Gwen brought Arthur breakfast on the next day, which was just perfect. Arthur didn't feel like remembering his awkward conversation with Merlin this early in the morning (or, for that matter, ever again).

Arthur didn't know if Merlin had told Gwen about it. He probably had, though, judging by the way she was carefully avoiding to look at him as she set the breakfast table. She curtsied and left without saying anything, and Arthur allowed himself a moment of self-pity before attacking the cold ham.

He had almost cleaned the plate when there was a tentative knock and Gwen reappeared on the doorway. "I was just wondering," she said, fidgeting with the hem of her sleeve.

"Yes?" Arthur asked, bracing himself for the worst. She didn't seem in any hurry to talk, though. "Guinevere," Arthur sighed.

Gwen looked around and closed the door behind her. "I feel silly for asking," she said with a small laugh. "You'll think this is silly."

"Whatever it is, you can tell me," Arthur said.

"You... don't like me, do you?" Gwen asked. Arthur felt puzzled for a moment. "I mean, not like like..."

Arthur laughed. "I don't hate you, but no, I don't like you in that way either," he replied.

"I thought so," Gwen said, sounding nevertheless very relieved. "But Morgana was saying some very strange things yesterday so I thought maybe..."

"No," Arthur said. "Definitely not any more."

"Good," Gwen nodded. "Wow, this is awkward. Sorry about it."

Arthur shrugged. "It's my fault," he said. "She thought you were the one I liked and I thought it would be easier if I didn't correct her."

At those words Gwen cheered up considerably. "So there is someone you like!" she exclaimed.

Arthur pulled a face. He hadn't meant to let that slip. "Yes, but please don't ask me who," he said, forestalling Gwen's next question.

"Just tell me, do I know her?" Gwen asked.

"Yes, it's someone you know," Arthur admitted. (All this playing around with pronouns was starting to become tiresome.) Gwen made an undignified squealing noise and grinned from ear to ear.

Arthur sighed and rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. "But I don't think it's mutual," he said glumly. "And I don't know what to do."

"What about flowers?" Gwen suggested.

Arthur snorted. "In this case, I don't believe flowers would be well-received," he said.

"Why not?" Gwen insisted. "Everyone likes flowers."

"Do you think so?" Arthur asked.

Gwen nodded. She seemed so sure of it. Arthur wished he could have told her just why he thought flowers wouldn't work, but he couldn't mention Merlin. Wouldn't.

"I liked getting flowers from you," Gwen said suddenly. "I thought it was the most romantic thing you'd ever done for me."

"Really?" Arthur asked feeling himself blush. The flowers had been Merlin's work, but he'd never found the courage to confess it to Gwen.

Gwen misunderstood his reaction and hastened to add, "I mean, saving me was also very romantic. And brave." There was an awkward pause. "But I liked the flowers. Everyone likes flowers," she repeated.

"Thanks, Gwen," Arthur said, and she gave him a bright smile before leaving.

Arthur wished he could have fallen in love with a girl. Any girl would have been better than Merlin. At least he could have relied on flowers. Why did everyone keep thinking that flowers were some sort of magical catalyst for love, anyway?

He spent most of the day in the courtyard, avoiding Merlin and venting his frustration against one of the training dummies. His body didn't particularly approve of the treatment and would have rather gone to sleep for the next two days, but if Arthur was thinking about the pain in his muscles he didn't have time to think about Merlin.

He still felt awful as he joined his father and Morgana for dinner. Uther was in a surprisingly good mood, something that Arthur put down to the fact that Midsummer had passed and all the travelling artists had left without trying to take over Camelot.

Earlier, Arthur had given his father a brief resume of the previous night's events (glossing over some of the less-than-glorifying details such as him forgetting his own sword) and he'd made a point of mentioning how Merlin had helped find and take down the sorcerer.

Uther had just nodded absently and given Arthur a pat on the back, dismissing Merlin as an afterthought. As if Merlin didn't matter, at all. 'But he's important to me!', Arthur wanted to tell him.

Except that he couldn't, because there was no telling how Uther would take the news that his only son and heir was desperately in love with his (male) servant.

Not that it mattered anyway. Whatever chances he had to make Merlin like him, he'd thrown away by yelling at him for no reason at all. Arthur wouldn't blame Merlin for hating him now. He hated himself for being an idiot too.

He was silent and sullen for most of the meal, picking at his food and letting his father and Morgana carry the conversation, speaking only when he was spoken to. Morgana had probably realized that something had happened between Arthur and his 'sweetheart' (hah!), but in a rare display of tact she had refrained from asking him any details.

But even Uther seemed to notice that something was amiss when Arthur left his food almost untouched. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Arthur shook his head. "Nothing," he said. It was a blatant lie, but maybe if he repeated it often enough he'd be able to persuade himself that he didn't mind being turned down by Merlin. Yes, as if.

He sighed. Morgana bit her lip and avoided his gaze.

"Are you sure?" Uther asked, unconvinced, and Arthur shook his head again. Because no, he wasn't sure, how could he be?

He hadn't been prepared for this. He was trained to fight monsters and lead knights in battle, not to fall in love with his manservant. Being in love was awful. How could anyone deal with it? How could anyone bear being in love with someone and not knowing if they were loved back, or even worse, knowing that they weren't loved back? It was driving him mad.

"How did you make my mother fall in love with you?" Arthur asked without thinking.

Uther's jaw dropped open and Arthur remembered a second too late that nobody mentioned the Lady Ygraine in front of Uther. Ever. Arthur started to stammer an apology but his father didn't seem mad at him. Just very, very sad.

"I didn't," he said eventually. "She just fell in love with me, I don't know why. She was beautiful and kind and could have married anyone she wanted."

"You're the King," Morgana pointed out.

Uther shook his head. "Ygraine never cared about that," he said. "She was very romantic." His voice was strange, as if something was caught in his throat, and was he blinking back tears? Arthur thought about the book, about how it had been a present from his father to his mother.

"I was afraid for the longest time that she would turn me down," Uther said. "But I thought I needed to tell her how important she was to me, because if I didn't I would always regret it."

Arthur thought he could see Uther, younger and unsure just as Arthur was now, and he finally understood. This wasn't about flowers, dresses, dates, serenades or what else. It was about Merlin, and his father had just given him a very good piece of advice: the most important thing was telling Merlin just how he felt.

Arthur pushed back his chair. "I've got to go," he said, ignoring his father's and Morgana's looks of surprise.

As he ran from the room he thought he could hear his father asking, "Who's the lucky lady?" and he hoped Morgana wasn't in a mood for gossiping. Later he'd have to think of some excuse to tell his father, because Merlin wasn't a lady, not at all, but at the moment he couldn't care less.

It didn't matter if Merlin turned him down. Okay, actually it mattered. A lot. But if he didn't try he'd never know and Arthur didn't think he could bear to spend another day like this.

Time to toughen up and confront his feelings. (That didn't sound very manly, didn't it?) Time to... conquer Merlin's heart. Whatever. He was prepared, or at least he was avoiding any thoughts about how unprepared he was. Nothing could stop him.

Or, Arthur amended coming to a halt in front of the door to Gaius's rooms, almost nothing.

He was ready to face Merlin, not Gaius. He didn't think he could face Gaius right now.

The old physician was full of tact and wouldn't have asked any indiscreet questions, but Arthur felt himself blushing at the thought of requesting a word with Merlin in private. Gaius might refrain from mentioning what had happened last night, but there would be raised eyebrows and curious glances, and Arthur really didn't want to deal with that.

At first Arthur thought he'd wait for Merlin to get out, but there were several obstacles to that. For one, it was past sunset, which meant Merlin might have gone to bed already. Then Arthur would have to wait until morning to see him, and he didn't think he could wait that long without going crazy.

Not to mention that the guards might have found it strange if the prince spent the night stalking the door to the physician's quarters.

Which left Arthur with one option only.

The window to Merlin's room was halfway up a tower but luckily Arthur had been trained to climb walls. He hadn't been trained so that he could sneak into his servant's room to declare his undying love, but since he could, why not? This was too good of a chance to pass.

Thankfully there were no guards patrolling this part of the castle, so nobody saw Arthur as he pressed himself to the stone wall and began his ascent. The wall was old and weathered and provided him with plenty of footholds. Something like that was nothing for him, just child's play. He'd faced much worse.

Sure, he thought about a third of the way up, the handholds were more of a problem. It would have been better if he'd remembered to bring his gloves, his fingers were starting to hurt. Not to mention his shoulder, which was definitely not okay with this kind of exertion.

Don't think about that, Arthur thought. Think of Merlin, who's waiting in that room. Not really waiting, obviously, since he couldn't know that Arthur was down here climbing the wall. But Merlin was in that room, and that was all that mattered to Arthur.

Of course, his treacherous brain supplied, he wasn't sure that Merlin was in his room either. For all that Arthur knew, Merlin could have gone for a midnight stroll and Arthur was about to barge in on Gaius or something like that. Arthur quickly shut up that part of his brain before it talked him into jumping off the tower.

Think about positive things. Think about Merlin. Think about happy Merlin, Merlin smiling, Merlin yelling... No, not Merlin yelling, that wasn't helping. Think about Merlin spreading the salve on his shoulder...

His shoulder was really hurting now.

He tried to grasp the next handhold, missed it by several inches and ended up scrabbling for purchase on the stone. He took several calming breaths and regained his balance, one arm dangling uselessly at his side.

Arthur grimaced and looked up. The window wasn't too far away, he'd climbed most of the distance already, but he still couldn't reach the window-sill. He didn't think he'd be able to make it there, not with the way his arm threatened to fall off his shoulder every time he tried to move it. Being so far up meant that he couldn't manage going down either, there was too much climbing involved, and jumping was definitely out of the question.

He was, in short, completely stuck on the wall under Merlin's window. He had to do something about it, preferably before his other shoulder decided to ditch him for good and send him plummeting to his untimely death.

"Help?" he called.

He kept his voice low, just in case anybody actually heard him. He was asking for help, but this didn't mean that he was okay with just anybody finding him there. In fact he'd rather nobody found him there, which might somewhat hamper his rescue, because his situation was awfully embarrassing.

In the end, the instinct of self-preservation won out. Arthur cleared his throat. "Help?" he called again.

For a while all was silent. Arthur was about to give up all pretences of dignity and start screaming when the window opened and Merlin poked out his head. "Arthur?" he asked, surprised.

"Merlin?" Arthur called back, craning his head to look at him. Not that he had any doubts that it was really Merlin, but it was better than any of the other greetings he'd thought of, such as, 'I happen to be stuck halfway up this wall, could you please help me?', or, 'I love you but I think I'm an idiot, do you love me back?'

"What are you doing there?" Merlin asked.

"Long story," Arthur replied. "I don't think I've got time to explain. Could you give me a hand up?"

He couldn't see Merlin well, but Arthur thought he was frowning at him. "Can't you just climb up?" he asked.

"Nope. Shoulder," Arthur said. "Hurts." He was starting to get out of breath. Trust Merlin to start blabbering in the most inopportune situations.

"Oh," Merlin replied, pulling a face. "I'll go get Gaius."

"No!" Arthur exclaimed, panicking. Anything but that. "Just... throw me a rope. Or something. Have you got a rope?"

"No," Merlin said. "Yes!"

"Which one is it?" Arthur asked.

"Maybe I can find a rope, can you hold on a little more?" Merlin said.

Arthur glared at him and then said, "No," because now wasn't the time to try and be subtle. He could feel his fingers losing their grip.

Merlin pulled a face, then he leaned almost completely out of the window and grabbed Arthur's arm. Arthur's eyes widened. "You'll fall!" he exclaimed.

"So will you," Merlin replied with a grunt. "Hold on," he added, not that Arthur needed any encouragement for that. He scrabbled for purchase on the wall with his injured arm, managing to climb up another couple of inches.

Then Merlin managed to hook his arms under Arthur's shoulders and Arthur half climbed and was half pulled into the window. Arthur collapsed to the floor with a groan. He felt as if all air had been knocked from his lungs. Thinking straight was difficult as well.

His first thought was that he was alive and had just avoided to die by splattering himself on the flagstones below, which was a good thing. To die like that would have been worse than being eaten by a Wildren. And Merlin had just saved his life, again.

After this less-than-spectacular entrance, Arthur was unsure of what to say. "I thought we were both going to die," he managed after a while, since Merlin's feat had been nothing short of miraculous.

"I'm stronger than I look," Merlin replied sitting down next to him. "What were you doing out there anyway?"

Arthur slowly pushed himself into a sitting position. Standing up was currently not an option, not with the way his head was spinning. He licked his lips. Climbing that wall was nothing compared to the tension he was feeling now. "I wanted to talk to you," he said, fully aware of how pitiful that sounded.

Merlin, predictably, looked at him as if he'd just sprouted a second head. "You do remember about doors, right?" he asked. "They're useful to get into a room without risking your neck."

"Yes, Merlin, thank you," Arthur snorted. "I just, er, wanted to avoid Gaius." Saying it out loud made it sound even more stupid.

Merlin frowned. "Why, what's the problem with Gaius?" he asked.

Arthur looked away. "Er," he said. "Nothing. It's just, er, there's something I wanted to tell you."

"I think I know what this is all about," Merlin said. Arthur's heart skipped a beat. He turned around to stare at Merlin but before he could reply Merlin said, "You really are under a spell, aren't you?"

"What?" Arthur spluttered. "No, I'm not!" he exclaimed.

"You've been acting strange all week!" Merlin replied. "And... Gaius told me about last night," he added. "He said you were trying to serenade under my window."

Arthur groaned. "About that..." he began, but he trailed off. How could he even start to explain? It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

"Arthur, please," Merlin said slowly. "If you're enchanted you need to tell me."

"I'm not enchanted," Arthur repeated dully.

"So why are you acting like this?" Merlin asked, making a vague gesture that included Arthur, the window and probably also every stupid thing that Arthur had done in the past few days.

Arthur took a long breath and stared at Merlin. "I love you," he said.

Merlin blinked, staring back at Arthur for what seemed like ages. He'd never noticed just how blue Merlin's eyes were. "I knew it," Merlin said eventually, "you are enchanted."

Arthur sighed. It had taken him all of his courage to say those few words. He'd expected rejection, disgust, maybe even anger. Not this cold dismissal, as if the idea of Arthur falling in love with Merlin was utterly unbelievable.

It had been a long day, Arthur was battered and tired and he didn't feel like arguing. Merlin was only a few feet away. "Don't worry," Merlin was saying. "We'll find a way to snap you out of it."

Arthur leaned forward and kissed him.

As far as kisses went it wasn't very sophisticated, just Arthur brushing his lips against Merlin's tentatively, softly, scared that Merlin would push him away at any moment. But Merlin didn't. He just sat on the floor and let Arthur kiss him. Then Arthur felt a hand on the back on his head, and Merlin was tilting his head and pulling Arthur closer.

Merlin's lips parted, slightly, and there was no room for misunderstandings now, this was nothing but an invitation. Arthur hadn't even dared to think about this, couldn't have seen it happen anywhere but in his wildest dreams, but now that it was finally happening he had no idea how could he have gone on for so long without kissing Merlin.

When they finally pulled apart to breathe Arthur kept one arm around Merlin's shoulders, as if he was afraid Merlin would run away if he didn't.

"So," Merlin said after a while. "Not under a spell, then?"

Arthur shook his head forcefully. "I might have been confused, and I might have acted like a fool," he said, and Merlin smiled at that. "But I really do love you."

Merlin sighed and leaned more into Arthur. "I thought you were mocking me," he said. "At first I thought you'd found out that I had this huge crush on you and..."

"Wait, what huge crush?" Arthur asked, not quite believing what he was hearing. "You had a crush on me?"

"Er, yes," Merlin replied. "Since shortly after I met you." Arthur groaned. "Why else did you think I put up with your spoiled prince antics?"

"I'm not spoiled," Arthur replied. His haughty tone was somewhat ruined by the fact that he was playing with Merlin's hair.

"You are too," Merlin insisted. "You're spoiled, prattish and totally without any common sense."

Arthur tried to keep a straight face, but it was difficult when Merlin was smiling at him like that.

"That's slander!" he said.

"That's just the truth, Arthur," Merlin laughed. "No common sense. You just climbed into my bedroom window, halfway up a tower!"

"And a good thing that I did, too," Arthur replied. "If I hadn't, who knows how long you'd have gone on pining for me?"

"I wasn't pining for you," Merlin began, but Arthur shut him up with a kiss.

"I was," he whispered against his lips, and that stopped any further objections that Merlin could have had. Arthur leaned back against the wall and snuggled closer to Merlin, burying his face into Merlin's shoulder.

He closed his eyes and for some time he didn't think about anything but Merlin. In truth he'd spent the whole day just thinking about Merlin, but now it was okay because he didn't have to worry about Merlin hating him any more.

It seemed as if Merlin still thought that he was a prat, but Arthur thought he didn't terribly mind as long as he got to snog Merlin. He could compromise.

"Arthur," Merlin asked after a while, "are you going back to your room?"

"You're kicking me out?" Arthur said without moving, his voice somehow muffled by Merlin's shirt. "That's cold. I just risked life and limb to get here, you know."

"That's not what I meant," Merlin replied. "It's just, er, I don't know if you thought about it..."

"What?" Arthur asked, pressing a soft kiss to Merlin's collarbone.

"You're going to have to explain to Gaius how you magically appeared into my room without going through the door," Merlin said.

Arthur made a face. "That's what you were thinking about?" he asked, outraged. Typical of Merlin, always spoiling the moment. Though he did make it hard to be angry at him, with his stupid adorable face and his stupid adorable smile. "You should have been thinking about me!"

"I'm thinking about you explaining to Gaius," Merlin said with a grin. "What are you going to tell him?"

"We can think about that together," Arthur said, pulling Merlin closer. "Tomorrow."

End.