Spreading the News

By Princess Alexandria

has other stories that can't be posted here.

Email:  princess_alex24@hotmail.com

Alternate Universe Fiction

7 months and one week after conception

            The boxes littered the floor in her bedroom.  She still had another month before she had to be out of the apartment, but she was packing what she could early to send it ahead.  It gave her something to do.  She'd only been off work a week and she was already bored.  She was starting her packing with her closet.  Most of that stuff didn't fit right now anyhow.  She only had a few outfits that she could wear.  She didn't have an income since she couldn't claim maternity leave, so what money she had was going to more important things right now. 

            "Are you supposed to move around so much?"  Demona's voice startled Elisa who spun around to stare at the gargoyle in her bedroom doorway.  It took a moment for long learned fear to fade away.  Demona had visited quite a few times since last week, but Elisa had always known she was coming.  This was the first time that Demona just dropped by unannounced. 

            "The clothes aren't heavy."  She answered while noticing Demona glancing at the box that she'd started to pack with her skirts.

            "I never saw you in clothes like that."  Demona stepped into the room and glanced into the full wide-open closet.  "I always assumed you only had a few items of clothing."

            Elisa smirked self depreciatively.  "I only wear the skirts if I'm under cover.  It's hard to chase down a perp in them, which is why I wear jeans all the time."

            After the brief and slightly surreal experience of talking clothes with Demona, the gargoyle started to help her pack.

            Elisa folded over the last box and labeled it.  Demona moved closer.  "I'm moving that into the living room."  Elisa gave her a puzzled look.  "It's too cluttered in here."  Demona waved at all the empty drawers and filled boxes.  The closet was almost empty now that it only had clothes that fit in it.  Getting around in the room was like moving through a maze.

            Elisa watched at Demona started to grab the larger boxes and moved them to the far wall in the living room.  It was out of the way there and Elisa had intended to move the lighter boxes later, but Demona took care of those as well, not wanting Elisa to lift anything remotely heavy.  While the boxes would weigh next to nothing for the gargoyle, Elisa found herself watching Demona's.  She had to pull herself away from the sight of Demona working as the detective's own personal mover and started to label a few of the other boxes that still had to be moved.

            Once Demona placed the last box in the living room Elisa looked around and the emptiness of the room was a bit disturbing.  She'd lived here for years and it was starting to not feel like home.  Everything that she wouldn't need for the next few weeks from the bedroom was packed, and the room was sparse now.

            "There, now you shouldn't trip over it."  Demona's muttering under her breath in the living room wasn't as quiet as the gargoyle must have thought.  Elisa was surprised to hear that the gargoyle had moved all those boxes and stacked them up so neatly because she was concerned about Elisa tripping over them.  The detective had just thought it was Demona's own personal neat freak demons that made her detest the clutter.  The gargoyle was taking protecting to a whole new level, and the fact that it was Demona doing that stunned Elisa.  Goliath had in the past done strange little things to try and keep Elisa safe, but Elisa really didn't realize that Demona would be so protective of her.  Carrying Demona's baby had instantly earned Elisa a bodyguard.

            She shook herself out of her thoughts and went into the kitchen.  "Want something to drink?"  Elisa called out.

            "Sure."  Demona's voice was closer than Elisa had expected.  The gargoyle glanced at Elisa's belly and Elisa felt a little self-conscious.  She'd forgone clothes that would hide her pregnancy since she was planning to be alone and just wanted to be comfortable.  "When I was carrying Angela," Demona's voice was gentle and a soft smile was on her lips.  "I felt like I was getting ready to lay the biggest egg the rookery was ever going to see."  Elisa started to smile at Demona's expression.  "Luckily she wasn't even the largest egg of that season."

            Elisa hid a grin, "Are you telling me that I'm getting huge?"  She almost laughed at the suddenly wide eyed gargoyle trying to get out of that conversation, but she keep up a serious expression to make Demona squirm.

            "Well, no.  For a human you're not large at all."  Demona started to stare at the belly in question.  "If you were a gargoyle it might be a little large, but humans get bigger with their pregnancies."

            "I noticed."  Elisa remembered how Angela and the other females had looked right before laying their eggs.  "And don't think I'm not jealous.  A six month pregnancy is sounding really good right now."

            Elisa could see the darkness in Demona's eyes for a second and knew that Demona was thinking about how very quickly humans reproduced already.  This had happened before.  They'd be talking and getting along, but then something would trigger Demona's anger and hatred and Elisa would be able to see the gargoyle suddenly realizing that she was talking to a human. 

            "Mother?"  Angela's voice calling in from the skylight shocked them both into freezing in place for a second.  Elisa looked over to the female dropping to the living room floor while staring at them.  The wariness was easy to see and Elisa could understand that.  Demona used to only visit to try and kill Elisa, but they were now standing in the kitchen drinking and talking.  Elisa then turned a questioning look to Demona, who was still very tense.  They'd have to explain. 

            "So, do you want to or should I?"  Elisa said softly.  She'd been planning to tell Angela about her new sister for a while now, but after the way Goliath took the news she had been avoiding the castle for a while to give him time to adjust.  Demona nodded briefly, and then turned around to face the confused gargoyle in the living room.

            "Hello Angela."  Demona set her glass down and moved into the living room to give the young female a hug.  Angela's questioning look was aimed at Elisa while she hugged her mother back.

            Elisa watched quietly as Angela glanced around the room looking for some evidence of a fight.  "You didn't come to hurt Elisa did you?"  Angela was sounding very confused.

            "Your mother is actually here helping me pack."  Elisa smiled.  Demona turned to give Elisa a brief glare and Elisa's grin grew wider.  She knew it was her cruel streak re-asserting itself, but it was nice to not have to be the one to give the shocking news for once.  It took both of them to conceive this child, and now Demona was going to get to deal with her fair share of the responsibility in telling people.

            Demona had Angela sit down, but she was pacing around the living room silently.  Elisa debated about leaving Demona alone to do this, but wasn't feeling that cruel.  She moved to sit on the love seat and waited another moment.  If Demona didn't speak soon, she'd just start talking herself.

            "The Breeders moon."  Demona started and then turned to face Angela.  "We were captured by Quarrymen the night before."  Elisa was curious as to how much of the blame Demona was going to place at her feet for this whole thing, but she kept her face carefully neutral while watching the confusion growing on Angela's.  "I… We escaped."  Demona glanced at Elisa, and then down at the evidence of that night.  Elisa watched Demona seem to stand up straighter.  "There was a spell on Elisa… that damned Fey… and we…"  Demona sighed heavily and motioned towards Elisa.  "She's carrying our hatchling."  Demona really didn't win points for the most eloquent she's ever been, but Elisa could see Angela's eyes widening in understanding. 

            When Angela looked over at Elisa with those wide eyes asking for confirmation Elisa nodded just a little.  "Your carrying mother's child?"  Angela asked while staring at Elisa.  "How?"

            Elisa blushed at the memory of how she'd been with Demona, but that wasn't what Angela was really asking.  "Puck put a spell on me.  It made me very fertile on the Breeder's moon."  When Angela went quiet Demona started to look even more nervous.  Elisa started talking to interrupt the tense silence.  "Delilah is going to be born, she's not in an egg, but she is a gargoyle."

            "You mated with my mother?"  Angela stared at Elisa in disbelief.  Elisa blushed and stared down at her tightly clasped hands trying to regain her composure for this. 

            "Angela, honey.  Elisa and I were together, but it wasn't…"  Demona glanced at Elisa with a concerned expression on her face once before turning back to Angela.  "We bred but we didn't mate."  Elisa being a cop didn't miss the motion that Demona did with her hands, the pleading for Angela to not say anything more.  "We can talk about this later if you want."  Demona finally worded her request when Angela looked ready to ask more questions.

            Angela gave Demona a suspicious look before glancing at Elisa and noticing the detective's curious gaze.  "Okay.  Later."  Elisa glared at Demona.  It was so obvious that something was being kept from her.

            They stayed for an awkward visit for a little longer before Demona started to leave.  Angela followed her mother out with a determination in her eyes that let Elisa know that Demona was about to get interrogated.  The detective might hunt Angela down later to find out what was going on.

The Next Day

            Elisa opened the door so that Fox could come in.  The redhead glanced at the stack of boxes against the wall and then turned to glare at Elisa.

            "I had help.  I didn't lift those."  Elisa quickly defended herself.  That seemed to ease Fox's concern, but then the woman started to grin.

            "Anyone I know dropping by to help you out?"  Fox smirked at her.  "Goliath was away an awfully long time last night."

            Elisa sighed.  He was off brooding about Elisa's pregnancy; she was pretty sure about that.  She hadn't visited the castle since she told him.  He was her best friend and seeing that angry and hurt look in his eyes had been hard.  "No, I haven't seen him since I told him."  The look of quiet amusement died in Fox's eyes.  Fox was really the only woman that Elisa had to talk with about what she was going through.  The detective had been holding the woman at arms length in spite of all the help she was giving Elisa, because trusting her had been hard.  "Demona helped me pack.  She was worried that I'd do something to hurt the baby."  Once the look of surprise crossed Fox's face Elisa moved to sit down at the dining room table.  "I told her.  I felt she had a right to know."

            "Demona knows you're pregnant with a halfling and she isn't trying to kill you?"  Fox sat heavily in the chair across from Elisa.  Elisa had talked about telling Demona with Fox months ago, shortly before she actually did it.  Fox was convinced that the gargoyle would be upset with a partly human gargoyle.  While Elisa was concerned about that for a little while, she had decided to trust Demona not to purposely hurt a baby.  It was just her cop instincts that told her that Demona may be a killer, but she just couldn't do that.  She'd taken the risk of telling Demona and noticed that not once did the gargoyle suggest that anything should happen to the baby. 

            "After she got over the shock," Elisa gave Fox a slight smile.  "She seemed pretty excited about being a parent.  She's been visiting me a lot this last week."  Elisa noticed the searching look on Fox's face and couldn't help but blush.  She'd sounded entirely too happy with the gargoyle visiting her.  "She's just making sure I don't hurt Delilah.  She's under the impression that I tend to get into too much danger."

            "Well, I can see where she'd get that impression.  She did try to kill you dozens of times."  Fox's words didn't hold the disapproval that Elisa knew the clan would have when they heard everything.  For that she was grateful.  "Elisa, what are you doing?"

            "I never agreed with how Goliath cut Demona out of Angela's life, but she wasn't my daughter.  I just told him what I thought and let him make his own decisions."  Elisa's voice became more confident.  "But this is my little girl, and I won't do that to either of them.  I've seen how upset it makes Angela when she wants to see her mother but can't.  I've held her while she cried about being torn between her parents.  Delilah will never feel like that!  I'm not cutting Demona out of Delilah's life."

            "Are you sure about this?"  Fox stared into Elisa's eyes, clearly concerned.

            "No."  Elisa sighed.  "I'm not sure about anything, but I'm doing it.  All I can do is what I think is right and hope for the best.  I wasn't sure I was going to do it, but Demona saved me last week.  I was cornered by a perp that held a grudge and she saved me and started to lecture me about endangering the baby.  She looked scared.  That's when I made up my mind."

            "Well, that isn't what I expected."  Fox sat back in her chair.  "But if your mind is already made up."  Fox gave her a small smile.  "I know better than to try and change it.  So, you decided on a name.  Delilah sounds pretty."

            Elisa reached across the table and squeezed Fox's hand in thanks.  Too bad the clan wasn't going to be as understanding.

            The talked about moving arrangements, pregnancy, and the clan for the better part of an hour, before Fox finally asked something that she'd obviously been thinking about for a while,  "How did you manage to get Demona on the Breeders moon?"  Elisa blushed but wasn't surprised with the blunt question.  She was surprised that Fox had managed to not ask it until now.  That woman was nothing if not direct when it came to anything to do with sex.  "I saw the others and what they did.  I just can't imagine that you would have been able to do that."

            "What are you talking about?"  Elisa made love to Demona, but there was nothing that they did that Elisa thought Fox would wonder if she could do.

            Fox raised an eyebrow at Elisa's question, but she answered.  "The females took off from the castle wall and glided as fast as they could away from the castle.  The males chased them in pursuit and when they caught up to them all they did was capture them for a moment before letting them go.  The females then lead their male away to some other place to complete things.  I didn't get to see that."  Fox's voice got softer.  "I didn't understand why they did all of that, but Hudson explained it to me.  The males show their worth as a hunter when they are able to catch their mate.  Letting the mate go gives the female a choice on whether they respect the male enough to lead them away to a secluded place to mate.  If there wasn't respect, the male would be forced away and not let near her again that night while she looks for another worthy mate."

            Elisa went quiet and stared at the wall while she remembered that night.  She'd been running behind Demona, but she did catch up to her and held her still long enough to get that straightjacket off of her.  It was an eerie coincidence that their night did have a chase.  And she'd let Demona go, after freeing her… Demona had led them to that cave, because Elisa couldn't see well enough to find shelter on her own.  At that time Demona didn't suggest that Elisa find her own shelter.  She'd willingly lead Elisa to the cave, even helping her to get there.  Did that mean that Demona had deemed her worthy at that point?  Is that what those strange looks from her were about?  Demona's one attempt to get Elisa to leave was so weak that Elisa knew it was just being said because Demona thought that she should.

            "Elisa?"

            Elisa shook herself out of those thoughts to pay attention to the redhead in front of her.  "I didn't know all of that."  She silently cursed the fact that she'd avoided asking questions, because she was worried that Goliath would take her asking to mean she wanted to mate with him.  She'd mimicked all the courting rituals without even realizing it.  Did Demona think she knew what she was doing?

Two Days Later

            Elisa felt like she'd rather keep driving, but she pulled into the airport pick up lane when she saw her mother wave to her from the sidewalk.  She looked down and made sure her jacket covered the tell tale bulge.  Her mother had left for Africa shortly before Elisa found out about the pregnancy, and Elisa had been reluctant to tell her about it over the phone.  In fact she was reluctant to tell her at all, but it wasn't the sort of thing she couldn't hide forever.

            She really didn't know how her mother would take this.  Elisa was an unwed mother of a gargoyle baby.  And to top that off, it was Demona's child.  Diane Maza had heard a little bit about Demona from the clan, and while Elisa demanded that the clan not scare her mother with the details, the idea that Demona was dangerous was still easily communicated.

            When she drove up to her mother's house Derek was just getting home from work.  He was still living at home until he had enough saved for a down payment for his and Maggie's first house.  Their mother was waiting until he moved out to sell the house.  Their father had died last year, in a car accident, and Elisa's mother didn't need such a large house for just herself.  It had shocked everyone that he'd been a police officer all those years and then died getting groceries.  Elisa felt a wave of pain at the thought that Delilah would never see her grandfather.

Elisa got out and took the lighter of the bags her mother had with her, rather than going for a heavier one like she'd normally do.  "Hey, Derek!  Give us a hand over here."  She hollered out to her brother. 

            While thinking about her own unwed mother situation, Elisa couldn't help but think of Derek's soon to be wife, Maggie.  Somehow Derek had managed to date a Broadway actress.  She seemed so shy in person that it was hard to believe she walked about the stage in those skin tight outfits in full makeup.  She was getting regular work out of playing a singing cat, since it was a favorite around here and had been for a while.  Her natural shyness made her an odd choice for Elisa's outgoing brother, but they had been together for a couple of years and were still going strong.

            "Take your coat off and stay a while."  Diane Maza told Elisa as she took the last of her bags upstairs. 

            Elisa sighed heavily but didn't move to do that just yet.  Derek was inching towards the door.  "I'm meeting Maggie's parents tonight."

            Elisa gave him a small encouraging smile.  "Good luck with the future in-laws."

            "This is one particular pain that you were spared."  He changed his coat to a nicer one.  "You already know the entire clan."

            Elisa grimaced as she realized that her brother was yet another person that assumed that she and Goliath were more than friends.  "I'm not dating him."  She protested but he just smiled at her and left.  Boy, was he going to be surprised when he found out. 

            "You are staying aren't you?"  Her mother's voice pulled Elisa's eyes away from the closed door.

            "Yes, I am."  Elisa's heart was pounding like it did when she was chasing some crook through the alleys.  "We need to talk."

            Elisa could see her mother instantly knew that this was something serious.  She moved to sit on the couch and Elisa sat down beside her while still wearing her coat.  It was warm in here, but she wasn't letting her mother find out by seeing it.  "Mom."  Elisa sighed.  "I'm pregnant." 

            "What?"  Her mother looked stunned for a moment.  Elisa took that moment to pray for strength, because this was not easy.

            "I didn't realize it when you left, but I've been pregnant for a while."  Elisa sighed.  "She's a gargoyle."

            "Goliath's?"  Elisa was impressed with how easily her mother seemed to be accepting that her grandchild would be a gargoyle, but she sounded so sure that it was Goliath's child. 

            "No."  Elisa saw a lot of surprise then.  "It takes magic for a gargoyle and human to have a baby.  I had a spell on me and didn't know.  It was pretty powerful."  Elisa stared into her mothers eyes.  "It even made it possible for Demona to get me pregnant." 

            Elisa stood up and took the coat off then.  It was far too warm inside, and it was proof.  She could see her mother didn't quite believe her.  "I'm almost seven and a half months pregnant."

            "How could you not have known before I left for Africa?"  Diane's voice rose a little.  "I would have stayed."

            "Mom, detective work is hard on a woman's body.  I haven't really been getting regular periods for years, and I didn't think that what Demona and I did… would lead to this."  Elisa sat back down.  "I didn't know about the spell."

            "So are you and… God, isn't Demona the one that the clan told me about?"

            Elisa spent the next half hour explaining that yes, Demona was the clans enemy, but she was going to be a parent to Delilah.  She also explained why she'd be living with the clan in the castle.  Her mother's strange quiet gave Elisa a new sympathy for what Demona had felt while telling Angela.  When she left the house an hour later Elisa felt like she had just run a marathon.  It was pretty strange.  She could have sworn that her mother was more upset with the fact that Elisa didn't have a lover to help her through this than with the fact that her grandchild wasn't human.  She'd asked a few times about Demona's feelings about humans, and about Elisa in particular.  When Elisa made it clear that Demona still hated humans, and didn't want a relationship with Elisa, her mother had seemed upset and started asking how Demona was going to share responsibility for Delilah.