Disclaimer: Not mine.
CATfic. (www. freewebs. com/ catverse)
It takes place in September, 2016, the final story of Arc Six. I hadn't intended to post it until the rest of the arc, or at least most of it, was up. But this is finished and I'm currently a little over-aware of the nature of impending doom, so I have to POST, POST, POST.
I think that's all I needed to say.
Saturday night--movie night--had come around again. The Captain had insisted on another zombie movie, and no one--no one--was going to argue with her.
As it turned out, pregnant mood swings were ten times worse than PMS. And they could happen at any time, for any reason, or for no reason at all.
And the only thing scarier than one of the Scarecrow's henchgirls in a psychotic rage was one of the Scarecrow's henchgirls in a psychotic rage with uncontrollable weeping and morning sickness.
The Captain (poor dear) was dealing with something she had never before experienced in her life. No longer could she be described as a skinny little girl, or scrawny, spindly, stick-thin, boyishly slender, or (her personal favorite) Scarecrowesque.
She was big.
She was huge.
She was massive.
She was positively gargantuan.
She looked like she'd swallowed a cow.
I don't know how she swallowed the cow.
The Captain was sitting on the couch with Al squeezed in on her left and the Scarecrow on her right. He was finally resigned to at least minimal physical contact, which was a damn good thing, because by the end of the movie, she was going to be sprawled across both their laps like a long, lumpy house cat.
There wasn't room for all four of them on the couch anymore, but Techie was comfortable curled up on the rug at their feet. Some time in the not-too-distant future, she was going to realize she was too old to lie on the floor for hours in the middle of winter, but that day hadn't come yet. Hopefully, when it did, no one would be preggers.
Techie started the movie, fervently hoping that the sight of all that blood wouldn't make the Captain hungry again. Last time she'd gotten a mystery craving, it had taken hours of trial and error before they had hit on the winning combination of raw spinach and chocolate syrup.
She shouldn't have worried. The opening credits had barely begun to roll when a set of nearly identical shrieks from above startled her out of her comfortable daze. She was on her feet before she knew what was happening, reaching for a weapon to defend her friends.
She registered three facts almost simultaneously.
She had no weapon.
There was no intruder.
The Captain was doubled over, face contorted in pain, gripping Al and Jonathan by the arms. And they looked to be in more pain than she was.
Techie did the math (such as it was) and was instantly glad that she had chosen the spot on the floor.
"Captain? Captain, please let go," Al said urgently. The Captain groaned and reflexively tightened her grip. Al went a bit white about the lips.
"Captain," the Scarecrow said sharply. With a startled gasp, she let them go. They both popped up to hide behind Techie--they might not have called it that, but she certainly did.
"Time?" she asked mildly. The Captain nodded miserably, biting her bottom lip hard to keep from crying out.
"What was that?" Crane demanded.
"It's called a contraction, Doctor Crane." He glared at her.
"Damn it, Techie, I'm a psychologist, not a midwife!"
At any other time, she would have gloated over the fact that he was finally being affected by the Trek residue that years of late-night marathons had left in their various lairs. But at any other time, the Captain would have joined her in a squee moment. Classic Trek was their private bonding ritual, rarely intruded on by anyone--because the Scarecrow claimed to have better things to do than watch a campy science fiction show, and Al had been banned the minute she made known her unreasoning hatred of William Shatner.
"Are we going to the hospital?" Al asked.
"Of course we're going to the hospital! You heard the man--he's not a midwife, and I can't exactly see you catching the baby!"
"But we're wanted criminals."
"And this is just occuring to you? Al, we worked out all these details months ago."
"Um--" the Captain started.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"It didn't sound like nothing."
"My...water broke."
Crane took another step back.
"You three have fun with this. I'll be in the lab."
"JONATHAN CRANE, YOU TAKE ONE STEP OUT OF THIS ROOM AND YOU'LL WISH YOU'D NEVER BEEN BORN!" the Captain wailed. He froze.
"But..."
"Take me to the hospital," she growled. "Argue on the way. Just get me to the--oh, God." She reached out to one of them--any one. After a moment, Al came forward to take her friend's hand.
"Okay, Captain, don't w--oh, God!" She went down on one knee, twisting in the Captain's grip.
"Uh-oh," Techie muttered. Crane glared at her suspiciously.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Well...do you remember that Hell Day when we...'asked' you to stock up on stronger spoons?"
He couldn't help it--the words made him flinch. "Hell Day" was the Captain's name for the first of each group of days marked in red on each month of his calendar, and he had to admit, he couldn't think of a more apt term for the situation.
And he did clearly recall that particular Hell Day. He had entered the kitchen in spite of deep misgivings, attracted by the sound of screaming and intrigued by the fact that, by late afternoon, they hadn't offered him so much as a smile and a chocolate chip.
He had found Al weeping and obsessively snapping her purple rubber gloves. The Captain had been curled up on the floor, unmoving, with a puddle of soup spreading from an overturned bowl at her side. And Techie had been screaming at the spoons and banging them against the counter one by one, separating the metal from the plastic handles.
As he recalled, the last of the spoons had met its end quivering in the wall just beyond his head.
"What does that have to do with this?"
"Mon Capitan broke the first spoon. One minute she's eating, then..." She raised a clenched fist. "Snap. And now she's having contractions?" She shrugged. "Do yourself a favor and don't get any grabbable parts in range."
"If you two are done with your little sewing circle..." Crane looked down and inadvertently smiled at the sight of Al lying on the flor, clutching her hand. Normally, seeing him smile, the Captain would have smiled back.
Now she just gasped and reached out to him, looking on the verge of tears.
He looked at Techie.
"You get her up."
"Are you kidding? I like my hands. I'm using them."
"Are you using them to drive?"
She fell silent, looking down at Al, who was clearly not going to be the one to get them to the hospital.
"Okay, Captain, let's--a"
"No!"
"No? What do you mean, no?"
"I don't want to! I made a mistake!"
"You're coming to this conclusion about nine months too late," Crane said. "Now, get up unless you want to have this baby in the bathtub."
She burst into tears.
"Stop that," he said, alarmed. She doubled over, sobbing. "What's wrong with you--what's wrong with her?"
"Hormones," said Techie.
"Lost her smegging marbles," Al corrected.
"I can't--bathtub," the Captain sobbed.
"I didn't mean--will you just try to be reasonable? Get up."
"Okay." Still sobbing pathetically, she reached up to him for help.
Damn her. He knew he was going to regret this.
He took her arm and helped her up. Techie grinned.
"You--"
"Feel free to finish that sentence if you've grown tired of living," he snapped.
"I'll just get the door."
Al slid under the Captain's other arm, looking perfectly fine except for her hand, while Techie opened the front door. The Captain leaned against Crane's shoulder, cuddling, much to his annoyance, but at least she let them lead her outside and into the parking garage.
When she saw the elevator doors, she tried to stop. They dragged her onward and pressed the button.
"Oh, do we have to?"
"Captain," Crane snapped, "I don't care if you want to die in childbirth, but you're not doing it here, at my feet."
"Who'd clear up the mess?" Al added.
"Techie," the Captain said, quite reasonably.
"Oh...shut up and get in the elevator."
"But I don't like the doctor!"
"The doctor doesn't like you," Crane said, and propelled her toward the open doors. She let him force her into the car, then caught his arm and pulled him toward her with the classic puppydog eyes.
"Don't leave me, Squishy."
He shook his arm, trying to get it out of her grip before another contraction hit. She clung to him.
"Don't worry," said Techie. "I'll drive."
He was torn between calling out to Al and Techie not to leave him alone with her, and just shaking her off and leaving them all to fend for themselves.
Then the doors closed, robbing him of the choice.
He pressed the button and tried patting her shoulder in an awkward sort of way. She clung to him as the elevator started to rise.
Then, with a disturbing lurch and a grinding noise, it stopped.
The doors didn't open.
"Are we stuck?" the Captain asked.
"Um..." He hated to have to answer her this way. "I believe we are." She sagged against him.
"I knew there was a reason why I didn't like elevators. I'm going to panic now."
"Thank you for the warning." He helped her sit down, and watched as she burst into noisy, hysterical tears.
So this was how it was going to end. Trapped in an elevator with a madwoman who was--who was going into labor.
He tried to pry open the doors with his fingers, to no avail.
The Captain groaned as another contraction hit.
He pounded on the doors.
"Al! Techie! Get us out of here!"
There was no response.
"Squishy," the Captain sobbed. Reluctantly, he knelt beside her and patted her on the shoulder.
"It's...um...it's going to be all right."
"It is not! I'm having my baby in an elevator with you! And we're going to plummet to our doom, the cable's going to snap, we're all going to die--"
"Get a grip on yourself!" He might have slapped her, but somehow that didn't seem the appropriate course of action to take with a pregnant woman.
"But..."
"But nothing. Just try to breathe. We'll be out of here soon." She clung to his arm.
"But I don't want to--this is worse than giving birth in a taxi."
"You never were one to do things according to tradition." He heard the sound of someone knocking on the elevator doors.
"Squishy? Are you stuck in there?" Al called.
"Yes!" He moved away from the Captain, back to the doors. "How soon can you get us out?"
"Um..."
Oh, that didn't sound promising. The Captain smothered a scream.
"Sooner would be better," he snapped.
"We could go look for a crowbar," Al suggested.
"Whatever you're going to do, do it now."
"I want Eddie," the Captain sobbed. He turned back to her.
"What?"
"I want Eddie and I want him here now! Please! Please just get him down here!"
He turned to the doors.
"You hear that? She's ready to make a family of it. One of you call Edward. Make him deal with this."
"Family--fuck! I want him here so I can kill him!"
He smiled. Even better.