"That nurse should have been back by now," Filbrick grumbles, glaring at the door across the room from where he's seated.
Maude glances over at him but soon turns her attention back to her sons. Sherman is holding his (sleeping) little brother, and though he is normally a very well-behaved child, Maude is wary of leaving the two unwatched for longer than a few seconds at a time.
"You're sulking, Fil. It's not an attractive look on you," she informs the stewing man. When Filbrick's scowl only deepens in response, Maude continues to cajole her husband, "And didn't you just get done with telling me not to worry? You're not helping your case here, Cheesesteak."
"I -" he gets no further before the door swings open. In strides one of the hospital's doctors with the same nurse from earlier trailing fretfully in his wake and carrying the missing Pines twin, now asleep and mercifully quiet.
"Oh, there he is!" Maude cheers, her face brightening immediately, "Give him here! Give him here! You didn't let me see him earlier!"
"M-Misses Pines," the nurse says nervously as she walks toward the older woman, "I should w-warn y-"
Maude practically snatches the dozing infant from her arms, causing him to fuss, though not to wake. "Oh, look at you!" she cooes as she lifts one of his small hands, allowing the boy to instinctively clutch one of her own fingers in return, "Just like your daddy said! You're gonna be something special, kid. I've Seen it!"
The nurse glances back at the doctor in troubled confusion and the man clears his throat. "Doris, why don't you go retrieve the necessary paperwork for the Pines twins?" the doctor asks. His request is met by fierce nodding, the young woman practically fleeing the room. "Mister Pines?" the doctor addresses Filbrick next and gestures to the door, "If I might have a word with you?"
The pawnshop owner huffs but rises from his chair. "Don't drop your brother," he grumbles as he passes Sherman, gaining Maude's attention as well.
"I won't!" the nine-year-old chirps in response, if perhaps a hair too loudly. Filbrick stifles a grimace as he follows the doctor through the doorway.
"Mister Pines, my name is Doctor Marlow," he begins, "Your wife has expressed some...unusual desires regarding your children."
'What has she been up to this time?' Filbrick wonders even as he keeps an impassive expression on his face. "Such as?"
"She's been insistent on breastfeeding the children, though we've made it clear to her that the hospital offers a premium formula for infants."
"She did the same when we had Sherman. She's not going to change her mind now," Filbrick shrugs and then adds, "One less thing you people can bill me for later."
Doctor Marlow frowns. "Mister Pines, formula feeding offers several bene-"
"I run a pawnshop," the man cuts the other off, "You're not going to win an argument with me."
The doctor sighs and shakes his head, but doesn't try to push further. "Just a moment ago, your wife seemed to be quite...enthusiastic? Over your son's...peculiar hands? I'm sure you noticed ear-"
"You mean the polydactyly."
"Well, yes," the doctor says, his voice reflecting his surprise.
Filbrick nods. "I'm aware of it. Runs in Maude's family."
"I see," Dr. Marlow replies with a grimace, "Shall I assume, then, that you and Misses Pines have no plans to have the boy's additional fingers removed?"
Filbrick freezes, all thought driven from his mind for a moment. "What?" he chokes out.
"Mister Pines?" the doctor asks in a cautious tone, "Are you alright?"
"What did you just say?"
Doctor Marlow clears his throat in unease but dutifully repeats his inquiry, "Are you planning to have the boy's additional fingers removed?"
"You can do that?" Filbrick demands, "You can make him normal?"
"Ahem, well, there are some risks inherent in such surgeries, of course; but, yes, it can be done," the doctor confirms, "You'll need to set up an appointment for a round of x-ray scans before the details of the surgery can be planned. I'd advise on having it done sometime after his fourth month and before his first birthday."
"You mentioned risks?" he asks, doubts beginning to whisper in the back of his mind.
A short pause. "I did a preliminary examination of your son's hands, Mister Pines," Doctor Marlow says, "and all of his fingers appear to be fully developed and functional. Such a complete integration of the superfluous digits will make them difficult to remove without negatively affecting the surrounding tissue. Side-effects of the corrective surgery might include nerve and muscle damage, chronic pains, a loss of some dexterity in -"
Filbrick cuts the other man off, "You're saying this could cripple him?"
"Well... Yes," the doctor admits, "But without the surgery, he will doubtlessly face extreme societal -"
"No."
"Mister Pines, please be reasonable! I understand your fears, but it would be highly inadvisable to reject -"
"No," Filbrick repeats darkly, the word little more than a growl, "That's my final answer on the matter. You're not touching his damn hands."
Doctor Marlow stares at the father for a long moment before sighing and nodding his head in acceptance. "Very well, Mister Pines. I would still urge you to bring the child in for regular x-rays until he reaches adulthood. I might well have missed something with my preliminary examination of his hands; and it will be the easiest way to detect any complications that may otherwise develop undiscovered until they begin to cause your son harm."
Filbrick nods stiffly. "Was there anything else?" he demands.
"Nothing of great importance, Mister Pines," is the doctor's resigned response.
"Good," he huffs before turning his back on the man, effectively ending the conversation.
"So," Maude begins as soon as the door is closed behind him, "what did the doc want?"
"He had some concerns about how you're choosing to feed the boys," Filbrick answers gruffly. He tries to find a comfortable position in his newly reclaimed chair, but his bottled agitation makes it difficult. The man forces himself to stop fidgeting and settle in the seat, regardless of his discomfort. "I let him know his opinion wasn't wanted."
"And?" she prompts, "You wouldn't be this upset over something you were expecting to hear."
Filbrick hesitates. "Nothing worth discussing," he finally replies, relaxing into the chair as he realizes the truth of the statement. 'And, if something isn't worth discussing, it generally isn't worth thinking about, either.' He spares the proposal no more thought. Maude would have killed him if even one of those "side-effects" had ended up plaguing the boy after the surgery, anyway.
His wife eyes him shrewdly for a moment, but then a satisfied - perhaps even smug - grin covers her face. "Alright, then."
The nurse chooses that moment to re-enter the room with her hands full of papers attached to a clipboard. "Most of the paperwork for the eldest one is finished," she announces, seeming less flustered than she had been when she left, "There's still quite a bit left to do for his brother; but, for now, have you decided on their names?"
"Yes," Filbrick answers, straightening up in his chair. "The elder twin is Stanford Filbrick Pines."
The nurse mumbles under her breath as she records the name. Maude rolls her eyes and whispers to the nine-year-old beside her, "At least he's getting better at this whole naming babies business, Sherman Antonio Pines."
The boy wrinkles his nose and pouts. "Jack found out about my middle name last week. Everyone but Suzy is still calling me 'Sappy.' I don't think they'll ever stop teasing."
"And the younger twin?" the nurse prompts after flipping through her papers.
"Stanley Filbrick Pines."
To Maude's stupefied horror, the younger woman actually begins writing. "Wait! Stop!" she commands loudly in her panic. Too loudly, it seems, as everyone else in the room instantly reacts to the unexpected volume. The nurse jumps. Even Filbrick flinches. Sherman nearly falls off the bed, still holding his youngest brother. (To the boy's credit, he manages to tighten his hold and avoid dropping the baby.) Both of the twins wake and begin crying. "Oh, shi-" Maude flushes, "S-Sorry. Shermie, give me your brother."
The woman immediately gets to work on calming her children, but she still finds the time to glare at her husband. "Filbrick Pines," she says in a sickeningly sweet voice, attempting not to scare the twins any more than they already are thanks to her outburst, "You are not going to give these boys identical names!"
Filbrick crosses his arms. "Stanford and Stanley are different names," he argues.
Maude rolls her eyes, well acquainted with her stubborn husband's peculiarities. "Fine," she relents, "You are not giving them such similar names. I agreed to let you pick the names for our kids - heaven help me - and I even agreed to your insistence on family names, but don't you dare think I ever agreed to giving up veto power. You're just going to have to - Wait. You!" She turns her accusatory gaze to the anxious nurse fidgeting in the center of the room. "I know you wrote something down. How far did you get?"
"Oh! Um," the woman clears her throat nervously and looks down at the paperwork she's clutching like a lifeline, "S-T-A-N."
Maude groans. "Alright, fine. 'Stanley' it is, then. But he's getting his own middle name." The mother soon returns her attention to the source of her ire. "Fil, you better start shaking the branches of the Pines family tree and hope something good falls out. And it better be completely different from either of his brothers' names, or so help me..."
Put on the spot, Filbrick scowls and slouches back in his seat. He has a few of the most recent generations of the family tree memorised, but there have been more females than males born into the family, as of late; and, if Maude is this upset over the name situation between brothers, something tells him she won't be too impressed if they later find out he has a similarly named cousin. No, safer to use an older family name, one that hasn't been used in a while; provided that he can remember any of them.
He frowns deeper as he pushes himself to recall information he never thought he would need. Nothing. He can't think of a single name that Maude would accept. Time to try another tactic, then. Maybe something from the Mikra? But there was no guarantee that whatever name he chose had ever been used in the family, if he just picked one randomly... On the other hand, if you went back far enough, all Jews could claim certain individuals in the Torah as direct ancestors, couldn't they?
"Jacob," he says as soon as he can remember an English equivalent for any of the names he is more familiar with in Hebrew, "Does that work for you, Maude?"
"Hmm," she rolls the name around in her head for a while before trying it out loud, "Stanley Jacob Pines, huh? ...That'll do." The nurse gives a relieved sigh and quickly jots the name across the form. "Just for the record, Filbrick, even I know where you pulled that one from. It's a good name, though. I like it."
"Glad to know you still think I can do something right," the man grumbles.
"Oh, don't be like that, Cheesesteak," Maude says, "Pretty sure you had me convinced you were doing something very right, roughly nine months ago!"
"Maude!"
The woman cackles at her husband's scandalized expression. (The nurse once again flees the room, her face gone completely crimson.)
"I don't get it," Sherman says over the twins' renewed crying, "What's the joke?"
Read the entire Dimension 297 series on Archive of Our Own: archiveofourown dot org slash series slash 457846