A.N. Happy end of the world! :D

Chapter 17

Trials and Trickery

Roger went back to Las Vegas to file his case two weeks after they started renting their own place. Anita wanted to go with him, but she stayed because she had another doctor's appointment.

Roger offered to stay, to file with one of the judges in Elko county, but they both agreed that it would be easier on Jack, and look better on them, if they were the ones that traveled.

Anita felt lonely all by herself, but had recently taken to talking to the baby to ease her boredom. She wasn't quite sure if the baby could actually hear her yet or not, but that was hardly the point.

Her new doctor was possibly even nicer than her last one, although he was quite a bit younger. "How you doing, honey? Any discomfort?" he asked, stepping into her room that Wednesday. He smiled, flashing dimples, and took a seat on a tiny salmon colored stool that matched his scrubs.

"I'm okay. Ready to go home already," she sighed. "Do I get to find out what I'm having today?"

He laughed, "Hopefully. Did Dad not want to be here for this? This is the big one."

Anita looked down at her feet sadly. "He's off in Vegas for the week."

"That sucks," he agreed, pulling the ultrasound machine closer to her bed. "Shirt," he ordered, shaking the bottle of jelly. Anita obliged, going ahead and unbuttoning her pants as well.

The ultrasound went as planned, all her measurements were good, and everything was where it was supposed to be.

"Are you ready?" he asked at the end of her exam.

She'd wanted to wait until the end, just so she wasn't distracted. "Yes, please." She was grinning instantly, crossing her fingers. Roger was going to owe her so much when she was right.

"Congratulations, looks likes you're having a girl," he said calmly without looking at the monitor.

"A - What? You didn't even look!"

The doctor spun back around, moving the wand until he found the baby's bottom, and pointed. "It's a girl. Trust me."

Anita laughed. Not a happy laugh, really, since she'd been wrong the entire time. That figured. "Rachel," she sighed.

The doctor chuckled with her. "Not what you were after, huh?" She opened her mouth to explain, but he cut her off again, "No, no need to explain. Here," he added, passing her a towel, "clean up and get out of here. See you next month."

o.O.o

Since she didn't have much to do after she was finished with her appointment, Anita decided to go shopping. Against her will she had been saddled with Roger's fancy car and his seemingly unending debit card.

Shopping didn't usually fill her with any kind of excitement, just dread and unease, but today she felt a bit different. She went to every big shop she could think of, looking at baby furniture and clothes, accessories and toys, and anything else she could imagine. Anita didn't just stop at baby needs either, while it was true they had almost nothing for Rachel, because they didn't want to shop until they were sure of the gender, they had absolutely nothing for Jack at all. Anita looked through all kinds of things for him, remembering his love for animals. She instantly fell in love with a miniature farm set with chubby little plastic animals.

She really did go a bit crazy, especially after passing a giant Christmas area. Fake trees towered over the people milling about, covered in glittery lights and garland and giant ornaments. Christmas was her absolute favorite holiday, so it felt right to go a little overboard, the things she bought now would be the staples of every Christmas to come for the foreseeable future.

Anita felt bad when she finally loaded the car, the two door, already cramped space was made even worse by the overflowing bags of decorations, presents, baby goods. And it wasn't just the car, the baby furniture was going to be loaded onto a delivery truck and dropped off in the next few hours…

Necessary buys or not, the guilt struck as the high wore off. She hadn't even been paying attention to the prices. Anita laughed nervously. Roger was in for a big surprise once he got back.

o.O.o

Roger hated being back in Las Vegas. It felt wrong, too much like the first time, seeing Jack while Anita was so far away. It was tremendously painful.

He had come prepared this time however, ready to make Tiffany see reason. It seemed to all be going to plan, they both knew that she really didn't want Jack around. The very mention of it had her scheming, he could see it in her eyes. The gears turned in her head, probably planning her big return home or an actual trip to New York.

"So I could just, like, go? Really?" she asked, like a child being offered a fantastic trip. "You'll just take him?"

Roger nodded, "Yes, Tiffany. You can come visit if you'd like." He'd do almost anything to make her agree.

"I'd be free to do whatever I wanted!" she said, like she didn't already do that. "What do I have to do?"

He hadn't expected it to go that quickly. "There's paperwork that needs to be signed, I think. And I'll need his papers. Birth certificate, social security card…"

Roger excused himself quickly after that. He left and headed immediately to Slaughter & Brown, a local law firm he had found a few days before. He was to see a Jay Brown. They had spoken on the phone previously, and Roger was anxious to get things settled within the next few days if possible.

"A judge is still going to approve this, but everything sound like its in order," Mr. Brown said as he put the finishing touches on the rough contract he had written up for him. He called his assistant in over his intercom, a stern looking woman that came in silently and disappeared quickly.

Roger waiting in the office while the paper work was being finalized and copied, discussing trivial things, the weather, sports, the economy. Nothing particularly interesting.

"Ah! There you are, Lisa!" Mr. Brown said joyously when his assistant came back in holding several forms. He took the offered papers, scanning them. "Everything seems to be in order," he asserted. "Sign here, here, here, and fill this part in here," he told him as he flipped through the paperwork showing the blank spots.

Roger did as he was asked, marking up the papers with his neat signature.

"Okay," Mr. Brown finished, re checking everything again. "We'll have these sent to Ms. Hope immediately, and you'll be free to take your son after the judge signs off."

"Is there anyway I could hand deliver these today? I need to get everything settled as quickly as possible."

Mr. Brown shrugged, "I don't see why not. I'll have Lisa get you a copy of the signed forms…" He pressed the bright button on his phone again. "Lisa, can you come back in please?"

Lisa came and went a few more times, and finally he was free to go.

o.O.o

He made it back to Tiffany's apartment in record time, whistling a jolly tune and a noticeable spring in his step. He should have known, however, that things couldn't be going nearly as well as they seemed.

Roger rounded the corner from the garage and walked up to the apartment building, only to be surprised by a very young looking cop. The guy frowned, he really couldn't have been much older than Roger himself.

"Are you, uh -" he snapped his fingers as if trying to jog his memory. "Roger. Are you Roger Darling?" he asked sharply.

"Yes…?" Confused, Roger went to ask his own questions, "What's going on? Is something wrong, officer?"

"I've been waiting on you," he said, he sounded very proud of himself. "There's been an order put out on you. I'm going to have to ask you to leave the premises. As of now, you are no longer allowed within 200 feet of Ms. Tiffany Hope, her son, or the nanny. You are also not allowed to be on this section of Harper Drive."

"What!? When did this happen?"

"About an hour ago, Mr. Darling. You were accused of threatening to kidnap the little boy that lives here."

"Jack," he huffed. "His name is Jack. And I certainly did not try to kidnap my own son."

The younger officer didn't seem to believe him, or else just really didn't care. "I'll be escorting you outside of the perimeters of the order, now. If you have any other questions, you can come down to the station. Any violations of the order will result in imprisonment."

"This is insane."

The cop shrugged. "Please go get your car so that we can both move on."

Roger had a growing list of things he would have liked to say then, but bit his tongue. "Can you at least see that Tiffany gets these?" he held out the envelope full of documents. "I need them signed as quickly as possible."

"What's all this?" he asked, taking the envelope and giving it a shake.

"Our custody agreement," he muttered, turning on his heel and marching back to the car garage. He didn't wait for the officer, he just left, going straight to the police station.

No one there offered him anything helpful, and they too sent him off. He decided that he would go back to his hotel and wait until morning, once he had more time to think.

o.O.o

He marched right past the front desk to the elevator the moment he walked into his hotel. The people behind the counter, and several people milling about the main room, stared after him, clearly intrigued by his noticeable anger.

The instant he was back in his room Roger stubbed his toe when he kicked one of the innocent chairs. "Dammit," he growled, pulling off his shoe as he sat down on the bed. He sat in silence for a few minutes after that, listening to the sound of his heart racing in his ears. Once he was better and could actually think straight, Roger snatched the phone off of the bedside table and dialed the number to his new house.

Anita didn't pick up for several long rings. "Hello?" she asked. It was nice just hearing her voice. "Who's this?"

"Hey, Nita," he sighed, flopping back, rubbing his forehead with his extra hand. "How was the appointment yesterday?"

"Fine. Are you okay? You don't sound good," genuine concerned leaked over the phone and he felt bad about making her worry.

"Yeah, things just aren't going to go as smoothly as I thought they would. Mayor Hope is coming to town. He had the local police put a temporary restraining order on me for attempted kidnapping or some crap. I want you to come down, I miss you."

Roger could hear the smile in her voice. "I could probably do that. You'll be happy to know you were right, by the way."

He sat up again quickly. "Really? It's a girl?"

"According to my mentally ill doctor," she laughed. "I suppose I'll have to save Billy for the next one…"

"Already thinking about more babies? We'll have two before too long, you know."

She laughed again. "Can't wait. But yes, I've been thinking about more babies since before I was even pregnant. We're going to be the crazy people on the hill with a million little ones."

"A million?" He whistled. "I could probably manage that."

They continued to chat for another hour or more before he brought up her leaving again. "Will you be all right on a plane? It shouldn't be a long flight."

"Flight?" she asked, clearly confused. "Why can't I drive? It's not that far."

"Do you want a repeat of the last time we had to drive back that far by ourselves? Fly. Get a first class ticket so you can lean back and sleep. It'll be worth it, trust me." Anita thought about it, making the line go silent for a while. "Is that a yes?" he finally asked.

"I - I suppose so. I've never flown before," she answered, her voice a little shaky.

"That's okay, Jack did fine. If a two-year old can handle it, you surely can."

"True…"

"Don't think about it right now. Keep talking to me. Tell me more about these millions of children I'm supposed to help with."

Anita sighed, but traces of amusement returned to her tone. "Well… Hopefully they'll be half and half. I've always thought about having twins too, you know. My mother has lots of twins on her side of the family."

Two at once. That sounded like a scary situation. "Well if you're planning to have that many, you might want to start picking out names, you know. They can't all be called William." He laughed the thought, a picture of Will, Bill, William, Billy, and Willy dancing in his head.

She made a displeased noise in his ear. "Well let's hear your suggestions then, if you're so clever."

"Anything but Roger," he offered. He hated being his father's shadow growing up, he'd let William slide, it wasn't like many people would pick up on that similarity.

Anita rambled off a few fairly common names, shooting them down almost as quickly as she was getting them out. "I don't know. I'm going back to bed now, okay?"

"Sure, sure. See you tomorrow maybe?"

"I'll call when I get a - a flight. Now go to bed. Night."

"Night, then."

The phone clicked off, and Roger slid his end back in place. He didn't even bother to turn the lights out before drifting off to sleep.