Gwaine awoke a short time later and Anna fed him some lunch, then laid him back down.

"How's Gaius?" he asked as Anna took a seat beside his bed.

"Doing better—Merlin felt free to leave him for awhile this morning. Did you know Gwen is back?" Gwaine listened expectantly. "Merlin and Arthur met up with her again in Ealdor, and I think she's back to stay."

"Good." Gwaine closed his eyes. "I hope Arthur will get his head on straight and marry her."

Anna was surprised that Gwaine wasn't more upset about Gwen's betrayal of Arthur—but perhaps he had forgotten about it. After all, his head probably wasn't entirely clear right now. He looked like he was going to sleep again, so she didn't ask.

When Gwaine fell asleep, Anna moved her chair over by the window and read for awhile by the late afternoon light—Percival had brought her a book from Gaius's library with her lunch. She was distracted from the herbal properties of peppermint by movement from the direction of the bed.

Gwaine was awake and was trying to push himself up. "Can't breathe," he gasped as Anna bent over him.

She pulled him up into a sitting position and steadied him as he struggled to catch his breath. Gwaine clutched her sleeve as he gasped. His lips were blue-ish.

"Easy. Easy," Anna murmured soothingly, pressing her fingers to his pulse.

Slowly Gwaine's breathing eased, and he let his head fall back limply on the pillows. Anna detached his hand from her sleeve and fetched him a drink of water.

He turned his head and looked at her as she put the cup aside. "Am I dying?" he asked weakly.

Anna sat down on the edge of the bed and took his hand. "No," she said. "I won't let that happen."

Gwaine shut his eyes. At length, his breathing evened out and he slept. Anna laid him down—he didn't even stir, though he frowned even in sleep. She sat looking at him for a moment, her lips pressed together in thought. Then she left the room and hurried toward Gaius's surgery.

000

"I don't know," Merlin said as they hurried back to Gwaine's room. He dropped his voice. "I haven't had a wonderful record of magical healing. Soemtimes I can do it and sometimes I can't."

"You healed yourself when you were injured," she pointed out. "I saw you do it. And you told me you healed the knights when you were chasing Julius Borden, and Gwen when she got shot."

"But those were flukes. I've failed to heal Arthur on a number of occasions, and I try to heal Gaius's patients all the time, and that never seems to work."

"Really?" Anna was surprised. "I've never seen you try. I thought you just let Gaius… do his thing."

Merlin's ears turned red. "I don't like ot try to heal people when someone's watching—because it so seldom works. It's embarrassing," he mumbled.

Anna wordlessly patted his arm and opened the door to Gwaine's room. Gwaine was still asleep, breathing shallowly through his mouth. He was still unusually pale.

Merlin sat down on the side of Gwaine's bed and felt the pulse in his wrist. Then he placed one hand over Gwaine's heart and bent his head forward with an expression of intense concentration. He said something in a language Anna didn't understand, and his eyes flashed gold. He felt Gwaine's pulse again, and shook his head. Again he bent his head, and tried a different spell, and again checked Gwaine's pulse. He did it five times, his frustration clearly rising. Finally he looked up at Anna and shook his head. "No change," he said bleakly.

Anna looked discouraged for a moment, then straightened her shoulders. "Well, I'll just have to pull him through it," she said decisively. "I told him he was going to make it, and I'm not breaking that promise."

000

It was dark when Merlin left, and he sent a servant back with a cot and some supper for Anna. She ate, and read a little more by candlelight, finally going to bed herself when it seemed like Gwaine was soundly asleep.

Anna was awoken from sleep by a moan. She tumbled out of the cot and lit a candle. Gwaine was lying still on the bed, holding fistfuls of his blanket as he gulped back another moan. Anna checked his pulse. He was having palpitations; a cold sweat stood out on his face.

Anna filled the basin with water from the ewer and wiped the sweat away with a soft cloth. "It will pass," she repeated softly. "It will pass."

Gwaine opened his eye. "Anna?" he gasped.

"I'm here."

"Is she coming?"

"Who?"

"Morgana. She won't go away."

"She's gone, Gwaine. She wont' come back."

"No. He clutched at her hand. "She can't come back—while you're here." He gulped as his heart began to pound again. "Don't go," he whispered.

"I won't," she assured him, pushing his hair off his forehead. "I've got you."

He turned his head toward her hand. "She'll leave when she sees you," he muttered, so low she almost couldn't hear him.

Gwaine's heartbeat steadied out and he fell into a light sleep. Anna stayed by him, holding his hand and watching the shadows the candle cast over his face, his pained and exhausted expression.

He woke an hour later as his heart began to race again. "Anna?" he groaned.

"I'm still here."

"You have to scare her off. Your magic is stronger than hers."

Anna frowned, trying to decide whether she should try to correct him. But when he clutched again at her hand with a moan of pain, the idea fled.

"She won't come near you," she promised. She tried to think of something she could do to reassure him. Merlin used spells to do his magic, but she didn't know the words. Then she had an idea.

Quietly, Anna began to sing. She sang the lullabies her mother had sung over her as a child, that Sifa had used to quiet the children in the forest. Gwaine seemed to relax at the sound of her voice, so she kept singing. When she had run out of lullabies she turned to love songs, songs about springtime, about birds, about the simple tasks of a simpe life. Gwaine fell asleep as she sang, his fingers still curled around hers. Anna waited until he seemed deeply asleep to stop singing and gently slip her hand from his. They both slept heavily through the rest of the night.

TBC


AN: Please review!