CHAPTER FIVE:
PARENTS AND PARENTING

For a long moment Pleakley stared, wide-eyed and unblinking, at the man who was his father. An almost agonizing silence fell over the house. You could have heard a pin drop, it was so quiet. Kirk bit his lip and tried to hold it in a weak attempt at a smile. His hands fidgeted restlessly at his sides. Vay looked back and forth at Kirk and her son, waiting for one of them to say something. Finally, she decided to break the ice by prompting Kirk with an elbow in his side. Kirk took the hint and stepped forward, clearing his throat, which had suddenly gone dry. He extended a hand to Pleakley.

"Uh, yes, well — hello there, Wendy. It - uh, it's nice to finally meet you… finally. Ahem! Yes."

Pleakley said nothing. He looked at Kirk's hand as though it were the breakfast Leera had thrown up that morning. When he looked him in the eye again, his expression remained unchanged. Seeing this, Kirk winced slightly and dropped his hand to his side. He took a step back, so that he was standing next to Vay.

"He uh, he doesn't talk much, does he?" he muttered.

"When he finds the right words, he does," Vay replied. She turned to her son. "Wendy, honey, don't you have something to say?"

His mother's words seemed to bring him out of his shock. He looked at her, then at Uncle Gidgel, as though looking for a clue. What was he supposed to say to this man? This man who had abandoned him and his mother before he was even born?

Kirk sighed. "Well, I guess he doesn't take too much after either of us. If he did, I think he would have taken a whack at me by n— " BONK! Kirk was silenced by a book upside his head. Pleakley spun around to see Stitch arming himself with four more books, one for each paw. He bared his teeth and growled threateningly. Kirk took one look at him and made a mad dash down the front steps toward the cruiser he had arrived in. Stitch dropped the books and went after him. Kirk's terrified screams shattered the peaceful morning air and everyone, including Leera and Jumba, rushed out to see what Stitch was doing to him.

Out in the driveway, Stitch had plucked a palm tree up by its roots and was waving and shaking it violently like a giant baton. The tree had already lost several of its fronds, then two more fell off to reveal Kirk clinging desperately to the trunk, screaming bloody murder. Pleakley smiled at the sight. He would never be able to tell the little monster how grateful he was for that.

"Stitch!" Vay shouted, running toward him. "Stop that right now!"

Stitch cringed at the anger in her voice and obeyed.

"Now, put it down," she said sternly, and again he obeyed, dropping his ears and flashing his puppy-dog eyes at her as he carefully set the tree back in its hole in the ground. Then he dropped to his haunches and cast his eyes downward, looking for all the world like a punished pup. Vay walked up to him and patted his head.

"Good boy." She looked up the tree and shouted, "It's alright, Kirk! You can come down now!"

Very slowly, and very awkwardly, Kirk slid down the trunk. The instant his first foot touched the ground, he bolted away from Stitch, putting Vay between himself and the little monster.

"W-w-what the hell is that thing?" he stammered.

"Is evil genius genetic experiment number six-two-six," Jumba said, by way of introduction. He approached Kirk and held out a meaty paw. "Created by yours truly. Dr. Jumba Jookiba, evil genius, genetic engineer, triple PhD, and so forth."

Kirk forced a smile and stuck out his hand. "Pleasure," he muttered, as Jumba seized his entire forearm and shook it vigorously.

"Yes," Jumba agreed, letting go of a shaken Kirk. "Is great pleasure for to finally be meeting careless, conceited, home-wrecking, chauvinistic, backstabbing bastard of father to one-eyed one. Great pleasure indeed." Jumba smiled broadly at him. Kirk was speechless; he just nodded and backed away.

"Please to be coming back inside!" Jumba said, a little too cheerfully. He waved a massive hand in the air as an invitation and Kirk cringed at the sight of it. Vay gave him a rather forceful nudge and he followed the larger alien back up to the house. Pleakley stood in the driveway, watching as everyone else filed past and up the porch steps. When Kirk passed him, he quickly pretended to be concerned about Leera, who was standing beside him. He threw an arm around her shoulder and put his other hand on her belly. He just couldn't bear to look that man in the eye. When he looked at his wife, he realized with a small sickening pang that he couldn't bear to look her in the eye, either.

Five minutes later, the ice had been— cracked, though for Pleakley and Kirk it was far from broken. The instant the group was in the living room, Leera had suggested tea and Pleakley, grateful for his wife's perceptive thinking, seized the opportunity to escape the immediate vicinity of his father. He rushed into the kitchen to start the tea. He drummed his fingers on the counter impatiently as he waited for the kettle to boil.

"A watched pot never boils, you know."

Pleakley jolted, then turned to look at his mother.

"Honey, I know this is hard for you, having your father back in your life — "

"THAT man," Pleakley started, "is NOT my father!" He said this in a low tone packed with vehemence.

"I'm afraid he is," Vay said calmly.

"No. He's not," Pleakley growled. Vay sighed and rolled her eye.

"Maybe you didn't quite get it the first time I explained it to you," she said frankly. "Though, seeing as you have a kid on the way, it would appear that you did."

"Huh?"

Vay sighed again. "Kirk is your father, Wendy. I would know. He was the only guy I was sleeping with at the time, so what does that tell you?"

"Too much," Pleakley groaned. "Way too much." He blushed and looked back at the kettle, which was finally beginning to boil.

"Well, like it or not, that makes him your father. You wouldn't even be here today if it wasn't for him."

"Don't remind me." Pleakley picked up the kettle and poured the hot water into six separate cups.

"There's seven of us, Wendy," Vay pointed out.

"Yeah, I know," he mumbled, setting the kettle aside and opening up a tin of sugar cookies. He poured them out on a tray with the teacups. "Stitch doesn't care for tea."

"Oh, right. For a moment there I thought you weren't going to give any to your — to Kirk."

Pleakley picked up the tray. "I may not be happy about him being here, but I'm not gonna be passive-aggressive about it."

"Well, then what do you call what you've been doing so far?"

"What? I haven't done anything!"

"Exactly."

Pleakley glared at his mother. "What do you expect me to do? Throw my arms around him and say 'Oh, Daddy! I'm SO happy to see you! Look at me! I'm going all gaga for the dad I never knew! But I don't care! Daddy's here! After thirty freaking years, he's back, and everything's just fine and dandy, 'cuz my mother has no problem with the fact that he knocked her up and left her all alone to raise the kid that turned out to be ME! But who cares? I'm just so DAMN HAPPY HE'S BACK! WHOOPEEEEEEEEE!"

Vay smacked him across the face. Not at all hard, but enough to shut him up.

"Wendy Llewellyn Pleakley!" she growled, and the tone of her voice sent shivers down his non-existent spine. "That is quite enough!" She glared sharply at her son, and Pleakley winced, burning red with shame. Seeing this, Vay's frown melted away and was replaced by a look of tenderness.

"Look, honey, I'm sorry I brought this on you so suddenly. I don't blame you for being upset." She took the tray out of his hands and set it aside. Then she pulled him into a gentle embrace. "Truth is, I'm not happy, either." She made a small sound, and Pleakley wasn't sure if it was a sigh or a sob. "Things were going so well for us, and then HE had to come back."

Pleakley hesitated, then lifted his arms to return the hug. "Then why did you let him, Mom? Why didn't you just beat him to a bloody pulp and have done with it? That's what I would have done, if I were you."

"Oh, believe me, I did," Vay chuckled. "But I only paid back a small percentage of what he deserves. The only thing that kept me from finishing the job was you."

Pleakley pulled back and looked at her curiously. "Me?"

Vay nodded. "He may have walked out on us both, but he did do one thing right."

"And what's that?"

Vay's eye was shining as she looked at her son. "He gave me you," she whispered, hugging him again. "When I look at it that way, I can't stay completely mad at him. I'm still 99 percent mad, but who knows? Maybe he'll surprise us."

Pleakley smirked. "You really believe that?"

Vay shrugged. "Well, he's done it before, hasn't he? At least now I'm too old to be knocked up and dumped like yesterday's trash."

"Aw, Mom, you're not old. Not really."

"Well, I am past my child-bearing years, thank Bluzark. With a guy like Kirk around, a gal could get pregnant just shaking hands with him."

Pleakley blushed at this remark. "Aw, Mom, couldja please not talk about that sort of thing? We're in a kitchen. I prepare meals in here, and most of those meals are eaten in here. It's hard enough keeping this place clean as it is."

Vay chuckled. "Alright, alright. C'mon. Let's get this tea out to the living room before it gets cold."

"Okay." Pleakley picked up the tray and started toward the living room, but stopped when Vay put a hand on his arm.

"Please, Wendy. Please try to get along with Kirk. I know you're mad at him, but I know you can at least pretend to be pleasant with him. I've been doing it for the past week."

Pleakley looked at her questioningly. "Why?" he asked. "Just gimme one good reason why I should be nice to him."

Vay sighed deeply. "It's called 'being the better person,'" she said. "And I know you're the better person in this. You have to be." She turned to look at Leera, who had just entered the kitchen. Vay smiled warmly at her daughter-in-law, her eye lingering on the young woman's belly. Pleakley looked at his wife, then past her to where his father was waiting in the living room and sighed.

"Gimme another good reason?"

"Because I'm your mother and I said so."

"Works for me," Pleakley muttered before taking the tray out to his guest.