Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin! I only own my OC, and any other characters or plotlines I make up along the way!

AN: Thank you for all the readers who have stuck with me with these updates. I have started university and I have very little time, and I'm also writing my own novel on the side which means less time for FF. But, I want to finish this story, and damn it I'm going to finish it.

Enjoy!

I sat in the physician's chambers, watching Merlin and Gaius do their work while I did some studies of my own. They both didn't want me anywhere near the sick patients, but it gave me an opportunity to help whenever I could. Besides, I found the baby didn't kick as much when I was around Merlin, and it was a mercy on my poor stomach as I got bigger and bigger and the baby got more and more active each day.

Arthur was here, asking for Gaius's help for an old friend of Gwen. "This is the forth case of sweating sickness I've seen today," Gaius explained. "In normal circumstances, I'd be happy to travel to this village to investigate, but-"

Arthur nodded. "Of course. I understand."

I caught Gaius's glance at Merlin, and the physician looked back at the king and said, "Might I make a suggestion, sire? Why not send Merlin in my place?"

Merlin suddenly looked up at Gaius, but Gaius kept his expression trained on Arthur. "Merlin?" Arthur repeated, doubt heavily laced in his tone.

"He has a knowledge of the healing arts," Gaius pointed out. "If the diagnosis is straightforward, he can prescribe a remedy, I'm sure."

"And what if it isn't?" Arthur questioned.

Gaius thought about it for a second, and then said, "Then he can bring his findings to me."

Arthur scoffed. "'Findings'? Merlin can't find his own backside most of the time."

"I've said it once and I'll say it again," I spoke up, not bothering to look up from my pages as I flipped them. "Speak ill of my husband in front of me and I will not hesitate to punch the living daylights out of you."

I could sense Merlin trying to hide his smirk as Arthur called out, "I'm sorry, Elizabeth."

Gaius turned back to Arthur. "I think he's capable of much more than you imagine, sire."

Their voices got quieter, and then Arthur was saying, "All right, Merlin. You've got the job."

Later that night, I watched as Merlin flipped through medicine books as he slurped some soup. "Do you really think I can do this, Gaius?" he asked, looking up from his book momentarily.

"I know you can," Gaius assured him.

I rubbed his arm with my hand. "Of course you can, love. Don't doubt yourself."

"I'm not a physician," Merlin pointed out, looking between the two of us. "I don't have anything like the knowledge you do," he directed at Gaius.

"You've been working for me for many years, Merlin," Gaius reminded him. "I suspect you know more than you think you do."

"I just do what you tell me to do," Merlin brought up. "I don't have to make the decisions myself. These people will be putting their lives in my hands."

"I put my life in your hands every day, Merlin, as does Elizabeth and Arthur and Gwen and all of Camelot, though some may not know it," Gaius said as he came over and sat down on the other side of Merlin. "You're the one who holds the fate of this kingdom in the balance."

"That's different," Merlin tried. "That doesn't require a lifetime of learning, just-"

"Intelligence," Gaius finished with a smile. "Courage, compassion."

"Besides," I said, and Merlin looked over at me. "We're going to be parents soon, Merlin. Better learn the responsibility of having someone's life in your hand sooner rather than later." I patted his shoulder. "I have faith in you. Gaius has faith in you. And Arthur, even if he won't say it out loud. That should be enough."

Merlin smiled at me. "Thank you. But that does not mean I'm letting you come with me."

"Oh, come on!" I dropped my hand from his shoulder and dropped my "supportive wife" act. "I'll be fine! This baby isn't coming for a while. And you're going to need me!"

"How do you know that?"

"Because you always end up needing me!"

"Well, I'm sorry," Merlin said. "But with you in the middle of the pregnancy, I would rather you be at home and resting and taking care of yourself. Besides, we don't know what this sickness even is. The last thing that we need is for you and the baby to both get sick."

I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest, knowing I wasn't going to be winning this one, no matter how much I batted my eyelashes or offered sex. I couldn't want until I could pop out this baby and be more useful.

Merlin left the next day, and it was the most boring day of my life. I was looking forward to his return by the end of the night, but when I woke up the next morning and searched for him in our bed, I came up empty. I sat up in bed and frowned at the missing person in my bed. I got up, got dressed, and went over to see Gaius, assuming that Merlin had come in so late that he just crashed at Gaius's so that he wouldn't wake me up and so he could give Gaius his notes on the patients.

To my surprise, Gaius said Merlin hadn't returned, at least not to him. One quick conversation with the guards later, and I found out that Merlin hadn't been seen since he left.

That worried me, but I tried not to let it. If it was something that Merlin couldn't handle, he would be home by now.

When another day passed and there was no sign of Merlin, I fell into panic. I paced in front of Arthur in his bedchambers, resting my hands on my stomach as I did so. "It's been two days. They should be back," I said.

"Elizabeth, you need to sit down," Arthur said as he grabbed me by the shoulders to stop me. He guided me to a chair and sat me down gently.

"There must be some delay at Longstead," Agravaine, who was also in the room with us, suggested.

Ever since my confrontation with Agravaine, he avoided me like the plague. He was forced to be in the same room with me whenever we had council meetings or Arthur wanted a family dinner, but other than that, I hadn't seen him. It was good for me, but it made me even more suspicious of him. What was worse, my magic had been really wonky since I got pregnant, and whenever I tried to scry on him, the images were blurry or it wouldn't work at all.

"If there was a delay, they would have sent word," Arthur pointed out.

"Then it must be the bridge is down at Brekfer River," Agravaine offered.

I shook my head. "No, I already asked Leon. He said that a patrol passed through there yesterday."

"Well, should I send some scouts out to search for them?" Agravaine said, and he briefly looked over at me. I tried my best to hide my disdain as I looked away from him and over at Gaius, who was also in the room with us.

"Gaius, is your work done here?" he asked him.

The court physician nodded. "Yes, sire, I'm satisfied the sweating sickness is all but passed."

Arthur nodded. "Then we leave for Longstead at first light."

I threatened to string Arthur up by his ankles if he tried to make me stay, so that was how I found myself on a horse and trotting after my husband the next morning. See, if he had just let me go with him in the first place, we probably wouldn't be in this predicament.

We rode through the forest for a while. We came to a stop, and Arthur slipped off of his horse. It took me a minute, but I got off my own horse and walked after him, Gaius doing the same.

"Is anything wrong, sire?" Gaius asked.

Arthur turned around and whispered, "Listen. No birdsong. Nothing."

I strained my own hearing, but I couldn't hear anything either. "You're right. That's strange."

"Sire!" a voice called out, and we turned to see one of the scouts gesturing for us to follow him.

Arthur drew his sword from his horse, and after a second's hesitation, I grabbed my own sword and followed after him.

It was a camp, and corpses littered the forest floor. I forced the urge to throw up down, avoiding direct eye contact with the bodies.

Arthur pushed me behind me a little as he said, "Does anything strike you as odd about these bodies?"

Gaius took a closure look. "Yes, sire. There's not a mark on them."

I walked around Arthur to see for myself, and sure enough, the bodies looked perfectly fine. "There's not even a scratch on them," I commented as I peered closer.

"Over here, my lord!" Agravaine called out, and the three of us ran over to where he was standing, which was by a prison wagon.

"Southron slave traders by the looks of it," Arthur confirmed as he took a closure look himself.

"What were they transporting? Some kind of an animal?" Agravaine wondered.

There were scratch marks on the wood, and Gaius ran a finger over them. "No, these marks were made by humans, and whoever they were, they did anything they had to to get out."

The sound of moaning interrupted our conversation, and it turned out one of the bodies was actually alive. Arthur Gaius, and I went over to him, and Gaius kneeled over to look at the moaning and groaning man.

"Can he be treated?" Arthur asked him.

"I… I could try, sire. But I'll need time and somewhere to work," Gaius answered.

Looking to his knights, Arthur ordered, "He comes with us!" He turned and looked at us. "We'll make Longstead in a matter of hours."

When we got to Longstead at night, Gaius went to treat the man and check up on the patients that Merlin had originally gone to examine.

"Spread out and speak to everyone. Someone must know something," Arthur ordered, and his knights nodded and departed to carry out their king's order.

"What could be going on?" Arthur muttered under his breath, and then he looked over at me. "I'm sorry, Elizabeth. I should've kept you at home."

I scoffed. "Are you kidding me? This is the most excitement I've had all week."

Agravaine suddenly walked over to us, and Arthur turned his attention to his uncle. "Did you speak to the village elder?" he asked.

"It seems they left yesterday morning," Agravaine responded.

"Where were they headed?" I cut in.

Agravaine looked like he would rather choke on nails than talk to me, but he had to keep up his pretenses and answered, "Camelot."

"Something must've happened," Arthur deduced as he shook his head at the thought.

"We can't go after them tonight," Agravaine pointed out.

"We have to!" I argued, grabbing onto Arthur's arm and forcing him to look at me. "If something's truly gone wrong, who knows how much time we'll have left?"

"Elizabeth, he's right," Arthur said gently, taking my hand that was holding onto his arm in his own. "We can't see anything at night, and we run the risk of getting lost." He squeezed my hand turned to look at Agravaine. "We ride at dawn. See that the men are prepared."

Arthur insisted that I stayed with him, because he was worried that I was going to run after Merlin in the night (which in all honestly, I was planning on doing), when Gaius walked into the little hut that we were staying in.

"Any luck with the Southron?" Arthur asked Gaius.

"I've done my best, sire. His condition is perilous, but he lives," Gaius responded as he set down something that was in his hands.

"Was he able to tell us anything?" I wondered.

"He is a slave trader, as you suspected," Gaius confirmed with a look at Arthur. "They were travelling south with a girl."

"Did he say what happened to them?" Arthur went on.

"He claims they fell under some kind of spell. Quarrels and fights broke out among them," he explained. "They began to suspect the girl of bewitching them. Seems they were right. "

"Why? What happened?" I questioned.

"The girl escaped and killed them all but him," Gaius nodded his head to the doorway, in the direction of the man.

Arthur made a face. "How's that possible? She's just one girl."

Gaius shook his head as he sat down. "Not a girl, sire. A lamia."

"A lamia?" Arthur repeated.

"A creature of magic," Gaius informed us. "In their wars with the ancient kings, the High Priestesses of the Old Religion took the blood from a girl and mingled it with that of a serpent. The creatures they created had ferocious powers. They could control the mind of a man, suck the life from him with a single embrace."

I nodded thoughtfully. "That explains why none of the traders were marked."

"But the lamia proved more deadly than their makers had ever imagined," Gaius continued. "They could transform at will and become hideous monsters. And they kept on killing, sire. They would not stop."

"So this girl, this creature, is still out there somewhere," Arthur stated.

Gaius nodded solemnly. "I'm afraid so, sire."

I lifted my hand and rested it on my heart. I closed my eyes, and all I could see was the face of my husband. "Merlin..."

We left as soon as the light broke into the day. Gaius stayed behind to take care of the patients, and when he suggested that I stay behind too, I completely ignored him and got on my own horse. Arthur led the way as we tracked the ground. "Tracks stop here," he commented in relation to the tracks that we had tracked earlier.

"I fear we're wasting our time, sire," Agravaine said. "For all we now, they could've gone back to Camelot already."

"No. Camelot lies west of here," Arthur retorted. "Tracks heading...east." He paused for a second, and he turned to his knights. "Fan out, see what you can find."

We we couldn't anything, we kept going. "It's impossible. They can't have just disappeared," Arthur reasoned.

"Could be that we're following the wrong tracks, my lord," Agravaine offered. "Any number of people pass through these woods."

"It was them. I know it was," Arthur insisted.

"Maybe we should go back to Longstead, try again in the morning," Agravaine said.

"By morning, they could all be dead," I hissed at him. "Or is that what you want, Lord Agravaine?"

Arthur gave me a warning look, but Agravaine simply gritted his teeth at me as he said, "Of course not, Elizabeth." He looked over at Arthur. "But they're knights of Camelot, my lord, more than capable of looking after themselves."

"Maybe so, but you're forgetting one thing, Uncle. Guinevere and Merlin are with them," Arthur reminded him, giving me a quick glance.

Agravaine nodded solemnly, though only I was aware that it was fake. "I realize that, sire."

Arthur nodded as well. "We keep going. All night if necessary."

Closer to night, we finally found a piece of evidence that indicated where they went. Arthur found one of Gwen's cloth scraps on a broken tree. "It's Guinevere's," he said to Agravaine and I once he called us over.

"How can you be certain?" Agravained asked.

"That's her tunic," I told him. "I've seen Gwen wear it many times."

Arthur nodded in agreement. "We must be close."

We kept riding, and eventually we came into the path of a castle. "They're in there," I confirmed, feeling a deep pull towards the castle.

"How do you know that?" Agravaine wondered.

I openly gave him a glare. "It's called 'wife's intuition', Agravaine," I retorted, and I tugged on my reins and made my horse go faster.

When we got to the castle, I jumped off my horse. I staggered a bit because I still wasn't used to my new center of gravity, but I shrugged it off just as fast. I grabbed the spear that was attached to my horse and ran into the castle, ignoring Arthur's calls of my name to wait for him.

I heard the sounds of roaring and screaming, and I followed it as I went deeper into the castle. I came to a screeching halt at the mouth of one of the hallways, and I felt my stomach drop at the sight of a giant green creature hovering over Merlin and Gwen.

Not giving myself another second to think, I reared my arm back and threw the spear. It flew through the air before hitting its target in the middle of the creature's back. It screamed in pain, but it flopped backwards as it died.

"Elizabeth!" I heard Arthur's voice call out as he got closer, but I ignored it again as I ran over to Merlin and Gwen. I nodded at Gwen to make sure that she was okay, and she got up and ran behind me, making me think that Arthur had finally showed up. I didn't pay much attention though, because I burst into tears at the sight of Merlin laying down on the ground. He looked absolutely fine, but I was so terrified and these hormones were all over the place.

"Merlin!" I cried as I grabbed his hand and pulled him up.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, but I ignored him as I pitched forward and wrapped him up in a hug.

"You had me worried sick!" I sobbed as I squeezed him tighter.

He hugged me back, but then he pulled away from our hug to brush my hair over my ear. "I told you to stay home!"

"And I told you that you were going to need me," I reminded him. "Which one of us was right?"

He shook his head at me, but he smiled and pulled me back into a hug. "God, am I happy to see you. All of this 'making you stay home because I'm worried for you' is killing me."

"How do you think I feel?" I grumbled against his chest.

The sound of someone clearing their throat made us pull away from our hug again, and I turned around so that I was facing Arthur and Gwen. He nodded between the two of us. "You two do realize that you're not alone, right?"

Merlin and I both chuckled, and Arthur walked over to us as he clapped Merlin on the arm. "It's almost good to see you, Merlin," he said.

Merlin nodded. "Likewise."

"Almost," Arthur stressed as he gave Merlin a look.

I rolled my eyes at the two. "Let's just get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps."

When we got home, Merlin rested his head on my stomach. "I'm never leaving the two of you ever again," he said as we rested in bed.

"You keep saying that, but you never meant it," I joked, and Merlin lifted his head to look at me.

"I mean it this time," he leaned over and gave me a quick kiss. "I meant what I said, too. I don't like it when you're not by my side. I feel unprotected and alone and..."

"Like you're missing half of yourself?" I finished, and I ran my hand through his raven locks that I was praying our son inherited. "Welcome to marriage."

He ducked his head with a grin on his face, and he moved up so that he was laying down beside me. "I really did miss you."

"I think we're becoming too codependent," I commented as I shifted so that I was resting my head on his shoulder. His arms looped around me, holding on tight.

"And that's a bad thing?"

I grinned as I closed my eyes. "Not at all."

TBC...

The next episode sees the return of Lancelot! I'm not going to lie, I haven't watched this episode in so long so I don't even remember what happened.

REVIEW! FOLLOW! FAVOURITE! THANKS! STAY TUNED!

THE ADVENTURES OF ELIZABETH MALINOR CONTINUE...

"Guinevere, will you do the honour of being my wife?" Arthur asks.

"I want to believe that everything is fine," Merlin comments. "That we really have Lancelot back."

"As much as I want that, something feels off," Elizabeth throws in.

Gwen opens her door to reveal Lancelot on the other side.

"We can't thank you enough for what you sacrificed on the Isle of the Blessed," Arthur says to Lancelot.

"Do you think he means to harm Arthur?" Merlin asks Gaius.

"But how?" Elizabeth adds.

Until next time!