Now and Forever

Chapter 19

While they were still on the stairs, Elizabeth quickly turned back to Meliodas and whispered "how much do they know?"

"Nothing" he quietly replied, "your marks were gone by the time they ran in."

Suddenly realizing that due to the fact that they were standing on different stairs, they were the same height, Meliodas quickly closed the small distance between them and placed a slow lingering kiss on her lips. Wondering what was taking them so long, Hawk came back up the stairs but his view was blocked by Elizabeth's body. "Is everything ok? What's the hold up?" he said impatiently as Elizabeth turned around with flushed cheeks and a slightly dazed expression. "Oh, sorry Hawk!" she smiled, gripping the Captains hand a bit tighter as he entwined their fingers.

As they came into the bar, everyone rushed them. Diane sobbed in relief as she gave the Princess a tight hug and King smiled at her as he patted the Serpent Sin awkwardly on the shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. Ban was hanging back and staring at them with an odd expression on his face. He looked down at their hands and suddenly his face exploded into a wide toothy grin and he winked at them.

"Don't just stand there, Elizabeth must be starving!" Hawk yelled at him and the Sin of Greed turned, walking into the kitchen laughing loudly. The Princess looked at Meliodas who just rolled his eyes and chuckled; "He knows" he murmured to her. She was confused until the Sin of Wrath pointedly looked down at their hands, "he's always been annoyingly observant." She flushed a dark red and looked away but, Meliodas was relieved to note, didn't try to let go of his hand. As though suddenly occurring to her, she turned back to him, "where are Lady Merlin and Sir Gowther?"

The bar went silent as everyone's eyes shifted towards the Captain, "we should be in Camelot in the next few hours" he informed her in an unconcerned voice.

"But I thought you said that I had been unconscious for a week and a half. Shouldn't we be there already?"

"Well" he hesitantly replied, "I needed to make sure you were...uh, stabilized before we started moving. We only started traveling a couple of days ago. I had the others stay in town so that you would have the quiet you needed" he finished.

"Oh, I-I see."

His eyes glazed over as he remembered that awful week he watched over her, afraid that he would lose her as it appeared that the demon blood wasn't finished its work; she would randomly start screaming and thrashing as her powers went wild. Even if he never heard it again, the sound of those screams was forever embedded in his brain. It was a horrible combination of terror, anguish, and rage…and he never wanted to hear it again, for fear that his heart would break. He had sent the others into town as he wasn't sure exactly what would happen. At first, it was a few times an hour and he would hold her down until the screaming and thrashing stopped, and she would begin sobbing. He would wrap her in his arms and murmur how much he loved her in her ear and kiss her while gently wiping away her tears but she just wouldn't wake up. It slowly got less frequent until there wasn't an incident for over two days; at that point, he knew that they had waited for as long as he dared. He went to town the very next day, found the other Sins, and began the next stage of their journey. By the time she had regained consciousness, the Princess didn't seem to remember anything and he wasn't about to bring it up.

He quickly shook his head to find Elizabeth looking at him in concern. He smiled as he wrapped his arm tightly around her waist. "I was just worried" he grinned dismissively as Ban came in with a tall stack of golden pancakes, drenched in maple syrup. The smell was making her mouth water and she hadn't realized how hungry she was until that moment. After she quickly devoured the meal, Meliodas went to lead her back upstairs to rest some more. She began to protest until he whispered into her ear "I have no idea what we're walking into and we all need to be well rested and prepared. " She lightly flushed and without another word, they headed to the stairs.