Note to self: make sure the next OC is not a bloody cat - there's too many cats in this story. Anyway, I apologize for taking my dear sweet time with this, as always, but look! Look how much longer this one is! Though I get the distinct impression that my attempt at a cliffhanger wasn't as good as before - let me know. Also, a big thank you to Shinyshiny9, Lordoftheghostking28, werewolf99, and Katz4 for their encouraging reviews, always helping me push myself to do better and better. That's right, you get CALLED OUT in reviews now. This will either mean lots more reviews, or lots less. I'm not sure which. And to Katz4... does this answer your question? ;) -TC

Clary opened her eyes for the first time in twenty minutes, still lying spread eagle on her bed where she had woken up. Silvia had warned her to get used to sleeping in this position now, before her stomach swelled too much. While she had had to make a conscious effort to not roll on her side the first few nights, she was adjusting well enough. One thing she hadn't been able to adjust to, however, were the sudden nausea spells, which was the reason for her current predicament. Sheer strength of will had been the only thing to keep her from vomiting the second she woke up, and any movement, however slight, only provoked her traitorous stomach. To Clary's dismay, "Morning Sickness" was not, in fact, restricted to mornings, and had struck at seemingly random times throughout the past couple weeks. Luckily, this bout seemed to have ended for the time being.

Clary carefully raised her head, alert to whatever her body was telling her, only moving for real when it seemed truly safe. She scooted over to the bed, letting her legs dangle over the side as she glanced at the clock on the bedside table. Ten-thirty. She must have overslept. Then again, the place she planned to visit today didn't open until noon, so perhaps it wasn't so bad. Getting up, she walked over to the closet, exchanging her nightgown for a tasteful white blouse and skirt. She had adamantly refused to buy maternity shirts before she showed signs of swelling, and Silvia, realizing a lost cause when she saw it, simply rolled her eyes and left her to her personal wardrobe, which consisted of outfits that seemed fairly classy to the residents of town, but far more promiscuous than she previously worn before striking out on her own.

For a moment, she considered whether or not to wear the pair of gloves that matched the outfit. It was certainly considered proper for Mobians wear gloves in public, though things were more lax here on Christmas Island. To be sure, there were old gossips who would tut in disapproval at the improperly dressed young people here, but they existed everywhere, and besides, Clary didn't particularly care what they thought, or what anyone did, for that matter. Deciding to forgo the gloves for today, she compromised by sliding a pair of large golden bangles over her wrists, where they were normally used to hold the gloves in place (apparently even the most prim Mobians got tired of constantly readjusting their gloves).

Having deemed herself appropriately dressed (by her standards at least), she headed into the hall, following the smell of pancakes drifting from the kitchen. "Good morning." Silvia said without looking up from the stove.

"Morning." Clary replied, grabbing a plate down and forking about half from the pile already on the plate next to her.

"How'd you sleep?" Silvia asked, putting the last pancake on the plate and turning off the stove.

"Alright." said Clary. "I woke up once or twice to go throw up, but... Sorry." She apologized, suddenly remembering this was not the place for discussing that.

"Eh." Silvia shrugged. "I've seen it all."

"That's true." Clary agreed. "Anyway, how long is this supposed to last, again?"

"Hard to say." Silvia answered. "Could be several months, could be all throughout the pregnancy."

"All throughout?" Clary said weakly.

Silvia quirked a smile. "You're very lucky, you know. There have been women who were hospitalized just because they couldn't get nutrients or water from Morning Sickness."

"That doesn't seem like much of a helpful tactic, biologically speaking." Clary noted.

Silvia shrugged. "All in the game of life, I suppose. You play the hand you're dealt."

The rest of breakfast was spent discussing various strange cases Silvia had encountered throughout her life, though a good portion of it was spent simply laughing at the odd breakfast table topic. When they were done, Clary picked up the dishes herself and went to wash them in the sink, though it was more of a gesture than anything else; she was hugely relieved when Silvia protested and took over herself. Heading into the living room, she picked up the remote lying on the coffee table and flipped the TV on. Just as her favorite show was coming on, though, Silvia strode into the room, thrusting a huge book in her direction.

"Uh... What's this?" Clary asked, flipping it over so she could read the title. "'The Greatest Baby Naming Book Ever'? Oh, come on, Silv, you can't actually think-"

"Have you already thought of a name for it, then?" Silvia interrupted.

"...No." Clary said meekly. Silvia picked up the remote and turned off the TV.

"But... I mean..." Clary thought desperately for an excuse. "Shouldn't we wait until we know what sex it is? I mean, what if we pick out a girl name for a boy, or a boy name for a girl?"

"Just make a list." Silvia said dispassionately, turning her back and leaving, to Clary's horror, with the remote. "Put all the girl names you like in one column, and all the boy names in another."

"But Silv-!" Realizing she was already gone, she slumped back on the couch, ears drooping as she reluctantly opened the book to a random page.

Gable: God is bright.

Clary frowned, flipping to a new page.

Licia: Happy.

Leyna: light.

Lilly: flower.

"I am not naming my daughter after a flower." Clary said aloud, then continued.

Lexis: Defender of the People.

Now that wasn't too bad.

Kizzy: Cinnamon.

She flipped to the boy's section.

Abhay: fearless.

Nice meaning, if not too catchy.

Absolom: Father is peace.

Clary took a minute to reflect on the baby's father. Certainly, he was peaceful - if anything, a little boring. Still, thinking of him filled Clary with anything but peace, and she flipped to a new page.

Marcos: From Mars.

Marco: Warlike.

Matthew: Biblical apostle.

Mikey: Who is like the Lord?

Milad: birth.

She did not need to be reminded at this time.

Michael: Archangel, cast Satan and his demons from heaven.

A name like Michael seemed so... Ordinary. Clary wasn't a huge fan of overly fluffy things like angels, but still, an angel that could fight, and actually threw Satan out of heaven? That was kind of cool. What else was there?

Ogilvie: From the high peak.

Clary put the book down.

By the time noon rolled around, she had successfully compiled one name into the "boy" category. Deciding that was good enough for the time being, Clary got up off the couch and went to fetch her shoes and jacket from her room, where they had mysteriously appeared. Once upon a time, Silvia tucked both shoes side by side into their corner, while her jacket was hung in the closet. Nowadays, the shoes were merely tossed into the room and scattered while the jacket was flung carelessly on the bed.

It made little difference to her, as she simply collected her things from the ground and bed and headed out without thinking twice about it.

The moment she left the door, any traces of the past insecurity she had shared with Silvia vanished, to be replaced by the calm, cold demeanor she wore when dealing with the rest of the world. She headed down the porch steps and onto the sidewalk with her usual brisk pace.

She had been meaning to do this for weeks, but as was usual for her, had continued to put off what she considered to be an unpleasant situation. Silvia had even made the sarcastic remark that if she were able to, it was highly likely she would put off the birth itself, something Clary had not found amusing. This task, in particular, was something she had reason to put off; giving her second - and only other - friend in the world the news. Joan was particularly less tactful than Silvia. A woman after her own heart, Joan was prone to random bursts of temper, and did not bother trying to sugarcoat her statements, seeing it as a form of dishonesty. While Clary considered her to be one of the most loyal (again, out of two) friends she had ever had, she still knew she was very unlikely to take news like this well.

Her steps slowed as she started to wonder how exactly she would break this to her. Eventually she stopped altogether, standing on the corner looking down the street where she was headed. She showed no signs of nervousness; her face remained completely calm, simply appearing to be calculating odds, but inside her mind was a raging turmoil. She would do this today: she promised herself that, and she intended to do so. Plus if she went home without having done it, it would mean that there was something out there too frightening for her, and of all things, Clarissa Avon Hedgehog was not a coward.

This thought spurred her forward, eager to prove its truth, and she stepped down onto the street without another thought, to the severe annoyance of the car that was just about to turn in front of her.

Still, Clary argued, trying to detach herself from the situation and look at it logically, perhaps it would be best to wait. Not until tomorrow, but perhaps until later that evening. Joan was sure to be far more busy at that time, and while it did mean she would be able to show less concern for Clary, perhaps that was for the best: While she was grateful for Silvia's firm but kind treatment of her, and rationally knew that she would be hopelessly lost without her help, she couldn't completely stop the grumblings of her more prideful nature that insisted she didn't need anyone's help, or their pity, for that matter. It had been a struggle recently to reconcile the two, and the last thing she needed was another well-meaning but patronizing nursemaid. No, it was best that she catch her when she was busy. A minute or two would be enough to tell her what she needed to know, and then she could leave, and let her deal with work and sleep on it for the night before she had to deal with her in the morning.

With this new plan put into action, Clary turned off the street she was heading down, and onto another. While formulating a plan and putting it into motion always helped calm her down somewhat, there was only one sure-fire way Clary knew of to relieve pent up stress. She followed the road down until it dissolved into a dirt path leading out of the city, and picked up speed until she was at a full run.

Finally, her thirst for adrenaline quenched, Clary called it a day and arrived at her destination: The Sleeping Bear. One of the few bars to be considered not completely shady in the area, The Sleeping Bear was owned and operated by Joan, and in Clary's opinion, there was no one out there more suited to the job. While she was by no means a pushover, and took great measures to ensure there was order in her bar, she still treated her employees like family, often referring to them as "her girls" (Joan rarely hired men, aside from bouncers and a few young boys she deemed worthy of work there). In return, the girls had learned to put up with her shouting and general temper, and focus on the generous wages and maternal protection she offered them. There was even a back room in the bar that had been known to double as a guest room for the ones who either couldn't go home that night, or had no home to return to.

She headed through the front door, not even stopping as she nodded to the security - they knew her well enough already - and stepped into the bar. The bar consisted of three separate areas which offered a different sort of service for whoever wanted it. The bar itself was on the right of the entrance, and was made of a sturdy but not necessarily fancy wood. Though scuffed and pockmarked in a lot of places, it was kept very clean, and shone well enough for customers to be able to see their reflections in. On the left were the other two areas, a somewhat crowded dining area with several waitresses flitting about serving drinks, and a quieter spot in the corner, where the dining chairs were replaced with several couches of varying size and color. She was headed over to the bar to ask one of the girls where Joan was, but stopped abruptly at the sight of a very familiar figure. Luckily his back was turned to her, and she still had time to make a getaway, but her heart still leaped irrationally, as though he could sense her very presence. Of all the places for him to be here, she fumed silently. Things would be much more difficult with him in the way. Now she headed towards the couches, as she knew she could watch from afar without Joan or him knowing she was here, though she hadn't bet on there being this many customers. She'd find a way to catch her alone for just a minute or two, though, that was all she really needed. Work was the perfect excuse for her to be too busy to talk this out fully with her, and perhaps once-

She was so caught up in her plans she accidentally ran straight into what felt like a large, squishy wall, and it took her a moment to realize she had bumped into someone. It took her another moment to realize that someone was at the very least twice her size, and still another to realize that both she and the stranger were now both sopping wet on their front shirts. "Uh." The stranger said intelligently. Apparently the stranger was even slower processing what happened. The glass Clary had just spilled was clearly not his first.

Clary opened her mouth, an apology coming, but the words died on her lips as she caught wind of the panda's stench and her nose immediately wrinkled. "Ugh, you stink!" She said instead. Naturally, this comment did not improve the panda's impression of her, and after he had had a moment to make sense of it, his face twisted in anger.

"Hey!" He managed.

Clary snorted. "I think I just did you a favor." She wasn't even attempting to insult him, just stating a fact - not that the panda knew that.

"You tryenta start somefin'?" he slurred.

"No." Clary replied truthfully, and moved to brush past him into the relaxation area, but the panda had other ideas.

"Yeh don't just start somethin and walk away from it." He insisted, thrusting out a meaty arm to block her path and half-grabbing her arm.

"Leave it, Noah." A voice called from the bar.

"You better listen to your friend." Clary warned, yanking her arm out of his grip, her tail swishing the floor in irritation hard enough to kick up a small amount of dust. What had originally been a minor annoyance was beginning to piss her off, and her patience for drunkards was short enough as is.

"No." he said, leaning forward. "You got somefin te say, say it."

Clary quirked an eyebrow, her temper officially lost. "Fine: You're stupid, you're drunk as hell, you smell like something took a piss on you and then died, and for the love of God, it's pronounced something."

That did it. With a howl of rage, the panda moved to shove her back, but with half his weight to move and about three pints less alcohol in her system, Clary had all the advantage she needed to move out of the way, barely jumping so much as just sidestepping his reach. The drunk stumbled slightly, looking confused as he tried to figure out where exactly she had gone, and Clary couldn't resist whistling to catch his attention. Even more infuriated now, he lunged for her again, and this time rather than dodge Clary ducked under his reach to jab at his stomach. The martial arts lessons she had demanded in her youth had paid off many times before, and even without her advantage she felt more than confident. At least, she had been, before his arms seized her around the waist and hoisted her up, holding her upside down as he made to throw her. Clary yowled like a feral cat and dragged her claws as far down his back as she could reach up to his neck, blessing her women's intuition that she had chosen not to wear gloves that day.

The panda yelled and dropped her behind him, Clary landing on her feet as always, and she took advantage of her position, striking out with a side sweeping kick that would have sent any other opponent crashing to the ground. As it was, though, the panda's enormous weight meant kicking him was about as effective as kicking a telephone pole. That didn't mean she didn't get his attention, though. With his face twisted in an ugly snarl, he whirled around, fist cocked down low for a deep punch in the gut, and everything around Clary suddenly seemed to freeze and go faster all at once.

She could take in everything - the exact size of the fist, the muscles bulging beneath the skin, the stench of alcohol on his breath, and suddenly her mind went blank except for one thought: Protect the baby.

She threw herself over her midsection, arms wrapped around herself and her head tucked in tight. Of course, moving her head in its path only made the impact worse, and she was thrown back against one of the couches. Almost before she even hit the couch her hands felt along her belly, as if she could feel through her fingers what condition the child was in. Her stomach hadn't taken much of a hit, thankfully. What was she thinking? The baby could have been killed!

Feeling victorious, the panda moved to strike again, but before he could take more than a single step towards Clary, a huge paw swept down and cuffed him on the side of the ear. "That's enough!" Came a rough shout, and what few patrons in the bar that hadn't been watching the fight quickly turned around.

Still half distracted with examining her stomach and cursing her stupidity, Clary looked up with relief at the friendly (sort of) voice of Joan, who now had the panda by the ear as if disciplining a child (Clary's hands moved across her belly again). With her height fully drawn up the way it was now, she even had a few inches on the panda himself, and as a bear her distinct lack of clothing, wearing only the serving vest of the bar, showed almost no curves, only muscle. "The hell do you think you're doing? Huh? You come into my bar, drink my drinks, and go picking fights with my paying customers-"

"She strted eht." The panda mumbled, even worse off than before. Clary half wondered if he should be worried about alcohol poisoning. Joan apparently agreed.

"You're drunk as hell." She said, disgusted, and half threw him towards the door. The security people didn't even bother attempting to grab him - Joan liked to remain uninterrupted when making an example. With near-Herculean strength, she grabbed him by the waist of his pants and the back of his shirt collar, and hurled him the rest of the way out of the bar. The panda struggled to keep his footing with the momentum of the throw, but ended up tripping over his own feet and landed face-first in the street. "You're done for the night." She said, a tad unnecessarily.

On the way back in, she glanced at one of the Mobians who had previously tried to talk "Noah" out of it. "You with him?" She grunted, jerking a thumb in the direction of the panda still trying to figure out how to stand up. The gorilla shook his head quickly. She grunted again, and headed in the direction of Clary.

Clary's relief at seeing her old friend was short-lived; the only way Joan even acknowledged that they knew each other was in the way she yanked her to her feet only slightly less roughly than she had handled the panda. "And you,"she said sternly. "You are not bleeding all over my carpets that I just had shampooed. In the kitchen. Now."

Clary swallowed, feeling a pang of guilt in her stomach for having made such a mess in Joan's place, but yanked her hand out of Joan's grasp, insisting on keeping the little pride she could retain with blood dripping down her muzzle. She may have had the foresight to not wear gloves, but she certainly had make a mistake in wearing white. Not that it was her fault - it wasn't like she woke up this morning planning to get in a fight.

Joan played the uncaring owner facade until the minute they were both through the service door that led to the kitchen. "What the hell was that?" She demanded the second the door closed behind her.

"I'm sorry, Joan, I'll pay for the carpet-" she began, though she knew that wasn't what she had meant.

"No! A. you don't start a fight in my bar, and b. if you do, you damn well better win!" Joan took a deep, steadying breath. "You had every advantage against that guy. How the hell did he get the drop on you?"

"I just- I sort of-" Clary had to force the word out of her mouth. "Panicked." She hated that word - sounded so helpless. Panicking was for the weak, the stupid, the useless. She hadn't lost it completely since she was sixteen years old.

Joan quirked an eyebrow. "I've seen you take punches like that before." Her hand reached for her empty front pocket, an old habit from her smoking days. Some people thought that was the cause of her rough voice, hoarse with near constant shouting, but sometimes Clary found it hard to believe that she hadn't simply come straight out of the womb that way.

"Well... It was kind of a... a bigger deal than usual." Joan frowned. "Joan, I'm... I mean I'm having a... there's a... a baby. In me, I mean. I mean it's preg - I'm pregnant." She stammered out, all confidence she had spent the day gaining lost.

Joan, who had been scratching her ear, a nervous tic of hers, froze for a moment, then turned and jerked her head to the girl currently washing dishes, who put down the plate she was washing and went outside to wait the customers. Joan grabbed two metal folding chairs from a nearby wall and set them by a rarely used sink. And for the second time that night Clary felt like a complete idiot. Of course Joan wouldn't just let things stop there. She was her friend and as such planned to spend as much time by her side as she felt she needed to.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?" She said quietly.

Clary took a breath, trying to sit up as straight as she could in her chair, but with a nose she was beginning to suspect had been broken, deep breathing was difficult. Joan wordlessly passed her a paper towel, then settled into her own chair and made no move.

Clary blew her nose out first, the feeling of the blood trickling down the inside of her throat threatening to stimulate nausea again, then tossed it into a nearby wastepaper basket, accepting another one from Joan and simply holding that one to her nose. "Do you" she began, "do you remember that night when I got in a fight with you-know-who, and I went out on a date with-"

At that moment the door to the kitchen opened, and the sounds of the bar wafted in, joined by the service girl's "Sir, you can't go in there!" and silhouetted by a lone hedgehog. "I saw what happened." he said. "The fight-"

Joan made to shoo him out, but Clary signaled not to. For some strange reason, all the tension she had felt before drained away looking at him, and for the first time in a long while she felt cool, calm, and in control - just the way she wanted to be. There wasn't a single shiver in her voice as she spoke in a way she only wished she could with the girls. "Jonathan, I'm pregnant. You're the father."