Arrest

"That," Freddie said, walking into his and Sam's bedroom and collapsing next to his wife on the bed. "Was excruciating. Every inch of my body aches right now. You have no idea how exhausted I feel right now."

"You're right," Sam said, not looking up from her phone. "You spent the last twenty minutes giving two four-year olds a bubble bath. I've only spent the past eight-and-a-half months growing an entire person. It's no comparison."

"Emma spilled the entire container of bubble bath into the tub," Freddie pointed out. "And Ashton tried to was her hair with grape jelly instead of shampoo."

"How'd she get grape jelly into the-"

"I don't know," Freddie said, shaking his head. "And then Jason tried out some science experiment he came up with after dinner. He tried to make a baking soda volcano with double vinegar. Turns out that causes an explosion twice as big."

"Well why would you let him even try that out?" Sam frowned.

"I couldn't squash his love of science," Freddie replied. "But now the kitchen's a complete mess, just like the bathroom."

"Ugh, are you sure you can handle me being on bed rest until this baby comes?" Sam sighed.

"Yes," Freddie said firmly. "Sam, come on, you remember what the doctor said. You need to keep your stress level down."

"I know, but-"

"Don't worry about me, I can deal with the kids," Freddie assured her. "The important thing is that you just relax."

"Fine," Sam said, looking back down at her phone. "Though my mom's making that kind of impossible to do at the moment."

"What's going on?" Freddie frowned.

"She went on a 'weekend getaway' to Canada," Sam sighed. "And she's being her usual self there. She's been in the country for less than two hours now and she's already almost got into a fight because some woman at a gas station didn't say 'bless you' when she sneezed. My mom's already been arrested three times this year and if she gets in trouble again her parole officer said that she's probably going to have a harder time getting the charge dropped! Plus if she gets in trouble in Canada, not only is she gonna miss seeing this new baby when it's born, there's going to be a ton of other issues because she's in another country! And I'm always the one who has to deal with everything when she gets arrested!"

"Okay, okay, calm down," Freddie said, putting an arm around her. "Breathe, Sam. Stressing about your mom is definitely not good for you or the baby."

"Well I just know she's gonna do something stupid!" Sam snapped. "All that maple syrup up there gets her all hopped up!"

"I'm sure she'll keep herself out of trouble," Freddie said, though not believing his own words.

"Please, that woman hasn't gone on a single trip without doing something that lands her in a police station," Sam muttered darkly.

"Well…maybe this time will be different," Freddie said optimistically. "Come on, put your phone down and let me rub your feet. That should make you feel better."

"I want ham," Sam said, leaning back against her pillows.

"Okay…well I'll got get you ham," Freddie shrugged, getting up.

"You jerk!" Sam snapped. "You know I can't have ham! It always makes me sick when I'm pregnant!"

"Sorry, sorry, I-I forgot," Freddie said quickly. "Um…I can bring you up some peanut butter? You love peanut butter when you're pregnant!"

"I do…" Sam nodded. Suddenly her scowl disappeared and she began crying. "God Freddie, you're always so good to be when I'm pregnant."

Freddie smiled, all too familiar with Sam's mood swings.

"It's no trouble at all, baby," Freddie said.

And just like that, Sam's eyes narrowed again. "No chiz it's no trouble. All you have to do during this whole pregnancy is get me a snack every once in a while. I have to deal with the morning sickness and the bloating and the heartburn and the backaches and everything!"

"You're one hundred percent right," Freddie said, kissing her temple.

…..

"I don't even know why this coffee table is sticky," Freddie sighed the next afternoon as he attempted to clean the living room. "And why is there glitter everywhere?"

Just then the front door opened and Carly walked in.

"Hey," she smiled. "Whoa, it's a mess in here!"

"Yeah, thanks," Freddie snapped.

"Where are the kids?" Carly asked, looking around.

"I dropped them off at my mom's so I could try to get some cleaning done around here," Freddie said. "But at this point I think it's useless to even attempt."

"You can't wait for Sam to be off of bed rest, can you?" Carly chuckled.

"Well once she is, we'll have a fourth kid, which won't exactly make things more peaceful," Freddie pointed out.
"What if she winds up having another set of twins?" Carly asked.

"Don't even joke," Freddie warned.

"How's Sam doing, anyway?" Carly asked.

"I think she's starting to go a little stir crazy," Freddie said. "So this morning she came down here for a little bit so she could spend some time with the kids. Now she's upstairs napping."

"Darn," Carly said. "I wanted to discuss last night's America Sings with her. Our favorite contestant with the great hair and washboard abs got sent home."

"I know, she was real torn up," Freddie said, rolling his eyes. "But she'll probably be up in a little bit if you want to wait around. She can't sleep more than an hour at a time without having to wake up to pee, so-"

Just then a loud ringing sound echoed through the room.

"What's that?" Carly asked, looking around. "Hey, it's Sam's phone."

"Oh yeah, she must've left it down here this morning," Freddie said, picking up his wife's red Pearphone. "I guess-Oh no!"

He glanced down at the screen and saw a Canadian number.

"What?" Carly asked, confused.

"This can't be good," Freddie sighed, answering Sam's phone. "Hello?"

"Is this Samantha Benson?" a voice on the other line answered.

"Um…this is her husband," Freddie replied. "Sam is…unavailable right now. Can I ask who's calling?"

"This is Joan Beckensquash," the woman replied. "I'm calling to inform Mrs. Benson that her mother is being detained her at East Ontario jail."

"Er, what-what did she do?" Freddie asked nervously.

"She tried to dump a box of lobsters onto a mime at the city park this morning," Joan replied.

"Ah," Freddie nodded. "Sounds…accurate. Okay, well, what's the process for getting her out?"

"Excuse me?"

"I can wire money over for bail," Freddie said. "Or I can-"

"Sir, you can't just pay for her to get out of jail," Joan said. "Especially since she's not a citizen here."

"Okay…so what can I do?" Freddie frowned. "She can't just stay in jail. My wife will freak out, which cannot happen right now, so-"

"We need valid ID for Ms. Puckett for starters," Joan said. "Look, sir, I'm very busy and I don't have time to go over the entire procedure with you. Ms. Puckett told us, er, well, she's been shouting at us for the past hour, that her daughter knows exactly what to do. Just let your wife handle this."

"No!" Freddie said. "I can't! She's pregnant and she can't get stressed right now, and this is exactly the kind of thing that will-hello? Hello? Ugh! She hung up on me!"

Freddie angrily tossed aside Sam's phone. "So much for Canadians being overly nice!"

"Sam's mom got arrested?" Carly said. "Wow…her first international arrest. Pam Puckett is really shooting for the stars."

"I have to get her out," Freddie said, running his fingers through his hair. "Sam's gonna go nuts if she realizes her mom's gonna miss the baby being born because she's in a Canadian prison."

"So just go ask Sam what to do," Carly said.

"Did you not hear what I told Joan?" Freddie snapped. "I can't! Sam can't deal with the stress right now!"
"Well do you know what to do?" Carly asked.

"No!" Freddie moaned. "Wait…you think maybe Spencer will know anything? He was at law school for a few days!"

Carly raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I didn't think so," Freddie sighed.

"Doesn't Sam's mom have a lawyer on call for this kind of stuff?" Carly asked.

"Yes!" Freddie nodded, jumping up. "Yes, she does! Good thinking, Carly! I just have to call that lawyer! I think her name is…Ira! Yeah, Ira! She's been dealing with Sam's mom for decades! Sam must have her number!"

He scrolled through Sam's contacts and finally found a number for someone named Ira. He quickly selected the number and pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hello?" a woman on the other line answered.

"Hi, Ira?" Freddie said. "Are you the lawyer for Pamela Puckett?"

"Oh God, what is it now?" the woman sighed.

"Er, I'll take that as a yes," Freddie said. "I'm Freddie Benson, Sam's husband. I don't think we've had the, um, pleasure of meeting, but we have a situation…she just got arrested in Canada and-"

"An international arrest?" Ira said. "Oh that's serious."

"Er, serious enough for her not to be able to be let out?" Freddie asked nervously.

"No, I can get her out, I think," Ira sighed. "But she's probably going to have to wind up surrendering her passport indefinitely. Honestly though, that may be for the best. That woman should not be allowed to travel."

"Yeah…I can't argue there," Freddie said. "So you're going to handle everything then?"

"I'll book my flight to Canada now," Ira said, not sounding too happy. "The travel fee is getting added to my bill, though."

"Um, that's fine," Freddie said.

"And you need to email me all of the usual forms," Ira said.

"Forms?" Freddie repeated.

"Oh yeah, there's a ton of them," Ira replied. "Try to email them to me as soon as possible, so I can get them in order during the plane ride."

"Er, right," Freddie said. "Um, can you tell me exactly what forms you need or-"

"There's too many for me to list you off the top of my head," Ira said. "But like I said, they're the usual forms. Sam will know what to do. Just have her do it."

"Well, um, see, that's not really an option right-"

"Okay, I need to start getting ready to get to the airport," Ira said heavily. "Unbelievable…I finally find a high-quality version of Footloose online…"

"Wait, but-" Freddie started, but Ira had already hung up. "Great! I have no idea what forms I'm supposed to send her!"

"Well then I really think you need to tell Sam," Carly said. "Think about it; if you wind up doing something wrong and her mom has to stay in jail for a long time, she's gonna be way more stressed. Just bring her up a pint of chocolate ice cream and break the news to her gently."

"Have you dealt with a pregnant woman before?" Freddie scoffed.

"I was pregnant, remember?" Carly pointed out.

"Yeah, and from what I remember you were just as crazy as Sam," Freddie muttered under his breath.

"What now?"

"Nothing," Freddie said quickly. "Look, Sam's hormones have been extra active this pregnancy, which means her mood swings have been insane. There's no way I can tell Sam about this without having her stress levels soar. It's fine, I can deal with this. I-I'm sure Sam has all the forms neatly organized in a folder in our office."

Carly stared at him.

"Yeah, alright, that's not likely," Freddie sighed. "But I'm sure if I look online I can figure out what I need."

"Freddie, I don't think this is going to-"

"Carly, please, I've got this under control," Freddie said.

….

"Ugh! There needs to be something here!" Freddie moaned, digging through the large file drawer in the downstairs office. He had spent the past hour looking online, trying to find exactly what he was supposed to be looking for, but had wound up just getting more confused. So he decided instead to just send Ira anything he could find with Pam's name on it. The problem was, he hadn't found anything with her name.

"Maybe Sam keeps that stuff at her mom's house," Freddie thought aloud to himself. "Actually…probably not. She always says that that place is a dumpsite. Even she wouldn't keep important stuff there."

He looked at his watch. He really needed to get Ira the paperwork. He knew he didn't have a chance of finding the forms, especially since he still didn't know exactly what he was looking for. Sam was his only chance of getting what he needed, but he couldn't risk having her stress herself out.

I'll just have to get her to tell me where she keeps the forms without letting her know why I need them, Freddie thought to himself.

He stepped out of the office and headed up the stairs to his and Sam's bedroom.

"Hey, you're up!" Freddie said cheerfully, seeing Sam flipping through a magazine on the bed.

"Had to pee," Sam said simply.

"Why didn't you yell? I could've helped you up," Freddie frowned.

"Dude…I can walk the ten steps to the bathroom," Sam said, rolling her eyes. "The doctor did say that was fine."

"Alright," Freddie said.

"Oh, but I think I left my phone down in the living room this morning," Sam said. "Can you go grab it for me? I'm getting bored and I've been on a real roll playing Pak Rat. I'm starting to see why Spencer's so obsessed with that game."
"Well hey! I have an idea!" Freddie said, sitting down next to her. "If you're bored we can play the hypothetical game! We give each other hypothetical situations and say how'd we hypothetically react to them."

"What? No, that sounds dumb," Sam said. "Just go get me my phone."

"Come on, you'll love it!" Freddie said. "I'll go first. Alright, let's say, hypothetically, your mom got arrested, what would you do?"

"Huh?" Sam frowned. "How is this fun? I thought I wasn't supposed to think about my mom getting arrested so I won't get stressed."

"Yes, but this is a hypothetical situation," Freddie pointed out. "So no need to stress!"

Sam gave him an odd look.

"So come on, what would you do?" Freddie urged.

"Um…I dunno, I guess I would call Ira," Sam shrugged.
"Already did," Freddie said promptly.

"What?"

"Nothing!" Freddie said quickly. "Alright, so you've called Ira. Let's say Ira asked you to send over the 'usual forms'. What would you do?"

"Send her the forms, I guess," Sam said, still giving her husband a strange look.

"Great! Now which forms exactly?" Freddie asked, pulling out his own phone so he could type them down.

"Why do you need the exact forms? I thought this was hypothetical," Sam said.

"I, er, just want to instill a sense of reality in this game," Freddie said lamely.

"So you want to make your hypothetical game as realistic as possible?" Sam frowned. "That doesn't make sense! The whole point of something being hypothetical-"

"Just tell me the forms!" Freddie exclaimed. "Er…please?"

"Come on, I'm sick of this game," Sam said, struggling to sit up. "And now you've got me so annoyed I need to pee again."

"Okay, well maybe with an empty bladder you can think more clearly about those forms," Freddie said, helping Sam up.

"No, I'm done with this weird game," Sam said. "Just go get my phone. I'm supposed to call Melanie and if I don't, then she's gonna bug me and-"

"Melanie!" Freddie gasped. "Of course! That's it!"

"What's it?" Sam asked, confused. "Okay, seriously, why are you being so-"

"Hey, you-you want some ice cream?" Freddie said, hoping to distract his wife. "With extra chocolate sauce?"

Sam glared at him.

"And white chocolate chips?" Freddie added, smiling sheepishly.

Sam rolled her eyes. "I want four scoops."

….

"Alright, come on, Melanie," Freddie said later on, having just finished helping Sam back into bed and delivering her a mountain of ice cream. He dialed his sister-in-law's number on his own phone and anxiously pressed the phone to his ear.

"Freddie?" Melanie said on the other line.

"Hey, Mel!" Freddie said.

"Freddie! Oh, good to hear from you!" Melanie said happily. "How are you? How's Sam? Has the baby come yet?"

"No, not yet," Freddie replied. "Hopefully Sam can hang in there at least another couple of weeks."

"She's supposed to call me," Melanie said. "I want to tell her about this adorable sailor's outfit I picked up for the baby if he's a boy!"

"Er, well, she-she's been sleeping," Freddie said quickly. "But listen, you know that Sam's on bed rest because she's supposed to be watching her stress levels, right?"

"Right," Melanie said. "And she's doing that, right?"

"Yeah, I've been working for home the past few weeks so I can take over with the kids," Freddie said.

"You're such a sweet husband," Melanie said.

"Er, thanks," Freddie said. "But, um, see, something came up today that, if Sam finds out about, will make her very, very stressed."
"What?" Melanie asked slowly.

"Your mom got arrested in Canada," Freddie said bluntly.

Melanie let out a long groan.

"My feelings exactly," Freddie nodded. "And normally Sam deals with everything. But, well, like I said, she's supposed to be relaxing. I already contacted your mom's lawyer and she says she can most likely get her out, but I'm supposed to send over some forms, but I don't know which forms, and I've got to get them sent over soon, but I can't ask Sam directly, and she's not answering me indirectly and-and-"

"Freddie, slow down," Melanie said. "It's okay."

"You know what forms I need to send?" Freddie asked.

"Yeah, I have them all on my computer," Melanie nodded. "Sam used to just have the hard copies, but a few months ago she uploaded them all to her computer and emailed me copies. She said that you were always saying that it's smart of have digital copies of documents nowadays."
"Aw!" Freddie smiled. "She listened to me? About computers?"

"She said I was never supposed to tell you," Melanie chuckled. "But anyway, don't worry. I'll send everything over to Ira right now."

"Thanks so much, Melanie," Freddie said, relieved. "You're a lifesaver."

"No problem," Melanie said sweetly. "Well, I guess I should get started. I'll talk to you later."

"Bye," Freddie said. He tossed his phone aside and leaned back in his seat, kicking his feet up onto the coffee table.

"And now," Freddie said happily. "It's my turn to relax."

Right at that moment, though, the front door swung open and Jason, Emma, and Ashton ran inside, followed by Marissa Benson.

"Mom?" Freddie said. "I thought you were keeping the kids for the entire afternoon! You always complain that you don't get enough quality time with them!"

"I know dear, but I just got a call from Glenda at work," Marissa said. "There's been a lice outbreak in the children's ward, and they need my lice expertise to help out."

"Of course they do," Freddie mumbled.

As his mom left, Freddie slowly got to his feet.

"Well, maybe my mom tired them out and they'll be less rambunctious than usual," Freddie said hopefully.

Just then he heard a loud crash from the other room.

"I didn't do it!" Emma yelled. "It was Ashton!"

"No, it was Jason!" Ashton cried.

"It was Emma!" Jason exclaimed.

"Yeah…like that could ever happen," Freddie said, shaking his head as he hurried off to inspect the damage.