Last chapter! And then it's over! Finally! Woo! I'll try and make it as long as possible for all of you who always want longer chapters...but I'm not guaranteeing anything...my head still hurts far to much...whoops...heh...

I leaned over the bed and looked down at Lauren and whispered, "Hey, Laur." No movement whatsoever. I bounced the bed a little, hoping it would wake her up. Still nothing. I jumped onto the bed and shouted, "Lauren come on!"

A grunt was all I got.

I sighed, pulled the blankets off of her, causing her to groan in protest and mutter, "Stop it Mark."

"You gotta get up."

"No."

"Yeah. Breakfast is waiting for you, so is the shower and so is a special appointment." Her only response was making a grab for the blankets.

"C'mon my amante incinto, time to get up."

"Who's the one who got me in this position?"

"Yeah, yeah I know. It's all my fault, get up already, I'm hungry and wanna eat."

"Then go eat."

"No, you're gonna eat with me, you should start gettin' three meals a day in babe."

"Yes dad."

"Well, hey...I need my practice, c'mon! Get up!"

"Fine I'm up!" She rolled to the side of the bed and slowly climbed out then headed for the door, when I started laughing at her she turned to look at me and asked, "What?"

"You're starting to waddle." I muttered, trying not to laugh too hard, for fear of her coming over and giving my head a good whack.

"Oh shut up." She grumbled, turning back around and heading down the hallway and into the kitchen. I looked over at Guinness, patted my thigh and said, "Well c'mon, let's go get this show on the road." He hopped up from his position that earlier had been right between me and Lauren came bounding for the edge of the bed and came to an abrupt stop.

"Oh Guinness come on you little coward." I muttered, watching as he looked to the floor, up to me, back to the floor and back to me. He whined and wagged his tail, looked ready to jump down, changed his mind and backed away. I rolled my eyes and reached over and pushed him off the bed.

"Mark! You didn't!" Lauren said, coming back into the bedroom.

"Yeah, so what?"

She slowly bent down and scooped Guinness off the floor and cuddled him close, all the while cooing at him and stroking his head while he wiggled happily and attempted to lick her face.

"You didn't have to push him off the bed." She said, finally turning her attention on me when I sighed.

"Well he has to sometime. He's big enough, and he's fine, so stop mothering him." She rolled her eyes and put him down. He came bounding over to me, tail wagging so fast his whole body was wagging, I looked at him, then up at Lauren and said, "They say dogs have short memories, so see? He's fine, forgotten all about that traumatic experience already."

Lauren looked at me, snorted then said, "Now we know why they're man's best friend. Short attention spans and memories."

I only blinked at her and said, "Touché love. Touché."

Thirty minutes later I was leaning forward in the chair in the waiting room and asked, "What's this?" Lauren smacked my hand and said, "Don't touch anything."

"Why not?"

"Cause, you're dangerous in unknown environments and just go touching things, you could break something."

"Nah doesn't look breakable." Lauren turned and gave me a look so I sat back and went to looking around at the other people waiting. Most of which were pregnant women.

Could I get anymore out of place?

"Why do I have to be the only guy here?" I whispered.

"Usually there are a couple guys here; guess today is just not the day." I grunted and sighed, then jumped when Lauren smacked her forehead and said, "Shoot."

"What?"

"We forgot to bring at least one phone."

"For?"

"To call Ricky!"

"Oh yeah." Ricky had wanted to come along with us for this when we had been told of the date, but then something had come up in his family and he'd had to leave for the summer. So it had been Lauren's plans to have him on the phone so he could be here in a sense, but I guess in our excitement to just get here so we could know we'd forgotten to grab at least one of our phones.

"Is this gonna take much longer?" I grumbled five minutes later. It was past the time of our appointment and I was getting a little bored just sitting here. Lauren only shrugged and sighed.

Finally, what seemed like ages later, which was only a minute or so, Lauren's name was called.

I leaned forward, squinted at the screen and asked, "Is that it?" The doctor turned and nodded at me while Lauren and I continued to stare at the screen, completely fixated by the white and black images.

"Are you serious?" I asked again. Lauren reached up and lightly smacked the back of my head, but I was too fixated on the screen to really give a care. She could have stabbed me and I still would have just continued looking at that small screen. The doctor only nodded again and asked, "Would you like to hear the heartbeat?"

"The what now?"

"Donnie." I heard Lauren growl.

"Huh?"

"You're not even paying attention are you?" I shook my head. She sighed, leaned back and said, "Yes, we would."

"What?"

"Mark...just...shut up."

"Okay." The doctor, or nurse, whatever the hell she was smiled at the two of us, did something I don't quite recall because I was far to interested the sound now filling the room.

I swear I almost burst into tears of happiness right then and there.

The da-dum-da-dum-da-dum of the baby's heartbeat was just so, unbelievable, I can't even begin to imagine ever being able to describe what I was feeling right then, all I did was mutter, "Oh...wow."

Lauren's hand squeezed mine and I looked up at her and smiled, she returned my smile and with her other hand wiped her eyes and sniffed a little.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just so...so..."

"Yeah, I know."

"Now, how about we do what you came here to do." We both nodded and the doctor turned the sound off, I sighed unhappily, I could have just listened to that wondrous sound for hours on end. I quickly held up an arm and said, "Someone pinch me."

Lauren viciously pinched my arm and growled, "You're not dreaming! It's real! So stop it you tard!" I rolled my eyes, smiled at the doctor and said, "Continue." She smiled politely and moved the little thing around on Lauren's stomach some more.

Then, quite suddenly, Lauren gave a rather nice sized burp.

It was silent, the two of us looking up and over at her, then, I covered my eyes with my free hand and heard her quietly say, "'Scuse me."

In between laughs I managed to say, "I give it a seven!"

"Well she's pressing down on my stomach here! What do you expect?!"

"Well it was rather unexpected!" I managed to get myself under control, grinned at Lauren and said, "This kid is gonna hear all about that." She rolled her eyes and we both turned our attention back on the screen with the doctor, who was smiling and looking like she was trying not laugh, did something with the screen so it stopped moving around.

"Well, looks like you're going to have a," the doctor leaned forward a bit, myself and Lauren leaned towards her a little as she studied the screen, "a boy."

I only found it in myself to blink.

Of all the things I could have done, I blinked.

Lauren squeezed my hand and I slowly looked over at her, she grinned while saying, "I knew it." I nodded.

"You okay there babe?"

"Yeah, uh...yeah. I'm good." I muttered, blinking again.

Was it just me, or was the room spinning a little to fast?

"Donnie, you sure you're okay? You're looking a little-" I never heard the rest of what Lauren had to say, because someone flipped the switch in my head to 'off'.

Some time later I was slowly opening my eyes to a dark room and wondering who had used my head as a drum set before wondering where I was and what the hell had happened.

I sighed as I remembered I'd fainted. Oops.

"Ah, you're finally awake." I jumped a little and looked down at Lauren, hadn't even realized someone was lying right next to me.

"Um...yeah?"

"You okay?"

"Feels like someone took my head and slammed it against the wall a couple times and slammed it in a door a couple times after that for good measure."

"Well you did knock it against the counter on your way down, and you kinda thunked it on the floor after that."

"So I did faint?"

"Yeah."

"Damn...there goes my reputation." Lauren snorted from beside me and asked, "What reputation?"

"I dunno, but I'm never gonna hear the end of this."

"Nope." I sighed again, but smiled anyway, I looked down at Lauren and she looked up at me, "Can we go home?"

"Doctor said he wanted to have a look at you before you went anywhere." I made a face as I sat up, Lauren only shrugged and said, "Not a bad idea Mark, hit your head nice and hard."

"Yeah, I know...but I'm fine. I don't need to be checked out. When is he supposed to be coming anyway? We gotta call him or something?"

"No, said he'd be back soon when he came by an hour ago to check and see if you were awake yet."

"That was an hour ago, soon is like...fifteen minutes."

"Oh just relax." I sighed, plopped back down, rested my hand on her stomach and said, "So a boy huh?" She put her hand over mine, smiled and nodded.

"I think I'm still in shock from when you first told me." She grinned, rested her head on my shoulder and said, "Well, wonder how you'll react when it's the actual time."

"Probably faint then to."

"You do I'll kill you." I shook my head, kissed the top of her head and muttered, "Either way, I love you, I'm proud of you, don't know what I would do without you in my life and we will sure as hell make it through whatever life throws at us."

She squeezed my hand and whispered, "Damn right we will."

Laur: Woo! I'm a big boy now! Woohoo! And I know she would...she's probably plotting the night to do such a thing.

Moonlight Tigress: Well I'm glad someone loves my mind...what a weird, crazy, insane thing it is. And that's the second threat I've gotten from the cat that hasn't even come from the cat. What's up with that?

KiyashiChan: I hope that's spelled right, but yes...she most certainly is, as this chapter probably answered. And you haven't missed a chapter where I explained anything because there wasn't one...I just kinda...skipped a whole lot. But I'm glad you like this thing here...

Gevi: Thanks! And yeah, had a blast...and well...I'm not havin' it...but yeah, thanks again! And I'm glad it made ya laugh and you liked it and what not, and once again you're more than welcome for the info. I just hope it comes in handy.

Tzotel431: Ah! Look! Another now! And yeah, that's correct, and no...didn't miss anything...I just skipped a whole lotta stuff cause I didn't wanna drag this here thing on forever and ever

Karone-sakura: I am not an old man! Gahd!