Prompt #9: Write about Eustace's birth.

A/N: My apologies. The kids took more out of me after a long day of work than I thought they would, and so this will be short.

Harold and Alberta Scrubb were… well, I'm sure you've heard them described before. I think the writer who knew them best described them as very up-to-date and advanced people. They were vegetarians, non-smokers and tee-totallers and wore a special kind of underclothes. In their house there was very little furniture and very few clothes on beds and the windows were always open.* Now I fully grant that people have the right to decorate their homes as they like; and eat and drink and dress as they like, too, provided there's no harmful extremes. But you must admit that the Scrubbs didn't particularly sound like people you'd want to know.

But they were people, and they were married, and in the way of married people, it wasn't long (though longer than some) before they announced they would be having a child. Alberta was quite sure it would be a son.

The Scrubbs went about the pregnancy and the birth the same way they did everything else. They went to the up-to-date doctors and used the new machines, and could tell you at any point exactly how large the child was, and how much of his brain had developed. And, of course, all the plans they had to educate him (Alberta was quite sure it was a him) at the different stages of development. They knew the science and health down better than the doctors who had actually done this before.

But somewhere, in the midst of their study, something new was stirring in their hearts. This child was more than a developing brain; it was a life. And they felt themselves growing fond of it; almost alarmingly so. There were moments, when Alberta paused in her lectures on the health of the out-of-doors through open windows, and her friend asked about the child's name, when Alberta's face would light up. The beauty of motherhood made that strict and fearful soul shine.

Harold Scrubb did his best to contain his pride while at work-somehow it didn't seem quite the thing to discuss how far along a child's fingers were formed when one should be lecturing on engineering-but his coworkers, sympathetic to the new father, would sometimes stop him in the hallways and ask how things were coming along, you know, at home. And suddenly Harold Scrubb would be talking twice as fast as normal, his thin reedy voice sped up till it sounded as high as a school-boys. Some of his colleagues commented (once he was out of earshot) that Harold Scrubb was becoming quite bearable.

In short, this child was teaching both of them how to love; and it is hard to love a thing selflessly and not become beautiful in at least some small way.

But then the child was born.

I am sorry to say that the Scrubbs kept to their well-ordered plan, and their love, mixing with pride, became less selfless. It did not do little Eustace Clarence Scrubb any good at all.

But someone else loved Eustace Clarence Scrubb, someone very special and beautiful and selfless, and His love did Eustace all the good love should. But that, as they say, is another story.

*Voyage of the Dawn Treader

A/N: So, I started the story I had in mind (before the five nieces and nephews woke up), and I don't know if anyone is interested, but this was the beginning of the one I had in mind:

For the first time in his life, a quiet, snobbish college professor was pacing a hallway and muttering to himself. (It was a good thing none of his students saw him, for I'm afraid what little reputation his unpleasantness gave him would have vanished at his mad behavior.)

"It's fine. It's fine. They're doctors, and we checked and rechecked, this hospital has the latest updates in every scientific field, they're used by the top schools to place their interns. Interns. She'd better not be treated by—no, no, this is the first semester, there wouldn't be interns-"

"Mr. Scrubb?"

Harold Scrubb, husband to the lovely (well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder), kind (no, I'm not sure that accolade fits either), and very knowledgeable (which is different than wise) Alberta Scrubb, turned in a flustered manner towards the nurse.

"Yes?"

…

Love softens even the worst of people.

Response to AslansWatchman: And you would be right! Thank you for guessing. I'm looking forward to reading more of your work once life allows the time to write it. I hope you're well.