A/N: Between tests, prior engagements, kitten sitting, original story writing, much reading, and a multitude of interuptions, I managed my self-invoked thursday deadline by three minutes! Yes, this is an angsty, dramatic fic, and aptly named! I didn't feel like being kind to the Jellicles when creating this story. I have other stories, brighter stories, that I may put up later. But the Jellicles need a little messed-up turmoil in their lives, I think. And I love that everyone asked the same question in their review. It made me smile when I thought about it. Now, enjoy the chapter, and ignore the ramblings of a very exhausted author.

Chapter 10 – What Broken Dreams Bring

She didn't know what compelled her to fall into her own world, her confused world, her world that tried so hard to make sense of the reality she faced every day. After she found out about her kittens, everything seemed to get dimmer, and dimmer, and she could feel herself falling, but could do nothing about it. All she saw were the vaguest shadows of cats in the past before her. She walked towards them, as though they would give her comfort. As though if they forgave her, everything would be okay. But she couldn't see where she was going anymore.

She was never able to see where she was going. Her memories were made up of broken dreams. There were fantasy's that would never come true. Plans she never intended to follow. Nights spent with 'friends', talking about dreams they had. She always had many. They were simple. Theirs were, too. They probably lived out their lives, found their dreams. Ideally, they died happy. If Demeter couldn't be happy, at least in her dreams, she could pretend her former friends and mates were happy. And maybe they survived through their kittens. Perhaps those kittens heard of her, when their parents would tell them a story before they went to sleep. The story was most likely of a queen who was once their best friend, a golden glimmer at sundown, to become nothing more than a whisper in the night, gone as soon as the sun rose in the sky, and never to return.

She was a ghost. Once.

Then came that tabby. One of many. But this one was different somehow. Or maybe it was just she who was different this time. She allowed things to happen with him she shouldn't have. She fooled herself into living like a queen who was in love. And now, with little kittens growing inside her, ones that she had already come to love, to deem as her saviors, were nothing more than another hope taken away from her. Only, it was worse this time. They were from her. By all rights, they should have been with her all her life. And now, they were to become the cats that had a mother who left them. Their mother, the specter of the night. Intangible. Not real. Was never there to begin with.

But they would be real. And he certainly was real. Why the hell wasn't she!

Demeter came back to reality long enough to realize there were two paws on either side of her now leading her as gently as they could into some unknown direction. Demeter gasped in shock, but she had no energy to fight them off. "Stop," she said meekly.

"It's a'ight, Demeta'," said a familiar female voice. "We're almost 'ome."

That was a concept she couldn't understand. She didn't need to go to her fake home. She needed to go get answers. She needed to talk to Old Deuteronomy. She thought that if anyone knew anything, he would! He had to. He could bring light back into her life. He would tell her everything was okay, and she would believe him!

She tried to struggle, but all her energy was gone. She couldn't even see straight. Reality still hadn't come back into existence. Her mind still needed to rest. She couldn't go back there! Not yet! Answers! She needed answers! She needed to know that she wouldn't break her kittens' hearts! She needed to know that she could finally stop hurting people! Even just the smallest glimmer of hope, something, anything! She couldn't stay this way.

"Let go of her!" hissed a familiar voice, and the two paws did so, leaving Demeter to wobble. Vaguely, she recognized her sister, anger on her face, her teeth bared as though she were going to attack the two cats at her side. She then grabbed Demeter's paw and brought her protectively towards her.

"We were just takin' 'er 'ome!" Said the male voice defensively.

"I'll take care of her," Bombalurina said flippantly. "Get out of here! Go back to the junkyard and leave us alone!" She stepped forward threateningly, and Demeter heard footsteps scampering away. "Demeter?"

Bombalurina pulled her sister away from her and looked down at her. "Look at me. Are you okay? Did something hurt you? Demeter! Look at me!" The red queen started to pant as she looked close to tears. "Snap out of it! Come on, please! You're scaring me! Please…I need to take care of you."

"Take…care…of me?" Demeter finally felt her emotions swelling up in her. She began to back away from Bombalurina. "Take care of me?" she whispered, her blank expression suddenly turning into one of fury. "You want to take care of me? You've been lying to me!"

Bombalurina stood, shocked, staring at her sister. "Dem…what are you…?"

"Coricopat and Tantomile," Demeter began choppily. "They told me. They told me that…the kittens, they might be Jellicles, they might be normal, they might be mixed between the two…and you let me believe everything would be okay?"

"Dem," Bombalurina said, letting out a nervous chuckle to try and alleviate the tension. "It didn't need to be said. I couldn't upset you when you were pregnant. I had to be a good aunt."

"A…good aunt?" Demeter asked in disgust, holding her chest as though the red queen had just pierced right through her heart. "You couldn't even bother to tell me? That I was just dreaming about a regular life? Snap me back into reality before I got so deep into it that I could barely remember why I was so anxious to leave to begin with? I can't do this to them!" Her voice had gotten louder until she was screaming her last words.

"Dem, everything will be okay," said the queen, looking ready to have a panic attack herself. "Listen…" She looked around quickly. She licked her lips, taking a deep breath, before turning her attention back to Demeter. "We could leave right now. We could do like mom did, except you wouldn't have to raise them on your own! I would be there to!"

"And leave them if they're not Jellicles?" Demeter asked. "You're not listening! You're not even thinking!"

"IT'S ALL I'VE BEEN THINKING ABOUT, DEM!" Bombalurina yelled, ready to pull her fur out. Then she took a few deep breaths, as not to upset Demeter any more than she had been by yelling. "You look ready to collapse, Demmie. At least, if we leave now, take the kits with us, we could get pretty far from the tribe before they need to be born. Then they can stay with us until they're ready to be on their own. They don't have to weave in and out of tribes their entire kittenhood like we did."

Demeter felt like she couldn't catch her breath. What her sister was saying was a possibility, true. And a tempting one. If she could leave right now, her anxiety would be gone. It would just be her, and her kittens, and Bombalurina. It would be a change, but she wouldn't have to worry about being shunned, or her kittens being shunned. She wouldn't have to worry about retaliation from Macavity, or another former tribe member wandering into their new tribe and giving weigh to something being wrong. She would never have to face any of the 'Jellicle' Cats again…

"Oh!" Demeter gasped, putting her paw on her stomach.

"What's the matter?" Bombalurina asked, genuinely concerned.

"…a kitten…kicked." Demeter didn't bother to see her sister's reaction to the news. She had never felt the kittens before…

Slowly, she turned and began her way back to the junkyard. Bombalurina was calling from behind, until she finally groaned, having given up, and followed her sister.

------

Munkustrap had been absolutely terrified to find out Demeter had gone missing. Like everyone else, he had no idea what had happened to her, and he only thought to find her. If she was attacked by something, he would never forgive himself. One moment he left to get her something, the next moment she was missing. None of it made sense.

Seeing Tugger made him feel like he was going to have a heart attack. And knowing she was still out there made him only think the worse. His family was about to be taken away from him in one fell swoop.

Someone gasped, and all attention went to the entrance to the junkyard. There was Demeter with her sister trailing her, as she slowly entered. Munkustrap stood still as the other cats slowly went up to her. What Tugger had told him was right; she did look like she was in a daze. She looked a mix between terrified and traumatized, almost silly in the way she was wobbling as her center of gravity had been shifted. But there was nothing silly about the look in her eyes, wide open in shock, like she was ready to fall to pieces.

Cats began to make their way up to her, looking at her with concern. Bombalurina was close at her sister's heels though, and she put herself in the way of the other cats, much as Munkustrap himself had done when Grizabella graced them with their presence during the Jellicle Ball. It was better, though -her keeping them back.

Munkustrap pushed past the other cats, who began to make way for him, as he looked to his mate, relieved, confused, concerned. When there was finally no one between them, he stood still, keeping his distance, not knowing what to say or do to make the situation better.

It was that way a lot with his mate. The secrets she kept ran too deep for him to pretend to understand. Perhaps that was why he was drawn to her to begin with, as he wanted nothing more to help her, to make everything better. And Everlasting Cat knows he tried. He thought he was making progress. He thought she was happy. He thought everything would be okay.

Demeter took a few deep breaths, as though she were taking in the junkyard for the first time. Then her eyes caught the black paws of the silver tabby, slowly trailing up his frame, until their eyes met. She whimpered.

"Munkustrap," she managed to say. Then she broke down in tears. Running up to him, she clutched onto him tightly, burying her face into his chest and wetting his fur, gasping for air, and trembling all over. Her body was pressed up tightly against him, the bump of her stomach catching him off guard. He carefully hugged her back, as though she were a fragile figurine, and closed his eyes, thanking the Everlasting Cat she hadn't closed down as he had seen one queen do before.

When he opened his eyes, the other cats were staring at them. He waved them away, giving them an angry glare, enough to tell them to leave them in peace. And because he was so well respected, they did. The last lingering cats were the conjuring cat, the quiet Abyssinian, and the red queen, who wore an expression that was impossible to read.

He cradled his mate in his arms, kissed her on top of her head, and told her everything would be okay, not to worry, there wasn't any need to cry anymore. Helplessly, he brought her back to their den, helping her down the cushions that served as their bed, letting her cry, not knowing what to say. Finally, he had to admit it. "I…don't understand. Why are you crying? What happened to you?"

Demeter tried to catch her breath, wiping tears from her swollen eyes. She tried to look to him, but seemed more comfortable talking to her knees than to her mate. "You…" she managed. She seemed as though she were going to say more, but she ended it at that.

And she cried herself to sleep.

----------

"We should have just left," Bombalurina whispered to the other two as they were huddled in a corner. "She just flipped out. Absolutely flipped out! I mean, she couldn't control it for even a few more weeks?" She looked down at her scraped knees, and groaned in frustration. "I don't know what to do! I don't know what's going to happen! We can't leave now!"

"Bombalurina," Cassandra tried to use a calming voice. "It's alright. She'll be okay. You'll be okay."

Bombalurina looked at Cassandra as though she had gone crazy. If she felt the need to act so loving to her, she knew she was not going to be okay. She ran her paws through her fur. "I think she's mad at me." Bombalurina said.

"She'll calm down," Mistoffelees said, in a more convincing calming voice than Cassandra could ever do.

"She's broken," Bombalurina said sadly. "Haven't you ever felt that way?"

"Yes," Cassandra admitted sadly.

"Of course," Mistoffelees said. "Plenty of times, but we all have our own ways of dealing with it. Demeter…just closed in on herself."

Bombalurina sighed. "Must be hereditary. Bast…it's not like I don't care about her! I think she thinks that. I just…We have to get through this. This is a very trying tribe. I don't…understand them. They so readily shunned Grizabella. Being ostracized by the people you care about…I think that's the worst pain I've felt yet. I'd rather they throw things at me, scratch to get me away from them, have them look at me like something is wrong with me. At least they know I'm there! But to turn their backs on me…

"No one ever really changes, you know? I have yet to find someone who loved me enough that I knew they wouldn't turn their back on. The only one who I thought could accept me, well…he's gone now. Before anything could be said. Before anything could be done. And I went numb." Bombalurina was looking down to her bloody knees as she explained. It was easier to think she was just admitted it to herself the first time, rather than two cats who were once strangers.

"I understand," Bombalurina said, carefully looking up to Mistoffelees, then shifting her eyes to Cassandra, looking at them both with unyielding intensity, before continuing. "What it must be like for her. Only she knows what she's going to lose. I lost mine abruptly. She has the stress of it all over her, and I can't do anything but…" She shook her head.

"We'll do our best to help you two," Mistoffelees said, Cassandra nodding in agreement. "You're not alone now. You have us."

"Yeah," Bombalurina said. "For now."

----------

Munkustrap paced in front of his mate as she slept. He didn't want to disturb her, but he wanted to know what was wrong with her. As not to be tempted to wake her up and question her as though she had done something wrong, he walked just outside of his den, so he could protect her against anything that could possibly do any harm to her. Well, any corporal thing. It seemed her dreams were causing her more pain than any other thing could do.

Helpless, he sat outside the den, periodically looking in on her, before looking out again and sighing. As he thought, his tail twitched in anger. His thoughts began to run away with him, while he traced back the steps that led to that moment.

"How is she doing?" Munkustrap turned to see Skimbleshanks coming up. "Jenny wanted me to check on her. She's busy with Tugger."

"Oh," Munkustrap said, trying to shake his thoughts from his head and calm his nerves. "Sleeping."

"Do you know what caused this?" he asked.

"I have an idea," Munkustrap said lowly. "How is Tugger?"

"In good spirits," Skimbleshanks announced proudly. "I thought he would be enjoying the attention more, however."

"Well," Munkustrap shrugged. "I've been in my share of fights. You're not quite as energetic as you were before it. But I've never been in a fight with a Pollicle, though." He looked back to his mate. "He saved her life."

"And yours," Skimbleshanks added. "Ay, I would die if anything happened to Jenny, or any of my kits. I can't imagine how frightened you must have been."

Munkustrap looked down. "Earlier, we were talking about naming them. Demeter asked if I was scared to be a father. I said yes. I didn't know just how terrifying it would be."

"You had a bad scare," Skimbleshanks said, patting the silver tabby on the back. "You need to get some rest, too." Munkustrap laughed at the irony.

"Rest? I can't possibly now. Tugger…and Demeter…I think Bombalurina was hurt…and what if--"

"Don't make me get Jenny after you."

Munkustrap sighed in resignation. "I'll try," he said as he watched his sleeping mate. To himself, he listed the things he had to get rest for. He had to help Demeter through whatever crisis she had gone through, make sure the kittens were alright, and protect the junkyard now that everyone felt so vulnerable from the sudden upset. The Rum Tum Tugger had to be taken care of and watched carefully. And most importantly, he had to find Coricopat and Tantomile. He had to confront them. And Everlasting Cat help him, he would chase them out of the tribe himself if he had to.