The Inbetween Times

Most people - and monsters - were quite under the impression that once you had a baby, having more was a piece of cake; that any future pregnancy was now a piece of cake.

In actual fact, it's somewhat more difficult - especially so if you were a vampire that went by the name of Johnny.

He loved kids - honestly, he did - but pregnancy wasn't exactly easy on him; the first time Mavis had been pregnant...well, sure, she had gotten moody and had cramps...and oh yeah, there were the weird cravings! Boy, did he remember those nights! But now that it was the second time...

Lucy had been two months shy of her thirteenth birthday (and looking no older than a human toddler, Johnny noted) when Mavis broke the news to her husband at the end of August; the first thing that he had done when he'd found out was start yelling and jumping around - clearly, he hadn't grown up all that much over the years, and was still a child himself at heart.

But then the pregnancy really kicked in.

Along with the nightly routines of feeding, cleaning and bathing the child they already had, the two vampires were now also having to deal with side effects of the second pregnancy: this included Mavis waking up with cravings halfway through the day when the sun was still out, and Johnny waking early in the evening before the sun had set to Mavis suffering from 'morning' sickness.

And yet, that wasn't the worst of it.

The words 'I think there's something wrong' are never a good thing to hear - it's even worse when they come from someone close to you, and it's the worst when the person talking to you is your worried pregnant wife.

One could easily understand why Johnny immediately stiffened up, eyes wide with worry as he looked at Mavis when he heard this sentence come out of her mouth. Lucy didn't even look up, blissfully unaware that her father was distracted from their game. "What? You mean with the baby?"

Mavis looked away, blue eyes trained on their small daughter on the floor. "I think so."

"Well...what makes you think that?" The red-head asked, trying to relax a little - if something was wrong (and he severely hoped it wasn't) then he needed to try and remain calm for both himself and his wife.

"I just...I feel so ill," The dark-haired vampire muttered, woozily lowering herself onto a chair. Her hands rested on top of her swollen stomach, stroking it worriedly. "More ill then I did before...I mean, I shouldn't be throwing up still...and my stomach just hurts."

Johnny frowned to himself, unsure of what to do. Lucy looked between her two parents, picking up on the slight tension in the conversation, and reached her arms out impatiently for one of her parents to pick her up. "Cuddle?" She requested, blinking her wide blue eyes hopefully. Johnny reached over and did so before standing, knowing that Mavis properly wouldn't want to try standing up yet, what with the pregnancy and such.

"I think we need to call your Dad," He decided slowly, thinking hard. "Or is there a monster doctor we can go to? I don't think a human one would...err...quite understand as well."

"I guess there is," She murmured, sighing slightly. "There's probably a nurse or someone at the hotel that we could ask..."

"Or Wanda. She's had, like, tons of kids," Johnny added helpfully, just as his daughter decided it would be fun to start tugging at his hair. "Ow! Ow! Ow! You've got quite a - ow! - strong grip there! Ow!"

Lucy just giggled loudly, pulling even harder.

"I know it's messy," He managed, sending her a jokey grin. "But you don't need to - ow! - try to pull it all out, missy!"

"Come play?" She requested, her grip loosening slightly.

Knowing it was the only way to stop her from pulling out every hair on his head, Johnny nodded quickly - he needed to finish this conversation with Mavis anyway. "Yeah! Just give me a sec, alright?"

He put Lucy down on the floor and she crawled away to prepare for the future play session. Parenting duties put on hold for now, Johnny turned back to Mavis and sat down opposite her in another chair. She looked like she was about to burst into tears, and he gave her a grin to try and cheer her up. "Don't worry about it," He said soothingly, reaching out and grabbing her hand in his; he squeezed it tightly, hoping that some of his hopefulness and optimism would rub off on her. "Seriously - go and take a nap. You're probably just tired or something - I mean, we've got Lucy already, and she's definitely no angel..."

"Maybe you're right," Mavis agreed, trying to smile but instead showing a grimace instead.

Johnny helped her stand up, careful as he could be, and pressed a kiss to the side of her head. "I'll call Wanda at some point," He promised her assuringly. "Just in case. But it's probably just stress or something, so don't worry, Mavy. Worry is bad for both you and the baby, remember?"

"I know," She said, rolling her eyes slightly at her husband. "You keep on saying that, Mister Expert."

"I had three little brothers growing up," He defended. "I just know...like I know everything will be okay now. Now, go get some rest before you collapse or something."

Of course he wasn't exactly one hundred percent sure that everything would be okay - he wasn't a doctor, after all, and he could barely remember his brothers being born besides a few scraps of shaky memories. But, as he often thought to himself, a little optimism wouldn't hurt, especially in this case; if it calmed Mavis down even a little bit, then it would be doing some good for her and their baby.

"Johnny? I think our daughter's getting impatient."

Johnny snapped out of his thoughts and nodded; he could put aside all bad thoughts for now and play with their daughter for a little while. It wouldn't hurt to put off the phone call an hour or so, especially since distracting Lucy would hopefully take some pressure off of Mavis. "On it! Now, go and rest before I have to force you."

Luckily, Johnny had been right when he'd said everything would be okay - although the possibility of this prediction being wrong had worried the couple enough to contact not just Wanda but also Dracula, Johnny's mother and a monster doctor who'd been staying at the hotel for a few weeks. During the end of February their second baby was born - this time a son who they named Jack.

"Holy crap," Johnny muttered a couple of hours after the second baby had been born. "Mavis...we have kids...as in, like, more than one. Kids," He repeated, stressing the 's' on the end of the word.

"You know, I do have eyes," Mavis muttered, rolling her eyes tiredly - but she was too blissful to feel completely annoyed.

Johnny grinned as he looked down at their son in his arms. "Aww man...Hey! He got lucky - he got your hair and not mine!" He ruffled the tiny tufts of hair softly with his finger, careful not to disturb the baby. "So...one boy and one girl. Pretty good, right?"

"Very even," Mavis agreed amusedly. "Very...perfect. Does this mean that I'm done with the whole pregnancy thing, or...? Not that I hated it or anything, but...it was a pain in the ass."

Johnny paused and shrugged; while he did indeed love having a family, he was in no way prepared to have seven kids like his parents had. "Well...I guess so, for the moment at least. I mean, we've got two cute kids who are perfect...heck, everything's perfect! Why ruin it, right?" He smiled at his wife happily. "Nah, Mavis. I think we're good."

"So...I guess now would be a good time to say that I'm pregnant."

Johnny, being from a large family, had barely blinked when she'd blurted it out one morning before they went to sleep - although when he spoke he did seem kinda surprised. "Again? Well, I totally didn't see that coming..."

Mavis was sure she would have blushed at his comment if she could have. "Yeah. So...another baby."

"Another couple of decades of crying and screaming," Johnny joked, giving her an easy grin. "I just didn't think there'd be such a big age gap if we had another one, you know?" Although, having said that, there was about fifteen (human) years between his eldest brother and his youngest one, which was pretty big for humans - he still didn't know what the vampire equivalent would be. "You're happy, right?"

Mavis nodded. "Of course! I mean, it does mean we have to put off traveling again for a while...but we could probably go on holiday next year anyway, so it's not that big a deal. You?"

"Mavy, I grew up with six brothers - three kids aren't even half of that," He laughed, eyes bright all of a sudden. Something told him he wouldn't be sleeping much that day, and he doubted Mavis would as well after such great news. "I guess there's only one thing for it now..."

"I'm not betting on the gender of the baby!" Mavis couldn't help but roll her eyes at such a suggestion. "I mean, does it really matter?"

"No," Johnny amended quickly, knowing now that because his wife was pregnant he had to be extra careful not to annoy her. "Of course not. But it's still fun to do, you know?"

She didn't have to know about the betting he'd done with her Uncles at the hotel - it was all a bit of fun between monsters.

During the months that followed, this pregnancy proved to be surprisingly easy really; maybe it was because Lucy and Jack were that much older that they didn't need constant looking after (although, Jack did sulk a lot whenever the baby was mentioned), and so there was only really one issue that bugged the couple until their newest child arrived.

"We need a name," Mavis stated, nudging Johnny to stop him from falling asleep. "Come on, Johnny! You're not getting out of it that easily!"

He gave a groan but opened his eyes anyway. "Alright, fine...which are we gonna do first? Boy or Girl names?"

Since neither of them had any idea on any names, regardless of gender, they decided to flip a coin; it landed heads, and so they pondered over boys' names first.

"Well...we could use Joseph," Mavis suggested tentatively, cautious not to upset Johnny. "You know, after your Dad?"

The mention of his late father, who had passed away a few decades ago, made the red-head feel somewhat nostalgic. "Hmm...I guess so. Seems kinda weird for a vampire baby though...besides, it's kinda cheesy to name after a dead relative."

"That's true," Mavis agreed, nodding her head - that was why they had made 'Martha' Lucy's middle name instead of her first one. "Alright, let's forget about boys' names then; how about girls names? I kinda like Alice, after Alice in Wonderland...although, that is kind of a weird story..."

Suddenly, Johnny shot up in the bed and started to grin. "Hey! I've got one!"

Before she could ask, she felt the baby kick her and gave a wince. "Ow."

Johnny dropped back down into a laying down position and put a hand on his wife's baby bump with a soft look in his face. "Okay, kiddo! No need to get so excited - you might not even be called this, so stop trying to bruise your Mommy."

"Well, what's the name?" Mavis asked curiously.

The red-head smiled triumphantly. "Mina."

"Mina?"

"Yeah. I was re-reading Dracula by Bram Stoker - you know, just 'cause it's so different from how your Dad actually is that it's kinda funny - and it's the name of one of the main characters," He explained excitedly, speaking so quickly that it was becoming slightly difficult to figure out what he was saying. "Anyway, I looked it up, just to see, and it's perfect!"

Mavis didn't look sure. "Perfect? Really?"

"I think it's perfect," He amended, snuggling up so that there was no room between them anymore; if the baby kicked, then he'd be able to feel their movements immediately, just the way he liked it. "It means 'love', Mavy - literally! How cool is that?"

Admittedly, it did seem rather cute, and it was starting to grow on Mavis more and more. "Alright," She agreed, giving a small nod. "If it's a girl, then it's Mina. Now all we have to do is sort out a boy's name."

Johnny gave a groan and moved away, flopping into his pillow: at the rate this was going, the baby was going to have to be a girl or go nameless.

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