A/N As always, I own only my two RotG OCs, Haley O' Eve and Mabella Amour. The rest, being the characters and mentioned plot of the movie, are owned by Dreamworks and William Joyce.

Chapter 9

Pitch cracked open the paint cans and set the lids on the floor face-up. "So, how should we go about doing this?" He asked.

"Well, I wanted to at least have baby blue, but I didn't want several different shades of blue." Haley said. "I wanted a little variety, and I wanted some of your taste in as well. That's why I wanted dark-gray as well. And I think wherever the gray goes; the crib should go in front."

"So, where do you think the gray should go?"

Haley glanced around the room. There was only one window, and she envisioned a rocking chair by the window. She glanced from wall to wall, humming in thought, before placing her paw, palm-down, on the paint on the lid of the dark-gray paint, and slapped her paw on the wall on the wall to the left of the window. "Here's the dark-gray wall." She said. "As for the rest of the walls, perhaps a bit of green on the bottom, and the rest would be blue?"

"Hmm," Pitch hummed, wrapping a finger around his pointed chin in thought. "How about we paint the walls green, and the ceiling blue?"

Weighing the opinions, Haley nodded, "That sounds like a good idea."

"And we'll lay out the carpeting afterwards.

The wall with the paw print was painted dark-gray, and the other three walls were painted dusty, medium-green. As they painted, Haley and Pitch got patches and splotches of gray and green paint on them. Sometimes it was by accident, but at some point, Haley playfully swung her brush in Pitch's direction, splashing some green paint on his side. He raised an eyebrow at her, and when she wasn't looking, grabbed her tail and dipped it in the paint bucket. Loudly meowing in shock, she smacked her tail against him until most of the paint from her tail splashed onto him or the floor.

Once the walls were finally painted, and the paint dried, Pitch and Haley retrieved a ladder from outside, and the ceiling of the nursery was painted. Pitch insisted Haley stayed on the ground and that he himself painted the ceiling. After washing herself in the shower, and while Pitch painted the ceiling, she fixed herself a bowl of mint ice cream. Her morning sickness had pretty much passed, and she was able to keep food down.

She sat outside of the room, eating her ice cream, and watching Pitch paint the ceiling. It greatly resembled the sky of a sunny day, minus the sun and any clouds.

After finishing her ice cream, Haley got an idea to add to the green walls. She dipped the palms of her paws in the bucket of blue paint and slapped her paws on the green walls several times, leaving green paw prints. She did this two more times, leaving a few paw prints on each of the blue walls, before washing her paws.

When she went back into the nursery, Pitch had stepped down from the ladder and pounded the lids back onto the paint buckets. "I see you spruced up the walls." He remarked.

"I thought it looked a little plain." She shrugged.

"It looks nice."

Once the paint on the ceiling was dried, Pitch and Haley unrolled the dark-green carpeting, and Pitch used a knife he produced from Nightmare Sand to slice the carpet. Haley found some strong glue, and used it to glue the carpet to the ground. Pitch then shoved the dresser and bedside table back into the room, telling Haley she shouldn't be moving heavy objects. Even though she was a little put out that she couldn't help, at the same time, Haley appreciated Pitch looking out for her. She was still able to direct his where she wanted the furniture to go.

"All we need are crib and diaper-changing table." Haley sighed.

Pitch cringed at the thought of changing diapers again, but didn't say anything. "You know Tooth and Mabella will want to throw you a baby shower soon."

Haley grimaced, but nodded, "I expected as much. Mabella said they would throw it when I'm six months along." Which will be in two and a half months.

"Have you thought of names?"

"A few, I suppose. Two really stand out though: Renato, and Badilón. They are both Spanish names. Renato means 'to rise again,' and Badilón means 'courageous.' Unless you'd like to suggest another name?"

"No, those sound like good names. Perhaps we should wait to decide on the names?"

"Sí, that sounds fine with me."

While Haley and Pitch painted the nursery and talked about names, down under the Dead Sea, Grimm was plotting away. He knew he only had about six months to deal with the prophesized child. If he were to "deal with it" before it was born, he would have to find its mother: Haley O' Eve.

Haley had slipped from his grasp when she died, having been changed into the spirit of Halloween she was today. As the case had been with Jack Frost, Grimm had been angry at the Man in the Moon for interfering with his work. But as usual, Manny ignored him when he asked why he spared her.

Now, he was wondering if he knew about the prophecy years before it came into light, and changed the cat into Haley O' Eve for that very purpose.

"Mortem!" He snapped, calling his head Hellhound over.

Mortem trotted up to him. He was a tall, black, skeletal-looking dog with a long snout and pointed ears, sharp, red claws and angry-looking eyes, and long, twisted horns.

"Take a team of Hellhounds with you and find Haley O' Eve. But do not make yourself known. Go now, and do not fail!"

Mortem let out a chilling howl, turned on a dime, and revealed large, ragged, dragon-like wings, and took off. Several smaller, similar-looking Hellhounds leapt out of the shadows and followed Mortem.

Grimm sat back in his rocky throne and watched his Hellhounds disappear into the dark, shadowy ceiling. Up above the Dead Sea, the Hellhounds splashed out of the salty lake, with shadows trailing from their hind legs and tails.

Grimm tapped his fingertips together, chuckling darkly to himself.

A/N Not much going on in this chapter. I felt the green walls would be a bit plain, and I also thought it'd be cute to have paw prints on the wall, since the baby's mom is an anthro cat.

I had found these two names a long time ago, and had them saved on my very old iPod. They are both Spanish names, and have their respective name meanings. The "to rise again" name is to correspond with the baby raising the spirits of the past, as the prophecy says. The "courageous" name is something a bit deeper ;) I tried to find some nonSpanish names that Pitch could suggest, but I couldn't find any I liked, and I really had my heart set on these two names as choices. So, don't say that Haley's not letting Pitch choose any names. She already asked if he wanted to suggest some different ones, and he liked her choices. I really tried guys ^^

As I said, I'll post a poll with the two names on my profile. You guys can choose which name you like, and the most popular one by the time the baby is born (or maybe not. I'd like to post another poll in relation to my Felidae fanfic, and I don't think you can have two polls up at once, and I can't have polls on my DeviantART account) will be the chosen name.

Aside from Grimm interfering with the Guardians, as I think I said earlier, most of this fanfic will be prepping for the baby. So, a big chapter will be Haley's baby shower, courtesy of Tooth and Mabella :3 I didn't go to my cousin's wife's baby shower...so I may have to do some research.

Like I said before, Grimm's lazy, so he makes his Hellhounds do everything XD The main Hellhound's design (BTW, Mortem is Latin for death) was partially inspired by the Pokemon, Houndoom. In case you don't know much or anything about Pokemon, Houndoom is basically like a black and orange Doberman, except with curved horns instead of ears, a forked tail, and sort of bone structures on its back and paws. I added the wings to the Hellhounds as a last-minute decision because...I like wings :3