Loop-de-Loop
Stella basically tiptoed around the lab quiet as a field mouse. She'd taken to wearing flip-flops lately, for whatever reason, and she was looking for something-anything to bring the thought hamsters in her mind back to life. The poor little guys were just laying in their wheels, bordering comatose, waiting for some action. "Let's see...who can I bug? Lindsay's to lunch, Mac's on a case...Flack!"
"Alright, this is serious." Flack sighed, rubbing his brow. "I told you, if one of you guys really wants to get my coffee for me, learn how I like it! More importantly who puts honey coffee? That's like giving a fruit bat vegetables. It just doesn't make sense. Of coarse that's not as bad as you!"
"Me, sir?" One bushy haired cadet asked, pointing to himself.
"Yes you, my bushy haired friend. If you knew this was coffee, why did you put marshmallows in it?" He asked.
"I like marshmallows in coffee." Another boy said quietly.
"Right, I suggest both of you young men get help." Flack sighed, sitting back down at his desk.
"Hey, how goes the training?" Asked Angell, handing him a steaming hot cup of coffee sans marshmallows.
"Ah! This is coffee! Thank you, and not well. These guys shouldn't even be eagle scouts let alone police trainees." Flack griped.
"Hey guys, what'cha doing?" Asked Stella.
"Hey Stella, how are you two?" Angell asked her friend brightly.
"We're great! Still a little loopy, but nonetheless fantabulicious!" Stella giggled.
"Is that a word?" Flack squinted.
"No, not really." Stella smiled, shaking her head a making her curls bounce with her. "In any case-I'm bored!"
"Well then find something to do." Flack shrugged.
"I could, or I could let loose a stampede of bouncy-balls!" Stella said excitedly. Angell paled slightly and hightailed it off the corner of Flack's desk and out of PD. She knew what was coming.
"Wait...what?" Flack blinked, spinning around to see Stella standing proudly by the door in all her bubbly glory. "Where would you even get that many balls, and how would you get them here?!"
"I have my ways...balls ho!" She shouted, opening the door as a flood of balls, large and small, plastic and rubber, bounced in. Stella watched and laughed to herself. "Heh, I said balls. That's funny."
"What the f-" Flack was cut off by a bouncy ball getting caught in his open jaws. A soccer ball bounced off his head as a dodge ball hit him in the behind. "Where are they coming from?! Where would you find so many to buy in one place?!!"
The entire NYPD was soon filled to the windows with plastic orbs and spheres of all kinds. From the outside you could see several officers shmucked up against the windows uncomfortably.
"Bye, Flack!" Stella waved, bounding out happily.
"Bye, Stell." Flack murmured from somewhere amidst the impromptu ball pit. "Am I ever gonna be glad when she has that baby."
"Who can I annoy next?" Stella asked herself, looking to her left and right. Her olive green sun dress swayed around her knees when she did so. Half her hair was tied back with a yellow ribbon and her flip-flops were a light brownish color. "Who...who...who?"
"Hey Stella." Hawkes waved.
"Hawkes!!" She screamed, scaring the man.
"What?! What's going on, are you alright?" Hawkes asked with worry in his voice, almost going to touch her stomach but that was a bad idea at the moment. "Is the baby okay?"
"Oh, yes, yes, yes, everything's fine." She scoffed. "Come play with me!"
"Stella, I have work to do." Hawkes said gently to the woman.
"Just one fishing video game, please?" She asked, batting her dark eyelashes over puppy dog jade eyes.
"Alright." Hawkes let her drag him to the break room before looking at her strangely. "We don't have video games here."
"Yes we do!!" Stella held out her arms to show a random x-box.
"Where'd you get that?" Asked Hawkes.
"I dunno, now let's fish!" She said intensely.
"Alright." Hawkes shrugged, figuring Stella's normally calm self was probably even more hormone drugged than most women would be.
"I want to catch a sturgeon!" She giggled.
"Stella, you can't catch sturgeon in this game-apparently you can."
"Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winnah!!" Stella jumped, cheering for herself. "Choowoo!! Go Stella! It's your birthday! Go Stella! Get your party on! Go Stella! Uh-huh!"
"I didn't know you knew how to do the cabbage patch dance." Hawkes said more to himself than her as she danced around frivolously. She was indeed doing the cabbage patch, quite well, to add.
"Charlie Brown!!" She put one hand on her half-up hair do and grabbed her ankle with the other, humming to herself all the while.
"Right, well I'm gonna leave you to...that." Hawkes said slowly, getting up and exiting with equal caution, watching the woman dance.
"He-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-y, Macarena!" She moved her hands from her hips to her butt and shook it to the beat in her head, ready to go for another round and putting her hands out.
"Stella, I..." Adam froze in the doorway as he watched the Greek woman dance...dance like no one was watching. Hands on her hips, hands on her...and the shaking... "I'm gonna go."
"He-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-y, Macarena!"
"Hey Danny! Will you give me a piggyback like you do Lindsay?" Asked Stella.
"I told you, that's our secret." Danny said in a hushed tone.
"Like how you play barbies with Meggie, sometimes, or how you play princesses, or tea party, or how you and Lindsay have a special role playing game that you play when you get frisky on Friday nights?" Stella asked quickly, her words running together. "Frisky Fridays?"
"How do you even-never mind!" Danny sighed, remembering all too well how hormones changed women who were pregnant.
"Will you PLEEEZZ give me a piggyback?" She pleated.
"Fine, just one quick lap around the lab, and then we're done." Danny sighed again, kneeling so the tall woman could get on his back.
"Oh thank you Danny! It's so boring around here without Mac." She whined, climbing onto Danny's back, hooking her legs around his torso and hugging his neck. "I'm lonely."
"Aw, poor sweetheart." Danny pouted for her sake. "Let's go."
"Yeehaw!" Stella kneed him in the back to make him go.
"Alright, alright, can you not make a scene?" Danny grumbled, feeling his back crack. Stella was definitely not heavy, god forbid if you told her so; in her current state of mind she'd bend your arm in a way it should never bend. His back could only take so much weight. Stella was approximately Lindsay's weight, maybe even a bit lighter because of her slim, dancer's figure, but that four month old baby was already making her add on some pounds. Again, don't say so or you'll walk away with a dent in your head and a frozen carp in your pants. It's chilly in there.
"Woohoo!" Stella cheered from atop the New Yorker.
"Alright, Stell, time to get off." Danny heaved, letting her off.
"Thanks Danny, I'm going to see Sid." She waved, skipping off.
"I wish him luck.
"Hi Sid!" Stella beamed.
"Hello Stella, how are you?" Sid asked in his usual polite manner.
"I'm goooooooood." She drawled. "What'cha doin?"
"Just a cuttin." Sid answered, holding up a pair of giant scissors.
"Oh! Can I use those?!" Stella asked in wonder of the large, pointy, shiny, metal blades.
"Well, sure, but I-"
"I'm gonna make a swan." She whispered, going to work on cutting a sheet of white cloth. Once she'd cut it appropriately she handed the scissors back to Sid and dumped a bucket of water on it. In the cold temperature it froze quickly. She bended and folded each piece with her usual attention to detail.
Crack!
"Done!" She said proudly, standing to admire her work.
"You made a swan out of my victim's sheet." Sid said flatly, looking back to his naked table subject. "I hope he wasn't a self-conscious man."
"You go ahead and keep that." Stella smiled, patting the man on the back and skipping out, making all the men inside gape behind her.
"I always wanted my own swan that smelled of dead people."
"That doesn't strike you as odd, abnormal, unusual, strange, uncommon, irregular, atypical, weird, BIZARRE?!" Lindsay demanded, raising her voice with every adjective.
"Not at all. You should see what she does at home." Mac chuckled, watching his wife line up the last domino beside his empty coffee mug and topple it over just as quickly. He entered when he saw the dominos pass the doorway and watched as they kept winding into one last domino. "Hello, Stella, dear."
"Mac!" Stella ran at her husband and jumped up to hug him tightly. He spun her around to balance their weight as she kissed his lips hungrily, making him lightheaded. "I missed you!"
"I missed you too, honey." He smiled, setting her down.
"Give me your clothes!" She said suddenly and impatiently.
"Now?" He gaped.
"Yes, now!" She snapped.
"Fine." Mac unbuttoned his shirt and handed it to her lazily.
"Pants, mister." She demanded.
"Stella, you can't strip me down naked in my own lab." Mac sighed, knowing full well everyone else knew he knew he was wrong.
"Pants!" She barked.
"Here!" Mac undid his belt and slid his jeans and socks off, handing them to her.
"You can keep your boxers on." She shrugged, bundling her husband's clothes in her arms and smiling. "I'm off to do laundry!"
"Have fun, sweetie." Mac sighed, plopping down heavily.
"Did that just happen?" Lindsay asked, still stunned from seeing her best friend strip down their boss in the middle of a glass paneled lab and walk away with his clothes to do laundry on the government's dime.
"Yes, Lindsay, yes it did." Mac grumbled.
"Hey, I-whoa!" Danny jumped back, scuffing the floor a bit. "Mac, you get an invisible suit, or what? Is it come to work without clothes day? Or did you just decide pants were so last season?"
"I don't want to hear it, Danny." Mac muttered under his breath.
"Stella?" Danny asked.
"Stella." Mac half-frowned-half-smiled. On one hand; he was sitting in his underwear in his office for all the lab to see. On the second hand; his wife was only acting insane because she was pregnant. "This isn't even that weird, what she's doing here. At home, last night, she made herself a hot chocolate bath. She ironed our curtains while watching fashion tv and crying because the rich girls were so dumb. She walked around with a vanilla cupcake in her right hand for the whole day and didn't eat it until I brought at least a dozen bunches of bananas home for her. She wanted a quiet place to read so she crawled into the cupboard and fell asleep sitting in a mixing bowl. She decided to take the ceiling fan for a ride and finally, she's developed a spontaneous laundry habit that kicks in at any time of the day, as you can see."
"Well, I was almost as bad." Lindsay shrugged. "Stella's mind probably never stops, never slows down, so the hormones are probably telling her to do these things to keep her occupied, rather than eat certain foods. Most women get cravings, Stella get's urges."
"I wish it were that simple to understand every night." Mac sighed.
"Well, look at it this way. You can be lemon fresh every minute of the day now." Danny chuckled.
"Don't make me tell her she can piggyback you any time she wants." Mac warned, very serious.
"Okay, okay, it's just...how does she come up with those...?"
"Ideas for the crazy stuff she's doing?"
"Same place I got my cravings for seaweed cookies and mangos."
"I call it Loopy Land, 'cause it's full of loop-dee-loops and sugar."