True Love Ways
By Missy

SERIES: Goosebumps!
SUBSERIES: True Love Ways
PART: one of one parts for this arc
Author: Missy
Email: lasfic@yahoo.com
RATING: PG-13 (Explicit medical descriptions)
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: Laverne goes into labor.
NOTES: The first of one chapters in the fifteenth portion to this series. For previous chapters, see the Goosebumps! Section at LAS Fic or The Look.

The end and beginning of this arc!

There won't be much Carmine or Shirley or Rhonda and Squiggy in this arc.

See if you can pick out the homage to Lauren's fics ;-)

***

She woke in a warm, sticky pile.

For a moment, she wondered if Lenny was eating in bed again. Then a slight cramp of pain swept over her middle, and sleep fell away from her enshrouded mind.

Oh God! Not today! Her eyes fell to the dimly-lit calendar on the wall. Two days before her due date. The apartment was still boxed up, and they had slept on an air mattress, curled together like puppies.

"Lenny!" She hissed, shoving him. Naturally, he rolled right off of the mattress and lay there blinking up at her.

"It's time?" Panic set into his voice. Another cramp slithered along her abdomen. He flung himself into a standing position, grabbed her suitcase and threw her coat in her general direction.

Trying to dress, she watched him call a taxi, then the hospital. She was in her heavy overcoat when another cramp hit; the contractions were fifteen minutes apart.

Lenny half-carried her downstairs to the cab. Only when they reached the hospital would she realize that he had gotten into the cab wearing his pajama bottoms.

***

Her eyes locked determinedly on the clock, her death-grip clutching at Lenny's wrist as though he could save her from pain and fear.

"How's our patient?" The attending ER doctor asked as he pulled back the curtain.

"Cramps..." Laverne uttered. Another hit.

"Ten minutes apart." Lenny said, surprising her with the calm ring of his voice. He watched the doctor slap a glove on his hand.

"I'll have to check you." The doctor announced, and Lenny forced himself to look elsewhere as Laverne let out an gasp at the intrusion. "You're only thirty-percent dilated." He announced.

"But..." Sweat beaded on Laverne's upper lip. "They're getting' stronger...."

"If your cervix doesn't properly dilate in twenty-four hours, we'll have to perform a cesarean..."

"What...yer gonna cut her open?"

"If we have to, Mister Kosnoski. We'll move her into a private room, and try to make her as comfortable as possible." While they wheeled her to the room, the OB finally confirmed to Lenny, very quietly, "If your child's heart rate goes down, we'll be forced to operate." As a parting gesture, the doctor turned on a monitor, and there Lenny noticed the even beating of two hearts.

Lenny stood, frozen in panic. Only when the doctor left did he hear Laverne's sniffling.

He decided to offer her the only thing he could, "Ya want some ice?"

"I want Shirl." She whimpered, clutching her stomach.

"Vernie..." He rubbed a gentle hand across her forehead. "I'll get ya some ice..."

***

Lenny walked the hallways of the hospital, his head filled with the thrumming pulse of his own anxiety.

They were going to cut his wife open. Worse yet, she was mad enough at him to ask for Shirley outright. He still remembered, in horror, the previous day's argument...

***

"To the Leatherettes!"

The band clinked together their glasses, whooping their joy. It had taken five months, but they had finally completed their album.

"Rubber and Roses" probably wasn't in line to win any awards, but it looked like a worthy successor to Leather's previous efforts. Lenny felt the relief of a job well-done. It would also mean that he would be getting a paycheck, soon.

"So, Leather, we goin' out on the road again?" Lenny heard the drummer ask. The idea made Lenny nervous; he certainly didn't want to go back on tour, not this quickly.

"Uh, yeah; I got an announcement about that." Leather stood up. "Me and Ralph are lookin' ta settle down for a while. We ain't gonna be a big tourin' act, not for awhile."

"So we're all out of jobs?" The bassist laughed nervously.

"No, not really..." Leather sighed. "We're gonna be out on the road less. We're gonna record less..."

"We're out of jobs."

Leather frowned. "There's gotta be a better way ta say that..."

Laverne mollified her own anger. Until she and Lenny were alone in their new apartment, she expressed her panic.

"We got a lease and a kid, this cat; I gotta get a job, Len."

"No!"

"Len, we got bills ta pay. When I have the baby, I'm goin' to the police academy."

"Why?! So you can die in the gutter after some pig shoots ya?!" He wanted to touch her so badly, but restrained himself. "I love ya so much. If ya die..."

"I ain't gonna die!"

"You wanna risk it?"

She glared at him angrily. "Ya know who ya sound like? My Pop. "Laverne, marry an Italian! Laverne, don't do this! Don't do that!"

"Take that back!"

"Make me!"

He smacked her with a pillow.

It was supposed to make her laugh. Unfortunately, it didn't.

She flopped down on the bed, unable, due to her size, to curl away from him. But he understood that she wanted not his hands, nor his presence, but his absolute silence.

He gave her that.

***

"Lenny!"

He doubted anyone in human history had ever moved as quickly as he.

Laverne stared in mute horror at the monitors. He had no experience with medicine, but he knew the dip in the other monitor's statistics had to be bad.

He turned, screaming for the doctor. As if by magic, he was there, calling for an emergency C-section.

Lenny stood back in mute horror as they prepped Laverne for the surgery. At some point, they tried to pull him out of the room, and he snarled in reaction.

"Your husband will have to..."

"NO! I need him!" Laverne hissed. They were preparing her for a spinal block, and weren't prepared to argue with her about it.

"Okay, Mister Kosnoski." The attending OB, "Follow that nurse; she'll scrub you in."

The following five minutes were a flurry of green caps and soap. He felt like some sort of alien when he and Laverne were finally re-joined in the operating room. Her expression seemed to tell him that she, too, felt as strange as he did.

"I'm sorry I yelled at ya, Vernie..."

"Incision! Suctioning!" Called a nurse.

"It don't matter, Len." Her grip tightened on his hand. He noticed that intravenous needles pinned down her arms. "I love you." She whispered.

"We see a head...It's got a lot of hair..."

"I love that ya wanna take care of me." She added. "Sometimes, you just gotta let me try on my own."

"But you gotta promise to at least listen to me."

"I will." Her hand tightened on his, eyes fixed to the mirror positioned over her belly.

Lenny's eyes widened in horrified fascination. They had pried Laverne's insides open, and were puncturing something...he promised himself that he wouldn't faint...then he saw a head, and a face, and arms, and legs...The squirming mass of humanity was placed carefully above the incision, and while two doctors went about sewing up his wife's insides, another rubbed the still, chubby infant. He didn't want to look; he didn't want to watch his daughter die.

A squawk; a scream; the nose (Laverne's nose? He wondered) wrinkled up, and mummers of approval sounded from the nurses surrounding them.

"It's a girl! You have a girl."

They grabbed the baby, put her over on a warming tray; she turned bright pink and began to scream the second a warm washcloth touched her face. He felt Laverne's hand tighten on his.

"It's a girl?" She asked.

"Yeah." Instead of trying not to vomit, he was trying not to cry. "She's beautiful."

"I wanna see her..." Lenny watched as they wrapped her in a blanket, then, quickly, handed the baby to him. "I can't see!"

"We're going to need to take her to the NICU for observation." The nurse blathered to him. "She's beautiful, Mister Kosnoski."

"Lenny!"

He turned to his wife, carefully dipping the bundle until she could see the child's face. "Beautiful." Laverne murmured; all she really wanted to do was touch her face, but she was still pinned down.

"Whattya wanna call her, Vernie?"

She smiled sleepily. "Wilhelmina..." She muttered. Lenny smirked; well, they hadn't ever discussed names for girls. If she had been a boy, it would have been Frank, easily.

"Not Josephine?"

"Only one ma." She smiled.

"Okay...we'll call her Billie. Like Holiday." The girl didn't seem to mind her parent's decision, cooing and making small, delightful noises against her father's chest.

"Mister Kosnoski, we need to monitor your daughter's breathing..." The nurse shocked him back to reality. He gently handed the bundle back to her, then turned back to his wife.

"Ya did it, Vernie."

But Laverne had slipped into an exhausted, rapturous sleep.

***

Lenny cursed at the phone. "No, that wasn't for you...look, I'm Mister DeFazio's son-in-law! How many...No! I ain't holdin' for no one! Goodbye!" He jimmied the receiver before getting his dime back.

Well, at least he had managed to get through to Squiggy; even though his dearest friend had mocked him for having 'girlie jizz', he seemed relatively happy with the news. Finally, he was calling Shirley.

"Ragusa residence?"

"Veenie?"

"Uncle Lenny! I wanted to talk to you SO BAD! Guess what? Mom got me an iguana, and I'm calling it Lenny, and..."

"Wow! Is it green or yellow?"

"It's yellow-green!"

"is your mom up?"

"It's five. She's mumbling something about coffee, but she's up."

"Lemme talk to her."

"Okay.." The phone rattled.

"Hello...are you Carmine's agent?"

"You sound a little loopy, Shirl."

"It's the cold medicine. Hey, Len."

"Sit down."

"Why?"

"Sit down."

"I'm sitting."

"You're an auntie."

"NO!"

"YES!"

"I was going to call Laverne and tell her today, so you'll have to tell her for me; she's going to be an aunt in eight months." Shirley's excitement seemed barely contained by the phone.

"You tell Carmine that he's a lucky SOB."

"I'll clean that up, but I will. What is it?"

"It's a baby."

"The sex, Lenny."

"Sex? I ain't had none in weeks!"

"IS IT A BOY OR A GIRL, LEONARD!"

"Oh! A girl! And we're callin' her after you."

"Oh!" Shirley swooned. "Little Shirley Kosnoski!"

"Nah! Wilhelmina!"

Shirley's scream nearly caused Lenny's ears to bleed.

***

Laverne came back to wakefulness a few hours later. And, as if he'd never left, there sat Lenny.

He scrambled to sit down beside her.

"The baby?" She whispered.

"She's beautiful. And I named her what ya asked...I signed the papers an everything!"

"When can I see her?"

"They said they're bringin' her in so she can eat soon." He lowered himself gently to her level, kissing her forehead. "I'm so proud of ya."

"And I'm proud of you. Ya stood right there and held my hand..."

"And I gave her the name ya asked me to."

Laverne frowned. "What name? I don't remember a name."

Lenny shrunk back.

"Lenny! What name!"

"Here's your baby, Missus Kosnoski." The nurse wheeled in a tiny pink bundle and carefully handed it to Laverne. "Did your doctor show you how to nurse?"

Laverne tried to nod her head, and was shocked by a sharp pain.

"Whoops; you may have a spinal headache...we'll adjust the bed." Suddenly, she was in a sitting position. Robotically, Laverne did as she was told, carefully placing the little girl to her breast.

She smiled to herself, watching Lenny; this had to be the first time he had seen her bare breasts without biting his palm.

The baby had a good weight to her, and was surprisingly plump. Laverne noticed a sprinkling of washed-out red hair underneath the protective pink cap she wore. The child was beautiful, and to Laverne she looked exactly like Lenny.

Then her eyes fell to the pink identification bracelet and her eyes widened.

"Wilhelmina Randie?" He couldn't tell if her tone was approving or disapproving.

"Yeah...well, after ya said Wilhelmina, I got ta thinking..."

"You named her after Randy?"

"He was my hero too, Laverne."

Her eyes softened, and she reached out for him. "You're such a man, Lenny. One more reason I love ya."

And she meant it.




To Chapter One of "I Heart Milwaukee"
To Chapter One of "Do Me So"