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For his part, Arkie had been in the middle of making sandwiches. Not just any sandwiches, these were sandwiches of epic proportion, involving just about anything that could be put between two slices of bread.

If any one good thing had come out of this entire pregnancy fiasco, it had been that Sati, now and then, developed the same eating habits as he did....so when she'd seen him constructing one of the monstrosities for himself on her way to the couch a few moments prior, he'd only been too happy to comply when she'd asked him to make her one as well.

As his name was bellowed, however, the knife which had been applying liberal amounts of marshmallow fluff, flew out of his hand, clattering loudly into the sink as he jolted. GAH!! NOW what had he done? He'd just been STANDING there!! Skittering to the threshold that separated the kitchen from the living room, he poked his head in to peer at her quizzically.

"What?" he asked. "You don't want marshmallows? They're the best part!"

One of Arkie's ears lopped, giving him the appearance of an incredibly confused animal as he watched Sati writhe and cry out on the couch. Granted, he'd seen her do it before, but usually he had been the cause of it.

As it was, he wondered when her head would start spinning on her shoulders and she'd start speaking in tongues. There was something in her voice, though....it wasn't the usual "come near me and I'll smack you" tone she'd gotten good at putting on over the months, but one that suggested that this might, in fact, be serious business.

It was a tone he heard so rarely out of anyone, that he felt compelled to obey it without dawdling or asking if he could have her sandwich as well, in that case.

He whirled, barreling back into the kitchen, and grabbed the phone off of the wall, realizing only after he had it to his ear that he had no idea who he was calling. She'd said something about dialing mom, right?

One clawed finger flitted about the numberpad on autopilot and waited.

On the tail-end of the fifth ring, a groggy voice answered.

"H'lo...?"

"MA!" he said quickly, trying to disentangle his neck from the phone cord.

"Arkie..." Karma said, sounding somewhere between annoyed and surprised. "Been awhile. What did you break now?"

"Hey Ma?" the kelpie continued, ignoring her question. "What's it mean when Sati's laying on the couch with a pillow over her face?"

There was a noteable pause on the other end of the line. "....is she breathing?"

"Oh yeah! Sure! She's screaming lots! I think she's mad because she peed on the cushions or something. They're all wet."

"....I'll be right there." she said, her voice tightening. "Did you call Sayuri yet?"

"Uhh..." his eye drifted first to the bulletin board covered in numbers beside the phone, and then to the counter where the two unfinished sandwiches laid.

"Right. I'll do that too. Just....try and keep her calm, okay? Bye." And with a click, the line went dead. Arkie hung up the phone and then grabbed up his sandwich, taking a large bite out of it.

It hadn't quite sunk in for him yet exactly what was happening here, but then, what could be more important than marshmallows?

Hearing his name, he was shaken out of the junk food bliss and swallowed what was in his mouth to trot back into the living room where she laid.

"Yep! She's coming!" he assured her, leaning over the back of the couch to peer down at her. Doing so, he quirked a brow. Man, she looked rough. He'd never seen her make faces like -that- before...

"Ya all right?" he ventured, as though the answer was not bloody obvious. He was starting to think maybe it wasn't just one of her usual fits. The crying and the yelling he was well-used to by now. This, however, was a new one on him.

The kelpie fa'e blinked, and then his red eyes widened considerably. "You mean now? Like RIGHT now??" he asked, refocusing his eyes on her heaving belly.

She'd been pregnant for such a long time that he'd forgotten eventually the baby she'd insisted was inside of her would be coming out to say hello. He reached out one hand, laying it on the swollen lump of her stomach, feeling the being inside leap and lurch faintly on occasion.

Ew, it really WAS just like something out of Aliens...

"You're gonna be okay, right?" he asked her then, even going so far as to allow a shred of concern to creep into his voice. Ordinarily, this sort of thing wouldn't have even occurred to him, but as the months had worn on, Sati had become the only person, aside from his brief one-sided affairs with polygon-esque women in his X-box, that he had any contact with anymore. If she were to up and croak, even if it WAS in a completely awesome stomach-explodey sort of way, THEN who was he gonna talk to?


Karma arrived only a few moments after Sayuri's cab had departed, having had some trouble getting the car going. On the drive over, she'd done her best to convince herself it was just a false alarm. That she and Sayuri would arrive, find Sati perfectly fine, exchange some tired glances and go back home. And this could all be revisited when they were good and ready.

However, something wouldn't allow her to. Perhaps the knowledge that Sati had been pregnant for far longer than she ought to have been. She wasn't sure what the expected duration of a pregnancy was when it came to fa'e, but if someone had told HER she would be carrying a little fleshy cannonball around in her belly for the better part of two years, she would have deigned never EVER to have a baby.

That in mind, she was fairly certain this was the real deal as she trotted up the walkway, finding the front door ajar from where Sayuri had let herself in, and hesitated only a moment before entering.

"Arkie?" she called, keening her ears for scrambling, crashing, fridges being decimated, anything that normally trumpeted his arrival.

Arkie's little mind was reeling, trying to process all of this. He'd gone from being told Sati was having the baby, to having his hand crushed, to being promised lapdances for knocking her out, to suddenly having Sayuri in the room.

If one imagined just a bit, one could almost see smoke curling out of his ears as the overtired hamster spun its wheel overtime. He was a simple creature, not built to withstand drama, and suddenly he was up to his neck in it.

All he'd wanted was a sandwich...!!

There was a hand on his shoulder suddenly, steering him away from staring at Sati's prone form on the sofa and Sayuri attempting to soothe her.

"Blankets, kiddo, c'mon..." he heard Karma's voice say.

"What just happened...?" he asked as the foxcoon ushered him upstairs to raid the linen closet.

"A mess, from the look of it." his guardian replied, giving him a small shove to get him to move faster. "We're probably not going to have time to get her out of here, so we're going to have to just...make do with what we have." She was doing her best to sound confident about things, as panicking was not going to do any good, but aside from giving birth herself, she had no knowledge whatsoever of what to do in these situations.

"You holding up okay? You look a little shellshocked." she went on, trying to make conversation as she opened the hall closet, pulling out an armload of linens and handing them to him.

"She squashed my hand." he lamented, flexing his fingers. In spite of herself, Karma smirked.

"Yeah. That happens. Part of the parenting experience." she said, fetching a spare pillow off of the bottom shelf and steering him back to the stairs hurriedly. "At least you've had time to get used to the idea by now."

"Uhh..." Actually, all he'd had time to get used to was the idea of no sex, lots of yelling, and lots of being confused.

"Just....come on." she sighed, shaking her head as she gave him a nudge back in the direction of the stairs.

"--and if you can help it at all, TRY not to say anything that's going to make this worse." came the tail-end of whatever Karma had been telling Arkie as they bustled down the stairs, linens and pillow in-hand.

"Then what am I SUPPOSED to say?" he asked, puffing out a sigh of agitation. How had the whole world gone from zero to psycho in just an hour? On top of it all, he was feeling odd in a way he had never felt odd before. Like unseen hands deep within him were toying with his foundation, loosing things for some reason. In particular, his ears and his lower arms burned and tingled.

"Tell her she she's beautiful. Tell her she's doing a good job. Hold her hand, and for the LOVE of god, don't ask her stupid s**t like whether she's going to die or not. Can you handle that for the next while, do you think?"

He itched at one ear with an annoyed grunt and tried to fathom an hour. That was asking quite a bit of him. On a good day, he was lucky if he made it five minutes without saying something that made someone somewhere want to slap him. It was just how he was built.

After mulling it over a bit, he spoke. "Can we have the TV on?"

"NO." she growled as they re-entered the living room. The sight of Sati's pained and frightened face did wonders for slapping the mad off of Karma's own....which was fortunate for Arkanti. The conversation, at that point, seemed to have dried up as she quietly spread the sheets on the floor and situated the pillows and cushions, fixing Arkie with a deathglare in the process.

His eyes flicked between Karma, Sati, and back to Karma again.

"Go." she whispered through gritted teeth. Aw, man...

He inched up to the couch as if Sati's laboring body were a snarling junkyard dog and leaned over the back of it. "Its gonna be okay, Sati..." he said, reaching out with the hand that had not been squashed the last time to take the one Sayuri was not holding. "You're doing really good."

If she squashed this hand too, he decided he was officially out of things he was going to let her hold at the moment.

Arkie worked his arms under Sati, grunting a bit as he tried to lift her and ignoring the glare from his guardian. He didn't care if it was rude, she was heavy!

With Sayuri's help, Sati was guided from the couch to the nest of sheets on the floor.

"There we go..." Karma soothed, lifting Sati's hair as she was laid down and guiding it over the back of the pillow in an ebony fan to keep it out of the way. "Arkie, go get some ice."

Now it was Arkie's turn to glare. Why didn't she make up her friggin' mind?? Sit there telling Sati its okay, go get some ice, maybe next she'd ask him to put a broom up his a** and sweep the floor while he was at it. Nonetheless, he scuttled from the room to the kitchen, absently scratching at his ear again.