Hey folks - I'm going to re-upload all of the chapters to this fic now that I know how to put these pagebreak thingies between sections. It was really annoying me that FFN took away all of my pagebreaks. Stupid FFN. So I'm going to fix it so it doesn't keep bothering me. I might do the same thing with CTH too at some point.

For a moment, there was nothing but silence, punctuated here and there by Bijou's sobs. Nobody could find the right words to say, or even a voice to say them with…until someone else spoke up.

"I know where she is."

All heads turned in the direction the voice had come from, and standing there with an apprehensive expression on his face was Rei, the youngest (and smallest) of the CATS.

"You mean…" Dexter began, gazing at Rei through the tears clouding his vision, "she's alive?"

Rei started to answer, but suddenly Howdy was at his throat, gripping the fur at Rei's chest with the ferocity of a wild animal.

"What have you done to her?" he demanded.

"I…I didn't do anything," Rei replied, stuttering and trying in vain to free himself from Howdy's grasp. "S-Scuzz and the others…"

"Howdy, let him go!" Dexter said, trying to insert himself between Howdy and Rei but having no luck. Seconds later, Boss and Amy were on top of Howdy, pulling him off of Rei, who appeared to be truly terrified.

"Get out of here," Boss growled at Rei, who obediently turned tail and ran. The others watched in silence as he disappeared amongst the countless bushes and trees.

"Damn it," Dexter muttered, and turned to Boss. His face was streaked with tears. "What if he was telling the truth? What if Pashmina is alive?"

Boss shook his head. "You know what Scuzz is like. The rest of the CATS aren't any better. Rei might be a good actor, but I doubt there's anything else about him that's any good."

"We can't be sure," Amy said. "Maybe he was trying to help. Maybe there is good in him." She sighed and looked down at her feet as two tiny rivers of tears began falling down her cheeks. "But we can't risk it. It could have been a trap –"

"It probably was a trap," Boss corrected.

"Shoulda let me give him what for," Howdy said angrily. "That little son of a bitch…"

There was silence among them for a moment. Then it became apparent that Bijou was the only one who hadn't spoken a word that entire time. Boss turned to her anxiously; she was curled up in a ball, her face wet with tears, Pashmina's torn and tarnished scarf wrapped around her neck.

"Bijou…" Boss whispered, kneeling down in front of her and putting a paw on her shoulder.

"I…I can still feel her warmth in it," she said, choking back more tears. "Pashmina…"

Boss looked over his shoulder at Amy, as though she had some answer, some way to magically make everything right. But she could only return his mournful gaze with her own. So Boss took Bijou's paws in his and stood up, pulling Bijou to her feet in the process.

"Maybe she's at home," he told her. "Let's go to Pashmina's house and see if she's home."

"Do you really think…?" Bijou started to say. Boss took her face in his paws and did his best to soothe her.

"I don't know," he said. "But this is only her scarf. That's all. There's no reason we should be fearing the worst already."

Bijou nodded and tried desperately to calm her petrified heart as she and the others set a course for Pashmina's house.

Hamtaro was, at this time, pacing back and forth on Oxnard's windowsill. Oxnard was watching him apprehensively from his cage below the window.

"I just can't do this anymore, Oxy," Hamtaro was saying. "I know Boss wanted us to stay away from him for a while, but I can't take it!"

"It's only been one day," Oxnard pointed out. "We could just give it a little more time…"

"One day, one week, what difference does it make?" Hamtaro replied. "Something is up with Boss and I don't like it and I think that as his friends, we deserve to know what's going on."

"I guess," Oxnard said noncommittally, clearly uneasy about the whole thing.

"Well, come on then!" Hamtaro said, throwing his paws in the air. "We're going to the clubhouse and find out what's up."

Obediently but tentatively, Oxnard exited his cage and followed Hamtaro down from the windowsill, across the street and through the woods to the clubhouse. As they approached, they noticed something distinctly different in the air, unusual and unfamiliar scents.

"Hamtaro," Oxnard whispered anxiously as they reached the clubhouse door. "I don't think we should go in. It doesn't feel right. We should go home."

"Nonsense!" Hamtaro replied, indifferent to the obvious change in the atmosphere surrounding the place. He pushed the door open, and light spilled into the tunnel.

"Boss!" Hamtaro shouted into the room. "Oxnard and I –" He stopped abruptly as several unfamiliar faces appeared in front of him.

"Welcome," one of them said in a none-too-friendly voice.

"I want to go home," Oxnard whispered from behind Hamtaro. He was shaking. Hamtaro, however, was not so put off.

"Hi!" he said brightly. "I'm Hamtaro. I came to talk to Boss. Are you friends of his?"

"You could say that," the stranger replied. "Boss and I go way back." As he was speaking, another one of the unfamiliar hamsters shuffled behind Oxnard and closed the clubhouse door abruptly, shutting them in. Oxnard was now on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but Hamtaro took no notice.

"The name's Scuzz," the strange hamster finished, and held out a paw. Hamtaro took it without question and with a giant grin on his face – which quickly disappeared when, rather than shaking his paw, Scuzz threw him to the ground with a sneer.

"G-good joke, heheh," Hamtaro said as he started to pull himself to his feet, but then Scuzz pressed a foot to his chest, pinning him to the ground. He lowered his face so that the two of them were eye to eye, and it suddenly became dreadfully apparent to Hamtaro that this 'Scuzz' was no friend of Boss, and things were somehow a lot worse than he had anticipated.

"I'm not joking around," Scuzz growled. "And now you're playing by my rules."