Emador: Glad you liked it and thanks for reviewing! Maddie's going to have a lot of mother hen moments coming up. She needs to practice mom skills, lol.

Nelliebly413672: Well, glad you're not mad about the blood thing. This chapter has more drama though. And just for you, I included a couple cute Mac and Laura moments! Hope you like them. :) Thanks for the review.

Meadow567: Yeah, but as you'll find out this chapter, not completely fooled. Hope you enjoy and thanks for the review!

A/N: Christmas chapter! Hope you enjoy and please review. Pretty please with sugar and a cherry on top. :)

Chapter 20

December 24, 1979

On Christmas Eve, the boys had off from practice. Most of them spent the morning shopping. Mac, Jack, and Buzz all still had to buy gifts for their girlfriends, and the guys still needed to pick up some gag gifts for the party later that evening. When everyone got back to the dorms, Maddie, Gail, and Laura were baking Christmas cookies.

"Those smell good," Rizzo said upon entering the room.

"Those look good," said Silky, seeing the cookies. He walked over toward them and Maddie slapped his hand.

"Not yet."

"Please?"

"Nope."

"Come on Maddie. You need to let us have cookies."

"Don't you want warm ones?"

"Yeah."

"Then wait two minutes. There's more chocolate chip coming out in a couple minutes."

"Yum. Thanks Maddie."

The guys waited around for their cookies, and soon the whole team was there. They could all smell the cookies from down the hall.

"Luckily we made a lot," said Laura. "We've got some pretty hungry guys."

"They're acting like they've never seen a cookie before," joked Gail.

"Well, these aren't just any cookies, they're Christmas cookies. I haven't seen them for a year."

"Well, these are just plain chocolate chip, Bah."

"That was just his excuse to eat them," said Maddie. No sooner did the two trays of cookies come out of the over, than they were gone. The guys cleaned off the tray so fast, the girls didn't even get warm ones.

"We're hiding the rest," said Gail to Maddie and Laura. They nodded in agreement.

"Do you have milk?" Mac asked.

"No," all three girls said in unison, knowing the milk would be gone too. Mac opened the refrigerator anyway.

"Liars," he said, getting an almost full carton of milk out. "Baby, can you get me glass?" he asked Laura, who was standing in front of the cupboard.

"Sure, here you go," Laura said handing him a glass.

"Thank you," he said, kissing her temple. "How's your head feeling today?"

"Better. I didn't need the pain killers today."

"That's good to hear." Laura got her stitches out three days ago, but she got headaches occasionally.

"I'm just mad I'm going to have a scar," said Laura.

"Well, guys dig girls with scars."

"Isn't it the other way around?"

"I don't know. But I think your scar is pretty sexy." Laura laughed.

"It's a big scar on my forehead. How is that sexy?"

"It just is," Mac said, catching her lips and kissing her. She kissed him back and pulled away once she remembered that everyone was in the room watching them.

"We'll continue this later," she whispered to Mac.

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Later on, the guys went to Doc and Velta's. They were having a little team party. Gail and Laura both came for a little while, but they both left shortly after dinner to spend time with their families. Before the girls left though, Buzz and Mac gave them their presents.

Gail loved her present from Buzz. It was a beautiful necklace with matching earrings. Buzz wanted something really special for her because he felt bad about being gone a lot during their first year of marriage. He also got her a Brady Bunch poster, which she also loved.

"I'm putting this in our room as soon as I get home."

"That's not going in our room," said Buzz.

"Where did you expect me to put it?" Gail asked.

"I don't know. Not in our room though." Gail gave him a sad face and he finally gave in. "Okay fine. It can go in our room until school starts again, then it's going in your classroom at school." Gail was a teacher, so Buzz figured the poster could go in her classroom.

"Okay," Gail agreed.

Next Mac gave Laura her present, which was a picture framed of them together, a Grease movie poster, because she was a huge John Travolta fan, and a mood ring. She absolutely loved it. Mac was glad Jack talked him out of getting her lingerie.

"Oh my God, this is beautiful," she said, referring to the picture frame. The picture of them was really cute, Mac was behind Laura and had his arms wrapped around her and his head on her shoulder. They were both smiling and looked really happy. "Thank you, baby," she said, pecking him on the cheek. Laura then opened her next gift.

"Is that a mood ring?" Silky asked after Laura opened it.

"Yeah. How did you know I wanted one?" she asked Mac.

"Santa told me." Laura looked over at Jimmy, thinking Jimmy was the Santa Mac was referring to. The truth was that Mac heard Laura tell Maddie that she wanted a mood ring the other day.

"Not that Santa," Mac said laughing. "The real Santa," he whispered. Laura smiled and put the mood ring on.

"Let's see what color it is," Mac said, grabbing her hand to take a look. "Dark blue."

"That means happy," Laura answered.

"I'm happy too," Mac said, kissing her.

"Stop playing tonsil hockey and finishing opening your presents," Silky yelled. Mac and Laura pulled away, laughing.

After the couples finished exchanging gifts, the guys wanted to exchange gag gifts. Laura and Gail left, both needing to go to their families houses.

Maddie was sitting at the table on Jack's lap watching the guys open their gifts, which was really funny. Baker got sun-in, because the guys always teased him about his blonde hair, Pav got a stuffed squirrel, Rammer got a baby bottle filled with beer, because he was the "baby" on the team, and Rizzo got and ugly round, brown pillow that represented a big meatball. The rest of the guys got gifts too, but many she didn't understand, because a lot were inside jokes between the guys. She laughed along with the rest of the guys anyway though.

Maddie was surprised when Jimmy handed her a package.

"Hey, this present has your name on it," Jimmy said, handing it to her. He had dressed up as Santa and handed out all the gifts.

"Thanks." Maddie read the tag. The gift was from the boys. This is probably good, Maddie thought opening it. She had no idea what it could be. Maddie took the lid off of the blue box and found a bell. She shook it and started laughing, knowing exactly what it meant.

"Now you can ring for our services," Jimmy said.

"Yeah, and it'll be a warning to run away fast and hide," Maddie joked. The guys laughed along with her, knowing that's what they would do.

"Now that I think about it, maybe we should have gotten you a chair," Silky joked. "Then you wouldn't be breaking Jack's lap."

"Are you implying that I'm heavy?" Maddie asked, doing her best to sound serious. Silk thought she was serious and started explaining himself.

"No. But you are pregnant. The weight from you and the baby-"

"Silky, I'm joking." A minute later, Maddie rang her bell. "Hey Silky, maybe you can get me a chair from the kitchen."

"Sure," he said, getting up to go into the kitchen.

"And here, I thought the bell would be defective," Maddie joked. "But, now that I know it isn't," she shook it again, "Jimmy can you get me the big bag that's in the back of the car?" Jimmy brought the big bag in and handed it to Maddie. By this time, Silky had gotten her a chair from the kitchen. Maddie pulled out a yellow kick ball from the bag and threw it to Rizzo. He caught it and read what it said, immediately understanding the gift.

"Aw, my baby," said Rizzo, hugging his kick ball. It said Bruin in black letters.

"Since some of you were so disappointed about popping your babies, I got you ones to keep," Maddie said. "These are plastic, so they shouldn't pop."

Bah's was white and Maddie colored black cow spots on it, and named it Moo Moo. The rest of the guys got creatively named and decorated balloons too, with the exception of Jack.

"Where's mine?" he asked Maddie.

"Right here," Maddie said, pointing to her stomach. "You have to wait a little longer. "But I do have something else for you."

Maddie got up this time to get a gift from under the tree. She handed Jack the little box. "I couldn't wait until tomorrow to give you this, so you have to open it now."

Jack tore off the wrapping paper and inside a box found a rare, autographed Bobby Orr card.

"Oh my God, Maddie. This is awesome. Where did you get this?" Jack asked, very excited.

"I have my ways," Maddie replied.

"Well, I happen to have something for you too," said Jack.

"I thought we were exchanging gifts tomorrow," said Maddie.

"Well, you gave me your gift now, so I get to give you one of yours now too."

"One of mine?"

"Yeah, I have a few things for you." Jack had decided on giving her the eight track tapes that night. He knew she would be excited because she had looked everywhere for them and every store seemed to be sold out.

"Jack, thank you!" Maddie said, tearing apart the paper. "Where did you get these?"

"I have my ways," Jack replied, like Maddie had earlier.

A little while later, the boys were finishing opening their presents, when Jimmy handed out the last two gifts. They were the ones for Herb and Craig. Maddie already knew what they were, because Jack had told her a few days before.

Jokes were made about Craig's whistle and Herb's whip, and then Herb was ready to get going. Everyone else was going to stick around for a while.

"Let's play some football," Jack said, ready to get outside.

The guys all went outside and Maddie stayed in to help Velta clean up.

"You don't have to do that sweetie," said Velta as Maddie carried some dished to the kitchen. Maddie knew part of the reason for saying it was because she was eight months pregnant.

"I'm fine. Besides, I need to make myself useful somehow, and I can't lift a finger when Jack's around."

"I completely understand," Velta said smiling.

Maddie dried the dishes as Velta washed them. As she picked up some silverware, Maddie felt a sharp pain in her stomach and doubled over, dropping the silverware on the floor.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'll be fine. It was just a little cramp," Maddie said, though unsure. She never felt pain like that before. A few minutes later, the pain still didn't go away and instead got increasingly worse.

"Maddie, go sit down," Velta said, taking her to the living room. "George, get in here," Velta yelled to her husband.

"What's wrong?" he asked, rushing into the living room.

"Maddie's in pain. It's her stomach."

"Is it continuous, Maddie?" Doc asked her.

Maddie couldn't respond because she was wincing from the pain so she nodded her head.

"How bad on a scale of one to ten?"

"Ten," she breathed out, wincing again and holding her stomach as the pain became sharper.

Doc checked her pulse, and then felt her stomach.

"She might be having contractions," Doc told Velta. "Go get Jack and call the hospital."

"What? Contractions? I can't be! I'm not scheduled to have the baby for another five weeks!" Maddie said in protest. "And I'm not even actually due for seven!"

Meanwhile, the guys were having a great time playing football. Jack didn't even hear Velta calling him at first.

"Jack . . . Jack!" It was then that he heard her, along with the other guys. He looked over to the porch where she was standing. Jack immediately noticed the look of concern on her face and knew something was wrong.

"It's Maddie," was all she said to get Jack to come running.

"What's wrong?" Jack asked, his face filled with worry as he ran behind Velta in the house.

"She's having contractions. We need to get her to a hospital."

"Oh my God," Jack said, fearing the worst. "But she's not supposed to have the baby until the end of January!"

He saw Maddie laying on the couch in pain. Jack ran over and grabbed her hand.

"Jack, something's happening. It hurts," Maddie said, having trouble breathing because of the pain.

"It's okay, baby. Everything's going to be okay," Jack said, comforting her and stroking her head. Somehow though, he had the feeling that everything wasn't okay.

"Jack, keep her calm. I'm going to call the hospital," Doc said, leaving the room.

Maddie kept squeezing Jack's hand, trying to compensate for the pain. Doc came back in the room a minute later.

"Jack, can you carry her out to my car? We're taking her to the hospital."

"Sure," Jack said, picking her up. He quickly went out the front door and put her in the back seat of Doc's car. Jack climbed in the backseat with her as Doc got in the driver's seat.

The rest of the boys were all watching, wondering what was going on.

"Is she okay?" Bah said, wondering out loud.

"I hope so," said Rammer.

"Velta, what's wrong?" Mac asked as she came outside.

"It looks like Maddie is having contractions. She may be in pre-term labor. Doc is driving them to the hospital."

"Oh my God. Will she be okay?" asked Jimmy.

"Will the baby be okay?" asked Rizzo.

"Hopefully everything will be fine," said Velta, trying to convince the boys. "Just keep playing football. I'm sure they'll call us once they know what's happening."

The guys tried to go back to playing, but none of them felt like it. They were all too worried about Maddie to have fun.

A/N: Cliffhanger! After all, I did promise some drama and excitement. And I know everyone wants to find out what's happening with the baby, so the more reviews I get, the faster I post!