A/N: I'm sorry this is taking so long. This chapter may seem a little slow, and I'm sorry. I've got three other stories for some insane reason . . . and I'm trying to keep updating those as well. So . . . I hope you enjoy the chapter enough to get you through until I can update again. Pre-Calc sucks.

This chapter is dedicated to Lynxlover , and don't worry. If I didn't like this kind of story, I wouldn't be writing one. But then again, what does that say about me? Ah well, I'm really glad you like it!

P.S. I just want to thank all of you for sticking with me. One of my other stories has been . . . not getting a very positive response, and I thank all of you for not flaming me and telling me what you like about the story, and still helping me get better without making me feel bad. This fandom is amazing, and I'm really REALLY grateful to have such a lovely readership. So R&R, Enjoy the chapter, and have a LOVELY day. :)

LANCELOT POV

It was a long night. Lancelot stayed up with Merlin, encouraging Gaius to get some sleep when the older man started moving slower. Gaius had given him a fresh bowl of cold water and a cloth, along with instructions to wake him if Merlin got much worse. Which, if he was honest with himself, Lancelot didn't see as possible. Merlin's fever had only risen since the others had left, the boy was drenched in sweat, his chest barely rising. The bandages had been changed, and the new dressings were slowly becoming stained with red. His face flushed red with fever, except where it was almost white from blood loss.

Lancelot quietly sponged Merlin's brow, trying to cool him down. The warlock whimpered quietly, and Lancelot stopped for a moment, hoping for the eyes to open, for just a sliver of blue surrounded by the red eyelids. But nothing happened, and Lancelot re-soaked the cloth, wrung it out, and placed it again on Merlin's sweaty forehead. Taking another cold, wet cloth, Lancelot dabbed along his friend's neck. Lancelot could feel the heat of the skin through the cloth, the fever rising a little more. A little too much.

Merlin began gasping, as though he couldn't get enough air, and Lancelot quickly shook Gaius awake. The old physician hurried to his ward's side, instructing Lancelot to roll him onto his side. Gaius checked Merlin's pulse, frowning as he pressed fingers to the boy's neck. Lancelot felt fear flow through him, filling him and obscuring his vision.

"What's wrong?" He choked out once he could talk.

"His magic should be healing him," Gaius said, moving quickly to the table still covered in various potion ingredients. "But it isn't."

"Meaning?" Lancelot asked, sitting back down on the chair by the patient bed.

"Another side effect of the fear that permeates Merlin's life," Gaius said sadly. "When he first came to Camelot, he could use magic instinctually. The fear of discovery made Merlin gather a lot more control of his powers. He keeps a tight lid on his magic, and has lost much of his instinctual power."

"So his magic won't heal him?" Lancelot asked, watching as Gaius flitted around the table, gathering things that . . . Lancelot was pretty sure he didn't want to know.

"It will heal him," Gaius said absently. "But we need to unlock it. The last time Merlin was really able to do magic like this while . . . unconscious, was when he was poisoned, before you came. Arthur was in trouble, and Merlin's magic responds to that."

"To Arthur being in trouble."

"Arthur is his destiny," Gaius said in response to the incredulity in the knight's voice. "The reason Merlin has magic at all. The magic was able to break the tight hold he had on it, to help Arthur. Gwen almost noticed."

Lancelot nodded, turning back to Merlin, whose breathing had eased slightly with the transition to his side. "Why didn't you do this before now?" he asked, going back to his job of sponging the sweaty skin.

"I'm not sure how his magic will react," Gaius said quietly, crushing some herbs in a small stone bowl. "This is a kind of last resort. Either his magic will heal him, or it will be too much for him to handle." Lancelot heard what Gaius was not saying. Either the magic will save Merlin, or it will kill him.

"Is there nothing else we can do?"

Gaius shook his head. "There's no time for other things, and if Merlin has lost the will to live, he's not going to be helping us. We have to encourage his magic to help him."

The half-moon outside the window bathed the windowsill in a mystical light, but the candles that had been lit inside the room chased it away, kept the cold light outside. For a moment though, as a breeze came from the open window and made the candles flicker, the moon shone brighter across the room. Merlin's face was cast into sharp relief, his cheekbones suddenly sharper and his eyes sunken. He looked almost ghostly, as though he had died and come back. Lancelot shook that thought from his head. His mind was slow with sleep deprivation and the stress of the previous day, and it was making him see things. That was all. It was not some crazy premonition.

Gaius came over, stirring a mixture in the small stone bowl as the breeze died down. The physician directed Lancelot to get behind Merlin, and he did so, propping Merlin up in front of his so that his friend's head fell back against his muscular shoulder. Gaius came forward with the mixture, putting it to the feverish boy's lips and tilting it to poor it into his ward's mouth. Gaius gently massaged Merlin's throat with one hand to get the boy to swallow, breathing a sigh of relief as the potion went down.

"This could take a while to take effect," Gaius said quietly, moving to clean the table, hands shaking with delayed stress.

Lancelot stayed put for a while, feeling Merlin's fever through both their shirts. He grabbed a cloth, sponging the back of Merlin's neck, cold drops chasing the sweat down his friend's neck and under the collar of his roughly woven shirt. Exhaustion washed over Lancelot, and the knight carefully extricated himself from behind the servant. Lowering Merlin slowly back down to the mattress, Lancelot almost missed the first spark. It was a bright white-blue, and skittered across the bandages before sinking into a sliver of visible pale skin.

"Gaius," Lancelot said, and the elder man turned back towards the patient's bed. "It's working."

Gaius watched with a critical eye as a few more sparks skittered past the bandages. "We need to remove the bandages," Gaius said. "The magic needs to be able to reach his bare skin." Quickly, Lancelot helped the physician undo the strips of cloth from around Merlin's wrists. The wounds were still leaking beads of bright red blood, and Lancelot had to look away as the word MONSTER was once again bared to the air, feeling the need to vomit, or punch something. Hard.

The sparks came more freely now, streaming from pale, slender fingers and sinking into the ribbons of skin, stitching them together. The skin was regenerating as Gaius and Lancelot watched with baited breath. It would scar, and Lancelot knew that if he went to training the next day, he'd be rather hard on the poor knight that went against him at the thought of the word 'MONSTER' permanently carved into his friend's arm.

But all of that was pushed to the back of his mind about an hour later as the sun began to rise, and Merlin's chest was still rising and falling. It was morning, and Merlin was still alive.

A/N: The reviews you leave make me smile, and make me look forward to updating a chapter for this story, so I'll say it again, THANK-YOU!