"It's not like that, Father," Felline said. She slammed shut a maintenance panel so that Snow's gray, haggard face abruptly filled her vision.

An unpleasant mix of feelings rose at the sight of him. Snow's ice-blue eyes had gone pink and watery around the rims. He'd been through so much that it looked as though his fur lay flush against bone. She should have felt bad for him. She did feel bad for him. Grief and guilt lay heavy on her heart in equal measure – but just then his tightly curled and broken whiskers annoyed her. She'd seen them too often lately. Why couldn't he leave her alone?

When she turned away from him, he followed her to the next panel, as she'd known he would. She knelt in the dust at his feet to get at one of the tank's impressive spark plug arrays. He and his makeshift crutch loomed crookedly over her.

"Then what is it like, Felline?" he asked, resuming an argument that had taken up most of the morning. "You tail him everywhere like a lovesick cub."

What did Snow think he'd been doing the past two days? Pressing her lips together, Felline recalibrated her goggles, dug a corroded plug out of its socket with her claws, and set to work cleaning the sticky, burned gunk off the connectors. Unfortunately, the scraping of her knife didn't drown out her father's voice. He kept talking, even after she powered on her handheld welder and the sparks began to fly.

"Can't you see that he's only humoring you because you're a girl?"

Woman, Felline corrected silently.

"He can hardly order you away –"

But he had once, long ago. Felline smiled at the memory. They'd come so far since those early days of distrust and prejudice.

"It's wrong to force yourself on him –"

Felline clenched her teeth. Forcing herself on him? When she was nothing but polite nowadays since he'd made it clear her company was best enjoyed in small doses? Was that what Snow saw?

"There is no point in staying for a man who won't speak for you!"

There. Snow had circled back to the start of the argument. Exasperated, Felline ripped off her goggles and threw them to the ground.

"For the last time, it's not like that!" she cried. "I'm not staying because I'm hoping someone will claim me. I stay because I'm needed here. I am a ThunderCat! You have no idea what we've been through, what we've done, what we still have to do. I'm not quitting now."

"Felline –" he started in a consoling tone of voice, amused pity suffusing his face.

She'd known he wouldn't believe her, but she had to make one thing absolutely clear, once and for all, so she cut him off. "There is nothing between Panthro and me. I assure you, the thought never crossed my mind. I'm not following him around – I'm his assistant!"

Felline thought Snow was going to explode. He swelled like a bullfroog, crinkled whiskers quivering. She waited, defiant. She'd stood up to her father. For the first time in her life, she'd held her ground. She wasn't going to back down now.

After a heartbeat or two, he deflated and his ears sagged.

"You mean to tell me that he hasn't spoken for you at all?" he asked in an entirely different, meece-like tone.

Felline struggled with a mad desire to laugh. "Panthro? Are you kidding? He's called me a snot-nosed brat more than once. He is a lot older than the rest of us, after all. Besides, Father – do you see this?" She indicated her box of tools, the half-completed repair job, the shiny new plug, all wired up and ready to go. "I'm working, not pretending. Panthro won't let any other cat but me work on the ThunderTank."

She couldn't keep the pride out of her voice when she said it, but Snow didn't seem to be listening. His gaze strayed across the road, empty in both directions but for themselves and the massive silver tank, dulled by a coating of dust. Two days on the road had put Plun-Darr's hollow peak and its skeletal guardian under the horizon, but they were still a few days from Dog City. Pumyra had continued to insist they not follow the freed slaves even though there'd been no sign of Mumm-Ra or his army. So they'd struck out in the opposite direction, trundling into deep, twisting, sandstone canyons, the tank's treads kicking up a brown plume that stained the air for miles. The plume was indistinguishable from the towering dirt devils that frequently tore across the dry, lonely land. It was an altogether desolate place.

"All right," Snow said at last. Meditatively, he scrubbed a hand over his ears.

Felline stared at him. "Are you disappointed? After the fuss you've been making for two whole days?"

"Try to see it from my point of view," he said defensively. "You are my daughter. It isn't right for them to expect you to fight like a soldier. You've done well, but it's time for you to come back where you belong. We don't have to go back to Thundera!" he hurried on when she opened her mouth to argue. "We can go anywhere we like, Felline. Make a new home. Just you and me."

He was wheedling now. Felline looked up at him, studying the round, cub-like eyes that were so much like her own.

"I have traveled across this land from one end to the other," she said slowly. "Every habitable inch of it has already been claimed. There is nowhere for cats to go except home. You have to return to Thundera with the others, Father. They need you, and you know it."

His face darkened like a snow-laden cloud, and he growled, "They don't need me."

"They need you," she repeated. She stood, brushing grit off her knees. "You're the one they look up to. Lion-O needs someone to lead in his place."

"Bastien can do that."

"Not without you," Felline said sternly. If Snow wanted an argument, then she would give him one and see how he liked being in the hot seat. "You are the commander of the royal guard until the king relieves you of your post. To do otherwise is treason. Believe me when I say this: I'm not leaving until Lion-O returns to claim his throne. It is your duty to ensure he has a throne and people to come home to. You can run away if you want to, but I'm staying right here."

Snow gave her a sideways look down the length of his nose. "So you'll stay. Fine. Prince Tygra has spoken for the cleric?"

"Cheetara. Yes," Felline said through her teeth.

"And King –"

"Father!" Felline shouted. She resisted putting her face in her hands, sure she'd leave claw marks in her fur if she did. Her father was not going to do this to her. Lion-O and whatever Snow thought he understood about her motivation were not going to enter this conversation together. She managed to keep her voice from shaking, barely. "Please. Stop. First, you spend two days warning me off General Panthro when what you really wanted was for me to throw myself into his arms, and now you're trying to set me up with the king. Why can't I be happy as just me? Why can't you accept that I am a ThunderCat?"

To her dismay, he ignored the desperation in her voice and sandwiched her slender fingers between his broad hands. "I only want what's best for you, little one," he said huskily, his eyes alarmingly bright. "I should have been there for you. You and your sister."

"You were," she said quietly. She raised her free hand and rubbed her forehead, feeling the thin ridge of scar tissue above her left eyebrow. "Did you know Mumm-Ra sneaked his lizards into the city in the giant crystal that Grune brought as a gift for Claudus?"

Snow's hands tightened. "What?"

"I saw them," she said, this long-dead secret finally laying itself to rest. "Our army would never have been defeated if it weren't for the deception of one of our own. Once the king opened the gates and let him in, there was nothing anyone could have done to prevent the fall of Thundera. What happened to Lep and me wasn't your fault. I never blamed you. You were right where the king ordered you to be, defending the wall and everyone inside it. You did the best you could."

Snow took a moment to compose himself. "Thank you for saying that," he said.

After a moment's hesitation, she leaned in and kissed his wasted cheek. "It's not over. We're still here, and we have to do all we can to make sure that Third Earth's cats survive. I'm going to do my part. Will you?"

"Yes," he said. Felline hoped that the conversation might be over, but then he added, "You do know that Bastien intends to marry Cleo, right?"

The torture was never going to end! "Yes, Father," she said in defeat.

Bastien had moved on. She knew that now. Felline closed her eyes against a pang. Pumyra had been the one to yank the rug out from under her in her usual unfeeling, straightforward manner, for which Felline had not quite forgiven her. It happened the evening after their loss at Mt. Plun-Darr. Pumyra had taken it upon herself to examine Cleo, the young calico woman Bastien had brought stumbling out of the gulag, who had been too weak with fever to walk on her own.

Pumyra helped Cleo recline on the bunk WilyKit sometimes shared with Kat. Bastien hovered nearby, getting in the way while Cheetara attempted to make Cleo comfortable. Cleo dove into thin, day-old soup, eating as frantically as the twins had when presented with an entire candyfruit orchard. She whispered her thanks before dropping into an exhausted sleep, her bowl falling from limp fingers.

Bastien snorted. "I thought she was going to eat the spoon, too."

"You mean like you tried to?" Felline shot at him, and he matched her grin.

"Yeah," he said unabashedly. "Hungry doesn't begin to describe it. We can't thank you enough for your help," he added, including Cheetara and Pumyra with his grateful look.

Cheetara smiled warmly at him. "It's the least we can do."

"We know what it's like. Once, we were so hungry we got ourselves trapped in a fishnet on the sandsea," Felline said, and Bastien roared with laughter. "We were starving, and there was food. A lot of it. Floating just offshore, a whole feast spread out for no one. It smelled so good none of us thought twice about diving in. A crew of fishmen yanked us out of the sand, called us food, and threatened to cook the kittens first because they would be the most tender."

"How did you get out of that?" Bastien wanted to know, still snickering.

"It was thanks to Lion-O, in the end," Felline said. She told him the story of Captain Tunar and the ramlak.

It had been like this since they'd returned to the ThunderTank. Bastien shadowed Felline everywhere, asking questions, laughing, warming her like sunlight on a snowy mountainside. Every time she happened to glance his way, she discovered he was peeking at her, too, which caused them both to laugh. His carefree manner was as welcome as a refreshing drink in this hot, dusty desert. There had been too much darkness and anxiety and fear lately. Bastien soothed it all away.

Through Felline's story, Cleo never stirred and Pumyra didn't say a word, though this should have been news to her, too. She worked diligently, side by side with Cheetara, cleaning cuts old and new, stitching up the worst of them. Bastien leaned over Cheetara's shoulder anxiously.

"Is she all right?" he asked.

"She's fine." Gently, Cheetara smoothed Cleo's tri-colored hair from her face. "She just needs rest."

Bastien relaxed, but Pumyra gave the skeptical, raspy hum that Felline had first heard in the cells beneath the Pit.

"I didn't know clerics trained as medics," she said. Subtly, she wedged herself between Cheetara and her patient.

Cheetara's pretty, pale face went as blank as the Cheshire moon's. She sat back, giving the lioness room. "We don't," she said, "but I have learned a few things since the fall of my order. My magic is sympathetic. It isn't all that different to make a request of my staff, which is still psychically connected to the living tree from which it came, than it is to sense the rhythms of a feline's internal systems."

Pumyra, as unselfconscious as it was possible to be, seemed unaffected by Cheetara's awe-inspiring presence. She went on with her examination and then hummed again, intent on tying the last bandage. She nodded as if satisfied.

"Still, you were right," she said in her low, roughened voice. She smiled at Cheetara with genuine, unexpected warmth, totally at odds with the bellicose tone she'd taken moments before. "She'll recover once she gets some rest."

Pumyra stood, straightening the fur-lined dress that marked her a slave, for they had nothing else for her to wear, and reassuringly put her hand on Bastien's shoulder. "Don't worry. Her cubs are fine, too."

Then she ducked into the companionway and left a strained silence in her wake.

The silence stretched like one of Panthro's arms. Longer. And longer. And it wouldn't break.

Her cubs?

Felline stood up also, though much faster. Her head spun. The other cats both looked at her, but she had eyes only for Bastien.

A question thundered through her brain, filling her ears with a dull rushing sound. Memories flicked through her mind's eye, as silent and flat as a muted view screen. A guard called out to her on the bridge, gray eyes full of concern. Pebbles clicked against her window, leading her to the laughing boy on the ground. A swift peck on the cheek, surrounded by catcalls, taken in place of a favor. Thundera's great white fountain played in the light of two moons while she received her first, real, heart-stopping kiss. The question roared above it all like a volcano's eruption, loud as an approaching army bent on destruction, but she couldn't ask it.

As she stared at him, voiceless and frozen, Bastien slowly blushed from his threadbare collar to the roots of his mane. She had her answer.

The bile rose, and Felline fled.

What an idiot she'd been! She'd thought he still cared for her, the way he found ways to touch her hand or her arm, how reluctant he seemed to let her out of his sight, how worried he'd been when he found her unconscious on the cockpit floor. It had all been a screen! A way to pass the time until he could be sure of Cleo's safety, and that of her cubs. His cubs.

How could he have deceived her like that? How could he risk hurting Cleo by singling Felline out? He must have seen how Felline was responding to him. They all must have. How could she have deceived herself? The truth seemed so painfully obvious now.

"Felline, wait!"

Cheetara caught up to and passed her in a sun-yellow blur. She stopped Felline's wild flight by grabbing her shoulders. "Felline, I'm sorry. I knew about Cleo right away. I should have said something earlier."

"No," Felline said, voice unnaturally high. The words tumbled out in a babble. "It wasn't your secret to tell. I mean, it wasn't a secret. Of course not. I should have noticed it, just like everyone else, right? There wasn't any need for you to say something."

Felline managed to swallow the rest by biting her lip. To her horror, tears welled up. She bit harder.

"Pumyra! How can she be so insensitive?" Cheetara hissed furiously. "You cared for him, didn't you?"

Felline laughed. It sounded like the wail of a cub. "I did. Maybe? I don't know. I wonder if he ever cared about me, though. I mean, if we had stayed together in Thundera, would I be like Cleo? Pregnant, I mean. That's caring for himself more than her. Isn't it? How could he – in that place – where they were working her to death – and he still . . . Would that have been me?"

Cheetara shook her head, unable to answer the flow of heartbreak, but her expression of sympathy somehow lent Felline strength. Felline took a few deep breaths and wiped her nose on the back of her hand. What use was crying? Bastien had never been hers.

"Don't blame Pumyra," she said, offering Cheetara a watery smile. "It's better to know, and Bastien certainly wasn't going to tell me. I don't think Pumyra was intentionally trying to hurt me. She surprised me. That's all."

Her calm reassurance seemed to convince Cheetara that everything was fine, but Cheetara couldn't see the hard knot of resentment burning in Felline's chest.

Felline watched her friend return to Cleo's bedside with narrowed eyes. The only thing that poor girl had done was unfortunately capture Bastien's heart. Once they got to Dog City Felline could say goodbye to them, and good riddance.

And Pumyra?

Felline numbly headed for the weapons lockers, knowing that she would at least be alone there. She could explain that she'd wanted to clean her gunblade if anyone asked. Not that anyone would.

Because Felline and her feelings didn't enter Pumyra's thoughts at all, and that was worse.

A/N: In honor of all of you, Dear Readers, here it is: An extra-long chapter, just for you! *throws confetti*

Reviewer Thanks! You're all so amazing, like frosting! Mmmm. Frosting. KelseyAlicia, BrickSheep, Momochan77, Heart of the Demons, booklover1798, Moonlightdeer, The Night Whisperer, FallingStar5027, Seeds of Destruction, Blackpantherlilies, AndrianaWarrior7, NightStalkers (thank you so much, sweetheart!), and Blacktiger93.

Anne!