A/N: I thought I might as well update with a lighter, fluffier chapter after everything I've previously done. No Arthur/Elaina in this bit, just the Knights of the Good Old Bromance. Hope you are enjoying whatever Series you are on at the moment - I need to catch up on Series 5 but alas (earwax), college coursework is a pain in backside. I probably won't be updating for another good few weeks, once I've got my recordings, essays and radio broadcasts done. Hope you enjoy this!

In the middle of the night, Gwen walked into Elaina's room and walked straight back out, a horrified expression upon her face. She'd just seen something he really hadn't wanted to see. She needed some help.

Leon was walking past at the exact same moment Gwen was walking out of Elaina's room. He saw the horrified look on the servant's face and stopped, concerned.
'Are you quite alright, Gwen?' Leon asked. He liked Gwen – she'd helped him escape Morgana, proved her worth time after time and was, after all, Lancelot's lady. Well, the knights were all teasing him about it but Lancelot was still yet to do anything.

Gwen shook her head and, very carefully, opened the door to Elaina's room. She motioned for Leon to look inside. After a few moments, she closed the door, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground.
'That's not exactly what I wanted to see,' she muttered, looking up at Leon.

Leon was equally as horrified. Then he had an idea.
'You stay here, Gwen,' he ordered her with a kind smile, 'and I'll go and get Lancelot –'

'Are you sure that's the best idea?' Gwen's eyes shot open as she heard Leon's idea. 'I mean, Elaina and Lancelot are so close; I'm not sure letting him see that is the best idea.'

Leon held up a hand to Gwen.
'It'll be fine,' he assured the maid, 'Lancelot will be fine. Elaina will be fine. Everything will be fine.'

Gwen nodded, giving Leon a small smile as he rushed away. She opened the door the tiniest bit and peeked back inside. No. Not yet. Too soon. She snapped the door back shut and screwed her eyes shut.

Lancelot stumbled to his bedroom door, pulling it open. He leaned against the door frame as he tried to remember the name of who was standing in front of him.
'Leon?'

Leon nodded.
'Sorry about having to wake you up –'

'Mm…' Lancelot hid a yawn behind his arm.

'- but we've got a situation,' Leon explained, looking at what Lancelot was holding. 'Did you fall asleep with a book?'

'S'poetry,' Lancelot mumbled, peeling the pages from his hand and placing it on a table. 'I'm going to do something for Gwen.'

Leon beamed at Lancelot.
'Poetry? That's lovely –'

Lancelot rubbed his eyes, now a little more alert.
'You were talking about a situation, Sir Leon?'

Leon nodded as he was brought back to the subject.
'Yes… We have a slight situation with Elaina,' he told Lancelot.

'Right.' After strapping on his sword, Lancelot held his hands about an inch apart. 'Small situation?'

Leon shook his head.

Lancelot moved his hand apart by about eight inches.
'About that much of a situation?'

Leon shook his head; he took one of Lancelot's hands and pushed it as far away as it would go.
'About that much of one,' he explained grimly.

Lancelot nodded, strapping his sword on.
'Is that with or without Arthur finding out?' he enquired, closing the door behind him.

Leon shook his head again and doubled the length, using his own arms.
'Yours, by itself, is with Arthur finding out; yours and mine? That's what we have on our hands solving this situation and keeping Arthur from finding out.'

'Solving what situation? Keeping Arthur from finding out what?'

Leon span around.
'Sir Elyan.'

'Sir Elyan,' Lancelot greeted him, stepping out of his room and closing the door.

'Sir Leon; Sir Lancelot.' Elyan sounded rather suspicious. 'What's going on?'

Leon looked at Lancelot.

Lancelot looked back at Leon.

They both looked at Elyan. In unison, they informed him,
'We have a situation.'

Elyan stared at Lancelot and Leon as they made their way towards Elaina's chambers.
'So, Elaina's disappeared whilst she's still in her condition –' Elyan motioned towards his own abdomen. '- you've absolutely no idea where she's gone and you're not telling Arthur?' Elyan couldn't quite get his head around that. 'Why not?'

'Arthur is under a lot of stress, Elyan,' Lancelot told Leon, 'and I think he might appreciate it more if we didn't tell him what's happened –'

'Because he'll become worried for no good reason,' Leon added, patting Elyan on the back.

Elyan stopped walking, still staring at the knights.
'What do you mean, "no good reason"? He's supposedly in love with this witch, isn't he?'

Lancelot and Leon exchanged weary looks before both placing a hand on Elyan shoulders and trying to drag him along.

Elyan wasn't having any of it.
'Arthur has every right to be worried about Elaina if she's disappeared in the middle of the night; shouldn't we just tell him?'

'It's complicated, Elyan,' Lancelot told the knight.

Leon nodded, in agreement with Lancelot.
'Very complicated – technically, it's not even Arthur's business.'

Elyan sighed.
'You really don't want Arthur finding out that you've lost Elaina, do you?' He sighed again – not in frustration but in exasperation. 'Right, let's go.'

Leon and Lancelot turned around to start walking back to Elaina's chambers. They both stopped rather abruptly after three steps.

Marcus arched an eyebrow as, arms folded across his chest, tapping a foot on the floor, he asked rather brightly,
'Did you just say you've managed to lose Elaina?'

Marcus had never been one for public outbursts of fury. Pinning Arthur up against a wall had been a one-off. And not very public. But when some of Camelot's finest managed to lose one woman – albeit a powerful, mostly immortal sorceress – who'd been sliced open a few days ago, Marcus found himself quite irritated.
'You managed to lose Elaina?'

Lancelot nodded in silence.

'My Elaina?'

Leon looked at Marcus, correcting him,
'Arthur's Elaina –'

'Not anymore,' Marcus told him with a frown. 'After a little conversation we all had about Nathan and the events surrounding his death, my dear friend doesn't want to belong to anybody, let alone your prince.'

Elyan looked at Marcus with a frown, about to ask whether he knew something the rest of them didn't.

'Of course I know something the rest of you don't – I know a lot of things –'

'Where's Lady Elaina then?' Leon asked; he didn't know why Marcus was still here. Even Elaina's own mother had returned home, though she had left instructions for her daughter to join her as soon as she was fit to travel.

Elyan smirked at Marcus' silence.

Marcus rolled his eyes.
'Elaina has always been like a cat – very slinky; comes and goes as she pleases; very intelligent; violent when something happens that she doesn't like; her hair sticks up when it gets wet; her tail is just –'

'She has a tail?' Leon cried; he mouthed an apology when Elyan, Lancelot and Marcus all shushed him.

Marcus rolled his eyes.
'No, I was just teasing you all. She's like a sister to me – I grew up with her. I love her and I know her so well that I can predict almost everything about her. Apart from where she is right now.' As they rounded the corner and turned onto the corridor that would lead them towards Elaina's chambers, Marcus inspected each of the knights, trying to decide whom he could trust the most in Camelot. 'Do you want Elaina dead for being a sorceress?' he asked rather abruptly, bringing them all to a stop.

Lancelot shook his head.
'Her powers don't change the fact that she's a good person,' he replied with confidence.

Marcus nodded. Lancelot seemed like a good enough choice. He turned his gaze to Leon.
'What about you? Does Princess Elaina seem like a good person to you, even after everything she's done?' he asked calmly. He wasn't giving any clues away.

Leon shrugged.
'She helped to make me into a better knight –'

'Done a brilliant job of it; it's not like you've managed to let her slip out of the castle or anything,' Marcus added. At Leon's irritated expression, Marcus waved a hand. 'Please, carry on.'

'Elaina helped to make me into a better knight and even though she's not all to blame for what happened, she's trying to redeem herself. Even though she doesn't need to – but if it helps her,' Leon added with a shrug.

Marcus turned his piercing gaze onto Elyan.

Elyan shrugged, saying simply,
'Just as long as she doesn't try to kill me, I'm fine with Elaina.'

Marcus laughed. He'd made his decision.
'Come on, let's go and see if our missing monarch has turned up yet.' Marcus sighed as he turned around. 'Do you people just not sleep or something?'

'Or something,' Percival replied in a deadpan voice.

'We all know that Arthur will most likely kill us when he finds out, don't we?' Percival pointed out. He approached Guinevere, who was wringing her hands together as she stood guard outside Elaina's door. 'Has Elaina turned up yet?'

Gwen shook her head.
'No and Emilie's gonAe too.' The maid pointed at the chambers opposite Elaina's.

Gaius strode up to Gwen, shaking his head.
'I can't find Merlin anywhere –'

The cogs in Lancelot's brain began to spin.

'- and Gwaine isn't in his room either.'

'Well,' Leon spoke in a confident voice, 'I think we can all guess where Gwaine is.'

The knights smirked. In unison, they all muttered,
'Gwaine will be in the tavern.'

It never crossed their minds that where Gwaine was, Emilie also was.

Merlin was there too.

As was Elaina.

A/N: Plot Twist: Merlin actually goes to the tavern.

Leon and his poetry, eh? ;) I've a feeling that the knights all have some secret poetry readings going on. Not with Arthur though. Because nobody in their right minds would read poetry to their king. Right? Also, I've got a (dream, I've got a dream) feeling that some characters are going to have a royal hangover. Ba-dum-tssh. *Audience groans.*

Until next time,
Grace x