I Don't Belong Here

✦Plague✦

"Aren't you scared?" Merlin asks Gaius as he approaches the dead man on the road.

"I'm the court physician, it's part of my job," Gaius answers. "Plus, most of the time there's nothing to be scared of."

"Yeah, tell that to the man who ate a bat," I mumble to myself.

Gaius flips the man on his back and we all step back in horror. The man's face is pale, eyes white and blue veins trace his skin.

"You were saying?" Merlin says to Gaius.

Immediately, I go into doctor mode. "Cover him up," I order. Merlin instantly covers him with a sheet. "We need to retrace his steps, find out what he was doing the past twenty-four hours. I saw him yesterday at the market so he must have picked it up sometime between then and the time of death."

"I am so glad we have a doctor from the future with us," Gaius quietly praises. He doesn't need to know that most of my human medical knowledge is from Grey's Anatomy, House and The Good Doctor. Plus, I'm only guessing, the incubation period could have been longer than that.

"Don't be thankful yet," I warn. "There will most likely be a few more deaths before we find the cause."

Merlin finds us a cart so we can bring the body back to the office. On the way back we run into Gwen.

"Oh, that looks heavy," she remarks.

"Oh, it's nothing really," Merlin replies. Gaius and I stay at the front while Merlin blocks Gwen's view of the body. Merlin notices the flowers she's holding. "Someone pick you flowers?"

"Oh, no," she chuckles. "Would you like one? A purple one." She hands him a purple flower from her bouquet. He awkwardly tucks it in his scarf. "Purple suits you," she compliments. "Not that red doesn't suit you," she quickly adds noticing his red shirt. I roll my eyes. This girl has a habit of digging herself into holes.

"Thanks," Merlin laughs, clearly trying to leave so we can investigate the body. "Uh, see you."

"Bye," she says a little dreamily. Oh, good gravy.

Merlin rejoins the cart party and we cart it back to the physician's office.

We lay him down on the table and Gaius and I start inspecting him. I place a cloth over my mouth in case of spores or airborne particles.

"Have you seen anything like this?" Merlin asks us both. "Is it some kind of plague?"

I hum. "Well, it's not cholera, not bubonic, not the flu, not E. coli and not anything I've seen in animals..." I mutter as I inspect him, my voice slightly muffled by the cloth. "We're either looking at the beginning of a zombie apocalypse or magic." I inspect further and fail to find any kind of spores or secretion of anything, so I remove the makeshift mask. "Knowing this world, probably the latter."

"I will have to agree," Gaius states. "Who would have the power to do such a thing?"

Before Merlin or I could answer, we hear a knock at the door. "Merlin?" Arthur calls. He still doesn't know my name so when he calls for Merlin we just assume it's both of us he wants. Merlin goes to open the door with me behind him.

"Uh hi! Sorry, we're late," Merlin apologizes.

"Don't worry, I'm getting used to it," Arthur replies. He sees the flower in Merlin's scarf and raises a brow at it.

"Oh," Merlin takes the flower. "Gwen. She gave it to me," he nervously laughs.

Arthur shakes it off. "Tell Gaius my father wants to see him straight away."