Malcolm in the Middle: one-shots

Where Are They Now? Hal and Lois

Lois: A few months after Malcolm and Reese left home, I hadn't had my period in a while and my cravings for milkshakes were starting to kick back in, so I figured it might have been menopause because I was getting closer to that age. However, I remembered that Hal couldn't afford to get a vasectomy (though he told me that he had gotten one), so I bought a pregnancy test just to make sure, and it came out positive.

Me and Hal started panicking because of course, this unborn child would be our sixth, and I stopped panicking when I realized that this child could be our chance to relieve the mistakes we had made with the other five, they could be a girl like I had always wanted, and there was a chance that they would actually be well-behaved for once. Though the boys liked to blame me for their shortcomings and I had done some regrettable things such as losing my temper at them and scaring them, the truth was that their personalities were always that way, no matter how tight of a grip I had on them.

I was a bit too quick to lose my patience with them sometimes, and though I can blame myself because having a full-time grunt work job that paid pennies (I was overqualified because I had a college degree, but I did it because it was the only job I could find that allowed me to work full-time, yet still come home early), a house to take care of with not enough money to take care of it, a schedule that was so tight that I had to shave Hal at the breakfast table in front of the boys, and several children messes with your mind, I've always been sad about the fact that the boys resented me and thought that I was the bad guy just for doing my job and stopping them from getting in worse trouble than they were already in.

Dewey was still busy as ever messing with Jamie, but even he was starting to neglect that in favor of his passion for music, so at least things were starting to get (slightly) less hectic than they were with Malcolm and Reese and I was calmer now that I didn't have to step in as much since they were maturing (though they had their moments, such as the "blowtorch incident") and they called to check in rather than to ask for things.

When I found out the sex of the baby, I was unable to hide my joy when I found out that it was a girl. She was born in June 2007, and because Hal remembered to call an ambulance on time (as much as he was distracted by the sound of the ice cream truck) and we could actually access the car, she was the first child since Reese to have been born in a hospital, because Malcolm was born in the front yard, Dewey was born in the backyard on a stormy night, and Jamie was born in mine and Hal's bedroom.

We named her Chelsea because Chelsea Avenue was the last street we passed on the way to the hospital, and she was a pretty quiet baby who preferred playing on her own. If Dewey or Jamie tried to do something like turning on the garbage disposal to convince her that her teddy bear would be sucked in there, she would always try to stop them or just shrug it off because even as a toddler, she wasn't naïve or gullible.

In 2010, not long after the recession plunged our family into chaos because Hal lost his job, Jamie and Chelsea weren't old enough to work, Dewey's piano lesson business didn't really give us much money (especially since he overcharged), the older boys were off supporting themselves, and I was still stuck earning minimum wage at Lucky Aide, I ended up getting promoted to district manager for all the Lucky Aide stores in the county. This position had a much higher salary and more autonomy, especially since I could choose who would get hired and fired, something that I would have never been able to do in the past that I loved doing for obvious reasons.

Menopause and the powerful feeling the job gave me turned me into a monster, though I decided to hide in the hidden bathroom in our closet or in the backyard bomb shelter that Hal showed me so he and the kids wouldn't see me in a rage, since I had learned my lesson about showing my temper with the older boys and I didn't want the younger ones to think I was a villain and then grow up being mad at me.

Currently, now that Francis (who FINALLY admitted that the longstanding conflict between us was his own fault) is the father of two teenagers, Reese owns a restaurant, Malcolm works in a very important research lab and has three boys, Dewey is a music teacher, and Jamie lives with his friends and goes to community college, it's just me, Hal, and Chelsea, who is fifteen years old. Though the boys still come to visit from time to time and all of us, children and all, are together for Thanksgiving and Christmas, it's nice to have just one child around the house because I don't have to worry as much about where everyone is and if they are being safe (though I still need to worry because I'm still their mother).

Chelsea never tried any tricks with me like the boys did, especially since she saw me as someone to talk to as the only other female in the house, but still, she is fifteen years old and her mood swings are almost as bad as the boys' at that age, to the point where we had to unscrew her door because she kept slamming it, so three more years and it'll just be me and Hal...

Hal: You should have heard me scream when I found out that Lois was pregnant with child number six. I wasn't expecting it at all, because I never imagined that we'd have another child, especially since not long before, we found out that we were about to become grandparents to Francis's unborn child, but then I realized that it would be fun to have another child in the house since they're only young once.

Around the time Chelsea was born, I played a poker game with my usual group where I lost a bet I made that was a bit too high, landing us in even more debt than we were already in because of other bad financial decisions I had made, such as renting a steamroller after winning a $1000 scratch ticket (when I saw Dewey standing in front to stop me, I decided to bring it back), buying boxes of "just in case" cigarettes when I was about to quit smoking (fortunately, I did quit, and I would have even if Lois hadn't threatened to make me eat the cigarettes), and booking a trip to a couples' resort in Palm Springs for me and Lois that just so happened to be at the same time as Jamie's first day of kindergarten.

I decided to stop being so reckless with my money, as hard as it had been to not buy new and interesting things, because we didn't want to live on canned beans (though they were Lois's favorite, despite making her gassy, hence why her coworkers called her "Beans"), three-day-old leftovers, and noodle cups (those things are too salty!) forever and there were some very necessary home repairs that went undone for years for this reason (and Lois never trusted me to do them).

I feel like this was the right decision because when the recession hit in 2008, I lost my job. There was a reason why I had taken Fridays off for fifteen years with another job I had in the same field, so I was somewhat happy about it because my job wasn't exciting enough, but still, not even Lois working overtime as much as possible could help us that much. Even then, I managed to keep the kids entertained by finding fun things to do around the house like scavenger hunts and movie nights with homemade snack mixes using whatever we could find.

It was harder for me to connect with Chelsea than it was with the boys, but I tried my best, becoming the victim of several makeovers with her toy makeup kit (I got her back a few times!), using my foolproof roller-skating teaching method on her, and building her a dollhouse when we couldn't afford to buy her the Barbie Dream House with the working elevator. I also tried to make sure that I didn't forget her birthday (for her seventh birthday, I booked a party at Chuck E. Cheese that was as much for her as it was for me because I needed to defend my Skee-Ball title!) or the chance to take photos like with some of the boys, since in the past, we were so busy and stressed with work and the other kids that some of the things that other families take for granted slipped our minds, so I thought it was better if we didn't let history repeat itself.

Around the time when Lois became a district manager, I was still looking for work, and I ended up finding a job as a systems manager at a software company that was far more stimulating and didn't make me want to take Fridays off or give me fear of being fired or replaced by a machine.

Now that I've given up gambling except for the occasional poker game that, thanks to my urging, uses cookies instead of money, we've been able to afford the things we need, yet still have some left over for a Yonanas frozen yogurt maker, supplies to build a life-size version of the Mouse Trap board game if we have another infestation, and whole-home speakers.

Currently, in addition to working, being "fun-pa" to Francis's and Malcolm's kids and being the same husband and father I've always been, I'm writing up plans for when me and Lois retire and we finally have an empty nest after almost forty years of having children in the house, and they're quite interesting...