"Chance"

Author's Note: This will be very short compared to some of the others, and is mostly from Stellar's perspective. Soulful Heart Fox belongs to NebulaBelt, and I'd like to thank him for giving me permission to use his character.This ismostly a bridge between stories to introduce a new character, but I hope you enjoy it.

Regal and Stellar were sitting on their couch late at night, watching a movie they had taped while they and their daughters were out that day. Connie and Hope had been put to bed some time ago, and their parents were enjoying some rare time to themselves; soon to become even more rare with the birth of their third cub.

Regal Heart's first pregnancy had lasted a week and a half shy of three months. Take Care had told her she could expect to wait the full three months this time around, since there was only one baby to be born. Regal's morning sickness had finally abated after her first month of pregnancy, and in general she was in good spirits as she counted down to what she hoped would be the 'big day'. She had been in such a good mood lately that Stellar assumed she would be more 'normal' this time around. He had grown used to living without the mood swings, and this complacency resulted in a mistake on his part that night...

For the third time, Regal asked, "Can you pause it?"

He sighed and picked up the remote while his wife left to adjust the air conditioner...again. He pressed the pause button, and idly wondered if frost was beginning to form on his whiskers. "It was just getting good..." he complained. Regal heard him, but decided to leave it be. When she came back he tried to put his arm around her, but she squirmed gently out of his grasp.

"Sorry honey, I'm too hot..." she said apologetically as he backed off, looking hurt.

"The air conditioner's on full-blast, and I'm freezing..." he mumbled, forcing a little smile, "You're nice and warm, though..."

"I'm not warm, I'm hot." she replied, fanning herself with a magazine.

He thought it might have been because of his earlier remark, but he didn't see why she'd push him away for that. 'How can she possibly be hot? It's like I'm sitting in an ice cream truck.' Stellar thought.

Regal hadn't really noticed his remark, and she felt like she was sitting in an oven. 'All I need,' she thought, 'Is to be surrounded on all sides by chopped veggies, and I'd be a nice pot roast!'

"Why're you acting so weird?" Stellar asked in wounded tones.

"Huh?" she looked over and stopped fanning herself. "I'm not."

"Yes you are, you're weird when you're pregnant." he said, no longer paying attention to the movie.

Regal, who was completely caught by surprise, said, "Well, you try looking like a basketball for almost three months, and having everything else that goes with it, and see how normal you are."

"Well..." he shook his head. "I just don't understand it. I mean, what could possibly be so bad about it?"

"It's not bad, it just..." she trailed off, hardly knowing what it was she wanted to say.

He went on, digging his hole deeper. He didn't know what it was that possessed him to continue, especially since he had little faith in what he was saying. The fact that he was a few degrees away from shivering with cold probably had something to do with it, especially since the air conditioner would normally have been taken out by now. "I'm sure anyone could do it. It's natural, not that big a deal..."

Oh, that was a big mistake. He knew he shouldn't have said it, but it was too late. Regal had already taken offense, and with good reason.

"So...Anyone can do it, eh? Okay, let me tell you what that involves." she said, ticking the effects of pregnancy off on her fingers as she said them, "Swollen ankles, backaches, nausea, cravings, mood swings, and hot flashes. Not to mention the actual birth itself!" and with that, she got up (with some difficulty) and retreated to their bedroom, leaving behind a very guilty-looking tiger.

He knew he had been wrong, and he felt terrible...especially when he went up to their room and found her sitting on the edge of their bed with her back to him, crying. "Regal..." he said, going over and putting his arms around her. "I'm sorry..."

She didn't answer him. Instead she snuggled up against him and let him hold her.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean any of that...I was just cold, that's all. I could have just gotten a sweater or something...Can you forgive me?" he asked.

"Y...yeah...I shouldn't have lost my temper. I just...feel so tired all the time, and you said anyone could do it. You think you could? I'd like to see you try..."

Now he really felt terrible. "Regal, I had no right to say that...I...I don't know..." he hung his head.

"No, it's okay..." she told him, no longer crying. He might not have known what to say, but being in his arms always made her feel better.

"No, it's not." he said.

"No, really...I'm not mad anymore. I just-oh!" she gasped.

"What?" he asked quickly, "What is it?"

"Here..." she took his paw, and placed it on her belly. He looked puzzled for a moment, then went wide-eyed with wonder as he felt the baby kick. He had felt the twins kick before, but this one had never done it for him. It had always 'made Regal into a liar'. "Feel that?"

"Yeah..." he smiled, and on impulse he leaned forward and rested his cheek on her tummy.

Regal put her arm over his back and held him there for a moment. Then she said, "Why don't we save the movie for tomorrow night? I don't know about you, but I could sleep for twelve hours straight."

He nodded, and went downstairs to turn off the movie and the living room light. Both were beyond happy now, but she had certainly gotten her point across.

Two Weeks Later...

"Ack!" Stellar Heart scrambled out from under the sink, drenched from the waist up. He wouldn't admit as much to his wife, Regal Heart, but he had no idea what he was doing. Normally it would be Bright Heart or Regal trying to get rid of a stubborn drain clog, but Bright Heart was busy, and Regal was getting much too round to fit in the small space. The tiger blew out his lips in disgust, scattering brackish droplets of water from his whiskers. Pieces of piping lay scattered on the bathroom floor amid a sea of bolts, washers, and screwdrivers. He was tapping a large wrench against his palm, and he wondered how he had managed to get soaked when he'd had a plastic bucket handy the entire time. At least he had gotten the clog out of the pipes. Now he just had to put the whole mess back together again. "Awww..."

Stellar Heart reluctantly dragged himself back under the sink, just in time to hear his name being called.

"Stel, I brought you a sandwich." said Regal.

Stellar angled his head so that he could see her without having to come out again. Regal was due to have their cub any day now, and was slightly out of breath from climbing the stairs. He did want that sandwich, but...

"Sorry, my paws are all grimy, and we have no running water except for the shower cloud." he said, even as his stomach growled.

"So use that." she shrugged.

"Well, I gotta put this back together, and that means I'd have to shower twice." he pointed out.

Regal Heart balanced the plate on the swell of her belly as if it was a table and planted her fists on her hips, smirking in a rather dangerous manner. He had to fake a coughing fit to cover up his ill-timed laugh as she said, "Do you mean I waddled my way up those stairs after taking the time to make you a sandwich in that hot kitchen, and you're not even gonna eat it?"

"Sorry..." he replied, openly giggling now.

"Honey, don't take this the wrong way, but pbbbbbbbbbbt!" she told him, still smirking as she took a bite out of the sandwich and turned to leave, flicking her tail rudely in his direction.

Stellar focused on his task, still chuckling a little, glad that she wasn't really mad at him. Mildly annoyed, he could deal with, and since he had been tinkering with the sink for over an hour he just wanted to be done with it. Her mood swings hadn't been that bad this time around. The one time she actually went off on him, he had to admit he'd had it coming...

Stellar finally finished fixing the sink, and he stepped into the shower with a grateful sigh. His neck was sore from the awkward angle in which he had kept his head for the past two hours; he wanted the water hot today. He relaxed for about ten minutes, simply standing there, and occasionally rubbing his neck. He could faintly hear his daughters giggling about something downstairs. After a while he was heard belting out the song 'I Want to Hold Your Hand', and he wasn't half bad either. His wife loved The Beatles, and had gotten him hooked on their music.

Regal chewed thoughtfully, frowned, and put the remainder of Stellar's lunch in the refrigerator. She had only taken a single bite out of it, and she didn't think she wanted anymore. At this point, she wasn't at all surprised by her diminished appetite. She just wished her back didn't hurt so much; it had been bothering her all morning. She went out into the living room, and she was just about to sit down and ask her twins what they were eating when the doorbell rang.

"Mmm..." she groaned softly, rising from her half-seated position and moving to answer the door.

"I got it!" said Connie, having seen through the window who it was. She opened the door wide enough to poke her little head out, and she tilted her face upwards to give Soulful Heart a saucy grin. "'Scuse me, do you have an appointment?"

The fox quirked an eyebrow, the left corner of his mouth twitching up into a half-smile. "You have peanut butter on your chin."

Connie gasped, covered the lower half of her face, and ducked back inside just as Regal reached the door.

"Oh, hi Soulful. C'mon in." she stood aside, and he edged past her. "What can I do for ya?"

"You can return the book you borrowed last month." he told her, though he didn't really look like he was annoyed. "There's a couple of the others in line to borrow it after you, you know."

Regal blinked, frowning slightly. "Didn't I already return it last week? I thought I did..."

Soulful shook his head. "You did return a book, but that was a different one. You could have actually kept that one longer, there's no waiting list for that."

Regal nodded thoughtfully; it was entirely possible, since she had been frequenting his library for want of something to do. She'd had a lot on her mind lately, and she easily saw how she could have forgotten to return a book. "I'm sorry, I'll go get it now."

Soulful nodded, waiting where he was, and watching Regal's cubs out of the corner of his eye. Hope was busily giving life to the characters in her coloring book with the help of a box of crayons, and Connie was eating a peanut butter sandwich with one paw and scribbling all over her paper with the other. It was a testament to her personality that she had little regard for the lines, and that she had no desire to stay within them. He was only glad she didn't color in books that weren't meant to be colored in.

Regal stood in front of their modest bookcase, glancing briefly over the bindings in search of the one she was after. 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea'? No. 'Oliver Twist'? No. Piers Anthony's 'Faun and Games'? Surely not. "Aha..." Regal stroked her finger down the binding of the book she had been looking for, 'Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince'. She braced her back with one paw, wincing slightly, and took the book from the shelf. "Here it is."

Soulful reached out to take it, but snatched his paw away when she winced again and nearly dropped the book. "What?" he asked, getting ready to catch the book if she lost her grip on it.

"I..." she managed to say before a familiar iron band of pain cinched around her middle, forcing the air out of her lungs in a sudden gasp. Soulful went wide-eyed, forgetting all about the book, and took a slow step backwards as if he was somehow afraid of her. And in this case, he probably was.

Almost as quickly as the pain had come over her, it receded into a dull ache. Regal took a deep breath, straightened her posture a bit, and held out the book. When Soulful didn't reach out to take it, she saw that some reassurance was necessary. "I'm fine, it's nothing to worry about. Listen, I know it's asking a lot, but do you think you could watch the cubs today? Something's come up."

Soulful, whose thoughts were in the process of scattering like so many marbles, took her businesslike tone as a good sign. He took his book and tucked it into the crook of his arm, nodding. "I'll watch them. Go and get Stellar."

"Thanks." Regal smiled, sensing another imminent pain on the horizon. Soulful didn't offer to help her up the stairs, and she didn't ask. She didn't need any sort of help, not yet.

Stellar blinked, opening his eyes as he gradually came back to reality. He had been in the shower for thirty-five minutes! He sighed, reluctantly leaving the warmth of the shower, and drying himself as the shower cloud shut itself off. His neck was no longer sore, and he was clean; so now it was off to see what his family was up to.

He shouldn't have been surprised when Regal Heart met him in the hallway, wearing a very pained expression on her face. "Hey Stel, I think we better go..."

"Go?" he blinked, "Where?"

"To Take Care's office..."

That night, while Regal Heart was asleep in her hospital bed, Stellar Heart gazed down at the tiny cub in his arms. He still couldn't get over it. "Hey. Hey...I'm your daddy..." he whispered as he rocked his newborn son.

The cub turned his head a bit, opened his eyes, then closed them again as if he was unimpressed by what he saw. He was a fascinating little thing; he was a bit larger than his sisters had been, and his coloring was much different. He had brown stripes like his sisters, but he wasn't tawny like they and their mother were. Nor was he orange like his father. He was cream colored, almost white. Stellar remembered another tiger from the circus; a white one named Macbeth, who was his littermate. So there was the gene on one side of the family for white fur, and possibly on Regal's side as well, since white lions also existed. Not that it should matter with a Care Bear Cousin, one of which was a green lamb.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this cub was his mane, for he had one. It was short, much shorter than Brave Heart's had been when the Cousin Leader was a cub; and like the rest of him, it was striped. It stuck up a bit on top, and one lock flipped stubbornly forward into the cub's face, giving him an '80's rocker' look.

Now there was only one problem. What should they name him? They had come up with a few names before the birth, but none of them seemed to fit. 'Mellow Heart' seemed more like a girl's name; Brave Heart had jokingly suggested naming him 'Brave Heart Junior', but in all seriousness that would have been too confusing. 'Peaceful Heart' was discarded, as was 'Mischief Liger' and 'Feisty Heart'. Brave Heart was actually serious when he suggested the name 'Butch', and Regal had laughed until her stomach hurt. If Brave Heart's smirk was any indication, he fully intended to make that his new nephew's nickname. It was just as well that Regal had burst out laughing, because Stellar heard Soulful mutter the word 'dolt'.

Stellar brought his son to the window, and looked out. "Pretty, isn't it?" he said quietly, and the cub popped his eyes open again. "That's your home..."

The cub squawked as if in answer, and yanked out one of his father's whiskers.

"Ow!" Stellar said good-naturedly, taking the whisker from him and tickling his cheek with it; the cub turned his head to bite at the offending sensation, and Stellar Heart laughed softly. "So, what should we call you?"

No answer from the baby, of course, and Stellar looked up at the night sky. If he squinted a bit, he could just see the Great Wishing Star in the distance, and he could almost swear the Star was smiling. As he looked up, he became aware of a warmth near his chest; when that warmth became a glow, he looked down at his son and gasped. The cub's tummy glowed brightly for a moment, not disturbing the baby at all, and when the glow faded a new tummy symbol revealed itself. Stellar was only alarmed for a moment, since his daughters had gotten their symbols from Tender Heart the day after they were born, but he quickly realized that this was the Star's doing. The symbol was a pair of dice with heart-shaped dots on it.

"Huh..." Stellar shook his head, "Funny that should happen when I'm wondering what to name you."

The baby responded by trying to nurse off his father's finger, then he complained loudly when he got nothing out of it. Stellar quickly picked up the bottle that Take Care had left for them, and while he fed his son he contemplated the symbol. Most of them were named for their symbols, which in turn mirrored something about their personalities. He couldn't call the baby 'Dice Heart', that would be silly. What did Stellar know about dice? Well, they were used in many gambling games, games of chance. He didn't approve of gambling, really...at least, not as a habit. Games of chance...something clicked. "Chance?"

The more he thought about it, the more he liked it. He walked over to Regal's bed, and gently woke her.

"Oh, hey..." she smiled up at him.

"Hey, Regs...tell me, what do you think of the name 'Chance Heart'?"

Her smile widened, and she reached out to stroke the baby's cheek. "It's perfect."

End