Disclaimer: I'd be a liar if I said the Frasier characters were mine.
A/N: Set after "Life of the Party."
This is All Wrong!
Roz awoke to the sound of quiet stirring and opened her eyes slowly. Fatigue was still heavy on her eyelids and her body ached all over. After all, she was still exhausted from giving birth to Alice.
Alice, she mused. Her new, precious baby. After yawning and rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she turned her head to the side of the hospital bed, expecting to find her newborn in the small bed beside her, but instead found her sound asleep in Frasier's arms.
"Good morning, sleepyhead." Frasier greeted her.
"Hi Frasier." she said, propping herself against the flat pillows of her bed. "I have to admit I'm kind of surprised to see you here."
"I know I stopped by unannounced, but I wanted to see how you were doing. As I was about to leave, I saw Alice fussing, and thought I'd rock her to sleep so you could catch up on your rest." His attention diverted to the tiny child in his arms. "Oh, in fact..." he continued, "say hi to mama, Alice."
The baby gave Frasier a big, toothless yawn and extended her little arms and legs as Frasier turned her towards Roz, causing her to smile. But that quickly dissapeared when she saw the sight before her.
"Frasier, wha-what happened to her nose?" she asked, mildly horrified. Her baby did not look like that when she first held her. This had to be a mistake.
Frasier sighed. "Roz, no one wanted to wake you just to tell you, but while you were asleep, the hospital realized they accidently brought you the wrong baby. So they switched the babies out and brought you-"
"You've got to be kidding me, Frasier! If this is Alice, then when I gave birth to her, how could they overlook the nose? You'd think that would guarantee they would return to me the right baby after cleaning her up!" Roz shook her head in disbelief. How could this be! Alice got Rick's nose? It was exactly as she fretted. She slapped her hand to her sweaty forehead in frustration.
"Roz, Roz, calm down. You're becoming hysterical. When my patients do this, I tell them to take a few deep breaths."
"I'm not your patient, Frasier!" Roz exhaled an exasperated sigh, "but I don't mean to be maniacal, either. I guess I'm just annoyed the hospital mixed up Alice with another baby."
"Be honest, Roz. You're annoyed about the..." he pointed to the baby's overly large nose.
"Okay, okay. I was hoping she wouldn't have that feature. But you know what, she's mine and I already love her more than I've loved anyone. I can't wait to take her home," she finished as she accepted Alice in her arms and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
…...
Later that day, Roz and Alice were released from the hospital, and still tired despite all the rest she got, Roz gratefully accepted a ride home from Frasier. The drive was smooth and the car hummed quietly as heavy raindrops hit the windshield in a steady rhythm. From the front seat, Roz turned behind her to see Alice in her car seat, dressed in a pink onesie and wrapped in a plush blue blanket that Daphne had bought for her. The sight of her baby in such a comfy position lured Roz into the realm of sleepiness, and just as she was starting to drift off, she was jolted awake by a "Roz, we're here," and "I have a surprise for you."
Carefully, Roz gathered Alice from the car and took the elevator to her apartment, with Frasier pacing behind her the whole way. When she made it to Alice's nursery, her enthusiasm quickly disappeared. "What happened to Alice's room? Frasier, please don't tell me this was the surprise!"
"Well, of course it is, Roz! Now I know you initially had bunny wallpaper in the baby's room, but I looked at it and thought, 'clouds, are what Alice needs.' That way, it represents a calm, soothing environment, which will allow potential for inspiration, and excellent thought processing. Oh, look, look!" he exclaimed as he walked past her. " I also added a disc player, and... a selection of Mozart music. I'll tell you Roz, the man was a genius with his music, and something about it has a way of enhancing the intelligence in small children and adolescents." He switched on a button and lowered the volume such that the sound of sopranos and altos could barely be heard.
"Ooooohhh, ooohhh," Alice cooed.
"Frasier," Roz replied sweetly. "I'm going to say this as kindly as I possibly can...but I HATE IT!"
"Roz!" Frasier gasped as he put a hand over his heart. "Am I to understand that you don't like it?"
"Frasier, I liked the room the way I had it. And if Alice wanted to see clouds, I could simply move her bassinet closer to the window. And I don't want to listen to your fancy Mozart." She walked over and hastily turned off the music, after which Alice began to cry. Frasier turned on the music again, and Alice stopped.
"Frasier! Let me handle this in my own way. Niles is right! You have such a tendency to take over, and it ruins everything for everyone else."
There, she let out her steam. Frasier stood there, silent, suddenly very interested in the floor. He was probably analyzing the type of carpeting she had in Alice's room, she thought. It was harsh, she knew, but she had to be honest. Suddenly a voice came from behind: "I'm right about what?"
Roz turned around to see Niles enter the room, with Daphne by his side carrying a baby.
"Oh, hi Niles, hi Daphne. I was just talking about how Frasier tends to take over everything, sometimes, as you can tell by Alice's room."
"Oh, and what a fine job he did!" exclaimed Niles as he turned to his brother. "Frasier, I love the cloudy wallpaper. You must come and decorate for our son's room. Ooh, Mozart! An excellent choice in music!"
"Wait, wait, wait! Who's son?"
"Why, our's Roz." Daphne replied, indicating the baby in her arms. "I recently learned that everyone thought Niles and I should be together, and when I confronted Niles about it, things just...happened. This is our son, Icabod Crane."
"What is going on here!" Roz exlcaimed. "You suddenly have a son with a weird name, my daughter has a big nose...I can't..."
Daphne's eyes widened when she looked at Alice, as if she had noticed the baby's nose for the first time. "Umm, Niles, dear, will you take Icabod? I need to excuse meself for just a minute."
"Will do, my love," he replied as he took the baby from her and looked at Alice.
"Roz, she's beautiful. Umm..." he hesitated as he stared at the girl's nose. "If Alice ever needs to talk, maybe when she's older, I'll always be right there."
"What are you talking about Niles? You're a psychiatrist."
"Exactly, Roz, exactly."
That was the last straw. This was all wrong; nothing was as it should have been. Frustrated, Roz kicked everybody, including a hysterically laughing Daphne, out of the apartment and turned off the Mozart music, after which Alice began to cry from the top of her lungs.
"NOOOOO!"
Roz, wake up. ROZ! Frasier's whispers as he shook her shoulder startled his tired friend awake as she jolted upright and immediately twisted her head to look at Alice, and then Frasier. "Oh, thank God!"
"Roz, are you alright? You wouldn't stop twisting and turning."
She breathed a sigh of relief and reached for her baby, kissing her little, normal-sized nose. "I'm okay Frasier, I just had a crazy dream."
"Care to enlighten me?"
"And have you analyze it to death? No thanks."
"I promise I won't...too much. Come on, Roz. Tell me."
"Well," she started, "in a nutshell, the hospital gave me the wrong baby, then there was stupid cloud wallpaper and Mozart, and another baby named Icabod."
"Hmm...I'm not sure about the majority of your dream, but you know Roz, it's perfectly natural for new mothers to fear that the baby they receive is not their own. I think it's your mind playing on the fears of being a new mother."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. Thanks for keeping your 'analysis' clean and simple."
"Anytime Roz." Frasier smiled and squeezed her hand, then stroked Alice's cheek.
"Umm, Roz?"
"Yes, Frasier?
"What's wrong with Mozart?"
THE END