Waiting Rooms
Acepilot

Authors Notes - Sequel to "Road Trip". PK, TL, CA, Dil/Other Female Character. Dil's girlfriend, Amanda, is a character of my own creation who gets introduced in Cannibal's Hymn, which I haven't quite written yet. As soon as I finish it, I'll post it. Anyway, it provides the background on their relationship. There are a few things in here that will confuse you if you haven't read Road Trip, so it comes reccomended you do that first.

Disclaimer - Anything recognisable is Klasky Csupo's. Plot intricacies were come up with by me, but that's the limit of my originality.

----

It was going to be a long, long night.

I can tell these things, you know.

Like when my fiancee is pacing nervously and barely refraining from biting her nails, that's a bad sign.

When Chucky is staring at the soda machine but not actually ordering anything, also negative.

Angelica went out for a breath of fresh air nearly fifteen minutes ago. Often interpreted as a long-night indicator.

And my sister being in labor. Big clue there as well.

I arrive home from my final exam, ready to kick back and celebrate with my soon-to-be wife that we are both now free of college and ready to emerge into the big, wide world, only to discover a note on my fridge reading "Gone to hospital, Lil's in labour. You'll need to get a cab, love, Kimi".

I am completely and utterly wasted, and we're not even close to having a baby yet.

Did that make sense?

I'm not even aware my eyes have drifted shut until I feel someone whack me on the back of the head with a waiting room magazine. I don't open them but do manage to vocalise, "Ah, Angelica. We were worried you'd gotten lost."

She's probably glaring at me.

A loud exclamation of "ow!" does manage to jolt me fully awake, and I look at the entrance across from me to see Dil Pickles stumble awkwardly into the room, clutching at a rapidly reddening patch on his head.

"Miss the doorway, little cousin?" Angelica queries.

Dil pokes his tongue out at her, and holds up a tray full of cups triumphantly. "I brought coffee. And didn't spill it."

I cheer half-heartedly and wave an invisible flag next to my left ear.

"What took you so long, anyway?" Chuckie asks the soon-to-no-longer-be youngest Pickles.

His question is instantly answered by the sight of Amanda walking through the doorway carrying three more cups of coffee.

"Ah," is all that Chuckie seems to be able to say, and Angelica leaves the room again, muttering "my randy bloody cousins" or something like that under her breath.

I'm drifting off again already, but soon enough my love comes to my rescue, pushing a cup of coffee into my hand and tucking herself in under my arm.

"Tell me something, Phil -" oh, god, she's serious about something - "I just...I have to hear it..." here we go... "if we ever have kids -" Shit! I'm never going to forgive Tommy for this... "promise to stay awake through the birth?"

I look down at her and see that she's mischeviously grinning back up at me.

"You're evil," I tell her authoratively, and down half my coffee in one gulp. The inside of my mouth is now burnt but I'm sure as hell awake.

"But you love me anyway," she returns, in that cute tone of voice I can never resist.

"Some schools of thought would have it said that I love you because of it," I murmur, and lean down and kiss her.

"Heh-hem!"

Kimi's body shakes with stifled laughter as I turn to glare at Chuckie. "Just because you're sexually frustrated, old buddy, doesn't give you the right to step in on my action."

The Finster who I wasn't making out with seems quite taken aback. "For a start - it's my sister you're practically groping in my plain sight. And secondly, I'm not sexually frustrated!"

I cant my head to the side and Kimi's now racked with silent giggles, making it an effort to hold her and not spill my coffee at the same time. "Yeah, sure thing Chuck."

He's full on offended now, and I have the horrible feeling he's going to pursue this. "I'm probably having as much sex as you are!"

"What?" Dil's finally decided to chip in, his voice heavily tinged with amusement. "Chuckie, you don't even have a girlfriend!"

"I do too!"

"How come we've never heard of her?" Kimi's finally brought herself under control, so I quickly drain the last of my coffee before she bloody goes into a laughing fit again and knocks it out of my hand.

Chuck's eyes go wide. "Uh...well..."

"What's going on?" Damn Angelica! Had to pick that moment to walk in! We had him on the ropes!

"We're interrogating Chuckie about this secret girlfriend of his," Amanda tells her.

"We're what?"

Whoa. I haven't seen Angelica that angry in a long time. Her hair's even going red.

"Well, Chuckie says he's not sexually frustrated, and we demand full proof," Dil informs his cousin.

Angelica is now between me and Chuck, and thus I can't see her eyes. But she must be mustering up one of her best glares, because I don't think I've seen Chuckie so pale since childhood.

"You will be sexually frustrated, Finster, if you don't shut up!"

Hmm.

"Uh..." Kimi seems to speak for all of us when she says, "I'm almost afraid to ask."

Angelica whips around to face her, and you can literally see the cogs working behind her eyes, reviewing what she just said.

And everything suddenly falls into place. Chuckie and Angelica, away for months at a time at colleges not all that distant from each other, surprisingly civil around each other, Chuckie's 'secret girlfriend'...

Dil catches it at the same time I do. "Oh, god! You two -"

Amanda clamps a hand over his mouth.

Chuckie shoots everyone a sheepish grin.

Ever been in a situation where two things happen with very freakish co-ordination? It's literally "two things happening at once"?

At the exact same time as Tommy walked into the waiting room saying, "the doctors say it'll be a few more hours," -

Kimi explodes out of my arms and yells at the top of her lungs, "You're having sex with Angelica?"

To call the silence stunned would leave no proper description for the expression on Tommy's face.

---

I've always enjoyed stargazing. There's something about stars that makes them fascinating - I like to think it's the innocence, personally. Stars have no knowledge or care of what happens around them. They simply exist, with no intentions good or bad, no deliberate act. The perfectly helpless and hopeless existence. Just like babies, really.

I'm sitting on a railing just outside the hospital doors, staring up at the stars despite the fact that imposing height is starting to make me dizzy, when I hear footsteps approach.

"There's no-one up there. I've checked."

I grin. No matter how many years go by, no matter how much everyone changes, Dil can still always make me smile. "So, did Angelica rip Chuckie a new one?"

"Nah, I think they went off somewhere to have sex."

There doesn't really seem to be anything to say to that.

"So when are you and Kimi going to get married?"

I raise an eyebrow. "Why do you ask?"

He pulls himself up onto the balustrade next to me and shrugs. "I dunno. Curious."

"Soon, hopefully. As soon as possible."

I see him nod out of the corner of my eye. "Can I ask you something about your relationship with her?"

Alright, this is odd. Dil is never serious. Well, almost never serious. Except when it comes to...Amanda. Of course. "What about it?"

"Well...do you think that...when you proposed - "

"It wasn't the right time," I told him. "We were both just starting in college, neither of us had the time to get married then. We're finished now, that's why we've waited so long." I decide to hazard a guess. "Are you thinking about asking Amanda?"

He shrugs. "I dunno. I mean, we're both in college now. And we're both fairly close to one another. I think marrying each other might be too bold a step, though. Maybe I'll ask her to live with me."

I nod approvingly. "Good choice. Living together's a good test, you know."

"Test?" It's not lost on me that a slight element of fear has crept into his voice.

"Yeah, of your relationship." I wave vaguely in the direction of the waiting room. "I mean, look at me and Kim. We've been living together for nearly two years now. It's not always easy, let me tell you. I've slept on the couch in our apartment more times than I'd care to count. But you also get a lot of good things - when you're not banished to the couch, you get to wake up next to her, you can fall asleep together watching TV, make romantic dinners -"

"Sounds domestic," Dil offers.

I whack him over the head. "Don't knock it 'til you've tried it."

He grins at me. "I'll give it some thought."

I nod. "You should."

---

I creep my sister's hospital room, where she's currently quiet and not screaming in the throes of a contraction. I've picked my moment carefully. "Hey, Lil."

She looks up and sees me. "Oh. It's you."

I smile and walk over to her bed, pulling up a chair. "How's it going?"

She glares at me.

"Okay, dumb question."

"Shouldn't you be getting sympathy pains or something? You know? Twin thing?"

"Oh, I was back at the start of the pregnancy, but I got sick of it so I cut our twin-thing."

She scrunches up her face in confusion. "What?"

I lean back in the chair. "Well, the morning sickness was putting Kim off from having sex with me, and I kept feeling like something was pressing on my bladder - "

This is why I leant back. She can't reach that far when she can't move.

I smile coyly at her. "Hear about Chuckie and Angelica?"

She raises an eyebrow. "What about them?"

I relate to her the events that transpired earlier in the evening, and she practically wets herself. I think for a minute that she's going to, before she reaches out, grabs my hand, and crushes my bones.

"Ahhhh!"

See, there is such a thing as twin co-ordination after all. That was so perfectly simultaneous that it wasn't even an echo.

It lasts quite a while - a while longer than I thought it probably should, but hey, what do I know? - but I finally feel her grip relax on my hand. I hold it up and it lolls uselessly on my wrist. "I think I just gained new respect for Tommy."

She looks at my damaged appendage. "Sorry 'bout that."

I grin at her. "Hey, what are twin brothers for?"

Her eyes widen. "Getting husbands."

I nod, kiss her on the forehead, and tell her I'll be back in a while before running like a little girl to get Tommy.

---

I'm glad Kimi's found a way to amuse herself, really I am.

But playing with my Lil-damaged hand was not one of the ways I had originally hoped she'd pick.

"This little piggy went to market -"

"Do you want kids?"

Through-the-window-story expression again. It's priceless.

"What?"

I pull myself up from the position I was in, with my head resting in her lap, and sit on the chair next to her. "Seriously. Do you want kids?"

She seems taken aback. "Uh...I...like - ever?"

I shake my head. "No, I mean now."

Her eyes are whirlpools of confusion. "I...why? Do you?"

I shrug. "I dunno. I mean, I don't know if we're ready for it or anything. But...maybe it's just because of what we're doing here, or maybe it's because of Dil and Amanda moving in together, or Chuckie and Angelica hooking up, but...maybe it's time we thought about taking another step too."

She looked at me sceptically. "Are you afraid everyone's catching up to us? Is that why you want a kid?"

I sigh in exasperation. "No, that's not what I meant. It came out all wrong." I take her hands in mine. "But...well...I love you. And soon - I hope - we're going to be married. And..."

"I want a kid, yes." Somehow, it's never irritating when she cuts me off. Lil finishing my sentences drives me nuts, and Dil injecting himself into my conversation makes me want to throttle him, but Kimi cutting me off is something I never seem to get irritated by.

"I evidently didn't mean right now, this very second, you know," I inform her.

She grins at me and nods. "I know what you meant."

I smile and lay back down. "Good. Carry on."

She shakes her head at me as she picks my hand back up.

It takes me a few moments to realise she isn't doing anything.

I look up at her and see her staring at me.

"What?"

She leans down and kisses me on the forehead. "I love you."

I wrap an arm around her neck and pull her down for a longer kiss. "I love you too."

"Can you keep a secret?" she whispers against my lips.

I barely nod.

She adopts a serious expression, utters "I'm feeling very sexually frustrated at this very moment," and it's all I can do not to explode into a fit of laughter. I'm thanking the lord that we're the only ones in the waiting room at the moment.

"You know," I begin tentatively, "Lil's probably going to be in labour for a few more hours."

"And we're in a building full of beds..."

I grin up at her. "You're insane."

"And you love me for it."

"And I love you for it."

And we're off to find a bed.

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