"Where's the off button?" Arthur groans, his eyes smudged and crinkled with weariness. "This is starting to remind me of sharing a flat with Merlin."

Scout has been wailing ceaselessly, and nothing seems to remedy it. They've checked her nappy, fed her, taken her temperature, sang to her, put her in her bouncer; it's useless.

Gwen heaves a sigh that's part exhausted laughter, part resignation. She's got a wired look about her as she meticulously folds towels at the coffee table. It seems to be the only thing that keeps her from going mental.

"Oh, come now, he's not that much of a crybaby."

Arthur snorts as he rubs his eyes. "You know what I mean. When Morgana was over every night. Ugh."

"You probably could have moved out sooner. You didn't have to wait until you met me."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he tilts his head back against the wall, lifting it slowly and letting it fall back with a thud. Then again. And again.

"Don't you start that," she warns him. "If you blind yourself, you're still raising this child with me."

"Have pity on a blind man, Guinevere," he pouts, tugging at her shirt dramatically.

She swats him away and his hand falls limply.

"I think I'm going deaf, too. Seriously. I think my ears are ringing. It's like... this terrible high pitched whining."

"Nope, that's your daughter. She sounds just like you."

"Oho," Arthur laughs at that. "Ouch. Oh, god," he flops over, his head falling into Gwen's lap.

She frowns, the towel she was folding hovering mid-air. Then she drops it in favor of lying back and to stroke her husband's hair listlessly.

"We have got to get Merlin back over," she admits first. She knows Arthur's been thinking about it.

"I know," he mumbles against her thigh. "He's like the baby whisperer."

"Maybe we can trap him and keep him in the cupboard for times like this."

Arthur chuckles deliriously and it becomes a groaning half-sob. "I need sleep."

"Me too, darling," she says. "Me, too."

"Hand me my mobile, would you love?"

She grabs it off the end table and deposits it on his chest. Arthur thumbs the keys rapidly for a few moments and then he's setting it on the coffee table.

"Done."

"What did you do?"

"Better you're not party to it."

Ten minutes later there's a frantic knocking at the door and Gwen barely has time to shift herself off the couch before the door unlocks itself and Merlin comes barreling into their living room.

He makes a frenzied survey of the room, frowning at how relaxed his friends look, draped lazily over the couch.

"What's—?" he starts to ask, then turns his head sharply toward Scout, who has apparently found a new set of lungs to burn through.

With a wary glance toward her parents, Merlin moves to pick her up and cradle her against him.

She gives a hiccuping cough and a few more lack-luster sobs and then she's mercifully quiet, her tiny fingers flexing and gripping against Merlin's jumper.

"There we go," he murmurs softly as she settles. "That's a girl. That's it, here I am."

Merlin glances up to see the door left open and moves across the room to close and lock it again.

"Really, 999 Arthur? That's just brilliant, isn't it? Any time you need a nanny you think you can just..."

The words die on his lips as he looks up to find his two best friends curled around each other, passed out in one another's arms.

"...Brilliant," he mutters, looking around the room.

Begrudgingly, he switches off the lamp next to them and takes Scout into the nursery to tell her stories about an infuriating, selfish prat and the silly, wonderful woman that put him in line. Mostly.