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.Repatriated	By : keithcompany Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Gulliver's Travels Views: 3308 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift.

Chapter List
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Ted was amused by Ritch's preparations for him to touch Renee the first time. He chose to be amused rather than hurt.
She was terribly protective of the infant and he mostly agreed with her. But it was starting to get ludicrous.
Renee was awake, kicking a bit and looking around. Ritch had piled up cushions on the bed and placed the baby on top. This was so if Ted pressed too hard, she'd be pushed into softness not the bed frame...or the floor.
The mound of pillows made her worry about Renee rolling off the sides, so more cushions were piled around the pile.
Then more were placed on the floor just in case those failed.
Staff ran through the bedrooms and guest rooms to gather enough bed pillows, through the parlors and tea rooms for the seat cushions and throw pillows and terry cloth towels were stuffed into pillow cases. Ted thought he saw someone's teddy bear thrown into the pile.
Arlene watched and thought about slumber parties and the need to build sofa forts. Oh, she could have used a mansion back then.
Aguellsta stood at the foot of the bed, watching the baby with an eagle eye. Hort and Phoebe had given up trying to reason with Ritch. Hort watched, amazed at Ted's tolerance for what might become an insult. Phoebe egged her on.
"Aren't there seat cushions in the travel coaches?" she asked, innocent as a newborn scorpion.
"You're not helping," Hort said softly.
Arlene reached to an upper floor and picked up a sofa. She pushed that beside the mobile bed, piling pillows on top of it. "How's that?"
"Perfect!" Ritch cried. "Can you...?" She pointed the cane at the other side of the bed. Arlene smiled and picked up three more sofas, surrounding the baby with supportive comfort.
"Looks like and advert for toilet paper," Ted said softly in English. Arlene giggled. Ritch glared up at her and she subsided, blushing.
"You're not helping," she muttered to Ted, also in English. He seemed unaffected.
"Okay," Ritch finally said. "Okay. You may lower your hand...to..." She put the point of the sword cane over the baby's feet. "Here.
"Then, we'll guide you down..." She made eye contact with the nanny. "To here?"
"As you say, your Grace," Aguellsta nodded. Ted lowered his hand like a slow motion plane landing, watching for signals from the two women on either side.
Finally, at great length, and as his shoulder was starting to feel the strain, he was allowed to rest the tip of one finger on a lily-white thigh.
Renee said, "Vurrrr," and spit up. Ritch lunged forward to gather her up. But the cushions under her knees gave way. The mountain slid down in a plush avalanche, dragging her slowly from the bed to the sofa and back under the bed.
The top pillow with the baby on it started to move. Aggie leaned down to stop it. Her leg shot through the pillow floor, in the gap between bits of furniture and then her side collapsed.
Ted gently picked up baby and pillow and rested them on his palm. He made faces at the child while Hort and Phoebe led frantic excavations into the pillow mountain, strip mining for woman deposits.
Arlene swore that the baby's first smile was at her face. Ted said third. "First Ritch, THEN her daddy and finally, with a moment of hesitation, her beautiful Aunt Arlene."
The pillows heaved some distance from where Ritch had gone down. She slithered free and staggered over to her husband's palm.
She paused, then looked down with trepidation. Renee looked up and said kick, kick, arm wave, gleep and burble.
Ritch started to cry, then picked Renee up. She turned back to the bed. Phoebe was pulling Aggie out by her feet. Hort had gone down and two maids were working their way towards her.
The bed was not visible under the chaos of the moment, though the general shape could be detected if you knew what you were looking for.
She turned to smile up at her wonderfully patient husband. "I believe the technical term is bug zucking insane?"
He gently stroked her hair. "Post partum insanity is a recognized medical condition."
Ritch lowered the baby back into the waiting palm. "Okay. Daddy will watch you while Mommy helps the staff put everything back."
Burble zuuur, Renee said approvingly.
--------
When things were back to normal, Ritch gathered Renee up and went to give her a bath. Once she was out of sight, Ted slipped off the bench and staggered out the door.
Arlene and Hort made eye contact and shrugged. Arlene followed Ted outside.
He was leaning against the back of the building, sweating profusely. Arlene sniffed, trying to tell if he'd barfed.
"Oh, god," he moaned. "I had to sneeze so bad..."
"Oh. Well, you didn’t," she said. She pat one shoulder.
"But I was THIS close! That tiny, tiny life in my hand. She trusted me and I nearly killed her."
"Renee?" she asked skeptically. "She isn't capable of trust yet. Hunger, wet butt, funny faces. She can't even focus both eyes on the same person. That's why you thought she was smiling at you, not at me."
"I'm serious! I never really realized how big my hands are! I couldn't pick her up! I picked up the pillow she was on!"
"Aw, is the big giant man too macho and studwy for his wittle baby gurl?"
"What's wrong with you?" he asked.
She shrugged. "You knew you couldn't do everything with her as a baby."
"But... I can hardly touch her!"
She shrugged, stepped forward and folded his head to her shoulder. "There, there. The big wild man and the little princess will eventually work out how to relate to each other."
"I nearly..." he choked out, then went silent. She waited patiently for a moment.
"You think any parent has ever not worried about failing their children?" she asked. "Admittedly, your failures will be epic and immediate. But just think of your successes."
"I'm rich?" he muttered.
"My dad can beat up your WHOLE FAMILY!" she said in a childish voice. "Servants included." He laughed despite himself.
"So. How many men do you think would be SAD that they were permanently forbidden to change messy diapers."
"Well..."
"But when you teach her to ride a bike you won't have to run alongside. You'll just run it across the table."
"That's true," he admitted.
"Just don't forget and start going 'vroom, vroom.'"
Arlene had her fellow Englishman calmed in time for dinner. He discussed the next few weeks with his family. There was a baptism expected, baby duchesses were announced to the court (her presentation would be upon her majority), people would be calling with offers of marriage.
Everyone flinched at Ted's growl. Arlene laughed. "No shotgun weddings in this house. Mason jars, maybe."
"That's right! I can keep her in glass from age 10 to 30."
"The hell," his wives replied.
------
He graciously offered her first chance at the bath. She accepted.
A thunderstorm started while she was in there. She wondered how Renee would take to it.
Then she wondered if a baby formed in Ted's house would even notice tiny things like thunder.
She came out to find Ted asleep on the floor under the table. He had some sort of growth on his chest. She bent down to see through the shadows.
One of his shirts was twisted into a nest. Ritch was curled up inside it, curled around Renee. The baby was sprawled across Ted's bare chest.
If she knew anything about human biology, the child was right on top of Ted's beating heart.
That would be far superior to any lullaby she knew.
Lightning struck very close, possibly on the roof of the Dollhouse.
Ted flinched. Ritch's eyes fluttered. Renee slept still as a statue.
Arlene sighed and climbed into the hammock.
------
"CHIN!" Arlene shouted.
Everyone at the table flinched. Renee started to cry. Arlene apologized profusely.
"You remember a Chinese person?" Ted asked.
"No! Look at Renee!"
"Daily," he replied.
Aggie had the baby mostly calmed down. The little face actually broke into a smile as her father leaned down over her. "Look at her chin," Arlene whispered.
"She has spit on it." Aggie apologized and wiped it away. "Ah. Okay. It's a cute chin. The cutest chin in the room."
"Hey!" Phoebe protested. He chucked her under her jaw.
"I'm sorry. You're in a three way tie for second place."
"Well. Alright then," she said, pretending to be mollified.
"She has a cleft chin!" Arlene hissed. Ted looked closely at Phoebe. "No! Your daughter."
"Yes," he verified on second look. He looked at Ritch. "Maybe got it from your father?"
"Dad's chin was perfect," Ritch said. "Not notched like yours."
"Like mine?"
"Yes," Arlene said. "One of the first things I tried to teach my students was dominant/recessive genes. I used the cleft chin as an example."
She scooted closer and took Ted's sleeve in a tight grip. "They didn't know what I was talking about."
"Well, you do live in an ethnic neighborhood..."
"NO! No one on any of the islands has a cleft chin! It's a dominant trait, where it exists, but it's been bred out of the gene pool on the islands. The entire gene pool."
Ted was rubbing his jaw as he tried to catch up with his friend. "So...where did Renee get it?"
"Dude! It could ONLY have come from you!" They stared at each other for a few moments. Jaws dropped on several Lilliputian faces.
"You mean..." Ritch said slowly. "You mean you can PROVE that he's the daddy?"
"Told you," Ted said smugly.
"But...but HOW?" Hort asked.
"NOW you ask this?" Phoebe asked incredulously.
"The only thing I can think of," Arlene said, "is that it's part of the design."
They stared silently. "Okay. Okay. Skirting the issue. I think that the... The guys who run Hogwarts. When they made you. They didn’t want to isolate you guys from the rest of the human gene pool."
"You're going to have to explain a bit lower," Ted said, eyes flickering from wives to biologist.
She looked down. Then she shrugged. "The Lost City of Voldemort? Those guys made you so you could have kids with giant men."
"Oh," Ritch said. "Well, that's sorted. More pigs, milord?"
----------
Two months later, the Royal College of Chiurgions and Barbers issued a strong statement decrying the elective surgery fad of putting a tuck into the jawline.
Men and women wearing 'The Renny Chin' were all over upper society.
The queen said it was a lot of pain to go through to look pretty stupid. So the king talked loudly about wanting to get one.
"Since I've been named Renee's godfather," he pointed out, "I'm practically a blood relative. I'm sure cleft genes are swimming into me even as we speak."
"Then why don't you wait for a jaw dimple to form naturally?" she asked sweetly.
"Won't work," he said airily. "For technical reasons far beyond your ability to follow."
"Uh huh..." she said wryly.
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- 9
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