"I didn't tell you about the letter because I didn't want you to worry before you went away on the course," Morgana starts to explain after Merlin had finally stopped spewing out his anxieties about what might have happened.

"But it was important! Arthur's missing! Have you had a letter back from them yet? Do you know anything? Oh God." Why didn't she tell him before he left? He would've stayed and helped her get through it, to get answers. She was going through enough of a tough time already. He goes to jump up from the bed and start pacing again, but Morgana stops him.

"No, Merlin, he's okay. Your Mum said the letter was forged or faked or something. Arthur's fine," she replies quickly, not wanting to worry him any further on that matter.

"Forged!? Do you know who did it? Do you want me to punch them? Do you want me to hurt them for you?" He asks calmly, flexing his fingers out and clenching them into a tight fist.

"No, it's okay. I'd rather you just stayed here. You've been gone for the weekend and I've only had you back for five minutes. Please, don't go anywhere," she takes hold of one of his closed hands and weaves their fingers together, letting their joined hands rest on the mattress. He gives a small smile at the gesture but then his face crumples into a frown.

"Who was it?"

"Sometimes it's best not to know and you'll just get angry, so-"

"But I want to know," Merlin insists quietly. He doesn't sound particularly angry or like he wants to blow someone's head off. It was usually Arthur who got like that.

"Alvarr and someone else. I don't know who," she says wearily.

"I see," Merlin responds shortly. "Do you want me to punch him?"

"No. But thanks for the offer."

"And then what happened? Have you talked to him? You have, haven't you?" He groans in frustration as he answers his own question with another.

"Why is that such a bad idea? I wanted answers and I intended to get them," Morgana says stubbornly.

"Yeah, but all he's ever done is hurt you, mentally and physically-" he stops abruptly, mid-sentence and moves like lightning off of the bed to kneel in front of her. He takes hold of her left wrist, carefully, and extends her arm, turning it slightly.

"Merlin..." she sighs as he does the same to her other arm, examining it closely.

"I know... just checking," he murmurs quietly and lets go of her wrist, sitting back on his heels. "Is that what this is all about? Did he hurt you?"

"No, but he tried to," Morgana says slowly, threading her hands through his dark hair and leaning forwards, her chin resting on top of his head. He shifts forwards on his knees and pulls her into an embrace, the ones she had missed over the weekend, his face buried into her shoulder, breathing in the scent of soap and something else he couldn't name.

"Tried to?" He asks, his voice muffled.

"Yes, Merlin, he tried to."

"But it didn't work? You got away?"

"With help."

"Who from?"

"Your Mum. And Morgause. She lives next door to Alvarr and she kicked the back door down. And I had help from a saucepan," she adds with a faint smile.

"A saucepan?" Merlin pulls back and raises an eyebrow.

"Hunith hit Alvarr around the head with it. Knocked him unconscious," she feels like laughing. Despite the seriousness of the conversation, the image of Hunith swinging a saucepan high above her head and screaming a string of swear words was still pretty surreal.

"I always knew my Mum was the female version of Bruce Willis," Merlin comments.

"Yes, I can picture that. Hunith with a flame thrower or firing machine guns at guys with sunglasses and black suits," Morgana waves her arms around behind him, imitating an explosion.

"It'll be like the Matrix. She'll be dodging bullets next and they'll be signing her up for the secret service. They'll call her 003½ because of her height," Merlin elaborates, a grin on his face.

"I've been expecting you, Hunith Emrys," Morgana adds in a sinister voice and they both laugh. "If she wore that fake, black moustache of yours and a sombrero, we could disguise her as someone called Enrique."

"Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It's my mother!" Merlin finishes off and they both go into fits of laughter. "Maybe it's getting a bit far-fetched now."

"I don't think it is. If we put her hair up high in a ponytail, put some dark red lipstick on her and got her to wear black leather, she'd be a film star. She'd have massive sex appeal," Morgana promises and Merlin carries on laughing.

"Mum in black leather, dear God. I think you'd look great in leather. But you look good in anything. Especially bath towels. And nothing," he says cheekily and she knees him lightly in the shoulder.

"Yeah, well. We have about one month and 3 weeks left until I start taking my clothes off for you," she smirks into his hair and he huffs air at her neck.

"We got distracted," Merlin realises, pressing warm kisses from her shoulder to her jawbone. She grumbles something incoherent about not wanting to talk about it. He ignores the mumbled complaint. "What was he trying to do to you? It must have been pretty serious if Morgause kicked the door down and my Mum hit Alvarr around the head with a saucepan."

Morgana sighs deeply and runs her fingers through his hair.

"Are you worried about it? Are you scared to tell me?"

"I'm not worried, I just don't want to tell you because it will upset you. And I don't want that," she answers quietly, trying not to make eye contact.

"Please?" Merlin requests. "I don't want us to have any secrets."

"It's not a secret, I'm just choosing not to tell you."

"You are probably the most stubborn woman I have ever met," Merlin admits.

"Uther says I get that from him because I lived with him for such a long time," she scowls at the thought of it. "I don't believe him, though. I like to think that I take after my parents."

"Do you have any photos of them?"

"A few. Why?"

"Just interested, that's all. I would have liked to have been able to meet them," he ponders, moving from his kneeling position to sit on the bed again and pulling her into a sideways hug. "Do you think they would've... approved?" He asks anxiously.

"Definitely. I remember my father said to me once, I was only 12, he said 'If they make you happy and you're better off with them than without them, stay with them,'" Morgana quotes, looking a bit happier at the memory.

"That's good," he pats her knee and stands. "I'm just going to get my suitcase and bring it up, okay?"

"Okay." She pulls him down for what was supposed to be a quick, fleeting kiss, but given the fact that this was their first since Merlin had left on Friday, it turns into a longer, more passionate one. "I'm going to get ready for bed."

"Tired?"

"It's been a long weekend."

"I'll be back up in a minute," he promises, tucking a dark strand if hair behind her ear, which instantly falls back into its earlier place, before he heads downstairs to get his small amount of luggage.

He stops off in the living room on the way, poking his head around the door to see Hunith sat up reading a peculiar looking book.

"Mum?" He calls quietly. She doesn't look up. "Mum?" He asks again, louder this time.

He sees her frown at the sound of his voice and she turns towards the noise. Mother and son make eye contact across the room and Hunith blushes, snapping the book shut and throwing it to the floor.

"Hey," she greets him, slightly out of breath.

"What are you doing?" Merlin inquires, walking into the room with a suspicious look on his face.

"Reading," she sighs. She points to the book on the floor. "Morgana let me borrow it. I wanted to know what it was about and why everyone was reading it, but she wouldn't tell me. I'm regretting reading it now."

"Oh dear," Merlin picks up the book from the carpet and immediately recognises the infamous cover. "Fifty Shades of Grey. Wow. I didn't know this was you're kind of book, Mum."

Hunith gives him a stern glare over the top of her reading glasses and snatches the book back. "You know full well it's not my kind of book and I didn't think it was Morgana's kind of book either."

"You looked pretty engrossed to me. "

Hunith swats him with the paperback when he sits down next to her on the sofa. "What do want, anyway? Other than to disturb my curious reading."

"I was wondering, do you know what happened to Morgana on Saturday? She won't tell me what Alvarr tried to do to her and I'm worried. Was it really bad?"

"It's Morgana's choice whether she wants you to know or not. And if she doesn't want to tell you, then I'm not going to interfere," Hunith folds her arms across her chest. "Did she say why she didn't want to tell you?"

"She said it would upset me."

"It would. Remember what you were like when Dad died? I don't want you to feel like that again," Hunith says gently, a troubled look coming over her features.

"It's not like that now. It's different. I'm different. Please, Mum. I can handle it," Merlin pleads with her. Why was no one telling him what had happened? He'd go and find this Morgause woman if that's what it would take. He just wanted to look after Morgana and he couldn't do that if she didn't tell him what the problem was. He wishes everything would just slow down. Too much was happening far too quickly and he didn't like it.

Firstly, he'd met a wonderful woman who, despite her many flaws in domestic like cooking and keeping in touch with friends and family, was a great girlfriend for him. Even though they argued about stupid things and she tried not to cry at trashy films, probably an influence from Gwen, though he dared not to say it, it was a good relationship. (Well, he thought it was. He hadn't really been in any relationships before so he couldn't exactly speak from experience.)

Since then, she had suffered a miscarriage, one they had barely talked about for more than two minutes and brushed it off like nothing. That was what he wanted to talk about the most; how she really felt about it and not what she'd told him in the hospital before the scan. He was pretty sure she had been lying when she had said that, about being relieved because she wouldn't have to give birth to a child she didn't want. Of course, his own mind had secretly been put at ease by this, but mainly because he felt it wasn't fair. Why, if Alvarr was such a horrible person to Morgana, was he allowed to have a child with her? All Merlin had ever done was be kind to her, well, they had ups and downs, and try to help her and all he got was the remaining disease that Alvarr left behind him.

He knew it sounded petulant and childish, especially in his own mind, but it wasn't right that Alvarr could sell drugs, abuse women, get drunk or whatever else he did in his spare time and still create life with a woman who probably hated him by now. No, she did hate him. That was one thing he could be completely confident about. Morgana hated Alvarr. No exceptions.

Another thing that was beginning to eat away at him was how much, yet how little he knew about Morgana and she knew about him. For example, he knew that her mother had died battling cancer when Morgana was only six years old, yet he didn't know what her favourite colour was, or her favourite food. He also knew that, when she was living with Uther - a man he hadn't even spoken to properly yet - her and Arthur had exploded their pet mouse, Squeaky Spice, in the microwave. But he didn't know where she grew up, what she wanted to be, whether she really was happy right now.

If she wasn't happy, then she was certainly a very good actress. Throughout the miscarriage, abuse and God knows what else, the brave face she was putting on seemed to be turning into a mask she couldn't take off. He wishes she would, just so she could be herself again, whoever that was. The old Morgana. The one before Alvarr who didn't flinch away from loud noises or occasionally go off into a world of her own that she had to be snapped out of.

"I agree that you're different. You've changed so much since then but I don't want to risk your happiness," Hunith says cautiously, careful of the wording.

"How can I be happy or content not knowing what's happened to Morgana? Don't you think I have a right to know?" He feels so desperate to find out that he'd do anything, even go round to Alvarr's house to ask him. And punch him.

"My opinion, and this is only my opinion, Merlin, is that you should know but it's Morgana's decision not mine," Hunith states her view firmly, something she'd always done and he admired her for it.

"So, if you won't tell me and neither will Morgana, if it's some big secret between the two of you, am I supposed to just let it go?" He asks, his frustration starts to dissipate and now he just feels deflated.

"Yes, Merlin. I'm sorry, but if Morgana's not telling you, neither am I," Hunith concludes. "Now, go back upstairs and be with Morgana. She's probably wondering where you are."

Merlin does as she says, pulling her into a quick hug before leaving the room and picking up his suitcase, carrying it upstairs and putting it down outside the bedroom with a rather loud thud. He winces as the noise ripples through the otherwise silent house. He heads into the bedroom; the light is turned off and Morgana is already under the covers, the only thing he can make out clearly is her dark hair splayed out across the white pillows. It is a stark contrast between colours, one that makes him smile. He doesn't know why.

"Are you actually going to come to bed or are you going to stand there all night watching me?" Morgana calls to him, sitting up on her elbows and raising an eyebrow he can't see.

"The latter," Merlin decides. "But I can't really watch you in the dark. I need to turn the light on," he flicks the switch on the wall and the room illuminates into unnatural, yellow light. Morgana groans and covers her eyes with her arm, flopping back on the mattress. "I have to get dressed, sorry."

"You were gone for ages," she notes, turning on her side to get away from the light while he undresses into a plain black t-shirt and grey sleeping trousers.

"I was talking with my mum," he answers her unasked question and slips under the duvet to join her, wrapping an arm around her stomach to pull her closer to him. He knows she likes this position; her back pressed against his chest and their legs tangled together.

"Did she tell you what happened?"

"No. She refused to."

"Oh," she says, surprised by this. "I thought she would."

"Well, she didn't. Night, Morgana," he pulls the duvet up and settles in sleep before Morgana speaks once more.

"Merlin, you've left the light on."

Whee, another one done. I have up to about Chapter 31 planned, now I just have to write and type.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and feel free to leave me a review! Thank you all for reading and leaving me reviews – it means a lot! :)