~ Chapter Sixteen ~

Early Morning Ultimatums

A good dream suddenly roused Barbara from a deep sleep. Moaning happily, she yawned, turned on her side, and found Walter's naked body beside her own.

No. Not a dream.

Smiling to herself, she snuggled closer to him.

Three days had passed since the asteroid scare, and since then, hers and Walter's relationship had taken a wonderful turn for the better. They loved each other, loved their life, the small foster family they had together, and the possibilities that each day brought. They even made love every single night, multiple times, as part of their new routine.

By habit, she glanced at her alarm clock and quietly groaned. It was six in the morning, and her body was naturally used to waking up for work. But today, she had the day off and could sleep in longer, and that was precisely what she was going to do.

Barbara nuzzled under Walter's jaw and wrapped her arms around his waist. He took a deep breath and pulled her in close but remained asleep. Minutes passed as she let Walter's familiar warmth lull her back to sleep when a sudden mewl from one of the babies in the next room made her jump slightly.

Blinking tiredly, she inhaled deeply and stayed in bed, wondering if one of them was having a dream but would fall back asleep; however, as a minute passed, the baby kept fussing. Sitting up, Barbara grabbed her glasses, placed them on her face, and quietly slipped out of bed.

A chill ran down her naked body as she quickly went over to her dresser, put on undergarments, then threw on a tank top and sleeping shorts for coverage. In the bed, Walter groaned, flipped onto his back, gave a loud snore, but didn't wake up.

Barbara smiled at him briefly before quietly making her way out of her bedroom and down the hallway towards the baby's in Jim's old bedroom.

When she reached to grab the door handle, she realized that the fussing baby had quieted down sometime while getting dressed. Feeling it was best to check on them anyway, Barbara carefully opened the door and tip-toed into the cramped room.

The crib closest to her, by the door, was Jeffrey's crib. She peeked her face over the top and smiled at the adorably chubby, blonde-headed baby boy, who was still sleeping deeply. Barbara then tip-toed around his crib, looking into the two against the wall.

Nomura Jr. and Sarah were also sleeping soundly, both having their fingers in their mouths sucking for comfort. She smiled lovingly at them, fixed one blanket over Nomura Jr. to better cover her, and then moved onto the last crib nearest the window where Walter Jr. slept.

Barbara wouldn't openly admit it, but when Jeffrey and Sarah were adopted by their new family, she wanted to discuss the option of adopting Walter Strickler Jr. with Walter as the father. She loved Walter, and though they hadn't further discussed the possibility of marriage, she knew that it was inevitable at this point. And Walter Jr. was like the second son she never had.

Barbara smiled at the concept of adopting and having another son to raise as she crept over to his crib. When she peered over the top of his crib, Walter Jr.'s soft blue baby blanket was bunched strangely, and his body appeared too lumpy.

Gently lifting the blanket to uncover his face, she gasped out loud, and her heart nearly stopped at what she saw.

Walter Jr. wasn't there.

Barbara's heart pounded in her ears, and her stomach clenched with the worst kind of anxiety. It was cold, hopeless, and utterly confused. She began racking her brain. Walter Jr. was in his crib last night, having put him there, herself, and she even checked up on all of them before she and Walter went to bed in the early morning, after their numerous times of lovemaking.

But, now, the baby was nowhere to be found.

Turning around, Barbara rechecked every single crib, making sure he wasn't sharing one by accident- but every child was accounted for and sleeping alone. Trying to remain calm, she then looked on the floor, crawled on all fours, and checked under the cribs if he crawled out and fell asleep somewhere. But still, nothing. He wasn't there.

The precious familiar child, both she and Walter loved, was gone.

Barbara checked all over the room more frantically. Under the cribs once more, in the closet, behind the door, but the baby boy wasn't there.

Standing up, she then crossed over to the window. It was locked and secured, but something twisted in her stomach. Other than the baby missing, something felt wrong.

Off.

Barbara clutched Walter Jr.'s blanket to her chest, tip-toed out of the room, and quietly shut the bedroom door. Then, she stood on the opposite side of it with eyes closed and heart-pounding, thinking about where he could be.

It didn't make sense.

The baby couldn't have left the crib on his own, opened the door, and walked away. The only explanation was that someone must have come in and taken him. Was that him who fussed mere minutes before she came to check up on him? Was that because someone had roused him when they took him out of his crib?

Barbara opened her eyes, stared at Jim's old door, and swallowed down her tears of panic. She thought about waking Walter and telling him that she couldn't find his Familiar anywhere, but if her panic and anxiety were almost too much to bear, then his would be too much for her to witness and handle.

Someone took the baby… but who?

Barbara took a shaky breath, controlling her tears, then had an idea and breathed, "NotEnrique."

The small changeling was constantly messing around with the babies, taking their bottles away, and played the role of the irritating older brother. Perhaps, he took him for some strange reason?

Barbara decided to let Walter keep sleeping as she strolled down the hallway to find out if Walter Jr. was downstairs. She peeked her head into her bedroom anyway, covering all bases in finding the baby, but he wasn't there. Walter was snoring and now had an arm outstretched on her side as if he were searching for her. But she didn't stay to admire him.

Barbara left their room, looked in the shared bathroom only to find it empty, then headed down the stairs. NotEnrique and sometimes Aaarrrgggghhhh slept in the basement, and that's where she was heading to ask if they had taken Walter Jr. from his crib when a shadow suddenly moved in her living room.

"Good morning, Doctor Lake."

The dark voice stopped Barbara cold in her tracks, and she froze where she stood. Her heart was pounding so badly, she swore she was about to pass out, and her legs shook like jelly.

Barbara slowly backed up and turned to face the shadowed figure sitting on the corner couch. The living room was bathed in soft blue light as the sun was getting closer to rising, and Barbara slowly moved towards the figure.

"Who… who's there?"

The figure stood and walked more into the light, and to Barbara's horror, Colonel Kubritz smiled darkly at her.

Barbara gasped, opened her mouth to scream to alert Walter, but Kubritz hissed, "scream, and you'll be very sorry, indeed. If you want this precious bundle back safely, you will stay silent."

Barbara's eyes wandered to the bundle in her arms and truly felt she was about to pass out. Colonel Kubritz was holding a sleeping Walter Jr. in one hand and a laser gun to his face in her other. Horror and utmost terror settled into Barbara's heart, and her blood ran cold.

"What… what are you doing here?" She gasped out. "H-how did you get into my house?"

"The window in the garage," Kubritz answered simply with a dark smile.

Barbara clenched her hands into fists, and her shock quickly turned into rage.

"Answer my first question then. What are you doing here?"

"Oh, well, now that the drama with the asteroid has passed, which you're welcome for, by the way. It was my military operations that eradicated Arcadia from being destroyed and wiped off the map." When Barbara didn't thank her or say anything, Kubritz continued, smirking. "I now have someone helping me track down the aliens I am after, which has opened up my schedule for other unresolved issues. So, I thought I would visit you."

"And you couldn't have just knocked like a normal person?" Barbara snapped.

"Would you have opened the door?" Kubritz asked smoothly, and when Barbara hesitated, she continued dryly, "I thought not. Regardless of how I'm here, what's important is that we have some unresolved things we need to talk about."

"I don't care what we have to talk about!" Barbara gasped, her voice quickly rose in hysterical outrage, "You… you have broken into my home without permission, taken my child from his crib! AND…!"

"Shhh…." Kubritz said softly, as Barbara's rising voice made Walter Jr. stir in her arms. "You'll wake the baby."

"But…!"

Kubritz then pointed the gun threateningly at Barbara, silencing her. "No. It's my turn to talk and your turn to listen."

When Barbara didn't say anything, Kubritz smiled darkly at her. "Cutting to the chase, Doctor, I know that you are hiding a secret- a huge secret, and the façade is now up."

Barbara narrowed her eyes. "What are you talking about?"

"There's something you're hiding, doctor. And I know what it is."

"Tell me your insane theories of what secrets you think I'm keeping when you have a warrant in your hand," Barbara snarled, unable to help herself. She felt motherly rage building up like an inner beast that has been caged for too long. "Now, give me back my child and get the hell out of my house! I won't ask again."

"Gladly," Kubritz replied with a nasty smile, "but just know, if I leave without getting the truth from you, I'm taking this little guy with me. Maybe I'll get what I'm looking for from him. As you very well know, since you're a doctor, DNA can tell a person a lot."

"You wouldn't dare!" Barbara snarled, taking a half-step towards her, but stopped when Kubritz raised the gun to her again.

"Wouldn't I? Honestly, I think I'll do whatever it takes to do my job. So, Doctor, if you want your little foster child back, you better listen up."

"Fine," Barbara gritted out, forcing herself to comply for Walter Jr.'s sake, "let's talk, Colonel. But, how's this for a threat? After we do, you're going to wish you never came here. I'm going to report you to your superiors and do whatever it takes to get you dishonorably discharged from the service. You're going to go to prison for this utter insanity!"

Kubritz, however, snorted. "Oh, spare me the melodrama, Doctor… you don't have the slightest comprehension as to what that would take to arrest me because I am the law and am untouchable." She smirked. "Now, onto you. I had one of my most trusted Sergeants run a background check on you when you approached me at the hospital."

"Why?" Barbara demanded. "I haven't done anything wrong!"

"Not quite," Kubritz said with a smile. "See, when I first met you, there was something about you that I couldn't quite shake, Doctor. I've worked with and questioned my fair share of guilty persons under a lie detector that I know what lies look like without it. I knew you were hiding something, Barbara Lake, so I had my Sergeant look up everything about you, but when the background check came out clean, I didn't believe it for a moment."

Barbara narrowed her eyes in confusion. "So, you decided to break into my house, take my child from his crib, and force me to talk because I have a clean background record, and you had a bad feeling about me?"

Kubritz grinned evilly. "Why, yes. That is precisely why I've come because your clean record is a lie. Now, I am on a tight schedule, so I thought it best to contact you directly."

Barbara took a step back, shaking her head, and exhaled, "you're insane!"

"Maybe so, but I believe in getting results. No matter what the consequence." Kubritz straightened her glasses but still held the sleeping Walter Jr. to her chest. Barbara glanced between her and the baby, racking her brain on how best to take him from her safely. "Now, let's talk about you. I sent two agents to follow you to retrieve information, but you know what they said to me when they did come back?"

"That you're an insane, psycho bitch who deserves life behind bars?"

"My men don't remember anything about my orders," Kubritz snapped, glaring at her, "which I thought to be strange. How could two highly trained officers forget that I had sent them out to follow you?"

"I don't know. It sounds like they are incompetent just like their leader, and therefore, isn't my problem," Barbara hissed. "Now, you'd better get to the point before I call the cops."

Kubritz, again, looked thoroughly amused by her threat. Instead, she adjusted Walter Jr. in her arms and began to sway with him. Barbara's blood boiled even more, and she clenched her hands so tightly her nails bit into her skin.

"It's more than that, Doctor Lake. I thought it was strange that some of my best-trained soldiers, who had straightforward orders, came back without knowledge of who they were." Barbara stilled. "That, and the fact that you then returned with a busted up face. I don't think that's a mere coincidence." Kubritz glared at Barbara with ice-cold rage. "Something happened when they approached you, and somehow their memories were wiped, and I'm going to find out how."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Barbara lied. "I never ran into them. And as for my face? I tripped when I took my run on my break. My glasses banged up my nose and cut underneath my eye. Regardless, my injury and their memories being gone don't make what you are doing remotely okay."

"Enough of this!" Kubritz suddenly kicked aside the coffee table, making Walter Jr. jump awake and start crying. Barbara stood her ground as the angry Colonel got inches from her face. "You know exactly what I'm talking about, Doctor Lake. You are a liar, and I'm about to prove it! The moment I began talking to you about those troll creatures from over three weeks ago, I saw the panic in your eyes. That's why I sent agents after you." Kubritz then pocketed her gun and waved a folder in her face. "When my Sergeant came back empty of information on you, I then took the initiative to find out more about you and did a little digging of my own, and what I've found has… intrigued me a great deal."

Barbara continued to glare at the Colonel for a few seconds, then gave in and looked down at the open folder. When she saw what it was, her face paled, her heart skipped a beat, and cold horror trickled down her spine.

They were photos of her and Walter kissing on the hospital roof the night of the asteroid scare.

"Where did you get these?" Barbara gasped, grabbing the photos and looking through them. It was her and Walter, and the intense way they were kissing in the photo was evidence of their love affair. She felt sick, exposed, and violated. This had to be a trick, but no matter how many times she tried to blink, the nightmare was still there.

Barbara slowly looked up into Colonel Kubritz's cold, dark eyes, and she grinned evilly. She was caught. The façade was up.

"How?" Barbara choked out, and Kubritz's sneer broadened triumphantly.

"I've stationed undercover officers at the hospital and all around town. Their job is to find anything alien, take photos of them, and then report it immediately to me." Kubritz turned and began sauntering around the room, trying to calm the wailing baby. "So, when they saw your changeling troll lover fly over their heads onto the roof, they climbed onto the adjacent roof and began documenting your little passionate love affair. When they showed me, and I saw that it was you, it was like receiving a paycheck. A huge and juicy paycheck. It made me happy. So happy that I just had to visit because I now have a lot of questions for you."

When Barbara still didn't speak, Kubritz leaned towards her.

"So," she whispered, "now that the ice has been broken, let's really talk, woman to woman. Tell me where your lover Changeling Troll is, and you'll get this child back, and nobody has to get hurt. Refuse, and I will take him to our testing facility. If he's been touched with troll magic, I plan to extract it from him." She raised her eyebrows. "Either way. I win."

Barbara's heart pounded so hard against her rib cage she swore she was going to pass out. A strange ringing in her ear made it hard to hear anything.

"How do you know about Changelings?" Barbara whispered, trying to get all the information she could from the Colonel. Over how much she knew.

"I know a lot of things," Kubritz breathed, her face triumphant. "I know about the existence of Aliens, Changelings, Trolls, the Heartstone in the troll market, and about magic. I know it was magic that took my poor soldier's memories away, I just don't know from whom yet, and I know that you and a bunch of citizens have been fostering children, who are the Changeling's Familiars." She paused and pulled out another picture."I also know another one of your little secrets."

Barbara's heart froze in her chest as she saw the picture was of Jim- back when he was a human.

"This is your biological son, is it not? James Lake, Jr.?"

Barbara couldn't find the words; she was trembling so badly. "Yes," she whispered, hating her. "That's my son, Jim."

"And where is he now?"

"Studying abroad with some friends for the summer," Barbara lied easily, but Kubritz only smirked more.

"Hmmm. Interesting. I didn't know Hoboken, New Jersey, was considered someplace abroad."

Barbara whipped her face up, terror clenching at every inch of her. "How did you-?"

"I've told you…." Kubritz breathed, gritting her teeth in a terrifying rage, "I know a lot more than you may think. Your boy, being somehow now a troll, has stirred up quite a bit of trouble for some of our other operation teams back East. The operations team has run data on his face and has passed information between every Special Operations team in the US." She smirked at her. "Now. I don't know how you and your changeling lover have managed to turn your son into a changeling, but I'm going to put a stop to it. It's unnatural and is a danger to humankind."

Barbara clenched her fists in rage.

Colonel thought that Jim's troll form was a product between her and Walter's romance? Though Kubritz was wrong, she was insane enough not to listen to reason. Right now, the babies, Jim, and Walter were all in tremendous danger.

"You're wrong," Barbara breathed, enraged. "You may know about the existence of Trolls, Changelings, magic, and you may even know the whereabouts of my son… but you're wrong about everything else. Trolls aren't a threat or danger to humankind. You are."

"I certainly am if you don't tell me where your changeling lover and the rest of his abominable kind are," Kubritz threatened. "In just a few short hours, I am going to rid this world of the aliens that have invaded this world, and I will do the same for those insufferable monster trolls. But first, you're going to tell me where they are."

"I thought you knew everything?"

"TELL ME!" Kubritz seethed, reaching for her gun, but Barbara crouched and was prepared to fight. She wasn't the best at it, but she had enough rage and adrenaline flowing through her veins that she wanted to do as much damage to the Colonel as possible.

"Over my dead body!"

"Oh-ho, that's easy enough," Kubritz whispered with an evil grin, pointing the gun at her face. "Is that your answer, then?"

"No," Barbara whispered, "this is!"

Crying out, she pounced, reaching for Walter Jr., while body slamming into Kubritz. Barbara got her arms around the tiny wailing babe as she hit the heavier Colonel into the bookshelf. She then forced the gun out of her hands.

The Colonel recovered quickly and punched Barbara in the face. With a painful grunt, Barbara fell to the floor, caging the screaming baby in her arms.

"Did you really think that pathetic attack was going to stop me?" Kubritz laughed, picking up her gun again and advancing on her. "I can't believe you, Doc. You're going to endanger all of those babies upstairs, your troll abomination of a son, and your precious monster lover by refusing to tell me where the trolls and changelings are? Are you that stupid? Here, I was hoping, since we're both strong women within a man's world, that you would be intelligent."

Barbara glared at her, gritting her teeth, then picked up a fallen book on the floor and chucked it at her head as hard as she could. The spine slapped the Colonel in the face, giving her a second to roll with Walter Jr. away, right as a bright green laser shot past her head.

Screaming and ducking, Barbara placed the screaming baby on the floor and then whirled around the wall right as the Colonel came out with the gun raised. Barbara braced both hands around the gun, and both fought for it, grunting, crying out, and fighting viciously.

Kubritz, being a bigger woman than Barbara, picked her up suddenly and tossed her across the room.

Barbara cried out as she slammed into the living room wall hard enough to take her breath away. Before her feet touched the ground, the Colonel was there again, grabbing her with two hands by the neck and slamming her head against the window, hard enough to crack the glass, and began choking her.

Barbara gasped against her hold, kicking and flailing, but the Colonel's strength was almost masculine-like, and she had no chance against her.

"You are going to pay for this crime, Doc," Kubritz seethed, clenching her fists tighter around Barbara's petite neck. "I'm not going to kill you, though I should. Instead, I think I'll have you watch as your infant foster son and your real monster troll son, Jim, pay the price for your actions. All it takes is one call to the Sniper Ops team, and they'll drop your precious troll son where he stands. How does that sound?"

Barbara opened and closed her mouth in a gape, like a fish out of water, trying and failing to unclench the Colonel's fingers from her neck. As her world began to fade, she saw the evil grin on Kubritz's awful face.

"The baby and all of his friends are also going to come with me back to headquarters. There, they will be tested and caged in our facilities for the rest of their lives."

Across the room, on the ground, Walter Jr. was screaming at the top of his lungs, wailing a most horrible sound, and yet, she could do nothing for him. Barbara shut her eyes, trying to breathe, but no air was reaching her lungs.

"Poor, Doctor Lake," Kubritz breathed mockingly, "you can't even protect your children." She then snorted. "Some mother you are."

Unable to answer, Barbara shut her tear-filled eyes and couldn't breathe. Her world spun sickeningly, and she was sure she was going to die. The Colonel had her windpipe completely closed off, and she was strangling her to death.

Barbara opened her mouth again to let in air, fight, and do anything- but she was too weak and had gone too long without oxygen to think correctly.

"It's a shame," Kubritz hissed, "you could have avoided all this pain if you just told me where your Changeling Troll lover was."

Barbara looked past Kubritz's shoulder and suddenly saw a pair of glowing yellow eyes and a darkened shadow sneaking up behind the Colonel. Relief filled her heart. Just then, something flashed in the darkness, and she realized that the shadowed figure was bearing two sharp knives.

Barbara opened her mouth to speak, but Kubritz sneered at her. "What's that? Are you now trying to tell me where he's at?"

Just then, a roar erupted behind them, making Kubritz jump in fright. She loosened Barbara's neck just enough for her to gasp in air and hoarsely whisper, "he's right behind you."