Welcome to chapter 8. Thank you for the reviews! It's awesome to see what you all think of the story! Let's see what happened just two weeks before the kids arrived.

CHAPTER 8 – A Bad Mood Swing

(P to two weeks later and staying with Marlene) "I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today," I thought to myself, sitting on the edge of my bed. For some reason, I was feeling annoyed with everything. "It must be a side effect of the pregnancy," I thought to myself. Boy, it was hard to move around. I always had to lean back with all my strength in order to not fall over from the weight of my belly.

"Why won't you come yet?" I asked my child, still inside of me. I, of course, got no response, aside from a really hard kick that knocked me to the ground. "Why? Why are you causing hurt to your poor mother?" I asked my child. Suddenly I got the worst cramp I had gotten in over a month and cried out in pain.

Skipper immediately jumped into my cave. "Are you alright Marlene? I haven't heard you do that in a month. Is the baby coming?" Skipper asked. (P to Skipper) "No, the baby still isn't coming. I don't think it ever will. I think one day instead of giving birth I may simply explode. That or I'll keep growing forever," Marlene said. She had an annoyed and slightly angry tone in her voice, so I tried to watch what I was saying.

"I don't think either of those options will happen Marlene. One of these days, we'll have our child and it won't be because you explode," I said, watching my tone to prevent it from being snarky. "How do you know? We didn't even know this would happen! You have no idea what I'm going through here!" Marlene shouted angrily.

I knew right then I immediately had to watch my tone and word choice even more. "I know I don't and I never will Marlene. But we're still in this together. One of these days we'll have to have our baby," I said in an extremely caring and loving tone. I tried to waddle over to comfort Marlene, but she growled at me. Frightened, which was something I had never had been of Marlene before, I fell back and didn't try again.

Suddenly, her fur was starting to stand on end and her claws were starting to pop out. Her mood swing had escalated to being full-blown feral. I knew immediately that I would have no chance against a wild, angry, and pregnant otter, even though she was my wife, so I fled. Somehow, she was managing to almost keep up with me, only being slowed down by occasionally falling down by the weight of our child. (P to Marlene)

"What's happening to me?! I didn't want to go feral! Especially not at Skipper! He was trying to comfort me, but my stupid primal instincts kicked in against him. There's got to be some way to stop this! I don't want to hurt anyone!" I thought to myself. Once again, I had lost complete control over my body, including being able to speak. There was literally nothing I could do, except hope either I would get tired, which was unlikely, or wait for Skipper to come up with a plan.

As I was chasing Skipper, I kept trying to fight back my feral side. Suddenly, I heard myself stop growling, meaning I could speak again. "Skipper! Run! I'm not in control of myself!" I shouted. "There's got to be some way I can help you," Skipper said, from somewhere. "Tranquilize me! It's the only way!" I pleaded. "No. I'm not going to tranquilize you. There's got to be another way," Skipper said, from another direction.

I suddenly spotted a black and white figure up in a tree and began running towards the tree. "Skipper! I think I saw you! Run before I hurt you!" I pleaded. As soon as I had gotten up the tree, Skipper was thankfully gone. But my primal hearing instincts kicked in and I heard the sound of the hatch opening. It was far away, but even with my extra weight, I sprinted to it extremely fast.

It was thankfully locked down, but I began to claw at it. "Why can't I stop?!" I said aloud. Suddenly, the hatch popped open and I got thrown back, but not at enough force to hurt either myself or the baby. "Marlene, I think there is another way I can help you," Skipper said from behind me. I whipped around and saw Skipper holding his Spanish guitar.

I began stalking closer, like a predator going in for the kill. "Skipper! What are you doing? That won't help!" I exclaimed. "It worked last time, it should work again," Skipper said. Just as I was about to pounce on him, Skipper started to play and I stopped. It was the same song he had played for me when he proposed.

I began to finally get calmer, as my claws started disappearing back into my paws and my fur began to settle back down. When Skipper finished playing the guitar, I had complete control over myself again.

"I'm so sorry Skipper, I didn't mean to go feral! I was going to accept what you said, but my primal instincts kicked in," I sad sobbing. Skipper walked over and put a flipper of his around me. "It's alright Marlene. It was just a really bad mood swing," Skipper said, trying to comfort me. "Yes, but if you hadn't been able to get me back under control, I could have hurt you," I said, still sobbing a bit.

"Please stop crying Marlene. You know how much it pains me to see you cry," Skipper said. After a minute or so, I finally stopped. "How did you know the Spanish guitar would work?" I asked. "Well, it almost worked with Littlefoot in an alley until X showed up," Skipper answered. *

"I thought we had gotten her under control. Why did I go feral, especially inside the zoo?" I asked. "I don't think we'll ever know. Your hormones just may be very out of whack from the pregnancy," Skipper tried to answer.

"Well, it's frightening me to think what might happen if our child could also go feral like me. The last thing I want is our child to be able to do that," I said. "Marlene, thankfully, I think I have a solution to that," Skipper said. "What is it?" I asked, very curious. "Well, when we first took you out of the zoo, you said you had never set foot outside the walls. Maybe we could have the baby out in the park," Skipper said.

"That's a great plan! But, won't the humans notice an Otter giving birth?" I asked. "We can use the Stopwatch so that no one interrupts that or knows about it," Skipper said. I kissed Skipper full on, or at least tried to. "That's a great plan! I would love it if we could pull that off," I said.

"Marlene, I hereby make a promise on my honor and as your husband that we will pull it off," Skipper said. I smiled a big smile at him. "Thank you. Can we try and forget what almost just happened please?" I asked.

"Of course Marlene. I won't ever hold a grudge against you for that. You obviously weren't in control of yourself," Skipper said. I tried to kiss him again. "Thank you for understanding. Now let's just try to relax in front of the TV," I said. "Sounds like a plan Marlene," Skipper said. With that, we headed down below to try and relax.

That's a wrap on this chapter. Please don't be angered that I made Marlene go feral. She just had a really nasty mood swing. But please, rate and review the chapter. And little does the couple know their children are almost here! Time for one note.

* Referencing "Littlefoot" where Skipper played the Spanish guitar and it nearly calmed Littlefoot down.