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ptahrrific) wrote2007-07-23 11:53 am
ptahrrific) wrote2007-07-23 11:53 am
Entry tags:
Fake News: Expecting, Chapter 8
Title: Expecting, Chapter 8: Fortune Favors The Ballsy
Series: The Colbert Report
Rating: G for this part
Words: ~1700
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
Notes: In the Reportverse, Stephen and Jon have radically different ideologies, so Stewart-Colbert '08 (or, for that matter, Colbert-Stewart '08) is not a popular T-shirt.
Clips referenced: Tragic local story; eight-child policy.
For the full table of contents to this story, click here.
Chapter 8
Fortune Favors The Ballsy
February 7, 2007
(Continued)
There were two TVs in the general waiting room, one tuned to the hospital's internal channel (displaying helpful advice about eating fresh vegetables between ads for the NanoDocs program), the other to CNN. Jon watched both.
Trying to do something useful in the meantime, he thought of another punny headline for the astronaut story. It promptly appeared on CNN Newsroom.
The coverage was getting under his skin. The cheap jokes at the expense of an accomplished woman who had tragically gone round the bend, the hyping of what was essentially a local story....Maybe the Daily Show's over-the-shoulder title could be something like that. At least there was no chance someone else would snap it up.
Besides, he couldn't focus on being funny right now. His mind was stuck on a roller coaster, careening from "Moreau called an ambulance" to "Moreau said it's probably not urgent" and back, clanking slowly up to the height of "Moreau told Stephen to give that number only to someone he would trust with his life, and he gave it to me, which means—" and then taking the death-defying plunge into "Stephen's pregnant and in the emergency room!"
The latest pair of talking heads were rehashing the implications of the astronaut's diaper, and the man next to Jon had somehow gotten the idea that he ought to give a long-winded explanation of the rash on his arm, when a nurse came in. "Mr. ...Stewart?" he asked, reading the name from a small notepad.
Jon stood up.
"Oh, hey, you're Jon Stewart!" explained the nurse as Jon followed him out. "I love your show. My girlfriend got me one of those Stewart/Obama '08 shirts last Christmas."
"Why am I on the top of the ticket?" quipped Jon. "I'm about the only person who has less Washington experience than he does."
"Couldn't do much worse than the current guy," the nurse replied. "Of course, Mom's a fan of Colbert/Paul, and maybe they could. Anyway, here's your room."
Stephen was sitting up in the bed, dressed in a hospital gown but looking normal except for the IV hooked to his arm (and, of course, the blatantly pregnant stomach). He was talking to a tall woman a little older than himself, with a brown bob and earrings shaped like apples, but grinned and waved when Jon came in.
The doctor looked up, then rose to greet him. "Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Stewart. I'm Phoebe Moreau. Stephen talks about you all the time."
"Do not," protested Stephen from the bed.
"Call me Jon." He reached over the bed to shake Moreau's hand, then took a seat across from her. "So you're the one behind all of this. Is he okay? Is the baby okay? What happened?"
"They're both fine. But it's fortunate that you called sooner rather than later."
"You see, Jon," cut in Stephen, clearly not thrilled to be out of the center of attention, "a pregnant woman experiences a massive increase in blood volume — about fifty percent. However, despite the administration of hormones which were meant to have an equivalent effect, my body never received, or never correctly interpreted, the signal to increase blood production. That's why I was experiencing symptoms similar to anemia, as well as the abnormal cold: increasing blood demand from the fetus. I mean the baby."
Moreau was nodding in approval. Her expression hadn't changed, but a twinkle in her eyes made Jon suspect that she found Stephen's sudden expertise as amusing as he did. Which was good, because it was probably her words that Stephen was repeating verbatim.
"Anyway, it's sweet that you were worried, but all they had to do to fix it was give me a transfusion of packed red cells. You didn't have to panic."
"I panicked?" echoed Jon incredulously.
"He did," the pundit informed Moreau. "You should have seen it. He's so cute when he worries."
Jon, who could feel a bruise on his forearm developing where Stephen had held it in a vise-like grip for the whole trip, who had scratches from where Stephen's nails had dug into his skin every time the ambulance slowed for traffic, who had spent most of the ride reassuring Stephen that he was not on death's door, looked helplessly at Moreau.
He couldn't be sure, but he thought she winked at him.
"One transfusion won't solve everything, though," she continued, addressing her patient. "We'll have to get a lot more iron into your multivitamin, for one thing. I would rather not tinker with your hormone dosage at this point if possible, so we'll keep a much closer eye on the symptoms that tipped your friend off, and give you another transfusion if necessary."
Jon was relieved to note that, although Stephen went relatively pale at this announcement, his face was still more flushed than it had been in a long time.
"Another one?" he exclaimed. "How many times are you going to impale me, woman? I'm a human being, not a pincushion!"
"As many times as necessary," replied Moreau without batting an eye, "and as few as possible. To minimize them, make sure you get plenty to drink. The IV is keeping you especially hydrated right now, but you'll need to do that on your own when you leave."
Stephen looked at the bag of fluid suspended above him. "That's water?"
"A saline solution. Water-based."
"Not, say, Captain America-type super-soldier serum?"
"No."
"Any chance there was a mix-up in a back room somewhere?"
"Even if we allowed mix-ups, we don't stock super-soldier serum at Dwayne Medical Center."
Stephen cursed. "There goes another chance to be a superhero."
There wasn't much to say to that, so Moreau turned to Jon.
"Mr. Stewart," she said, "when are you going to invite me to be on your show?"
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
February 13, 2007
18 Weeks
When Jon had lunch with Stephen again the next week, the previously pallid pundit was positively perky. On the previous night's show he had gotten into a long and energetic rant (directed at Australian Prime Minister John Howard), and today he was bubbling with enthusiasm over the special episode they were going to air in the evening on the dangers of China.
He explained this to Jon between mouthfuls of moo goo gai pan.
"...and at the end, I'm going to encourage couples to have at least eight kids each, because how else are we going to catch up? I'm working on number five already. Leading by example."
"Is number five ever going to get a name?" inquired Jon.
Stephen frowned. "He'll need one of those eventually, won't he? Hmm. What do you think of Joseph Alois Ratzinger Colbert?"
"I think," said Jon with careful tact, "it's a little...unwieldy."
"On second thought," continued Stephen, "maybe that's a little unwieldy. Benedict Colbert would work better. I thought about naming him Bill, after Papa Bear, but I'm afraid people will think I'm naming him after Clinton."
"And we wouldn't want that."
"Exactly!"
Jon was still working on his rice when Stephen broke open his fortune cookie. "'You are always generous and kind. Lucky numbers 7, 4, 200, 7.' How do they get these things so accurate, Jon? It's like they know me!"
"That's not even a fortune," protested Jon. "It's just a generic compliment."
"It's still creepy," insisted Stephen. "Movin' on. Now that lunch is over, we can talk business." He produced a sheaf of papers, printouts from real estate websites by the look of them, held together by a long-suffering paper clip. "Next week the shows are on break, so we're going to go look at houses. Help me narrow these down."
Jon nearly choked on his rice. "What do you mean, 'we'?"
"Which part don't you understand? The W, or the E?"
"I mean — you and who else?"
"You, of course."
"Were you ever going to get my opinion?"
"Of course! I left the whole week open, so we can go any day you think best. Or two days, if you want."
"Did it ever occur to you," asked Jon, putting down his chopsticks on his unfinished rice, "that I might have plans?"
"Do you have plans?"
"Yes. I'll be out of town all week with my family."
"You'll have to cancel, then," replied Stephen matter-of-factly. "Now, this one on top is in a nice neighborhood, but I'm a little worried about..."
"No."
"Hm?"
"I said, no."
Stephen looked up from the printout. "You don't like this one?"
"I mean, no, I'm not coming with you."
"Don't be silly. Of course you are. What are friends for?"
"Friends," said Jon through gritted teeth, "help each other out, but that doesn't mean throwing out their own lives at the drop of a hat whenever you want something."
"But that's one of the things I like best about you — that I can always call and you'll be there..."
"I can't keep doing this, Stephen!" cried Jon, rising to his feet. "I can't spend all my time pandering to you! You need to take responsibility for yourself once in a while. Go look for houses on your own!"
"But I can't!" returned Stephen, standing up himself and regaining his height advantage. "I don't know anything about houses! Not what to look for, not what to be careful of, nothing! Lorraine handled all that when we bought the Colbert Compound!"
"Did she have to do everything for you? Didn't you ever make any effort on your own? No wonder she left you!"
He regretted the words even as he said them.
The room went deathly still. Stephen looked as if he had been slapped. Then his expression went hard and cold.
"Get out."
"Stephen, I—"
"Stewart, if you stay in this office one minute longer you can forget about being Called Out, or even On Notice, because you will be Dead To Me. Get. Out."
Jon went.
Series: The Colbert Report
Rating: G for this part
Words: ~1700
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
Notes: In the Reportverse, Stephen and Jon have radically different ideologies, so Stewart-Colbert '08 (or, for that matter, Colbert-Stewart '08) is not a popular T-shirt.
Clips referenced: Tragic local story; eight-child policy.
For the full table of contents to this story, click here.
Chapter 8
Fortune Favors The Ballsy
February 7, 2007
(Continued)
There were two TVs in the general waiting room, one tuned to the hospital's internal channel (displaying helpful advice about eating fresh vegetables between ads for the NanoDocs program), the other to CNN. Jon watched both.
Trying to do something useful in the meantime, he thought of another punny headline for the astronaut story. It promptly appeared on CNN Newsroom.
The coverage was getting under his skin. The cheap jokes at the expense of an accomplished woman who had tragically gone round the bend, the hyping of what was essentially a local story....Maybe the Daily Show's over-the-shoulder title could be something like that. At least there was no chance someone else would snap it up.
Besides, he couldn't focus on being funny right now. His mind was stuck on a roller coaster, careening from "Moreau called an ambulance" to "Moreau said it's probably not urgent" and back, clanking slowly up to the height of "Moreau told Stephen to give that number only to someone he would trust with his life, and he gave it to me, which means—" and then taking the death-defying plunge into "Stephen's pregnant and in the emergency room!"
The latest pair of talking heads were rehashing the implications of the astronaut's diaper, and the man next to Jon had somehow gotten the idea that he ought to give a long-winded explanation of the rash on his arm, when a nurse came in. "Mr. ...Stewart?" he asked, reading the name from a small notepad.
Jon stood up.
"Oh, hey, you're Jon Stewart!" explained the nurse as Jon followed him out. "I love your show. My girlfriend got me one of those Stewart/Obama '08 shirts last Christmas."
"Why am I on the top of the ticket?" quipped Jon. "I'm about the only person who has less Washington experience than he does."
"Couldn't do much worse than the current guy," the nurse replied. "Of course, Mom's a fan of Colbert/Paul, and maybe they could. Anyway, here's your room."
Stephen was sitting up in the bed, dressed in a hospital gown but looking normal except for the IV hooked to his arm (and, of course, the blatantly pregnant stomach). He was talking to a tall woman a little older than himself, with a brown bob and earrings shaped like apples, but grinned and waved when Jon came in.
The doctor looked up, then rose to greet him. "Nice to finally meet you, Mr. Stewart. I'm Phoebe Moreau. Stephen talks about you all the time."
"Do not," protested Stephen from the bed.
"Call me Jon." He reached over the bed to shake Moreau's hand, then took a seat across from her. "So you're the one behind all of this. Is he okay? Is the baby okay? What happened?"
"They're both fine. But it's fortunate that you called sooner rather than later."
"You see, Jon," cut in Stephen, clearly not thrilled to be out of the center of attention, "a pregnant woman experiences a massive increase in blood volume — about fifty percent. However, despite the administration of hormones which were meant to have an equivalent effect, my body never received, or never correctly interpreted, the signal to increase blood production. That's why I was experiencing symptoms similar to anemia, as well as the abnormal cold: increasing blood demand from the fetus. I mean the baby."
Moreau was nodding in approval. Her expression hadn't changed, but a twinkle in her eyes made Jon suspect that she found Stephen's sudden expertise as amusing as he did. Which was good, because it was probably her words that Stephen was repeating verbatim.
"Anyway, it's sweet that you were worried, but all they had to do to fix it was give me a transfusion of packed red cells. You didn't have to panic."
"I panicked?" echoed Jon incredulously.
"He did," the pundit informed Moreau. "You should have seen it. He's so cute when he worries."
Jon, who could feel a bruise on his forearm developing where Stephen had held it in a vise-like grip for the whole trip, who had scratches from where Stephen's nails had dug into his skin every time the ambulance slowed for traffic, who had spent most of the ride reassuring Stephen that he was not on death's door, looked helplessly at Moreau.
He couldn't be sure, but he thought she winked at him.
"One transfusion won't solve everything, though," she continued, addressing her patient. "We'll have to get a lot more iron into your multivitamin, for one thing. I would rather not tinker with your hormone dosage at this point if possible, so we'll keep a much closer eye on the symptoms that tipped your friend off, and give you another transfusion if necessary."
Jon was relieved to note that, although Stephen went relatively pale at this announcement, his face was still more flushed than it had been in a long time.
"Another one?" he exclaimed. "How many times are you going to impale me, woman? I'm a human being, not a pincushion!"
"As many times as necessary," replied Moreau without batting an eye, "and as few as possible. To minimize them, make sure you get plenty to drink. The IV is keeping you especially hydrated right now, but you'll need to do that on your own when you leave."
Stephen looked at the bag of fluid suspended above him. "That's water?"
"A saline solution. Water-based."
"Not, say, Captain America-type super-soldier serum?"
"No."
"Any chance there was a mix-up in a back room somewhere?"
"Even if we allowed mix-ups, we don't stock super-soldier serum at Dwayne Medical Center."
Stephen cursed. "There goes another chance to be a superhero."
There wasn't much to say to that, so Moreau turned to Jon.
"Mr. Stewart," she said, "when are you going to invite me to be on your show?"
February 13, 2007
18 Weeks
When Jon had lunch with Stephen again the next week, the previously pallid pundit was positively perky. On the previous night's show he had gotten into a long and energetic rant (directed at Australian Prime Minister John Howard), and today he was bubbling with enthusiasm over the special episode they were going to air in the evening on the dangers of China.
He explained this to Jon between mouthfuls of moo goo gai pan.
"...and at the end, I'm going to encourage couples to have at least eight kids each, because how else are we going to catch up? I'm working on number five already. Leading by example."
"Is number five ever going to get a name?" inquired Jon.
Stephen frowned. "He'll need one of those eventually, won't he? Hmm. What do you think of Joseph Alois Ratzinger Colbert?"
"I think," said Jon with careful tact, "it's a little...unwieldy."
"On second thought," continued Stephen, "maybe that's a little unwieldy. Benedict Colbert would work better. I thought about naming him Bill, after Papa Bear, but I'm afraid people will think I'm naming him after Clinton."
"And we wouldn't want that."
"Exactly!"
Jon was still working on his rice when Stephen broke open his fortune cookie. "'You are always generous and kind. Lucky numbers 7, 4, 200, 7.' How do they get these things so accurate, Jon? It's like they know me!"
"That's not even a fortune," protested Jon. "It's just a generic compliment."
"It's still creepy," insisted Stephen. "Movin' on. Now that lunch is over, we can talk business." He produced a sheaf of papers, printouts from real estate websites by the look of them, held together by a long-suffering paper clip. "Next week the shows are on break, so we're going to go look at houses. Help me narrow these down."
Jon nearly choked on his rice. "What do you mean, 'we'?"
"Which part don't you understand? The W, or the E?"
"I mean — you and who else?"
"You, of course."
"Were you ever going to get my opinion?"
"Of course! I left the whole week open, so we can go any day you think best. Or two days, if you want."
"Did it ever occur to you," asked Jon, putting down his chopsticks on his unfinished rice, "that I might have plans?"
"Do you have plans?"
"Yes. I'll be out of town all week with my family."
"You'll have to cancel, then," replied Stephen matter-of-factly. "Now, this one on top is in a nice neighborhood, but I'm a little worried about..."
"No."
"Hm?"
"I said, no."
Stephen looked up from the printout. "You don't like this one?"
"I mean, no, I'm not coming with you."
"Don't be silly. Of course you are. What are friends for?"
"Friends," said Jon through gritted teeth, "help each other out, but that doesn't mean throwing out their own lives at the drop of a hat whenever you want something."
"But that's one of the things I like best about you — that I can always call and you'll be there..."
"I can't keep doing this, Stephen!" cried Jon, rising to his feet. "I can't spend all my time pandering to you! You need to take responsibility for yourself once in a while. Go look for houses on your own!"
"But I can't!" returned Stephen, standing up himself and regaining his height advantage. "I don't know anything about houses! Not what to look for, not what to be careful of, nothing! Lorraine handled all that when we bought the Colbert Compound!"
"Did she have to do everything for you? Didn't you ever make any effort on your own? No wonder she left you!"
He regretted the words even as he said them.
The room went deathly still. Stephen looked as if he had been slapped. Then his expression went hard and cold.
"Get out."
"Stephen, I—"
"Stewart, if you stay in this office one minute longer you can forget about being Called Out, or even On Notice, because you will be Dead To Me. Get. Out."
Jon went.