Only Choose Once
Chapter One
By Missy

SERIES: Goosebumps!
SUBSERIES: Only Choose Once
PART: one of two parts for this arc
Author: Missy
Email: lasfic@yahoo.com
RATING: PG-13 (For language, anatomical references)
PAIRING(s): L/L; S/C; S/R

DISTRIBUTION: To LW, Kai, and FG so far; any other archives are welcome to ask (Please Email Me), but disclaimers must be included, my email left intact. send a URL, and provide full disclaimers as well as credit me fully. Please inform me if you are going to submit my work to any sort of search engine. Please do not submit my work to a search engine that picks out random sets of words and uses them as key words, such as "Google"

Please contact me in order for this story to be placed on an archive, or if you want know of a friend who would enjoy my works, please email me their address and I will mail them the stories, expressly for the purpose of link trading. MiSTiers are welcomed! Please do inform me that you'd like to do the MiSTing, however, and send me a copy of the finished product. I'd also love to archive any MiSTings that are made of my work!

DISCLAIMER: Laverne and Shirley, of course, not my property and belongs to its creators.

CATEGORY: Epic Drama
CANNON/SPOILERS: Pre-Reunion Show Cannon; set five years after the series' conclusion.
FEEDBACK: PLEASE?!
SPOILLER/SUMMARY: While Rhonda recovers from her Post-Pardum depression, Shirley becomes attached to Moth, and Laverne tries to decide if her own child is a miracle or a curse.
NOTES: The first chapter in the eleventh portion to this series. For previous chapters, see the Goosebumps! Section at LAS Fic or The Look.

The beginning of this arc!

***

"Vernie? Baby, wake up!"

Lenny never called her baby. This had to be serious. She forced herself to open her eyes.

Neon signs blared around her, and Lenny kneeled above her, haloed in neon. "She's awake."

"Laverne, can you hear me?"

She managed to smile. "Yeah." She rubbed at the lump forming on the back of her head. With effort, she noticed that in the background a struggle was going on. Then it came back to her; the swarthy man she had tackled. She tried to sit up, but Lenny pressed her back down.

"Don't ya dare move. They think ya concussed yer head."

"I'm fine." She lied. "Is everyone else okay."

"Yeah." She could see that he was trying to smile. In reality, he looked ready to start crying on her. "Ya caught 'im, Vernie."

She grinned. "I know. Wasn't it great?"

His forced smile faded. In a heartbeat, he leaned over her, wrapping his arms around her neck, not caring about the roar of the crowd or the curses being hurled at them by the stalker being yanked off of the stage.

When he pulled away from her, the words were filled with ferocity.

"Don't ya do that again!" He held her face between his hands. "Ever!"

"Len, I'm fine."

"What about the baby, Vernie?"

She winced at the accusatory tone of his voice and placed a palm to her still-flat belly. "It's fine."

"Him or her's fine." He rebuked gently.

She sat up, with great effort, to watch the crowd being ushered out around her. "I'm sorry, Len. I wrecked it."

He embraced her. "Ya did nothin' but save my life, an' prob'ly Leather's, too." While staring into the mirror of her eyes, he added, "but we gotta watch out for the baby."

"Yeah."

But as her mind filled with the memory of her instinctive actions, she couldn't say that she regretted anything.

Instead, she felt very intrigued by her own prowess. As though an entire new world had opened up before her.

***

Two weeks later

"Hey, hey Baby...I wanna know, if you'll be my girl."

Shirley giggled to herself as she danced barefoot across the floor of the apartment, Moth in her arms. Carmine, singing his lungs out while he stirred up some macaroni and cheese, kept time with the tip of his toes. The little girl cooed her approval.

"What a smart baby! She's laughing already."

"Laughing makes her smart?"

"Smart for someone who came from Rhonda and Squiggy."

"Yanno, all the books say she ain't laughin'." Squiggy put in from the sofa. "It's just gas."

"Well, she is your daughter." Carmine said. Shirley's lips twitched in discomfit at the words. Depositing the mac and cheese on his wife's good china, Carmine crossed the room, handed a plate to Squiggy and then placed her own on the kitchen table.

"Is Rhonda awake?" Rhonda had been placed in Shirley and Carmine's bedroom, Squiggy bunking on the floor. That required Shirley and Carmine to sleep on a foldout sofa in the living area with Veenie. Roger had a term for that, Carmine thought to himself with amusement, but it couldn't be repeated in polite conversation.

Rhonda emerged from the room at the sound of her name. "Rhonda's here; and where is her precious Star?"

Shirley froze in mid-step, turned, and looked into Rhonda's face. She had dreaded the arrival of this day, even as she noticed the balance of Rhonda's usual personality returning. "She's here."

"Oh, my sweet baby." She purred, taking the little girl into her arms. "Oh, mommy was just a beast with you. Mommy's so, so sorry..."

Shirley bit down on her tongue so hard that she could taste blood.

***

Laverne rested against Lenny's arm as the gondolier paddled them down a canal.

"One more week, Vernie." He said, loftily. She really couldn't believe it herself; after they completed the Venetian engagement, they would be flying back to the East Coast - a great excuse to visit Shirley -. With one more concluding date in New York, and an appearance on Mike Douglas, the tour would be considered over.

Somehow, she was saddened by it. The tour had been a wonderful experience; she and Lenny had driven out to her Great-Grandmother's old villa, has climbed the Eiffel Tower, had done and seen things she'd only dreamed of doing and seeing.

And she and Lenny had somehow, through the wonder of penicillin, conceived a baby.

Despite the new life growing inside of her, she felt muddled. As though the greatest adventure of her life had just passed away, leaving her with nothing to do.

He rubbed her belly. "I dreamed it." He muttered, quietly.

"Len, make sense."

"I always dreamed you an' me was gonna get it right. We'd have a baby."

She smiled, wishing she could be as sure, as happy.

"I wish ya would...I dunno...I wish ya'd be as happy as me."

She stiffened.

"How do you know I'm not happy?"

"Cause you weren't waitin' fer this baby like I was. Remember how I had ta remind ya before?" His tone turned serious. "Laverne, you was meant to be a mamma. I told ya a million times."

"Just cause ya think so doesn't make it true, Len."

He frowned. "Yer natural."

"Shirl's a natural. Maybe God was tellin' me something, when I didn't get pregnant before..."

"La-Verne! Ya know better than I do that before it would be wrong."

"And now's right?"

"Yeah! I got a job, and we're married, 'an..."

"...and I just figured out what I wanna do!"

"What? Laverne, you ain't gonna do anything dangerous like that anymore!"

"Why?"

"Cause I don't want ya to die!"

The words rang through the frozen air between them. She pulled away from his arm, sitting up straight.

"I'm scared it's all a big mistake."

"The baby's not a mistake."

Her words cut through him. "It could be."



To Make It Easier
To Part Two











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