A/N: I'm very sorry about the slow update. I meant to have this up by Wednesday at the latest but my power adapter went kaput and I had to go get a new one. Also, I'm sorry if I misled you in the note at the end of the last chapter; the baby doesn't make an actual appearance until chapter 8. I realized that Neal's morning was going to be a bit longer than I'd planned when I started writing. Making Neal's life interesting was just too much fun for me to pass up. As always, the characters and the land of Tortall belong to Tamora Pierce. And as always, I want to let my reviewers know that they are amazing and inspiring people and they're doing a great job keeping me focused and motivated.

Late Summer at New Hope

"Neal, wake up!"

Neal rolled over onto his chest and buried his head beneath his pillow. His pillow was abruptly yanked away. He responded by moaning and pulling the blanket over his head.

"Neal, if you don't wake up now, I'm going to have to resort to drastic measures."

There was something very familiar about that voice. Neal sat up suddenly, stretching and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

"That's better." The voice was Kel's.

"Gods Kel," he muttered. "It's hours before dawn."

"Tell that to the baby."

These words succeeded in clearing the last of the fog from Neal's brain. He stared at Kel who was standing over his bed, wearing a nightgown and holding a candle. Sweat gleamed on her brow. He jumped out of bed and launched himself at his washbasin, managing to stub his right toe and bark his left shin in the process. After three minutes of splashing, cursing, and shuffling, Neal had managed to wash, dress, and knock his washbasin to the floor, shattering it.

"Only your child," he told Kel, "would come a week earlier than expected and at such an ungodly hour of the morning."

"I thought the timing was rather perfect," said Kel, as she set the candle down, laying a hand on her belly and gritting her teeth in order to speak through a small contraction. "By next week there will be a considerable rush to start harvesting. There's nothing planned for today, it's unlikely that there will be any attacks, and the weather should be fair. If everything goes well you can be out making your rounds of the refugees tomorrow morning as we'd planned."

"Let us pray," Neal intoned, "that your child will not be so disgustingly practical." He grimaced inwardly, thinking of the scolding he was going to get from the Lioness. She was nearby, but he guessed that Raoul and Dom were still a few days travel from New Hope.

He waited for the contraction to pass and then offered her his hand to help her to the infirmary.

"Don't be daft," she told him with a tiny grin. "How do you think I got here in the first place?"

"Oh," he said sheepishly as he followed her into the infirmary. "I suppose you walked."

"Your brilliant deductive powers shine like a beacon of inspiration." Kel settled herself on one of the cots as she spoke.

"I can't deny the truth of that statement," Neal said as he began to take her pulse.

He ignored the withering glare Kel directed at him, attributing it to her "condition" but not daring to tell her so. He laid a hand on Kel's abdomen and there was a green flickering as he checked the baby.

"You're both doing fine," he told her. "Listen, I'm going to step back into my room to make tea and er, grab a few things." He stood up and began to back towards the door. The baby was coming quickly and he needed to contact Alanna and Raoul right away. "I can do a spell to numb pain if you want me to when I come back in. Meanwhile, just use those parade-trained lungs of yours and call me if you need anything."

Kel leaned back on a stack of pillows and calmly shooed him out the door.

Neal hurried down the hall and into his room, shutting the door firmly behind him. He stirred up his fire and hung a kettle over it. Then he pulled a mage mirror out of the chest at the foot of his bed.

"Alanna," he called into it. At first there was no response and the mirror remained dark. "Come on, Lioness, wake up," he said, trying to keep his voice low enough that Kel wouldn't hear him.

Just when Neal was beginning to consider dashing the mirror to pieces on the floor, a glimmer of purple fire appeared. Neal found himself facing a curtain of tangled red hair. Then fingers appeared, brushing the hair away and revealing a pair of angry purple eyes and a snarling mouth. Neal took a deep breath and reminded himself that the Lioness wasn't powerful enough to send a really harmful spell at him by mage mirror.

"Queenscove, do you have any idea what hour it is?"

"It's ungodly early, Lioness." He let her grunt in reply before he continued. "And Kel, who spent way too many years getting up way to early for extra weapons practice, has gone into labor."

The Lioness gave a yawn, which had the effect of transforming her snarl into a grin.

"I should have told her that I always went into labor in the early afternoon, then maybe she'd have waited till a more decent hour." She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "Then, again, Kel's always had her own way of doing things." Alanna blinked and became suddenly businesslike. "I'm only a day's ride from New Hope, so I'll go saddle up now and I should be with you by late afternoon. Don't bother trying to contact Raoul, his mage was injured in a skirmish last week so you won't be able to reach him. He had planned to ride with Dom's squad to reach Steadfast tomorrow—well actually today—so you can leave a message with Lord Wyldon when you contact him."

"How did you know he made me swear to contact him?" Neal tried to hide his grimace from the mage mirror. He'd been hoping to conveniently forget that particular oath.

"We discussed the matter when I visited Steadfast a few months ago." She grinned when she saw the bewildered look on Neal's face. "Yes, Neal, Lord Wyldon and I actually sat down together and had a civilized conversation—over mulled wine no less—about Keladry of Mindelan."

"Mithros," said Neal, "the laws of nature truly are reversing themselves. I'm going to wake up and realize that I'm a daffodil any day now."

"Don't be silly, Neal. We've had a few civilized conversations before; admittedly we could only talk about horses and the weather and we couldn't speak to each other for longer than a minute and a half…" She waved in the mage mirror and winked at Neal, vanishing before she could finish.

Neal stopped to throw tea herbs in a mug and take a few deep, calming breaths before contacting Wyldon's mage. Maybe, Neal thought hopefully, he gets up insanely early to do weapons drills and he'll already be awake.

Apparently, Wyldon only got up disgustingly early, and not insanely early. The Steadfast mage Neal reached had to wake him up after Neal told him he had urgent news. His unshaven face and slightly bloodshot eyes appeared in the mage mirror moments later.

"Queenscove," he grumbled in greeting.

"It's Mindelan, sir," Neal stammered, "she's gone into labor."

Wyldon gave a cough of surprise. "I thought you told me that it would be next week."

"I thought you'd learned to expect the unexpected from her, sir" Neal said. It's lack of sleep, Neal told himself, that's why I'm making smart comments to a commanding officer in the middle of the night.

Lord Wyldon scowled at him, but it was a rather friendly scowl. He actually sounded anxious when he spoke again. "Where is she? Is she doing all right? How are you managing things? Do you think there will be any complications? Report, Queenscove."

Neal gave an astonished shrug. "Everything's going smoothly, sir. Could you tell Lord Raoul and D—and everything when he arrives. I can't reach him because his mage is out of commission and I expect it will only be a few hours be—"

"NEAL!" Kel's shout made him jump.

"Don't make me regret trusting you with the wellbeing of one of Tortall's finest commanders—and don't tell her I said that—Queenscove." Lord Wyldon gave a salute and then vanished, leaving Neal shuddering.

The kettle whistled and Neal managed to dump some hot water into his teacup and on the papers strewn across his desk. He hurried back down the hall to Kel.

"Left foot back, right arch, blade sweeps clean…" Kel was muttering when Neal found her. She finished reciting the pattern dance before grabbing the tea from his hand. "Thanks," she said, "any time you want to do that pain numbing spell would be a good time."

"That was for me actually," Neal said as she began sipping his tea.

"What do you need it for? When I challenged you to a practice duel after the baby was born I didn't mean it would take place the day I delivered."

Neal winced; he'd had hopes that she had forgotten about that particular challenge. "I meant the tea was for me," he told her.

"And you didn't lie and play the thoughtful friend."

"And completely ruin my act as a bristling, arrogant, sarcastic young noble?" He laid a hand on her abdomen, coating it momentarily in cool green fire. "I'm glad Peachblossum and Lord Raoul managed to knock the I'm-a-warrior-stoic-and-I'll-just-endure-all-the-pain-that-comes-my-way-nonsense out of you."

"You know, none of the stoics who wrote that philosophy ever gave birth."

As the sun rose, a few hours later, Kel sat sipping tea and talking through pattern dances to distract herself during contractions. She'd been so calm and quiet that Neal, who was reading a book of magical philosophy from Numair, had dozed off on a neighboring cot.

A frantic knocking on the infirmary room door jolted him awake. Kel pointed him towards the door.

"Where's Kel?" asked Tobe as he burst into the room. "I've been looking all over and I can't find her anywhere and…" he trailed off when he saw Kel. Then he ran to her side. "Are you well?" he demanded.

"I'm just fine," Kel tried to reassure him, but she was unable to keep from moaning as an especially sharp contraction hit. Neal's pain numbing spell had worked well, but the contractions were growing much stronger. "It's just time for the baby to be born." Tobe gave a worried frown and Kel began to feel that it was time for him to leave.

"Tobe, why don't you go exercise Peachblossom?" Neal said firmly. "He's hasn't been getting much attention lately and it will be one less thing for Kel to worry about." When Tobe glanced reluctantly at Kel, Neal wrapped an arm around his shoulders and walked him to the door. "I'll take good care of your benevolent mistress," Neal promised and Tobe gave him a small grin as he stepped out the door.

"Neal, is it normal for women to hear voices before they give birth?" Kel asked, after she had breathed a sigh of relief. "Because I could have sworn that you just told Tobe to go ride Peachblossom. I know he'll be fine and it was a brilliant way to get him out, but you usually babble about how you don't have much experience treating fractured skulls whenever I let him anywhere near Peachblossom."

"You must have misheard, Kel," Neal's almost managed to keep his voice even. "I just told young Master Tobe to run along and stay away from Peachblossom."

Kel twisted her lips into a sardonic smile. "Ah, yes that sounds much more logical."

Neal scowled at her and then reached down to check the baby. "I think you've got at least another hour before things get exciting," he said. "How about a game of chess?"

"Chess? I wouldn't mind the distraction, but you usually hate chess?"

"I think that I might actually have a chance at beating you for once in our lives."

"Ah, the brilliance of Sir Meathead is revealed at last," Kel said through gritted teeth.

Reasons to go to a women's college:

"X number of years of women on top" T-shirts

"It's not a girls' school without men, it's a women's college without boys" t-shirts

I hope you guys enjoyed that. Medieval noblewomen would frequently play chess for entertainment while they were pregnant (I read this in A History of the Chess Queenby Marilyn Yalom which is a great history book if you like to read about strong female leaders throughout the middle ages). Remember, reviews make me hum, type, and terrify strangers with my enormous grin.