A/N: I got so engrossed in writing my original fantasy work that I forgot I needed to update this. Oopsie.

"Rise and shine!" Merlin called.

Arthur groaned. He was immobilized and stuck in bed for weeks. Did he have to get up the same as before? This was just cruel.

"I know, but it's late and I have breakfast."

Arthur dragged his eyes open. Merlin carried one heavily laden tray and another floated next to him. That was much more food than normal.

"The cook saw how skinny you were when we got back," Merlin said. He set the trays down in front of Arthur.

Arthur pushed himself up and dug into his breakfast without a word. He felt strange seeing Merlin using magic in front of him and them not being in danger. All the lies Merlin had told him over the years flooded to his mind.

He forced himself to take a deep breath. Merlin had told him a lot of what he'd done down in that dungeon and apologized for the lies, especially with how casual they'd become. It hurt that he'd lied, but if he didn't want to lose Merlin's friendship, he'd have to find a way to move past it. And he couldn't lose their friendship.

"We need to talk about this, don't we?" Merlin sat down in the chair Gwen had left by his bedside. "It makes you uncomfortable."

Arthur's hands shook as he lifted a roll. "Of course it does, Merlin. I was five when I saw magic for the first time, and it was someone trying to kill me because they hated my father. They almost succeeded. I'll move past it, but it'll take time. It'll take time to trust you again. But you're my friend, and I'm not going to turn you in or end our friendship just because I'm uncomfortable. Just give me time."

"Sorry," Merlin said.

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Don't apologize." He sighed, his chest still weighed down. "I promise you that when I am king, things will be different."

Merlin smiled sunnily. "Here, I should…I mean, you haven't really seen much of my magic. Can I show you more?"

Arthur nodded. "Just don't make a mess."

Merlin whispered strange words. A dragon made of sparks materialized above Arthur's bed.

The door opened. Arthur jumped. "Don't worry, it was me," he called without thinking.

Merlin froze. The dragon disappeared.

Gaius walked in the room. His mouth dropped open. He shuffled forward. "I can explain, sire, it's all my fault, I taught him—"

"It's all right," Arthur said. "I already know. He told me in the dungeons. We wouldn't have been able to escape if not for him."

Gaius wilted, pressing a hand to his chest. "And you have accepted it?"

Arthur nodded. "Merlin need fear nothing from me."

"You were going to claim my magic as your own if someone came in?" Merlin asked.

"Well, I'm far less likely to be immediately arrested and executed than you are," Arthur said. "And in my father's eyes, knowing about magic and not reporting it is just as bad as performing it, so I might as well, since I'm just as guilty anyway."

"Thank you," Merlin said.

Arthur ignored him. This was far too much emotion for him. If he kept going, he might say something mushy like "I'm glad to have you as my friend," or do something stupid, like hug Merlin or cry.

"I just thought I'd bring you pain medicine." Gaius held out a small bottle.

Arthur nodded and took it. "We didn't mean to scare you."

"It's all right," Gaius said. "I've been waiting for this day for ages. I'm just sorry it had to come quite like this." He patted Arthur's shoulder. "I'll leave you boys alone to talk about this. Merlin, keep an eye on him, and you'll both need bandage changes in the afternoon. You don't want those wrists of yours to scar."

"All right, I'll remember," Merlin said.

"I'm not a child, I don't need looking after," Arthur grumbled.

"I should probably figure out where Gwaine disappeared to," Gaius said.

Arthur snorted, uncorking the bottle. "He's in the tavern. I'm not paying for his tab this time."

"Get some rest," Gaius said. "Don't overindulge with breakfast. Since you've been so starved, if you eat too much or too fast, you'll get sick."

"I'll make sure," Arthur said. "When you do see Gwaine, tell him I expect him to be at training for prospective knights as soon as I can walk down to the fields." He wasn't letting such a good fighter slip through his fingers again.

Gaius nodded and shuffled out.

Arthur downed the bottle before digging into his breakfast. "Lock the doors before you start up again, Merlin."


Sometime in the middle of the morning, Merlin disappeared to clean some of Arthur's stuff up and Guinevere came with more mending and several books from Geoffrey's private stash for Arthur to read.

About lunchtime, the door creaked open and Morgana stepped in. She drew back. "You look terrible."

"Hello to you too." Arthur put his book down. Geoffrey had a collection of Greek plays and had selected a few for Arthur when Gwen asked him for reading material.

"Oedipus Rex?" Morgana read the title of his book.

"Be careful who you marry," Arthur said.

Morgana walked to the side of his bed. Her hands curled into fists. "Who did this to you?"

"A bunch of people that hate nobility," Arthur said. "They wanted to teach me a lesson before I became king." His hands shook. He buried them under his blankets. Something occurred to him. "It's odd. Seems like every time something bad would happen to me, you'd have a nightmare and I'd be more on edge. But it didn't happen this time."

Morgana grabbed her bare wrist. "Not that it ever seemed to matter to you," she spat out. "You thought they were just dreams."

Arthur shrugged. "It never mattered whether or not they were real because the threat to others was too great. My life wasn't important. This was just a hunting trip." He wasn't sure why they were suddenly fighting over her nightmares. "But you didn't have any nightmares before this, so it doesn't matter."

Morgana glanced away. "I'm glad you're all right."

Arthur smiled. "Glad to be back."

"Will you be able to heal? Fully?" Morgana asked.

Arthur nodded. "Eventually." Once he could shake the phantom crawl of whips and canes on his back, the itching expectation that Boar or Lethervale would storm around the corner, the urge to get up and finish the chores Merlin and Guinevere worked on in his room. Once he could rip "Master" off his tongue and accept the title "your highness" again. "I missed you," he said, surprising himself again. "I kept thinking if it had been you, you would have bawled them out and stormed off, found a way that they would have let you go."

Morgana smiled in a way she hadn't since before she had been kidnapped for a year. "I missed you too."

A/N: Enter Morgana! And the start of my slightly OOC redemption of her. I grew up on Magic Tree House, what can I say? And on a retelling of the legends where Morgause was the big bad and Morgana was good, so I never really encountered evil Morgana until I was a teenager. And in the earliest legends, Morgan le Fay was NOT evil, so I feel justified in redeeming her. I feel like "The Crystal Cave" was the point of no return where she decided she wanted to kill Arthur, so that's why this fic is set before that (but after "Gwaine", because Gwaine).

In this case, Morgana feels slightly bad, because she did in fact get a vision of Arthur being captured before it happened, but chose not to bring it up.