Chapter 17! Yay! I can't promise to update everyday because I have some homework to do over the holidays and I think you'd all get bored of me, to be honest.

Yes, I have put this story up to an M now, sorry for any inconvenience, there is no smut or anything – promise! - just Morgana being her usual flirty self at the start and some upcoming chapters.

Thank you all for your lovely reviews, 78 in total! I never thought I'd get this far, so thanks to everyone who has reviewed, followed and favourited so far!

Disclaimer: I do not own Merlin.

She has decided that they will lie in this morning, due to their night time disturbance. Merlin is still fast asleep, his chin rested on the top of her head and his arms wrapped around her almost possessively.

Bored, her hands come up to the waistband of his pyjama trousers and up under his t-shirt. She revels in the contact of her cooler hands and his warmer stomach, stroking the slight outline of muscles with her fingertip. She scowls to herself about how much of a pain in the backside the next three months were going to be. Then, with a smirk, she remembers the possibility of Merlin becoming even more toned, if he got that job with all that heavy machinery at the vehicle factory. She presses her palms against the heated flesh. Maybe they could have some light fun in between waiting.

"Morgana, what are you doing?" Merlin whispers hotly into her ear, sending chills down her spine.

She shudders and snatches her hands away.

"Sorry."

"Don't be." He takes her hands and returns them to their previous spot. She smiles as her fingers brush against his skin again. "What were you thinking about?"

"When?"

"Just now. You were frowning and then you smirked. What were you thinking about?" He moves back a little, to see her properly.

Morgana sends him a devious smile. "You."

Merlin raises his eyebrows. "Oh? Should I be worried?"

"I don't think so. I was just thinking about my plans for you once these horrible three months are over," she says casually, stroking over his ribs.

His eyes nearly bulge out of their sockets. "Right, yes." He clears his throat. "And do your plans involve my stomach?"

"Hmm, no. A little bit lower down, I think," she says, her hands coming down to rest on his thighs and gently squeeze.

"Morgana!" He chokes out, blushing and pushing her hands away. "Stop it! We're not allowed to!"

She grins wickedly at him. "Fine, if you insist."

"I, um, I do. I do insist, actually. Definitely."

Morgana sits up suddenly and smacks him lightly across the chest. "You still haven't told me who you were talking to last night!"

"I haven't exactly had much of a chance! Since I've woken up, all you've done is tried to seduce me!"

"Believe me, Merlin, if I had been trying to seduce you, we would be doing other things rather than talking right now."

"Anyway... I was talking to my mother," he explains.

"She came round to the house? Oh God, she didn't see me asleep on the stairs, did she?" Her cheeks redden, this new idea of Merlin's mother finding her asleep after trying to eavesdrop on their private conversation terrified her.

"No! No, don't worry. She didn't come round here," Merlin reassures her.

"Well, then how were you talking to her? And why at 4:30 in the morning?"

He sits up next to her, pulling the duvet up to their waists. "We were talking on Skype and she's living in Australia at the moment, that's why I had to get up so early to talk to her."

Morgana stares at him and then bursts out laughing, thinking she had never been so stupid in her entire life.

Merlin watches her uncertainly. "What? What is it? Why are you laughing?"

"Because- I thought that- and you were- basically, I thought you were talking to yourself!" Morgana manages in between laughter.

"Ohhhh," Merlin drags out and then starts chuckling, too. "I had headphones in, so I didn't wake you."

"I feel so stupid now," she admits.

"Don't, honestly. I don't think she would've minded seeing you asleep anyway. You look adorable."

She sticks her tongue out at him. "Why is she living in Australia, anyway?"

Merlin shrugs. "Work. After I left College, she got offered this great job out there. At first she didn't want to go, but I managed to convince her, said it would be good for her. She left me the house and Aithusa, too."

"She sounds nice," Morgana muses.

"I think you'd get on well. Which is a good thing because she'll be staying with us soon."

"Really? When?"

"A few days. You don't mind do you?" Merlin asks quietly.

"Why do you need my permission to see your mother?" Morgana exclaims. "It's your house!"

He breathes a sigh of relief and smiles at her. "Good, that's good. She can't wait to meet you."

"Can I talk to her? Before she stays with us? So I can get to know her a bit?" She asks excitedly.

Merlin nods. "We can try and get in touch tonight."


It is midnight now, and they are curled up on the sofa with blankets wrapped around their legs.

"How much longer do we have to wait?" Morgana glares impatiently at the laptop screen on Merlin's lap.

"Not long."

"I still don't know why we couldn't have done this upstairs. It would've been much more comfortable," she points out.

"Because you would've distracted me."

"What on Earth do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I mean."

She sighs and leans her head against his shoulder. They had been waiting for ages now. Well, maybe 20 minutes. But that was a long time just sitting in front of a computer and waiting for Hunith to reply to the message Merlin had sent her earlier.

Hunith. It was a nice name, if a little different. It sounded a bit like honey. Hun-ith. Hunith. She'd said it too many times in her head now, it sounded weird.

Ping!

She sits up straighter. "What was that?"

"I think it means she's online," Merlin says with a frown.

"Are we going on web-cam?"

"Yes. Do you want to?"

She tugs at her extremely short pyjamas trousers. "Yeah."

Merlin looks at her clothing choices, a little longer than was necessary, and shakes his head, smirking. "I thought so."

"Are we going to talk to her now?"

"You have the patience of a child, you know that?" He says as he clicks on the call button.

"Does your Mum have a web-cam?"

"Yes, but I don't think she knows how to use it properly. She keeps messing around with it and it's stuck on this black and white effect," Merlin says.

"Are we talking to your Dad as well?"

"No, we- Here she is! Finally!" He says brightly as a woman appears on the screen.

"Merlin?" Hunith shouts at the camera. "Can you hear me?" She pokes the camera lens. "Is this silly thing working?"

"If you take your finger away from the camera, then yes, it is working," Merlin says back.

"Alright, then." She pushes a pair of glasses higher up her nose and takes her hand away from the camera, so that Morgana could see her properly.

She was a very pretty woman. Lighter hair than Merlin's, a darker skin tone, probably down to the fact that she was living in Australia. She had a kind face, like Merlin. Morgana was almost tempted to look back and forth between mother and son, noting down the similarities and differences.

"Is that Morgana?"

"Hello," Morgana says awkwardly, waving slightly.

Hunith squints. "Hang on! I'm wearing the wrong glasses! Back in a mo!" She says and then dashes off.

"I swear she had about six different pairs," Merlin tells her. "What she really needs is a pair of glasses just for finding her glasses."

"I heard that," Hunith calls back in a sing-song voice and then reappears wearing a red pair of glasses. Well, Morgana thought they would be red – if the camera wasn't in black and white.

"Are you ready now?" Merlin asks.

"Yes, all the better for seeing you with!" She replies and Morgana laughs at the child-like joke. Hunith turns her attentions to her, as if studying her. Morgana shift uncomfortably under her gaze. "Oh, Morgana, don't look so worried! I'm not going to bite your head off!"

Morgana relaxes, but only by a small amount. "So, um, how long have you been living abroad?"

"Oh, four years I think. Well, Merlin was right about you," she says, changing the subject so quickly that Morgana hadn't even realised what Hunith had said.

"I'm sorry?"

"Merlin. He's been telling me all about you," Hunith admits.

Morgana turns to Merlin to find him blushing considerably. "Oh, really? What's he been saying about me, then? Probably all bad things."

"Oh, he's told me everything-"

"Everything?" Morgana freezes and looks at Merlin again. "Even about the pregnancy thing?" She asks him quietly. He shakes his head at her and smiles.

"Yes, everything. About the ice-skating and the snowball fight and how you blew up the micro-wave. He was talking to me for 20 minutes the other night about how beautiful your eyes were," Hunith says with knowing smile, enjoying watching her son go an even deeper shade of red.

"That's very interesting. He never says those kind of things to my face," Morgana says smugly. "Do you Merlin?"

He clears his throat, embarrassed, and looks around the room. "I don't know what you mean. I'm always complimenting you. What was it I said the other day? Something about 'angelic features', if my memory serves me well."

"Hmm, yes and I can also remember you saying something about me being fat not so long ago."

"Excuse me! All I said was something about 'having a good Christmas'. That implies nothing about weight."

"You were carrying me at the time!"

Hunith arches an eyebrow at them. "Carrying you, was he?"

Now it was Morgana's turn to become embarrassed. "Yes, but I was-"

"Basically," Merlin begins loudly. "She was trying to listen in on our conver-"

Morgana claps a hand to his mouth to shut him up. "I wasn't, I swear! I just heard Merlin and then-"

"And then she fell asleep on the-"

"No I didn't!" Morgana yells at him. "You promised not to tell her!"

Hunith smiles broadly at their banter, laughing quietly when Merlin attacks Morgana's ribs with his finger, tickling her like there was no tomorrow. He tells her to be quiet when she starts screaming for him to stop, saying that someone called Gwen really would think he was an axe-murderer. They finally stop, Morgana curled up in a ball at the end of the sofa to protect herself and Merlin trying to regain his breath.

"Listen, Merlin. I have to go now but I'm flying over soon, so we can talk then."

"Okay. Bye, Mum."

"Bye, Hunith," Morgana groans, still curled up.

"See you soon," Hunith says and then disconnects her web-cam.

"Ow," Morgana complains suddenly.

"What?"

"You made my stomach hurt."

"Why is it my fault?" Merlin defends himself.

"Because you were the one tickling me, and now it hurts," she says her voice muffled as she hold her knees to her chest.

"I'm so sorry," Merlin apologizes, pulling her over to him and massaging her stomach gently.

"I think you'll have to kiss it better," Morgana advises him and without much persuasion he does as she asks, leaning down and pressing his lips against the fabric that covered her belly.

"Better?"

She nods sleepily and and buries her face into his shoulder. "Can we sleep down here tonight?"

He reaches down and picks up the blanket that had been thrown to the floor, pulling it over their shoulders. He turns out the small lamp and kisses her forehead. "Night, Morgana."

I feel like I should write something about this chapter but I can't at the moment because I just finished watching the new Doctor Who and najfbaszsbfakj, amazing.

Okay, feels aside, the Merlin/Morgana at the start was fun to write, hehe, and I hope it was written okay (?) and do you think the Hunith bit was OOC? I hope not.

Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter and please leave me a review! It makes me write faster!

Thank you for reading!

Next Chapter: Hunith arrives and tells Morgana that she knows her and Merlin's 'secret'. (Probably. I might change my mind.)