A/N: This isn't my favourite chapter, but we're slowly getting there! (And I think you'll all love the one after this.)

"I'm so sorry!"

"Not at all, Darling. What will you have?"

Hanging her handbag on the armrest of the velvet-lined chair, Morgana sits down and crosses her legs. She's fifteen minutes late to her meeting with Elaine because she'd gone home to drop off some books, and Elaine is watching her with an amused expression, Martini glass in hand.

"Just a soda, please." She's exhausted, and with her thoughts running in every direction, she knows she needs to turn to her sleeping pills if she wants to have any hope of sleeping that night. Alcohol would have to wait.

Elaine nods and gestures at a waiter.

Her order placed, she turns back to Morgana. "So how is it going at Monmouth? Have you been able to get back in touch with anyone?"

"I thought your main motivation in getting me to go back there was to get in contact with Nimueh?"

"And so it was, and if this were a business meeting, that would be the first thing I would ask you. But it isn't, and you've already updated me on Nimueh via email. So now I want to hear about the other end of things."

"Well, I met with my old supervisor – Caelia – today."

The corners of Elaine's mouth twist upwards as she smiles, reaching for her Martini. "Excellent. Did you discuss the possibility of your going back?"

"We did. Caelia welcomed it. She wants someone in my field in the department and she even suggested the possibility of my starting my doctorate in the next few months and coming on as her assistant next year."

"That's wonderful, Morgana."

Morgana nods. "I want to consider it."

"As you should."

Morgana swallows, her throat running dry. "It'd mean cutting back at The Grail. You wouldn't mind?"

"Not if it'll means your finally finding happiness. Do you know what you want to work on yet?"

"Probably more to do with witchcraft, but I'm quite interested in the Druids now too, and I'm tempted to look into more and see how they interconnect in literature. I don't know if I can find the right angle though."

Elaine nods, taking a sip of her martini. "I'm sure you'll figure it out. Now tell me more. Tell me about your friends."

"You've been talking to Galahad, haven't you?"

"Come now, Darling, what kind of mother would I be if I didn't speak with my son?"

"You're both incorrigible," she begins, pausing to smile when the waiter places her drink before her. "Thank you."

Elaine smirks. "You love us anyway."

"Well I've seen Gwen a few times. It's been nice to spend a bit more time with her. We had coffee a couple of hours ago."

Elaine smiles. "And Merlin?"

Morgana raises an eyebrow, reaching for her drink. "Didn't Galahad fill you in on that?"

"You underestimate my son's loyalty. He refused to tell me anything more than the fact we would have much to discuss tonight."

Morgana gives her wry smile. She loves the mother and son, and there's no denying that they're good for her, but the morning's encounter still has her reeling.

"Galahad and I ran into Merlin and Gwen when we met for coffee this morning."

Elaine looks delighted, and her eyes sparkle as she asks, "And how did it go?"

"It was horribly awkward."

"Did you talk?"

Morgana cringes. "We…" she trails off and gestures with her hands, "made eye contact?"

"What are you? Twenty-nine or twelve?"

Morgana groans and covers her face with her hands. She knows she's acting half her age, all the more for having cut romance out of her life for so long, but she can't help it. "You should have seen Merlin if you think I'm bad. I don't know what's happened to him."

She'd prodded Gwen that afternoon to find out more about the green beverage and the suspiciously patterned jumper, and her friend had only admitted that Merlin was experimenting with his lifestyle. He'd apparently stopped drinking coffee and was trying to be as healthy as possible. Gwen sounded amused, but Morgana suspected that something deeper had affected him.

"You happened to him, Morgana."

Morgana huffs. She doubts she's at the cause of it all, but guilt reels through her. "He must hate me."

"I'm sure he doesn't hate you."

"You don't know that." She shakes her head.

"You did what you had to do. You didn't betray him, Morgana. Morgause betrayed both of you. It's time he knew that, and it's high time you stopped punishing yourself."

"Maybe, but that isn't all, Elaine."

Her mentor raises a brow, but her look softens as Morgana's breathing quickens.

"What is it, Morgana?"

Morgana slowly counts to ten, willing herself to stay calm. She needs Elaine's support and she needs to move past this once and for all. Taking a deep breath, she begins to tell her what no one but she and Gwen know.

Groaning to himself, Merlin leans back in his desk chair. It's nine in the evening, and he still hasn't finished going through his notes for the next day's lecture. Why he'd agreed to take part in the series on mythological creatures in history… Sighing, he stands up and stretches as Kilgharrah plods into the room.

"Finally have your fill, did you?"

The obese, grey cat ignores his teasing and leaps, with great and delayed difficulty, onto Merlin's bed. He meows and stretches before curling up right on top of Merlin's pillow.

Shaking his head, Merlin climbs over the foot of his bed and onto the windowsill behind it.

His studio is smaller than anywhere he's ever lived, but it's home. Gaius had offered him his flat after he'd packed up and gone to live with his mum in Dublin, but he hadn't wanted to remain in the building, the only one left after all that had happened. He'd shared a flat with some other graduate students for a while, but it'd gotten to be too much and he'd decided it would be best to leave and make it on his own.

Kilgharrah had come into his life soon after that, having shown up in his flat uninvited. Merlin had inquired around the building and the neighbourhood, but no one seemed to be missing a cat, and he couldn't bear to let him go, grumpy and ungrateful though he was.

Leaning against the window frame, Merlin thinks back over his day, and his mind ceaselessly returns to Morgana. He'd spent the better part of the past five years trying to move on and forget her, but none of the – admittedly few – women he'd dated had been able to hold a candle to her, and after Freya had left, claiming that she was sick of standing in Morgana's shadow, he'd realized that he was nowhere near as over her as he'd believed himself to be.

Her reappearance had only proved that to be true.

Sighing, he reaches for his phone. He taps on the photo app and scrolls back up to the top of his camera roll. The photos from their time together are still there. Morgana asleep at the library. Morgana glaring at him across their old table at the coffee shop, umpteenth cup of coffee and book in hand. A blurry shot of him in the dragon pyjamas Morgana had made him wear. Aithusa, hours after they'd brought him home. The selfies they'd jokingly taken on the living room floor. The seaside and the campfires they'd made with Arthur and Gwen. Moments from the mere months they'd spent together play out in front of him, and when he gets to the beaming shot of Morgana the morning after they'd gotten engaged, he decides it's time to put his pride and his nerves behind him and just talk to her.

He waits for Gwen outside her office again the next morning.

"I'm not sure I approve of this new habit."

Merlin stands, straightening his miraculously pattern-free jumper. "I want to speak to Morgana."

Visibly holding back a smile, Gwen moves to unlock her door. "Shouldn't you be waiting outside Morgana's door somewhere, then?"

"Very funny."

Gwen smirks and invites him in.

"I'm serious though, Gwen. I've had enough."

Gwen snorts. "You've had enough? I'm the one who's had to watch you act like an idiot."

Merlin glares. "I have not been acting like an idiot."

"You hid behind a stack of cauliflower."

"That doesn't make me an idiot."

"Cauliflower, Merlin."

"Fine. Will you help me or not?"

Gwen smiles. "I will. But why don't you just call her and set up a meeting?"

"I can't do that!"

"Why not?"

"Because she might answer!"

"Isn't that the point?!"

Merlin looks down, fidgeting. "I'm rubbish at this, Gwen."

"You don't say." Gwen sighs. "I have a stack of papers I need to get through by noon, and I'm teaching all afternoon. Why don't you come over for dinner tonight? Arthur's cooking, and we can talk about it then."

"That would be nice. Thank you." Merlin says. He doesn't want to wait until evening to find a solution, but he feels bad for taking up so much of Gwen's time. "And Gwen? I'm sorry if I've been a pain."

Gwen looks up from reorganizing the items on her desk and gives him a small smile. "You don't need to be sorry, Merlin. I know it isn't easy for you. Either of you."

"Yeah, but Morgana isn't the one acting like an idiot."

The corner of Gwen's mouth twitches. "No. She isn't, but she hasn't been a piece of cake, either."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Doesn't it go against your rules to tell me that?"

"Not in situations like this." Gwen sighs and leans back in her chair. "I know I'm supposed to remain neutral, but I want the two of you to work things out."

Merlin swallows. "You don't think it's too late for us?"

"Not if you have hope. You always have a choice, Merlin, and if you choose to fight for her… if you both choose to fight, then there's hope."

"You think she'll choose to fight?"

"That's something you'll have to ask her, yourself."

"But what about her boyfriend?"

Gwen sighs. "Galahad isn't her boyfriend, Merlin."

Merlin's brows knit together. He'd certainly seemed like her boyfriend. "But –"

"They just look good together. I promise you there's nothing romantic between them."

"But." He pauses, remembering the way Gwen had stayed quiet, as he'd rambled through his jealousy. "You let me think they were together! The entire time we were there! And when we walked back to uni afterwards!"

"It was for your own good."

"How was making me suffer for my own good?"

Gwen rolls her eyes and looks up. "Honestly, Merlin! It made you come to your senses!"

Merlin pouts. "I would have come to my senses even without that."

Gwen nods. "You would have. Days after this."

"That isn't true."

"It is, and you know it. Now I need to get to work."

"Fine. Sorry. Message me to tell me what I should bring tonight?"

"Just bring yourself. And Merlin?"

"Yeah?"

"No geometric print jumpers. Lizzie doesn't like them."

Struggling to breathe, Morgana sits up and rips the bedclothes from her as the mid-morning light creeps through the curtains and lands in her eyes. The sleeping pills had kept her asleep through the night, but the little white pills had failed her. Nightmares had slipped through and kept her locked in a state of terror for hours on end.

Shakily standing from the bed, she feels like she's drenched in blood and is going to send blood dripping onto the floor. She runs her hands over her legs, as if to reassure herself, and then reaches for her glasses.

Everything is in pristine condition, nothing but crisp white sheets and soft on her bed and heather grey pyjamas on her body.

She knows the images replaying through her mind are nothing but subconscious games, but the memories they awake are no less painful for the knowledge. Unable to shake the sudden sobs that wrack through her, she rushes out of her bedroom and into the bathroom to wash the bloody images from her mind.

Calmer after a long, steamy shower, she wraps herself in her favourite dressing gown and pads into the kitchen. She opens all of her blinds and turns on the espresso machine Merlin had taught her to use. She measures out the ground coffee beans and makes herself her morning latte.

Since she doesn't have any appointments and has more than enough books to read through on her own, she decides to forego going to campus and work from home.

It's been ages since she's spent an entire day on her own, and so she curls up in her little kitchen nook with her coffee and her laptop and settles in, ready to reflect on her talk with Elaine from the night before and decide what to do.

Meowing, Aithusa leaps onto the table top and sits between Morgana's mug and the window ledge.

"Hi, baby," she greets and reaches out to scratch Aithusa behind the ears before closing her eyes and leaning against the wall. For all the sleep, she's exhausted and wonders if she'll sidestep the nightmares if she drifts off where she is.

Her phone dings before she has the chance to find out. Sighing, she reaches out for it and finds a message from Gwen.

Dinner tonight? As promised? xx

Morgana smiles and types an affirmative answer.