Bundles of Joy
This story was completed for Kitty Kat K.O.'s Sudden But Necessary Flash Fic Contest. Basically, the rules for the competition are "Write a story of 1000 words or less in which a cat appears," and if you'd like more details (and, c'mon, who doesn't have time to write a flash fic?), you can send KO a PM or look on the Free Imagination Forum.
I think I started this for a different contest—it was definitely sitting around half-finished on my computer before KO's contest started—but I don't know what prompt would inspire me to write this sort of thing. If you're a terrible person, you can pretend it takes place in the same universe as "Putting out Fire," but it's not supposed to.
Disclaimer: Welp, if I was ever on the list to inherit TMM, I'm sure not after posting this where people can see it.
Ichigo lay back on the wheeled bed, sweaty and exhausted but pleased. Minto had been more than happy to share pregnancy and labor horror stories over the last few months, but Ichigo's labor had been much quicker and easier than she expected. She strongly suspected that the bluenette had been exaggerating just to mess with her.
Keiichiro was in another part of the lab, cleaning off the twins. Ichigo hadn't actually seen her babies yet, but Keiichiro had assured her that it was perfectly normal for the delivering physician to wash the goo off a newborn before presenting it to its mother.
When he reappeared, Ryou was with him. Ryou had stayed out of the "delivery room" at his wife's request; now he hurried over to her bedside, brushed her damp bangs to the side, and planted a kiss on her forehead. Ichigo smiled up at him.
"How are you feeling?" he asked. "Keiichiro told me that you did great."
"Better than I thought I'd feel," she replied. "I don't know what I was scared of." Ryou smiled tightly, and one of his hands snaked down to hold hers. "Can I see them?" She could feel her husband's hesitation, and was suddenly struck with the fear that her easy labor meant something had gone disastrously wrong.
But Ryou said, "Of course you can, darling," and Keiichiro brought over two little wrapped bundles, which he placed in the crook of Ichigo's free arm.
Ichigo's first thought was that she didn't know that babies were born with body hair. It took her a moment to register the ears and facial shape, and then it was only some bizarre maternal instinct that kept her from tossing the kittens across the room in surprise.
"What the hell!" she exclaimed instead. The kittens didn't open their eyes in response to the sudden loud noise, but they shifted and wriggled in their wrappings. Ryou took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"Your DNA, like mine, is not fully human. Because of that, there was a distinct possibility that something like this would happen when we had children."
"You knew I was going to have kittens!" Ichigo yelled, a bit hysterically.
"I knew it was possible, though I had hoped that it wouldn't end up being a problem. Why do you think I wanted to have Keiichiro deliver them instead of going to a public hospital?"
She had thought that it was a little weird that Ryou insisted that Keiichiro be the only doctor on hand. At the time, she'd chalked it up to her husband just not wanting to pay hospital bills when they had a perfectly competent physician on hand. Or vet bills, maybe.
"But Minto didn't—"
"The only way for a Mew to have nonhuman babies is for her to mate with someone else possessing the same nonhuman DNA," Ryou explained like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "As the only lorikeet-human hybrid in existence, there's no way Minto-chan would lay eggs."
"Just my luck," Ichigo grumbled.
"Hey, cheer up," Ryou said. "You had two beautiful, healthy babies. So what if they're not exactly how you pictured them?" He gently touched one of the kittens lightly on the forehead; it leaned blindly into the touch.
Ichigo glared exhaustedly at her husband. How could he be so calm about this? Both of them had been so excited about becoming parents, but now Ryou seemed content to have gotten a couple pets. The kittens were cute, sure. Kittens tended to be. But they weren't—this wasn't how it was supposed to go!
She sniffled and felt herself tearing up, but she couldn't wipe her eyes or nose because of the shifting little bodies in her arms. Not just shifting, though: two little furry heads were nuzzling against her chest, as if they were trying to comfort her. Her face still wet and red, Ichigo, struck by sudden gratitude, leaned down and kissed the kittens on their foreheads.
For a moment, the room was filled with light, and then two human infants looked up at their mother with big blue eyes.