Covet (Andre/Anika, Lucious/Cookie/Malcolm)

Chapter Four: Maybe Your Baby (Done Made Some Other Plans)

Notes:

"I told you what was going to happen if you saw [Malcolm] again." Second chapter of Sacrifice. 

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While Cookie and Lucious were mourning the death of their daughter, the rest of the Walker/Lyon crew were celebrating the circle of life. The theme? Screw it.

Hot tub water no warmer than room temperature? Screw it.

Hot tub a little too hot? Screw it.

Hot tub just the right temperature, but nobody could figure out how to turn the bubbles off? Screw it.

No ambulances within a 500-mile radius because every paramedic and police officer was scraping Rhonda off a car roof? Screw it.

Cookie abandoning Anika when Anika needed her the most? Screw it. And screw her!

Every time Anika's eyes flashed with anger, Jamal reached out and held her hand. The sight of so much blood on the floor and in the bathtub made Jamal want to throw up, especially when his cane slipped out from underneath him and he fell flat on his stomach. But Hakeem brought Jamal to his feet and hauled him around the corner. Cookie ran, but they stayed.

"Girl, your baby is gonna be halfway between your ass and this world if you don't calm down!" Leah snapped after the third time a delirious Anika tried to crawl out of the whirlpool.

"It's killing me," Anika moaned. "It's killing me!"

"Killing you? Girl, we haven't even got started yet! You're gonna pop that baby out quick, too. I can tell." Leah tried to keep her voice light. Anika was going to have her baby quickly, all right – too quickly. But she did her best to keep Anika calm. God damn you, Cookie Lyon! "You doin' just fine. Girl, I was in labor with Dwight for 16 hours. This is nothing."

"Mama Leah, if I don't have this baby by midnight, please promise you'll cut it out of me."

"You're too pretty to be all cut up. Jamal, get her some ice. Hakeem, get down there and tell me if that baby is crowning or not."

To Hakeem's credit, he didn't even have to be asked to run to the ice machine, to bring back clean towels and another bucket to make ice water, to strip down to his boxers and wade into the water, ready to do whatever it took to get little Leo into the world. To Hakeem's detriment, he was treating Anika's childbirth like a trip to Splashwater Falls, alternating between monitoring Anika's contractions – under the water, no less - and live tweeting the birth of his nephew-son. "I think I can see the head! Jamal, you gotta see this!"

Jamal frowned at his baby brother bobbing up and down in the fluid-filled water as if it was a crystal spring. "I'll pass, thanks." Jamal's job was to alternate between feeding Anika ice chips, dabbing her lips with ChapStick, and getting feces out of the water nearly every time Anika pushed, despite the fact that she wasn't supposed to be pushing. Eventually, Leah gave up telling her to stop. This baby was going to come whenever it came.

"Hakeem! Hakeem! What the hell are you doing!?" Anika shouted for the 50th time. Yelling at Hakeem was just a distraction from the contractions, which she knew were coming much too fast.

Hakeem bobbed up to the surface. "Taking pictures!" he beamed. "I got a Samsung S7. Whaaaaaaaat?" he and Jamal chanted together.



"You're taking pictures of my cunt!?" Anika gasped, then cried out for the towel in the ice bucket to bite into before she could go on another obscenity-filled rant. Obnoxious as he was being, Hakeem's photos had a purpose: they allowed Leah to monitor the progress of Anika's labor without having to go under water. They'd been in the water for less than 20 minutes and Leo's head was already beginning to crown.