Hello! :) Firstly, I meant to thank CoffeeJunkie33 last chapter, to whom full credit for Uther frolicking with bunnies ought to go to... CJ33 also claims full credit for Gaius' having an iPod in this chapter, which I just thought was a little spark of genius! The song that appears later in the chapter is not mine, it belongs to Avenue Q. I'm not intending to infringe on copyright, merely to LOL. While I'm at it, Cee Lo Green owns Forget You (FU) and that song I used in the mocksongfic a couple of chapters ago was Tell Her What She Wants To Know, by Sam Phillips... So there. I didn't write any of them. Just in case you were under the (bizarre) impression that I am an undiscovered songstress: I'm not. Oh, and the inspiration to use the Avenue Q song (you'll understand when you've read the chapter) came from a very funny song-mockfic called OHMYGODIMONFIRE by Autumne255, which you should check out :)

Also, if you were wondering, the review left from "Broseph" last chapter was not from some random crazy person. It was from my best friend, who actually encourages me to spend my time writing fanfiction (so you can blame/thank "Broseph"). Mpreg was her idea... :) As for the "Bronito" she mentions... That's a PJ (private joke, not pyjama). To you, Bromulus: I have nothing to say except Bromeo, oh Bromeo, where for art thou Bromeo? Don't worry if you don't understand (we tend to have that effect on people)... She'll get it.

On the subject of best friends, another one of me dearest mateys left me a review a while ago: hettiebundle. She actually created an enitre account just to review my story (because I hadn't learnt how to enable anonymous reviews then), which I thought was adorable. :) She calls me 'Ken' in it... yeah, that's another private joke that I'm not going in to now... Suffice it to say that 'Ken' is not, in fact, my name... Just in case you were wondering...

And to YOU! Person who is reading this, and has given up trying to understand what I'm talking about! Thank you! Argh! I love you! Just keep reading! *please* Reviews are like hugs, and hugs are like therapy for the soul...

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Arthur snatched the author's note as it wafted through the breezes, concern etched across his features as he wondered what this mad girl could possibly have in store for them next.

Merlin stood, hands folded across his chest, waiting for Arthur to say something.

Arthur didn't say anything.

"Well?"

Arthur frowned at Merlin, as though he had forgotten his manservant was there (to be honest, Merlin wasn't particularly surprised). "Oh… It says: Sorry about this chapter guys, the punctuation's a bit odd. SOMEBODY sent me a stupid virus, so now my laptop's gone AWOL and keeps posting things that I haven't written… Don't worry, though. I've got the person who did this to me back…" Arthur gulped. "I'm not sure what most of that meant… But I gathered that she has done something to Gaius…"

"I hope he's okay…" Merlin muttered, not waiting for Arthur to reply, instead bolting off in the direction of the physician's chambers.

When he got there, he nearly ran straight into a tearful Gwen, who was in the process of storming out.

"Are you alright?" he asked, in a tone of voice that suggested he didn't really want to know, and was just asking out of politeness.

"No! No - I most certainly am not!" Gwen waited for Merlin to ask her what was wrong; when he didn't she launched into retelling her woes regardless. "That man…!"

"Gaius?"

"Gaius! He called me a… a… a…" Gwen's voice trembled as she struggled to spit the vile word out. "A proxy! Of all the nasty things to say… He told me that I'm nothing more than a hollow character for girls to insert themselves into and live out their Cinderella fantasies!"

"Oh, Gwen… That's just not true… I'm sure he didn't mean it…"

"He sure sounded like he meant it! And do you know what he said next?"

"Err… no…"

"He said that he didn't think that there would have been any coloured people in Camelot!"

"Um…"

"I gave him a right piece of my mind then! I told him that, actually, recent archaeological evidence has indicated that not only were there people of mixed race in Medieval England, but that some mixed race women were actually members of the nobility! That shut him up…"

"What's archaeological evidence...?"

"I don't know, Merlin!"

Merlin resisted the urge to point out that the fact that someone else was apparently speaking through Gwen kind of confirmed her being a proxy, and instead just smiled uselessly.

Gwen huffed. "I don't care if he's upset, and I don't care if I'm supposed to be the nice, selfless one… I've had it with this… I don't have to put up with being spoken to like that. I'm going to be Queen one day, you know?"

As a matter of fact, Merlin did know this (he ignored the angry kicking of the non-existent baby in his stomach at the thought of someone else marrying 'Daddy') but decided he was going to continue saying nothing, since that plan of action seemed to be going well for him so far.

Gwen eventually got sick of trying to extract empathy from someone who seemed absolutely determined to say nothing useful, and went off in search of Elyan.

Taking a deep breath, trying to prepare himself mentally for whatever brutal emotional attack Gaius might launch on him, Merlin cautiously stepped across the threshold.

He couldn't see Gaius anywhere, but he could feel the old man's steely glare fixed firmly on his face.

"Hi Gaius…"

Silence.

"How are you?"

A painfully long pause and then: "Terrible."

Merlin edged a little nearer to the corner Gaius' voice seemed to be coming from. "What's wrong?"

"Don't come any closer! I don't want people seeing me like this…"

Frozen awkwardly on the spot, Merlin tried to think of a way of easing the tension. The only thing he could think of to comment on was the weather. "It's suddenly started raining a lot in Camelot… hey! That rhymes! I'm a poet and I don't know it…"

Gaius mumbled something derogatory from the corner.

Merlin drummed his fingers on the surface of the table, and watched the little droplets of precipitation hitting the window pane. He really couldn't think of anything else to talk about, so he tried again, "What's with all the rain?"

"It's pathetic fallacy."

Merlin said nothing.

"Because I'm miserable."

"And why would that be, Gaius?"

With a low growl, Gaius stomped forward from the corner, and into the light, revealing his face to Merlin. "This is why I'm miserable, Merlin!"

"Gaius? Is that you…?"

"Of course it's me!"

"But… but… where are your eyebrows?"

At this, Gaius broke into fresh peals of sobs, and thunder began to rumble ominously in the distance.

"I don't know! One minute they were there; the next… Poof! Like magic!"

Merlin opened his mouth to say something consoling, but, at the very mention of magic, Uther Pendragon's ears had pricked up, and he had run all the way from the council chambers (where he had been trying to draw a picture of Geoffrey of Monmouth in a gorilla suit, with no real success) to find the source of the sorcery.

"Did somebody say magic?"

"Yes Uther… but I was merely using it as a simile…"

Uther wagged a finger of warning at Gaius. "Be careful Gaius. That's your second simile this month. Remember the rule?"

"Yes, Sire; three strikes and you're out."

"And don't you forget it!"

And then, just like that, Uther was gone again.

Merlin turned back to Gaius, resisting the urge to laugh. "You look like Whoopi Goldberg…"

At this Gaius howled, lightning streaking across the daytime sky behind them (a very fearsome thing to behold) and the physician stormed moodily off into Merlin's room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Merlin gulped.

Things were certainly getting interesting in Camelot…

As he walked back down the halls to Arthur's room (having decided Gaius probably needed some time alone to 'cool off'), Merlin tried to get his head around everything that was going on, whilst rubbing at his slightly protruding belly.

Upon trundling through the corridor by the kitchens, Merlin was interrogated by a passing question mark.

How peculiar…

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Ever since the virus had taken hold of the author's laptop; its effects had been very much felt in Camelot. Errant punctuation was running rampant. Rogue commas lurked in the alcoves, causing passers-by to trip over their tails; quotation marks kept popping up in people's heads, making them look as though they were about to speak, and then leaving them with no idea as to what they were going to say; and the semi-colons, who seemed to have nothing better to do, were amassing themselves in large gangs like bored teenagers and intimidating the citizens. It was all very odd.

According to Alice - who had been attending to the sick for the duration of Gaius' incapacitation - it was the exclamation marks that were the worst. They just jumped right out of nowhere, and were giving people heart attacks.

"Something has to be done about this punctuational menace!" Arthur bellowed at his knights, his face turning a strange purple colour.

"Is 'punctuational' a word?" Leon asked Gwaine, out of the corner of his mouth.

"No. I don't suggest you tell Arthur that, though…"

Merlin tried to sneak in surreptitiously, but instead shut the door behind him with a loud bang and tripped up over his own feet.

The knights all winced in unison; waiting for Arthur to begin berating his manservant, but nothing came. Arthur simply nodded at Merlin, who proceeded to lurk in his usual corner.

"Percy: you must reign in the parentheses… Leon: I want you to begin herding the asterisks… Gwaine: you're in charge of the diphthongs…"

"Alright!" Gwaine turned to demand a high-five (something he had learnt from his new friend Vegetables) from one of his fellow knights. "What's a diphthong?"

"Elyan… Where's Elyan?"

"I think he's talking to Gwen," one of the generic, nameless knights, who never seem to be in short supply in spite of their spectacular ability to die, said.

"Well… Go and get him! He can catch up on the girly gossip later! What about Lancelot?"

"Oh, he's gone… Sire…"

"Gone where?"

"We don't know. It's a character defect; it's part of being moody and unpredictable."

Arthur's face purpled a little more.

Merlin recognised this as a sign that he was probably about to challenge somebody to a fight to the death, and began to usher the knights out.

Arthur sighed, as his face became a slightly more normal red colour, and he sank down into his cushy thrown. "I am not equipped to handle this…"

Merlin cleaned out his ear with his finger, seemed mildly surprised to find the wax was actually bubble bath, and then sat down on the floor in front of Arthur. "I'm sure that's not true, Sire…"

"Come on, Merlin. Get up; you really ought not to be sitting on the floor in your condition."

And that was when Merlin remembered: he had forgotten to tell Arthur. That explained why the prince had been so nice to him of late… No boots had been thrown at him, he'd gone insult-free for a full twenty-four hours and (come to think of it) he hadn't been given any mindless, repetitive chores in a while.

Merlin fully intended to inform Arthur that he wasn't actually pregnant, he simply appeared to be, but what came out instead was, "It's not too bad… Once you get used to the morning sickness."

"I am sorry Merlin, what you said before was right; I do need to accept responsibility for my actions. So I'm starting with you. We shall name him as the heir to Camelot's thrown, as is right and proper."

"What? How do you know it's going to be a boy?"

"All of the Pendragon firstborns are boys… As for a name…"

"What if I don't want our son to become King of Camelot?"

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me: what if I want him to become a… a… blacksmith?"

"A blacksmith?"

"Yeah, or a servant, like his father…"

"Just a minute, Merlin! There are two fathers involved here, and I will not have you rejecting my family's legacy in favour of mucking out stables and wearing stupid neckerchiefs!"

"My neckerchiefs are not stupid…"

"That's highly debatable." Arthur held up a hand to silence Merlin's defence of his fashion sense. "I think that we should return to our original topic: names."

"Well… I was thinking something classical, like Gaius. I'm sure Gaius would love to know we're naming our son after him… It might be just the pick-me-up he needs right now…"

"Enough of this nonsense. I am not naming my firstborn son Gaius. I have a selection of appropriate names, you may choose from the following: Orther, Ether or Ither."

"That's just your name with a different vowel on the front of it."

"And what, might I ask, is wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that is that it's stupid. That's what's wrong with it."

"How dare you? It worked perfectly well for my father!"

"And your father is certainly an excellent role model…"

"He most certainly is!"

Unfortunately for Arthur, Uther chose that very moment to skip past the door in a glittering purple dress, squealing, in a bizarre falsetto, that he was going to be "the prettiest girl at the ball!"

Merlin grinned. "You were saying?"

"Don't you have somewhere else to be, Merlin?"

.

Eventually Merlin managed to convince himself that it was about time he went to go and check on Gaius.

Gaius did not see what Merlin found so funny about the eyebrows he had tried to draw on in felt tip.

Merlin's protests, however reasonable - "I'm sorry I laughed Gaius, but, really… they're orange!" - and however sincere, fell on deaf ears.

Gaius slammed the door to Merlin's own room shut in the warlock's face for the second time that morning.

Merlin sighed, rubbed at his swollen ankles, and collapsed down onto Gaius' bed.

He could feel something poking up from beneath the mattress.

Merlin had the deepest respect for his mentor's privacy, which was why he waited at least ten seconds before delving under the bed to see what was there.

It was a cardboard box. Not that Merlin knew that, of course. He didn't know what cardboard was. As far as he was concerned, it looked like really, really flimsy wood.

Written on the front, in green permanent marker, were the words, Gaius' Private Stuff. Touch it and die, Merlin.

Merlin was incensed: how could Gaius believe he would be as insensitive as to rifle through someone else's personal belongings? In fact, Merlin was so very incensed that he decided to rifle right through that stupid box, just to teach Gaius a lesson about making unfair judgements.

Inside the box were a number of strange things. There was a small, pink notebook, on the front of which was written (in glittery gel-pen) Gaius' Revenge Notebook: Merlin Edition. Merlin slid that into his pocket, making a mental note to read through it later. There was also a little silver box with weird wires coming out of it that said 'apple' on the back (what the contraption had to do with fruit, Merlin simply couldn't fathom); a thing that called itself a 'Gilmore Girls DVD Box set'; and a book (the margins of which were filled with writings by Gaius) called Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, which sounded particularly stupid to Merlin, since it was so obviously not the case.

He fiddled with the silver box for a while, trying to find an opening in it, but had no luck.

Merlin let out a sigh of frustration, and dumped the odd metal 'apple' thing loudly on the table - he didn't care if Gaius found it and realised Merlin had been looking through his private things, maybe it would teach Gaius not to claim Merlin's bedroom as his own personal hermit-grounds every time his eyebrows mysteriously vanished.

As Merlin sat at one of the benches, listening to the sounds of Gaius wailing from the other room, he was a little surprised to see Gwen chasing a herd of rampaging red rabbits down the corridor.

Of course, he thought to himself with a sigh. Nothing had been done about the plotbunnies yet…

Merlin had been so busy with Gaius; he'd forgotten to remind Arthur to order everyone in Camelot to start writing. As great a battle-leader as Prince Arthur Pendragon was, if he wasn't persistently nagged to do something, he would simply forget about it, and start thinking about something else (usually food-related) instead.

Resigned as he was to his fate as Camelot's problem-sorter-outer; Merlin hauled himself to his feet, and trudged wearily to the courtyard, where he was confronted by the rather curious sight of a long chain of ellipsis, all handcuffed together, looking exceptionally put out, being lead into the castle by a group of knights. At the end of the chain was a question mark, who seemed to be asking 'Why us?' as he tagged along after them dejectedly.

From Merlin's spot in the square, he could see Arthur standing on the balcony, issuing a proclamation. For a moment, his heart skipped a beat. Could it be? Could the day finally have come when Arthur had remembered something important without needing to be constantly reminded about it by Merlin?

Merlin was sorely disappointed by what followed.

"All forwards and backwards slashes will report to the council chambers to be questioned on the charge of conspiracy to slash."

Arthur rolled up his big fancy scroll and toddled off.

Merlin was left to roll his eyes, and try and solve the problem by himself. As usual.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Vegetables talking to a small group of strange, cloaked people in the corner of the courtyard. She turned to him, offered a friendly smile, and gestured for him to come over.

Perhaps Merlin wouldn't have to solve this one all on his own…

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Eventually, Gaius grew tired of rubbing at his swollen eyes in solitude, and decided to venture out into the main body of the physician's chambers; certain that, by now, Merlin would have done something stupid that he could chide him about. Gaius did love a nice bit of Merlin-chiding…

But, unfortunately for Gaius, Merlin had apparently found something better to do than sit around, waiting for his mentor to emerge and begin berating him.

How disappointing…

Gaius was about to start mixing random, colourful ingredients to make pretty potions; when he saw his iPod lurking on the table.

Gaius didn't recall leaving it there…

Never mind, he thought to himself, fitting the earphones into his lobes, and smiling as he selected his favourite tunes. I'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

To the cheery sound of Cee Lo Green, Gaius began to bop around the castle.

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Arthur slammed his hands down hard on the table, intimidating the quivering backwards slash in front of him.

"Tell me what you know!" he commanded, looming over the piece of punctuation that now looked close to tears.

"B-but… I don't know what you're talking about…" it insisted, in a thick Spanish accent.

"Liar!" Arthur hissed, bouncing away from it, pointing his finger in the face of a nearby hyphen. "You're all liars! I know you have been sent here by this author to try and bring down Camelot… What exactly is your mission?"

A group of colons shifted uncomfortably on the spot.

Just as Arthur retreated to begin the most menacing part of his speech, there was a strange, high-pitched warbling sound from down the corridor.

Arthur armed himself, making his famous hand gestures (which nobody really understood) at the knights.

He stuck his head out of the door. "Who is it?"

"I see you driving round town with the girl I love and I'm like…" an eyebrow-less Gaius hopped around the corner. "FORGET YOU! Ooh!"

"Gaius!" Arthur hurried towards the physician. "What's wrong? Are you trapped in one of those horrendous songfics?"

Gaius danced straight past Arthur, as if he had not even noticed him at all. "I guess the change in my pocket wasn't enough, and I'm like FORGET YOU! And forget her too…"

With that, Gaius pirouetted around the corner, snapped his fingers, and skipped merrily away.

Arthur frowned, and put out a hand to stop the trail of underscores making a break for freedom.

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Vegetables passed Merlin a peculiar pair of glasses that she had had hidden up the sleeve of her coat; they were black, thick-rimmed, had no lenses, and came with a complimentary large nose and moustache.

"They're to cover up Gaius' eyebrows…"

"How did you know?"

Vegetables smirked in a fashion that suggested she practised a lot (she did - but only when mocking Morgana, you understand), and told him "We have our ways…"

Merlin did not think to ask her who 'we' were, or what she meant by her 'ways' (which she was a little disappointed by, since she would have been perfectly happy to explain); spending a certain amount of time in the company of druids, dragons and demons eventually makes a person immune to cryptic comments.

One of the other members of the group, who had simply been standing around in that slightly creepy manner that so many people Merlin met seemed to do, removed their hood, to reveal another face much like Vegetables'.

This person, who had (somehow) managed to achieve the same quality of being totally indescribable, was a little different. She was smaller, sharper and easily excitable. She also seemed to enjoy pulling a wide variety of strange facial expressions.

"Merlin!" she squealed enthusiastically, holding out a hand for him to shake, then removing it before he could shake it, and sticking her tongue out at him. "I'm Arrow'Nash."

"That's an odd name…"

"Says the boy with the funny ears who's called Merlin!" she retorted, before getting distracted by something shiny she thought she caught sight of behind her, causing her to spin around on the spot, trying to catch it.

"Is she alright?" Merlin asked, waving his hand in front of the girl, who now appeared as though she was trying to eat her own nose.

"Hmm?" Vegetables observed Arrow'Nash with a slightly bored expression. "Oh… Yeah… She's always doing that…"

"Riiight… Who are the others?"

"These two are called M. Diane and ringo'simaginarycat…"

"Do any of you people have normal names?"

"Err…" Vegetables considered this. "No. No, I don't think so."

Merlin turned to the two who had just been named, and was surprised to find them bland and totally shapeless.

"Don't comment on it," Vegetables warned him out of the side of her mouth. "They can be a bit sensitive…"

"Who are they?"

"We're not sure… They're anonymous reviewers…" she gave them an uncertain glance. "But we need all the help we can get…"

"Help with what?"

"We've come to help you writing…"

"Writing?"

"Yes - it's how to get rid of the plotbunnies. And we are all writers… It seemed obvious."

Merlin resisted the urge to hug her; it was so rare that somebody decided to help him.

"And… who are the others?"

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Merlin was strolling back down the corridors, feeling a little better after his lesson with Vegetables' odd friends about alliteration, rhyme and metre.

He paused as a random string of cApiTaL LeTtErS streaked past him down the hallway.

Merlin entered the physician's chambers to the somewhat unusual sight of Gaius attempting to fashion eyebrows for himself out of circumflexes.

"Gaius?"

Gaius didn't respond, he simply hummed a weird tune to himself, and did a strange, jittery dance around Merlin, as if the warlock wasn't even there.

"Gaius? Are you alright?"

Gaius began to mutter to himself, a mad grin on his face, "If you were gay, that'd be okay."

"I'm sorry? Are you talking to me?" Merlin looked around the space, and couldn't see anyone else that Gaius might be talking to…

"I mean 'cause, hey, I'd like you anyway. Because you see, if it were me, I would feel free to say that I was gay!"

Merlin frowned. "But… I'm not gay."

Gaius seemed determined to continue nonetheless, "If you were queer, I'd still be here; year after year because you're dear to me."

Merlin wanted to appreciate the sentiment, but it was all a bit too odd for him.

"And I know that you would accept me too,"

"But…" Merlin tried to interrupt again, only to be silenced by Gaius' flailing jazz hands.

"If I told you today, 'Hey! Guess what? I'm gay!'"

"But I'm not gay!" Merlin insisted.

Gaius would not be deterred. "I'm happy just being with you. So what should it matter to me what you do in bed with guys?"

"Gaius!"

"If you were gay, I'd shout hooray! And here I'd stay but I wouldn't get in your way!"

"I don't want to hear any more of this…"

"You can count on me to always be beside you every day…"

"You are beside me every day, whether I like it or not."

"To tell you it's okay, you were just born that way…"

"Oh! You have got to be kidding me! Seriously? I 'was just born that way'? That's the line you take with homosexuality, but when it comes to magic it's all, 'where did you study, boy?'!"

"And, as they say, it's in your DNA, you're gay!"

"BUT I'M NOT GAY!" Merlin screamed so loudly that every single citizen of Camelot paused to digest this new information.

Gaius blinked at him, smiled blankly, and removed his headphones. "Can I help you, Merlin? Why are you facepalming?"

A/N: So all those of you who guessed that you would get to be in 'The League' were right! The guys who appeared in this chapter were all people who left me funny songs about Lord Godfrey's daughter... (M. Diane - sorry, I can't write the name on this website without leaving a gap between the full stop and the 'D', but I know that there isn't meant to be a gap there!) But don't fret! You shall ALL get to be in The League! YAY! To help me with this... If, when you leave a review (which... you don't have to... but it would be nice if you did), you could just let me know if you're male/female - because it really does help make the writing sound less stilted, and I don't want to have to PM you all individually!