Ugly Americans: Love or Life

Chapter 1: Say Goodbye to "Normal"

Disclaimer: I do not own "Ugly Americans" or its characters, yadda… yadda… yadda no profit… writing this for fun… blah-blah-blah. Alright now that that's out of the way…

A/N: Okay, there weren't nearly enough fanfics for "Ugly Americans" so I finally got fed up and wrote one of my own. It may not be the best thing you've ever read, it may not be the longest, heck, I'll probably abandon it if there isn't enough interest in it but what can you do? I had this idea in my head and I finally got it out in words. The first 1300 words were written on an iPad and in bed so they are either the most brilliant or the worst thing I've ever come up with. Honestly that has nothing to do with anything but its late, I want to go to bed and I'm all gittery. My actual laptop has been giving me problems like you wouldn't believe and you can't post to from an iPad so… Okay, author's note over now.

When Mark Lilly woke up that Monday morning he had no reason to expect that it would be any different from the many other Mondays since he had moved to the city. But it was different. After that day his life and the lives of those closest to him would be forever changed.

He looked to his right and saw Callie sleeping peacefully beside him. She looked so peaceful that Mark hated the thought of moving and risking disturbing her slumber. Callie had had a long night explaining to her father the meaning of being engaged to be engaged and after Aldermach Maggotbone had finally grasped the concept Callie had then had to prevent her father from killing Mark on the spot.

Mark involuntarily cringed at the all too fresh memory. He briefly wondered how he'd managed to fall asleep after that but Aldermach had threatened to kill Mark so many times now that Mark supposed that after the initial burst of adrenaline faded and Callie had calmed her father's lust for violence that Mark knew there was really nothing to fear.

He watched Callie for a long time until with a soft moan her eyelids flickered once and then opened. She smiled at Mark.

He returned the smile "Good morning Beautiful," he greeted her.

Callie nodded curtly as she sat up, the sleepy smile disappearing from her face in an instant. She groaned emphatically at the clock before turning on Mark "Six fifteen?" she exclaimed in what was supposed to have come out sounding like rage.

But Mark knew better; with a mischievous smile he moved closer to her on the bed "How about a quickie before breakfast?" he suggested.

Callie seemed to consider this for a moment or two before nodding, a wicked grin of her own blossoming into existence "You're on!"

One quickie turned into three but by seven the two were showered and dressed. Callie sat at the kitchen table as Mark cooked breakfast and explained to his zombie roommate, Randal why eggs were the perfect after sex food.

Callie knew that Mark would not be mentioning sex as part of his defense of the eggs he was almost inexplicably devoted to, had Randal not brought up the noise that the pair had caused in the shower. Callie grinned to herself, the shower, the location of their third and almost fourth quickie. Mark had laid down the law after he'd nearly dropped her during climax and like that Callie had been cut off for the morning.

There had been a time not so long ago when instead of sitting there while Mark made breakfast, Callie would have been searching her speed dial for a quick and mostly anonymous fuck before work. Her phone had once been full of those numbers; cheating husbands, out of town business men, anyone as long as they weren't looking for anything serious. Callie already had something serious, with Mark.

For a long time she'd thought that she could carry on that way; until she saw what it was doing to Mark. Even before he had become semi involved with his old flame turned she-beast Jackie, she had seen it in his eyes when he'd caught her with that guy in her office. She had promised herself after she Grimes and Randal had rescued Mark from Jackie that she was done sleeping around. She hadn't told Mark her decision, it was force of habit, she supposed, attempting to maintain the power in a relationship where power was completely irrelevant. Mark truly loved her and she truly loved him.

As he set a plate of scrambled eggs in front of her she vowed to finally tell him that she was truly committed to him and him alone, later.

"I was thinking-" Mark started before being interrupted by Randal.

"Oh this can't be good," the zombie announced.

Mark attempted to ignore his roommate "Maybe you," he smiled at Callie "And I-"

"What stupid thing are you gonna ask her now? Randal groaned. "As if getting engaged to be engaged wasn't dumb enough. Hey... Hey what do you call her? Your pre-fiancé?" Randal started laughing hysterically.

Callie rolled her eyes. They hadn't bothered to mention to Randal that in the end it had been she who had asked Mark.

"Your place tonight?" Mark asked as Randal's loud guffawing echoed through the apartment.

"Oh yeah," Callie replied emphatically just before she took another bite of her eggs. Suddenly her fork dropped to the plate as she bolted for the bathroom.

"Callie...?" full of concern Mark rose to follow her only to have the bathroom door slammed in his face. On the other side of the door he could hear the unmistakable sound of retching. "You alright...?" he asked meekly.

"Gave your girlfriend food poisoning," Randal had followed Mark and was standing only a few feet away leaning against the wall "Bad move dude..."

"Hey!" Mark said defensively "There was nothing wrong with those eggs!"

Inside the bathroom Callie had finished puking. She flushed what had formerly been her stomach contents and turned to the sink to wash her mouth out. She could hear Randal goading Mark outside the bathroom. Callie didn't believe for a second that Mark's cooking had made her ill but she saw no harm in letting him believe it. At least she rationalized she'd let him believe it until she could get the doctor to confirm that it was just a stomach bug. Satan only knew what germs lurked in this city.

She emerged from the bathroom a few moments later. She regarded the bickering roommates with a sour look before heading for the door "I'll see you at work," she called over her shoulder to Mark in her usual impassive and mildly irritated tone. Mark was about to reply but she was already gone.

"Man," Randal shrugged "She used the door, she must be pissed."

"Maybe not..." Mark defended with a shrug of his own as he slumped onto the sofa "she really hasn't been using the window so much..."

Randal took a seat beside his human companion "Cheer up, you probably haven't killed her,"

"Always looking on the bright side, aren't you," Mark sighed.

"I try," Randal smirked. After a moment he seemed to take some sort of pity on Mark and asked "So what incredibly stupid thing were you going to ask Callie before your terrible cooking made her blow chunks?"

"I was going to ask her if she wanted to drive upstate with me this weekend to meet my Mom and sister," Mark replied, his tone full of exasperation.

"Sister?" Randal had glommed onto the one word in that sentence that interested him. And the reason that it interested him? It was the one word that suggested the remote possibility that he, Randal, might get laid.

Mark groaned; this was the very reason he had never mentioned his older sister to Randal before. When he had first moved in with Randal the topic of family hadn't really come up and by the time that it had Mark knew enough about Randal to keep that information a secret. He stood from the sofa "Don't even..." he remarked tiredly as he made his way out of the apartment.

"We're gonna finish this discussion later tonight!" Randal called after him.

"No we're not!" Mark called back fervently.

XXX

By the time Mark arrived at the DOI Callie had come and gone. Twayne, looking comically flustered without Callie there to assist him, informed Mark that Callie had scheduled an early appointment to be seen by her doctor and that she would be out the rest of the day; and would Mark be so kind as to help him figure out what was causing that odd sound in the file cabinet?

Mark sighed and begrudgingly opened the bottom drawer of the file cabinet to reveal a jingle bell on a piece of ribbon left over from the Christmas party.

"Oh," said Twayne as he took the jingle bell from Mark "I guess that explains why it was a jingling sound."

Mark grumbled something and headed to meet with his class. He couldn't stop thinking about Callie and wondering if he had indeed made her seriously ill. He decided that if she hadn't returned from the doctor's by the time his class was over that he would give her a call just to make. He felt guilt creeping up inside him and overtaking him as he entered the room, the regular crowd ready and waiting for him. He would soon learn that his guilt was completely unfounded. But for now it was all he could do to remain on topic with the group. He caught his eye wandering to the clock more than once and on three separate occasions he'd thought he'd heard someone outside in the hall and had stopped class to see if indeed it was Callie returning.

XXX

While Mark was busy with his class, Callie was a few blocks away sitting in her doctor's office.

As a child growing up with parents living in the city and below ground in Hell, Callie had had a slew of pediatricians. Her first human doctor, when she had been all of three and a half, she had rewarded for all his patience with her by giving him a face full of red festering boils. An act for which she was rebuked by her mother and praised by her father.

Since that first experience, Callie had come to prefer human doctors. It wasn't simply the convenience (there were very few demon physicians who practiced outside of Hell) but there was something about the way they took her feelings into consideration. Demon doctors only checked to see that everything was functioning, rarely asking the patient's opinion on their own body. Callie just seemed to feel more safe around humans. Her legs dangled off of an exam table that was covered in a white paper sheet. She began kicking them idly as if she were a child again as she lost herself deep in though.

She hadn't always felt this way but the realization that she now did in fact trust the species to which her mother belonged much more so had finally hit her a few days ago, on April first. When Mark had thought she'd been kidnapped he'd completely forgotten about his own safety in his effort to save her. And it wasn't just Mark, humans all she saw humans all around her doing things for one another, in some cases helping complete strangers, when no demon would have thought of doing such a thing for his closest friend.

And it wasn't just humans. Zombies, vampires, werewolves and even koala men all seemed to have a sense of something that Callie couldn't put her finger on but that the demon community itself had never possessed. It amazed and frightened her and had caused her to do a lot of thinking over the past few days.

"Callie…?" the door to the exam room opened slowly and a friendly human woman a few years older than Callie poked her head in.

Doctor Darcy Miller had been Callie's primary care physician for almost two years now. Doctor Darcy was on a first name basis with all of her patience and Callie couldn't help liking the other woman. Darcy never made snap judgments based on Callie's pedigree as a half human half demon. Darcy hadn't immediately written Callie off at first sight of her horns but had actually taken the time to get to know her patient.

Callie smiled at Doctor Darcy "Hello," she greeted.

The doctor pulled up a rolling chair so that she could sit facing Callie "I hear you're not feeling well," she began "You look fine. What happened?"

Callie explained to the doctor everything that had occurred that morning and how she believed that it was probably just some sort of stomach bug.

Doctor Darcy nodded as Callie spoke. When she had finished the doctor shook her head "A stomach bug usually manifests itself in other ways besides just vomiting," she reasoned, speaking slowly as if she were trying to work something out in her own mind "You might be pale, shaky on your feet, having occasional bouts of diarrhea but you don't appear to have any of that."

It was Callie's turn to shake her head "Can't you just give me something for the nausea?" she asked.

"I can write you a prescription yes," Darcy told her, still speaking as if she didn't want to disrupt her own mind's internal conversation "But I'd like to examine you just in case."

After the exam Doctor Darcy drew some blood that she sent to off to the lab to be tested. Callie could have left right then and waited at home for a phone call from the doctor's office later that afternoon but once Darcy had shared her hypothesis of what it might be that had made Callie ill, Callie didn't know what to do with herself. So many thoughts raced through her head. So many memories of late, ondomless nights when she'd been so desperate just to feel her body pressed against Mark's.

She'd been on the pill of course but that damned gender reassignment surgery she'd gone through. She'd been off it during her time as Dick and there was a good chance that she'd gotten ahead of herself in her quest to fulfill that deep need within her that she might not have given the drug enough time to build up in her system once she was fully female again.

Doctor Darcy was able to move some appointments around and sat with Callie outside the lab, waiting for the results. The doctor tried to comfort Callie with all manner of platitudes, none of which seemed to be doing anything.

"Stupid gender reassignment," she muttered to herself. Of course it wasn't the surgery that was what was bothering her, though going through it not just once but twice to get back to her original gender was a risky thing to have done in the first place, but it was herself she was truly upset with. Years and years of being so careful, so many demon partners, so much rough sex, so many barbed penises and so much careful adherence to the birth control schedule.

Then again, she found herself thinking, if she was pregnant, she'd rather be pregnant with Mark's baby than one of those random fucks from her phone or one of those demons who she had so freely given herself too in years past. It was obvious that Mark would make a wonderful father. Callie was almost comfortable with the idea when she remembered about her father.

This was not going to make him happy. Callie having a baby with a human was far from the destiny that her dear daddy had mapped out for her. She'd only really been toying with changing Aldermach's plans before. Dating Mark was just one little way that she could say to her father "You don't control me" but in the end she had thought for a long time that she'd wind up doing as daddy dear wanted. But then she'd fallen in love.

Her being in love was something that she thought that her father was gradually beginning to understand and she'd actually believed that in time perhaps he'd let the issue drop and stop threatening to chop Mark in two, at least she'd been hoping that would be the case by the time the pre-engagement evolved into a wedding. But now, she knew that her father wouldn't be able to get comfortable with the idea of her carrying Mark's baby, not this soon.

"I'm not pregnant, I'm not pregnant," she began to murmur over and over to herself as she waited patiently, eyes never leaving the door behind which her new destiny was being decided. She could just imagine her father finding out about the baby. The first thing he would do before he'd even allow himself to fully process the words would be to cut Mark's head off.

Callie realized she was hyperventilating and made a courageous effort to breathe normally. She was overreacting, she tried to tell herself. Her father wouldn't be that upset. And besides, she probably wasn't pregnant anyway…

Beside her Doctor Darcy squeezed her hand "I've got to go in about fifteen minutes," she told Callie.

Callie nodded; the doctor had really gone above and beyond her responsibilities by arranging to keep Callie company this long. Just another example of the virtues of humanity.

Within five minutes of Doctor Darcy's statement the lab door opened and a young, nervous looking technician hurried out with a slip of paper. He avoided looking at Callie, choosing instead to look at the floor, the ceiling, anywhere else but at the half human, half demon that no doubt embodied many of his nightmares.

"Oh, this city's gonna eat you alive," Callie murmured to herself as the tech scurried back into the lab. She looked up at Darcy who was looking over the results in her hand. The doctor's face remained impassive as if she were assessing any other data that had been placed before her eyes.

Callie couldn't take it and snatched the paper from the doctor. Within a second of scanning the information she felt an entirely different kind of nausea overtake her than had that morning. "This is real," she murmured "This isn't a dream, this is really happening."

Doctor Darcy reached a hand out to her "Come up to my office. We're going to need to talk about a few things."

A/N: Okay, still jittery but at least I've finished chapter one. Now I know what you're thinking, and you're writing, pregnancy in fanfic isn't exactly an original plotline but you don't quite know where I'm going with it yet now do you? Trust me when I say that if you read and review and I find the strength to continue that you have never read a pregnancy fic like this before and you most certainly haven't read an "Ugly Americans" pregnancy fic because I'm fairly sure there aren't any.

So here we are at the end of chapter one. What did you think? Did you like it? Should I continue? Is there even anyone out there reading this?

Just for the record, I don't like bringing politics/hot button issues into Fanfiction and I'm fairly sure I didn't but just so you all know, don't go asking me my views on birth control. I simply thought that if Callie had been using a chemical form of contraception that it would have made sense that she would not have been taking it during that brief period she was Dick (and spoke with John Benjamin's voice which is a total mind fuck to anyone who's ever seen "Lucy the Daughter of the Devil") and therefore offered a valid excuse for why conception could have taken place.

Thank you for reading and please if you could leave me a review that would be wonderful because they are the fuel that will keep my fingers moving long after my hands have cramped up and my eyes can barely stay open. Also, if no one reviews, how will I be sure anyone's actually read it? I mean there's the hit counter but that only means people have clicked on the story it doesn't actually mean they've read it.

Yeah so, wicked long author's note and I'm going to bring it to a close now. Bye bye and good night.