Enim peccata mea mater .
"For the sins of my mother"
Oo000oo000oO
"I don't know what the hell's going on, Bonnie." Lois said as she walked hallway towards the cardiology unit in Quahog General Hospital. "This morning Peter got a call from my father telling him to come over to see him, and then I don't hear anything until Joe called me a few minutes ago telling me that Peter'd had a heart attack!"
"Oh, no..." Bonnie said. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Lois sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "Yes, no, I mean-" she took a breath and let it out. "I don't know. Everything's gone crazy."
"Is Peter going to be okay?" Bonnie asked.
"Yes." Lois answered. "He had an emergency triple bypass operation, and it was successful."
"Thank goodness." Bonnie said, then there was a pregnant pause. "What about your insurance?" she asked.
"And that's the other thing." Lois said. "They told me not to worry about the bill, that it all had been paid for in cash."
"What?" Bonnie asked, the confusion evident in he voice. "Who paid for it?"
"I don't know." Lois said as she stopped at an elevator and pressed the call button. "Peter's insurance wouldn't cover it even before we lost it, my parent's certainly wouldn't have paid for it-"
The elevator doors opened with the single chime of a bell. Lois's brows knit together as she remembered calling her parents and hearing her father's full blown belly laughs in the background.
"-and we certainly don't have the money." she added as she got onto the elevator. "So I don't know where the hell it came from, or from who."
"I wish I could say that Joe and I were the ones who paid for it, but I can't." Bonnie said sadly.
"I know." Lois said. "Thank you."
"So what are you going to do?" Bonnie asked.
Lois sighed again as she pressed the button for the correct floor and the doors closed. Glancing back at the nurse in pink scrubs who was standing behind her, Lois moved to one side.
"Right now, I'm going up to the Cardiology Unit. They said that peter was going to be waking up soon and I'm going to be waiting there." she said. "Maybe I can get some answers then."
"Okay." Bonnie said. "If you need anything, give us a call."
"I will Bonnie." Lois said. "Thank you."
"You're welcome." Bonnie said. "Bye."
"Bye, Bonnie." Lois said as she snapped her cellphone closed.
Exhausted, Lois leaned up against the walls of the elevator and closed her eyes as she waited for the elevator to reach the proper floor.
"Cigarette?" a female voice asked, obviously that of the nurse who was in the elevator when Lois got on.
"No, thank you." Lois said, then opened her eyes suddenly. "Wait, this is a non-smoking hospital-"
Lois froze when she got a good look at the nurse standing in front of her. For it was her daughter standing in front of her, holding out a pack of Luck Strike's and her finger on the hold button.
She gave a strangled gurgle and in a panic stumbled backwards into the rearmost corner of the elevator, losing her cellphone in the process. Meg watched her mother's panicked reaction with a blank face, then shook a cigarette out for her self and stuffed the pack back into the pocket of the scrubs she was wearing.
"Hey Mom." she said evenly as she dug a butane lighter out of her pocket.
"W-wha- what do you want?" Lois asked, her voice shaking.
"To talk." Meg said as she lit her cigarette. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by to talk."
Horror spread over Lois's face as she stared at her daughter. "You're the reason why Peter had his heart attack."
Meg took a drag on her cigarette and exhaled a blue cloud of smoke. "Not directly, no." she said. "That honor lies at the feet of Granpa Pewterschmitt."
"What did you do?" Lois asked, pressing herself further into her corner.
Meg chuckled mirthlessly. "Funny thing, people." she said, then her expression turned serious. "I sent Grandpa an email, telling him that I was the one behind his vault getting ripped off."
"That... that was you?" Lois asked weakly.
"Yes." Meg said. "Now pay attention, Mom. I don't have all day.
As I was saying, I sent Grandpa an email. He decided to run a DNA test on us grand kids to see who had inherited the least amount of Dad's jeans. Completely wrong, but, he was the one who was paying for it, so, whatever." she added with a shrug. "Anyways, he has the tests run, and calls Dad over to show him and then yell at him. But he forgot to check the results before hand. And when he showed him the results, they were both shocked to find out that of the three kids, only one was a match paternally with him. All three had the same mother, but not the same father."
Lois made a strangled little whimper. "What?" she asked.
Meg took another drag off of her cigarette and flicked the ash off the end. "What I'm saying, is that of your three children, I am the only one who is actually his child." she said. "Which, I might add, answers why Chris is a natural blond, and Stewie looks nothing like Dad, but why I take after him in looks."
Meg looked her mother in the eye, violet ice meeting terrified green. "Of course, I certainly get the mental problems from you." she added. "Ironic, isn't it? The family punching bag is the one who's actually a full blooded member."
"I- I can explain-" Lois began, but stopped when Meg gave her a look.
"I could not possibly care any less as to why you cheated on Dad." Meg told her. "All I can say is that I'm not surprised, given how you treated me growing up. Not to mention all the little tidbits of what you were like before you married Dad."
Lois stared at her daughter as she spoke, and then sagged against the walls of the elevator, barely keeping herself standing. "Why?" she moaned. "Why are you doing this? Why kill Anna and torture your family?"
Meg took a long drag on her cigarette and exhaled slowly. "Because you all are the one's who made me into the monster I am today." she said. "I killed Anna because I'm going to be the last Griffin. Any family that makes someone like me cannot be allowed to continue. And I want you all live that every day of your lives, and I want them to be long and healthy.
That's why I paid for Dad's medical expenses, that's why I've the mortgage off on the house."
Meg released the stop button and stepped forward to look her mother square in the eye. "You have only yourselves to blame for me, Mom. And I want to you all to remember that for every second of every day of your lives." she said.
"Lois Griffin, please come to Cardiology Unit. Lois Griffin, please come to Cardiology Unit."
Meg glanced up at the speaker set into the ceiling elevator and stepped back. "Huh." she said. "I think Dad just woke up." she commented as she stubbed her cigarette out on the sole of her shoe. "He's probably going to have some questions for you."
The bell on the door dinged as the doors opened. Meg turned on her heel and walked out into the busy hallway, disappearing into the crowd within seconds. Lois watched her go as she sank weakly to floor, tears flowing freely from her eyes.
"Lois Griffin, please come to Cardiology Unit." the voice said over the PA again. "Lois Griffin, please come to Cardiology Unit."
Oo000oo000oO
Mickey McFinnegan weaved drunkenly up the path to his cottage, incoherently slurring his words as he sang badly of key. Helping him along was O'Brian the sheep, Mickey's long suffering companion. Shoving, prodding, and with a few well placed kicks, he got him to the door. Taking a spare key from under the flowerpot by the door, O'Brian got the door open and shoved his friend into the house.
"Wha' t'me izzit?" Mickey asked as O'Brian shut the front door.
"Don't know." the sheep answered. "Let me get the bloody light on, and I'll-" he started to add as a lamp clicked on.
O'Brian whirled around to see that there was a young woman sitting in Mickey's armchair. She had brown hair, glasses, was dressed in vaguely military looking clothing, and had violet eyes that were the deadest he'd ever seen.
A chill began to creep up O'Brian's spine as he realized who this young woman was- he'd remembered reading about her in the paper.
"God, you're a filthy, disgusting, drunk, aren't you?" the woman said.
"W-who arre hue?" Mickey asked as he tried to make her out through the haze of alcohol.
"Meg Griffin." the woman answered. "Your granddaughter."
"Gran- I's gotss a gran' daugher?" Mickey slurred, and turned unsteadily to O'Brian. "I's gots a gran'daugher!"
O'Brian nodded, keeping his eyes on Meg. "Aye, ya do.' he said. "Not to be rude, but what brings you here, lass?" he asked.
Meg looked at the sheep, her face devoid of expression. "Family matters." she answered. "That need to be discussed in private." she added.
O'Brian only had time to gape before Meg lifted a suppressed pistol from where it had been lying in her lap and shot him in the head. Micky watched this happen, a stupefied expression on his face.
"Hey." he said to his friends corpse. "O'Braan. You 'kay?"
"He'll be fine." Meg said, raising her voice to get his attention. "Right now I need to talk to you."
"Aaahbout wha?" asked Mickey as he turned to face his granddaughter.
"Your children and grandchildren." answered Meg.
Mickey blinked and stared at Meg for several seconds. "Iii gots more th'n one?" he asked.
"Yes." Meg told him. "The Health Service Executive was nice enough to start taking genetic information for patients a few years ago, and it enabled me to track them down and kill them."
"Wha?" Mickey asked, not quite comprehending in his drunkenness just what Meg had said.
"I said I killed them." Meg repeated as she raised her pistol once more. "Just like what I'm going to do to you."
Mickey only had time to open his mouth before Meg shot him twice, the first bullet hitting him in the eye and the second bullet hitting him in the mouth. His body collapsed to the floor with a loud thump, and Meg sat there for a couple of seconds staring at him. Then she stood up, tucked her pistol into her NDS bag, and turned out the light.
Oo000oo000oO
Stepping out the back door of the cottage into the garden, Meg closed the door behind her and shook out a Lucky. Lighting it, she then walked through the darkened garden and out the back gate onto the road that ran behind her late grandfathers cottage.
It had been a productive two weeks here in Ireland, tying up some loose ends and meeting some long lost aunts, uncles, and cousins. But, she was needed back home in Outer Heaven, for there were jobs that needed doing and coffers that needed filled.
And staying in a rural Irish town that was going to discover that it's murder rate had gone up by eighteen people was not a smart thing to do either.
But, all in all, Meg had felt that she had made the most of her personal time, but she needed to get back to work.
Walking swiftly, she headed down the road and into the night.
Oo000oo000oO
End.
Authors Note: And once again, the Griffin family harvests it's bitter fruit.