Title: Delivered

Author: A. Windsor

Characters: Myka Bering, HG Wells, Pete Lattimer, with supporting roles from everyone else.

Pairings: Increasingly Myka/HG, maybe some other ships in a more supporting role, later

Rating: PG?

Disclaimer: All television shows, movies, books, and other copyrighted material referred to in this work, and the characters, settings, and events thereof, are the properties of their respective owners. My two years of law school could allow me to legalese this a little more, but it also tells me it's pretty useless. So please don't sue; it's not mine, I'm just playing!

Summary: "I didn't sign up for the Warehouse to mess with us like this."

Author's Note: Beta'd by cacheese, 'cause roughian's still on Season One. With the summer season in full swing, here is where all my inspiration is. This happens in a vague post-4x02 world. I'll incorporate things from Season 4 if they seem relevant or necessary, but it might go even more AU as the season goes on.

"Mykes. Help."

And how can she say no to that?

She reaches out and takes the squalling infant. Other girls might have been attending parties every Friday and Saturday night of high school, but Myka Bering was making a ton of money putting kids to bed at eight p.m. and then having three to four hours of uninterrupted reading time.

"Hey there. Hey, buddy," she soothes the three-week-old. "I've got you."

In far less frantic arms, he begins to settle, whimpers rather than wails.

"See, he likes you," Pete says, relieved. "Right, Max? You like Aunt Mykes."

Aunt Mykes. That's how it starts.

Not a single one of them is prepared when Max arrives in their lives, the proverbial baby in the basket (or, rather, infant carrier carseat). A cliche, name pinned to his blanket with a note that immediately gives his paternity away.

"Macsen August Lattimer."

The name is the only thing his mother ever gives him, though Claudia and Artie have been searching for her, fruitlessly, ever since.

"Pete! What did you do?!"

The baby starts crying at the commotion, unused to Myka's frequent exasperation. The whole lot of them have been staring at it, dumbfounded.

Leena, returned from inside with a light blanket, tuts and leans down to scoop the baby up, giving them all disappointed looks for leaving him screaming on the porch while they bickered and theorized in the setting summer sun.

"Me? What! What did I do?" Pete cries as Myka shoves the note into his hands. He reads the words, his face going pale, voice soft when he can finally speak: "What- what did I do?"

Max came into this world almost ten months after Pete's run-in with an irresistible lust-inducing artifact and a very beautiful woman. Once the haze wore off, the two went their separate, slightly embarrassed ways, and neither thought much of it.

And then, Max.

"Whoa, this baby really is Pete's?" Claudia asks.

They are still all comically frozen on the front porch, though Leena has finally gotten the tiny baby to settle down.

"Maybe we should go inside?" Myka suggests, finally.

"Right, right," Artie recovers. He snatches the note from a nauseated Pete and shoos them all inside.

No one notices that Pete isn't with them until they are all settled into the living room. With a sideways glance at baby Macsen, Myka turns back to retrieve him. She finds him exactly where they left him, hollow. He has no witty joke for this situation.

"Hey," she says gently.

He swallows hard.

"I didn't sign up for this," he says. "I didn't sign up for the Warehouse to mess with us like this."

"Pete-"

She can't refute that, but she also knows the Warehouse doesn't follow any rules. It's already stolen Pete's One (or helped Helena do it, but no one talks about that). Now, it has taken this, insinuated itself forever into the most personal part of Pete.

"I have a kid, Myka," he yells.

Inside, said 'kid' begins to wail.

"I know. And now we have to figure out what to do next."

Pete is nervous, tentative, when he enters the living room, but Leena is having none of that. Almost immediately, Leena crosses to Pete and Myka and thrusts Macsen into his father's arms. Pete fumbles a little, both Myka and Leena at the ready to catch the tiny infant, but he gamely recovers, pulling Max into a competent, if awkward, hold.

"Whoa."

Pete stares for the first time into his son's perfect face. The room quiets for that moment of peace, but Artie is soon thinking aloud, just like always.

"We'll need to track down the mother, of course. And figure out how someone left something on the porch without us noticing - "

"Someone," Leena cuts in. "Left someone on the porch."

"Of course, of course. Claudia, this might be a job for your computer. Maybe we should call Steve and HG back from the Guy Fawkes artifact in London? And-"

"Um, can we back it up to the whole 'Pete has a baby' thing?" Claudia asks, holding up a hand.

"How do we know he's really his?" Myka asks the question no one really wants to.

That makes the whole room pause, but Pete, who has already started instinctively rocking the baby back and forth, says calmly:

"He is."

"Right, but some confirmation - " Artie starts.

"He's mine," Pete says firmly, not looking up.

"Okay," Artie relents, mouthing "DNA" to Claudia, who nods.

"More importantly," Leena declares, "We don't have anything to feed a baby. Or diapers."

"Okay, okay. Pete-" Artie shakes his head, as if remembering. "No, Myka, go get... whatever a baby needs. Claudia, we'll go to the Warehouse and do some research."

"Aw, but I haven't held Maxy yet!"

Artie ignores her, pressing on: "Leena..."

He nods towards Pete.

They scatter easily. They're all trained for crisis, they just need things to do in order to survive one. Once they're all gone, Pete finally looks up at Leena, smiling dazedly.

"He's asleep."

"That's good," Leena says gently, grabbing the carseat Macsen arrived in. "Do you want to put him down?"

"No," Pete shakes his head and Leena smiles softly.

"Okay. How about you sit down?" she gestures to the couch. Pete nods.

"Myka will be back soon. Hopefully before he wakes up."

"Leena?"

"Yeah, Pete?"

"I think this might be like the third time I've ever held a baby."

Leena laughs a little. "You're doing very well."

"Okay. But don't go anywhere."

"I'll be right here, Pete," Leena promises. "Congratulations, Dad."

"Pete," Myka says gently from the bedroom door.

Pete looks up from where he is fumbling with a diaper.

"Leena showed me how to do this, but I think I did it wrong."

He holds Macsen up for Myka to see, very careful to support his head. The motions aren't natural, but the attention he gives them are sweet. As is the slightly off-kilter diaper adorning the infant's bottom half.

Myka crosses into Pete's room and evaluates the diaper job. She slides a finger at the edge of Macsen's tiny thigh, to check for anywhere there could be leaks. Despite not being pretty, it looks like it will do the job.

"It looks good."

Pete beams, kissing the baby's cheek and then drawing him back against his chest.

"Hear that, Max? Daddy did something right."

"Max," Myka smiles softly. "I like that."

"Macsen's a big name for such a tiny man," Pete explains.

"Pete," she starts, taking a big breath. "We need a plan. For Max's future."

"Ooh, you're right. He needs, like, a bed. Does he need a nursery? I mean he'll sleep in here for awhile, right? But then, he needs his own room. Leena will be okay with that, right? And there's a lot of furniture a baby needs. Isn't there like a table where I change his diaper? My dad used to rock us in this awesome rocking chair; I wonder if my mom still has it. Mom! I need to tell her about Max! She's going to be so excited."

He crosses to find his cellphone, his hours of practice holding the baby making him more comfortable with the idea of removing one hand to rummage around his stuff.

"Pete, wait," Myka says. "I meant further in the future. Where he's going to live. After this."

Pete scrunches up his brow, cocking his head.

"Um, here, Mykes."

"You can't keep him," Myka gapes. "He needs-"

"What? A family? I am his family."

"I know but-"

"I'm his father," Pete yells, angry.

"But our jobs- we're- someone else- "

"Who? Who else? What am I supposed to do? I am all he has. I will not send him away, too."

Peaceful Max whimpers a little, and Pete lowers his voice, taking a deep breath.

"The Regents're gonna try to take him, too. I need you on my side, Myka."

"I'm always on your side," Myka says, hurt that he would ever doubt that. "But this is a huge responsibility. A lifetime responsibility. And to do it alone? I mean, of course, we'll all help out how we can, but you'll be a single dad."

"I'm a single dad whether he lives here or not," Pete retorts. "And I'm not gonna send him off to live with strangers."

"What about your sister?"

Pete shakes his head.

"He should be with me. I don't know why she let him go, but I'm sure as hell not going to. Heck. I should probably start saying heck now, right?"

Myka laughs, running a hand through her hair. "Yeah. Probably."

"So you're on my side?"

"I'm on your side. If you think you can do this, then I'm on your side."

"I can," Pete says firmly, looking down to the baby in his arms. "I have to."

tbc