John and Marlena (Finally) Get a Q!

Chapter 39 - Tickle-Me-Q

Carrie paced the staff lounge nervously. She had decided the previous day that she was going to wait to get her pregnancy confirmed before telling anyone. Including her husband. It was Friday afternoon and the pace of life in the hospital seemed frantic, in stark contrast to the corporate world where everyone was winding down for the weekend.

She was waiting on an appointment with one of the staff doctors and she was getting more and more nervous as the doctor's appointment ran later and later. She was getting ready to leave when a nurse finally entered the lounge to tell her that the doctor was ready for her. With a deep inhalation, Carrie gathered her purse and her nerves and followed the nurse from the room.

******

Marlena had barely made it down the stairs before her children threw themselves at her, clutching her legs and giggling. She laughed with them as Q came out of the kitchen, his face dusted with little floury handprints. The children squealed and ducked behind her legs as he advanced toward them.

"I am gonna get you two," he called with a smile. Belle squealed and grabbed a tighter grip on Marlena's leg.

"Mommy!" Brady called, entreating Marlena to waylay Eugene on their behalf. Marlena only laughed.

"Oh no, you two got yourselves into this, you can get yourselves out." She grinned at Q who winked back at her as he neared the trio, his own floury hands outstretched.

"It's time for the revenge of the flour-man," he called to the children as they let go of their mother's legs and dashed up the steps, giggles overcoming them as they reached the head of the staircase.

"Can't cats uu-ss!" Belle provoked through the banister. "We get away fwom you." She giggled and then pursued Brady into his bedroom, the door slamming behind the twin terrors. Q looked at Marlena and rolled his eyes.

"I swear those two beat me every time."

"Only because you let them," Marlena answered with a mischievous smile.

"Shh....don't tell them that." The twinkle in Q's eyes had an answering counterpart in Marlena's.

"It's much more fun this way." He looked at him again, from under his eyelids. "Maybe if there was two of us....it'd be a more even match..."

"I think that rather depends on your definition of even." Marlena raised her eyebrows, the smile transforming her face into an impish rendition of Sami's. "But it sounds like fun to me."

Without another word, she turned on her heel and raced for the stairs, Eugene in hot pursuit.

******

John yawned as he rolled over. He buried his arms below the pillow, bunching the sides up against his ears in a futile attempt to block out the sound from the street below. The sound of the jackhammer tore insistently at his skull however and he was forced to open his bleary eyes. The red blurs on the dresser resolved into numbers which told him that it was after ten in the morning. Two hours after he had been due at work.

He swore under his breath as he rubbed his face, attempting to get some feeling back into the nerve endings that littered his skin. The lack of sleep was beginning to tell.

It had been two the previous morning before sleep had claimed him. He seemed to have a lot of trouble sleeping these days. He lay awake, it seemed for endless nights, wondering what else he could do in his efforts to woo Marlena back into his life. Occasionally, at one or two in the morning, he would have a brainstorm, a wonderful idea that would convince him that he would win her back. More often though, he struggled with the despair that dogged him almost constantly, that etched itself into his consciousness.