A/N: Fifth chapter! Enjoy it. I'll post again when I get some reviews (sob sob). Since none of you cruel, cruel, heart-breaking (kidding, I still love you! Review for your forgiveness!) people reviewed, there are no reponses and I took longer to post. If I get 4 reviews, you'll get the next installment…

Agg, sorry the A/N is so short and doesn't mention anything important, but sheesh! I can't think with my brother singing in the shower SO LOUD. (runs off covering ears and screaming). Now, on with chapter five…

The sunlight streamed in through the window, brighter than anything else in the world, as if it were mimicking the moon from last night. Birds chirped, leaves rustled. Pink clouds left over from the sunrise passed lazily in front of the window. Somehow Kel knew the morning was too perfect for Joren to be there. And sure enough, when she opened her eyes, he wasn't. She stood up with a groan, grabbed a towel, and headed for the shower. It took her a minute to realize, through the sounds that were coming from the bathroom, that someone was already in the shower. She groaned again, running her hands through her oily mousy brown hair.

Groggy and not in the best of moods, Kel clomped down the stairs to make her children's lunches. It was her day off from work, she remembered as she idly spread peanut butter on a slice of potato bread. What was she going to do today?

Somehow, going out for lunch with Neal and then working on her garden seemed a little too predictable. She was bored. Even with her job, getting used to the same routine, with family life added, made her restless. Maybe that was why Joren sometimes ran at night: getting used to being so normal was nearly impossible for a person who hadn't been normal ever before.

Joren scrubbed his head in the shower, and not even to make it clean. He didn't like it anymore. Once his hair had been his pride and joy, something he could use to make women fawn over him and then mock them to their graves, but now it was only one thing: the proof that he was his father's son. Joren had seen the pictures: his father at age thirty-three looked exactly as he did now.

Pulling back the shower curtain and wrapping a towel around his slim hips, he noticed the electronic razor he had bought last year laying unused on the counter. He kept glancing at it, from the razor to his hair in the mirror, until Keladry opened the door without knocking, a towel in hand. Her face looked impatient.

She shooed him out of their bathroom, after a teasing kiss accompanied by his apology, and Joren heard the water running. Though he was supposed to be at work, he didn't feel like going too much. If there was some emergency, they'd call him.

He lay back on the bed with a satisfied groan, and flipped on the television. Immediately a woman screamed, pointing at a man with a gun ten feet away from her. A rapist, no doubt, from a stupid crime television show. Why all crime shows featured female victims he would never understand.

He flipped to the news, where a serious looking man the police force jokers had nicknamed, "Scary Sam" because he always scared officers out of bed when they slept in and got to work late, announced that there had been bank robberies all over the city. Some women had been beaten as men at gunpoint surrendered all the money in the vault. All police workers, or, as they were called more seriously, TPF (Tortallan Protection Force) were required to be there, day off or not. Only one word seemed to fit.

"Dang!" Joren muttered and jumped up from his bed. He scribbled a note to Kel and raced out the door.

Dear Kel,

Robbers all over the city have attacked every Goddess Bless bank. Every woman working in one has been threatened, shamed or beaten because of her gender, and all the men either surrendered the money or were shot. We all have to go to the station as fast as possible, including you even though it's your day off. Hurry up!

Joren

After finishing the letter, Kel mimicked her husband's words as she pulled on her uniform and ran out the door. But first, as she always did, she called Lalasa.

"Hi, this is Lalasa Isran and I can't come to the phone right now. Please leave a message after the tone. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeep."

"'Lasa, it's Kel, and I'm so sorry, but I need you to pick up the kids again. There's been this huge robbery and I should be out till late. Once they're home, you can leave them with Neal, just make sure they get home safe. Thank you!"

With that done, Kel chugged a cup of coffee. With the day spread out before her, she was pretty sure she would need it.

(Love it? Hate it? Want to know what happens next? Think I should change the rating because of Joren's one curse? Have any comments about the last chapter? Was it so bad that you couldn't stand to review? Was it so amazing that you were in shock and couldn't review? (Yeah, right.) Did you even notice that I updated at all? Want to answer my questions? Think this A/N is getting too long?

REVIEW!)