WARNING: Rated M for violence, language, mature themes, and smut in later chapters.

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Chapter One

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The goop squished into the thick bristles of my brush, dripping and oozing as the headache inducing reek of silicone spread throughout the air. Even though I was far beyond use to the plastic-y stench, my guts twisted a little in response. Nausea. Also very familiar.

I blotted away at an imperfection around the left nostril. Harry, with his thick fingers and scraggly excuse for a beard, had cut a bit too deep in the mold, and the resulting mask had come out with a funny scrape that gave the illusion that the whole nose was lopsided. An easy fix, though it would delay painting by several hours.

An uncomfortable twinge spiked up the small of my back. I rubbed at it wearily and shifted my weight from my left leg to my right. The brush plopped down on the table with a watery squish. I stared at the splotch of silicone left on the metal table absently.

I probably should wipe it up.

It dried slowly; congealing, the edges losing viscosity and the remaining moisture puddling in the middle. Turning into something that resembled a pale slab of skin. If I airbrushed it, maybe punched in a few hairs, it really would look like a strip peeled off a living person.

Neat.

My hair, sweaty and curling from humidity, plastered to my forehead and to the base of my neck. I fidgeted uncomfortably for another moment before fishing the purple hair tie off of my wrist and piling my long dark locks into a messy bun on the top of my head.

"You can sit, you know," Karly called out from somewhere behind me, voice echoing weirdly in the room, bouncing off of the faces of zombies, aliens, and metal walls alike.

I didn't bother to turn to look at the woman, I knew her piercings and purple shirts from bands I'd never heard of well enough to guess at what the expression on her face would be. Vague concern and disapproval. The same expression that most people looked at me with. Like I was doing something wrong and they knew more than me, especially if they, like Karly, knew next to nothing about the situation. I would break if I took a walk in the park, carried my own shopping, or wasn't sitting at all times.

I gave a disinterested grunt.

"Does she need a chair?"

Things clattered about from the darker corner of the warehouse room. Harry appeared from his corner of empty mask-molds, obviously making for the stack of folded chairs leaning against the wall.

I straightened up abruptly and, being much closer, crossed over, although with a bit of a waddle, and snatched up a chair easily before Harry could reach them.

"I would've—" Harry's hands dropped to his sides in a manner that suggested he was offended. Like I gave a shit.

His plastic and onion odor wafted around me, making my stomach twist uncomfortably once more.

"But I did," I sniffed dryly, swallowing both bile and mild disgust. The chair squeaked on concrete as I settled into the seat, bulging stomach bumping against the table awkwardly.

I grumbled and readjusted, scooting the chair back a little.

I rechecked the mask, which wasn't dry yet. Couldn't paint it until it was dry. There were other things I could do right now, but none of them were very appealing.

An uninvited hand found itself on my distended belly, accompanied by plastic onions.

"How's the little one doing today, Ness?" Harry drawled, breath brushing against my cheek.

My skin crawled, and I fought the urge to snarl.

"Vanessa," I corrected moodily, a half second away from shoving the repulsive man away from me. "And it's fine, thanks."

"Aww, hormones are a bitch, right?" A cheesy grin crossed his face, beard that more closely resembled the density and texture of pubic hair parting unpleasantly to reveal yellowed horse teeth. "And still just an 'it'. Boy or girl?"

We'd had this conversation a thousand times before. "I'm waiting to find out."

He pouted. "You should. I need t'know if I should go ahead and spring for mama, or wait for the younger model." Harry winked.

I growled in annoyance. His claw like fingers still sat cupping the moon-ish curve of my stomach. The tips of his fingernails were so dirty they were almost black, like he had been scratching coal.

A glimmer of nervousness that wasn't my own flickered in the back of my mind. Fierce anger and protectiveness flared in my chest.

I grabbed his hand and slung it off of my stomach. "Can you not?"

Harry rolled his shoulders in what, to his mind, would have been an innocent shrug. "Just wanted to feel it kick."

I bit back a sharp comment. "Don't you have work to do?"

After I spared his suggestions for dinner, he went back into his corner of the large room. Much to my frustration, Karly sidled up to take his place.

The mask was still wet, so I scraped up the rubbery piece of false flesh, a container of short coarse hair, and a needle in an attempt to look busy. The needle punched into the thin piece of silicone with a barely audible schliickk. I repeated the motion, folding the end of a short piece of hair and jabbing it in. An eyebrow started to form, but Karly wasn't deterred.

"He really likes you, you know," Karly sighed wistfully.

"He's a dick," I huffed shortly, not at all in the mood to deal with the younger woman and her fantasies.

She blushed, purple streaked hair bouncing as she pulled herself up to sit on the tabletop. "You could at least give him a chance."

"No." Punch.

"It's not like you're going to get anything else in your condition. Once you're a mother, guys aren't as interested anymore."

"No." Schlickk.

"With the daddy M-I-A, you'll end up raising the baby alone. An asshole daddy is better than no daddy."

"Definitely not."

"Why d'you think he's after you and not me? I mean, I'm skinny and in my twenties and you're thirties and… well…"

"Fat and pregnant?"

I finished my eyebrow. It was clumsy, but I hadn't really been trying.

"I like him though," she said sadly. Karly swung her feet back and forth, making the bust the mask perched on to wobble threateningly. "You really should find someone though. You're going to need a lot of help when the baby comes."

"You sound like my mother."

"I mean it," she said firmly. "Carl's going to be flexible about maternity leave, but I don't think that's going to be enough."

"Maybe," I admitted begrudgingly.

"Do you have any names picked out yet?"

"Nah."

"Really, nothing? How far along are you?"

"Almost nine months."

"You're running out of time. What about… Emma for a girl… and… Jake for a boy?"

"I'll think about it," I hummed noncommittally, pushing myself out of my chair and wincing at the shriek of metal on concrete. "I'm going to clock out and run some errands. Tell Carl I'll be back tomorrow."

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Waddling. That's what it always felt like. Waddling. Or maybe lumbering. Either way, my manner of on-foot transportation had become steadily less elegant the larger my stomach had swollen. Two skinny legs that had been accustomed to carrying around 120 pounds of lanky woman over the last 32 years had suddenly had an extra basketball of baby and bodily fluids thrust upon them. They did their best, but I kept bumping into things.

I knew that I wasn't really waddling or lumbering. I'd checked in the mirror. While slower, I was definitely still just walking. And knocking into clothing racks.

But either way, I waddled or lumbered or trundled along behind my shopping cart, trying to ignore that one incessantly squeaky wheel that kept turning over on itself and spinning rather than touch the ground and do its damn job.

I was looking for toilet paper and shampoo, but I'd found myself in the baby section. Soft onesies and little baby beanies in every color of the rainbow flashed before my eyes.

I wonder what its favorite color will be?

Emotion welled up into my throat like a filling water balloon. It would have a favorite color. A favorite animal. And even a favorite book. One day. One day soon.

Warm, single-minded affection bubbled up in the back of my mind to mingle with my own. It was so simple compared to mine. So pure and innocent. Just love. Just for me.

But how would it be for anyone else anyway? It didn't know anyone else. Not yet.

"Hello."

A new voice startled me from my introspection. British. Only mildly strange in Los Angeles.

I turned towards the source, only to realize I'd been crying. I cried at everything these days. Dr. Miller said that it's completely normal to have mood swings. Hormone shifts and all that. It was getting a bit out of hand. Two days ago I started bawling over a commercial with the most adorable puppies. They had been just too damn small.

"Sorry," I apologized, quickly wiping away my tears before giving the woman my full attention. "Can I help you?"

I found myself staring into a gorgeous pair of hazel eyes. She loomed before me, curvy and voluptuous, haloed by a mass of golden curls that bounced and swayed at even the slightest movement, giving her hair the impression of being its own living creature as it shimmered in the artificial light. Jean jacket on jeans with a white button up shirt, she cut an odd figure. Hot, too. I couldn't help but notice how her breasts strained slightly against the buttons of her shirt. How are her's bigger than mine? I'm the pregnant one.

"Maybe," the woman smirked like she had a secret. "I'm looking for Vanessa Conroy. Would you happen to be her?"

"Yes…?" I answered warily, suddenly feeling extremely uncomfortable. Fear twinged in the back of my mind in response.

Her smirk widened into a full-on smile, flashing a set of dazzlingly white teeth. She held out a hand for me to shake. "Professor River Song."

"Uhh… hi?" I shook the preferred hand, feeling more uncertain by the second. There was something off about her, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Her eyes shone strangely and her smile was just a bit too wide. The air around her seemed to shimmer with a kind of electricity, making her feel wrong, otherworldly. Maybe even dangerous.

And you were looking at her boobs.

"So how do you know me?"

The question seemed to take her off guard, like she hadn't thought that it had been a question that would come up, so she hadn't prepared for it.

"Oh, uhmm… what?" She blinked at me owlishly, like a deer in headlights.

"How do you know me?" I repeated more firmly.

"A friend," she said just a bit too quickly, startled expression morphing back into one of sultry confidence, though from a prickle in the back of my head, I could tell it was a facade.

"A friend?"

"Yes. We've met before."

"Really?" I knew we had not. I had meet someone like her before, and knew I could remember her sort of person. "Where?"

"At a work thing."

"What work thing?"

"You're a FX artist," she said as if she'd only just remembered it. "At a studio, then. Makeup and masks."

"Okay," I drawled, crossing my arms across my chest, where they rested on the top of my boat-of-a stomach. "Then why were you looking for me?"

"I wasn't looking for you," Professor River Song insisted, adopting that startled look again. "Just an old friend. I saw you and thought I'd say hello."

"No. You said you were looking for me."

"No I didn't."

"Yeah, you kinda did."

"But I'm not, so I couldn't have."

"But you did."

"But I wasn't."

"Fine," I gave up, turning back to my shopping cart and wiggling it around from where I had jammed it up against the rack of purple onesies, squeaky wheel spinning like a dizzy ballerina. "You ran into me, you said hi. You've completed your mission. So bye."

"Oh, there's no rush," River insisted, snagging onto the side of the metal cart as I wheeled it away. "We're shopping."

"But—"

"Rubbish." Curls bouncing, she nudged me away from the cart and started pushing it along while I trundled after her anxiously. "That's what friends do. They help each other shop. What's next on the list?"

I could only watch helplessly as the bizarre woman darted in and out of isles with surprising speed and agility, coming back with things that I didn't need or previously had even known existed.

"Baby on the way," River started, dropping three bottles of shampoo into the cart with a flourish, "so where's dad?"

"No idea." I put two of the bottles back on the shelf and tried to regain control of the cart, but she bumped me back out of the way. "It was a one time thing."

River nodded sagely and picked up the shampoo bottle I'd left in the cart and replaced it with another one that looked exactly the same. "Oh, I've done plenty of that. All the fun with none of the responsibility." She glanced at my stomach. "Well, most of the time."

I shrugged. "Just got unlucky, I guess."

"And it's all normal, is it? The baby, I mean. The usual, boring human stuff?"

I had started to let my guard down around her. Although admittedly strange, she didn't seem to mean any harm. But my barriers slammed back into place at her inquiry.

"Of course," I snipped. "Why wouldn't it be?"

River raised an eyebrow.

A fake smile forced its way onto my lips to cover for my snappishness. I tried a disarming chuckle, but it obviously had no effect.

"Well, that's all I need," I piped with false cheer. "I need to be heading home. Lots of… uhh… baby prepping stuff to do."

River forced her own false smile in response; an 'I don't believe you but I'm ready to go along with it' smile.

I tried ditching her at the checkout, at the shopping cart return, and at the store exit, but River was determined to hover over me and carry my bags for me to my car, saying that I, 'shouldn't strain myself with something as silly as the shopping'. She even tried to get in the car with me, but that's where I drew the line.

"It's no trouble," the woman insisted, hand on the driver side door. "I could just pop home with you and help you get settled. I really don't mind at all."

"No, don't worry about it. I can manage." I kept my own hand on the door handle to keep her from opening it. Because if I didn't, I knew she would be in the driver's seat in a second. "Thanks for the 'help', but I can take it from here."

"But you don't have to," she complained.

"I've got it!"

River switched tactics. "Vanessa, listen. There are things you don't know. You are in terrible da—"

She blinked down confusedly at the piece of skin and eyebrow that I had pressed into her hand. It was the eyebrow I had made earlier at work; I'd subconsciously pocketed it on my way out.

While she was distracted, I slipped into the car with surprising agility and had the door shut and locked before River realized what I had done.

I smiled out the window smugly, waved at her indignant expression, and drove off before she could do anything about it. Her look of distraught horror followed me long after she vanished in the rear-view mirror.

The blissful contentment bubbled at the back of my mind.

Everything was fine. Just some crazy person. Nothing to worry about.

Probably.

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