Bomba walked into the den, looking thoughtful before glancing over to Demeter's bed. The queen was asleep. Good enough, she didn't want to answer questions like 'how did your day go?' Shaking her head as she sat down on her own bed, she idly wondered when she had become the opposite of herself. A creature more intent on hiding and avoiding others than going out and seeking company; that had never been her. Well, she had a legitimate reason so perhaps that explained it. The whole ordeal still irked her though. She just wasn't being herself. Now, about this. . . thing.

What had that been all about? She couldn't say she was disgusted; honestly, she didn't know how she felt. She had never found herself attracted to queens, but obviously Cassandra was! This wasn't going to be a fun one to figure out. Frowning, she lay down and stretched herself out, putting her paws behind her head. This was going to haunt any dreams she had tonight, she knew.

Why had her life gotten so confusing so quickly?


Cassandra scampered away back to her home, surprised with herself. Oh, why had she done that? She may have just ruined everything. But she figured she may have never had another chance so perhaps the risk was justified. Alonzo always tried to instill confidence in her, and it never stuck; maybe this time it did. Well, if that was the case, she would have to get frustrated with him. Now she would never be able to look Bombalurina in the face.

She sighed as she slid through the cat door, wandering over to the couch. The adult female was lounging on the couch watching TV, barely awake. Cassandra tilted her head before leaping up on the cushions beside her. The human smiled and stroked along the cat's back. Cassandra let out a purr and rubbed her head against the palm, pleased.

"Hey pretty. How are you?"

Times like these made her wish she could speak to humans. This human had taken care of her her whole life; she wished she could at least thank her for it. With that thought she curled up against her human and purred herself to sleep.


Tugger honestly had little respect for others' time schedule and the like, which was probably good for his conscience because he was headed towards Mistoffelees' den in the middle of the night. Munkustrap went on and on about the same things and it was really beginning to tick him off. He knew what he'd done wrong; he wanted to know what he should do. Munkus was too busy now anyway, trying to sort out some business about Macavity or something. Honestly, Tugger figured that if they let the hairball alone he'd leave them alone. But no, that's not what Munkustrap thought. Munkus had to stick his nose in everyone else's business. Then he had the nerve to call Tugger obnoxious, hah.

Oh, here he was. Giving the den a once-over with his eyebrow raised, he decided he wasn't in the proper mood to try and be subtle. So, cupping his hands around his mouth, he decided he'd be just shy of yelling.

"Mistoffelees! Get your scrawny ass out here!"

He waited impatiently for a few minutes before the small black and white tom peeked out of the den. Misto squinted his eyes at the Maine Coon, obviously just out of sleep.

"What are you doing here?"

"I need to talk to someone. C'mon, let me inside."

Mistoffelees' eyebrows shot up on his forehead as the other tom wrestled his way past him into the den.

"Er, okay, come inside." He muttered sarcastically, watching Tugger get comfortable. Obviously Tugger had never listened to Jenny when she'd tried so hard to instill manners on him. Was that a surprise? Misto shook his head and sat down opposite Tugger, eyeing him carefully. Tugger didn't seem like he wanted to say anything, so there was a silence before Misto finally started to feel a little frustrated.

"I'm assuming you had a reason for waking me up and taking over my den."

"Yeah, give me a minute."

Mistoffelees sat back, somewhat surprised that the Tugger himself would have to gather his thoughts. Well, there was of course the argument Tugger had few thoughts to gather in the first place, but that's probably why it was surprising.

"I'm sure you know at least some of what's going on." He finally said, smoothing down his ruff.

"I tend to stay out of the gossip, but I know some. Didn't Bomba leave you after you slept with Etcetera?"

"Yeah that." Tugger looked kind of annoyed, actually. Maybe a part of him had hoped in vain his private life could have stayed a little more, well, private. Fat chance of that.

"Mmm, what about it then?"

"Everything about it. I guess I can understand why she left me. I would have left me too." He said thoughtfully, twirling some fur around his finger. Misto raised an eyebrow and waited for him to continue. "But I'm stuck on her. I mean, I wish she'd come back, y'know?"

"No I don't know." Misto said honestly. He'd given up ideas of relationships, at least for the time being. His magic was more important to master before he hurt someone. Not that it was easy to look at things so coldly, but he would if he had to.

"Well, anyway, I'm so confused about the whole thing. Hell, she's pregnant. What am I supposed to do about that?" Tugger glanced at Mistoffelees, double-taking when he saw the surprised look on the younger tom's face. Raising an eyebrow of his own, he gave the other tom a questioning look. "What is it?"

"She's pregnant?"

"Didn't I just say that?" Tugger asked with a growl, crossing his arms over his chest.

"Oh, right. Continue."

Tugger gave Misto a look and rolled his eyes.

"I mean, it's not like there is anything I can do about it, obviously. . ."

"Shouldn't you be talking to her about this?"

"Well, I'd like do but I really doubt she wants to see me."

Mistoffelees' eyebrow rose as Tugger slumped back, pausing. He decided he would probably be of better use if he knew more of the story, so gestured and said "Perhaps you should start at the beginning."

"Well, you know that thing with Etcetera. I don't know why it happened, or what I was thinking. . . I guess it finally, really got to my head how obsessed she is over me."

Mistoffelees kept his thoughts to himself about how he'd thought that had already gone to Tugger's head. He certainly wasn't going to ask details, that didn't interest him in the slightest. It was bad enough he knew about it.

"Anyway, for some reason I didn't think Bomba would find out. I was so wrong. . . a few nights later and she's more of an ice queen than I've ever seen her. It was sort of scary. She's forgiven me for a lot of things in the past; I guess this was just too much."

'How eloquently put.' Misto thought to himself, feeling that when they got down to it Tugger would have very little point. But if it made him feel better, he shouldn't push him away.

"Then stuff happened, the kind of stuff that got me in trouble in the first place, and she leaves me the next morning. I go all mopey for a while before deciding to look for her. Of course I find her in Demeter's den, and she's been throwing her guts up. Then its like 'oh, I'm pregnant' and we don't talk about it."

The tom was rambling. Misto knew he had little hope of getting him to shut up until he was finished, that's always what happened.

"I'm frustrated. I'd like to help her out but I don't think she'll take it. That and, in a way, I don't want to ever see her again."

That was a tad surprising.

"So leave her alone."

"It's not that easy."

"Isn't it?"

Tugger frowned and stood, leaving without a word. Mistoffelees threw his paws up in the air, frustrated. There had been no point!


"Demeter."

Bombalurina drug her name out, playfully prodding her friend. The scarlet queen hadn't been able to sleep much that night, and had quietly observed her current den-mate tossing and turning in her sleep. Now she was curious as to what she'd been dreaming about.

"Go away." Her voice was a little rough from sleep and she buried her head under a pillow, aiming a push in Bomba's direction and missing.

"Wake up, dear. It's the morning."

Demeter rolled over, aiming the pillow at Bombalurina's head. Bomba caught it easily and sat down on the bed, a smug smile on her face.

"You had a restless night."

"Go away."

"Come on. Did you have a nice dream?"

"I don't remember my dream." Demeter grumbled, prodding her friend with her foot. Bombalurina shook her head and refused to move, grinning.

"Don't give me that."

"Don't you have someone else to bother?" Deme groaned, rolling away from the scarlet queen and covering herself with a blanket. In fact, Bombalurina did have someone else to bother. This was just more fun.

"Come on, Deme. . ."

"Go away!" Demeter drug the word out with a whine, making Bombalurina chuckle.

"Oh, all right. But I'll be back, and you better tell me about it then." The queen stood, grinning and walked out of the den. Had it been anyone other than Demeter she would have expected to hear 'screw you' as she departed, but as it was she was left with silence. Good enough.

Bomba perked her ears up as she stepped out, mentally mapping where she was. Alonzo's den was. . . ah, yes. That way. She turned to the left and started the trek to his den. He shared an old dresser with Tumblebrutus and Pouncival on occasion. The dresser wasn't hard to miss, but Demeter's den was a new 'starting point' for her. She was used to finding things from her old den. Which was now ruined. . .

She found herself swerving to avoid a group of kittens. Jemima smiled and chirped hello to her, Electra waved. She found Etcetera wouldn't look at her, which was just as well; no doubt she knew some of the drama that had been caused by what she'd done.

"Bomba! How are you doing?" Jemima asked, big bright eyes looking up at her. Bombalurina grinned warmly at the smaller queen. She hadn't heard that question in a while, at least not when it didn't have something to do with her private business.

"Oh, I'm fine. I'm just heading off to see Alonzo. What about yourself?"

"We're good. Skimble said we could come with him and see the train while it's in station, so Jenny and Munkus are taking us." Jemima blurted out before gesturing to the other two. "Bye!" About as quickly as she'd noticed they were there, they were gone. Whether they were in a hurry, their attention spans were short, or Etcetera didn't want to be near her she didn't know. Either way, she didn't complain. She wasn't in the mood for small talk; she had something to figure out.

Coming up to the dresser, she politely knocked on the outside.

"Alonzo? Are you home?"

She heard some shifting and thumping from above as he came from one of the higher dresser drawers before he poked his head out of the bottom one. He looked vaguely surprised at her, tilting his head curiously.

"To what do I owe this visit?"

"Don't try and flatter me." She said with a sigh, climbing in as he gestured for her to come. She followed him up to the top of the dresser, climbing through holes that had been made for this purpose. The first drawer on the bottom was bare; the other three levels were nicely furnished dens. A tad small for her taste, but nice all the same.

As they reached the top, she looked around and gave an approving nod.

"Nice place you have here. Fix it up yourself?"

"This one level, yeah. I helped with the other two. The actual dresser has been here for quite some time." Alonzo gestured for her to take a seat and she gracefully sat down, watching him settle opposite her.

"So, why are you here?"

"I want to talk about Cassandra." Bombalurina wasn't the sort of cat who enjoyed beating around the bush. Alonzo looked surprised and vaguely worried before he forced himself to pull a blank face.

"What about her?"

At that point, Bomba didn't really know where to start. She knew what she wanted to know, but she wasn't sure how to express it. Just be blunt. . .

"Well, she kissed me last night."

Alonzo sat up with his eyes wide, causing Bombalurina's eyebrows to shoot up just as fast.

"That sounds a bit more forward than she usually is."

"So. . . it does sound like something she would do?"

"Well, yes." Alonzo hesitated, wondering if he really should say something. It was Cassandra's business, not his. But the scarlet queen was here, and Cassandra obviously wouldn't spill on her own. She was too shy.

"She's had a crush on you for a while."

Bombalurina let herself process this, leaning back where she sat with a thoughtful expression. This is what she'd thought, but she hadn't been sure. Well, this was a new experience. She'd never had a queen crushing on her. She did like Cassandra, and wouldn't like to turn her down or hurt her feelings. But could she like her that way? She couldn't imagine it, but stranger things had happened in her lifetime.

"Okay, thanks."

She hadn't intended for the visit to be so short, and Alonzo looked surprised as well, but she needed to muse on this so she left. She wanted to learn more about the mysterious queen now, more than she had before. Curiosity may kill the cat, but satisfaction revives it. . .


"Hey Bomba?"

"And you would like what?"

Bombalurina turned to look at Tugger, raising an eyebrow at him disapprovingly. He sighed and shook his head at her expression.

"Okay, let's start over."

Her other eyebrow rose to join the first as she watched him swagger towards her, a lazy grin on his face. Her brow furrowed at him as he leaned on some junk beside her.

"Hey gorgeous, I'm the Rum Tum Tugger. And you may be. . .?"

"How about 'not this stupid'?" They both let out laughs.

"Oh, it was worth a shot. You could have at least played along."

"Not particularly in the mood, unfortunately for you."

"Ah well. . . how are you?" His face turned serious and he straightened up. She shrugged and looked away.

"I'm fine."

"To hell you are. You look like shit."

"What, is that your word or something?"

She always recalled he liked saying 'shit' and 'shitty'. Plus it was a decent enough dodge to keep from talking to him about how she felt.

"It might be. But I'm not as think as you dumb I am." He grinned crookedly at her and she shook her head.

"That's a drunk joke, moron."

"You're just a fucking ray of sunshine, aren't you?" Tugger inquired, arching an eyebrow.

"The sort that goes on killing sprees."

"Best kind."

"Screw you."

"Was that an offer?"

"You wish."

With that, the 'witty' banter was cut short and she retreated back to Demeter's den. Her friend was gone, so she was left to brood alone.

She hated mornings that started decent, they always ended in a nice pile of crap.


This chapter was very pointless. I finally began running out of writing steam. Writing isn't usually my creative release, and I'm usually hit with random bouts of inspiration for it. So I'm amazed this idea for a story managed to actually come to existance. Anywho, I had had a reason for this chapter, and when I stopped typing for a while I lost it. So I ended up with a lot of conversations that didn't go originally planned. This causes me to realize I should start to wrap this up. I'm dragging it out, and I'll begin ruining it soon if I don't give it a good ending. I'm just very pleased a random little idea, with no true idea for a plot actually turned out as decent as it did. I thank anyone who enjoys this story; it means a lot to me.

And this is the third time uploading this dang thing. One day I'll get it right the first time!