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"Raspberry Lime Sublime, Please." Penelope answered the young, teenaged redheaded girl behind the counter at the smoothie café.

"And I'll have whatever you've got with Strawberry and Banana." Dave pulled out some cash as Penelope backed away from the register, desperate to find a seat while they waited. According to the time she'd been keeping with her phone, the contractions were exactly five minutes apart now for the last four contractions. As soon as they finished their smoothies, she'd have to tell him it was time to get to the hospital.

Sitting down across from her, Dave took Penelope's hands in his own. "This was a good idea. I think I needed to get out too."

"Mhmm" She sang, in too much pain to formulate words. She nodded her head for emphasis and smiled forcefully.

"Wait till you see the bouncy, I think it might look better than the one on the box." He grinned, and rubbed her fingers delicately. "Oh, thank you." Dave looked up at the teenager as she brought their drinks and set them down. Penelope immediately reached for hers and put the straw in her mouth, partly from thirst and mostly from the need for a distraction from the pain and the charade she was keeping up with Dave.

"So what did JJ and Emily want?" He asked after he had tested his drink, remembering that they had called.

"Oh they were giving me hell for not telling them the names we've picked out." Penelope rolled her eyes, and put a hand on her belly, which felt like it was as tumultuous as a steady set of waves.

"Pen, you didn't tell them, did you?" Dave's eyes followed her hand down to her belly, a place he'd found himself often staring at, worrying constantly about the state and health of his child.

"Of course not, you made me promise, practically at gun point." She snorted, taking another long draw from her drink, now trying to finish it faster because she could feel the contractions coming swifter and closer together.

"That is not the case." He defended himself.

"Finish your drink in the car, we need to go. We need to go NOW." Penelope stood, putting a hand behind her to steady her feeling of unbalance.

"Go where?"

"The hospital. It's around the corner." She tossed her drink in the garbage, and calmly but quickly walked out of the café, adjusting her purse over her shoulder and leaving David standing, stunned, with his barely touched drink suspended in midair.

As his body finally caught up to his frozen brain, registering what she had just said, he nearly flew out of the café after her, also tossing his drink and pushing the door ahead of him forcefully. She was already in the passenger seat, sitting calmly, and sending a text message on her phone.

Jumping into the driver's seat and starting the SUV quickly he looked at her with utmost concern and alarm on his face. "What's wrong? Are you starting to feel contractions? How do you feel, what's happening?"

"Calm down, Dave. I'm in labor." She said as if it were an everyday occurrence as she finished her text message to JJ and Emily. Setting the phone in her purse, she looked over at Dave, who was now driving madly through the parking lot back out onto the main highway. She placed a hand on his forearm. "Dave, slow down, I've been in labor for hours, there's no need to get a ticket at this point, the hospital is literally on the next street over."

"What do you MEAN you've been in labor for hours?!" Dave roared, pulling the vehicle around a stop sign at top-speed.

"It started this afternoon, it sped up, my water broke.."

"YOUR WATER BROKE?! WHEN WERE YOU GOING TO TELL ME?!" He floored the gas pedal at a yellow light, barely making it through the intersection in time.

Sighing loudly, Penelope gently squeezed the arm she had a hold on, to get his attention. "I planned on telling you after I had my smoothie, which I did, now please slow down!"

Dave pulled the SUV into the Ambulance lane in front of the hospital doors, put it in park and jumped out, running around to her side of the truck. "Baby…." He flung open the door, in a hurried way, somewhat still stunned to see her moving in a slow pace, patiently grabbing her purse and stepping down onto the pavement with some unnatural ease even with her difficulty. "You should have told me the first sign!" He motioned for a EMS responder with a frantic motion. "I need a wheelchair! And here, park this!" He shouted to the young man and threw his car keys at him.

"I didn't want you to overreact… " She pinned him with a sarcastic stare, which he did not notice, because he was too busy glaring the young man into action.

David relieved the young man of the wheelchair when he came running up with it, and helped Penelope sit. "Overreact?" he asked distractedly, beginning to push her at top speed through the double hospital doors.

"Nurse! My wife is in labor!" He shouted at the first unsuspecting R.N. walking by with her head bent down in a patient folder.

"Jesus, Rossi! No need to shout at the woman!" Penelope grabbed at his jacket, momentarily catching his attention. As he looked down at her, he watched in horror as her face changed before his very eyes, and the severity of her pain washed over him. How had he not noticed for hours that she had been in labor?

"Sir, over here, we can get her checked in." Another nurse had seen what he had, as Penelope had doubled over, silent agony wracking her body.

"Here, you start the paperwork while we walk, we need to get her into labor and delivery. Did your water break already, hun?" The middle aged woman asked, as she wheeled Penelope towards the elevator.

"Yep. Bout an hour ago." Penelope squeezed out, through labored breathing.

"AN HOUR AGO, PENELOPE?" David looked up from the tablet he was scribbling frantically on to glare at his wife. Why had she not told him?

"It's okay, Dave, it's okay.. I wanted to labor at home, not have you whisk me into the ER at the first signs… now it won't be long…." She bent over again and scrunched her face together, a contraction overtaking her muscles.

"She's right, it won't be long at all with the frequency of these contractions, how many is that since you came through the doors, hun, three?"

Penelope merely nodded, a grimace on her face as she clamped her knuckles down on the sides of the wheelchair. David Rossi was in a complete state of shock, while Penelope had been battling her labor for hours, he was only just now finding out about it and he felt wholly sideswiped by this whole fiasco.

"Mr. Rossi, who is the delivering doctor? We'll have to page them immediately." The nurse asked as the elevator dropped them at the appropriate floor.

"Maloney…" he shook his head and followed the nurse, shocked and dumbfounded.

"Alright Penelope, this is your room, let's get your pants off and up on the bed." The nurse could see with her breathing they wouldn't have time for much, let alone a hospital gown.

"Hurry! I have to push!" Penelope gasped, the urge so strong she felt sure she could deliver her baby in the wheelchair.

"OHHH-Kay, we may not have time for Maloney. Mr. Rossi, help me get your wife on the bed, I don't have time to call for another nurse… Mr. Rossi!"

"Oh… Oh… okay…" Snapping out of his shock, David picked his wife up out of the chair and gently set her on the bed, where the nurse had already pulled out the stirrups and was now gently but efficiently pulling down Penelope's pants.

"Mr. Rossi, hand me those gloves behind you. You're crowning, Penelope." The nurse smiled up at the perspiring face of her patient.

Crowning? What did that mean? David threw a pair of latex gloves at the smiling nurse, wondering why she was indeed looking so happy, didn't she know how scared he was?