Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2007-08-30 03:35 pm
ptahrrific) wrote2007-08-30 03:35 pm
Entry tags:
Fake News: Expecting, Chapter 20
Title: Expecting, Chapter 20: Boy, "George"
Series: The Colbert Report
Rating: PG
Words: ~4300
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: I was almost tempted to write, in the middle of this chapter, "...50,000! I've hit 50,000! Take that, Hyperion! I bet you thought I'd never finish! Now pay up!"
I didn't, of course. I'm not that cruel.
For the full table of contents to this story, click here.
Chapter 20
Boy, "George"
July 4, 2007
39 Weeks
Today
He still felt tired and groggy, so he had closed his eyes when the doctors left; he opened them again when he heard someone at the door. His glasses were off somewhere, but his eyes weren't so bad that he couldn't recognize Dr. Moreau, and behind her Dr. Livingston, and behind her Jon, his face a worried-looking blur.
And then Stephen recognized the bundle that Livingston was carrying.
Jon crouched by the side of the bed; Stephen hardly noticed, as the bundle was placed in his arms. He carefully opened the fluffy pastel blanket and counted.
Ten fingers. Ten toes.
"He's perfect, Jon," whispered Stephen. "He's perfect — oh!" His finger had brushed the little hand, which was now gripping it tightly. He tugged, very gently, and the baby gripped harder. "Look at that! You've got me, George. You're perfect and you're darling and you've got me."
He hadn't held any of his other four children this soon after birth, hadn't even been in the state for at least one of them, and he had never realized that they got this small. So for a few minutes he was kept busy just touching, tracing the little ears and the tiny pouting lips and the button nose and cooing all the while; and George's dark eyes were locked on him as if he were the most fascinating thing in the world, which was a look he got all the time from audiences but somehow this was better.
Then he found that when he brushed George's cheek the little head turned, and he remembered reading somewhere about what this meant, and he was suddenly very glad he had been reading. "That's one of the reflexes, helps him nurse — Jon, is he hungry? How am I going to feed him?"
"He won't be hungry for a little while still," said Jon's voice by his side. "And then the doctors have formula for him, and they'll give you a bottle or something. They're prepared."
He was too relieved even to pretend that he'd known that already. "Good. Good. Oh good."
And then it was back to the tracing and the touching and he felt that he could never get tired of feeling that little hand wrap around his finger....
"Stephen," said Jon at last, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"
What a stupid question. How could he not be? "I'm perfect, Jon. Never better."
"Then what happened?"
"Hm?"
"You were brought in here two hours ago. C-sections don't take ten minutes. Why the delay? Were there complications?"
"Oh, no, nothing like that."
"Then what?"
"Come on, Jon, think about it. What's the date?"
"The...third?"
"No, I went into labor on the third. But it was so close to midnight that I told the doctors to hold off."
There was silence for a minute, and for the first time Stephen took his eyes off of George to look at Jon. His face was unreadable.
"You," he said at last, "put yourself through an extra hour of labor...."
"Well, I didn't know it," replied Stephen quickly. "I was on as much medication as is legally possible. Didn't feel a thing."
"So you put me through an hour of absolute panic, with no idea whether you or the baby were even still alive, while you lay there drugged to the gills, just so you could give birth on the Fourth of July?"
A little trickle of unfamiliar insight began to make its way through Stephen's still-fogged mind. "Um," he said hesitantly. "Yes. That is what I did."
And Jon leaned over and murmured, too low for the doctors to hear, "I could slap you right now."
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
He could have, it was true, but he didn't need to; just saying the words had the desired effect. As he sat back up, Stephen had gone still, his expression frozen.
Then he turned back to his son, looking at him sadly but still with helpless adoration; swallowed; and turned again to face the doctors, who had retreated to a respectful distance by the side of the room.
"Doc," he said, "have you run all the tests you need, have you done everything you need to do to make sure he's okay? Healthy and normal and all that?"
"We have," replied Livingston. "You have absolutely no cause for concern, Mr. Colbert."
"Well, could you just..." He held George forward, a very little distance, as though afraid of losing his grip. "Could you double-check? Just do them all again, very quickly, just to make sure?"
"I assure you..." began Livingston, but Moreau stopped her.
"Of course we can," she said, and, coming forward, gently scooped up the bundle of baby and blanket. "We'll be very thorough."
"But don't take too long," added Stephen hurriedly.
"You'll have George back very soon," Moreau assured him. "Come on, Puja."
Livingston looked puzzled, but followed Moreau out of the room; Stephen watched them go, then, as the door shut and left the two alone, turned back to Jon. There was a look of determination in his eyes; Jon prepared to roll over, because he didn't want a full-fledged fight, not now, especially not with Stephen still recovering....
And then Stephen said, "All right."
Jon blinked. "All right, what?"
"All right," repeated Stephen, taking a deep breath, "slap me."
Jon kissed him.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
The press was starting to get a bit bored.
The last new bit of information had been when someone inside the hospital leaked that the baby had been delivered at 12:04 AM, and it was at least a quarter past one. The correspondents on the scene were no longer the exclusive topics of their respective news programs; now the anchors on American networks were only cutting to them every few minutes, and the foreign correspondents were having tea together at the BBC International news van.
There were a few people who tried to get in, from enterprising young reporters to curious passersby. All were turned away. Someone had had the foresight to hire extra security for Dwayne Medical that night, and one or two overly ambitious in-getters were thrown out by force.
Standing outside and chanting slogans stood a handful of protesters. A larger group had been planning a demonstration on the scheduled date of the C-section, but they hadn't all arrived in town a week early, and those who were there hadn't finished their angry signs. They hadn't been planning on being out this late, either, and their yells were punctuated by yawns.
Two men showed up with bouquets of flowers and tried, like the few before them, to get in. By the time the press figured out that these two were legitimate, they were already inside.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
He felt Stephen's eyelashes flutter against his cheek; his own eyes were closed, and Stephen's fell closed as well...
...and then Stephen's lips parted under his, and he dove in...
...he leaned forward, palms pressed against the pillows for support, pushing Stephen against them...
...Stephen moaned into his mouth—
"Jon—"
—one hand went to his shoulder, clutching, urgent—
—Jon had half climbed onto the bed, and now Stephen's other hand was on his hip—
—and then both hands were pushing him back—
"Jon, Jon, stop—"
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
Five doctors stood in a circle in the nursery, all eyes on the infant in Phoebe Moreau's arms.
Between them, they represented two genders and the races of five continents, an incredible cross-section of mingled ethnicities, and a concentration of brilliance, innovation, and medical expertise rarely achieved in one place at one time on this Earth.
One had a Nobel Prize for Medicine; within a few years, all of them would. Given almost any subject, from the arts to the sciences to the humanities, at least one of them could have carried on an intelligent conversation about it. And when it came to medicine, their discussions were on such a high level that they changed the world.
Or at least, sometimes they were.
"Who's the cutest baby in the whole wide world?" cooed Mei Lin Dolittle, MD, PhD, DPT, and winner of both variations of the Albert Lasker Award.
"You are!" chorused Rick Watson, who had two PhDs, and Casey House, who had won that Nobel prize.
Babies can have that effect on anyone.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
He was only pushed weakly, not hard enough to force him back, but Jon immediately pulled away, heart lurching.
They faced each other for a moment, breathing heavily, and then Stephen gasped, "Stitches, Jon!"
"What...?"
"I've just — surgery — cut open — things pulled out — I'm full of stitches, and you were pulling—"
"Oh, God, Stephen, did I hurt—"
"—doesn't hurt — still numb, but you didn't pull anything out, I'd feel that—"
"I'm sorry, I'm an idiot, I'm so sorry—"
"—ravish me later — they'll be gone in three weeks—"
"—I never should have — what?"
"—and then you can do whatever you want to me, but not yet—"
"Stephen, hang on!" Jon put a finger to his friend's (soft) lips, and when Stephen stopped talking Jon moved his hand to cup the man's cheek. His mind was full of Stephen's history, of men that he knew about and men that he didn't, of the things Stephen kept secret and buried apart from their gender; and he said, "Listen to me. I will never try to hurt you or humiliate you. I will never force you into anything. If you tell me to stop, I will stop. And what you say and do here will have no effect on your career; your job is safe, I swear it. I'm not going to do anything to you that you don't want; so the important thing here is, Stephen, what do you want done to you?"
Stephen covered Jon's hand with his own, their fingers lacing together.
"If it's you, Jon," he whispered, eyes bright, "if it's you — everything."
Jon leaned in, then decided to ask this time. "Can I...?"
"Please. Please."
So Jon kissed him again, gently, using his arms to prop his body up so that there wasn't an ounce of pressure on Stephen; and Stephen's hands wrapped around the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, holding him close.
The door clicked open.
"Sorry," said Bobby, "are we interrupting?"
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
The trickiest part was finding someone at this hour who was awake, in town, able to deal with the dogs, willing to come over on short notice, and still sober.
The kids were easy; they were already asleep, Nate curled up with his favorite birthday present, and while she had never found dump trucks particularly cuddly herself, it seemed to make him happy.
The traffic was easy; going around the city at this time of night, the roads were almost empty. The greatest concentration of vehicles came when she hit the news vans themselves.
Once she had parked in the hospital lot, even the press were easy; she wasn't widely recognized, and those few reporters who honed in on her for whatever reason couldn't force her to talk.
"No comment. No comment. No comment," she chanted, drawing strength from the phrase like a mantra.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
Jon pulled quickly away. Stephen's stage manager was standing at the door, and the building manager appeared behind him, both holding lavish bouquets.
"When the audience heard why the broadcast had been canceled," said Tad, "they formed this very organized mob and went out to get flowers, so we thought we'd bring some over...." He trailed off, looking from Jon's face to Stephen's, and then turned to his companion. "Were they...?"
Bobby nodded. "Yyyyep."
"Ha!" Tad grinned. "I told you!"
"Hey, hey, hey!" protested Jon. "I know there are rumors, but it's not like — I mean, that was only our first kiss."
"It's our second today," protested Stephen.
"Second, then. No, third," Jon amended, thinking of Christmas.
"Fourth," Stephen finished.
Jon turned to look at him, puzzled.
"You were asleep for one of them."
"Uh, well, fourth then." Jon turned back to the men at the door. "The point is...."
"It's okay, Jon." Stephen cut him off, voice deceptively steady as one hand clutched at Jon's sleeve for support. "They've got the right idea. Tad, Bobby, it's true: the plotting of the gay agenda has finally paid off. I tried to resist, I really did, but he's too perfect, he's sweet and he's brilliant and he's handsome and he still likes me after I make him mad and he has the most adorable laugh, I couldn't hold out against that forever. So I gave in. It's all right if you're disgusted. I'll understand."
"It isn't disgusting," said Tad quickly. "In fact, that's pretty much how I felt when I met Bobby."
The stage manager dropped his bouquet.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
"I'm sorry, ma'am," repeated the receptionist, "you're not on the list, so I can't let you in. No exceptions. There's simply nothing I can do."
"But my husband's back there, you've got his name, if I could just talk to him for a minute..."
"Are you Mrs. Colbert?"
Tracey turned to see a stern-looking woman in a pinstriped suit standing behind her. "No, I'm Mrs. Stewart — there's no Mrs. Colbert right now — my husband's in there somewhere, he might be with Stephen by now or he might not, but I really should find him, and this woman doesn't have the authority to let me in...."
"I'll take care of it," announced the strange woman. "Wait right here."
"Now hang on just a minute!" exclaimed the receptionist. "Are you on the list?"
"Of course I am." The stranger leaned over the desk and held open a passport. The receptionist squinted at it, then looked at her computer.
"So you are," she acknowledged at last. "Right here at the top, even. Okay, hon, go on in."
"I'll be right back," declared the stranger, and strode in.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
"I got it, I got it," said Bobby quickly, bending to gather up the plastic-wrapped bundle of stems and tuck a few dislodged flowers back into place.
Jon blinked. "Does that mean you two are...?"
"Uh, we were," corrected Tad. "I kinda broke up with him because I was afraid Stephen would find out."
Jon glanced at Stephen, whose brow was furrowed. "But you just told me."
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did."
When Bobby stood up again, he was gripping the bouquet so tightly that the plastic crackled under his fingers, and by the look on his face he was just as surprised about all of this as Jon was.
"Then you two are in on it!" exclaimed Stephen. "All the while I've been fighting the gay agenda, and I've had two moles on my own staff...."
"I'm bi, actually," offered Bobby unhelpfully.
"Oh, come off it, Stephen!" snapped Tad. "There's no agenda, there's no conspiracy, there's no secret plot, most gay people couldn't care less about you. You're just in love with Mr. Stewart. Deal with it."
And no one looked more shocked at that than the building manager himself.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
Phoebe and Rick were heading back to the room, Phoebe holding the infant this time, when a stern-looking woman with short curly dark hair appeared in their path. There was something familiar about her, but Rick couldn't place it.
"Can I help you?" asked Phoebe.
"Are you Dr. Moreau?"
"I am."
"Mrs. Stewart is at the desk. You're going to let her in."
She had the voice of Authority, with a capital A, and then Rick understood why it was familiar. And, because the order was a reasonable one, Phoebe wasn't about to object to the tone.
"Here," she said, handing George carefully over to Rick. "Take him. I'll sort this one out."
As Phoebe followed the familiar stranger back down the hall from which she had appeared, Rick continued on towards Colbert's ward, rocking the baby a little as he went.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
"Excuse me, gentlemen," said a voice at the door, breaking the silence that had settled.
"Let him in!" ordered Stephen quickly; Tad and Bobby stepped aside, and Watson strode through to place the baby in the pundit's already outstretched arms.
"Is that...?" asked Bobby hesitantly.
"This," announced Stephen, cradling the baby gently, "is my son, George William Colbert. And he's perfect too. Come over and see!"
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
"Stephen's awake, and your husband's with him," said Dr. Moreau. "Come right in."
"Thank you, Doctor," said Tracey fervently, and took a few steps towards her, then looked back to see that the stranger hadn't moved. "Aren't you coming?"
"I...." The stern expression twitched a little. "I'm not nervous. He just might not want to see me, that's all."
"You were at the top of his list. Of course he wants to see you."
"Well, maybe I don't want to see him."
"You came all the way here," pointed out Tracey. "From somewhere pretty far, if you still have your passport on you."
"Why do you care?" asked the stranger.
Tracey shrugged. "You just helped me out. Why did you care enough to do that?"
The stranger shrugged back. "You needed help, that's all."
And now you're the one who needs it, thought Tracey, and held out her hand. "Come on. Just come in for a minute. What's the worst that can happen?"
The woman raised an eyebrow in a disconcertingly familiar fashion. "How well do you know Stephen?"
"Okay, okay, stupid question. But if things start going downhill, you can just leave. It's not like he's in any condition to follow you right now."
She must have struck the right note, because after a brief internal struggle the familiar stranger took her hand. Tracey gave her a reassuring smile and turned back to Dr. Moreau, who had paused herself a few steps on and was watching them patiently. "All right, which way do we go?"
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
The doctor had gone to find vases for the flowers, while Bobby and Tad crouched across from Stewart at the bedside and looked at the baby in Stephen's arms.
He really was cute, Bobby mused — the baby, not Stephen, although, come to think of it, their boss did look rather sweet at the moment. He looked...not angry, which, as far as Bobby knew, was a first.
And when little George hiccuped, he and Stephen both had identical startled expressions on their faces, and Stewart started to giggle (it really was a cute giggle), and Stephen smiled in the manner of someone who is helplessly delighted, and it was all so adorable that Bobby could almost forget the awkwardness of being shoulder to shoulder with Tad, after months of barely saying hello to each other.
"Makes me want to have kids," he said, half to himself.
The other men all looked at him, and he added quickly, "I don't mean that I would have them, not like this — I mean, you know, I'd raise them, but the kids would come in the usual way."
"Did you have a mother in mind?" asked Tad, his tone carefully neutral.
"Um. Well. Right now, it's you or nobody."
"I'm not carrying—!"
"I didn't mean that either! We could adopt! I'm just saying, if there's anyone I'd like to settle down and raise kids with, it would be you!"
"Are you two planning a gay marriage right in front of me?" interrupted Stephen.
"I — well — I don't have a ring, or anything symbolic, I wasn't exactly prepared for this, caught me off guard — and I know this isn't the fanciest setup, if I had a little time I could take us somewhere nice—"
"Bobby," said Tad, "will you marry me?"
"You know how I feel about gay marriage," interrupted their boss again.
"Shut up, Stephen," replied Tad and Bobby in chorus, and kissed. And Bobby knew Stephen wouldn't do anything about it, because over the trumpets he could hear Stewart cracking up.
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
When Phoebe opened the door, Mrs. Stewart gave the stranger another reassuring smile before making a beeline for her husband. Two other visitors had showed up in the meantime, and all were clustered around Stephen and George, though the new arrivals were talking excitedly to each other and not paying them any attention.
Mrs. Stewart whispered something to Jon, glancing back at the stranger a few times with a slightly wistful expression in her eyes; he murmured some reply, then looked back at Stephen and fell silent. A moment later the other two men noticed the quiet and looked at Stephen as well, then everyone was staring between him and the woman in the doorway.
It was a disconcerting, to say the least. Stephen had gone rigid, holding George close; but then he arranged his features into that expression that managed to make him seem stern and authoritative even while lying in a bed with disheveled hair and a rumpled hospital gown. It was something about the eyebrows, Phoebe decided.
That wasn't the odd part. She had seen all that before. Even the little flickers and twitches which showed the cracks in his mask were not new; he had gotten them whenever he tried to talk about Jon while sounding detached. What was so eerie was that the strange woman was doing exactly the same thing. Eyebrows and all.
In fact, with the advantage of her perfectly pressed pinstriped suit, at the moment she was better at it. Phoebe would not have said such a thing was possible.
"Hello," said Stephen quietly.
"Hello," replied the stranger.
"What are you..." He swallowed. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you."
"Why?"
"I've been abroad," she began. "France, actually. I knew you wouldn't go there. But I heard about the pregnancy, it's big news all over the world, and I started following it. And the more I watched, the more I thought...you're changing. Especially these last couple of months. You've, well..." She coughed. "You've grown up. And I appreciate it. And I thought, well, maybe I could give you another chance."
She stopped. The suggestion hung in the air.
At last Stephen replied, "I've got baggage."
"I could help you with the baby. I've always wanted kids. And they like me."
"Not him," said Stephen quickly. "He's not baggage. He'll never be baggage. What I mean is...well, to make a long story short, it would be a loveless sham relationship designed to conceal from the public, and occasionally myself, the fact that I'm gay."
"Really?" The stranger looked — glad? "Me too!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Stephen, and their faces broke into identical relieved grins. "That'll work perfectly, then!"
It was Jon who finally asked the question on everyone's mind: "Stephen — who is she?"
"Oh, right, sorry. Tracey, Jon, George, Tad, Bobby, Dr. Moreau — I'd like you to meet Charlene."
♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦ ⋅ ◊ ⋅ ♦
Over at the CNN van, the first few bars of a Scissor Sisters tone began to play. They weren't on-air at the moment, so the reporter who owned the phone flipped it open, glanced at the name, and answered with, "Make it quick."
"Can do," said the voice on the other end. "Want to catch a movie Saturday?"
"You know I don't like movies."
"All right, let's do something else then."
"...Keith, are you asking me out?"
"I'm sure trying to."
"At half past one? Why?"
"I'm trying to ask you on a date and you're focusing on my timing? I have no idea why. It just felt right."
"Okay."
"Okay, you're trying to blow me off, or okay, you'll go?"
"Okay, I'll go."
"Great! Are you sure you couldn't stand a movie? There's one playing right nearby, one of those romantic comedies where all the couples get together at the end. Which, yeah, I know how that sounds, but everyone says it's much better than they were expecting."
Series: The Colbert Report
Rating: PG
Words: ~4300
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: I was almost tempted to write, in the middle of this chapter, "...50,000! I've hit 50,000! Take that, Hyperion! I bet you thought I'd never finish! Now pay up!"
I didn't, of course. I'm not that cruel.
For the full table of contents to this story, click here.
Chapter 20
Boy, "George"
July 4, 2007
39 Weeks
Today
He still felt tired and groggy, so he had closed his eyes when the doctors left; he opened them again when he heard someone at the door. His glasses were off somewhere, but his eyes weren't so bad that he couldn't recognize Dr. Moreau, and behind her Dr. Livingston, and behind her Jon, his face a worried-looking blur.
And then Stephen recognized the bundle that Livingston was carrying.
Jon crouched by the side of the bed; Stephen hardly noticed, as the bundle was placed in his arms. He carefully opened the fluffy pastel blanket and counted.
Ten fingers. Ten toes.
"He's perfect, Jon," whispered Stephen. "He's perfect — oh!" His finger had brushed the little hand, which was now gripping it tightly. He tugged, very gently, and the baby gripped harder. "Look at that! You've got me, George. You're perfect and you're darling and you've got me."
He hadn't held any of his other four children this soon after birth, hadn't even been in the state for at least one of them, and he had never realized that they got this small. So for a few minutes he was kept busy just touching, tracing the little ears and the tiny pouting lips and the button nose and cooing all the while; and George's dark eyes were locked on him as if he were the most fascinating thing in the world, which was a look he got all the time from audiences but somehow this was better.
Then he found that when he brushed George's cheek the little head turned, and he remembered reading somewhere about what this meant, and he was suddenly very glad he had been reading. "That's one of the reflexes, helps him nurse — Jon, is he hungry? How am I going to feed him?"
"He won't be hungry for a little while still," said Jon's voice by his side. "And then the doctors have formula for him, and they'll give you a bottle or something. They're prepared."
He was too relieved even to pretend that he'd known that already. "Good. Good. Oh good."
And then it was back to the tracing and the touching and he felt that he could never get tired of feeling that little hand wrap around his finger....
"Stephen," said Jon at last, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"
What a stupid question. How could he not be? "I'm perfect, Jon. Never better."
"Then what happened?"
"Hm?"
"You were brought in here two hours ago. C-sections don't take ten minutes. Why the delay? Were there complications?"
"Oh, no, nothing like that."
"Then what?"
"Come on, Jon, think about it. What's the date?"
"The...third?"
"No, I went into labor on the third. But it was so close to midnight that I told the doctors to hold off."
There was silence for a minute, and for the first time Stephen took his eyes off of George to look at Jon. His face was unreadable.
"You," he said at last, "put yourself through an extra hour of labor...."
"Well, I didn't know it," replied Stephen quickly. "I was on as much medication as is legally possible. Didn't feel a thing."
"So you put me through an hour of absolute panic, with no idea whether you or the baby were even still alive, while you lay there drugged to the gills, just so you could give birth on the Fourth of July?"
A little trickle of unfamiliar insight began to make its way through Stephen's still-fogged mind. "Um," he said hesitantly. "Yes. That is what I did."
And Jon leaned over and murmured, too low for the doctors to hear, "I could slap you right now."
He could have, it was true, but he didn't need to; just saying the words had the desired effect. As he sat back up, Stephen had gone still, his expression frozen.
Then he turned back to his son, looking at him sadly but still with helpless adoration; swallowed; and turned again to face the doctors, who had retreated to a respectful distance by the side of the room.
"Doc," he said, "have you run all the tests you need, have you done everything you need to do to make sure he's okay? Healthy and normal and all that?"
"We have," replied Livingston. "You have absolutely no cause for concern, Mr. Colbert."
"Well, could you just..." He held George forward, a very little distance, as though afraid of losing his grip. "Could you double-check? Just do them all again, very quickly, just to make sure?"
"I assure you..." began Livingston, but Moreau stopped her.
"Of course we can," she said, and, coming forward, gently scooped up the bundle of baby and blanket. "We'll be very thorough."
"But don't take too long," added Stephen hurriedly.
"You'll have George back very soon," Moreau assured him. "Come on, Puja."
Livingston looked puzzled, but followed Moreau out of the room; Stephen watched them go, then, as the door shut and left the two alone, turned back to Jon. There was a look of determination in his eyes; Jon prepared to roll over, because he didn't want a full-fledged fight, not now, especially not with Stephen still recovering....
And then Stephen said, "All right."
Jon blinked. "All right, what?"
"All right," repeated Stephen, taking a deep breath, "slap me."
Jon kissed him.
The press was starting to get a bit bored.
The last new bit of information had been when someone inside the hospital leaked that the baby had been delivered at 12:04 AM, and it was at least a quarter past one. The correspondents on the scene were no longer the exclusive topics of their respective news programs; now the anchors on American networks were only cutting to them every few minutes, and the foreign correspondents were having tea together at the BBC International news van.
There were a few people who tried to get in, from enterprising young reporters to curious passersby. All were turned away. Someone had had the foresight to hire extra security for Dwayne Medical that night, and one or two overly ambitious in-getters were thrown out by force.
Standing outside and chanting slogans stood a handful of protesters. A larger group had been planning a demonstration on the scheduled date of the C-section, but they hadn't all arrived in town a week early, and those who were there hadn't finished their angry signs. They hadn't been planning on being out this late, either, and their yells were punctuated by yawns.
Two men showed up with bouquets of flowers and tried, like the few before them, to get in. By the time the press figured out that these two were legitimate, they were already inside.
He felt Stephen's eyelashes flutter against his cheek; his own eyes were closed, and Stephen's fell closed as well...
...and then Stephen's lips parted under his, and he dove in...
...he leaned forward, palms pressed against the pillows for support, pushing Stephen against them...
...Stephen moaned into his mouth—
"Jon—"
—one hand went to his shoulder, clutching, urgent—
—Jon had half climbed onto the bed, and now Stephen's other hand was on his hip—
—and then both hands were pushing him back—
"Jon, Jon, stop—"
Five doctors stood in a circle in the nursery, all eyes on the infant in Phoebe Moreau's arms.
Between them, they represented two genders and the races of five continents, an incredible cross-section of mingled ethnicities, and a concentration of brilliance, innovation, and medical expertise rarely achieved in one place at one time on this Earth.
One had a Nobel Prize for Medicine; within a few years, all of them would. Given almost any subject, from the arts to the sciences to the humanities, at least one of them could have carried on an intelligent conversation about it. And when it came to medicine, their discussions were on such a high level that they changed the world.
Or at least, sometimes they were.
"Who's the cutest baby in the whole wide world?" cooed Mei Lin Dolittle, MD, PhD, DPT, and winner of both variations of the Albert Lasker Award.
"You are!" chorused Rick Watson, who had two PhDs, and Casey House, who had won that Nobel prize.
Babies can have that effect on anyone.
He was only pushed weakly, not hard enough to force him back, but Jon immediately pulled away, heart lurching.
They faced each other for a moment, breathing heavily, and then Stephen gasped, "Stitches, Jon!"
"What...?"
"I've just — surgery — cut open — things pulled out — I'm full of stitches, and you were pulling—"
"Oh, God, Stephen, did I hurt—"
"—doesn't hurt — still numb, but you didn't pull anything out, I'd feel that—"
"I'm sorry, I'm an idiot, I'm so sorry—"
"—ravish me later — they'll be gone in three weeks—"
"—I never should have — what?"
"—and then you can do whatever you want to me, but not yet—"
"Stephen, hang on!" Jon put a finger to his friend's (soft) lips, and when Stephen stopped talking Jon moved his hand to cup the man's cheek. His mind was full of Stephen's history, of men that he knew about and men that he didn't, of the things Stephen kept secret and buried apart from their gender; and he said, "Listen to me. I will never try to hurt you or humiliate you. I will never force you into anything. If you tell me to stop, I will stop. And what you say and do here will have no effect on your career; your job is safe, I swear it. I'm not going to do anything to you that you don't want; so the important thing here is, Stephen, what do you want done to you?"
Stephen covered Jon's hand with his own, their fingers lacing together.
"If it's you, Jon," he whispered, eyes bright, "if it's you — everything."
Jon leaned in, then decided to ask this time. "Can I...?"
"Please. Please."
So Jon kissed him again, gently, using his arms to prop his body up so that there wasn't an ounce of pressure on Stephen; and Stephen's hands wrapped around the back of his neck, fingers tangling in his hair, holding him close.
The door clicked open.
"Sorry," said Bobby, "are we interrupting?"
The trickiest part was finding someone at this hour who was awake, in town, able to deal with the dogs, willing to come over on short notice, and still sober.
The kids were easy; they were already asleep, Nate curled up with his favorite birthday present, and while she had never found dump trucks particularly cuddly herself, it seemed to make him happy.
The traffic was easy; going around the city at this time of night, the roads were almost empty. The greatest concentration of vehicles came when she hit the news vans themselves.
Once she had parked in the hospital lot, even the press were easy; she wasn't widely recognized, and those few reporters who honed in on her for whatever reason couldn't force her to talk.
"No comment. No comment. No comment," she chanted, drawing strength from the phrase like a mantra.
Jon pulled quickly away. Stephen's stage manager was standing at the door, and the building manager appeared behind him, both holding lavish bouquets.
"When the audience heard why the broadcast had been canceled," said Tad, "they formed this very organized mob and went out to get flowers, so we thought we'd bring some over...." He trailed off, looking from Jon's face to Stephen's, and then turned to his companion. "Were they...?"
Bobby nodded. "Yyyyep."
"Ha!" Tad grinned. "I told you!"
"Hey, hey, hey!" protested Jon. "I know there are rumors, but it's not like — I mean, that was only our first kiss."
"It's our second today," protested Stephen.
"Second, then. No, third," Jon amended, thinking of Christmas.
"Fourth," Stephen finished.
Jon turned to look at him, puzzled.
"You were asleep for one of them."
"Uh, well, fourth then." Jon turned back to the men at the door. "The point is...."
"It's okay, Jon." Stephen cut him off, voice deceptively steady as one hand clutched at Jon's sleeve for support. "They've got the right idea. Tad, Bobby, it's true: the plotting of the gay agenda has finally paid off. I tried to resist, I really did, but he's too perfect, he's sweet and he's brilliant and he's handsome and he still likes me after I make him mad and he has the most adorable laugh, I couldn't hold out against that forever. So I gave in. It's all right if you're disgusted. I'll understand."
"It isn't disgusting," said Tad quickly. "In fact, that's pretty much how I felt when I met Bobby."
The stage manager dropped his bouquet.
"I'm sorry, ma'am," repeated the receptionist, "you're not on the list, so I can't let you in. No exceptions. There's simply nothing I can do."
"But my husband's back there, you've got his name, if I could just talk to him for a minute..."
"Are you Mrs. Colbert?"
Tracey turned to see a stern-looking woman in a pinstriped suit standing behind her. "No, I'm Mrs. Stewart — there's no Mrs. Colbert right now — my husband's in there somewhere, he might be with Stephen by now or he might not, but I really should find him, and this woman doesn't have the authority to let me in...."
"I'll take care of it," announced the strange woman. "Wait right here."
"Now hang on just a minute!" exclaimed the receptionist. "Are you on the list?"
"Of course I am." The stranger leaned over the desk and held open a passport. The receptionist squinted at it, then looked at her computer.
"So you are," she acknowledged at last. "Right here at the top, even. Okay, hon, go on in."
"I'll be right back," declared the stranger, and strode in.
"I got it, I got it," said Bobby quickly, bending to gather up the plastic-wrapped bundle of stems and tuck a few dislodged flowers back into place.
Jon blinked. "Does that mean you two are...?"
"Uh, we were," corrected Tad. "I kinda broke up with him because I was afraid Stephen would find out."
Jon glanced at Stephen, whose brow was furrowed. "But you just told me."
"Yeah. Yeah, I guess I did."
When Bobby stood up again, he was gripping the bouquet so tightly that the plastic crackled under his fingers, and by the look on his face he was just as surprised about all of this as Jon was.
"Then you two are in on it!" exclaimed Stephen. "All the while I've been fighting the gay agenda, and I've had two moles on my own staff...."
"I'm bi, actually," offered Bobby unhelpfully.
"Oh, come off it, Stephen!" snapped Tad. "There's no agenda, there's no conspiracy, there's no secret plot, most gay people couldn't care less about you. You're just in love with Mr. Stewart. Deal with it."
And no one looked more shocked at that than the building manager himself.
Phoebe and Rick were heading back to the room, Phoebe holding the infant this time, when a stern-looking woman with short curly dark hair appeared in their path. There was something familiar about her, but Rick couldn't place it.
"Can I help you?" asked Phoebe.
"Are you Dr. Moreau?"
"I am."
"Mrs. Stewart is at the desk. You're going to let her in."
She had the voice of Authority, with a capital A, and then Rick understood why it was familiar. And, because the order was a reasonable one, Phoebe wasn't about to object to the tone.
"Here," she said, handing George carefully over to Rick. "Take him. I'll sort this one out."
As Phoebe followed the familiar stranger back down the hall from which she had appeared, Rick continued on towards Colbert's ward, rocking the baby a little as he went.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," said a voice at the door, breaking the silence that had settled.
"Let him in!" ordered Stephen quickly; Tad and Bobby stepped aside, and Watson strode through to place the baby in the pundit's already outstretched arms.
"Is that...?" asked Bobby hesitantly.
"This," announced Stephen, cradling the baby gently, "is my son, George William Colbert. And he's perfect too. Come over and see!"
"Stephen's awake, and your husband's with him," said Dr. Moreau. "Come right in."
"Thank you, Doctor," said Tracey fervently, and took a few steps towards her, then looked back to see that the stranger hadn't moved. "Aren't you coming?"
"I...." The stern expression twitched a little. "I'm not nervous. He just might not want to see me, that's all."
"You were at the top of his list. Of course he wants to see you."
"Well, maybe I don't want to see him."
"You came all the way here," pointed out Tracey. "From somewhere pretty far, if you still have your passport on you."
"Why do you care?" asked the stranger.
Tracey shrugged. "You just helped me out. Why did you care enough to do that?"
The stranger shrugged back. "You needed help, that's all."
And now you're the one who needs it, thought Tracey, and held out her hand. "Come on. Just come in for a minute. What's the worst that can happen?"
The woman raised an eyebrow in a disconcertingly familiar fashion. "How well do you know Stephen?"
"Okay, okay, stupid question. But if things start going downhill, you can just leave. It's not like he's in any condition to follow you right now."
She must have struck the right note, because after a brief internal struggle the familiar stranger took her hand. Tracey gave her a reassuring smile and turned back to Dr. Moreau, who had paused herself a few steps on and was watching them patiently. "All right, which way do we go?"
The doctor had gone to find vases for the flowers, while Bobby and Tad crouched across from Stewart at the bedside and looked at the baby in Stephen's arms.
He really was cute, Bobby mused — the baby, not Stephen, although, come to think of it, their boss did look rather sweet at the moment. He looked...not angry, which, as far as Bobby knew, was a first.
And when little George hiccuped, he and Stephen both had identical startled expressions on their faces, and Stewart started to giggle (it really was a cute giggle), and Stephen smiled in the manner of someone who is helplessly delighted, and it was all so adorable that Bobby could almost forget the awkwardness of being shoulder to shoulder with Tad, after months of barely saying hello to each other.
"Makes me want to have kids," he said, half to himself.
The other men all looked at him, and he added quickly, "I don't mean that I would have them, not like this — I mean, you know, I'd raise them, but the kids would come in the usual way."
"Did you have a mother in mind?" asked Tad, his tone carefully neutral.
"Um. Well. Right now, it's you or nobody."
"I'm not carrying—!"
"I didn't mean that either! We could adopt! I'm just saying, if there's anyone I'd like to settle down and raise kids with, it would be you!"
"Are you two planning a gay marriage right in front of me?" interrupted Stephen.
"I — well — I don't have a ring, or anything symbolic, I wasn't exactly prepared for this, caught me off guard — and I know this isn't the fanciest setup, if I had a little time I could take us somewhere nice—"
"Bobby," said Tad, "will you marry me?"
"You know how I feel about gay marriage," interrupted their boss again.
"Shut up, Stephen," replied Tad and Bobby in chorus, and kissed. And Bobby knew Stephen wouldn't do anything about it, because over the trumpets he could hear Stewart cracking up.
When Phoebe opened the door, Mrs. Stewart gave the stranger another reassuring smile before making a beeline for her husband. Two other visitors had showed up in the meantime, and all were clustered around Stephen and George, though the new arrivals were talking excitedly to each other and not paying them any attention.
Mrs. Stewart whispered something to Jon, glancing back at the stranger a few times with a slightly wistful expression in her eyes; he murmured some reply, then looked back at Stephen and fell silent. A moment later the other two men noticed the quiet and looked at Stephen as well, then everyone was staring between him and the woman in the doorway.
It was a disconcerting, to say the least. Stephen had gone rigid, holding George close; but then he arranged his features into that expression that managed to make him seem stern and authoritative even while lying in a bed with disheveled hair and a rumpled hospital gown. It was something about the eyebrows, Phoebe decided.
That wasn't the odd part. She had seen all that before. Even the little flickers and twitches which showed the cracks in his mask were not new; he had gotten them whenever he tried to talk about Jon while sounding detached. What was so eerie was that the strange woman was doing exactly the same thing. Eyebrows and all.
In fact, with the advantage of her perfectly pressed pinstriped suit, at the moment she was better at it. Phoebe would not have said such a thing was possible.
"Hello," said Stephen quietly.
"Hello," replied the stranger.
"What are you..." He swallowed. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see you."
"Why?"
"I've been abroad," she began. "France, actually. I knew you wouldn't go there. But I heard about the pregnancy, it's big news all over the world, and I started following it. And the more I watched, the more I thought...you're changing. Especially these last couple of months. You've, well..." She coughed. "You've grown up. And I appreciate it. And I thought, well, maybe I could give you another chance."
She stopped. The suggestion hung in the air.
At last Stephen replied, "I've got baggage."
"I could help you with the baby. I've always wanted kids. And they like me."
"Not him," said Stephen quickly. "He's not baggage. He'll never be baggage. What I mean is...well, to make a long story short, it would be a loveless sham relationship designed to conceal from the public, and occasionally myself, the fact that I'm gay."
"Really?" The stranger looked — glad? "Me too!"
"Oh!" exclaimed Stephen, and their faces broke into identical relieved grins. "That'll work perfectly, then!"
It was Jon who finally asked the question on everyone's mind: "Stephen — who is she?"
"Oh, right, sorry. Tracey, Jon, George, Tad, Bobby, Dr. Moreau — I'd like you to meet Charlene."
Over at the CNN van, the first few bars of a Scissor Sisters tone began to play. They weren't on-air at the moment, so the reporter who owned the phone flipped it open, glanced at the name, and answered with, "Make it quick."
"Can do," said the voice on the other end. "Want to catch a movie Saturday?"
"You know I don't like movies."
"All right, let's do something else then."
"...Keith, are you asking me out?"
"I'm sure trying to."
"At half past one? Why?"
"I'm trying to ask you on a date and you're focusing on my timing? I have no idea why. It just felt right."
"Okay."
"Okay, you're trying to blow me off, or okay, you'll go?"
"Okay, I'll go."
"Great! Are you sure you couldn't stand a movie? There's one playing right nearby, one of those romantic comedies where all the couples get together at the end. Which, yeah, I know how that sounds, but everyone says it's much better than they were expecting."
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