Over the last month, many preparations had gone into place. The week after Arthur's kidnapping was a week off studies for the students, and many of the students went home and saw their families for the few days. Gwen and Elyan had returned to Chester to see their dad Tom, Leon and Percy had also done the same thing; Leon returned to Birmingham whereas Percy had returned to Leicester. The remainder of the students stayed behind and enjoyed the week off.

The final week of November saw the groups returning to lectures on Monday morning, where Morgana and Sophia had to see Gaius for a change of plan. As their partners for the performance were Mordred and Valiant, and both had been expelled from the university and arrested for abducting someone, in particular, Britain's most famous young actor, comprises had to be made. Both were happy to pull of acting and just work behind in costume or set production, but because they are both students the required departments, they still need to act. So therefore. Alice had pulled out a new script, which meant new characters. The difference was, one of them would play a male, where the other would stay as female. Morgana volunteered to play the male, having more experience in acting.

The first week of December saw the things going on behind the scenes. As Gwen had taken a course in dressmaking, she helped out with the fashion students to create the costumes for each of the actors performing. The sets for each scene had already been built and were now back stage. On the night of the performance, the classrooms nearby the drama theatre would be acting as makeup studios and dressing rooms.

Gwen was to create her own outfit alongside Merlin's costume. Thankfully, she was entitled full access to all materials in the art studios including the fabrics and sewing machines, so in between lectures of biology and mythical history, and rehearsing for the performance, Gwen sits for endless hours with the designs and machines, and sometimes Merlin just sits there on his, well, Arthur's laptop on Tumblr or playing The Sims 3 to keep himself occupied.

Monday 10th December

It was the early morning when the performers were mostly in costume, running through their scripts with the sets in place ready for the Wednesday evening. The group knew that Monday and Tuesday were going to be the final times they get to rehearse in the theatre before the initial performance. It had also been revealed of which performances would take place when. The doors open at 6pm to students and staff, where the performances begin at 7. With 20 couples having a performance at roughly 5/10 minutes per set and a 15 minute break in between, the show would at least last for a couple of hours.

What the lecturers didn't let on though was that they were going to be filmed. Uther Pendragon had arrived later that day with his camera crew, setting up the cameras from different angles in the theatre to properly capture the performance. Uther himself would be in attendance. You see, with Uther being a hollywood director, within a year he would be directing another movie, which was based around young adults, and needed some fresh talent, so therefore, being able to witness the performances from his children's university would be a great advantage to him. If Arthur or Morgana had of known that cameras were going to be in place, word amongst the group would have gotten around within an hour or so.

Wednesday 12th December

Lectures finished early that day in order for the university to prepare for the performance. The lighting and sound crew were in the theatre for just after midday getting everything in order. The fashion students arrived with the costumes at 2 and began collecting all the garments together under the following names for each performance, as some actors were involved in more than one project, such as Lance, Gwaine and Percival.

The beauty students, who were in charge of makeup and hair came in for 3 and set out their equipment. As for the actors and actresses themselves, the first performers, in this case being Sophia and Morgana, arrived in at four to get into costume with everyone else arriving before five.

Arthur was sitting in the chair having his hair touched up and make up applied when the beautician began small talk with him, trying not to squeal because he was Arthur Pendragon, and she was one of the fans. Her name was Kara and had been working in beauty since she began college, three years ago. She mentioned that she was from Neath in South Wales and attended college in Swansea. She had interests in photography, something that Arthur could relate to, and began the discussion on what camera is best to take coastal landscape photographs with.

Uther had taken his seat by 6pm, somewhere to the far off distance where neither of his children would see him, but giving them the surprise much later.

Approaching five minutes to seven, the lecturers came in and wished the performers good luck, who were all lounging around or quickly going through last minute script runs to try and not mess up their scenes. Morgana and Sophia were waiting at the foot of the stairs, where they would take on the roles of The Doctor and Reinette Poisson, where they were to take on a scene from the episode 'Girl in the Fireplace'. They were joined by Morgause, who would be taking on the role of Rose Tyler and Elyan would be playing Mickey Smith.

"Good luck!" Chanted the performers as Morgana, Elyan, Morgause and Sophia left the dressing room.

Alice took to the stage and welcomed everyone to the combined drama and history performance evening, where many of the students studying degrees were being examined on the night, and the attendees could look through their guides to look at the full run of the schedule in place for the evening. Uther's camera crew had begun work, when Alice directed the first performance over to Morgana, Morgause, Elyan and Sophia with their number.

The curtains were drawn to find two fireplaces either side of the wall, Reinette on one side of the fireplace and The Doctor, Rose and Mickey on the other. The light is focused first on Reinette, and alternates between the two sides when one is speaking. Then enters a clockwork android, where Reinette asks how long it has been standing there. The Doctor then enters Reinette's time period. The Doctor demands answers from the clockwork android, instead telling Reinette to order the android to answer all questions put forward by The Doctor, who she refers to as 'Fireplace Man'. The android answers the questions but then transmits itself to a different location, where The Doctor and Reinette, aka Morgana and Sophia, are left on their own. The Doctor reads Reinette's mind to find out more about the androids throughout her lifetime, where she can also read his mind. She then mentions that one must dance, where she leads The Doctor out of the room down to the engagement downstairs, hence walking off stage, the curtains drawing to a close.

The audience cheered at the reaction to the scene, Uther looking as proud as any father would on their children's achievements. Morgana and Sophia headed back down the stairs, Elyan and Morgause soon joining them, heading back into the dressing room, where everyone was congratulating them. Elyan returned to the costume department where he needed to change out of his current attire into his attire to play Robin Hood, and Morgause needed to change from looking like an eighteenth century French girl to a twentieth century American one. Thankfully Morgause's main performance was the final of the first two halves, the one where the dance students would join them in performing the final scene of Dirty Dancing.

The next pair to take to stage was Lance and Gwen, where they would be acting out a scene from the 1963 movie Sword of Lancelot. Being wished good luck, they set for the foot of the stage as Grunhilda introduced the next performance.

By 8pm, they were half way through the evening. The stage was being cleared and set up for the second half of the show, and many had taken to the cafeteria to grab refreshments before the start of part-two. Merlin was in the dressing room getting prepared for his performance. He already had the nightdress on with the boots, which to be fair for the time of the year, wearing them made him shiver. The next part to the costume was the ginger wig, which, after about 10 minutes of trying to set it straight, it was finally in place. The makeup was added, leaving the coat to be added.

"Looking elegant aren't we my fair lady?" Gwaine commented as he came through the door, needing the final touches to his attire as Jane Porter.

"I certainly am, I'm not sure about you though." Merlin playfully mocked.

"Ah, don't worry, give it 10 minutes and we'll both be beautiful queens."

"You wish. Give it 10 minutes and you'll be an English explorer trying to get off with a native who's been raised by a bunch of gorillas and I'll be an English first class posh git running off with a pauper whilst I'm engaged to an American arse."

Both giggled from the images of what they were to become, as Arthur joined the two.

"Good evening my darlings. My Jane and my Rose, will you accompany me to the place called the cafeteria?"

"I'm afraid not my prince charming. I've got to head towards the back end of the stage. I'm up first with Percy, who's just finishing off."

"Oh, go on then. Good luck Gwaine!" Arthur called as Gwaine left, leaving the lovebirds behind.

"Don't you look amazing?" Arthur drawled out the words as he circled Merlin, taking in every glance he could cast an eye upon.

"You look brilliant yourself." Merlin replied, beaming and trying to smother the fresh coat of lipstick everywhere.

"Ah, I'm just the pauper. You're the real deal here. You could pass for a girl." Arthur couldn't help but stare at Merlin, amazed on how dazzling the young man looked but also on the incredible job that the beauticians and hairdressers had done to transform him.

"Arthur, as much as I would love you to, don't kiss me now or you'll have lipstick everywhere." Merlin warned Arthur, as they had less than 30 minutes before they were due to take off.

"Don't worry, I'll do no such thing." Arthur for once stuck to his word, instead hugging Merlin from behind.

"Thank you Ewan and Sefa for that amazing performance on what is practically the greatest couple to ever exist in fiction. And now to end the evening, we're setting sail with Merlin Emrys and Britain's very own Arthur Pendragon as Rose and Jack, with Lancelot Du Lac returning to play Rose's evil fiancé Mr Hockley in Titanic." Grunhilda introduced the final act before walking off stage.

The curtains unveiled to find a boat being attached to a high ledge where Percival was playing the crew member, and a few extras were playing the woman and children already in the boat. Gwaine was playing the father of the children in the boat, as he escorted his child into the boat, telling her that there would be another boat for the dad's.

Rose (Merlin) turned to Jack (Arthur) and began the debate, saying that she is not going on the boat and she won't leave him, and Jack is trying to urge her on. Not because he wants rid of her, but because he wants her alive and safe, knowing she'll have a better chance of surviving in the boat than going down with the ship. Mr Hockley (Lance) then steps in and tells her to get on the boat. Judging her looks, he gets rid of her current coat and places his own around her, which she wears from then on, which contains the diamond. The crew member urges Rose into the boat, where she brushes Jack's hand to what they think is the final time before the boat starts literally to lower itself. As the boat travels, Merlin has no remember not to sing the background music like he has done during practise as the sound crew would deal with that. Instead, he turns his attention to Arthur, who stands next to Gwaine and Lance, thinking of what it would be really like to be leaving him, and what's when it hit him. Today was the final day of classes, and that people would begin to leave from tomorrow to go back home, Arthur being one of them. He shed a few tears, staring at Arthur, when he almost forgot himself as he came to the lower ledge and jumped overboard. He ran backstage, where Arthur was shouting 'Rose' and Mr Hockley yelling 'Stop Her', as Arthur would then run back stage, Lance soon following Arthur's direction off stage.

From what Gwaine could see, there were many in the audience shedding a tear or two from the performance. Uther sat in the one corner observing his son's and others work. Arthur would then come down the stairs at the centre stage, as Merlin came onto the stage from the back and were reunited. From there came much apologising, hugging and urgent kissing, as Lance made his entrance at the top of the stairs, an extra playing his bodyguard, as the bodyguard urged Hockley away, giving the impression that the relationship is clearly over and that he's lost. Of course he doesn't give in, and snatches the gun from his bodyguard to try and aim for the couple. Jack notices the gun and tugs Rose with him, running off stage, ending the scene, leading to many people cheering from the sight of excellence before their own eyes.

The rest of the students joined back on stage shortly after to bow or curtsey to the audience, ending the show, the time now coming to nearly 9:45pm. Refreshments were still being served in the cafeteria for those who wished to communicate with the performers before they'd be all hauled out by 10:15. Merlin straight away headed back to the dressing room to remove the dress, boots, wig and makeup and change back into much more manlier clothing, returning to his ordinary self. Arthur did the same and removed his costume.

Uther had already made contact with Morgana and some of the Tregor household, communicating over glasses of wine in the cafeteria, where Merlin and Arthur would shortly join them. As they made their way backstage towards the cafeteria, the pair congratulated each other on their performance, both reminding the other that they will be greatly rewarded later on. Arthur swooped Merlin in for a long, slow kiss before they continued on. What they didn't realise is that someone managed to capture the moment.

The pair walked up to the cafe where Uther was socialising, as soon his son pops out of nowhere, immediately stops and goes to embrace his son on his performance, embracing Merlin as well.

"Father. What brings you here?" Arthur asked, quite confused.

"Can't miss my children's performances. I know it's only a uni thing but it's still a performance, and yes I might be a director, but I'm also a dad as well."

"Thank you for coming Uther." Merlin took over from Arthur, flabbergasted on how his dad can suddenly start turning up for all these events, as he never used to when he was a youth.

"My pleasure. Arthur, I want you to be ready and waiting for 11am tomorrow morning. You've got day ahead of you and Monday morning is no doubt going to be exhausting after your interview."

"Of course Father. Due to circumstances, I will think we should call it goodnight."

"Certainly."

The four departed from the cafeteria, Uther staying over at Morgana's house for the night, and Arthur and Merlin returning home to claim their rewards.