Arthur wasn't getting his hopes up about Christmas.

In all honesty, he was trying not to think about it too much, preparing himself for the inevitable disappointment that was to come when Merlin most likely could not make it. He was almost positive that it wasn't going to happen, that Merlin was just hopeful about something with the slimmest of all possibilities, even though he desperately wanted his friend to come home.

But if he was coming back, why would he come to London and not to Albion? Why would he spend the holidays with Arthur when he could be with Gaius and Alice and the rest of his friends?

Arthur squashed the voices in his head that told him their reasoning, because they were overly sentimental fools that needed to shut up and stop thinking up embarrassingly sappy notions.

He wasn't sure how Merlin would even have the option of time off after his summer away, but when Merlin's next letter came, just two weeks before the holiday itself, the news read took Arthur by surprise.

It was a short letter, far too short, and it made Arthur wonder and also panic just a tiny bit, because if Merlin wasn't oversharing information, he might be keeping secrets again, which was the last thing Arthur wanted. Cautiously, he read the few hastily scribbled sentences.

Spiderman –

I'll be there on the twenty-third. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. Hope you were serious about me spending Christmas with you.

Wolverine

Arthur just stared for a few seconds before he began to chuckle under his breath, weakly at first, but growing steadily louder, echoing in his empty flat.

Leave it to Merlin to be as vague and secretive as possible.

However, Arthur, loathe as he was to admit it, was completely used to it. There was an even a part of him that enjoyed it. Merlin wouldn't be Merlin without a slew of information that he wasn't willing to give until the last possible second.

As the twenty-third grew closer, Arthur decidedly did not enjoy Merlin's lack of details about his upcoming visit, though. In fact, it frustrated him endlessly. Merlin had never even been to London before, therefore having no idea where Arthur lived or how to navigate himself there, hadn't given Arthur any flight details or exactly how he was traveling there, how long his break was for, or even if Merlin would be there at all.

All he had was a stupid, two-lined letter that he cursed on daily basis.

And then cursed Merlin, too, just for good measure, because all of this was his fault.

He hadn't brought up Merlin's return with any of their friends. He avoided the subject purposefully, mainly because he didn't want any tension between them or let them believe that he was monopolizing Merlin's time, as he had known all of them much longer than he had Arthur. There was also the issue of the fact that Merlin's less than stellar information had left out the fact of Lancelot coming back or not, and Arthur desired avoiding that particular conversation with Freya.

So he silently panicked to himself in the week before Christmas, hoping that everyone's interest in him would pass by without incessant questionings, specifically in the form of Morgana, who was as annoyingly persistent as ever about Arthur's hardly existent love life.

Luckily, she had absolutely no desire to spend the holidays with him and therefore wouldn't be questioning his plans or his motives. He also hadn't spent a Christmas with his father since he was eighteen, so there was no obligation whatsoever to head back to the frigidly cold Uther and his manor estate.

Arthur hadn't spent Christmas with another human being in years. Merlin, in his infuriatingly wonderful way, would change that, too.

That was, if he even showed up in the first place.

Arthur still wasn't entirely counting on it. Merlin wasn't the most trustworthy person, or reliable, and he was an expert and lying or at least ducking and dodging from the truth. He would love to believe that Merlin was coming, but he still couldn't quite believe it.

So when he woke up on the morning of the twenty-third, stumbling out of his bedroom haphazardly wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else, hair ruffled and pace unsteady and having a desperate need for a cup of a highly caffeinated beverage, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw Merlin sitting on his couch.

"Surprise?"

"I – you – Merlin –" Arthur suddenly found that his mouth wasn't working properly. He stood in the entryway and stared at Merlin with utmost shock. Merlin smiled nervously up at him as he brought himself into a standing position, cautiously making his way across the distance between them. "Door – key – how did you – how are you –?"

Merlin's cheeks turned pink, but he was still grinning. "Magic, of course. Also how I found your place, by the way. And made it here in the first place. See, magic is actually quite useful every once in a while; it's not just for setting fires, blowing up buildings, and causing me to go insane."

"You – you," Arthur was at a complete and utter loss for words, having been taken totally off his guard. "You are – you – I need a cup of coffee before I can start to process this."

"Sorry," Merlin said, gesturing into the kitchen. "I know I kind of barged in unexpectedly. I just kind of wanted to surprise you."

"You succeeded," Arthur told him briefly before stumbling into the kitchen, clumsy hands that still weren't quite awake scrambling to start the coffee maker. Merlin followed him, leaning against the doorframe between Arthur and the couch. He looked healthy, normal even; the only thing that seemed different was that he was in green camouflage. Had he just only arrived, then? But that didn't make any sense.

He decided to wait and ask questions once his brain was awake and functioning. Merlin seemed content to wait, and once Arthur had poured himself a nearly overflowing cup of coffee and chugged down half of it, he began.

"Would you care to explain – everything? Because I'm kind of at a loss here, and I don't particularly enjoy the feeling."

"Well," Merlin stepped fully into the kitchen and, without an invitation, made himself at home in one of Arthur's chairs. Arthur almost smiled as he slid into the one opposite him. "Before I say anything else, you should know that I'm technically breaking the law right now."

"Erm," Arthur regarded him warily, unease growing. "How?"

"I'm not actually here," Merlin said. "Or, well, I'm not actually in Afghanistan."

"I realize that you're not in Afghanistan," Arthur sat up straighter, noticing that Merlin's eyes were shifty, never looking at him directly. "What do you mean about not being here?"

"I kind of – created a copy of myself," Merlin mumbled, looking down. "A copy that is currently in Afghanistan with Lancelot and the rest of my squad, talking with them and interacting and existing like it's me. But it's not. Because I'm here with you."

"You – created a copy?" Arthur's jaw dropped in disbelief.

"Not a carbon copy," Merlin placated him, but Arthur was not reassured in the slightest. "It just looks like me and acts like me, it's just not actually me. It's a complicated bit of magic, very complex, very detailed, but it should hold up for at least a week. Lancelot might get suspicious, but he's the only one that has any chance of catching me. And besides, who would believe that I could be in two places at once?"

"No sane person," Arthur replied, because he was still processing and didn't exactly trust himself to say anything else.

"Exactly," Merlin shook a finger emphatically at him. "So therefore, here I am. And I'd appreciate it if we didn't call Gaius and Freya and our happy little bunch, because I'm sure they'd have lots of questions that I wouldn't feel like answering."

"I didn't…say anything to them about it before," Arthur chose his phrasings carefully. "I wasn't entirely sure if you were going to come or not."

"I said I would, wouldn't I?" Merlin's smile was half sunny and half sad as he gazed at Arthur with affectionate eyes. "I may not be the greatest boyfriend in the world, but I said I'd be here, and here I am."

"Boyfriend?" Arthur's lips quirked upward, remembering one of Merlin's last letters where he'd used the word 'boyfriend' in a similar context.

"I mean, if you want us to be," Merlin blushed as he fiddled with his fingers. "I know we kind of didn't work out in that way before, but we could try again, properly, and I'll actually be honest with you this time around."

"I wish we could be," Arthur began, setting down his coffee as he tried not to sigh. "But you're still in the military, and I'm still here in London. I'm thrilled to see you, I really am, but how would we ever make that work?"

"It'd be hard," Merlin admitted, letting a hand dangle on the table, reaching out hesitantly for Arthur's own, letting nothing but their fingertips touch. "Really hard. But if I come back in May with Lancelot, if I stay in England…permanently…I've been thinking about it, staying. And I think I want to. I want to live an actual life, I want to – I want you. I'm sorry."

"What are you sorry for?" Arthur looked up at him through incredulous eyes.

"Because I can't think about how much I want you without bursting into flames," Merlin's eyes broke away, staring determinedly at the linoleum floor, and Arthur was met with a fierce desire to yank his head back up. "Without setting you on fire. And I don't ever, ever want you to get hurt, let alone have me be the one that hurts you."

"Merlin, you can't just – you can't just avoid people, avoid relationships, and think that it's going to make everything okay," Arthur reasoned, although his mind was still catching up with his mouth. "You have to at least try to be happy."

"Which is why I'm here now," Merlin smiled, eyes flickering up for a brief moment. "Arthur, I…I am catastrophically in love with you. I'm not great at big speeches, or declarations, or anything like that, but I thought you should at least be made aware. And I haven't been thinking about it too much, thinking about you too much, because it hurts. And I'm just – I'm rambling now. Just say something. Please. I don't care what, just say something."

If Arthur was struggling to find words before, they had all died out of him at the same time as his breath. He was almost positive that he hadn't taken in any oxygen since Merlin had said the word 'love'.

He had avoided that word, avoided thinking about it since Merlin had left, since he realized how his heart and molded around Merlin's little place in it, a place that felt empty and hollow with him gone, but he didn't have Merlin's excuse for it. He just hadn't even wanted to consider the notion.

Arthur had been in love before, or at least he thought he had, and this felt nothing like it. The first time, the time after, they felt good, they made him feel warm and sated. With Merlin, he felt like his entire universe could be ripped apart in a single day, that he could be torn to shreds without a second's warning, that everything felt so wrong and out of place but in the most beautiful, breathtaking way possible.

It was like an extremely vivid, half-terrifying dream, one that left him feeling more alive than anything that a world outside of his head could offer.

And yet here Merlin was, staring at him with unrestrained fear and nerves coupled with a kind of deep affection that Arthur wasn't accustomed to in the slightest.

"Merlin, I'm no good at speeches either," Arthur said, not knowing exactly what words were coming next. There were so many that deserved saying, so many that needed saying, and he didn't know which should come first, if it all. "Or feelings, emotions…guess we have that in common. But I – I love you. And I'm not particularly sorry about it."

Merlin looked like he'd just had the floor swept out from underneath him, his eyes widening nearly comically as his eyes met Arthur's fully. "You – really? I mean – really?"

"Really," Arthur smiled. "And I want to work this out. I want us to…try this for real. See if we can pull it off without…you know…"

"Me killing you?" Merlin's smile turned sardonic, but Arthur had a keen awareness of the how serious the statement actually was to him.

"Or me killing you," Arthur said conversationally. "It could happen. You can be very annoying sometimes. I don't know how I'll put up with you."

Merlin was hiding a grin, Arthur knew, because he was, too. And when Merlin leaned in to kiss him, soft, sweet and chaste, Arthur's smile melted into their adjoined lips.

"So, you ran out on the army."

"I did not run out. I'm still there."

"Mmhmm, sure. Still, I think we have to revoke your superhero status. It's not a very hero-like action to take."

"Shut up. I'm very heroic."

"But you're no longer a superhero."

"Fine, prat. I'll be…I'll be a Starfleet officer."

"Oh, God, that figures."

"What?"

"You."

"If we were in Star Trek, you would definitely be Jean-Luc Picard and I…I would be Luke Skywalker."

"Wrong franchise."

"I don't care. Why can't a Jedi Knight be a Starfleet officer?"

"You're insane. I love you."

"I know."

"So you're Han Solo now?"

"Shut up."

"Never."