A/N: Sorry for taking so long to update! I got caught up in starting two other Mergana one shots and then got stuck on all of them. Hopefully the next update will come faster and the other one shots will follow shortly thereafter. Thank you for your patience and for reading! :D

"Morgana? What are you doing?" Merlin asks, leaning against the doorframe between the bathroom and the only room of studio.

Morgana had asked to go to his flat after dinner, neither wanting to part ways just yet, and Merlin had readily agreed, reluctantly yet eagerly leading her back to the area near Monmouth. She'd never been to any of his flats, here or years ago, and for all the things that have changed, he was worried she would look at him differently because of it.

"They say you should always see a man's books before you start sleeping with him," she says, without looking away from the bookshelf in front of her. Every spare inch of his walls are covered in books, and based on where she's standing by his desk, he assumes she'd scanned through most of them as he'd changed for the night.

Merlin scoffs. "You know what I read."

"Yes, but I need to make sure you don't have any Hemingway or Bukowski novels hidden anywhere." She narrows her eyes in the middle of her joke. "You don't, do you?"

Merlin mocks a look of horror. "I am deeply offended that you would think such a thing of me, Morgana. Deeply offended."

"Well you never know with all the scruff you have going."

Merlin frowns, pushing away from the wall and moving to her side. "You don't like my scruff?"

Morgana grins. "I think it looks ridiculously sexy, though mind you," she says, trailing off to loop her arms around his neck and brush against his lips before leaning in closer to his ear, "certain things might feel a little more pleasant with a little less of it."

"Like?"

"Oh, I don't know." She smoothes her hands down his shoulders and places her palms flat against his chest. "That gorgeous thing you did with your mouth this morning."

Merlin feels the blood rushing to his face. "Did I hurt you?"

"Did it sound like you were hurting me?" she asks, eyebrow and lip curving upwards.

"No," he replies hoarsely. "But you would like it better without?"

Morgana cocks her head to the side and smirks.

Merlin nods and steps back towards the bathroom.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to shave it off?"

"Now?!"

"Would you rather I waited until morning?"

"You don't have to at all, you know."

He watches the amusement flutter across her face and grins. "Oh, yes I do."

She follows him, watching as he gets out his razor and slowly lathers his face. He has the blade to his cheek when she speaks.

"Let me?"

He pauses and meets her eyes in the mirror. They're soft yet determined, and his hand quivers at the tenderness behind them. He holds out the razor, and she steps over and gently takes it from his hands.

"Just don't cut me."

She smirks and firmly holds onto his chin. "You'll just have to trust me."

"You know," Morgana begins, pausing between words as she kisses her way up Merlin's chest before curling into his side and resting her head on his shoulder. "This was a much nicer way to spend the night than I had planned."

"I thought you had planned to spend the night with me."

"I meant before you came over and seduced me last night. I was planning to spend the weekend working."

"I seduced you?"

Morgana nods matter of factly against his chest. "It was your hair. And your smile. But mostly your hair. You have no idea what it does to me when it's messy."

Merlin laughs into her hair and presses a kiss to the top of her head. "I'll keep that in mind."

Morgana smiles and trails a hand along his ribs. They lie quietly for several moments until Morgana mumbles, "You have a tiny bed."

"I have a tiny flat."

"It suits you though."

"I'm not sure how I should take that?"

"No, I mean it has character," Morgana insists, rolling her eyes. "It feels very Merlin."

"Small, cramped, full of light?"

"Full of personality and knowledge and warmth. I'd much rather this than Arthur and Gwen's massive house."

"You would?"

"Mhmm."

Merlin presses another kiss to the side of her head and mumbles into her hair. "I missed you."

Morgana feels warmth spiralling through her and tightens her grip on his side. She doesn't echo his words, even though her heart screams out for her to do so. Instead, she burrows into him, sticking one leg between his, and allows herself to drift off to sleep as Merlin traces feather-light circles into her back.

Morgana wakes not to a nightmare but to hisses that cut through her subconscious plane, transforming her dreamscape into that of howling winter winds that lead her to a pair of glowing, yellow eyes at the end of a long, frozen tunnel. She starts to consciousness and yelps when her eyes flutter open to the same yellow lights.

Merlin jolts awake beside her, sitting up and reaching for his bedside lamp. "What is it? Are you okay?"

The lights flicker on and Morgana finds herself face to face with an enormous, grey cat. Its ears are flattened and as it begins to hiss at the room's sudden illumination, she can't help but laugh as her pulse slows back down.

"Kilgharrah," Merlin mutters, moving to chase the cat off the bed. "Did he bother you?"

"I think he was hissing at me as I slept? He startled me awake is all. You weren't joking when you said he was hostile."

"I'm sorry."

Morgana laughs. "It's fine." She squints at the clock on Merlin's desk, having taken out her contacts and left her glasses in her bag, and notes the fine ray of muted light coming in through the cracks in the curtains. "What time is it?"

"It's almost six," Merlin groans. "I actually need to get up. I have a first year tutorial at eight. You can stay and sleep, if you want."

"No, I'll get up, too. I want to go to Nimueh's lunchtime lecture again, and I need to go through some files first. I think I'll finally have some leading questions to ask her," she announces, grinning to herself.

"I thought you said your meeting with her on Friday was a dead end."

"It was, but I may have come across some things," she vaguely replies. She has no doubt Merlin will disapprove of her techniques, and she doesn't want to rock the unsteady boat until she knows what Nimueh is up to for sure.

"She's particularly cold with students, you know."

"I've noticed."

"Do you need me to play the staff card for you?"

Morgana grins. "I think I'll manage, but thank you. It's good to know I have an insider on my side."

Merlin snorts. "Is that what I am to you now?"

"Of course!" Morgana teases, rising up on her toes to peck him on the lips before skipping towards the bathroom. "Why else would I be sleeping with the university's up and coming star?"

Merlin shakes his head with an expression of mock disapproval on his face. "First the coffee, now this."

He still makes her coffee and has it ready when she pads into the kitchen minutes later, glasses perched on her nose and adorably still dressed in one of his pyjama tops.

"It smells lovely in here."

He spins around, coffee mug in hand and passes it over to her. "I didn't have any milk… or cocoa, but I thought…"

"You know I love coffee in every form. Thank you." She beams as she wraps her fingers around the cup and sips, closing her eyes.

Her hair mussed and her favourite thing in the world in her hands, he thinks she looks the happiest he's seen her all week. "You really do love coffee more than anything, don't you?"

Morgana nods before taking another sip.

Despite himself, Merlin feels a twinge of disappointment at her immediate agreement

until she grins at him and adds, "Just about."

Merlin swallows, grinning back at her, and turns around to pour himself a cup of his own.

"Aren't these the cups from the coffee shop?" Morgana asks, her voice suddenly softer than it had been.

"They are. Gaius didn't want them, and I was going off on my own, so…"

"Of course. I'm glad you still have them."

Merlin smiles, leaning against the counter as Morgana perches on the windowsill. "We need to talk…" Morgana's face begins to drop, and Merlin quickly goes on. "Before we both show up at the university and before anyone other than Arthur and Gwen finds out."

"Okay… Do you want to keep us secret?"

Morgana looks down, tapping her fingers along the cup, just as she used to do whenever she was uneasy.

"Before we decide that, I think we need to figure out what we're doing."

"I thought that was fairly obvious?" she asks.

"Is it?"

"Isn't it?"

Her voice is on edge, and Merlin sighs. "Morgana."

"Okay, then what do you want from this?"

"I want to move on."

Morgana blanches but then stands up and puts down her cup, eyes suddenly hardening. "Okay. Well, it's been a nice weekend."

"Morgana!"

"No, Merlin, it's fine."

"Would you listen to me? That isn't what I meant! I meant, together. I want us to move on together."

"Oh," Morgana breathes. "So you forgive me, then? For everything?"

Merlin swallows. He needs to be honest for this to work, for them to move forward. "I'm ready to forgive you, but I'm not… I'm not completely done hurting yet."

"But you're getting there?"

"I am."

"Okay."

"What do you want?"

"I want the same thing, but I can't… I won't if you still blame me."

Merlin shakes his head. "I don't. I'm still hurt by what happened, but I don't blame you…" He trails off, thinking how to best express the rest of his concerns. All he needs from her is honesty. Swallowing, he goes on, "But I do need to know that you'll be honest with me from here on out. I don't expect you to tell me everything, obviously, but if something concerns both of us or might end up concerning both of us, then I want you to come to me instead of trying to face everything on your own."

Morgana nods. "Fine, but the same goes for you."

"Fine."

"So we're together?"

"We are," Merlin confirms, beaming.

Morgana mirrors his expression, leaning back against the windowsill. "Do we tell people?"

"What do you want?"

"I say we don't hide it, but we keep it on a need to know basis for now."

Merlin nods. "I think that's good, and I think we should keep it off campus for now?"

Morgana pouts. "So we can't meet up between your classes or for lunch or …?"

"Well as long you don't jump me…"

Morgana snorts. "As if I ever would in public."

"Well I can't say I would never be tempted."

Morgana raises a single, arched eyebrow. "Then maybe you should be warning yourself."

"Maybe I should."

After promising to meet Merlin for a post-lecture lunch, Morgana kisses him goodbye and heads back to her flat. She takes her time walking, revelling in the crisp, autumn air and the feelings of joy that intermittently run through her. That Merlin's views align with her own and that he wants to be with her causes her to smile every few seconds, and she practically skips up the steps to her flat.

She does have much to work on with the documents she's lifted from Nimueh's files, not having been able to look at them since the library on Saturday, and she gets right to it after showering and changing into a fresh outfit. She browses through six documents without any luck, but on the seventh, she alights on the research proposal Nimueh had submitted to three different Druid institutions for funding.

She scans through until she comes across multiple references to alchemy and stops in disbelief.

"No."

She goes back and reads more carefully and huffs in disbelief, waking Aithusa from where he's perched on the table beside her laptop.

Merlin speeds through his tutorial, improvising far more than he usually does. He'd meant to revise his class plan the night before to fill in the gaps and come up with more examples to give his students, but he'd gotten distracted by Morgana and spent more time curled around her than immersed in his work. He smiles at the recollection, and giggles sound through the room.

He raises his brows and fixes the guilty culprits with a look he'd adopted from Gaius.

"Is something funny?"

One of the guilty students is a flirtatious first year who's showed up at his office hour more than once, and she turns red at his enquiry.

"No, Sir," says the young man sitting beside her. "You seem particularly happy this morning is all."

"That," Merlin improvises, "is because I've come up with more work for you all to do today."

Merlins sets them with a research exercise at random, smiling to himself as he writes out page numbers on the board.

Morgana arrives at Monmouth just in time for Nimueh's lecture, slipping into a seat near the front moments before she takes to the podium and begins her talk.

Nimueh makes no references to her discoveries. Though it's the norm for Monmouth professors to use their lecture courses to experiment with their research interests and test out new material, Morgana isn't particularly surprised.

She approaches her after the lecture, and she notices Nimueh's face set to stone at the sight of her.

"Dr Nimueh."

"Ms Pendragon."

Morgana resists reacting to the use of her name. She'd concealed her identity from Nimueh, and it disturbs her that she'd uncovered it despite her. She sets her expression to one of indifference and goes on with her intended topic, "I was wondering if I could have a few more minutes of your time."

"I don't think that would be wise."

"I was hoping you could say more about your research on alchemy and your supposed discovery of the stone."

Nimueh narrows her eyes and fixes her jaw. "I don't know how you found out about that, Ms Pendragon, but I am not at liberty to discuss the topic."

Morgana nods and opens her mouth to contest, but Nimueh cuts her off as she begins to speak.

"I don't know what you're up to, but I do know for a fact that you are not registered with the university and that you approached me with false motives last week. I am also perfectly aware that you are Uther Pendragon's daughter and heir, and I refuse to have anything further to do with the likes of you. If you attempt any further contact, I will have you banned from the university."

Morgana raises an eyebrow before nodding and walking off. She wants to scream, not yet wanting to tell Elaine of her failure. She pushes through the door of the lecture hall and stops, hoping to catch her breath and calm down before meeting Merlin, but he's already perched on against an opposite wall, waiting for her.