This is a request OC fic from DoubleEdgeSword of DA/ Dr. Gabriel Cunningham on Fanfic. I don't own anyone in this one-shot.
It was one of those nights. Fridays. The day of the week you wished repeated forever.
You know, when you just ate delicious pizza and watched a couple of interesting shows on TV just before dozing off on the sofa of your house? Perfect for the kind of guy who needs to lay back from a long day of rest. Tomorrow you have the day off; your partner also leaves in the morning after the hectic night you kinda caused him, but you know everything's going to be just...
"Waaaaah!"
O...kay?
"Nina..." Gabriel Cunningham, who was about to drift into a deep sleep on the couch and suddenly popped up with the distress signal of a baby from farther into the home, groaned as he slumped down again. He emptied his mouth of his cigarette and shut off the television as he grumbled, "I thought Hank had you- nevermind." The man scratched his head of burly hair as he left his paradise of junk food and being a couch potato to attend to a more important member of the household.
Nina Freebird Cunningham. She had the matching eyes of the diagnostician, but hers were ten times more adorable. Her beautiful tan skin could have been inherited from the other parent. The wooden crib she was supposed to be resting in didn't exactly fit the color of her blanket and her outfit, but she was still very cute. Being a month old, all she could basically do was eat, sleep, and...
Cry.
Gabriel was well aware that the other person in the house was trying to get some rest for the morning's medical conference, so it was up to him to get Nina to bed. Sadly, there was no such thing as a quick lullaby and speedy 'tucking into bed' with this baby girl. It usually takes two to three tries per night to get her to bed. And usually the duty went to Hank.
"Come on... can't you sleep for eight uninterrupted hours for your dads? Please...?" His moan seemed to have slipped by the her tiny ears. He couldn't negotiate a bedtime with her, but he was too exhausted to simply swing her around as he should. At any rate, he was about to pass out on the ground. And he didn't want to fail that pathetically.
From seeing her parent standing there, Nina began to shriek. Taking her size and stacking it against the decibels she was emitting, the ratio was unthinkable.
"Alright, you little noisemaker..." The half-awake father lifted up the infant and rocked her back and forth in an attempt to calm her down. He also stuck in a pacifier to quiet her loud voice, but it was spit out after a few seconds followed by a cough. And another cough. That one was stronger.
This was starting to look like an ugly predicament for him; he only had so much experience in this, and he couldn't blow it here. He was extremely concerned to hear the baby coughing and checked her temperature by placing his hand on her forehead. "Ow. You're burning like a furnace..." Holding her was already hot enough.
So he was stuck with a merciless, crying infant. And to make things worse, it was midnight. On a Friday. His luck surely had problems.
Having already filing divorce papers once in his life and abandoning his child before, the one he was holding in his hands now was almost like a miracle for him. That's why he didn't want to give away this opportunity by screwing things up again like he did long ago. Nina was living proof that he really could be a dad.
Just as the he was about to shut the door to muffle out the child's intolerable cries, the other parent in the residence appeared at the doorway. His giant-like build nearly blocked the entrance of the bedroom completely, darkening the place. "Gabriel, why is Nina still..." His voice was kind, but worried.
"Beats me. I think she's running a fever..." Was the slow reply. Still keeping a rocking motion, the man was able to tone down the volume of the baby into a weep. "Hank, I know she's sick...but I can't...diagnose someone this young." He was panicking, for that was the truth.
She was ill. He and his mate were both doctors, but with Dr. Cunningham being the diagnostician and Dr. Freebird an orthopedic surgeon, Gabriel really was the only chance of finding a solution to this. Though he didn't even know what this was.
Although he was able to diagnose ailments for his paycheck, his other statement was true. He couldn't figure out what was wrong with a month-old baby with his knowledge, because he obviously couldn't go interrogating her and hooking her up to random machinery for images. Plus he wasn't even in his lab coat and stethoscope like what his job required at Resurgam, he and Hank were just wearing plain T-shirts and shorts. Fantastic, his odds.
"I have a meeting in the morning..." Hank murmured as he looked about the room. He had woken easily to the noisy yells of their daughter, he couldn't even sleep with a pillow over his ears.
"I know that. But what am I supposed to do?" The man with the messy dark-green hair and a ponytail said back as his composure was lost. The baby was going to make a racket for the neighbors if not chaos in the house- that was, if nothing was done. She wasn't in the mood for cuddling like she always was, and neither was the father. "This is driving me crazy..." His complaint created a frown on the partner.
Hank had his huge hand on the man's shoulder as his support. In his gentle voice, he said, "I'll take care of her, you can go to bed..." But his hand was shrugged off as her heard the other declare sternly, "No- you have an appointment and I got nothing to go to...I'll handle this." With the confident reassurance, the giant smiled and exited the room.
Oh, he was so dead.
Nina just wouldn't give in. Gabriel always wanted a girl who was stubborn and headstrong like himself and Hank, just not in these kind of situations. "For Pete's sake...why do you have to scream...?" He was forced to pick up the pacifier that fell in the cradle and hold it to the baby's mouth after saying that. Man, she didn't give him a break- the pacifier slipped out of his hands after she ejected it out.
Forget the pacifier. First he had to go down a checklist to ensure that the squeals weren't from an unprecedented sickness:
Number one was to change the diaper. With knowing that this could be the underlying cause of the girl's unhappiness, the parent reluctantly left the room to head to the bathroom for this...grim task.
He set her on the flat counter besides the sink after covering it with a clean towel. After finding a spare diaper in the cabinets and drawers below, it was all on him to undo the old one. Before blindly rushing into things, he moaned, "I don't know how Hank even lives with this..." He closed his eyes as he tried to take it off; to be frank, this was one of his first times.
In the past five minutes, he was figuring out how to open the thing without spilling the contents. The next twenty seconds he spent on catching his breath from the atrocious scent and the minute after washing his hands.
The smell he wasn't even going to describe. It reeked to high heaven, if that was enough for detail. The look... was...exceptional? No, it was brutal. But if he was to be a real, genuine parent, he had to bear the torture. Just this once. "Okay...done." The diaper was replaced and the old one was gone in the trash. Finally.
"WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
"What?" 'Leave no stone unturned;' that phrase cost him a painful diaper change that had absolutely no affect on the infant. This led to the father to beg, "I'm trying to help you..! Just tell me what's wrong...!" Naturally, there was no answer to his desperate plea...excluding the deafening sound from Nina.
Number two was to feed her; if he recalled correctly, she didn't really feel like eating dinner today, but he had to be sure she wasn't starving. "Maybe it's the food..." She was carried to the kitchen and put on a suitable chair. She had her eyes closed as her father opened up the refrigerator to seek out some edible treats.
He couldn't oppose the idea of late-night snacking: Being an adult, he was free to munch on chips and stuff himself with whatever he wanted. It was America, there wasn't a rule that he said couldn't. But for a baby, this had to negative side-effects. "How about...uh...this?" A miniature jar of baby grub was raised up.
The infant's answer was a precise scream of 'wah.' Including a few interrupting coughs.
"I guess that's a no..." Deciding that 'wah' meant 'no,' he literally emptied out the fridge trying to find something she would eat. It was no use. Whether it was applesauce or milk, she wouldn't open her mouth except for crying. "You're not even hungry..?"
He tried feeding with a spoon. It was...regurgitated right back out, and after the third try, the spoon was thrown into the sink, the food shoved back into the fridge, and his hand reaching out for a rag. "Geez..."
This step wasted food and had the somewhat-respected doctor degraded into a lowly maid. His white shirt was stained and his back ached like mad. At this point, he would do anything to get a minute of napping time.
The next checkpoint was... "A bath?" Gabriel had just performed the unacknowledged, delicate service of changing the diapers for the girl, now he had to wash all of her? With the baby fitting in a sink, all he had to do was turn on the water to the appropriate heat, undress her, and...submerge her halfway.
The instant the baby made contact with the water, her spine-tingling voice intensified by a thousand and the man nearly dropped her in it. He couldn't tell if the water was too hot or too cold, only Hank would know something like this, 'cause he has done it before.
The father tested the water with his hand and muttered, "What are you crying about? The water's just plain warm...!" The water was made even hotter, and had her crying like thunder. "This is hopeless..." His despair was accumulating with every round. And every time, the heat coming from the infant's body was getting higher, which only freaked him out more.
Eventually the doctor was at his breaking point. "You clearly don't want a bath..." He drained the sink and rethought his plan (not that he really had one). It was defeat for him; Nina continued her 'war cry' as she was dressed back up.
Now he was positive her anguish was from the fever-like symptoms she was showing earlier. But even the 'Master of Deduction' couldn't figure it out; not at this time or at her age. "It's almost two in the morning..." He only had two symptoms in his bank, that wasn't close to what he called progress.
Well, it's not that Nina had something radical such as DCM or Parkinson's; it could be something similar to the common cold . So he could at least cut down on the list with her still being in infancy... but with who? Hank's out of the question. He needed someone that could...
Oh...that. The insensitive thing that claimed it was actually useful. "RONI...geez. When I need her the most..." Unfortunately, this wasn't Resurgam, this was his house. That wretched assistance terminal wasn't going to be here, not now, and not anytime soon.
That didn't mean he had no computers in the house. "My laptop...?" He stared at the black object located on the coffee table directly in the middle of the living room. RONI couldn't hack into it, but if he could find her, then he'd be saved. So whatever the case, it was a worth a shot.
Nina was kept in his arms as he wandered over to the couch where he was dying to lean back on. One hand was used to turn on the device and hurry onto the internet. "Come on...this is an emergency...don't crash on me...!" The poor thing was jammed with applications and files; and it was only for recreation.
He instinctively said 'okay' after pulling up a page. If he was right, there could be a way he could access the dreaded assistant by searching her up on Google... The results read: 'RONI's boutique,' 'RONI's weight,' 'Videos of RONI,' and 'RONI's Urban Dictionary.'
Gabriel sat there with a dumbfounded face as his daughter continued her relentless cries. There must be some way to contact his fellow computer or else he'll be up all night. Should he attempt Facebook next? No. There was only one choice left: go to Resurgam's webpage and hope to find the cursed thing.
Bingo. Right there, on the staff webpage was a reference to the terminal... maybe if he logged in and clicked on it... "Yes...!" He didn't know how happy he was to see that the webpage turned into the rippling blue wallpaper of the assistant and to hear a familiar robotic voice speak, "Dr. Cunningham, I am now currently connected to this hosting computer."
"Good, I need you to narrow down a list of candidates for me...Symptoms are fever and coughing." The diagnostician, even with no office in front of him, maintained his professional voice with a hint of haste as he said, "This is a diagnosis on a month-old kid, by the way."
"Doctor, two symptoms aren't enough to-"
"I hear ya...maybe..." The doctor looked down at the sobbing infant and said, "Add loss of appetite and loss of sleep...you can add grumpiness if you need it." His rocking motion was hurried up for just a bit with the grouchy child.
"You cannot confirm mood swings on such a young patient." The feminine voice irritated the doctor, who felt like tilting over at any moment. The machine caught onto his annoyance and said informatively, "There is a possibility of an ear infection." The assumption hit the listener hard.
"Ear infection...? But she's..." Dr. Cunningham glanced at Nina once again in disbelief to see her hands tugging on her ears. "I can't even get her to eat anything, how to you expect me to cure this at home?" Antibiotics aren't usable, so rest seemed to really be his only option for a treatment. "And are you sure the infection is the only one on the list?"
"No, but you can confirm the presence of the infection by using an otoscope." The computer spoke without regards to the upset patient in the doctor's hands.
Gabriel, ticked off at his assistant for not considering the environment they were working in, pointed out with a yawn, "You think I have one at home...?" He received a silent treatment from RONI and mused over whether he had one or not. "Uh...Wait. I think I...might."
He lightly placed Nina on the sofa before walking off into the kitchen, scrambling through the medical cabinet of band-aids and gauze. "Ugh, I know I had one somewhere..." He left the door open as he went to a bookshelf at the end of the living room. He found a rusty stethoscope there, but not the required otoscope. "Dammit."
"Perhaps you should check a storage area containing other medical equipment?"
The advice wasn't helping at all. "You're brilliant, aren't you?"
"I am designed for-"
"I don't wanna hear it. You said something about four QIPS, that's enough." He didn't remember what exactly what the acronym stood for, but it was...what caused the machine's encyclopedia-like-ness. After pushing through the clutter on the shelf, he came to a conclusion: The otoscope was definitely not there. "Aargh...where did I put that thing...?"
Little did he know, Hank was at the entrance to the hallway, his face more miserable from being deprived of sleep than before. He was stunned to see Nina on the couch and her caretaker on the other end of the room, crammed in a pile of newspaper and magazines. "Gabriel, what are you doing?"
"Looking for an otoscope...you don't happen to know where it is, right?" The man had no time to introduce RONI and explain the baby's unstoppable screaming. He dashed into the main bed room and emerged after a minute with the tool in his hand. "Ah-hah!"
"What is going on?" The yell made no sense to the other parent, who looked to his ecstatic face with confusion.
"Hold Nina up for me, I need to check her ears..." Hank followed the command Gabriel yawned. Though the diagnostician wasn't showing off to anyone, he felt that getting the assistant online and diagnosing his daughter was a glorious achievement. "Yep...it's there."
The view was small, but the mild infection was caught in the right ear. Dr. Freebird, who had yet to grasp the exact purpose of the discovery, asked, "How are we supposed to cure it?" His answer came from the speakers of the laptop on the table.
"Rest would be the most reasonable option."
Dr. Cunningham glared at the blue screen and snapped, "Are you kidding? I only called you because she couldn't fall asleep..!" The problem turned out to be the only solution, and his only choice. "I just went though..." The diaper change, the ruined shirt...all in vain.
The other parent tried to console him but was told to catch more sleep. "If you need any help, I'll be-"
"I'll be just fine, Hank." Gabriel put down the tool in his hand and removed Nina from the giant's large and weary hands. "I still have one more idea." He was close to collapsing, but he knew he had to endure this last attempt.
The other father, whose sullen face was put at ease, calmly took his leave without another word. The curiosity surrounding that one 'idea' was no longer regarded as he shut the door of the bedroom behind him.
"Doctor, what is this final resort you have in mind?" The terminal, still hooked up onto the diagnostician's computer, asked without delay, as it wasn't affected by drowsiness.
"You're still on?" Looking around for a pacifier, the man hadn't a moment to spare lamenting about his 'buddy's' presence. "What do you think I'm talking about?" He wasn't interested in what she had to say, so his question was rhetorical.
"Perhaps a sleeping agent?"
"What?" He took note of his volume and whispered back, "Hell no...!" He wasn't that irresponsible, as a doctor and as a father. "RONI, seriously, do you think I'm that dumb?" His voice escalated along with Nina's, after she spat out the pacifier for the third time.
"Doctor, the amount of pressure in your vocal chords will only upset the child more." What astonished the doctor was how she calculated that. After all, his laptop wasn't equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
"You know what? Just shut up. I'm going to try...singing."
There was an awful silence, but not from Nina. The parent facepalmed at the machine's obedience and asked, "You aren't recording this, are you?" He didn't trust her, the microphone was on, so he had reason to doubt.
"No. I was requested to 'shut up.' If your command was to 'shut down,' then you will have to manually do so." Gabriel smirked at this, but sighed as he heard the rest of her spiel: "If the command was to actually record this event, I cannot. Also, I am running on approximately 20 volts, therefore I simply do not have sufficient energy to argue or to utilize reverse psychology."
"(Yeah, but your dictionary is still working...)" Was the man's thought after recovering from his blank face. He seated himself on the couch as comfortably as he could before wondering aloud, "RONI, do you have a good lullaby in there?"
Six seconds passed before the assistant replied, "I do not. Any actions to induce sleep on a patient is prohibited. Doing so is violating-"
"I get it, it's not part of our job..." The doctor butted in with the momentum from rocking the baby becoming second nature. "Just gimme some lyrics!" His aggravated voice accidentally caused the child's cry to heighten after having the pacifier ejected from her mouth. Once. More. "Nina..."
"Please provide more information to narrow down possible songs. Currently the list spans over one hundred eighty-nine thousand-"
Enough with the statistics. "Can't you just find one for me?" The parent didn't regret those words and realize his big mistake until the next phrase he heard was said from the terminal:
"I have selected a song after searching through your browser history."
"Huh?"
It was that moment lyrics began to show on the screen. Gabriel cleared his throat, trying to hide the fact he was familiar with the words. But before starting, he mumbled, "Isn't...there some...support...?"
"Full musical accompaniment will not begin until after a certain verse. Please begin."
The man flinched and said to himself, "Easy for you to say...(This was sung by a woman...)" He bit his lip before trying to keep a melodic pace with the lullaby, "'Hush-a-bye...Don't you cry...'" He inhaled before going on, "'Go to sleep my little baby...'"
Nina blinked at the father as her cry came to a soft weep. She heard him sing without holding back, knowing that the song had promise: "'When you wake you shall have, all the pretty little ponies...'"
Concentrating the song onto the unaffected ear, he started the second verse, "'In your bed, mamma said. Babies riding off to dream land...'" The backround was filled with some music, but didn't overcome the voice of the parent.
"'One by one,
They've begun...
Dance and prance for little baby...
Blacks and bays,
Dapples and grays,
Running in the night...
When you wake,
You shall have,
All the pretty little ponies...'"
The determination in his voice increased as the infant's eyes were closed. "Can't you see the little ponies dance before your eyes..?'" The high note in the next phrase was also reached, "'All the pretty little ponies will be there when you arise..."
The real accompaniment that RONI mentioned took up about half a minute before the father to go back to singing, he rocked Nina before starting again, "Can't you see the little ponies
dance before your eyes...?'"
"'All the pretty little ponies,
Will be there when you arise...'"
The music went faint as Nina was fully asleep, but Gabriel didn't stop for the last verse that he tweaked, "'Hush-a-bye...Don't you cry, go to sleep my little Nina...'" The screen of RONI turned dim as the rest of the lyrics were sung by memory, "'When you wake, you shall have... all the pretty little ponies...'"
He leaned back on the couch as he reached the last line of the song, "'All the pretty little ponies...'" His eyes closed at the end and everything grew black.
The alarm's ringing only lasted for five seconds before it was turned off by the hand of the orthopedic surgeon, still laying in bed. He groaned; if he did the math, he had only slept 4 hours last night. Four was the minimum. Pushing aside blankets, the man sat up in bed, his green hair was all over the place. He only had thirty minutes to eat breakfast, shower, put some clothes on, and anything else to prepare for the meeting.
"Hm..."
Let's skip the meal. But there was still so many other things to do...
The giant thought more, only to notice the alarm clock read 7:02 in red. He couldn't just stick around; he had to move, fast. Getting a set of clothes for the day, excluding his lab coat at Resurgam, he rushed for a quick shower, taking note that Nina was not in her room...and that Gabriel wasn't in bed.
But he couldn't go figure out where they are now. After the shower, he spent more time in the bathroom to fix his hair and brush his teeth. He looked out into the hall while doing so and saw the diagnostician's hand on the edge of the sofa. He probably spent the night there, so where did the baby stay?
Dr. Freebird went back to the main bedroom to snatch a few papers. He then entered the kitchen to retrive the car keys on the far counter and to grab an apple to sustain him for the neglected breakfast. Nina wasn't in the toddler chair when he passed by.
The exit of the house he would use for the car outside was the door connected to the living room. At least he could give his partner a wake-up call if Nina was missing...
Oh.
There, in front of the TV and the coffee table with the PC still open on it, was the other father, whose arms stretched to both sides of the couch and head tilted back. The girl, Nina, was in his lap, sweetly laying there even if snoring noises made by the parent. Both were sound asleep. The sunlight from the blinds almost stretched to their faces, surely to wake them up. Hank, marveling the scene, closed the blinds slightly to shut out some of the rays.