"So what are you planning on doing today?"

"Well because you're going to be at work all day and I'll be all alone, I was going to call up my favorite escort and go wild."

"Oh sounds hot, I might just have to stay home and watch then."

"You are such an ogre," Courtney complained, lightly smacking his arm. "Anyway I was just going to organize the baby's room, put on some final touches."

At Duncan's penetrating gaze she added, "Nothing strenuous, just putting away all of the baby clothes I got and organizing the bath stuff into the basket LeShawna gave me."

"I see. We definitely got enough crap from your baby shower," Duncan began, "but I have some other things you can organize."

He disappeared to one of the hall closets and came back with a large trash bag and handed it to her.

"You're like Santa, jeez."

She opened the bag and gasped, pulling out a stuffed animal of a pig. The whole bag was filled with different farm animal stuffed animals to go with the theme of the baby's room.

"How did you find all of these?"

"Every time I've gone to any store in the past month or two I've looked for farm animals and if the store had one I'd buy it," Duncan explained. "After I had ten I figured I'd just collect a bunch and give them to you in one shot."

"Awe, I love them," Courtney gushed hugging him. "I'm excited to set them up."

"Good, I'm glad you're happy. So I'm going to leave on this good note," he captured her lips in a kiss and then planted one on her forehead.

"What time should I expect you tonight?"

"Like, six thirty-ish."

"Oh good, well have a good day at work honey. Good luck with that Billy Williams."

"Thanks. Billy has gotten better in the past week; I'm just glad we've finally made some headway."

"Well if you're happy then I'm happy."

"See ya soon Princess."

Courtney sat on the couch and slowly took a sip from her bottle of water. Unfortunately this had been the majority of her day and sadly the day had started out with such promise. From all of the parenting books she had been reading since discovering she was pregnant, she had learned that when she entered her third trimester all of the horrible pregnancy symptoms from the first one would come back.

Due to the fact that she had survived them the first time she assumed that this time would be a piece of cake; she was mistaken, big time. The fatigue had come back ten times worse than it had been originally. The only way she could counteract the fits of tiredness, and usually it only made her feel marginally better, was to take several naps throughout the day (either way she usually couldn't sleep through the night anymore).

She had to pee like every three minutes because the baby was constantly resting on or kicking her bladder. This fact made it near impossible to go out to dinner or hangout at length with friends or family. To make matters worse a symptom had arose that hadn't been there in her first trimester, she now quite frequently got heartburn and she hated it with a burning passion.

Courtney was happy she was in her seventh month and only had to deal with all of the unpleasantness for a couple more months.

If the symptoms weren't enough to make her not want to do anything, anytime she got deep into a project the phone would ring or the computer would say "You've got mail" and she'd have to stop. Of course, she had also taken some time out of her projects to eat; after all she was eating for two.

Deciding that her break had lasted long enough, she went back to the former guestroom to organize the baby clothes and all of the stuffed animals. She felt at least a little accomplished because she had already organized all the baby bath stuff in the great, handy, and portable basket LeShawna (and technically Harold) had given her. It was a really cute and practical gift; the basket was medium sized, with many different compartments labeled for soap, lotion, baby powder, wash cloths, and, of course, a spot for a rubber ducky.

Over an hour later Courtney had organized the baby clothes in the dresser and arranged and rearranged the stuffed animals. It wasn't that she hadn't been happy with her original arrangement; it was that it was going on seven thirty and Duncan wasn't home yet. It wasn't unusual for him to be forced to stay late, but when that happened he always called. She had called his cell phone several times and it had gone straight to voicemail. Courtney had bargained with herself that if he wasn't home, or if she hadn't heard from him by eight, she would start harassing the juvenile detention facility he worked at with constant phone calls.

In order to calm her nerves she went back to rearranging the farm animals on the rocking chair and quietly began to sing. When she got scared or nervous as a child she would sing Disney songs and they always seemed to make her feel better and make her problems disappear for awhile.

"Hmm, hmm, hmm, hm, hm, hm….tell me Princess now when did you last let your heart decide? I can open your eyes, take you wonder by wonder, over sideways and under on a magic carpet ride, a whole new world," Courtney merrily sung.

Her singing was cutoff with the shrill ring of the kitchen telephone; she waddled to go and answer it.

"Hello."

"Mrs. Evers?"

Courtney was immediately put on edge. "Yes."

"This is Mark Fay, Duncan's boss."

"Oh, okay. Is everything all right?"

"There's been an incident."

Courtney's blood froze and her heart seemed to stop altogether.

"What?"

"Duncan's on his way to the hospital as we speak. He was stabbed."