A/N: This story is based on the NBC television series Car 54, Where Are You? As far as I know, this television series is the property of NBC. No infringement is intended.

Chapter 1: An Announcement for Daddy Bear

When Officer Leo Schnauser came home to his apartment in the Bronx late one Thursday evening in November, he was positive that he and Sylvia, his wife of over sixteen years, would be at each other's throats yet again. For several years now, he and Sylvia had always gotten into a shouting match with one another every Thursday night at eleven o'clock on the dot. Sylvia went to the butcher shop every Thursday, and she and the butcher would get into an argument every single time she went there without fail – which in turn put her in a terrible mood on Thursdays and sparked countless fights between her and her husband. She always ended up taking all her frustration with the butcher out on Leo and getting into the most ridiculous spats with him. They fought over whether Gene Kelly or Fred Astaire was the better dancer. They fought over Abraham Lincoln's height. They fought over whether or not James Polk was a good president. They fought over Leo's claims that Thomas Jefferson used snuff. Every Thursday night like clockwork, the Schnausers fought about anything and everything, no matter how silly or insignificant.

But when Leo walked through the door at ten till eleven that night, prepared for the inevitable bickering to begin, everything in his apartment was surprisingly quiet. Ordinarily, Sylvia would be in the living room, just waiting to pick a fight with him over some crazy little issue. Tonight, however, there was nothing but darkness and silence.

Leo turned on a light and called, "Sylvia? Sylvia, where are you?"

After looking through the living room and the kitchen without finding a trace of his wife, he went into their bedroom. Sylvia was lying in bed in her nightgown with her eyes closed and a cold compress on her forehead.

Leo walked up to Sylvia's side of the bed and inquired, "Sylvia, are you alright?"

With her eyes still closed, she shook her head no and answered, "Something's wrong, Leo."

"What's wrong, Pussycat?" he asked her sweetly. He was clearly concerned; in sixteen years of marriage, Leo Schnauser could literally count on one hand how many times his wife had gotten sick. It was common knowledge that Sylvia Schnauser had an immune system of steel.

"A couple of hours ago, I just got so lightheaded. I had to come in here and lie down. I knew if I didn't, I would pass out," she replied in an unusually weak tone of voice. Again, this was not like Sylvia at all. Sylvia had an extremely overactive imagination and she was constantly being melodramatic about something. The few times she had had a cold or a twenty-four-hour bug over the years, she'd convinced herself she was dying, and she'd always had Leo help her plan her funeral. This time, it was quite different. Now, Sylvia was obviously too weak and ill to even try to act all dramatic about it. Leo had seen it the moment he walked into their bedroom that something was very wrong with Sylvia. The last time she'd gotten sick with a cold eight years ago, he'd walked into their apartment and found it filled with wreaths from the local funeral home, with Sylvia trying to decide which ones she wanted to buy to decorate their home with for her wake. Now, he could plainly see it that she didn't have the strength to go to such wild extremes, which was why he hadn't gotten irritated or impatient with her like he would have had she started making funeral plans over a cold, as she'd done so many times before. He knew his wife, and he knew when to take a situation with her seriously and when not to. And he knew that now was the time to take things seriously.

"Do you still feel like you might pass out?"

"Yeah," she sighed. "I do still feel that way a little bit. I'm so weak, and it's so hot in here."

"Sylvia, if you're not feeling any better in the morning, I'm taking you to the doctor," Leo told her firmly. He knew this wasn't like Sylvia at all, and he really was concerned.

"Okay, Leo," she whispered. Then she added, "I want to go to sleep now."

"Of course, Angel Face," Leo agreed, and in the next moment, he bent down and kissed her cheek. "I'll change into my pajamas and get into bed, and then we'll both get some sleep."

Sylvia nodded, and soon, she took off the compress and she and Leo were dead to the world.


When Sylvia first woke up the next morning, it was a complete one-eighty from the night before. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as she served Leo his breakfast. After she'd set his food before him, she grabbed her own plate, sat down beside him, and dived into her mountain of eggs, bacon, biscuits, and sausage without hesitation.

"Well somebody's feeling better this morning," Leo said with a smile.

"Oh, yes," Sylvia said between bites, and Leo laughed to himself inside as he watched his wife ferociously attack her breakfast. Sylvia was definitely back to her normal self.

Sylvia had always been a tad on the heavier side, and it had never been a secret that she adored food, but especially over the past four months or so, she'd really put on a significant amount of weight. There was no doubt about it that she was now considerably thicker and rounder in the middle. But Leo didn't mind; he'd always loved Sylvia no matter what weight she was at.

"I'm glad to see it. You had me a little worried last night," Leo told her.

After stuffing her face for several more moments, Sylvia finally paused long enough to say, "I don't know what happened to me last night. It was so strange. I went into the kitchen to get some cookies out of the cookie jar to cheer myself up after that stupid butcher made me mad again. Then all of the sudden, I could barely stand. I just knew I was going to pass out. It was all I could do to make it into the bedroom."

"Maybe it's something you ate. I mean, let's face it. You have been doing a lot of that lately."

Sylvia instantly rose from her seat and cried out, "What is that supposed to mean, Leo Schnauser?!"

"Nothing. It simply means that you've been eating a lot. You've always eaten a lot, but now, you're eating twice as much as usual. If you keep this up, I may have to take a second job just to pay the grocery bill!"

"Well!" she angrily yelled, and then a moment later, she began to cry. With tears running down her face, she said, "I guess this means you think I'm fat and ugly, huh?"

Leo got up then and responded, "I never said that. I'm just warnin' ya that if ya keep eatin' food by the truckloads, we're gonna go broke."

"Well! If you think it's such a burden to support me, why don't you just divorce me and find yourself a younger, prettier, skinnier wife who eats less than I do?!" she shouted as more tears came to her eyes.

"Right now, you're making that idea look very tempting!" Leo fired back.

"Leo Schnauser, I oughtta–" Sylvia yelled, but suddenly, she got dizzy and the world around her became blurry, and she could no longer keep her balance. "Leo," she gasped as she reached out for him.

"Sylvia?" Leo said gently while he grabbed his wife and held onto her. "Sylvia, what's the matter?"

"Leo…Leo, I can't–" she gasped, and in that instant, Sylvia passed out in Leo's arms.


After Leo rushed Sylvia to the hospital, he called the station and explained to Captain Block what was going on. About two hours later, patrolmen Francis Muldoon and Gunther Toody met Leo in the hospital waiting room.

As soon as they came into the white, sterile hospital waiting room together, Francis said, "Hi, Leo. We would've gotten here sooner, but we got tied up with something at the station. Captain Block gave us permission to come to the hospital. How is Sylvia now?"

"I don't know. She's still back in one of the rooms; the doctor's takin' a look at her."

"Don't worry, Leo. I'm sure she's in good hands," said Toody. "After all, doctors are pretty smart people. Well, some of them are, anyway. Some of them are like this guy my mom went to school with, Donald Johnson. We all thought for years that he was really a doctor. He even had his own office and everything. But when he told my mother one day she needed to have her tonsils out and we later found out that she really needed an appendectomy, that's when we grew suspicious."

"Gunther," Francis said in his best warning voice, trying to shut Toody up as his babbling was not helping the situation.

"As it turns out, he got his degree out of a Cracker Jack box. We were stunned!" Gunther continued, while poor Leo looked as though he was about to explode with anxiety and agitation. Gunther Toody was a kindhearted man but he was incessantly childish and dense, which often drove Captain Block and his colleagues crazy, although his partner and best friend Francis was more patient with him than the others.

"Gunther!" Francis said aloud. "That's enough, Gunther," he told him then in a quieter tone.

"Sorry," said Toody.

"I just don't understand it. Sylvia practically never gets sick. She's always been so healthy and strong. Then right out of the blue last night, she started feeling weak and lightheaded. We didn't even fight last night like we usually do every Thursday night because she was too tired to argue with me about anything," Leo explained. When he told them that, Francis recalled how Captain Block had warned them over a year and a half ago that if Leo and his wife disturbed the peace because of their arguments just one more time, they were to arrest him. Ever since then, Leo and Sylvia had still argued every Thursday night at eleven o'clock, but they'd made certain to keep the noise level down so the neighbors wouldn't call the other policemen on them. "What if something's wrong with my Pussycat?" Leo asked then, interrupting Muldoon's thoughts. "I wish I had brought her to the hospital sooner. What if it's something serious?"

A couple of seconds later, Francis put a reassuring hand on Leo's shoulder and told him, "Don't worry, Leo. Sylvia's going to be just fine. You said it yourself: she's always been healthy and strong. I'm certain that whatever it is, it's no big deal."

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I cannot concur with that," said a male voice from behind them, and then they all turned around and saw an old, average-sized, bald doctor with glasses standing in the hospital corridor. He then turned to Leo and asked, "Am I correct in assuming that you are Mrs. Sylvia Schnauser's husband?"

"That's right. I'm Officer Leo Schnauser," he confirmed. "These are my friends, Officer Francis Muldoon and Officer Gunther Toody."

The doctor then shook hands with all three men and said hello, and he introduced himself as Dr. Andrew Thomas.

Once all the necessary introductions were made and all the expected pleasantries were exchanged, Leo got straight to the point and asked, "Doctor, how is my wife? What's wrong with Sylvia? Is it bad?"

After a few seconds of painful silence, Dr. Thomas told Leo in a serious tone, "Your wife's back in Room Four. I'll take you to her now."

"Lead the way, Dr. Thomas," Leo said quietly, and then the doctor left and a very worried Leo followed behind him.

About a minute later, that very worried Leo ran into an absolutely overjoyed Sylvia. Leo was scared to death that something serious was wrong with his wife, but Sylvia was lit up like a Christmas tree.

"Daddy Bear!" she happily cried out with her arms open wide.

"Angel Face," Leo said as he walked up to her bedside, sat down, and put his arms around her. Sylvia then gave him a very long, sweet kiss, and while they were kissing, Dr. Thomas quietly slipped out of the room to give the couple some privacy. "What is it, Pussycat? What's the matter? Did the doctor tell you why you passed out this morning?" After asking her that, Sylvia started to cry and again, Leo embraced her. "Oh Pussycat, whatever it is, Daddy Bear's right here and he's gonna take care of you. It's gonna be alright. Just tell me what's wrong. No matter how bad it is, I can take it."

The embrace ended, and Sylvia shook her head and told him, "You don't understand, Leo. It's not anything bad. Just the opposite. It's something wonderful that I never dreamed was possible."

"What could possibly be so wonderful about you getting sick and fainting?"

"Daddy Bear, do you remember how we came up with our little nicknames for each other?" Sylvia asked gently, and Leo smiled.

"Of course I remember. When you were a little girl, you had this pussycat that you adored. You and your father adopted her as a small kitten when you were five, and she lived for thirteen years before she died of old age. It was one of the first things you told me about yourself, and I remembered. When we went out on our first date a few months later, I started calling you Pussycat, and I've called you that ever since. And a little while after that, you told me about how this mean kid you went to school with picked on you all the time and said over and over again that you had an ugly face, so I started calling you Angel Face because I wanted you to always remember how much I love that sweet face of yours."

Sylvia returned Leo's smile then and told him, "That's right. And two months before we got married, we got to talking about what our hopes and dreams were for our future together. You told me all about how you wanted to join the police force once you finished your military service, but you also said that there was one thing in life you always wanted even more than a career in law enforcement. You told me how much you loved children, and you talked about how you always wanted to become a father someday."

"You'd always said I was a real teddy bear, and after I told you all about how I dreamed of becoming a daddy to a house full of kids someday, you started calling me Daddy Bear."

"That's right," Sylvia concurred, wearing a mile-wide grin.

"Sylvia, I don't understand. What does all of this have to do with you fainting this morning?"

"I'm sorry, Leo. I know I'm beating around the bush. It's just that I have waited and yearned and hoped and prayed to be able to tell you this for over sixteen years now, and I want to savor every moment of it. Every second."

"Okay, Pussycat. If you want to beat around the bush and make me wait a little while for you to get to the point, that's alright by me. I'll wait."

"We both agreed before we got married that we wanted to have a big family someday, Daddy Bear, and we tried and we tried and we tried to get pregnant for so many years. We even went to see those specialists eleven years ago, and they were never able to find anything."

"I remember."

"Finally, you and I just accepted it that we were never going to have a child."

"Are you about to come to the point now?" asked Leo, and Sylvia laughed.

"Yes, I'm getting to my point," Sylvia told him, and then she took his hand and placed it on her growing stomach, and it wasn't until then that Leo finally began to catch on. Leo gasped as his heart rate jumped to about three hundred, and his eyes grew as wide as saucers. Sylvia continued, "My point is, after all this time…after all these years…Daddy Bear is finally going to be a daddy!"

"Daddy Bear is going to be a daddy," Leo repeated in disbelief.

"That's right!" Sylvia cried out.

"I'm going to be a daddy," Leo said in the same quiet, stunned voice.

"You're going to be a daddy," said Sylvia.

And in that moment, it hit him. "I'm going to be a daddy!" he yelled, and then he threw his arms around Sylvia and kissed her lips and her face and her forehead over and over again while Sylvia both laughed and cried at the same time. At last, Leo calmed down enough to ask, "Is it true, Sylvia? Is it really true?"

"It's true," said Dr. Thomas, standing in the doorway.

"Leo, have you met Dr. Thomas?" questioned Sylvia.

"Yeah, we've already met. Sorry, doctor. I forgot all about you," said Leo, and Dr. Thomas laughed and shook his head as he walked up to the bed.

"Don't worry about it, Officer Schnauser. I stepped out of the room a couple of minutes ago so you two could talk in private. I know Mrs. Schnauser has been waiting for this moment for a very long time, and I didn't want to spoil it for her."

"We've both been waiting for this moment for a long time," said Sylvia, still wearing the same mile-wide grin.

"Well I give you two lovebirds my most sincere congratulations."

"Thanks, Dr. Thomas. So when can Sylvia and I expect our little bundle of joy?"

"I think it'll be sometime in late March."

"March? Correct me if I'm wrong, doc, but aren't pregnancies supposed to last nine months?" asked Leo.

"In my expert medical opinion, I believe Mrs. Schnauser is in the beginning of her fifth month of pregnancy."

"Her fifth month? But that doesn't make any sense. How can a woman be pregnant for five months and not know? Aren't women supposed to get morning sickness and feel tired all the time?"

"As I explained to Mrs. Schnauser, every woman is different. Many women do experience morning sickness, especially in their first trimester, but some women don't. And as your wife has informed me, she has always had highly irregular menstrual cycles, so she didn't think anything of it going these past several months without a period. Since Mrs. Schnauser hasn't been experiencing the symptoms commonly associated with pregnancy until now, that explains why her pregnancy has gone undetected for so long."

"Speaking of which, why has she been feeling lightheaded here lately? And why did she faint this morning? Does that mean that there's something wrong with the pregnancy?"

"Oh, no. Not at all. A woman's body undergoes some enormous changes during a pregnancy. A pregnant woman's heart rate goes up, her heart pumps more blood every minute, and there's a thirty to fifty percent increase in the amount of blood in her body. A pregnant woman's blood pressure is often at its lowest by the middle of her pregnancy. Her nervous and cardiovascular systems gradually adjust to these changes and they usually maintain enough blood flow to her brain. However, sometimes a pregnant woman's cardiovascular and nervous systems don't adjust quickly enough, which can cause periods of dizziness or lightheadedness, or even make her lose consciousness. It's quite a normal thing to happen in a pregnancy. Just make sure your wife gets plenty of rest and maintains a healthy diet and sees your family physician regularly for check-ups, and Lord willing, everything should be alright."

Leo's face lit up just like Sylvia's then, and he bent down and gave Sylvia a very long, passionate kiss. In the next moment he said, "Thank you, doctor. Thank you so much."

"You can take Mrs. Schnauser home now. Just be sure to make an appointment with your family doctor as soon as possible."

"Will do, doc. Come on, Pussycat. Let's go home," said Leo as he helped Sylvia up off the exam table. Moments later, they walked out of the room arm in arm, humming together and daydreaming about their little one.