Major Complications (A 'Black Throne' FanFic)

The moment John Major saw his extremely pregnant second wife waddling down the aisle, fierce brown eyes sweeping over the seats of the second-class sci-fi-themed train carriage, he knew that the jig was up.

“GARTH, I KNOW YOU’RE IN HERE.”

The man wearing the black helmet and cape across the aisle from John turned to look at John’s extremely pregnant second wife, probably with an expression of bewilderment on his face, although John couldn’t really tell with the helmet obscuring the man’s visage.

“A-HA! THOUGHT YOU COULD ESCAPE ME WITH A DISGUISE, EH?”

While the woman waddled furiously down the aisle toward the black-clad bystander who had quite unfortunately drawn her attention, John Major surreptitiously pulled his cap down low over his brow and bent over to untie and retie his shoes.

A few days ago, commencing his most drastic plan yet, John Major had legally changed his name to Garth McLoin in hopes that this would deter his second wife from finding him again. As soon as all of the paperwork had been filed and his driver’s and farmer’s licenses updated, John Major had taken a cab to the second-nearest airport, booked a random overnight flight, and then taken a bus to the intergenre railway station. There, he bought tickets for the very next intergenre train scheduled to depart the Satire Republic—he didn’t care where it took him, as long as it was away from his wife. At first, he’d been fairly content with the bad-tempered gum-chewing young cashier at the A & P. But after a couple of years of marriage, he had found she was beginning to annoy him. He tried to split their relationship, but most irritatingly, she refused to be shaken off. She just kept coming back, demanding that he take care of his wife. First he tried paying her to leave. She took the money, but she didn’t go anywhere. Next, he tried flogging her. That had gotten her off the property, but unbelievably, she returned only three days later after a short stay at the hospital—and that was when she had genuinely surprised him with the news that she was expecting. John Major had raised a kid once before with his first wife; it hadn’t been a particularly enjoyable experience, and he’d expressed very clearly to his second wife on multiple occasions that he was not going to risk getting stuck with another one. Now that he knew he was going to get stuck with another—and not even his own!—one had only given him further drive to find a way to be rid of his second wife. After many more failed attempts, John Major had concluded that the only way left that he could get away from her was to leave his genre behind entirely. And that was how his most recent and daring plan had come into being.

Needless to say, his plan hadn’t worked.

Now his second wife was standing three feet away and trying to pry the helmet off of the man across the aisle, who struggled helplessly to stop her.

“No, please, stop! I need this helmet to breathe!” the man begged in a deep electronic voice.

“A likely story! I know it’s you, Garth; you can’t fool me!”

Meanwhile, John Major, AKA Garth, finished retying his right shoe and proceeded to untie his left shoe for a second time.

“Garth?” the black-clad man sputtered, his voice crackling with static. “I though you said Darth! Please, Madam, you have the wrong cyborg!”

“We’ll see about that!” cried John Major’s second wife, finally managing to triumphantly remove the helmet. Then she froze at the sight of the cyborg’s grey, disfigured human head, wheezing for breath. “Oops. Sorry, sir. I thought you were someone else.” She replaced the helmet and moved on down the aisle, face red with embarrassment. She disappeared into the next carriage over. Darth adjusted his helmet into the correct position with a click and there was a hiss of air like a leaking bicycle tire as he took a deep, mechanical breath. Then he got up and stumbled up the aisle in the opposite direction that John Major’s extremely pregnant second wife had just gone. John Major finished double-knotting his left shoe again and returned to an upright position in his seat.

“If she managed to track me this far, how will I possibly get rid of her?” he muttered to himself. He wondered how she had done it. Then he shook the thoughts of wonder out of his head and focused on how he should respond to this turn of events. He could ponder his second wife’s method after he found a way to permanently escape her.

“I suppose I should start by finding a restroom on this train to hide out in. I can’t just tie my shoes every time she walks by,” he thought aloud.

Just as John Major was about to go find one, the voice of the conductor blared from the ceiling speakers: “We ask that all passengers on the Fantasyland Express please find their seats and remain seated for the next minute. We are about to enter the tunnel through the Mountains of Extreme Exaggeration, which mark the border between the Satire Republic and the United Kingdoms of Fanfiction. We will be making a stop in the Fandom of Unlikely Crossovers in approximately seventeen minutes. Thank you for your cooperation, and enjoy the rest of your journey!” John Major got up anyway, but all of the other passengers gave him such dirty looks that he was stopped mid-step and turned around. Sighing, he took his seat while the conductor rattled off the same announcement in about a dozen other languages, including one that sounded peculiarly like somebody pounding a fist on a table at random intensities and intervals. Scarcely a moment passed after the conductor finished before the entire train was plunged into darkness. John Major waited patiently.

When the waning daylight returned, John Major jumped in such powerful fright that he banged his head on a metal pole and his cap fell off.

Leaning down from the seat next to him, John Major’s extremely pregnant second wife picked up the cap and cheerily offered it back to him.

“Here you go, Dear—or should I call you Garth now?”

John Major recomposed himself and snatched his cap back, replacing it upon his head.

“You can call me whatever you like,” he replied flatly. “Now, if you would excuse me, I need to go use the men’s room . . .”

“Oh no, I think you can hold it,” John’s second wife said, grabbing his sleeve and forcefully throwing him back into his seat as he tried to step over her. “We still have things we need to talk about before the baby arrives.” She pulled a stick of gum out of her purse and popped it into her mouth. “Want some?”

John Major resigned himself to the olive green plastic seat and coldly regarded his second wife, responding with a curt “No.”

“You know,” she said, loudly smacking her lips, “you really made it too easy. Garth McLoin. Your father’s middle name and your mother’s maiden name? Honestly, too easy.”

John Major’s brow furrowed. “But I never once spoke to you of either of my parents. How could you have possibly—”

John Major’s second wife flicked her hand dismissively. “Oh, forty minutes at the town hall was all it took. But anyway, back to the baby . . .”

“Which isn’t even my child,” John Major reminded, “so I don’t know why you keep insisting that I take part in caring for it. At least tell me who the real father is. Or do you truly not know?”

“You are the father, Garth. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes! Do you expect me to believe that this kid is going to be the next messiah or something?”

“Miraculous birth is not so uncommon,” said the man in the dark helmet and the cloak, now warily seated a few rows behind where he had been originally. “I, myself, never had a father.”

John Major glared at the helmet-head icily.

“See,” said John’s second wife. “Living proof! It’s perfectly plausible, and not even uncommon.”

“Well fine. As long as we’re calling it a miraculous birth, how about we name the kid ‘Jesus’ while we’re at it?” John Major said, cracking a smile.

“Absolutely not. I’m not going to let you give another innocent boy some terrible name that ruins his life just because you think it’d be a good joke. Not after what you did to Major Major.”

John Major grinned broadly at the fond memory—the only fond memory of his first kid, really. Fourteen years he’d waited for that opportunity, and when it came he had seized it with both hands, filling in the kid’s birth certificate with the name “Major Major Major” while his first wife had lain unconscious from her ordeal. More recently, John Major had been overjoyed to learn that by pure happenstance, his son had been promoted to the rank of “Major” in the army. Major Major Major Major. He wished he could have seen the look on his first wife’s face when he’d have told her, but unfortunately she was already dead, having lost her will to live upon discovering what John Major had done to their son.

“I think Major Major Major was a perfect name,” John Major told his second wife. “It’s unique. No one else has his name.”

“No one else would want his name. But it’s not like that matters anyway, because we’re naming the kid after my father, Matt Hurste.”

“That’s such an uncreative name. Why would you give the kid your father’s name? Your family’s been using that same name since antiquity. And it’s not like you could call the kid ‘Junior,’ since the name would be skipping a generation.”

“And that’s exactly why I must name him Matt!” John Major’s second wife argued. “My father never had a son, so he was unable to truly pass on the family name. The best he could do was name me ‘Mattie Hurste.’ I messed up the sequence, so I have to set it right again. I promised my father that I would. So we’re naming him Matt—Matt Hurste the Thirteenth—and that’s final.”

“The Thirteenth? That doesn’t even make sense. Your father was the Eleventh.”

“We’re skipping a generation, since I was supposed to be the Twelfth.”

“But you should be restarting the sequence if you skip a generation. And besides, aren’t you superstitious about this kid being the Thirteenth?”

“Since when did you start believing in bad luck?” said Mattie sharply.

“Since you appeared on this train,” John Major shot back.

Mattie laughed.

“I think the kid should take my surname,” John Major suggested.

“Which one—Major or McLoin?”

“McLoin,” John Major huffed. “Call him Garth McLoin Jr.”

“Hah!” Mattie laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Out of the question.”

“He’s my son, too, according to you, so I should have some input as well. How about a compromise: we can hyphenate the names. Like, McLoin-Hurste, or Hurste-McLoin.”

“We’re naming him Matt Hurste. That’s it.”

“How do you even know it’s a boy?” John Major pressed.

“Motherly instinct,” Mattie readily replied. “Besides, who’s ever heard of a girl being miraculously birthed?”

“The lady brings up a fair point,” the man in the helmet interjected from afar in his droning voice. “To my knowledge, there has never been a tale in which a virgin woman conceived a female child.”

“Well then somebody should come up with one!” John Major fumed. “And stop butting into our conversation!” he added.

The man in the helmet stared for a moment, then silently looked away.

“Can I go to the men’s room now?” John Major asked his second wife.

“No.”

“Why not?” John Major complained.

“Because the baby is coming,” Mattie replied simply.

“What, you mean now?”

“Yep. I started going into labor about . . .”

Mattie blew a bubble as she considered this. It popped and she loudly continued chewing.

“. . . three or four minutes ago.”

“Then why aren’t you having contractions?” John Major demanded.

At that moment, Mattie Hurste’s body convulsed and she let out a shriek.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake . . .” John Major pinched the bridge of his nose in extreme annoyance.

“I told you we’re not naming him after Jesus,” Mattie spoke through gritted teeth.
John Major rolled his eyes. “Is there a doctor on board this train? Anybody trained as a midwife?” he called out.

All of the other passengers shook their heads. John Major furrowed his brow. “Really? Nobody?”

Nobody.

Mattie groaned in pain as another spasm wracked her body.

Suddenly, the train started to slow. Overhead, the conductor’s voice came on again, this time announcing that they were reaching the station in the Fandom of Unlikely Crossovers and that this would be the last stop before the overnight journey to Fantasyland.

“Great. Hopefully there’s a doctor here who can help,” John Major said.

The steampunk engine came to a stop with a high-pitched squeal of metal grinding metal, and the carriage doors slid open, letting the cool night air slip inside. “Due to a delay on a connecting line, the Fantasyland Express will not be departing again for another forty-seven minutes,” informed the conductor. “We apologize for any inconvenience.”

“Can you walk?” John Major asked his second wife.

“Yes, I think—AHHHGGG, NOPE, CAN’T WALK RIGHT NOW,” she yelped, clenching her bulbous belly.

John tried to lift her thin frame, but the weight of the fetus and his cramped position between his wife and the window made this difficult. The man in the helmet and cape came and offered his assistance. Together, they carried Mattie out of the train and onto the very poorly lit station platform, where they deposited her onto a grimy seaweed-colored bench. Behind them, a handful of other passengers also disembarked from the train, including a giant floating hammer that moved as if a nine-foot-tall invisible man were using it as a crutch. John, Mattie, and Darth all watched it go, its silver head smashing a chunk out of one of the rotting wooden rafters of the platform canopy before disappearing behind the ramshackle station building.

Darth thought aloud, “It reminds me of the ones from Another Brick in the—”

He was cut off by Mattie’s scream as another contraction struck.

“I’ll go find a doctor,” said Darth, and he scurried away.

Just as he disappeared, John Major heard an angry shouting from nearby. A middle-aged man was complaining about the delay as he stomped away from the ticket window, a young bespectacled woman hobbling after him, struggling with two large suitcases. The man snatched a banana off of the freight car of them at the back of the train, peeled it, took a single infuriated bite, and then just chucked the rest of it onto the ground in his fit of anger. Both he and the young woman wore long, stark white lab coats, while the man also had a stethoscope draped around his neck and a small circular mirror on his head.

“Excuse me,” John Major called to the pair, “but my second wife is in labor.  Can either of you help deliver the kid?”

The middle-aged man checked his watch and sighed irritably. “Very well then. I suppose we have some time to kill now,” he grumbled. “Come along, Lexis.”

The white-clad pair approached John Major and Mattie. The man gave John a gruff handshake and introduced himself while the young woman hurriedly unpacked some medical utensils from the luggage. “My name is Doc Jacques. And this is my assistant, Nurse Day.”

“I’m Lexis Day; it’s nice to meet you,” said the nurse, holding out her hand politely.

“I already introduced you.”

“Oops, sorry!” the nurse squeaked timidly, returning to setting up the instruments.

“Anyway, how long has your second wife been in labor?” Doc Jacques asked John Major.

“Close to ten minutes now, I think.”

Doc Jacques wiped his brown with a handkerchief. “Well I hope she’s good at this, ‘cause you only got half-an-hour and then I’m outta here.”

John Major recalled how it had taken his ailing first wife thirty-six hours to give birth to Major Major. He told this to Doc Jacques.

“Well, you know it’s different every time,” the Doc reasoned. “Just because your first wife was a slowpoke doesn’t mean this one will be too. But fingers crossed all the same. Lexis, toss me a blanket. We’re going to move her onto the ground now.”

Nurse Day pulled out a raggedy blanket and laid it out on the concrete platform. John and the Doc then laid Mattie onto it. “Now give me your lab coat to cover her up,” the Doc instructed. He draped the coat across Mattie’s legs as Mattie let out another gasp of pain. Then he pulled his keys out of his pocket and shined a pocket-light under the lab coat. “Hmmm . . . Yeah, this one’s not gonna be coming out any time soon. It’s totally stuck in there. Head’s too big.”

John Major cursed. Major Major had been a big-headed baby as well. John silently questioned why he always produced big-headed offspring.

“Can we speed it up somehow? Maybe grease the baby up?”

Doc Jacques shook his head. “Nope. That won’t be very effective. But we could try a C-section. Miss Hurste, is it okay if we perform a C-section on you?”

“I don’t care, just get this thing out of me! OH GOD, IT HURTS!”

“Now, we don’t have everything we need to do this properly, so I’m going to need to improvise a bit here. Is that okay?”

“YES, YES! JUST DO IT!”

“Alright, Lexis, we better set up the tent. Time to set the record for the world’s fastest C-section.”

A few minutes later, they’d set up a medium-sized camping tent and moved Mattie inside. Nurse Day passed the Doc a scalpel, some bandages, a sewing kit, and a bottle of morphine, and he went to work inside the privacy of the tent. John Major stood outside, looking away while he pointed the Doc’s pocket-light inside. Meanwhile, Nurse Day readied some of the paperwork. Realizing she’d left her pen in the breast pocket of her lab coat, she asked John Major if he could lend her one. John didn’t have a pen on him, but he did give her a pencil, which she thanked him a little excessively for.

Next, Darth came running back, already apologizing for being unable to find a doctor, though he stopped midsentence when he saw the makeshift maternity ward that had been set up. “Not a problem, Helmet-Head,” said John Major. “I already found some help.”

Darth took a seat on the bench. Then Nurse Day went up to him and showed him a few of her papers under the dim, flickering yellow droplight.

“Sorry to bother you, Mister, but did I spell ‘improvised’ right? I have bad dyslexia and I can’t see well in this lighting.”

“You wrote the word ‘impoverished.’”

“Darn it! Thank you, Sir, let me fix that . . .”

“You can call me Darth if you’d like.”

“Oh, okay. I’m Lexis Day. It’s nice to meet you Darth!”

Suddenly, an exclamation of success issued from the tent, followed by the sound of a baby wailing.

“I got it out!” cried Doc Jacques. “It’s a girl!”

Thunder boomed from above and a thin drizzle began to pitter-patter around them. Nurse Day shivered without her lab coat as a stiff breeze swept across the platform. Metal screeched as the late train pulled to a stop beside another platform.

“Hah, I told you it might not be a boy!” John Major gloated from outside the tent.

“Check again!” Mattie yelled furiously.

Doc Jacques checked again.

“Oops, my bad. I can’t see too well in here. It’s a boy!”

“HAH!” Mattie gloated from inside the tent. “Now sew me back up before I bleed out!”

“Yeah, yeah, I already am,” the Doc muttered.

The Doc finished stitching and bandaging her up and then set to work taking down the tent. Mattie was moved back onto the blanket on the concrete.

“Gee, that’s one violent kid you got there,” the Doc remarked.

“He’s expressing his love with punches and kicks!” Mattie said with certainty, holding the flailing infant close.

“Whatever.”

All of a sudden, there was an obnoxious electronic chirping. Everyone turned to face Darth, who fumbled to push a button on his arm to silence the noise. “Sorry, I have to be going now.” He stood and reached into his own suitcase, pulling out a helmet exactly like the one he already wore. “I always keep a few extras with me, just in case. Since you don’t have anything to carry your son in at the moment, you can use this. Consider it a gift of congratulations from me to you.”

He handed the helmet to Mattie, who turned it upside down and placed her belligerent son inside. Now the black helmet had become a black throne. “Thank you so much!” she said.

“My pleasure. I wish you many happy years to come. Farewell.” And then Darth walked away, vanishing into the darkness.

“Have you decided on a name yet?” Nurse Day asked abruptly.

“Yes,” said John Major. “Garth Mc—”

“ABSOLUTELY NOT!” Mattie cut in.

Lexis oscillated her gaze between the two of them uncertainly.

“We’re naming him Matt Hurste the—”

“No, no, no, no, no; if you’re going to force responsibility of this kid onto me, then I get to have a say in what we’re naming him, and it’s not going to be that.”

“Like hell it’s not going to be that! I’ve waited my whole life for the opportunity to fulfill my promise to my father and I won’t let you deprive me of it!”

Lexis tentatively interrupted the unhappy couple’s argument. “Er . . . so then what should I fill in on the boy’s birth certificate for his name?”

John Major calmly took the nurse’s shoulder and guided her away from his inflamed second wife still stuck on the blanket. “Nurse Day, the name is settled. We’re going to name him Garth—”

“MATT HURSTE!!!”

“That’s his middle name,” John Major said hurriedly. “Matthurste. One word.”

“NO, IT’S—”

Mattie suddenly stopped her maddened shouting. She must have finally given in, John Major thought. About time.

Lexis went on, “Okay . . . Garth . . . Matthurste . . . and his last name?”

“McLoin—HAMMER!!” John Major exclaimed, shoving Lexis out of the way.

The giant floating hammer had returned and just slipped on the banana that Doc Jacques had wasted earlier, its massive silver head smashing into the concrete where John Major and Lexis Day had been standing only a split-second ago.

Lexis, oblivious to the life-threatening danger she had just been in, got right back up to her feet, dusted herself off, and scribbled onto the birth certificate with squinted eyes. The hammer floated upright, its head now all scratched and scarred, and boarded the train again as casually as a floating, almost-killer hammer could do so.

Lexis finished and handed the birth certificate and pencil to John. “Here, make sure I spelled it all correctly. I’m very dyslexic, and I can’t see very well in this light.”

“Oh my God!” came Doc Jacques's sudden alarmed outburst. “She’s dead!”

John Major and Lexis Day rushed back to the blanket. The Doc was checking her pulse. He set her arm down and checked Mattie’s eyes. They were bloodshot and glassy, unblinking. The Doc looked toward John Major grimly. “It seems that your wife choked on a piece of chewing gum. What a terrible misfortune, after she so valiantly survived such a harrowing experience. I am very sorry for your loss.”

The speakers crackled to life and it was announced that the Fantasyland Express would be departing in shortly.

“Oh, that’s us!” exclaimed the Doc. “Come along, Nurse Day; it’s time for us to go!”

“But—”

“Come along, Nurse Day.”

Nurse Day looked at John Major. “Here, just look it all over, check that the name is right, and send this to the hospital. I have to go.” She handed John the documents and his pencil. Then she tugged the blanket out from under Mattie’s lifeless form and stuffed it in one of the suitcases. She looked back apologetically one more time before hurrying after Doc Jacques.

John Major read over the birth certificate and a broad Cheshire cat smile spread across his face. This was too good an opportunity to pass up.

He made a few minor changes to what Nurse Days had written, then erased both his and Mattie’s names from the document. This child would be an orphan.

He looked down at his second wife, still unable to believe his good fortune. He was free, free at last! His plan had worked out after all! Now all he had to do was get rid of the kid.

Tenderly, he placed it and its black helmet/throne/carrier in the freight car full of bananas, which were starting to get soggy from the rain. Then he tucked the birth certificate and other documents into the helmet/throne/carrier as well.

“A lifetime supply of potassium, just for you~” he crooned. He leaned away before the baby could kick him in the nose.

“Ha-ha. Nice try, you little squirt.”

Then John Major turned away and boarded the train—but not the Fantasyland Express. He boarded the one that had pulled up next to it only a short while earlier. He didn’t know where it was going, nor did he care. It was going away from here and away from the responsibility of the kid, and that was all he needed to know.

The steampunk engine of the Fantasyland Express blew its whistled and started to chug away. John Major opened the window and waved goodbye to his orphaned, miraculously conceived son.

“Farewell, Girth Meatthrust Loinhammer!” he yelled at the receding banana car. “Have a nice life!”

Several other passengers in this new train stared at him as he took his seat, but he took no notice of them. Soon, this train, too, lurched away, in a completely different direction from the one the Fantasyland Express had gone in. With great satisfaction, John Major reclined in his seat, still smirking smugly as he left behind the Fandom of Unlikely Crossovers.