privacy, a trait which hadn't lessoned with age. So, generally, he assigned his servants a list of tasks that would take up a considerable amount of their working day outside of his presence, usually seeing the prince only in the mornings and then meal times. During the time quota not filled with laundry and polishing and scrubbing, Arthur had taken to requesting – demanding –that his manservant join him on the training field. There was no room for awkward silences, and a seemingly endless list of things to practice, and teach if Arthur was in an honest mood. However bruised, fired or resigning servants tended to leave Arthur's service with a better idea of how to defend themselves than when they started, something they'd grudgingly admit to peers once the initial indignation of being the Prince's dogsbody had worn off.

The point was, Leon concluded, that no one else was really in the habits of laughing when the Prince swung a sword at them with the sole purpose of testing their dodging skills. Therefore, it was perfectly understandable that he had noticed the laughter of the unusual girl that had replaced Arthur's last manservant.

Likewise, when witnessing her slender form thud hard on the solid, compressed earth of summer, the protective flare in his chest was merely the result of his training to defend those less able than he. Nothing more.

With practice, Merlin's sword skills moved from abysmal to poor. She trips over her feet less as Arthur trains her with more patience than Leon has seen him use towards any other servant. She dodges his sword swings with not quite grace, but something closer to resembling it. The knights stop mocking her performance and commiserating with Arthur's self appointed task, and begin watching from the sidelines, interjecting a mix of helpful and condescending advice and ribbing the Prince subtly. From the range of smirks and glares they receive, they annoy both teacher and student in equal measures. Most consider this a victory.

Leon lets himself interrupt every now and again too. After all, it would seem strange for the second in command not to. He doesn't mean to patronize, he really doesn't, but occasionally he finds himself offering advice that applies less to swordsmanship and defence, and more to keeping her footing sure in day to day life. Disperse your weight evenly, don't tilt, back straight, be aware of your surroundings, a hundred ways to control her momentum when she can't help but fall. The knight can't help himself, not really – he's seen her trip down a few too many stairs, watched her bang into far too many seemingly obvious obstacles, and witnessed her stumble over nothing more times than he cares to list.

Two people living in the same citadel will cross paths eventually, so it's not long before he witnesses Merlin avoid falling downstairs in quite a spectacular fashion, almost juggling the armful of books at one point though she doesn't drop any. Instead of cringing, he beams at her proudly, recognising her hasty redistribution of weight and resulting grasp of her balance as something he insisted on showing her after watching Arthur trip her the same way a dozen times. At first, it's difficult to see her expression, because she's carrying what appears to be half the library. Curiosity overtaking him, he persuades her to accept his assistance, and finds himself impressed with her again once he does so; those books are much heavier than they appear to be. He doesn't think she noticed him nearly drop them though, so that's alright.

En route to the physician's quarters, he learns that Gaius is her guardian as long as she is in Camelot and that she's known him since she was young. The books are for him; she's helping him research various remedies Leon doesn't quite catch to go into a guide book of sorts. Camelot's very different, she tells him, but between living with Gaius and working for Arthur, she does feel like she's found a true home. She can't imagine ever leaving, even if she doesn't really know anybody all too well just yet.

Spontaneously, he invites her to the tavern sometime, with him and the circle he tends to socialise with. Once assured that those attending won't mind her lesser social rank, she agrees, sometime next week. An oddly potent sense of satisfaction and joy swell his chest at this.

Then he realises he rarely goes to the tavern since his promotion has overbooked his schedule so much. He frowns; it would wrong to cancel their plans, especially considering that he's offered to introduce her to some new people. He'll have to find a way to take her without seeming like he was trying to trap her into a date (which he wasn't) or going out solely for her benefit (which he kind of is), because both would give her the wrong impression.

He compensates by going out on Friday night for an initial catch up, so next week will flow more naturally. He doesn't anticipate getting so drunk even Uthur laughs at how hungover he is the next day when he dizzily attempts to go about his duties, but he does. Luckily for him, the King takes it in stride, supposing out loud that men are only young once, though not to make a habit of it. The pounding in his head makes him promise this fervently, and the King pats his shoulder in a fatherly manner that Leon hopes Arthur gets see sometimes.

On Tuesday, Leon finds out Merlin is free on Thursday evening, and makes the necessary plans with a few of his friends he thinks she'd get along with. He meets her on the steps outside the citadel, and feels a flicker of surprise at what she's wearing. Her dress is just a plain as the ones she wears to do Arthur's chores, but nicer somehow, which makes sense because there's no reason for her to wear her best clothes to work. Her arms are bare in the balmy summer air and the front of the dress is embroidered in simple colours prettily. Jet-black hair, longer than he thought, frames her face gently, tumbling in loose waves to her waist.

Later, once Kay and Henry and David have being introduced, the latter pair getting more drinks – none of them will let Merlin pay, her servants wages meagre compared to the knights' – that hair falls in front of her eyes and he tucks it behind her ear without a thought. She gives him an odd look, Kay smirks, and he blushes. Merlin breaks the silence with question about where Kay is from originally. They banter over whose village is better playfully, telling Leon it's his patriotic duty to claim Camelot is superior, which he does passionately along with Henry and David, Camelotian natives.

Walking her home, she thanks him for introducing them. She's had a great time. He grins happily. She's welcome, he tells her, he's had a great time too.

Opportunities to spend time with her are scarce as the weeks pass, and the harvest season brings in an influx of visiting nobles who are as eager to gain the favour of the nearly of age prince as they are the king. Merlin's workload doubles and he worries when the glimpses he catches of her bustling through corridors show her looking run down. The thing about Merlin is that she is always in motion, never still for long. In fact, for all Arthur's accusations of idleness, the only time Leon ever sees her pause for breath is at the edge of the council chambers, where she hovers in wait in case Arthur needs something. Even hunting with Arthur, she multitasks, collecting herbs and fauna for Gaius as she balances Arthur's bags. Or, at least, she does the first few times. After that, Merlin goes off to collect herbs as noisily as she likes while the knights hunt, then meets them later.

Merlin seems to delight in appearing silently on the of camp, next to some poor unsuspecting sod that will probably drop their things in shock, draw their sword on instinct, or try vainly to hide that last heart attack when she speaks from the supposed empty spot behind them. It makes Leon wonder how she was possibly treading loudly enough to scare away the game. She and Arthur seem to skirt around the issue, however, so he never asks, grateful as he is for her company.

Eventually her apprenticeship with Gaius is over, and she bids Leon and Arthur goodbye.

When he doesn't see her on the practice field with Arthur, who's being there less often himself, he remarks on her absence. Arthur tells him she's visiting her Mother, but might be back next summer, depending on how things go. He frowns as he says it, and confides that he didn't really want her to travel the distance between Camelot and Ealdor alone, but he couldn't dissuade her. With a wry laugh, he admits that Merlin has issues with following orders, especially his she feels doubted. He did persuade her to take a sword however; she's not completely defenseless.

Leon's caught off guard when Arthur suddenly smirks and asks if there's a reason why he's so concerned over a maidservant, laughing when he stumbles over his words. He wishes he understood why he kept doing that.

Her absence drags, especially once he has to leave Camelot to patrol the kingdom; he wishes that he'd seen her safely back first. He's riding with older, more experienced knights, so luckily his lack of attention is unlikely to get them killed.

When he is finally home bound, the patrol he set out with is intercepted by other Camelotian knights headed to the villages. Ealdor's been completely ransacked, they say, and the king wants to check that his people are safe. Leon's blood runs cold. Merlin was in Ealdor. One of the outward bound Knights is Kay, and he hastens to inform him that Merlin brought news of the attack – she wasn't there when it happened, thank God.

There was only one survivor, and Leon thanks his stars that Merlin's safe too.

He goes straight to Gaius's rooms when he gets back to the city days later, and she's thinner than usual, with dark shadows under her eyes suggestive of restless nights. There's a girl next to her, with a heavy bandage around one wrist, but Leon she's gesturing wildly with the other arm as she recounts some tale. From the way she silences and cringes when she sees his sword, Leon surmises that she is the surviving child Kay spoke of. Very delicately, he unties his sword belt and sets it by the door. Merlin nods approvingly, and then catches the girl's – Caitlyn, he learns – attention so that she can introduce them.

The girl doesn't stay in Gaius's chambers with Merlin for long, just a few more weeks until a family is found that wants to adopt her. Merlin's more depressed once Caitlyn moves out, and after each time she visits her afterwards, but she admits it's for the best. Caitlyn doesn't see Merlin as an adult, and she'd have to for Merlin to be a mother to her. Instead, Merlin is the friend that understands that Camelot can never replace Ealdor, ever, but maybe it's okay if they love the people here too.

It doesn't feel as though he was supposed to overhear that, so he busies himself tacking the horse Merlin was taking care of before Caitlyn rushed over to talk to her. He lets Merlin subtly dry her eyes when she's done wiping Caitlyn's guilty, grieved tears, and squeezes her hand comfortingly when he hands over the reins. He's rewarded with a somewhat dim smile from her, but Arthur claps him on the shoulder too, as he passes him to mount his own horse, showing his gratitude with a subtle glance in her direction.

The three of them are going hunting with Sirs Kay, Henry and Lancelot, and as they trot out of the city, Leon wonders if Arthur had planned the trip with Merlin's closest friends on purpose. Her spirits haven't really picked up since Caitlyn moved out, and he knows Gaius is worried about her. Sure enough, they set up camp for the night hours earlier than they usually would, and the group seems much more preoccupied with relaxing than planning tomorrow's hunt. They build a camp fire, and close the circle tighter around it than usually would, then swap stories; Arthur looks more pleased every time someone succeeds in making Merlin laugh (properly, loud and strong and from the heart), and Leon decides that, yes, he did plan this trip on purpose.

She's still thinner than usual, and dark shadows under her eyes suggest restless nights, but as the Prince drags a smile out of her Leon thinks that maybe the grief of losing her home can be overcome. She has a new home here now, after all.

Criticism welcome!