by
Aimee
(aimeed@earthlink.net)
"'S no good," mumbled CC contentedly.
"Don't bloody care, you're staying," Niles agreed amiably, dangling his hand over her from behind and caressing her swollen tummy.
CC scowled playfully. "I hate bed rest. Bed and rest just aren't two ideas that I connect anymore. Bedtime is play time."
Niles leaned up on his elbow. "I know. It's like the whole concept of a nightmare. My mare likes to be ridden night and day." She turned over and gave him a dirty look. He grinned, ecstatic. They indulged in a long, intimate kiss, then he pulled away and lay back down. "But you know, Dr. Scott is afraid that you're going to deliver too early. So, no nooky until the baby's born. Got it?"
"I don't got it, and I'm not getting it any time soon!" she replied sulkily. "That's two more weeks."
"Maybe you'll deliver early," he said hopefully. "Not early enough to be dangerous, but a little early."
"I still have to stay in bed for days and days, alone!" she grumbled. "I'll be so bored!"
Maxwell appeared at the door to CC's room. "Good afternoon, CC. I thought you might be bored, so I stopped by to give you Mr. Sherry's response to your latest idea for a hit sitcom." He raised one eyebrow at her. "Really, CC, a bar in Boston where everybody knows your name?"
"What did he say?" she asked with a giggle.
"That I should fire you."
CC pouted. "I'm getting bored. That's the same thing he said last week about my pitch for a show about a creepy, kooky goth family whose servant is a disembodied hand that lives in a box."
"Everyone at the studio sends their regards and a few small items that should keep you entertained."
"Scripts?" CC asked with interest.
"Nope," he replied cheerfully.
"Story boards?"
"Not just yet."
"Maxwell, you Type-B personality! What have you got for me?"
Maxwell began raining papers on the covers. "Requisitions for trailers for our stars. The daily doughnut receipts for September, October, and November. A lock of Jennifer Aniston's hair -- oh wait, that's for Fran." Max took a glance at CC's face and deduced that she didn't really feel like working. "Oh, well. Must be going. I'm taking Fran and Gracie to Disneyland. Cheerio, toodle-pip, and all that." Max ducked behind the door just in time to avoid an airborne pillow.
An unsatisfyingly soft clatter resulted from CC's throwing half a dozen pens against the door. The clipboard made a much better slam, but then her papers fell off and she had to go and retrieve them. The problem was that she was firmly convinced that one wrong move would send her into labor. Although, Dr. Scott could have been kidding about that woman who went into labor early because she got out of breath bending over to paint her toenails, couldn't she?
CC rolled over and eased the lower half of her body out of bed. She waited. So far so good. She sat up. No disaster. She stood on her feet.
Fran burst in with a baby in each arm. CC slipped on a fallen pen, and tumbled back into bed with a loud Whoomp and several less repeatable comments.
"Oh, there there, no need to make such a fuss," Fran soothed, setting Jonah and Evie down on Niles' side of the bed. They continued to cry.
"I don't think they agree, Nanny Fine."
"I was talkin' to you. Shame on you, using that kind of language. They could learn to talk any day now, and I don't think crude anatomical references should be their first words."
"Nanny Fine, they aren't going to talk yet. They're not even seven months old, and with you and Maxwell contributing the genes for intellect, they're not going to be setting any records."
"That is not true. Everyone in my family learns to talk at a very young age. We're very astute that way." Fran folded her arms and glared down at CC, who was lounging once more among the cushions. CC glared right back. "All right, not astute. Maybe verbally advantaged." CC's eyebrow inched upward. "Okay, so nobody in my family shuts up from the cradle to the grave. The point is, I don't want their first words to bear any resemblance to the kind of language I heard emitting from this room the other night before Dr. Scott put you on bed rest."
"Niles and I argue all the time. You should be used to that."
"Those sounds weren't arguing, honey!"
CC grinned reluctantly. "Oh, Nanny Fine, it's only been a couple of days since the doctor kicked our love life to the curb, and I already miss it."
Fran nodded sympathetically. "By the way, who was it that let Niles think he only has to wait until the baby's born? Doesn't he know you can't do the ooh-la-la for a few more weeks?"
"Shhhh!" CC giggled. "It's payback for a couple of weeks ago when he gave me specially imprinted 'novelty balloons' to promote Max's and my new show."
"Why, what was wrong with the balloons?"
"He bought them out of a machine in the men's room of a bar."
"I always wondered about Rodgers and Hammerstein. I mean, you're doing a show called Carousel, fine. But what's with these song titles? 'Blow High, Blow Low,' 'You're a Queer One Jenny Jordan,' and 'June is Bustin' Out All Over.' Who is June, and hasn't she ever heard of a miracle bra? Maybe Niles isn't so far off the mark. I mean, somebody better be using some kind of protection, because that sounds like a very high-risk lifestyle."
When Fran finally drew breath and risked a glance at CC, it was to find her doubled over, clutching her stomach. Fran grabbed her. "Are you okay?"
"Just laughing," CC admitted. "I think we finally found something we agree on. I always thought the same thing."
"Which is why," said Fran, "you are absolutely going to love my idea for having a little fun and breaking up the monotony of your bed rest."
"Suddenly I like the monotony of my bed rest," CC said suspiciously.
"Fine," said Fran, shrugging. "But don't say I didn't try. You stay here and enjoy adding up the doughnut receipts. I'm goin' to Disneyland."
Which was how, the next day, CC found herself entertaining guests in her bedroom.
"A psychic," she told Niles, who was setting up a tea tray on her dressing table. "We're going to ask her to tell about my baby and how the labor's going to be and all that."
"Can I come?" asked Niles.
"Nope. Girls' time only."
"But sweetie, it concerns the future of our only child!" he coaxed.
"Ha. You just want to see three women on the same bed."
Niles looked innocent.
As he left the room, he muttered, "I'll just set up a video camera in the closet. It's not like it would be the first time."
Downstairs, he was on hand to answer the door to Fran's friend the psychic.
Libby swung her hips into the foyer. "Frannie!" she said with enthusiasm. The two women embraced.
"Libby, this is Niles, the man who did the deed to my husband's business partner," Fran introduced them.
Libby's dark eyes peered at him. "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?"
Niles nodded. "You had a vision of me going to bed with her husband."
Libby nudged him. "I want details."
He nudged her back. "Call Dionne Warwick."
"I can't. I already owe her $530.48."
Niles shook his head and rolled his eyes. He watched them go upstairs and hurried to the intercom to eavesdrop.
"Oooh," Libby said ominously, twisting CC's palm back and forth. "Oooooooyyyyy."
"What? What?" asked CC anxiously.
Libby shook her head and, with an air of doom, pronounced. "I want a second opinion." She went to her shoulder bag and produced a deck of tarot cards. She shuffled quickly and spread them out. Immediately she sucked in her breath, cupped her hands to her cheeks, and swung her head from side to side. Her large hoop earrings danced wildly.
From the intercom came a muted "Damn it, you quack, say something. Oops, I pressed the wrong button again, didn't I?"
Fran hovered over Libby's shoulder. "What is it? Tell, tell!"
Libby gave Fran a dark look. Extending her dragon-length red nail, she pointed to a card in the center. It had a figure of a skeleton dancing in a graveyard.
Fran moved slowly down the stairs in a slinky black gown, her view hampered by her heavy black mourning veil. She sniffled and pressed a lace-edged hanky to her eyes. Every time she tried to stop grieving, she broke out into fresh tears.
To an audience of none, she proclaimed, "Oh, poor Miss Babcock! And she was so young. Okay, well, not young, but she wasn't all that old. And we had only just gotten to be friends. I wonder if we can get Spago to cater the funeral? Waaaaahhhh!!!!"
She emerged into the living room. Max, CC, and Niles, all sitting in a row on the sofa, turned as one.
CC gave her a wry glare. "Nanny Fine, you seem to be taking my impending death much harder than I am."
Fran shook a warning finger at her. "Look at you, out of bed! Are you trying to make the prophecy come true already? You may not be able to defeat the fates, but you could at least give it a fighting shot!"
Max glared at his wife. "Fran, cease this howling at once! Niles has very delicate nerves."
Niles tried to look piteous and profound, but it just sent him into a fit of laughter.
"Besides," CC added negligently. "Libby also said that your mother was going to make a dramatic change in her eating habits. Your mom's been on a diet ever since you were born. That's like saying that Regis Philbin will end up hosting a TV show."
"We'll see," Fran said ominously. "Ma will be here for dessert any minute, and then you'll know."
"Why didn't she come for dinner?" asked Niles.
"Because every Wednesday she and Daddy go to the local bar for fifteen cent wings. It's a ritual since they came to California."
Just then, the doorbell rang. Fran went to answer it, feeling that Niles should spend as much time as possible with his wife in the few days she had left to live.
"Hi, Ma!" she said enthusiastically.
Sylvia kissed her brusquely and swept in. "Niles, is there any dinner left?"
"Ma, I thought you went to Buddy's Brewskis every Wednesday."
Sylvia shook her head. "They raised the prices to twenty-five cents a wing. Who do they think we are, the Beverly Hillbillies? They claim their operating costs have skyrocketed since we moved into the neighborhood. Ha! That Buddy should only choke on a chicken bone."
Niles gripped CC's wrist so hard her fingers started to go numb. "So, does that mean you won't be eating there any more?" he asked hesitantly.
"As if!"
Niles looked at CC, appalled. "She's changing her eating habits," he said warily.
"Regis Philbin," she said sharply, pulling her arm away before he noticed her racing pulse.
Fran clapped her hands to her face, and even Maxwell paused with a glass of scotch halfway to his lips. Niles seized it and threw it back in one shot.
Fran paced the bedroom anxiously, her hot pink nightgown flowing behind her. She wrung her hands. "Oh, God, what are we going to do? Niles will kill himself if she dies! Oh, this is all my fault. I should never have insisted she see that meshuggeneh psychic."
Maxwell scowled at her from the bed. "That's the first sensible thing you've said since this whole fiasco erupted! I can't believe you'd trust the word of some back alley fortuneteller over CC's doctors. And to drag her into this -- in her condition, it could bring on her labor early!"
"What are you talking about? She's due in three days! Anyway, maybe now that we know, we can take some precautions. Niles and her doctor already ordered her to go on bed rest until she goes into labor. That's a good thing."
"No, it bloody well isn't! He made me help him carry her up to their room. I think I've acquired a hernia."
A faint knock sounded at the door. Fran opened it. Niles stood there, lower lip out, shoulders drooping, dressing gown hanging open over pajamas that were buttoned crooked.
"Want my girl all better," he whimpered.
Fran put her arm around him. "I know, sweetie, I know. Maybe we can still figure out how to defeat this prophecy. We'll sure try, okay? I mean, they do it every week on Buffy!"
"Okay," sobbed Niles.
Fran led him over and sat him down on her dressing table stool. She sat on the edge of the bed.
"So what exactly did this woman say?" Maxwell asked.
Fran gave Niles an apologetic look. "She said she saw a beautiful blonde dying in labor accompanied only by her doctors and the man she'd finally won after fighting to be with him for so long."
Niles wailed openly. "My poor baby, my poor lonely baby, I was so mean to her. I'll never be mean to her again."
Maxwell looked at him in disgust, but before he could make a snide remark, Fran whispered, "Remember how it felt when Sarah died. That's what he's facing now." Maxwell closed his mouth.
"I better go back to her," Niles sighed. "You two try to get some sleep. Don't worry about us. We'll be fine. Whatever life throws at us, we'll handle. No need to fret. I'll just make myself a snack. I hear whisky and painkillers go well together."
The next day, Fran tried to persuade Niles to watch their favorite soap opera, but with no luck. So Fran sat down alone with a box of Oreos and phoned Val.
"Yeah, Brice is really freaking out, isn't he? Well, I would be too, if my wife and child were dying right in front of me. Yeah, Coral's having a really tough delivery, do you think she'll make it? Soap Opera Digest was really quiet about it, but I think she'll pull through as soon as they renew her contract with the raise she asked for. Isn't it so tragic about Niles and C.C.? Watching Coral dying in labor is like seeing into the future. Into -- wait a sec. Can I call ya back, Val?"
Fran hung up and quickly dialed Libby's phone number.
"Hello, Libby? Libby? I have to talk -- "
"Call ya back, Frannie, my soap's on." Libby slammed down the phone.
Fran screamed for Niles. "Niles! Niles, come quick! You have to see this!"
He ran in, looking as disheveled as the night before and by now starting to smell from not having showered.
"Whew!" Fran gagged. "Clean yourself up, you're gonna be a Daddy."
"Yes, and she'll probably look just like CC, and I won't be able to bear the sight of the beautiful child with my dead love's face, and she'll spend all her early years in boarding school -- "
"Shuddup and watch the soap. Libby wasn't predicting CC's death, she was predicting Coral's! Look!"
Niles dropped down onto the couch, his eyes glued to the television. Coral's screams echoed though the first floor, and he hastily turned the volume down.
Brice stood beside her, begging her to fight. "Coral, this is our child! Please, he needs a mother!"
Niles didn't move for the next ten minutes until Coral flatlined and the doctors fought to save her.
The episode ended just as they were about to do an emergency Cesarean to save the baby at the same time they tried to revive Coral.
Niles jumped up and began to conga around the sofa. "Gonna be a Dad-dy! Gonna be a Dad-dy! Gonna be a Dad-dy!" He planted a loud, smacking kiss on the top of Fran's head and danced up the stairs to tell CC the glorious news.
Niles stopped long enough to shower and change into a suit, then went to their bedroom. "CC?"
She lay in the dark, clad in a dramatic white lace peignoir. "Niles, I'm scared. I don’t want to die."
This had gone on long enough. He considered letting her worry awhile as a practical joke, but he was almost a responsible family man now. "CC, you're not going to die. Listen, I just made a discovery that proves it. You see, when the fortune teller prophesied -- "
The telephone rang. It was the jewelry store. The bracelets he'd ordered for CC and the baby were ready.
Niles couldn't wait to see them. He wanted to present them to CC when their child was born, and from the look of things, he didn't have much time.
"Darling, I've got to go out and pick up a little surprise for you. Can you stay by yourself for just half an hour? Fran and Max should be home soon, and I won't be long."
CC nodded bravely. "I'll be fine, Niles. Really."
"You'd better stay in bed, wench, or I'll beat your bottom, pregnant or not."
CC laughed. "I love you, Niles."
"Love you too, baby. Promise you're not going anywhere?"
"I promise."
"I won't be long."
CC tried to read a play while he was gone, but the pain became too much. Being in bed was so uncomfortable. CC decided that maybe if she just walked around the room a bit, it might help her feel better. She rolled to a sitting position and heaved herself to her feet.
Suddenly, she felt something like a bubble bursting, and her water broke.
CC screamed and reached for the telephone.
She was so panicked she could barely get her message across to the operator, but soon an ambulance was on its way.
Dragging her overnight bag with her, it took CC nearly ten minutes to make it to the first floor. She managed to unlock the door just as the ambulance pulled up and a contraction bent her double.
Niles came home half an hour later and found the front door open. He raced upstairs and surveyed the scene in the bedroom in sick horror. CC's overnight case was gone, and so was she. She'd gone into labor the minute he left her alone. And she still thought that the prophecy was true.
Oh, he was in so much trouble. At least she couldn't hold out on sex unless it took more than six weeks for her to get over this. Fran had finally clued him in about that.
The nurse administered the painkiller and left to check on another patient. CC moaned. Why hadn't they chosen a hospital more carefully? No one believed her that she was dying. They thought it was all some damn pregnant woman's hysteria. Who were those rotten brainless bastards to call her hysterical?
CC hated the entire world. She hated sappy Maxwell and his know-it-all, saccharine-sweet wife. She hated the stupid doctors and nurses for not taking care of her. Most of all, she hated that no-good servant she'd married. And he was never, ever touching her again.
Well, of course he wasn't. She was going to die, and at this rate so would her daughter.
"They can't do this to me!" she shrieked. "I hate every one of those bastards, and I'm not going down like this!"
CC had never played by the established rules, and she wasn't about to start now. After all, she had to set a good example for her daughter.
"I'm going to live through this," she announced to no one in particular. "And then I'm going to kill them all!" She gritted her teeth, threw back her head, and screamed as another contraction hit her.
Upon making her decision to live no matter what it took, CC Babcock was back in her natural state: scary.
Between contractions, CC grinned as she remembered how she'd rounded up this posse to attend her. She'd rung and rung until half the nursing staff was there, then announced that they had five minutes to find her doctor or the first person to attend her delivery would be her attorney. She then reached for her cell phone.
Niles could hear his cursing, enraged wife all the way down the hall. "If even one of you leaves me alone, California is going to become the malpractice capital of the whole damn world, do you hear me? You -- yes, you standing in the corner. Go call my husband. Tell that worthless toilet duck -- "
Niles was at her side, reaching for her hand. "I'm here, honey," he said tenderly. "What do you want to tell me?"
CC had him by the necktie and pulled his face to hers. "One of us is going to die tonight, lover, and it ain't going to be me!"
CC's face was pale and haggard, her eyes closed, but when the nurse tried to remove the baby from the crook of her arm, her eyes popped open and she glared. The nurse backed off.
Niles sat at her side. "Niles," she whispered.
"Yes, angel?"
"I didn't die."
"Of course not." Niles saw no reason to get himself in worse trouble by telling her about the soap opera situation.
CC examined the delicate diamond bracelet on her wrist, which matched a smaller one on the baby's wrist. "And neither did you."
"Darling, you can't kill me. The baby needs her father."
"I know, so I guess I'll let you live. But Niles, will you do something for me?"
"What, my brave girl?"
"Stay the hell away from me for the rest of our married lives. I'm not doing this again." They smiled at each other, and he kissed her forehead.
Niles coaxed a possessive CC to let him take the baby out to the lobby and show her off. "Why can't they come in here?" she asked.
"Are you up to it? Everyone's here."
"Fran and Max and the twins?"
"And the three older children." Niles waited with enjoyment to see what a hash she'd make of their names.
CC's eyes lit up. "You mean Maggie, Brighton and Gracie?"
Niles staggered back in astonishment. "You know their names?"
"Oh, did I get it right? Maybe now I've got a baby of my own, I don't have to hate everyone else's. Niles -- can we call her Josette?"
"Hell, no! I was thinking Ellen Elizabeth."
CC wrinkled her nose. "Whatever for?"
"Well, there's a BB, a CC, and a DD, and since I want my daughter to be a spitfire like her mother, I figured I'd better follow tradition."
"EE? Uh-uh!"
"Darn. Well, I want something exotic. How about Star, or Skye?"
"Or Venus?" suggested CC sarcastically. The baby in her arms wiggled and cooed. "No!" CC told her firmly but kindly. When Niles raised an eyebrow at her uncharacteristic tone, CC shrugged. "Active parenting," she explained.
"Listen, I was thinking," he mumbled.
"Always a bad sign for me, lover."
He smiled at her wary expression. "What about Morgan? Like that doll you had when you were a kid?"
CC smiled. "I named her after Morgan le Fay in the King Arthur stories. Are you sure you want our child named for a famous witch, when she already bears half my DNA?"
Niles stroked the baby's cheek. "Wouldn't have it any other way. What do you think, darling? Is Daddy's girl a little Morgan?"
Their daughter wiggled and cooed even more than she had for "Venus."
Niles chuckled. "The decision is made. Now a middle name. How about Morgan Victoria?"
CC cuddled her child. "Morgan Victoria. It's perfect. Elegant with a touch of attitude."
"Just like her mama."
"And her papa. She's going to be a hellion, isn't she?"
"Lord, I hope so," said Niles.
"Umm, papa?"
"Yes?"
"I think she just went number two. That makes her your daughter now. Babcocks don't do diapers," said CC.
The End
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