Surprise Package
by Trin
[No valid email address]

These belong to Lucas, etc. etc. Inspired by the DMEB chatroom. Thanks, guys!

Darth Maul sat on his living room floor playing Jedi Roadkill XI. He had not used his sofa since the small industrialized nation from the far-left corner pizza box had established a mining colony there; they were apparently making a good living mining foam from the seat cushions, and Maul did not want to squash their precious habitat until they were just about to turn a profit. It should only take a week or so more.

"Ha, ha! Die, Jedi scum!" he shouted insanely at the TV screen, which had permanent images of Jedi corpses burned into it from all the times he'd let it sit on pause while on a week-long mission for his master. My Apprentice looked up at him, obviously disapproving of his lack of self-control. Ha, no matter. Two more doors and he would reach the top of the Jedi Tower itself, and then destroy the Jedi Council one by...

Right on schedule, the door flew open. Maul sighed and turned, fully expecting to see Sidous standing there with yet another revolting task for him to accomplish. No one was more surprised than he to find Darth Mary Sue standing there, panting angrily, hair wild, skin flushed. She was beautiful. Maul leered. It had been a couple of months since they had gotten together, after all.

"Hi, there. Wanna fu..."

"No, you horny bastard! That's what got me into this in the first place!" And with that she sent bright purple lightening bolts out of her fingers which made Sidious' look like dime-store imitations. Fortunately, she was not aiming for Maul. Unfortunately, she was aiming for the television.

*!THWACK!* The screen shorted completely and fell backward to the floor, where it lay sparking and hissing for a very long time. Maul looked back at Darth Mary Sue, impressed. "Um... what's up?" he asked, hoping she wouldn't aim any more of those bolts at him.

Instead of answering, she began to stalk around the apartment, kicking ancient pizza boxes out of her way and muttering under her breath. Maul thought he caught the phrases, "...no kind of place for to raise a kid..." and "...terrible role model...." Afterwards, Maul though he really should have known at this point what was coming.

He stood up. "What's the matter with you? This behavior, while indeed filled with the powers of the Dark Side, is most unattractive." He said, trying to combine vocal commands with Sith Mind Whammies. "Let me get you a drink (get you drunk) so you can relax (so we can have sex)."

Mary Sue clutched her hair and turned on him like a rabid lioness. "NOO!!" she screamed. "No coffee, no cigarettes, no processed sugar, and ESPECIALLY no alcohol!" Her face was now inches from his, and the anger in it made Maul's stomach quail. "I THOUGHT YOU USED PROTECTION!!!" she cried.

No. No. It couldn't be. She must mean something else.

"We did - You helped me put it on yourself..." Darth Mary Sue suddenly had a complete personality switch. She stayed close, but instead of seething, began crooning, hanging on to Maul's arm and petting his shoulder, lightly.

"I've got a little surprise for you, my virile Sith Lord," she said, and Maul felt the first real stabs of fear. "You're going to be a daddy," she said, and Maul knew Judgment Day had come at last.

He blinked once. Twice.

"NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

***

"But, my master, I don't even know if they're mine!" Maul would never have thought it possible for his day to go from bad to worse. And yet it had. Mary Sue was a Melanoid; Melanoids always bore spawn in threes and fours, never one. Maul was not only going to be a daddy; he was going to open his own freaking day-care.

And Sidious was not being at all helpful.

"Now, Maul," he said, leering at places on Maul's body that he did not like his master thinking about. "I told you if you weren't careful something like this was going to happen one day. Do you really think the only reason my.... preferences... are they way they are is because of personal taste? No, my young apprentice. I do not have to worry about this sort of thing." Maul looked aghast. "And no, Maul, you cannot back out of this one. I have a feeling," chuckled Sidious, "that this will hone your hatred quite nicely."

"But.... but.... SITH DO NOT BECOME PARENTS!!!" Maul exclaimed, terrified at whining edge which had crept into his voice. If he wasn't careful, he was going to end up sounding like a Jedi.

"Maul, you did this, you're going to live with it. Besides, you have to help Darth Mary Sue. Her vergent motherhood, does, unfortunately, knock her permanently out of the running as a new apprentice for me. It might, possibly, also disqualify you, depending on how you handle this. However, it will provide an excellent opportunity for you to hone your hatred. You will provide for her needs the next nine months and some nominal care for the offspring of your loins," Sidious gave him yet another stomach-curdling yet appreciative glance, "or I will give up on you entirely and find someone else to torture. I mean, train. And no, you may NOT have a blood test done. Mary Sue remembers you knocking her up; the image is in her mind. You must live with it, my fertile young apprentice." Maul's face fell. He was going to be a father. And he might lose his privelage of being a Sith lord - forever.

He had never been so miserable in all his life.

***

"Moon mellon! I want moon mellon! And berries! I must have berries! And Ben and Jerry's peanut-butter and white chocolate fudge and cherry ice cream! Go! Fetch! Now!" Darth Mary Sue sent Maul on his way to find these items. He started to remind her of what she had said about avoiding processed sugar, but discovered, a black eye and dislocated shoulder later, that such things were best left unsaid.

He was not concerned that at 4:30 in the morning none of these delicacies might be available; he knew from experience that by the time he got back to the apartment, her craving would be for something completely different, anyway. Or worse, she would be nauseated again and he would have to hold her while she threw up. At least one good thing came of this; holding her head in the toilet while she vomited was curing him of his insatiable lust for her body.

Four months of this he had endured. Four! His apartment was sparkling clean, he'd had the small colony in his sofa moved to Obi-Wan's apartment because since Mary-Sue took his bed he needed a place to sleep, and there was no pizza. At all. Pizza was not good for the babies, Darth Mary Sue said, and Maul did not know how to disagree with her.

And to top it all off, My Apprentice had been given a temporary new home because Mary Sue said cats were bad for newborns. That was alright with My Apprentice; her mind-whammies did not work on Mary Sue in her present condition, and after the first week of Mary Sue's abrupt mood swings (she would go from petting the cat to hurling it across the room in without warning), My Apprentice was glad to vacate the apartment. She was staying at Obi-Wan's, where, Maul had been given to believe, she had not yet dominated that damned hamster, Fluffy-Wan.

It wasn't fair. My Apprentice got to escape. While Maul had to stay here with...

"Oh, Maaaaauuuul.... lovey dovey.... come here, would you darling?" Maul shuddered. These mood swings were getting to be too much.

"Yes, Mary Sue?" he asked, trying to ignore the way her previously delectably kissable belly now hung over the waist of her sweat-pannts.

"My ankles are all swollen again. Would you be a dear and massage my feet for a minute or three? There's a nice Zabrak." Maul grimaced. Whenever she said "There's a nice Zabrak," it meant she really was not in a good mood; she was just pretending in order to lure him closer, and the moment he came near, would launch her large self forward impossibly fast and begin hurting him in tender places all over his body, accusing him of things like, "You don't find me attractive any more! Admit it! I don't turn you on any more! We had fire once, but that is a thing of the past!" and then she would burst into tears and hang onto his struggling form for what seemed like hours, getting tears and snot all over his "Sith Lords Kick Ass" t-shirt.

The first time she had done that, Maul was out of the apartment like a shot.

And right into Sidious's arms.

"Back you go, my boy!" Sidious had said, throwing Maul back into his hell-hole of a home with strength that belied his wrinkled old arms. "This is good for you - hones your hatred, and teaches you responsibility. You'll never make this mistake again!" and laughing like Satan, would shut the door. Every attempted escape had ended this way, as though Sidious knew just when he was going to try it. Or hell, maybe he was just camped out in the hallway, like the sadistic bastard he was.

Nothing could surprise Maul anymore. Combine all these with the fact that he was no longer allowed to drink or smoke in his own apartment, or even go out to do so (the Grey Side of the Force was off-limits, and Maul surprised himself by missing it); Maul was very close to breaking down.

***

The last month was rolling around. Maul had grown numb to the idea by now; Obi-Wan had thrown him a surprise baby shower, and the mental image of himself sitting in the center of a circle of pink-begowned Jedi giving him fluffy baby-sized presents had been to much for him. Something in his head had shorted out.

Sidious didn't even come by and check on him any more. It seemed he was past the point of intelligent response.

The apartment was beautiful, the cribs were installed in what used to be Maul's bedroom, and the names were picked out. Mary Sue had vetoed "Killer" and "Whore-Monger" and "Cannibal." She thought "Nancy" and "Brian" and "Martha" sounded better. At least the time was coming soon. Maul had comforted himself that he would train the children in the ways of the Sith, and then they could rise up collectively and strike down Sidious for forcing him to raise them to begin with. Suddenly, the little Sith Beeper on his belt loop went off. It was time.

***

Darth Maul, lord of the Sith, tromped into the delivery room, ignoring the protests of the doctors and nurses involved. Darth Mary Sue was screaming.

"YOU!! YOU did this to me!" she howled, pointing an accusatory finger at Maul. He said nothing. All the books she had forced him to read had warned him this would happen.

"YOU'RE NEVER TOUCHING ME AGAIN!!!" she yowled at the top of her voice.

"You damn well got that right," thought Maul. He kept his distance from her anyway. She looked very capable of physical harm at the moment.

"Um, sir..." began somebody. "What?" he turned viciously on the intern. "You may want to sit down during this part of it. Melanoid birth is very messy, and we, erm, don't want you fainting..."

"Sith do not faint," Maul said, and resumed his cross-armed stance at the end of the room. The chastised orderly slinked away.

The birth began. Darth Mary Sue screamed like nothing he had ever heard before, cursing in more languages than Maul could count. He was most impressed.

Gads. There was so much blood. And.. stuff. And... the smell. And...

The moment the first little offspring began to poke its head out, Maul fainted dead away and landed on the floor with an audible *thud.*

***

He dreamed. He suddenly saw himself, a Sith lord no longer, but a man, just a man. He saw his children. HIS children - this had never hit him properly before. He saw them, growing up, saw them giving him love, and he returning it; saw himself gaining countless hours of joy from the lives of his kids. His kids - who really were a part of him. He saw himself and Mary Sue - Darth no longer - growing old together, learning to love one another, to forgive. This was confusing; Maul had never felt anything so beautiful in his life. Was this a prophecy? Was the Force trying to tell him its will for his future? And was it really so bad? ...

***

Maul awoke with a start. His dream vanished, but the good feelings didn't. He felt strange, almost... weak, like a Jedi. But so peaceful... It was easy to see why the Good Side was addictive.

He opened his eyes, ready to do business with the world and fulfill his responsibilities, ready to finally tell Sidious to go jump off a bridge because he had his own life to live, to...

Maul looked around the room.

He was in the same room as Mary Sue, who was wide awake and staring at him.

"Um, Maul?" she began, but Maul was way ahead of her.

"Mary Sue, oh my Mary Sue..." he said, and she stared at him. "Oh, my Mary Sue, will you marry me?"

"Umm...." she said.

"I will provide for you. I do not yet know how, for all I am trained to be is a Sith Lord, but I will put it all aside for you, and together we will raise our children..."

"Um, Maul, you may not want to put aside your Sith title just yet."

Maul looked at her. This was not the way she was supposed to respond.

"I seem to have made, ah, a small error," she said. Maul suddenly grew suspicious. Next to her bed were three small cribs, each carrying something small and wiggly. Mary Sue was not taking advantage of this situation. Was something wrong? Were their horns not growing in properly? Were they mangled, deformed, or worse?

Eyes narrowing, Maul made his way over to the small cribs, leaned over and peered inside.

In them lay three small humanoids. Pasty white in color. Light brownish hair - of which they had quite a bit for newborns. In fact, if one looked closely enough, it almost looked like the three of them had small braids at the sides of their heads...

Rat-tailed braids.

Padawan braids.

Maul look up at Mary Sue with wide eyes.

"Um," she said again, and Maul knew all.

"Obi-Wan?" he asked in disbelief. He'd know she was powerful in the Dark Side, but this...

"Well, he got drunk one night in the Grey Side of the Force because Qui-Gon left with Mace Windu, and you were nowhere to be found, and I was drunk too, so I... took pity on him."

Maul could not believe his ears. "But you're a.... and he's a...."

"I know," admitted Mary Sue guiltily. "He was so stoned he didn't know the difference. Neither did I. To be honest, I didn't remember it until now, and.... well, we were both imagining that we were screwing you, which is my whole problem. I thought it was you. And so did he. I'm sorry I put you through all that crap. At least you can still be a Sith."

She suddenly brightened. "But you can be Uncle Darth to them, okay?"

Maul could not believe his ears. He was free. Free to go... he looked down on the sleeping babies, and his heart wavered for one moment. And then one of them spit up.

"I am out of here," he said, and started out the door. He ran into Obi-Wan right in the hallway.

"Oh, hello neighbor!" the twit in his tell-tale braid chirped. "Congratulations! Here - I brought you some flowers to celebrate." he looked a bit forlorn. "I guess this really makes you and Mary Sue an item, huh?" Maul smiled wickedly and patted Obi-Wan on the shoulder.

"Oh, I don't think you need to worry too much, neighbor," he said. "All is not lost. Oh, I think you'd better get in there and talk to Mary Sue. She has something to tell you."

"Really? To tell me?" brightened the Padawan.

"I'd hang onto those flowers, if I were you," said Maul. Obi-Wan beamed.

"That's great! I'll be right back..." Obi-Wan said as he bounced into Mary Sue's room.

"No, you won't," Maul said under his breath. He waited for a moment before leaving the hospital.

"NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" screamed Obi-Wan, and Maul smiled his first true Sithly smile in months. Then he drew his lightsaber and went after Sidious. Images in her mind, indeed. It was, perhaps, time to strike his master down. Just as soon as he had a good smoke and a Hamster Death Gulp at the Grey Side of the Force.

END

(8/12/99)