Partum

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Jet's eye began twitching in his sleep. He rubbed his nose, sniffed, and rolled over. Something was missing. There was a cool spot on the mattress where a warm body usually was. Jet's conscious continued to float through the ether, barely registering that this wasn't too unusual. Faye had terrible trouble sleeping lately and tended to get up several times a night. But tonight, there was a different aura in the room. The spot on the mattress usually taken up by her bulk was cooler than usual. And where Faye usually just paced around the suite in silence, this time she seemed to be making more noise. A lot more noise.

Jet reached over towards the lamp and clicked it on. The bedside clock said 4:17 a.m. Grunting, Jet rolled out of the bed and got to his feet. He walked stiffly out to the front room of the suite, where he saw Faye muttering to herself as she waddled around the room, washcloth in hand, dusting everything in sight.

Dusting? "Faye?" Jet rubbed his nose again. "Faye, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she snapped, as she ran her finger along the top of a framed picture.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm nesting."

Jet raised an eyebrow. "Care to translate that for me?"

Faye's fingers wrapped so tight around the cloth that her knuckles turned white. She turned to Jet with tears in her eyes, and she wailed, "I'm trying to clean, I want the place to be clean!" She slapped her leg with the cloth. "It needs to be clean, but I'm supposed to clean, but the – the. . ." The tears spilled over. "The maids keep coming in here and cleaning everything." Faye put one hand on the wall next to her, supporting herself, and she hung her head and sniffed.

Jet blinked. "Do you want me to mess the place up for you?" But Faye didn't answer. She stood still and began breathing hoarsely. "Because I'll go find a vacuum cleaner and empty the bag over the whole place if that'll help." Faye lifted her head a bit, and her face was set in a grimace. Then she began to breathe again. "Faye? Was that a contraction?"

Faye looked at Jet, her face red. "Yeah."

"Just how long have you been in labor?"

"For a couple of hours."

Jet's eyes boggled. "And you were planning on waking me up when? When the kid's swinging on the umbilical cord between your legs?" Faye snorted at him, and Jet came over and put a supporting arm around her bulging waist. "Christ, Faye, why do you have this habit of never telling me anything?"

"I wanted to let you sleep while you could. Besides, the contractions are still very far . . . eeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaggggggghhhhhh. . ." Faye dropped into a half-crouch, squeezing Jet's hand hard. She took a breath. "Okay, they used to be pretty far apart."

"I better call your doctor."

"I already did. He said there wasn't a hurry until the contractions got much closer together."

"Humor me, Faye. Let's get moving. Put some slippers on or something."

"I can't see my feet. You put them on."

Jet laughed; he couldn't help it. But he dressed quickly and bundled Faye into a robe and slippers and escorted her out to the taxi queue. He thought that Faye was being unusually intrepid, but he was also smart enough to make her squeeze his cybernetic hand instead of his flesh and blood one. Once the taxi was moving, he called Spike and Ed on the comm., and Ed's bright face popped up on the screen.

"Hello soon-to-be-again-Papa Jet!"

"You're up early. Listen, Faye's . . ."

"In labor! Push-push-push Faye-Faye! We're already on our way!"

"Why am I always the last to know?" Jet grumbled at no one in particular.

"Because Papa-Jet's grumpy all the time."

"Let me talk to Spike."

"Spi-spi's sleeping."

"You're flying the Bebop? I never taught you how to fly that ship!"

"Papa never taught Spike, either, and, given the choice, wouldn't Papa rather Ed fly this space-bucket? Faye-faye needs you, we'll see you soon." Ed clicked off the comm.

Jet looked over at Faye, who was giggling in between breaths. "What's so funny?"

"I read . . .that children revert backwards in their behavior. . . when a new baby . . . is brought in to the family. . . Ed's talking . . . like she's thirteen . . . again."

Jet smiled. "Maybe's she's as excited as I am."

Faye returned the smile, but wanly. "Spike doesn't . . . seem excited."

"Spike can sleep through Armaggedon, so I wouldn't take it personally." Faye grunted. "Are you in a lot of pain?"

"Wouldn't it . . . hurt you to pull the. . . Hammerhead . . . out your nostril?"

"Point taken," replied Jet, as he squeezed her hand.

Jet and Faye made it to the hospital without incident, which made the cabbie grateful. Faye was instantly whisked away to be prepped while Jet filled out form after form. By the time he caught up with her again, she was in a hospital bed, looking a little ragged. She looked at Jet and said, "I need a drink."

Jet chuckled. "You can have ice chips, apparently."

"Are they made out of vodka?"

"Sorry, but no."

Faye groaned. "I hate you."

"Yeah, and I suspect you'll hate me a lot more soon. Didn't they give you anything?"

Faye scoffed. "I've had stronger scotch." Then she suddenly rolled out the bed and said, "Walk with me."

"Why?"

"It'll bring it on faster."

"You're the boss." And Jet put Faye on his arm, escorting her around the nurse's desk, playing the waiting game.

Spike was stretched out on the couch, hand over his eyes, when he felt the distinct jostle of the Bebop coming to an abrupt stop, which startled him out of his dream of Esperanto-speaking, mud-wrestling stewardesses. He frowned, then yelled, "Ed?"

He heard Ed yell back. "Sorry!"

"What did you do?"

"Um . . . We just landed."

Spike rose and grumbled his way to the cockpit. Ed was frantically working the controls. "Landed how, Ed?"

"You try parallel parking this boat!" Ed snapped as she thumped the control panel. Spike reached over and pressed a single control, which stopped the rocking of the Bebop. Ed blew her hair out of her eyes. "Thanks. We should get a more controllable ship."

Spike smirked. "We?"

Ed blushed from stem to stern. "Well . . . I meant – Papa should maybe upgrade."

Spike ruffled Ed's hair. "I think between Faye and the baby, he already did."

Ed was silent for a moment, and then said, "That was really cheesy." Spike laughed, helped Ed button up the ship, and then they both proceeded to the hospital.

Jet had no experience with babies and their delivery schedules, but it seemed to him that Faye was moving through the process extremely quickly. He'd heard horror stories about women in labor for twenty-four, thirty-six, seventy-two hours, but the doctor had arrived and let them know that the baby would be crowning very shortly.

On the other hand, this whole process couldn't end quickly enough for Faye. She had vague memories that the women of her family were intrepid and quick birthers, and she flashed on an old story of a great-aunt who delivered in the vineyard during harvest and went back to picking after washing down the infant with freshly stomped chardonnay grapes. Fortunately, the drugs she had been given took a significant edge off the pain. And they kept walking, around and around the nurses' station while Faye had flashbacks of walking similar strolls on Spike's arm.

And then a terrible contraction ripped through her abdomen as her water broke. Jet yelped, and Faye chuckled tiredly and muttered, "Clean-up on aisle five." Nurses and orderlies appeared out of nowhere and whisked Faye away again to prep her for the delivery, hooking her up to a fetal heartbeat monitor, and settling her into stirrups. Then the doctor appeared, in scrubs from head to toe, saying, "Okay, Faye, let's jam!" Faye's response was to verbally abuse everyone with ears in the tri-city area. The doctor grinned at Jet over his mask and said, "Yep, she's gonna do just fine."

Jet thought so too, as Faye went through the textbook litany of this stage of labor: she went from abusive and frustrated to weepily begging for a tuna sandwich to having no clue what time it was; she shook, hiccupped, and vomited – this time, Jet called for the clean-up on aisle five – and then Faye hyperventilated, moaned, cried, and screamed, nearly all at the same time. If Jet hadn't been so completely overwhelmed, he would have been laughing.

Finally, it was time to push. Faye pushed with every contraction until her hair was soaking with sweat and her face was purple. She could feel the infant bearing down, and nearly her entire focus was on squeezing that darn kid out, until she heard the dreaded word "episiotomy". Suddenly, she screamed, "You get anywhere near me with that knife and I'll episiotomy you into the next damned century!"

The doctor sighed. "Faye . . ."

"I will rip off your goddamned baby-making trouser-rat and shove it up your ass like a goddamned roman candle!"

There was silence in the room for a moment, punctuated only by Faye's hoarse breathing. Jet finally said, quietly, "Please do as she says, because I'm afraid that I'm next."

The doctor's eyes met Jet's. "Okay, then. Give it a push, Faye." Faye grunted again, and she pushed with every muscle in her body. "Good one, Faye! We've got a head with two of all the right things and a mess of black hair! Let's do that again!" Faye took a deep breath and pushed with all her might, grinding her teeth and nearly denting Jet's cybernetic hand. And she felt the sweet relief of the baby's body leaving hers. Faye took another breath, and started saying, "Is the baby okay? Why isn't it crying? What's wrong?"

Jet couldn't see anything that was going on down there. All he heard was some murmuring between the doctor and the nurses. Panic set in. "Doctor? What's happening?"

"Hold on," replied the doctor. Faye and Jet exchanged glances, and Faye's face was falling into despair. Then there was suddenly a chuffling noise from the doctor's hands. "There you go. That's what I wanted to hear." There was a whimper, and an earnest cry. The doctor grinned at Jet and Faye over his mask and said the three most glorious words that Faye had ever heard.

"It's a boy."

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It's a boy!

This is a work of fiction, and the CB characters are copywrited by someone other than me. Please leave a review!