Crow and Servo were waiting for Joel to wake up and get to the bridge, but their human friend / 'father' was uncharacteristically late. Gypsy was getting worried and decided that she needed to check on Joel.

"Guys, I'll go see what's holding Joel up."

"Hurry then!" Crow yelled as she wandered down the corridor. "The 'mads' are calling and I'm NOT in the mood to talk to them!"

Gypsy rapped gently on the door to Joel's cabin. "Joel? Are you awake?"

A muffled voice responded.

"Joel, I'm coming in." Gypsy was always polite about entering the other cabins. "Joel, are you okay?"

Joel was laying on his side on his bunk, the pillow over his head and the blankets pulled up to his chin. "Go away Gypsy. I'm tired."

"But the mad-poopies are calling!"

"Of course they are..." Joel tossed the pillow off the bunk.

"Can't sleep, huh?"

"Not really." Joel slowly sat upright, swinging his legs over the edge of his bunk. "This 'not-so-little-guy' keeps kicking me all night and I can't sleep anymore."

At the twentieth week Joel had to endure constant and strengthening kicks, punches and squirms in his own stomach. He also had to fight to get his jumpsuit to zip up around his distending and still growing abdomen.

"Do you know what the mad idiots want?"

Gypsy shook her head. "Nope."

Slowly Joel stood up, careful to shift his weight accordingly so he didn't fall over. "Another day, another moron." He commented dryly as he slipped on his red jumpsuit and once again began the annoying struggled to get it to zip up properly. Subtly Joel sucked in his gut and that was enough to get the zipper over his stomach. "Let's go."

On the bridge Crow had pressed the button and now he and Servo were glaring angrily at Dr. Forrester and Frank.

Behind the two mad scientists a new person, someone neither the bots nor Joel had ever seen before, was wearing a black jumpsuit and stacking boxes.

Joel appeared on the bridge, his usually placid face now serious as his fatigue was becoming more rampant. "What do you want sirs?"

"My, my..." Dr. Forrester smirked. "Someone is packing on the pounds!"

"Hey..." Joel growled as he put his hands on his noticeably larger stomach. Servo and Crow moved into position in front of Joel to protectively shield their beloved human.

"Oh, please, like those two tinker toys could do anything to me. Besides, I was only joking."

"Can we just get this over with? I'm tired." Joel muttered.

"Oh fine. Well, Joel, you should be at the half point in your little... 'dilemma'." He looked over his shoulder at the oblivious blond temp worker still stacking boxes. "Which means things are sure to get interesting soon. And since your precious robots lack any real medical training... and hands, I'm going to send you a little support. But first, a movie! Choke on 'Mitchell' you bloated baby maker!"

"We got 'Movie Sign'!" Joel smacked the button, grabbed Servo and made his way to the theater as quick as he could.

With Joel and the bots preoccupied Dr. Forrester turned his attention to his new temp. "Now, Mel..."

"'Mike'." The temp corrected.

"Whatever..." He put his hand on Mike's shoulder. "Are you a 'family man'?"

"Well, I'm not married, and I'm not even dating anyone, so... no. Not really."

"Good, that's good. No one will miss you right away."

"'Miss me'?"

"Oh, uh, never mind. Just answer me this Mike, what size jumpsuit do you wear?"

-next chapter-