A/N Hey guys. This is the non-slash version of After the Crystal Cave. I lost a couple of readers when I decided on slash so this is for them so they can read the story. :)
Disclaimer: don't own BBC does

"Merlin! Up you get!" Gaius, the court physician shouted to the little room across his chambers. As well as being the physician, Gaius was also Merlin's guardian, mentor and living, breathing alarm clock.

"Mmh" was the response he got.

Merlin, not wanting to get up straight away, curled even further under his blanket. After waiting five minutes and not hearing a sound from his ward, Gaius heaved a sigh, walked up to the door, opened it and walked over to the bed. The young man, not noticing any of this, suddenly gasped and started scrambling about on his bed as he felt cold air on his body.

"Good. You're awake. Now get dressed and breakfast's on the table." the aging man announced, suppressing a smile while he watched Merlin's feeble attempts to get comfy.

"Urgh! After last week, you'd think I'd earned a lie-in!" he complained.

"Merlin, no-one but me knows exactly what you did. And while I am proud of you, no-one else can know which means you have to go around as usual. Now come on before you're late!" he finished, throwing Merlin's blanket into the corner. Mumbling about unfairness and stupid royal prat of Camelot, Merlin rolled out of bed and got ready. Hurrying his breakfast, he ran out of the room shouting a hurried goodbye over his shoulder,

While running through the castle to the kitchens to get Prince Arthur's breakfast, the warlock thought back over the past week.

FLASHBACK

It had started out as a pretty normal day. Arthur, being the spoilt brat he was, had decided to go hunting. It was just the two of them, and halfway through the trip, bandits decided to attack. They were chased through the forest but a bandit from above shot Arthur with a poisoned arrow - he fell unconscious. All of a sudden, Merlin let his magic loose on them. Once the bandits were taken care of, the powerful warlock went to the Prince's side.

Pale and sweaty, he looked completely different already, in the matter of a few minutes! Putting his head on a cloak, Merlin had then gone and got some leaves and wrapped them up. Merlin had gone back to his friends side and started dabbing his head with it. Putting the leaf cloth down, the servant lightly tapped Arthur's cheek and started trying to make him come round.

"Come on!"

Nothing.

"Dollop head! I need you to recover." he thought maybe a bit of insulting could help but still -nothing. Getting desperate now, he turned the royal onto his side to look at the wound. In the centre of his back, just below his neck, there was a hole in his chain mail, coloured crimson. Putting his hand over the wound, the young man had started using magic.

"þurhhæle dolgbenn!"

Suddenly, Merlin had heard crumbling of leaves. Turning his head around, he had seen no-one. Thinking that it had just been an animal, he had turned his attentions back to Arthur.

Turning him back around, Merlin had seen it hadn't worked. If anything, he had looked worse. So Merlin had decided to go on an insulting spree. "Listen to me clotpole. I don't care if you die, there are plenty of other princes. You're not the only pompous, supercilious, condescending, royal imbecile I could work for. The world's full of them! But I'll give you another chance." Turning Arthur back on his side, Merlin had placed his hand back on the wound. At this point, Merlin was desperate and trying not to let his emotions get in the way.

"Liscar ge staðol nu!"

A look at Arthur's face had proved the magic hadn't helped. Losing all hope, Merlin had took one last look at his master's face and went to the pond to wash the blood off his hands. Whilst rubbing his hands, the young, raven-haired man had started letting his emotions out. Reflected in the water, Merlin had seen his tears falling from his eyes. His face had been covered in dirt but the tear tracks had been visible.

Suddenly, an old man had appeared on the other side of the pond asking why he had been so sad. Merlin had taken in the man's appearance. He had a little bit of white curly hair and a thick white beard. Rather like a cloud, Merlin had thought. He was of average height and build, wearing brown robes. They had looked slightly grand and expensive but not like that of Arthur's. Finally Merlin had reached a decision and that was that he could trust him.

"It's my friend. He's dying and I don't know how to save him."

Even Merlin could hear the sadness in his voice.

"Then do not waste your tears. For I can tell you that the time for him to die is not yet upon us." the man had announced.

Merlin then looked at the man confused. He had wisdom that could've rivalled Gaius'. In fact it was more like that of Kilgharrah, the Great Dragon. "Who are you?" Merlin had asked.

"I am Taliesin. I can help your friend." the man, Taliesin, had said. Merlin had then moved out of the way so he could help Arthur. Taliesin had turned out to be a sorcerer and when Merlin had gone back to the blondes side, he had started to look healthier. "There. He will be fine in a few hours. Now Emrys -"

"Wait! Why did you call me that?" Merlin had learned to be weary of people who call him by his druid name by this point. It usually proceeds something bad happening. "Our meeting has been spoke of for many decades. I have something I'd like to show you." Taliesin had announced while already walking away. Taking a quick glance back at Arthur, making sure he was fine, Merlin had then gone onto follow the elderly sorcerer.

It had turned out that what Taliesin had wanted to show Merlin was the Crystal Cave. Merlin had looked into a crystal and images had started to appear in it. The servant turned his head away to look at Taliesin. He explained he'd seen something like this in the Crystal of Neahtid. Taliesin told Merlin that this is where it came from and he should look at the crystals and what they show. After a few minutes Merlin had agreed. The images were terrifying! They showed Morgana killing Uther. Merlin snapped his head away and when he had gone to talk to Taliesin, he was not there. Confused and scared, the young warlock had then returned to the princes side.

Once Arthur had recovered, they had headed back to Camelot. This time it was Arthur talking, not Merlin. He was asking questions on how he just aches where he was shot and nothing else. Merlin just replied with it didn't pierce your chain mail properly and its just because of the impact. When Gauis and Merlin were eating supper, the ward had told the physician everything, when Taliesin was mentioned Gauis had been shocked. Merlin had asked why. Gauis explained to him that Taliesin was an old sorcerer who had died many years ago. That had left Merlin even more confused but he had more pressing matters. "What should we do with Morgana?" he had asked.

"Nothing." When Merlin had looked ready to argue back, Gauis had gone onto explain how nothing has proved that the images will become true and trying to change something that they don't know will definatly happen could leave disastrous results. Merlin not convinced, went to get Arthur ready for the night.

The next day as Merlin was getting Arthurs stuff ready for the day, the blonde had decided to show the raven-haired man his birthday gift for Morgana. It had been a plain boring dagger. Happy it wasn't the one he had seen in the cave, Merlin had mentioned she might not like it as women seem to prefer pretty, shiny things. He had then left to do his many chores. Unbeknownst to him, Arthur had started to think over his words. Merlins happiness was short-lived as at the birthday feast that night, Morgana unwrapped Arthurs present and held up an engraved dagger that was definatly not the one he had shown Merlin - it was the fatal one. Arthur had came upto him at the feast to thank him for his advice.

That night Merlin had hid outside Morganas chambers. He saw her sneak out wearing a cloak with the hood up. Following her down the corridor, Merlin had made the torchs flames grow higher startling the seer so she had lost her footing and fell down the stone steps of the castle.

The reactions that followed were that of grief. Gauis had explained that her brain had started to bleed and that she might not make it. Arthur, Gwen and Uther grieved while Merlin felt guilty as he had been the one to cause it. He had been torn between helping her so his friends would not suffer or let her die to stop worse events happening in the future. A shocking revelation had helped make the decision.

One night, Merlin had been in his room and heard Uther and Gauis talking. Uther then went on to tell Gauis to do whatever he can to help her. That included magic. The physician had started to protest but the King had stopped him and explained that Morgana was not his ward but his daughter. He then had to leave and Gauis had went into Merlins room. Both were in shock.

What followed was Uther having a chat with Merlin the day after about how Gauis looked to him as a son and how, if you love someone like that, you'd do anything for them. That led to Merlin giving in and using his magic to help Morgana who ended up living. Thinking that was it for now, Merlin had tried to forget what the crystals had shown him. The next night though, Merlin had trouble sleeping so he decided to make sure Morgana wasn't up to anything. He arrived to see her walking down the corridor to the Kings chambers. Concerned, Merlin followed and arrived just in time to stop Morgana killing Uther. The warlock watched, hidden, as Uther comforted Morgana - his attempted murderer. He then went back to bed.

END FLASHBACK

The servant had reached the kitchens, had got Prince Arthur's breakfast and reached his chambers by the time he had remembered everything. He walked into the room and put the tray on the table then walked over to the windows. Opening the curtains he shouted "Wakey wakey! Time to get up!" at the body on the bed. Arthur started opening his eyes but put an arm over them while he tried to adjust from complete darkness to a sudden blinding, yellow light bursting into the room. "How can you be so cheery in the morning?" he grumbled as he crawled out of bed over to the table where his breakfast waited.

"Well someone has to be. You certainly can't manage it." Merlin replied cheekily from his place by the wardrobe picking out a tunic and breeches for Arthur. Said prince threw a grape at Merlin's head. "Well," he started walking over to his servant. "you can take your unnatural cheeriness to the stables. My horses need cleaned out then you can head to the armoury. My armour need polished and sword needs sharpening. By then you should be more normal so you can come clean my chambers. Afterwards I'll give you more stuff to do. Got it?" he had said all this while Merlin was getting him dressed.

"Yes Sire." Merlin replied. Picking up the tray that had had food on it not long ago, Merlin left to start on his morning chores.

Once Merlin had gone, Arthur collapsed into his favourite chair. He ran a hand through his hair. He has been doing it a lot the past week. The prince was confused. Arthur has always said from the beginning that there was something about Merlin that he could never put a finger on. He now knows what that is - magic. Merlin, his clumsy manservant, his friend! is a sorcerer. When he had been knocked out last week by the poisoned arrow, Arthur could still hear. He had heard Merlin insulting him and then use magic. Another guy had came and used magic on him as well but that didn't bother him. The Merlin having magic part did! The blonde hadn't had much time to think about it afterwards as he was troubled by Morgana's injury but it was always there in the back of his mind. Only after Morganas miraculous recovery did he finally have time to think about it.

The strange events that always seemed to happen with Merlin around, how they always seemed to escape impossible situations, everything Arthur had once put down to luck had been Merlin. Come to think about it, he would bet anything that his servant had made the blue ball of light when he was getting the Mortieus flower and he had a part to play in Morgana's recovery. The frustrating thing was that he has always been told that magic was evil and anyone who possess' it must die. This new revelation contradicts it. Merlin hasn't got an ounce of evil in him. A butterfly is more evil then him! Not once has Arthur thought about killing him either. Not after he became conscious. In fact, Arthur would kill anyone who tried to hurt him! That is certain to the Prince. Did that make him a traitor then? Why hasn't he told Arthur yet? Did anyone else know? Arthur sighed. He will after talk to him about it soon. How soon? Even Arthur couldn't answer that. He heaved himself out of his chair and headed towards the door. There is a council meeting that, as Crowned Prince, he has to attend, no matter how much he wishes he didn't have to.