Author's Note: I think I'm fine...I think I'm tough...and then...FINALS HAPPEN.
Chapter Nine
Twenty minutes of waiting later, Toby came down the stairs and sat at the table. Spencer, who was waiting at the table for him and sipping red wine, received a kiss on the cheek from him.
"What did you make?" he inquired. It wasn't extremely often that Spencer cooked, but when she did, he was often pleasantly surprised.
"It's a surprise, but you'll like it," she assured him. "But before that, I wanted to tell you something, and if you're unhappy, hopefully the dinner will smooth it over," she added softly before walking into the kitchen and getting another bottle of wine.
That made Toby a bit nervous. "Spencer…what's going on?"
She tapped her nails on the table nervously and there was a dramatic pause. "So…I told you about how Andrew wanted a baby, right?"
That instantly made him quite a bit nervous. "Yeah…"
"And you know how I set him up with a surrogate, right?"
"Yes…"
"Well, I've been speaking to him—"
"You've been speaking to him?" Alright, so she didn't actually think that he'd get nearly that upset; she didn't even think he'd get upset at all.
"Yes, but Toby, it doesn't mean anything. He's with Valeria. And besides…she's pregnant."
He stopped in his tracks. "She's pregnant?" he inquired with surprise.
She nodded. "He's really happy. I'm really happy for him. So see? You don't have to be jealous," she teased.
"Okay, maybe I was acting a bit ridiculous, but can you blame me? I love you so much and would hate to lose you," he confessed.
She smiled. "You're adorable."
He sighed. "I thought we all discussed words like 'cute' and 'adorable'."
"You're adorable. Don't try to fight it."
Pandora, Hanna, and Spencer watched as Lucy nervously walked back and forth, making occasional uncomforting noises.
"Is she queening or birthing or whatever?"
"Maybe. I don't know. I've never seen a pregnant cat before her, Hanna," Spencer said before getting up to put hers and Hanna's glasses in the sink.
"Should we call Natalie? She probably has more experience with this," Hanna suggested.
"Fine, call her. I'll be right back," Spencer said before slipping on her shoes and stepping outside.
Hanna was a bit confused, but shook it off quickly. "Okay, then…" she said before picking up Pandora, who had taken quite the liking to Hanna being her new BFF and roommate. Hanna pulled out her phone and dialed Natalie's phone number.
"Hey! Natalie! So glad you answered. Listen…Lucy is acting really…weird and Spencer and I think she might be in labor," she explained.
"Oh."
"We were hoping you know what to do, since neither of us really have much experience."
"Well…" The words came out of Natalie's mouth excruciatingly slowly. "First thing's first; did you and Spencer set up the box for her to queen?"
"Um…no?"
Natalie sighed. "Okay, so this isn't something I'll be able to guide you two through over the phone. Give me like forty minutes and I'll be over. But in the meantime, get a box and some clean towels and stuff and put it in someplace dark, like a closet. Queens or pregnant cats usually like being in someplace secluded and dark, kind of like a defense mechanism, so her kittens don't get hurt," Natalie explained.
"Hmm…okay. So it should be like a cardboard box?"
"Yeah, but cut it so Lucy can get in, obviously."
Hanna nodded as she began to rummage around for a cardboard box.
Lucy looked very uncomfortable.
"She's doing pretty well," Natalie commented. "Not that I'm a vet or anything, but from my experience, this is going pretty well."
Spencer and Hanna both looked nervously at Lucy.
"I called my friend Trent who is an actual vet and he said he'd be coming over soon to check up on her and make sure we're doing it right," Natalie explained. "How long has she been in labor?"
"Maybe…forty five minutes by now? A little more? An hour?" Hanna guessed.
"I'd say like an hour," Spencer confirmed.
Natalie looked a bit frustrated. "If she still hasn't given birth within the next hour, we really should go to the animal hospital. I don't know a ton about birthing, but I definitely know it's not healthy for the cat to be in labor for more than two hours with no kitten."
Spencer nodded.
"Now, do you have everything else? The kitten box? A heating pad? Antiseptic solution? Lots of towels? Gauze? Unwaxed floss?"
"Unwaxed floss? For what?" Hanna inquired.
"Tying off the umbilical cord! It keeps it from bleeding," she explained in response.
"The time of birth for this one is…2:37 PM. Got it, Hanna?" Natalie asked as she watched Lucy lick the first kitten clean. Hanna quickly wrote it down from outside the laundry room.
"Got it!"
"This one is female," Trent, Natalie's friend and vet, responded.
After the placenta for the kitten was delivered, Natalie and Trent tied off the umbilical cord and set the kitten down in the other box.
"The placenta came in at 2:39," Spencer commented as she gently placed the blue kitten down in the box and made sure it could breathe. Hanna noted it down.
Finally, about an hour and a half later, the fifth and final kitten was being delivered.
"This is the last one," Spencer commented.
It was born at 4:07, as Hanna noted. It was much smaller than all the other kittens.
"This one is male," Trent said.
Spencer carefully took him. He was a striped cat with grey and black fur. He was cute, despite looking completely and utterly helpless and vulnerable. She couldn't help but smile at him.
Spencer pet Lucy as the kittens were suckling. She couldn't help but get a bit annoyed at the four bigger kittens' avarice; they wouldn't let the littlest kitten get to the milk. She pouted. She was so annoyed that she hadn't even noticed when Toby entered the room.
"So these are the kittens?"
She nodded slowly.
"I missed the miracle of life?"
She rolled her eyes. "Yes, you did." She didn't mean it, really. She was just so tired.
"Gee, they're cute," he commented as he took the time to really look at them all. The first thing he noticed was that there were none which looked like Pandora. They were all either blue, grey, or striped (namely the runt). "Did you name them?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No. Natalie said it would be a good idea to let prospective parents name the kittens. I don't know, but for some reason, it's more…appealing when you get to name your own pet," she explained.
He nodded slowly. "I guess that makes sense."
"Where is Pandora? I haven't seen her all day," Spencer answered quickly.
"She was upstairs when I was getting changed. I guess she didn't want to meet the new cats?"
Spencer shrugged in response. "Natalie and Trent said it might be better that way, considering that the kittens are deaf. They said a different scent could interfere with the bonding process or something like that. I don't know," she replied with a shrug.
"That's…interesting," he concluded.
They sat in silence for a while. Peace and the simple silence were comforting for them. Except for the occasional meow from a kitten or high-pitched squeal, it was just about silent for nearly thirty minutes. Yet, it was comfortable, like there was an unspoken understanding between them. Spencer liked that they didn't even need to say anything and they could still be comfortable around one another.
But that kitten was still bothering her. She quickly wriggled out of his embrace and ran out of the room to go get something. He felt like he was left high and dry for a moment. Confused, he just focused on the kittens and Lucy. Spencer came back not two minutes later with a bottle in her hand. After slipping on latex gloves, she quickly picked up the baby kitten and began to bottle feed it.
"I can't stand to watch this kitten get…abused by his brothers and sisters," she commented while looking at the kitten lovingly. "He's adorable."
"They're all adorable; they're kittens," he reminded her.
"Right, but this one is cuter. It's smaller," she insisted. "And I don't know. He's different. I can tell. And different is interesting," she concluded.
"Be careful not to smother him."
She hit him on the arm before holding the kitten again. "Lucy doesn't seem particularly interested in him," she said sadly. "Natalie warned me that this could happen. Can you please get me a hot water bottle, Toby?"
He came back a few minutes later with a hot water bottle and some towels. Pandora was walking behind him cautiously. Spencer hadn't seen her all day.
As she took care of the baby kitten, he couldn't help but stare. She looked so beautiful.
"You're going to make an amazing mother one day, you know that?"
She looked up at him with some lost look in her deep brown eyes. "No…"
"Yes. And a beautiful one, too," he told her.
She tried to contain the blush she felt rising onto her cheeks, but some pink had spilled its way to her cheeks. "Maybe we should let them get some rest," she said, avoiding the topic. She absolutely hated when he made her feel this way again—like a lovesick little girl who thought nobody would ever really love her. She couldn't even describe or explain why that made her feel this way, but it just did. Maybe it reminded her of Andrew, in some vague, inexplicable, abstract way.
"You're right," he said, walking away with Pandora in his arms.
"I'm going to take a shower before I come to bed. I've been dealing with cats and formula and afterbirth all day," she said.
"Alright, too much information, Spencer!"
She laughed. "Really? You just got through that annoyingly cheesy and sappy profession of how beautiful I am and now you don't even want to hear my day?" she teased.
"I do, but I don't really want to hear about afterbirth and umbilical cords and placenta," he retorted.
"You know that Lucy ate like three of the placentas, right?" she inquired.
He made a face as he picked up Pandora. "Please tell me you're joking."
She shook her head. "Nope. Apparently, it gives her back nutrients and stuff she needs after her pregnancy. I don't know. It was gross, but whatever. It's nature, I guess," she explained. "So now you know why I'm in desperate need of a shower."
"Would you mind if I maybe joined you?" he inquired teasingly.
She bit her lip with the faintest smile on her face. "I think we can work something out," she replied equally as provocatively.
arubagirl0926: Hanna has the best one-liners, doesn't she? Thanks for reviewing!
Sarah:Glad you liked it! And it's alright. I'm ready to go to bed, too.
sarahschneider2012: Jeez, it's coming! I promise! Hold your horses and your rabbits and whatever other animals you are in possession of!
AL3110: Oh, so you're like Charlie Harper from Two and a Half Men? Interesting. Well, Glee is just not as good now that there's no Finn and soon, there won't be any Schue or Sue or Figgins or any of them. That takes most of the Glee out of Glee. Like, I don't know if you remember, but the pilot was mostly all about Finn and Schue. Like, do you know how mad I get when everyone is like "This is the Rachel Berry Show" because really, it's not! Rachel wasn't all that important in the pilot. Sure, she's like the resident diva, but she is not what glee is all about. it's about glee. And Finn and Schue put the glee in Glee. Sorry. I'm just pissed. Andrew is fine. I'm almost 99% sure of it.
ilovetobycavanaugh:Well, the only real Spoby in this chapter was the end (which was still cute). The next one has Spoby basically being parents, along with the addition of one new couple (!) and some tension between Spoby and another couple. And then the 11th chapter and the last chapter of this particular part of the story will be a lot of couple-y stuff and something else I'm not going to talk about at the moment.
tobyequalshottness: Oh, my God, everyone. I know you want Toby to get Spencer pregnant, but it will happen! Eventually! Just give me time! You cannot expect genius in one chapter. I need to do it right.
Spobyforever259: My favourite old shows are "The Nanny" and "Mister Ed" which admittedly weren't that old (well, Mister Ed was at least in black and white, so it looked really old), but they were from kind of before my time. Actually, Mister Ed was like before my mom, so I guess that makes it pretty old (not that my mom is old, but...well, I give up). Ugh, I can't with that. It makes me so mad. Especially 'your' and 'you're'. Like, if someone writes a sentence such as 'Your going to be so excited to see it' or whatever (lame sentence, I know), I want to yell. It makes me so mad. I just want everything to unfold and develop in the right way. I want it to have some integrity, you know? Do them justice? Ha, actually, it wasn't that good. I just tricked everyone into thinking that. it was kind of like he was an ass one day and the next he was nice and sad and everything, so that was pretty dumb and bad on my part. Umm...well, I liked Glee (operative word: LIKED), I like Bob's Burgers (best show ever), I'm secretly obsessed with reality TV (BGC, Dance Moms, Real Housewives [I watch Miami, OC, NYC, and then I'm going to watch the new London one which is basically Housewives by another name], Mob Wives, Kim of Queens, etc.), and then I like Switched At Birth (when I have time to watch it, which is never), Melissa & Joey, Baby Daddy, and movies. A lot of movies. Mainly Lifetime movies. Oh, and I'm morbid, so I watch all those murder shows, too. Unless they show creepy pictures. And I don't mean like murder scenes. I mean pictures of people with black eyeshadow and mascara and stuff on so they look like raccoons and...I'm getting goosebumps thinking of it. But lately, mostly movies.
spobylover1237:Well, I kind of gave it to you this chapter. I don't know. I just don't feel like Toby would get really angry at her. He got annoyed, but it's not really like she truly did anything wrong. She just didn't say it. I mean, he really doesn't need to know EVERYTHING that happens to her.
MilaMizz:I feel like you keep asking me this question. No, I have not seen a single one of the Step Up movies. I think my friend Michelle has and she likes it (she's a dancer). Ditto. And I can just imagine what kind of trouble Spencer/Toby/Hanna can get themselves into.
vondydora:Well...Chloe is about...six or seven months old now? I'm not really too sure. I think it's about January/February and she was born in August/September...and I just liked saying during history class I knew someone from Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was cool. Wait, what language do you speak, again? I know you said it before, but I can't remember. I'm just very curious :) Your English is pretty good for someone who hasn't used it since high school :)
Guest:Well, Anon, if you really want to know, you're going to get a long, winded explanation. To begin with, though it may not seem like it, I do have a life outside of fanfiction. I don't have friends, but I do, unfortunately, have a life. Second, one-shots, for the most part, are pretty terse and short and to the point. I don't really have to think of things that make sense or are really continuous with another part of a story because it's just a standalone one-shot. Most of my chapters are 1,500-3,000 words long, while my one-shots can be anywhere from 200-2,000 long. They're usually on the shorter side, as they're only typically like a page and a half to three pages on word, while my chapters are about six pages and usually longer. Third, most of my one-shots are prewritten, which means that I write like ten in a short span of time and have them ready so I don't actually write every day, I just upload one a day. For example, tonight I'm uploading #87 when I'm in the midst of writing #92. I'm actually pretty far behind on my one-shots. Fourth, I have a deadline for the one-shots to be completed, so those are really my priority while school is wrapping up and I still have a pretty limited amount of time which I can use to write. Fifth, for this story, I have to keep an endgame in mind and I can end up writing like three or four different versions of the same chapter before I get my completed version. If circumstances were different and I didn't have two other stories to juggle, PLUS finals, PLUS another out of FF, out of school project I'm working on, I probably would be updating every day, but I don't have that kind of time, and quite frankly, that's boring. Aside from that, I really don't know where this story is going (now it's gotten clearer, but I didn't know before), so it's hard to write when I don't know where I'm going.
eveningshades1107: Yeah, they are. People need to calm down when it comes to the Spencer getting preggers. It'll happen! We sing "For Good" every year at the Spring Concert as a tribute to the seniors. My choir teacher joked that it was called "Para Bueno" in Spanish and I'm just like..."...no." I so desperately want to sing "What Is This Feeling?" with someone. But as Glinda. Because she's just so pretentious yet so cute. I can't. Plus...Kristin Chenoweth. I was literally going to go into a sugar coma. I had hot chocolate AND chocolate cheesecake. And I have no regrets.
Alright, so I have to go, but really, please stop bugging me about the Spoby babies. It'll happen. Ferme la bouche. Just let it happen. -Kayson