DISCLAIMER: Don't own it!

A/N: Thanks to everyone for the support and suggestions last chapter! I can be a bit neurotic and your kind words were very reassuring. Sorry I couldn't reply to everyone ^^ Shout out to brynerose, LadyElizabethOfCamelot, Motaku1235, Ash9, MissHaunted-MoonLight, KrisEleven, ReadingRaven019, Distressed Clover, HippoPi, MicaRose, 1983Sarah, Hallaromen, IndiaMoora, EchoRose480, Mika271170, alyce, SereneMayhem, HakuHunterNatural, TeganL74, Bundibird, Nargil, Felicity P, SuperHeroFanGurl, and caldera32 for taking the time to review; as always it is much appreciated! :)


CHAPTER ELEVEN

The rage and frustration that had been building up in Arthur over the last few days was quickly reaching its boiling point. Everything had so quickly gone wrong – and now half his men were dead, the others were heaven-knows-where, and Elyan was still the captive of this warlord.

He was wet, and cold, and his head hurt and was sticky with blood where he'd been hit with something, and he hadn't even had the time to bury his soldiers.

And to make matters worse, the weather chose that moment to start raining again.

"Damn it!" Arthur shouted suddenly, pulling to a halt and slamming his fist against the nearest tree.

Behind him, Merlin jumped violently. Arthur paid him little heed, breathing heavily as he fought to push down his worry and irritation. He trudged on, the already damp ground quickly turning to a slippery sludge beneath them.

"Are we going the right way?" Merlin asked quietly after a while, the words almost lost in the pattering of the rainfall.

"Yes," Arthur replied curtly, and they didn't speak again as they continued walking.

As afternoon turned to evening, the light dropped until a combination of darkness and the fact that the ground was by now practically a swamp forced them to stop. Arthur wasn't sure how much progress they had made – the maps had been lost in the attack – but he was positive they were going in the right direction. Trying to console himself with that thought, he headed towards a rocky overhang he could see nearby, Merlin splashing along after him.

The ridge provided a small patch of dry ground and cover from the rain. Definitely not enough room for them to avoid touching each other, as Arthur found when he sat down and Merlin hesitantly huddled up next to him. They sat with their shoulders pressed together, legs drawn up to keep their feet out of the rain that continued to pour down around them.

Now that they were no longer on the move every ache and pain became more acute. Arthur's head throbbed, his legs ached mercilessly and his soaked clothes began to weigh him down, uncomfortably clammy against his skin. Merlin was breathing oddly beside him – little raspy breaths that he'd suck in, hold for a few moments and then let out in a huff.

"You alright?" Arthur asked abruptly.

Merlin gave him a funny look. "Fine," he replied, a bit coldly, and Arthur frowned. Oh, marvellous, he's going to hold a grudge against me now of all times? Mature, Merlin, mature. He vaguely registered that he was being rather unfair, but was too exhausted and put out to care that much.

"Right. Well then, we'll stay here for the night and push on in the morning." He shifted, as there seemed to be a tree root digging right into his backside. "I'd kill for a fire... but as if there's any dry wood out there."

"Yeah," Merlin replied, and promptly turned his head away. Arthur glared at the side of his face for a few minutes before letting out an 'okay fine be that way' sort of sigh and focusing on feeling sorry for himself.


Merlin's sour mood from earlier had only become more sour until every tiny incident was blown irrationally out of proportion. The lack of fire, for instance – oh, they would have a fire, they would have a blazing fire by now, if, y'know, magic wasn't banned.

He knew, deep down, that it was unfair to blame Arthur for the fact that they were cold and wet right now. After all, he had proven to be far more just and rational when it came to magic than his father had been.

But right now he couldn't care less about that. He was still irritated about Arthur dragging them off on this mad quest – much as he wanted to rescue Elyan, it wasn't exactly a foolproof plan they had here. So he glared at Arthur, and Arthur glared back, and a tense silence settled over the little hollow where they sat until finally Merlin turned away.

Eventually they must have both dropped off to sleep, because the next thing Merlin knew he was jerking awake as pain flared through his ribs. He dimly registered that the rain had stopped, and it was now so dark that he couldn't see a thing in front of him, but mostly he was focused on the fact that he couldn't draw a full breath without feeling as though his lower chest was on fire and he was being stabbed repeatedly in the lung with a blunt dinner knife.

Trying and failing not to panic, he sucked in a series of short wheezes. Somehow, breathing out hurt even more than breathing in, and he found himself spluttering and coughing. The vague idea popped into his head that bending over might make it easier, but he regretted this a moment later because that only seemed to make it worse.

"Merlin?" came Arthur's panicked voice from the darkness.

There was a rustle of fabric as Arthur shifted next to him, and moments later Merlin felt a hand on his shoulder, steadying him.

"What's wrong?" Arthur asked, his usually controlled tone wavering the tiniest bit. Merlin would have been touched if he wasn't so busy trying not to keel over and die in the mud.

"Can't breathe," he attempted to say, but it just came out as a rather strangled croak.

Arthur seemed to understand, however, and after a brief pause Merlin felt strong arms pulling him back and onto his side. He ended up sprawled rather awkwardly over Arthur's lap, but the position eased the pressure on his ribs and it wasn't long before he was gulping in full breaths gratefully.

"Thanks," he uttered after a few moments. He tried to sit up but Arthur kept a firm grip on him.

"Lie still for a minute, would you?" the king asked, sounding oddly strained.

Puzzled, Merlin obeyed. "Is something wrong?" he questioned.

"Wrong? Apart from the fact that you nearly just had a fit and died on me? You really are an utter turnip-head, Merlin," Arthur chided, though there was no malice in his tone, just a hint of worry that under any other circumstances Merlin would have teased him for.

Merlin resisted the urge to say something about people continuously stealing his insults.

"Sorry?" was all he came out with.

"You should be sorry," Arthur replied in a rather fail attempt at teasing that just ended up sounding awkward. After a strained pause, he continued, "If only we had some bloody light in here. I can't even see my hand in front of my face. How badly are you injured?"

"I'm not injured," Merlin protested, then amended, "Well, perhaps a little."

"Define a little."

"I just got knocked about a bit when the not-bandits attacked," he explained. The downplaying of injuries was something that came alarmingly naturally to everyone within their friendship group – springing from an odd mixture of manly stoicness and emotional constipation when it came to receiving sympathy and concern from others.

"Define a bit."

"My ribs maybe kind of hurt."

"Damn it, Merlin, will you ever just tell me when you're injured?" Arthur's grip tightened on his arm a bit and Merlin couldn't repress a wince. Arthur let go immediately.

"Sorry," he said stiffly, and Merlin rolled his eyes before realising that Arthur couldn't see him in the darkness.

"Can I get up now?" he asked. In lieu of replying, Arthur helped lever him into a sitting position, before repositioning them so that they were sitting back to back, both a way of sharing heat in the chilly night and allowing Merlin to lean back against Arthur and ease the pressure on his chest.

"I'd say there's three hours or so 'till dawn," Arthur speculated. "Although it may just be all the clouds blocking the moonlight that's making it so dark."

At the mention of dawn all of Merlin's earlier annoyances sprang back into place. He glared into the darkness, and the mixture of pain, exhaustion and irritation inside him conglomerated into one big block of angst sitting square in the middle of his chest.

"We're still going forward with this then, are we?" he asked, and when Arthur didn't respond immediately, he barrelled on.

"You know what, I'm done. I'm done with all this! You ask me for my opinion, you go on about how I'm the only one you can trust and then as soon as I tell you I don't like something you take that as an invitation to go ahead and do it anyway! Well guess what, Arthur, this plan of yours is absolute rubbish. I get it, you want Elyan back. I want him back too! But this isn't the way to go about it. This is you throwing a ruddy tantrum because you're annoyed about Canaad's soldiers attacking us."

"Merlin-"

"Your brain must be an absolute turd if you seriously think we can rescue Elyan in this state," Merlin snapped. "Because trust me, if we-"

"Shut up!" Arthur interrupted, sounding angry now. "Just shut up, will you? I'm hardly forcing you into this, am I? I told you you could go back if you wanted!"

"You know I won't leave you to go alone, you clotpole," Merlin spat, and somehow it felt exhilarating to shout at Arthur. To let out the pent up anger that he had been building up for weeks – the frustration, the inane, miserly desire to lash out in revenge for all the pain he'd been put through under the enchantment. "You know I won't, so yes, you are forcing me into this, and I don't like it. I don't like it, Arthur! Sometimes I think you haven't changed one bit; you're still a stubborn pig-headed bully!"

Arthur was silent for a long moment, and Merlin felt a brief, piercing satisfaction at having hurt him. But just as quickly, it faded away to be replaced with a throbbing sense of shame. At his heart, Merlin was nice – too nice for his own good, in fact. He felt the instant urge to apologise but wasn't quite sure how to go about it.

"I feel I must offer you an apology," Arthur said finally, coldly, his voice flat and expressionless. "It seems, despite my efforts, I have unwittingly caused you harm."

"Arthur," Merlin began, but was ignored.

"I didn't think I was forcing you into this," Arthur continued, and there was an undertone of sadness to his words that only sent Merlin spiralling further into a sea of guilt. "I thought since you've been angry with me for days now that you'd leave if you didn't want to come along. And I can't apologise enough for what I did to you under the enchantment. I've tried... I don't want you to feel obligated to stay with me. The last thing I want is for you to-" and here he broke off, voice cracking in a rather undignified fashion.

Merlin's mouth opened and shut a few times. Finally he cleared his throat. His voice was rougher than he'd like as he responded, rather dumbly, with "been angry with you for days?"

"Well, yes," Arthur said, sounding somewhat more composed and rather more embarrassed now. He shifted to face Merlin, despite the fact that they could both see absolutely nothing in the darkness.

"I wasn't... you prat, I thought you were angry with me," Merlin said, with an almost hysterical laugh.

Arthur grunted in surprise. "You really are an idiot, Merlin. What reason could I possibly have for being angry with you?"

"Just... the enchantment, and how I couldn't get over it..." Merlin trailed off, feeling embarrassed now as well, and for a moment they both sat and wallowed in embarrassment together.

"Well then," Arthur said finally. "It seems there has been a rather... grandiose misunderstanding."

"I'll say," Merlin replied, and there was another long silence. He felt relieved, confused, and a bit out of place. This whole situation was rather surreal.

Arthur cleared his throat again. "For what it's worth," he said, "I am sorry." And it wasn't said in anger, or shame, or out of duty – it was a natural, sincere apology, and Merlin suddenly felt as though some hollow inside of himself had been filled.

"I'm sorry too," he said, then added, half-joking, "will I finally get a proper hug now?"

Arthur gave a scoff of rather emotional laughter that Merlin wisely didn't rib him about, and moments later Merlin felt an arm around his back and he was tugged forward. As hugs went, it wasn't the best or the most comfortable, and one a scale of one to Gwaine it was probably about a Gaius-point-five. They were still both shivering and a bit damp and his ribs hurt when Arthur squeezed a little bit too hard, and his nose against Arthur's neck was probably uncomfortably cold.

But right now he felt so blissfully happy that he could do nothing but grin like a loon. The hug went on a little bit longer than was strictly manly, until Arthur pulled back a little and asked, with all the uncertainty that came with being Uther Pendragon's son, "So... friends again?"

Merlin sniffed a bit and chuckled and whacked him on the arm. "Idiot, we never weren't friends."


Morgana was starting to get cabin fever. She had expected Arthur and his men to have arrived by now, but she supposed the violent rain and storms around the area had slowed him down. There wasn't much to do in Helios' fortress – the warlord himself was always busy either planning which village in his region to invade next or engaged in activities unmentionable. Elyan was absolutely no fun to taunt, not being in possession of a very refined sense of wit.

"Maybe he didn't get your ransom message," Helios suggested over dinner one night. "We could send another urging him to move faster if he wishes us to keep our end of the bargain."

"No... if he has left already it would be redundant," Morgana pointed out. "I'll ride out tomorrow if the rain's stopped and see if they're on their way."

Sure enough, the rain stopped, and she headed out into the forest. It was all rather depressing and muddy, the trees oversaturated and unhealthy from too much water, the sky gloomy and overcast. There was only one main trail that led from Camelot to the fortress, and she rode alongside this, her frown growing deeper as she saw no sign of the party from Camelot that should have been well on its way by now.

A crashing about in the undergrowth had her pausing and turning to conceal herself behind a conveniently large tree. Moments later Percival emerged from a patch of woodland nearby. He looked rather dishevelled, his cloak tattered and smeared with mud, his bare arms scratched from the gorse bushes that populated the area.

What's he doing out here alone? Morgana wondered, more confused than ever.

As she watched, Percival began to peer about the place as though searching for something. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, "Arthur! Merlin!"

It promptly dawned on Morgana that what should have been a simple trip through the forest had somehow ended up with the group being split up all over the place and the king and his servant lost. She wasn't sure whether to laugh, facepalm or feel irritated by the incompetence of these people.

She had hoped to lure Arthur into a trap. But this turn of events, it would seem, worked in her favour – Arthur was alone now, without his knights or men for protection (Merlin didn't count seeing as he was about as useful in a fight as a newborn kitten). It shouldn't take long to find him, and then they could kill him quickly without the fuss and bother of pretending to negotiate before bringing out Morgana as a trump card.

With a smile she turned and galloped back towards the fortress. It wouldn't be long now before Arthur was dead and the crown of Camelot was hers.


"I know you don't like leaving him behind," Merlin said quietly, "But trust me – it's better to come back with a proper group of soldiers then wander in their unprepared. We're no help to Elyan in this state anyway."

"I know, Merlin. I've already told you you're right – I won't say it again," Arthur informed him as he clambered over a fallen tree. His servant seemed overly worried that Arthur's silent mood was the result of irritation at having to go back to Camelot. It wasn't. Arthur had no desire to continue on to Helios' fortress – not with Merlin injured and himself barely armed. He could see now that he'd acted without thinking, out of anger.

What he was stressing over was the fact that he had absolutely no idea where they were. The storm had ravaged the forest until most of the trails were unrecognisable. He was heading in what he hoped was the right direction but for all he knew, they were walking away from Camelot. Merlin himself didn't seem to have noticed, following Arthur with such oblivious trust that the king was starting to get quite nervous.

A sound in the undergrowth had them both freezing, Arthur raising his hand automatically as he usually would with a large party, indicating for them all to stop and be silent. Merlin edged slightly closer to him, one hand wrapped protectively around his ribcage, and Arthur readied his sword, inwardly cursing. If anything attacked them now they were just about done for.

There was a flash of movement in the bushes and someone crashed out towards them. Arthur swung his sword at them but the stranger parried the blow. As Arthur drew back he paused, mid-swing, as he recognised-

"Percival?"

The large knight lowered his sword, a wide grin spreading over his face. "My lord!" he greeted. "Merlin."

"You nearly gave us a heart attack," Arthur said, though his mouth was stubbornly refusing to stop smiling. "What are you doing here? I thought for sure you'd have gone back to Camelot to fetch some of the other knights."

"The others have gone back," Percival explained. "General Crawley is going to send out rescue parties. But I was hardly going to leave you two wandering about alone in here – Gwaine would have killed me, for one."

Merlin laughed, then coughed, and Percival eyed him with concern.

"Are you two alright?" he asked finally, eyes running over them in search of any life-threatening injuries.

Arthur nodded. "This idiot's gone and gotten himself cracked about a bit, but we'll be fine if we can get back to Camelot."

Percival looked a bit confused. "Why were you walking East? Camelot's West."

Acutely aware of Merlin staring at him in amusement, Arthur flushed. "We were heading in an arc," he said stiffly, "To avoid any more men that might be lurking about."

"I see," Percival said, sounding far too much like he was humouring the king. "Well, let's get on then – we've lost the horses but at a brisk walk we can catch up with the others and be back by tomorrow night."

They had barely moved three paces before the woods around them filled with the sound of galloping hoofbeats. Turning around they were just in time to see a large, dark-skinned warrior charging towards them on a horse. As they watched, the horse slipped on the wet ground and went skidding sideways, the man flying off. He managed to do a neat forward roll as he hit the ground and ended up in a crouch, weapons drawn, his startled expression rearranging itself into a cruel sneer.

Arthur wasn't quite sure what to think, but as he looked around, more horses and footsoldiers were emerging from the trees around them. They wore no uniform, but were armed as soldiers would be – mercenaries, he realised, and turned back to the dark man, who had gotten to his feet by now. Is this Helios?

He backed up against Percival and Merlin, sword at the ready as they glanced around, looking for any means of escape.

"Arthur Pendragon," Helios drawled. "What a pleasure to meet you at last."

"I take it you are Helios," Arthur replied stiffly. "As you can see, our attempt to meet you did not quite go as planned."

Helios guffawed, apparently taking their failed trip as an excuse to cover up his own rather embarrassing entrance. Bloody rain, it seemed, was everyone's mutual sentiment.

"No matter," the warlord said, flapping a hand. "You've probably figured out that it was all a trap anyway."

"What fight could you possibly have with me?" Arthur asked him, brows furrowed. "I've never met you before."

"Oh, the fight's not with him," a new, eerily familiar voice rang out, and Arthur stiffened, his blood running cold.

"It's with me," the newcomer continued as she stepped out from the ranks of men who had lined up behind Helios.

Arthur swallowed, his gaze hardening.

"Morgana."


A/N: *resists the urge to say something cliched like dun dun DUUUN*

The friendship, it rebuilds. I'm thinking that the story will be wrapped up in the next few chapters or so (but I have a horrible sense of these things so this may be inaccurate). Suggestions are still welcome. Considering taking requests this Christmas but more on that later.

Thanks for reading, hope this chapter wasn't disappointing, reviews and constructive criticism are greatly appreciated!