Chapter 10:
Billy the Human Boy paced the halls nervously as his stepson watched and colored his coloring book. The big man was in something of a tizzy more because of the way his last family had ended than any real risk for his current one. Ragnhild was preggers. It was his fourth child, and Billy was excited and terrified all at once. Honestly, did he dig into it, he felt cursed. He'd been so happy with JJ, and he'd been doing all the right things. And still, the whole business had gone in the ditch. He was the guy. He still felt like he should have been able to save his wife somehow.
Now he was a concerned husband again and a very involved father. So much so that Ragnhild had already told him to put a sock in it. Having gone through 'the process' once already, she was far more relaxed about it. She'd already been through the bouts of sickness. She'd already gone through the cravings. She'd already suffered through the back pain and the misery of having to only sleep on her side. Honestly, the last flippin' thing she wanted was her hubby going six-ways of crazy over the whole biz.
She did take care of herself. She was older, and she knew it. There were all kinds of complications that could get her or the baby or both, and she planned to be around a good while longer. Irritated as she got with Billy, she was also happier than she'd ever been in her life, and she wanted to savor the feeling for a while before reality stuck its nose under the tent once more. Older and (hopefully) wiser, she thought she knew how to keep things going between them–better than with her first husband anyway. Having a child together was part of the deal.
Of course she was also juggling her position as an active member of the Privy Council with the affairs of her own kingdom, and that was eating up a lot of time. She spent as much time down here in the Candy Kingdom as at home, which meant she didn't always get in to her own doctor. Fortunately, Dr. Princess was one of the foremost doctors in the civilized lands. Having been a patient of Drew Princess for the entirety of his life, Billy was only too glad to bring his lovely wife down to the tough-minded doctor whenever they were in town, and today was no exception.
Inside the exam room, Ragnhild was in the process of pulling on her formal robes once more after having gotten through the obligatory poking and prodding. Little Simon was doing well, and she was delighted with the news she'd gotten. It was a relief that his grandfather's awful curse hadn't somehow jumped to the little fellow through his father. Of course, with her own life and her own child in some jeopardy, the doctor was a little prickly today. Ragnhild had noticed it when they came in and had the preliminary consultation. She'd gotten a dose of it as Drew did the exam. Now she was about to get a really sizable dose as the exam wrapped up.
The doctor had taken several samples of the pretty princess's blood both at this exam and at the previous one. Now she had the results back, and she was not pleased. Slapping the report on the table in a huff, Drew Princess declared, "I found Polysorbate 80 in your bloodstream. That's going to stop. I don't care what you do with your own body, but those preservatives aren't good for your baby. Clear?" Meekly, Ragnhild nodded.
In soothing tones, the good doctor said, "I understand why you've been doing that. If I had a hubby who was half my age..." The princess blushed to her pale hair. Standing up, the tall doctor waddled over to the cabinets on the far side of the room. As the patient watched, the doctor got out bottles of pills and capsules, stuffing a bag full of them. "A cocktail of healthy herbs and vitamins," said the doctor, "tailored to your body. Take one each per day. And no more preservatives. Got me?" Meekly the princess nodded, as she accepted the bag. Rising, she thanked the doctor and slipped out the door.
Outside, she found her hubby tearing up the floor in his worry. It was one of the things that most endeared him to her. She was his everything. She and Anders. She'd watched him crawl around on the floor for hours with the little boy on his back. There were times she wasn't sure that was right, but Billy was trying so hard to make it work. Of course, just as she was pondering what she could do to help things along, Billy's disreputable father came in. The pretty princess hadn't heard that he'd returned. Honestly, she'd thought he was off gallivanting around, sowing his oats and leaving other women holding the bag. The pretty princess failed to see how her wonderful hubby had come from the loins of such a dishonest character as that.
Billy's eyes went wide in shock as he caught sight of his wayward father. As Finn the Human came in through the clinic's double-doors, Billy greeted him with a plaintive, "dad?" His old man looked much the worse for wear. He was limping, his eyebrows were gone, his clothes were singed and torn, and he had a bloody nose and several red marks on his face. "Hey, Bill," Finn murmured, sounding thoroughly wrung out and exhausted. It had been a long day already with five encounters with angry women and five beatings, but he'd gotten down most of the way through the list.
Phoebe had almost literally blown up in his face, setting his shirt on fire and melting the soles of his boots. Lollipop had alternated crying and sobbing like she'd lost everything with slapping and clawing at his face and hair and screaming at him. Cherry had kicked him in balls and stomped her stiletto heel into both his feet in a fury before storming out of her own office and slamming the door literally in his face. She'd left him rolling around on the floor in acute physical pain, and of course the sobbing and crying he heard on the other side of that door did nothing for his psyche.
Bonnie had lectured him for a long, endless hour, reminding him of all his failings and all his bad habits–numerous–and expressing a profound disappointment in him. She'd barely had to raise her voice, but by the time she was done, he'd felt about two inches tall. Nadia had unleashed a blistering torrent of profanity that left him wishing he was back in Bonnie's lecture. When she wasn't screaming swear words at him in two or three languages at once, she'd been jabbing him in the ribs with her finger hard enough that she'd left bruises. And, of course, she'd opened the flood gates right after and sent him away with her sobs ringing in his ears. He was dreading the reaction he was going to get from Sarah, but right now he had to survive the confrontation with Drew.
The woman herself was standing in the doorway of the exam room, and she didn't look happy. Turning to Nurse Poundcake, she said, "cancel my next appointment." Turning to her wayward husband, she growled, "my office. Now." The big man slunk through the door, looking as though he feared the worst, which Billy thought was entirely appropriate for the moment. There was a lot of built-up anger that had been waiting on his father–literally months of it. Good luck, dad, he thought, as he turned to collect his stepson. Settling Anders on his hip, Billy gathered up the bag with his things and headed for the door.
As they were walking away, Billy clearly heard a loud *smack* and then a groan of pain from his father. As he opened the door for Ragnhild, the big man glanced back just in time to see Dr. Princess open the door to the exam room and stick her head out. In sweet tones, she called out, "Nurse Poundcake? Would you bring me a cold compress?" Billy flinched. As the pair climbed into Ragnhild's car, the princess turned to her husband and said, "just make sure you don't get any ideas..." Flushing to his hair, Billy retorted, "I don't really like being beat on." Ragnhild goggled at him. "What," he asked? "Do you really think it's him in control?"
Back inside the exam room, the good doctor made her husband climb up on the exam table, at which point she gave him a thorough going over. He too was made to deliver what felt like a gallon of blood. He didn't even get the usual cookie at the end. Instead, he got poked. Relentlessly. She even made him bend over and cough. He was noxiously healthy, in spite of the gray in his hair.
When he'd come in with so much gray, she had thought it was the Curse, finally overcoming Breezy's magic. Now she thought maybe it was a little honest ageing. Of course they had other business to get through. As the big man sat down on the couch, his wife sternly asked, "where's Betty?" Flushing, he replied, "gone to Wizard City with Simone..." "I know she's pregnant," Drew growled. "I want to see her." Finn promised he'd drag her in. Laying his file on the table, Dr. Princess announced, "this will be our last visit. I'm officially transferring you to Dr. Chip's care effective today."
Holding the ice-pack to his nice new shiner, the big man frowned at her and demanded, "why?" In official tones, Drew retorted, "you know my rules, Finn. We're intimate. I don't fuck my patients." Finn glanced away, muttering, "Dr. Chips is kind of a jerk..." The sexy doctor straddled his lap and sat down, taking the ice-pack from his hands. When he turned to look at her, she caught his face with her hands and said, "you'll have to deal with it, Finn." Leaning forward, she put her lips to his ear and sensually nibbled at his earlobe, whispering, "I can't treat the father of my baby..."
Finn felt a surge of heat to his face. It appeared they had reached the making-up part. He just wished he could have gotten to this spot without getting a black-eye. Momentarily, the beautiful doctor was doing her best to make up for punching him, teasing his tongue with hers and rubbing that dynamite body–and swollen belly–against him like a horny kid. Drawing back, Drew licked her lips and said, "you know what I need." Strangely enough, she'd gotten sort of hooked on the bondage thing after that first time. Now half the time she made him tie her up. Today, he had to disappoint her. Taking her face in his hands, he reminded her, "and you know better. Second Trimester. No sex."
Drew frowned at him, but Finn stared back, gaze steady as it had ever been. "Something's wrong with you," she declared, as she got up and went to retrieve her instruments. When she returned, she had electronic leads and her brain-monitoring biz. The big man put her off, saying, "I'm just fine. We'll talk later, alright? I have some things I need to take care of. There's going to be a gathering tonight at my house. I'd be really appreciative if you'd join me for dinner." Frowning, she said, "ok. Where's Finn?" The big man gave her a look of utter bafflement. Then, giving her an almost-chaste kiss on the lips, he turned to get on his way. At the door, he said, "I'd also appreciate it if you could prescribe another vitamin cocktail. I ran out of the last prescription." And then he was gone, leaving her staring after him. Turning for the phone, the beautiful physician dialed up the one other person who would likely have noticed the change. There was something wrong here.
The house was clean when Simone Mertens climbed the stairs that evening, mother and daughter in tow. The whole place was spic-and-span, looking as if someone(s) had spent the whole day cleaning it. The entry was swept clean. All the shoes were racked and stacked in their cubbies. There were slippers laid out, and the carpet on the stairs had even been dusted clean. Frowning, she found herself wondering what had happened to her cozy little home. This wasn't normal.
As the trio approached the top of the stairs, they began to smell the scents of a wonderful home-cooked meal. It was a scent that Betty was rather familiar with. Finn was cooking. It took only a moment for those sensations to tickle something deep in Simone's brain. Now she rushed up the stairs to find Finn there scrubbing at the counter in spite of the fact that he had dinner on. Indeed the whole of the living room and kitchen areas were spotless as they hadn't been since before the kids were born.
Looking around her, Simone looked as though she were moments from freaking out. Resting a hand on her shoulder, Betty came up alongside her daughter. That gesture seemed to suggest that she shouldn't react. This wasn't the time. "Hey, babes...," Finn greeted the pair. Striding across the room, he gingerly hugged Fionna. Then he gave his ladies both a hug and kiss on the lips. Before either could really react to that, the big man was standing at the stove again, almost as if he'd teleported. The Curse, thought Simone. "Wow, dad," gushed Fionna! "That's slick! I wish I could move that quick!" Which she probably could. She just hadn't surrendered herself to the curse the way her father had. As she watched the big man draw dinner out of the oven, the pale woman was horrified to realize just how he'd cleaned the whole house in one day. By himself.
"Hey, Fi," said he. "Can you watch supper. I'm'a go get the picnic table ready. Figure there's enough of us. We can eat outside tonight." And without a further word, he was on his way down the stairs. Turning to her mother, Simone growled, "talk! How long has he been doing that?!" Face turned thoughtful, Betty murmured, "that one's new. He's never used it so casually before this. I've seen him use it to take down the Lich's undead, but only then." Simone began to pace, but Fionna opined, "he's just having fun, mom. It's cool." And that, to Fionna, was that. As her mother and grandma watched, she started taking dinner downstairs. She left turmoil behind her.
Simone began to pace again, her heart beating hard and fast in worry. The Quicksilver Curse wasn't a toy. It was a deadly thing meant to kill the victim cruelly. "Calm down," Betty admonished her. "This thing won't get solved in a day, and it won't get solved by all that pacing." Her tone was soothing, and eventually her pretty doppleganger stopped pacing and sat down. By that point, both Finn and Fionna were back, laughing and joking like the loving father and daughter that they were. Gathering up more food, they headed downstairs once again. For want of a better idea of what to do now, Simone and Betty pitched in.
As they worked to lay out the dinner spread that Finn had cooked, Marceline came strolling up the driveway. Simone could only stare as the former vampire came up to the table. "Twins," Betty murmured. "Hi," a sheepish Marceline burbled. Simone took her by the arm and steered her into a seat. Blushing, the pale girl murmured, "I'm ok." "Hey, babe," said Finn, as he kissed her cheek. "D'you make it to Drew's place?" Blushing, Marceline admitted, "uh... no..." "Well," said Finn, "we'll stop by tomorrow." At that moment, the woman herself appeared, rolling up the driveway in the beater truck she drove. Stepping out, she glanced around her. "Hey, doc," Fionna greeted her. Rushing down the driveway, she gave the pretty doctor a bone-crushing hug. "We're pregnant, Fionna," wheezed Drew. "Oh," giggled Fi. "Yeah." Taking the doctor by the arm, the pretty blonde practically dragged her up the driveway to the table.
As Drew sat herself next to Marceline and Betty, Finn opined, "yeah. We should probably bring your car a little closer." In just an eyeblink, he was down at the end of the driveway. As a startled Drew watched, Finn drove her car up the driveway almost to the end. Her gaze flicked to Betty, who said, "say nothing. We're going to talk later. All of us." No sooner had she made that statement than Phoebe dropped out of the sky, coalescing from a blaze of orange flame into the familiar beauty that Finn had known since he was fourteen. Almost. "Uh, Phoebes," stammered Simone, as she pointed. It took a moment. Betty winced at the shriek the Flame King let out when she realized she was buck-naked. Fionna focused her beautiful grey eyes on the older woman and filaments of glass began to crawl up her curvy form. That almost made things worse as Drew and Marceline simultaneously howled, "how the fuck did you do that?!" Phoebe's reaction was a little more rational as she gingerly hugged the pretty blonde, thanking her for her quick thinking.
"Wow," said Fi. "Never seen you naked before." Phoebe blushed, and Simone admonished her kid to drop the subject. Phoebe was having enough trouble with her powers lately without Fionna drawing unpleasant attention to her issues. Stepping out of Drew's truck, Finn greeted his old flame with, "hey, babe." He gave his woman a ginger peck on the cheek. "You shouldn't do that," she muttered. "I'm... not in control." "Not a problem," said Finn. "I can get these lips back before anything bad happens." Using the Curse. Realizing what he meant by that, she gave him a bleak look.
Two limousines rolled up then, carrying the remainder of the evening's guests. Cherry and Lollipop got out of one, with Cherry lugging little Van. Bonnie got out of the other with Nadia in tow. Simone's eyes immediately locked on the cyborg woman. Just as her mother had predicted, Nadia's boobies had grown noticeably in response to her rather obvious pregnancy. It honestly made Simone consider urging her to get reduction surgery. Finn greeted each woman in turn, kissing Lollipop's thin lips, kissing Cherry gingerly on the cheek, kissing Bonnie's hand in chivalrous fashion, and bowing deeply before Nadia, who looked perilously close to belting him.
When he had straightened, the Russian beauty growled, "what happened to your eye?" "I did," muttered Drew. Glancing at the pretty doctor, the cyborg growled, "deserved, then." Flushing to his hair, Finn burbled, "uh, yeah... Heh-heh. Let's eat." He ushered the way to the table, scrounging up a booster-seat for Van, before he began to dish up dinner with Fionna's help.
The table was silent for a while, as the gathered women chewed their way through dinner. Cherry was astounded to find that her husband was every bit as good at cooking as her personal chef had ever been and better than she'd ever been in her life. Bonnie and Marceline both found themselves reminiscing about old times–better times–when they'd been here far more often. Both had taken outrageous advantage of his youthful love and affection. They'd given up the best years of his life. Nadia and Lollipop were more stoic. Both were still angry, but they were also frightened witless by some of the things Drew had told them earlier in the day. And Phoebe? She fidgeted between bleak desperation over her man and her child both and an earnest depression. The world was coming off the rails, and she had no idea what to do.
Talk eventually turned to the Privy Council. With Bonnie, Nadia, and Cherry all there, it was a certainty that conversation would eventually lead there. They had a whole pile of ugly news to relate. Muscle Princess had taken the sanctions not at all well, and she was now threatening retaliation. Rumors were swirling around Wildberry and what she was doing. There were suggestions she was secretly building an army to punish those who'd offended her. Other rumors held that she was building a coalition of like-minded princesses to take control of the Council. None of the news was good, and Betty found herself wondering just what had been going on while they were out. What had they all been doing?
Of course more than one of those faces turned towards Finn as he stoically worked his way through dinner. Those glances and gazes seemed to say, "when are you going to go take care of this?" Far from rushing in to intervene, the big man seemed content to sit, listen, and serve up dinner. Meanwhile, Fionna distracted the gathering with talk of all the baby-names. From Rosie, through Birch, to Joshua, she had a host of little brothers and sisters, and she had a host of ideas for spoiling them all. She was bubbly and eager the way only she and her father could be.
In the middle of Fionna's gushing about her new siblings, Bonnie interrupted the conversation by staring her Captain of the Guard in the eye and asking, point blank, "when are you returning to duty? I mean... I'm not displeased by Star's efforts, but she's young." Which was to say that she was still learning all the things her father had gone through already. Finn, who'd been hoping to avoid having this conversation right here right now, sighed heavily. This was it. He'd been doing a lot of soul-searching since he got home, and he still wasn't really sure this was a good idea. At the same time, he knew they needed a change. The world had changed on them, and things didn't work as well if he just tried to go back to the way things had been.
Taking a deep breath, he rose, lay down his napkin, and said, "I've been considering all the variables the last couple of days, weighing what the needs of our family are versus the needs of Ooo, and the geopolitical situation we find ourselves in..." Bonnie's mouth came open, and she stared at him as he droned on and on about the unique and unprecedented condition of Ooo. She was so busy staring and so shocked by the change that she almost missed the punchline. "I beg your pardon," demanded Nadia. Clearing his throat, the big man repeated himself, "I think it's time I stepped down, Bonnie. I... I'm going to have ten kids that are going to need looking after..." Glancing at Phoebe, he added, "some of them need really serious attention.
"Point is," said the hero, "I need to focus my attention on what's important. I need to take responsibility for the lives I brought into the world. Then I have the Quicksilver Curse to think about. Someone needs to go track down a cure. You're all princesses. You've all got kingdoms to rule. Emeraude already had to leave and go to the Grey Forest to take care of her people. I'm going to support you in the best fashion possible. I'm going to retire from business of adventuring. Effective today."
Simone was on her feet before the gathering could erupt. Calmly, she said, "Finn, it appears that you didn't make a dessert." The big man glanced around him in consternation. "Yeah," he sighed. "I guess I got so busy cleaning the house, I neglected to make one." "Why don't you go and get one at the Squeezymart," Simone gently suggested? Finn frowned at her, but Simone was already moving on. Calmly, she told Fionna, "why don't you go with your father. There's a lot of us here. He'll need a little help." Puzzled, Fionna said, "but, mom... I was gonna'..." "C'mon, Fi," Finn grumped. "They want to talk about us behind our back." Without a further word, the big man left the table, heading down to the road. Fionna scooted her chair back and rushed after him, leaving the pack of angry wives at the table.
The gathering held its collective breath as the pair walked out of sight. When they were gone, the whole place erupted. Fastening her hands around her mom's throat, Simone shook Betty violently, shouting, "what did you do to my husband?! You always hated who he was! What did you do?! Talk!" "It's Nadia's nanobugs," wheezed Betty. Phoebe shoved Simone away. Turning to the older woman, she said, "explain!" Coughing, Betty gasped out, "it started not long after that Dipped tried to kill them over the wastelands. Nadia put some of her nano-bugs in Finn's bloodstream to patch the holes in his arteries. Not long after, his vocabulary changed drastically." The change had continued from there until the point where even his sentence-structure was changing.
A horrified Nadia grabbed at her short hair and pulled. "There's obviously some sort of strange interaction going on," rumbled Drew. "I've taken samples of his blood, and I have counts of the nano-machines. Unfortunately, I've got no idea how many there should be or how many are even safe..." At Bonnie's behest, Drew passed the lab report down the table, and the pretty princess took a good long look at it. "There's more here than should have been in a single syringe full of blood," muttered Bonnie. Every face there swivelled to glare at the Grid Face Princess. Nadia flushed to her hair as she admitted, "in one of my people, they're... They're self-sustaining. I-I thought they would wear out and get excreted from his body." "In a normal human, they probably would be," sighed Bonnie. "...but Finn's anything but normal," rumbled Cherry. "Between the two curses on his body and Breezy's magic, there could be any number of crazy interactions going on there." "And then there's the Harrow Helm," said Betty. "The who-what," demanded Phoebe?
"Marceline gave him a weapon," Betty hoarsely replied. "To help us kill off the Dipped left behind by the Lich." Blushing, Marceline sank lower into her chair as every face there turned towards her. "I was just trying to help," she insisted. "Talk," growled Lollipop! With Betty interjecting pithy observations from her time in the wilderness with Finn, the Princess of Darkness explained what the Harrow Helm was. Bonnie was on her feet now, looking as if she would get violent. "Let me get this straight, Marceline," she snapped! "You know he's living with two very deadly curses that were meant to kill him, and the one thing that's been keeping him alive is Breezy's unstable magic spell, but you thought it would be ok to hand him a dangerous artifact from your father's treasure vault. Does that cover it?" Sheepishly, Marceline shrugged. She hadn't really meant things to get out of hand.
"Simone," howled Phoebe! Rushing around the table, she tried to pull her friend's hands from her hair only to find the fingers frozen to the strands of hair. "Shit," Phoebe growled! "Don't pull," Drew shouted! "You'll pull her hair out by the roots! We need to thaw the ice!" Lollipop rushed inside and came back with a pot of boiling water. As Drew and Lollipop tried to thaw her hair out, Bonnie got to grips with the problem facing them. She'd been almost daydreaming of having Finn back. She'd been daydreaming of having him here to get them out of the mess they were in.
In bygone days, she would have been loudly and perhaps obnoxiously bashing him for being a muttonhead without two braincells to rub together. However, she had known for years that the one person she could count on in all of Ooo was Finn. She could always look to him to do what she needed–what the world needed–with no thought of himself. Now he was checking out. What the fuck were they going to do now? And what was she going to say? Forget all that shit about taking care of your family; get out there and put your life at risk.
The only woman who was calm in the face of Finn's declaration was, ironically, Cherry. Cherry, who was a deep, dark sinner. Cherry, who'd tried to bend the big man to her will, twisting him to serve her darkest desires. The Princess of the Underworld was calm and seemingly contented. Which drove Bonnie straight past distraction and into white-hot anger. "Why're you so calm," she demanded? Cherry put down her teacup and chuckled. "You don't really think this'll stick, Bonnie," laughed the little crime-boss? "Hmm? You don't really think Finn Mertens has any more capacity to stay out of things now than he had before this?" Bonnie stopped mid rant. Indeed several faces were staring now.
Shaking her head, Cherry said, "let him have his little vacation. He's never really going to be able to just lay down, so let him enjoy the moment while he has it. Glob knows he's earned it." Turning to Simone, who was freezing and refreezing her own hair, Cherry said, "breathe. Just take a breath." For a wonder, the pale woman did just that. This time her hands came away from her head, and they didn't have strands of hair frozen to them. Phoebe's head snapped around to Simone and Bonnie's mortal enemy. "Breathe," Cherry whispered. It was almost hypnotic. Spellbound, Phoebe, who'd spent most of dinner standing, dropped onto the wooden bench with a rather solid thump.
"We're going to be ok, girls," Cherry said. "If anybody can find a cure for our little problem, it's our husband. Let him do what he needs to do. In the meantime, we've all got work to do." Drew sighed, "I still want to check him out. I'm..." "You're a doctor," Cherry interrupted. "That's fine. Just don't make it an obsession."
Took me a couple of tries to write this. I had to restart a couple of times because I didn't like the direction the words were taking me. Now I've finally got these two chapters in a form that I'm satisfied with. Hopefully, these two chapters were worth the wait.