[Content Warning/SPOILER: False pregnancy]
If it were not painfully obvious before, it certainly was now – Mokuba could not be trusted. Seto spared a moment to mourn the loss of his cherubic little brother who would never dream of lying to or working against him, but those days had long since past; the Wheelers had seen to that. So, when said raven-haired teen entered the parlor after school that day to catch Seto with an armful of crying brunette, Seto quickly remembered to play the part of consoling confidante.
"Um, what's –?" Mokuba began, but he cut himself off when the young woman looked up at him. He gasped. "V-Vickie?!" At the sound of her name, Vickie nearly lunged at Mokuba. Once she had latched onto him, she burst into fresh tears, choking out a garbled mixture of an apology and a greeting. "There, there?" he said, patting her head slowly.
"Ugh, I'm just a mess," Vickie said as she pulled herself off of Mokuba. She wiped her tears on the back of her hand and sniffled until Seto offered her a napkin.
"Why are you here?" Mokuba all but demanded. He cleared his throat. "I mean, is everything...okay?"
Vickie took a deep, shaky breath and ran a hand through her hair. She opened her mouth to speak but clamped it shut immediately, her bottom lip trembling as she threatened to cry fresh tears.
Seto rolled his eyes and spoke instead. "Our dear...friend, here, is having relationship issues with a certain mutt," he said.
"Can you believe he left me?" Vickie all but shrieked. "He won't even return any of my calls! I was supposed to be a bride by now." At this, tears actually began pouring down her reddened cheeks. "I can't believe he got cold feet."
Seto and Mokuba exchanged a glance, the latter gaping at a loss for words while the former regarded the crying woman with mild amusement. Seto let her sob for a full minute longer before folding his arms and cocking his head to the side in contemplation. "When was the last time you saw him?"
Vickie sniffled before answering, "That day you brought him to me a few weeks ago," she said timorously. "After we dropped junior here off, we went out to a club, danced, had a few drinks, and went back to my place." She shrugged. "And he was gone by the morning." She dabbed at her eyes.
Seto shook his head. "You know, I'd be torn up, too, if the guy I was going to spend the rest of my life with left after just one night," he said, and Mokuba visibly cringed. Seto leaned in a bit. "It must have been really special," he stage-whispered.
Vickie got a nostalgic twinkle in her eye, which was quickly snuffed out by a puzzled look. "I-I guess it was," she said slowly. "I don't actually remembered what happened." She poked at her cheek sheepishly.
Seto gasped – actually gasped, Mokuba would swear later – before sputtering, "B-but anything could have happened. I mean, literally anything." He paused, thinking over what he had just said. "You don't think..." he trailed off as he looked back over to Vickie.
She met his gaze. "Think what?"
"It's probably nothing," Seto rushed on. "It's just that it must have been an incredible night, but neither of you were prepared for it, and you're really emotional right now, and you did mention feeling sick a few days ago." He quirked his eyebrows to convey the meaning behind his words.
Vickie froze, and Mokuba could hear the grandfather clock down the hall gently ticking away. "I have to talk to him," she said so suddenly that Mokuba winced. She leapt up. "Now."
Seto looked over to Mokuba, and Vickie followed suit. "Dearest little brother," he began with a sickeningly dulcet tone, "would you be so kind as to call Mr. Wheeler?"
Mokuba wasn't sure which he was more afraid of – Vickie's intense and palpable stare, or Seto's too-wide smile. Either way, he barely hesitated to whip out his cell phone and punch in the speed dial number. "Hey, Joey, it's me," he said momentarily. "You may want to sit down for this."
Joey didn't think he had ever driven so quickly in his life before. He also didn't think he was going to forget any time soon Tina's shocked and incredulous face when he asked – practically begged – to borrow her car. He certainly knew that he couldn't focus right then on worrying about Nichols finding out about his ditching work (again), especially since he had been appointed to heading that special project. No: his mind was too busy clinging to Mokuba's words from earlier to be concerned with Tina's comfort or his own job security or even speed limits at the moment.
As the distance between him and Kaiba mansion closed agonizingly slowly, Joey thought back to his last night with Vickie, latching onto every fine detail he could recall and inspecting it for even the faintest contradiction to Mokuba's claim. He could find none. Loath as he was to admit it, he simply had no idea what he and Vickie had done before he woke up – and that meant they could have done anything.
He shook his head to clear away the thought and pushed the speedometer needle up a couple more notches. Soon, but not soon enough, he was pulling into Kaiba's driveway. He threw the door open, unable to be bothered waiting for the car window to roll all the way down, and jammed the intercom button.
"Kaiba residence," Kaiba said, his calm tone the antithesis to Joey's own frazzled state.
"Kaiba, you bastard! Let me in," Joey growled.
"I'm sorry, I don't recognize this particular insufferable voice. State your name, please."
"I swear to God –!" Before Joey could finish, the gates began to creep open, and a new voice came over the com.
"Ignore him, Joey," Mokuba said. "Come on in."
Joey hopped back into the car and drove through the now open gates. He barely remembered to put the car in park before jumping out again and running up the front steps. He pounded on the door until Kaiba flung it open.
"Where is she?" Joey demanded. He tried to push his head through the doorway enough so that he could peer inside, but Kaiba shoved him away and closed the door behind him.
"She's really fragile right now," he said softly, and Joey stilled in shock at this odd, almost concerned tone coming from his rival. "I think you should calm down before going in there so you don't upset her more."
"What the...? To hell with that, let me in!" Joey lunged for the door knob, but Kaiba stepped in front of him, blocking his access.
"Not until you promise you'll stay cool and not yell at her."
Joey tried to reach around him again, to no avail, before sparing Kaiba an exasperated look. The smug jerk almost looked earnest. Joey sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, fine, whatever. Just let me in!"
Kaiba smirked, and suddenly it was like he was back to his old self. He turned the handle and pushed the door open, then stepped aside and beckoned the blond to enter. "Good luck," he whispered as Joey passed, and he had to fight the urge to shudder.
For all that Joey rushed to the mansion earlier, he was suddenly weighed down by the gravitas of the situation. He felt as though he were wading through Jell-O as he walked towards the parlor. Too soon, he was rounding the corner and almost toppled by a too-strong-for-her-size Vickie who was throwing her arms around his waist. She began to sob, causing him to shake with her.
"She's been like this off and on," Mokuba said from the arm of a sofa. "You'll get used to it." He mouthed the word 'unfortunately' in punctuation.
"Um," was all Joey could manage to utter. He hesitated before patting Vickie awkwardly on the head. With each stroke, her sobs quieted to pathetic whimpers, and her grip on his midsection loosened. Eventually, she let go of him completely and stood up to face him.
"I guess you heard," she said quietly as she wiped the tear tracks from her face.
"O-of course," Joey replied, "I came as soon as I could."
Vickie gave him a wan smile, and they fell silent, both at a loss for words or even faintest idea about how to do this. Luckily, they had some outside interference.
"Well," Kaiba said as he joined the group in the parlor, "now that the soon-to-be family is all here, let's sit down and talk things out, shall we?"
Joey rolled his eyes. "Yeah, as if we're gonna have this conversation with you of all people. Let's go, Vickie." Joey latched onto the woman's wrist and tried to tug her out of the parlor and as far from the mansion as possible, but she snatched her arm back. Joey turned to see what was wrong.
"You can't speak to him like that," Vickie said indignantly. "He was the only one helping through this whole mess."
Joey glanced over to Kaiba, who only looked back defiantly, daring Joey to protest. "You can't be serious."
"Like a heart attack," she said, folding her arms across her chest.
Joey groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Fine, fine, then what do you want to do?"
"Oh," was all she said. Apparently, she hadn't been expecting to win the argument that easily. "I, um..." she looked over her shoulder to Kaiba, much to Joey's chagrin.
"She wants to ask you about how you're going to take care of her," Kaiba said without missing a beat. "There's so much to plan, after all, and in a few months she won't be in any physical condition to be straining herself."
"Okay," Joey said through grit teeth and returned his gaze to Vickie. "What do you want from me?"
"The two of you will have to live together, of course," Kaiba responded instead.
Joey wasn't sure exactly what ticked him off for good, but he finally lashed out. "God damn it, Kaiba, why don't you let her speak for once!" HIs face had gone the slightest tinge of red.
Vickie flinched, and fresh tears sprang to her eyes. She turned away from him and said, "I can't talk to him when he's like this."
Kaiba sighed and shook his head reproachfully at the blond before offering Vickie yet another tissue. "Look what you've done now."
Joey had to force himself to take a deep breath. "I...I'm sorry, Vickie. I didn't mean to yell," he said with practiced calm.
Vickie eyed him carefully before breaking out into a bright smile, and Joey could swear his heart skipped a beat for a moment. "It's okay!" she said, and she flung her arms around his neck. Kaiba distinctly cleared his throat from behind the bubbly brunette.
"Not to interrupt...this," he said, waving a hand, "but we really must move along."
Joey glared at him over Vickie's shoulder but swallowed his immediate retort. "Fine," he said through clenched teeth. "What did you have in mind?"
Kaiba gave him an almost feral grin. "Shopping for the baby."
Somehow, the hours passed in a whirlwind of frustration and frenzy. Before he knew it, Joey was relegated to pack mule duty and overladen with mountains of bags of baby formula, diapers, blankets, and varying sizes of baby clothes. He had groaned earlier at Kaiba's insistence that they buy so many outfits in so many sizes – after all, it's a baby, how big could it possibly get? He shuddered at the memory of the way Kaiba and Vickie berated him (loudly) in the middle of the store about how little he knew about infants. So, he resolved to just shut his mouth as the two marched gleefully through each aisle and tried his damnedest not to look at the register each time an item was rung up.
Joey sighed as he glanced down at his phone, noting the three missed calls from his boss, and leaned against the wall as far from the entrance of the trio's latest shop as he dared to stand. It took a lot of delicate phrasing (and passive-aggressive remarks from Kaiba) to get permission to stay outside this time, but he persisted and won this brief reprieve. Determined to make the most of it, Joey quickly punched in Nichols's number and put the phone to his ear. It barely rang once before someone picked it up.
"Mr. Wheeler, where are you?" came Nichols's voice, his tone stern yet concerned. "I was supposed to show you off to the project's top investors this afternoon, remember?"
Boy, did he. Joey held back an exasperated sigh and replied, "Sorry, sir, I got caught up in...family business." He swallowed the bile that rose in his throat reflexively at what that implied.
"Is it your sister?" Nichols asked, this time the concern winning over his irritation. "I hope everything is okay."
"No, sir, not...not that family." The line went quiet, and the static between them filled with meaning. Before Nichols could interrogate him, Joey rushed on. "I have to get going. I'll explain everything tomorrow, I promise. I'm sorry again." Nichols barely muttered a goodbye before Joey ended the call. Okay, so the call had gone as horribly as he anticipated. Well, at least his boss knew he was all right. And, judging by Nichols's tone, Joey still had a job.
The blond looked around, wondering what was keeping the other two. A few yards away, closer to the entrance of the baby mart stood a red-clothed table with a smartly dressed woman sitting facing the parking lot, hands gesturing energetically to the brochures splayed out before her as she spoke quickly to the couple before her. They exchanged a look, agreed on something, and took a few of the brochures before entering the store. Joey's curiosity piqued, and he wondered how he had missed the table earlier. Just as he leaned away from the wall to see what the woman was representing, Seto and Vickie came out (arms filled with new bags). The woman said something that attracted their attention, and the two detoured to her table.
Joey could sense the trouble in the way that Vickie got more and more excited with each word the seated woman spoke. He approached the group, catching a glimpse of the sign as he joined them: Oshiro Realtor. Joey gulped.
"– perfect for raising a child," the woman finished saying when Joey was within earshot. She turned to Seto. "Are you the father?"
Joey was about to turn on his heel and leave, if only so that Kaiba would have to deal with spluttering out an explanation of this odd predicament, but he had already been spotted. "No," Kaiba said with a malicious grin aimed at Joey. "He is."
The woman followed Seto's gaze and hopped up from the table to latch onto Joey's arm and drag him over. She shoved a brochure into his hands. "I was just telling your fiancée, here, that this property would be perfect for your little tyke."
"Fiancée?" Joey mumbled as he thumbed through the pamphlet. The house was gorgeous – expansive front yard, a widow's walk on the second floor, bright cherry brick lining the first. He scanned the description and couldn't help but notice a distinct lack of price tag. That didn't bode well. "We don't need that much space," he told the woman as he handed the brochure back.
"Hmm," the woman said, tapping her chin in thought. "Well, there is family-friendly condominium in the neighborhood just east of here that would definitely be more to your liking." She rifled through her brochures, then frowned. "Oh, no, I don't have the picture with me."
"That's okay!" Vickie exclaimed. "We'll go take a look for ourselves."
"We will?" Joey asked, looking at her skeptically.
"Of course you will," Kaiba said from just behind him. "You don't expect to decide on your family home by looking at pictures, do you?"
"Exactly!" Vickie added.
Joey felt the pressure of an oncoming headache and quickly gave in. "Fine. Whatever." He turned to the realtor. "What's the address?"
The condo was indeed smaller but by no means less grandiose. Joey instantly feared for his wallet. Once again, he took up the rear of the group as the current owner gave them a tour. There was a kitchen to their immediate right, separated from the common space by an island. Further back was a pair of sliding doors leading to a backyard shared with the other tenants. Off to the left was a master bedroom and spare room across. Barring the owner's cardboard boxes in odd corners here and there, the condo was stripped clean, making it much easier for Vickie (and himself, to a degree) to imagine decorating it.
Once the rather short tour was completed, Joey pulled the owner aside to talk business, shooing Vickie and Seto away to go ogle at something else.
"The realtor was a little vague on the details," Joey admitted to the guy. "Specifically, the asking price."
The owner chuckled and shook his head. "That's how they get ya, huh? I'm not asking for much in rent." He said a number, and Joey fought hard to keep his eyes from widening in shock. He hadn't even realized that people even made enough to consider that not much. Well, besides Kaiba, but he was on a whole separate stratus, as far as Joey concerned. The owner, this down-to-earth, totally normal guy, was seriously asking for that much in rent. Joey felt goosebumps raise on his arms at the prospect
"I-It might take me a while to get the first payment ready," he admitted sheepishly.
The owner shrugged. "No worries, I'm not in a rush. When would you plan to move in?"
Joey opened his mouth to respond, then closed it again when he realized he was missing a key piece of information. He and Vickie would have to move in before she was too immobile to be helpful, but he'd be damned if he didn't put that off as far as possible. Meaning he needed to know when Vickie's first trimester ended. Meaning he needed to know...
"Vickie," Joey began slowly, walking to the master bedroom to where she and Seto had been checking out the hot tub in the master bathroom. She paused mid-sentence when she heard Joey enter. "Vickie," he repeated, "when are you due?"
The woman stood up and gave him a blank look.
Joey pinched the bridge of his nose. "When...when is the baby coming?"
Vickie looked between him and Seto, who merely arched an eyebrow in expectation. "I-I don't know," she squeaked.
Joey's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, you don't know? Didn't you go to a doctor?"
Vickie tilted her head to the side. "When would I have gone to the doctor? I told you as soon as I found out."
Alarms sounded in Joey's head as he asked his next question. "And how did you find out?" Although he was starting to fit the pieces together.
"Seto told me," and she beamed at the man.
"Oh, fuck this," Joey said, gripping the sides of the door frame as though to tear it out. "You," he growled, pointing to Vickie, "stay here." And with that, he stormed out of the bedroom, out of the condo, out of town, to the nearest drug store. He ambushed the maternity aisle, grabbed the first pregnancy test he saw, and flung a few bills at the cashier. For the second time that day, he demonized the roads. Once back at the condo, he shoved the box into Vickie's hands. "Take this. Now."
Vickie eeped and disappeared into the master bathroom. Seto leaned against the neighboring wall, smiling smugly at Joey's very visible anguish, and the condo owner shuffled his feet, watching the melodrama from the hallway. Five minutes later, Vickie slowly opened the door, her face betraying her unease.
Joey froze to the spot. "What does it say?" he asked quietly. Vickie shook her head, clearly holding back tears. "Vickie –!" he began again, but before he could say anything further, she turned the stick so that he could see the window: a single solid line.
Joey was flooded with relief and leftover anxiety. His knees buckled, and he again gripped the sides of the bathroom door frame to keep from falling. As the realization of the bullet he dodged hit, he whooped loudly, startling Vickie and the condo owner alike. Then, he leveled a glare at Kaiba, who scowled in return.
"Kaiba," he said icily, "that was low, even for you." He backed away from the door out into the hallway. "You're gonna get what's yours, pal."