Hello, Megamind Fandom! I've been reading stories here for about 3 months now, and WOW! I'm more impressed with the writing in this fandoms than any of the others on this site! I've only ever published one of my own stories on this site before, and it was for "House," so here goes nothing! And, I own nothing! I'm just thankful to the writers for letting us play with their super awesome toys, as always :-P

"Roxanne? Did you finish that copy?" Jack Meyers yelled out the door of his office on the 6th floor of the news building. Receiving no immediate response from his star reporter, the producer of Metro City's Channel 8 Evening News shook his head and hastily made his way from his side of the floor to the reporters'. He wondered if it had happened yet again, because it would be Roxanne Ritchi's usual reaction to either jump up from her desk and pop her head over the cubicle or immediately answer back. When he reached Roxanne's personal enclave, however, his suspicions were confirmed. She was out like a light at her desk, head resting on her folded arms. Jack shook his head, anything but surprised at the scene in front of him, and took out his phone. After looking both ways to make sure that no one was watching, he snapped a quick picture of the slumbering newswoman. After locating the appropriate contact under "M," Dan swiftly sent the picture to the necessary party and put his phone back in his pocket. "Roxanne?" he said again, now that he was closer. When there was still no response, he shook her and all but yelled, "ROXANNE!" Finally, she began to rouse.

"Huh? What's going on?" she slurred sleepily, lifting her head and trying to take in her surroundings.

"You know, Roxanne, if I didn't know you as well as I do, I'd think you had some kind of a substance abuse problem," Jack said, half-jokingly. "You know this is the third time I've found you asleep at your desk this week?"

Roxanne sighed and looked at her watch. She groaned; 4:00pm. She'd lost a whole hour of work time on that evening's copy.

"I know, Jack," she finally answered. "I'm so sorry… I don't know what's wrong with me. I sleep almost from the minute I get home at night until the last possible second in the morning, but it doesn't seem to make any difference. I'm just worn out." She looked so frustrated and defeated at that moment, Jack couldn't bring himself to be upset with her; quite the contrary. He was beginning to get very worried about Roxanne.

"Are you still feeling sick?"

"Not so much. It still comes and goes a little, but that has actually gotten better."

"And… you're sure you're not…" Jack began, but trailed off. They were friends at work, but not much on a personal level. He didn't want to overstep his bounds, as a boss or as a guy.

"No!" Roxanne shot back almost too quickly. She decided to purposely over-share in order to put her prying male boss back in his place. "Three negative home tests and a negative blood test that was done in a doctor's office. Now, I know I've been a little slow lately, but I'm pretty damn sure that means I am most definitely not pregnant." Jack coughed awkwardly in a poor attempt to cover his embarrassment.

"Erm… um… well, don't worry about it, Roxanne. Just try to get that copy finished up as soon as you can for the editors. I'll be in my office if you need me for anything," Jack added as he hurried back to his office. He couldn't wait to just shut his door and pretend that the last five minutes hadn't happened.

"Yeah, I need you to mind your own business, Jack," Roxanne said sarcastically under her breath as she tried to reorient herself and locate the documents on her laptop that she needed to finish her copy. She had been in the midst of running a check on a source when she had fallen asleep, and now that she was awake again, she knew it was going to take a significant effort to conjure the concentration that she would need to complete her task. Not only had the mystery illness that had plagued her for well over a month made her violently nauseous and exhausted, it had also seriously depleted her usual razor-sharp concentration. If it weren't for all those negative tests, I'd swear that I was pregnant, she thought to herself.

On one hand, Roxanne was relieved. She and Megs had only been together about six months, and they certainly weren't ready for a baby; Roxanne was the rising star of the local news scene, and Megamind was still learning the ropes as Metro City's resident protector. But on the other hand, if one of those tests had been positive, she couldn't help but feel deep down in her heart that part of her would have been ecstatic; terrified, but ecstatic nonetheless. Roxanne shook her head as if to clear it, and pulled up the iTunes playlist that her beautiful blue boyfriend had put together for her entitled "Sexy Rox." It always made her smile, because at one time or another he had serenaded her with most of the songs, and she knew it would pump up her adrenaline for the task ahead of her. Placing her headphones in her ears, she smirked at the opening strains of AC/DC's "You Shook Me All Night Long" and began typing away.

M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R * M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R * M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R

Jack dared to venture from his office again about fifteen minutes later to check on Roxanne's progress. Not surprisingly, he found her passed out yet again, one headphone dangling out of her ear, through which he could clearly hear the blare of a Led Zeppelin song. Just then, an excited gaggle of whispers filled the newsroom as Roxanne's man made his presence known. He smiled politely and shook a few hands as he made his way to his favorite reporter's cubicle. Giving Jack a curt nod and mouthing a "thank you," he scooped Roxanne up in one deft movement and carried her down to the awaiting invisible car outside. It certainly wasn't the first time in the last six months that Megamind had carried his sleeping (or knocked out) girlfriend off of the newsroom floor, but it was usually to "kidnap" her for some kind of a spontaneous romantic rendezvous. This particular instance, however, sought his brainpower and not his romantic side. Megamind knew that something was definitely amiss with his Roxanne, and the surprisingly sensitive alien had been determined for weeks to find out just what it was.

M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R * M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R * M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R-M-R

"Minion, where is that blasted T.V.?" Megamind asked his constant companion in an irritated manner. He had sent the fish to retrieve it from the den nearly five minutes beforehand and didn't understand what could possibly be taking him so long to get back to the War Room. Megamind was determined to finish his project before Roxanne awoke. He glanced at his holo-watch, and in a rare instance, actually used it for its most basic time-telling function. 3:30 AM; she had been asleep for the better part of twelve hours, and so he really had no way of knowing when she would wake up.

"Coming, sir!" Minion called in his sing-song way from the hallway. "Here you go!" he said as he walked into the room and set a somewhat bulky 16 inch tube set down on the counter near his boss. Megamind just starred at it blankly, looked to his fishy friend, back at the set, and back to Minion again.

"I said. The one. From the DEN!" Megamind yelled, fists balling at his sides. "What would I want with this miniscule piece of garbage that you keep in the kitchen to watch that vexatious Racheal Rae and the more admirably diabolical Martha Sch-tewart?"

Minion looked hurt. Heaven forbid that anyone mishears Sir when he's in one of his moods, he thought to himself. "My apologies, boss. Are you sure that you really need the big flat screen for this though, sir? You see, it's Shark Week, and I was really hoping that later…" Minion began, but he was quickly interrupted.

"Well, too bad, Minion. As much appreciation as I have for the malevolence of Shark Week, Roxanne's welfare happens to rank slightly higher among my priorities, and I would think she should also rank higher among yours!" Megamind scolded as he continued to assemble the parts of his machine.

Sighing, Minion began, "Sir, you know that I feel just as great of a responsibility for Miss Ritchi's well-being as I do for your own. I just don't see why a 60-inch screen is necessary for a simple ultra-sound machine," he shrugged.

"Because, Minion, if my intuition is correct and Roxanne is indeed pregnant, the fetus would only be at about twelve or thirteen weeks' gestation. It would be merely the size of a lemon, and I want the best view of it that I can possibly have, which means that I want the largest screen in the Lair at my disposal!"

"I just don't understand, though. Miss Ritchi's taken all those tests… even the one at the doctor's office was negative."

"That nit-wit of a general practitioner who calls himself a physician was dumb enough to only look at her blood work and not account for the rest of her symptoms at all except to say that she's 'stressed' and 'overworked.' Roxanne's spent the majority of her career stressed and overworked. Thank you, Dr. Obvious."

"I believe his name is actually Dr. Markham, sir," Minion said dryly.

"Don't be a smart-alik fish. I am not in the mood," Megamind said sternly, starring daggers at his best friend. He continued to assemble the last few parts of his machine as he explained, "I've done a lot of research about Roxanne's symptoms, and really nothing else fits them... she's been nauseous, exhausted, unable to concentrate and extremely emotional," Megamind shook his head at the last comment, remembering all of the objects that had been hurled in his general direction as of late because of some supposedly thoughtless comments. "Not to mention the fact that she hasn't had her… um," he hesitated, understandably uncomfortable with discussing the subject in front of Minion, "… cycle… for a few months now. If my theory is correct, there's something about the difference in our DNA that is either masking or counter-acting the expected presence of hCG in her blood.

"hCG? What does that stand for, exactly?" Minion said as he sat down on one of the nearby stools. He knew how involved his boss's explanations could get, so he figured he might as well make himself comfortable if he was going to hear the extent of it.

"Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, it's the human pregnancy hormone. Emphasis on human… the doctor failed to account for the fact that half of the DNA that any child Roxanne and I would conceive would be non-human. I believe that could very easily disrupt the usual testing process. And I don't know whether you've noticed or not, but lately, Roxanne's abdomen has definitely … oh, how to put this delicately?" Megamind wondered as he tapped his goatee and looked upward in a pensive manner.

"Um, expanded, sir?" Minion offered carefully.

"Yes, expanded. I… um… made the mistake of making that observation to her the other day when we were discussing the continued presence of her symptoms, and…" he gulped. "…it did not go over particularly well."

"Oh, sir, you didn't!" Minion exclaimed. "Weight is a topic that is best avoided with human females at all costs."

"Yes, thank you, Minion. I have now made that discovery," Megamind stately sarcastically. And I have the bruise on my arm to prove it, he added dryly in his head.

Suddenly, the fish had an epiphany. "That's why you were sleeping on the couch the other night, wasn't it? You weren't really afraid of waking up Miss Ritchi by coming into your room late, were you?"

"Sometimes I wish you were somewhat of a less astute minion," Megamind said, annoyed. "But I suppose you wouldn't be much use to me at all if that were the case. Now… that's enough chit-chat. I have to get this finished. The only part of the machine left to assemble is the monitor, so would you please go and get me the T.V. from the den?"

"Right away, sir," Minion replied and quickly headed for the den. While being a gopher was far from Minion's favorite role in Megamind's life, he was grateful to receive a break from his charge's presently tightly-wound demeanor for any reason.

Megamind turned his attention back to the nearly built ultra-sound machine and began to double check his assemblage against the blue prints that he had obtained from the internet. He smirked; he had added several improvements to what was in his mind a rather unsophisticated piece of equipment. It was amazing, though, the array of devices for which one could find the blue-prints on the internet, if one knew where to look; or in Megamind's case, knew which of Metro City General Hospital's servers to hack. Since his defeat of Titan, Megamind had indeed largely forgone the majority of his "evil" ways, but he found that subversive tactics such as hacking were sometimes still a great assistance, and at times even necessary, in order to accomplish certain tasks.

When Minion returned with the T.V., Megamind quickly located the cords that would successfully make it a compatible monitor with his ultra-sound machine. Doing a test run on himself, he took a look at his stomach and some of his other internal organs. The imaging that appeared on the screen was at least as good as any of the 3-D ultra-sound examples that he had observed through the hospital's website; in Megamind's opinion, his was even better. Yes, he thought to himself, smiling. This will do quite nicely for our baby's first picture.