Disclaimer: I do not own anything Harvest Moon

On the morning of the ninth, I woke up to the smell of bacon, eggs, and toast. I groggily drug myself out of bed and pulled some clothes on, then stumbled through the living room and into the kitchen. When I made it to the kitchen door, the smell of burnt food invaded my nostrils.

The smoke alarm started to beep. "Karen, how did you do it?" Cliff's laughter could hardly be heard over the noise of the alarm. "All you were trying to make was some hard boiled eggs. You burnt the water!"

Now fully awake thanks to the alarm I watched Karen stomp across the kitchen, muttering curses under her breath as she dumped the kettle of water into the sink. I had to laugh out loud when I noticed that she hadn't even put the eggs in the water yet.

The young brunette woman glared at me, and I had to duck under the flying pot that she launched in my direction. "What's going on?" I asked Cliff, stifling a yawn. The kitchen clock read 5:30 AM.

With an ease that would have made a chef jealous, Cliff twitched a frying pan and flipped the eggs over that were in it. "Kai's leaving this morning, so we thought we'd make him breakfast. It's just a simple breakfast, but it's something to say 'Good bye' with."

I grabbed one of the pieces of toast and smeared some butter on it. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Karen throwing a worried look at me as she popped a bite-size piece of cake into her mouth. "Since you all woke me up early, I'm gonna go out and take care of the animals," I told Cliff, taking a big bite of the toast. "I'll water a third of the eggplants, too. The rest of them will be yours to do."

Cliff waved an acknowledgement at me and glanced up at the clock. "Uncle Gotz, Aunt Sasha, and Kai will all be here in two hours. This here is for the three of us, since I figure you'll want to get some work done before Kai's boat leaves at eight-thirty. I'll send Karen out to get you when they get here for breakfast."

There was a light mist outside as I made my way over to my horse's little stall. "Good morning, Adonis," I said, rubbing my hand on his snout. He snorted into my palm and then started nuzzling my chest. I laughed. "You know where the pond is when you're thirsty, but if you'll get out of the way I'll throw some oats into the bin for you."

The chickens were still asleep when I opened the door to their coop. When I picked them up, they hardly blinked at me as I collected their eggs. Ten minutes and a couple of handfuls of feed later, I made my way to the cows. They, at least, were up and about when I started feeding them. I took my time milking them, and then started brushing their coats.

I was humming to myself, feeling pretty good. The shipping crate in the chicken coop was full, the milk crate in the barn was full, and I knew that in a couple more days we'd have another harvest of eggplants. Hiring Cliff on to work the farm with me had turned out to be one of the best decisions I had ever made.

"We need to talk, Jack."

Karen scared me half to death when she spoke, which in turn caused the cow I was brushing to spook. I threw a smile over my shoulder as I patted the cow to calm it, noticing the serious look that Karen had on her face. Karen normally looks serious, but when she is serious, it's enough to get anyone's attention.

"Sure." I moved on to the next cow, and Karen took a seat on a stack of crates that were standing next to the fodder spout. "What's up?"

Karen took a deep breath. "Lately, I've been getting these weird cravings. Out of nowhere, I would want some cake. I've never craved sweets like this before! Cake and candy have never been something I wanted." She paused.

"Ann sent me to the midwife to see if she could figure out what was going on." I could hear panic start to edge its way into her voice, and it was starting to put me on edge. "She did."

I had to stop brushing the cow and brace myself against the stall. I thought I knew what she was getting at, but I didn't want to say it out loud. "And?" I ventured, holding my breath.

"I'm pregnant."

For some reason, knowing something and having someone tell you that same thing produce completely different reactions. Knowing that she was hinting at it made me feel panicked; hearing her say it would have knocked me off my feet if I hadn't braced myself. All of a sudden, my wits were scattered. I was having a hard time thinking, standing, even breathing. I felt an insistent tugging on my arm, and blindly followed its suggestion to sit on the crates that Karen had vacated.

She sat down on my lap, touching her forehead to mine. Wake up, fool! Part of my mind was screaming. Wake up! I clenched my eyes closed since the light filtering in from outside was suddenly blinding.

"What are we going to do, Jack? A secret like this will get out sooner or later."

My mouth moved like a fish trying to gulp air. "W-w-who knows about t-this?" Come on! Start thinking!

I could feel her shaking, and knew that she was crying. Wrapping my arms around her, I could hear her sob. "Only the midwife knows. She said she won't say anything to Mom or Dad."

The fog in my brain was finally clearing up as the shock wore off. Really, I guess it shouldn't have been much of a surprise, what with how often she was spending the night at my house. My mind was frantically racing to find a solution, but came to a screaming halt when it hit on an idea. I laughed out loud and started to dig in my knapsack.

Karen's green eyes could have shot lasers at me, she looked so mad. "This isn't funny, Jack," she said crossly.

My searching hand finally found what it was searching for. "No, it isn't," I agreed, tucking the object into her hair behind her ear.

Her hand came up, and the expression on her face told me that she thought I had stuck straw into her hair. A flash of blue color caught her attention, and she gaped at the feather she was holding in her hand.

Now, all of a sudden, I was feeling anxious and nearly panicking again as she simply stared at the blue feather I had given to her. She stared at the feather with tears still in her eyes and I slipped my arms back around her. Several minutes passed silently with us sitting like that.

Her hands were trembling when she tucked the feather back into her hair, and they still shook when she placed them on either side of my head. Her first kiss was soft, but the ones that followed picked up urgency.

A loud banging on the locked barn doors caught the attention of both of us. I lifted my head up out of the pile of hay we were lying in to glare at the door. "Hurry up, you guys!" Cliff shouted. "They'll all be here anytime! Get out here."

Karen and I sat up in a rush, sending hay flying and looking at each other. "Damn!" I said.

"Shit," she agreed with a smile. I gaped at her for cursing so openly as she started sifting through the hay for her shirt.

"I guess I'll have to come out here later to finish with the cows," I mused as I collected my clothing. "Although after that, they'll probably never want to eat hay again."

Karen giggled as she pulled her pants on; she stuck the feather in her pocket. "I think I'll wait until after Kai leaves to start showing this off," she told me, giving me a small, special smile. "I don't want to hurt Kai's feelings. But as soon as the ferry's gone, I'm gonna have to go see Ann."

When we got back into the house to help Cliff cook the breakfast, he was giving us strange looks. The looks I sent back were the typical, happy looks that I normally wore. Karen somehow managed to look like she normally did: neutral. She didn't look happy, and she didn't look sad.

Breakfast was a quiet affair. No one other than Cliff and I talked, and all we talked about was the farm. We finished eating, and we all walked down to the beach with Kai. He gave Karen, Gotz, and Sasha each a goodbye hug, and shook Cliff's and my hand with an invitation to come and visit him and his family in the town of Asse sometime.

As soon as the fairy was out of sight, Gotz and Sasha headed home. Cliff and I were headed into town, so Karen walked as far as the path to Greene Ranch with us. My farmhand and I headed to Rick's shop to pick up some stuff.

We had been making so much money off of the farm that we didn't even blink at the seven thousand gold we spent. I bought a room organizer and a huge oriental carpet for the house, and a room organizer to go inside Cliff's little house. We were just handing Rick the money when we heard a chorus of excited female shrieking from outside.

Cliff threw me an exasperated look. "You gave her the feather, didn't you," Rick stated, shaking his head. "Great. Now, it's going to be hard to keep them in stock. Thanks to you, everyone is going to be getting married. That's how these things work. It'll be like an avalanche: once it gets started it doesn't stop. Get going. I'll have this stuff sent to your house," he finished, waving his hand at us.

The two of us managed to duck into Saibara's next door shop without being noticed by the group of girls that were now standing outside by the library. In that shop, I paid twelve-hundred gold for a blue ocarina Saibara had made, and managed to convince him to part with the red dyed vase he had made for another fifteen hundred gold. We asked him to have the stuff sent over with what we had bought from Rick, and he said it would be.

This time when we went outside, we weren't so luck as to avoid the girls. Karen tackled me as soon as I was clear of the door, and the other girls all crowded around Karen, Cliff, and I. Ann, I noticed, was giving Cliff some hard looks.

"You've made a big mistake, Jack!" the fiery redhead told me with an angry look. She threw her hands in the air. "Today's Thursday! You know that the wedding's going to be held on Sunday because that's the tradition. You only gave us two days to plan Karen's wedding!"

The expressions on the faces of Popuri, Elli, and Maria were very similar to Ann's, prompting me to try hiding underneath Karen. Eventually, the girls pulled my betrothed off of me and hustled her off in the direction of Maria's house. Cliff gave me a hand standing up.

"Did you see those looks Ann was giving me?" he demanded as I brushed myself off. I nodded. "Now you've gone and gotten me in trouble. That look means I am going to have to ask her, and soon."

"The problem being . . . . What?" I asked.

Cliff rolled his eyes. "What would I do, ask her to move into that little shack I have? There's no room at her dad's ranch, and there's no way I could survive living back at Uncle Gotz's place. We would have nowhere to go."

I threw my arm around my friend's shoulders and we started walking back towards the farm. "I'm sure you'd find that everything works itself out," I assured him.