There is a serious lack of Ringer crackfic out there. Even my own first Ringer story is angsty, and I usually tend to write crackfic. So here's a cracky story where Bridget's troubles all come to a head, Andrew learns the truth, and some crazy things happen.

Bridget Kelly was having a very bad day. True, she'd experienced a seemingly never-ending series of bad days since taking over her sister's life, but this one was a stand-out.

First of all, the annoying pad she wore in order to fake her pregnancy had slipped during her lunch with Gemma, and she'd had to duck under their restaurant table in order to readjust it. She spent so long on the floor fiddling with the tricky padding that Gemma had sent a waiter down to search for her, and the man had pulled aside the tablecloth to reveal her crouching on the floor with her hand up her dress. Bridget did not think she would be returning to that particular dining establishment any time soon. It really wasn't fair. She was barely into her second "trimester," and she didn't know how she would be able to stand wearing that padding for several more months, especially when she added more layers to make herself look increasingly pregnant over only reason she continued to keep up the pregnancy charade was because it gave her the perfect excuse not to touch alcohol and break her sobriety. If only rich people didn't normally drink like such fish, she wouldn't have needed to bother with the act, so it was really their fault.

Her next setback that day came when she had to fend off the latest amorous advances of Andrew, who didn't seem to mind her thickened middle in the least. Not that she was averse to his attentions-far from it-but Bridget figured that eventually he would uncover her deception, and the less she had to apologize for then, the better. To discourage her "husband," she'd rushed into the bathroom feigning morning sickness and remained inside for half an hour counting the ceiling tiles while periodically making fake retching noises. When she emerged, a sullen Juliet cornered her and thrust a homework paper coated with red marks in her face. The huge F in the center of the page of geometry she'd "helped" with had glared accusingly at Bridget. She'd hardly been able to refuse to assist Juliet the other day when the teenager had asked "math whiz" Siobhan for a hand with her homework. Unfortunately, Bridget herself had barely squeaked by with passing grades in math, and her lack of ability was evident.

But the most serious blemish on her enjoyment of the day was that she had just killed her nineteenth assassin.

Over the months she had been posing as Siobhan, Bridget had grown rather depressingly skilled at dispatching killers. Today, December 10, when the latest hitman leaped out at her from behind the sofa in her own living room, she tripped him with an expertly placed foot clad in a Prada stiletto, grabbed a Giacometti statue from the nearest end table, and whacked the man over the head with a solid blow.

She heard a crack and winced. Whatever had broken was either the hitman's skull or her statue. With her luck, it was the artwork. Oh, well. She shrugged philosophically. Andrew wouldn't be happy, since the piece was extremely valuable, but the statue was hideous. Siobhan had had terrible taste in art.

Bridget knelt and touched a finger to the would-be murderer's carotid artery, just to be sure he had been thoroughly removed from the equation. Yep, he was dead, all right. As her list of kills had mounted, she had begun to keep track on a handy scorecard, and today's death marked the nineteenth hitman she had defeated. One positive aspect about the situation was that she never had to dispose of the bodies, since the assassin's buddies always came along and performed that dirty job for her. Of course, she was no closer than ever to discovering who had ordered the hit on Siobhan in the first place, but you couldn't have everything in life.

On the other hand, today's kill carried a particularly disturbing aspect with it, for it was the first time she had been attacked inside her home. Every other attack, from the attempted drowning in a kiddie pool to the failed strangulation with chicken wire, had occurred outdoors. It really wouldn't do to let Juliet or Andrew stumble upon this body before it conveniently vanished. Bridget sighed, readjusted her awkward pregnancy padding for only about the fiftieth time that day, and set her mind to the issue of how to conceal the masked intruder.

Oh, hell. Wasn't it enough that she had offed the man? Why should she have to do all of the hard work of plotting and scheming by herself?

A brilliant idea sprang into her mind and refused to leave. She should call Malcolm and ask for his advice. Their phone conversations had fallen into a reassuringly familiar pattern. She called him to whine about her latest travails, he told her to watch out for herself, she assured him she would follow his advice, and they hung up, Bridget feeling better than before she called and Malcolm invariably feeling worse. Still, he had the option of ignoring her calls or changing his phone number or possibly leaving the country, so Bridget refused to feel guilty about dumping on him every few days.

Malcolm was the perfect person to call, and that was only partly because she had no one else to give her tips about concealing a body. Bridget quickly punched his number into her cell phone and impatiently waited for an answer. The voice on the other end of the line had just barely begun to speak when she interrupted. "Hey, Malcolm, sorry to bother you yet again, but I just killed another guy. I hit him over the head with that incredibly ugly Giacometti statue that Siobhan made Andrew buy at auction for $4.8 million, and I don't know if it's insured, but anyway! This is dead man number nineteen. Do you think I'll get to number twenty before Christmas? And the corpse is lying on my living room carpet and I have to get rid of it somehow before my stepdaughter or fake husband stumbles over it. Do you have any suggestions?"

A silence that lasted for approximately 7.5831 seconds fell over the line. Then a female voice that clearly did not belong to Malcolm feebly said, "Who in the world are you?"

"Whoops, wrong number!" Bridget disconnected the call and checked her display. Damn, she'd pushed a 4 instead of a 5 at the end of the sequence.

As if she didn't already have more than enough on her plate, the front door clicked open. "Siobhan, are you home?" Andrew's voice called.

"Oh, hell," Bridget muttered with feeling as his footsteps approached.

TBC