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Flarie paces back and forth in the kitchen. She had made herself some tea...and made somewhat of a mess...People should really start chaining up the door to the kitchen, to keep her away from it. After a few minutes of her constant walking back and forth, she finally gets some paper towels and goes about cleaning up her mess on the countertop, making more noise than was needed at the moment...

Too bloody early in the morning to be up and about...and yet, for some reason, he couldn't sleep. Not a bloody wink. Wasn't worth trying at all... So, instead, he had tossed on a nice fuzzy black robe that fit (Thank gods. He was sick of things not fitting. Blasted male body.) before padding down the stairs towards the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

But, he found the kitched oddly occupied. He shook his head with a little smirk, watching her for a moment before clearing his throat to announce his presence.

She squawked with surprise, and dropped the paper towels on the countertop, whirling around to see who was there. She had forgotten for a moment what exactly had happened to Skye, and was utterly surprised for a few seconds. "I...um...Good morning?"

"Bah..." He grumbled, padding towards the cupboard where he pulled down a tea cup which was quickly filled with water and stuffed into the microwave. Clumsy fingers prodded at the buttons until the machine started to make it's 'magick'. "Nothing good about anything at ten 'til three in the morning..."

He looked over to her, raising an eyebrow. "Having troubles with the kitchen again?"

"No...Yes! Yes that's it. The kitchen...compelled me to come down here and make tea. It's evil. Yep," she said, finishing cleaning up before plopping down on her chair at the table.

When the microwave beeped he pulled the cup from it, grapping a teabag from one of the various canisters and setting it to steep. He then snatched a spoon from the drying wrack and padded over to the table, flopping down across from Flarie.

"Why are you awake, dear woman?"

She frowned, and looked down at her tea. She didn't really want it anymore...

"When do you ever see me sleep?...Besides the other day," she added, blushing a bit at the last part. It was true, she rarely did sleep soundly for more than an hour...

"I've seen you sleep a bit off and on..." He smiled softly, lifting his cup to his lips to take a sip. Gah! Too hot! He quickly put it back down, looking over to her. "And if that's what it takes to get you to actually sleep..." He smirked. "You are going to have to find someone else."

She stuck out her tongue. "Like I'd do that again with you anyway." She folded her arms over her chest and leaned back in the chair, looking at the nice floral print on her pajama bottoms. Wow...these were some nice pants...Damn! Short attention span..

"You might..." He grinned teasingly. "If I gave you another kiss... Which I won't." He said quickly after, sipping his tea once more before finally letting his eyes rest on her. "You seem more distracted than usual. Everything alright?"

Her eyes finally wandered up to his, and she growled, sitting back up in the chair and leaning over the table slightly. "That doesn't work on me more than once...And I'm fine. I guess I'm just...tired is all."

"Well... Maybe I should try just to prove you wrong anyways." He smirked teasingly before giving way to a bit of a concerned look. "If you're tired you should go up to bed, Flarie..."

"No! No...I'm not that tired. Just...Uhhh.." She tried hard to think of an excuse...And her mind drew a blank. Great time to die on me, brain.

"C'mon... I'll see you as far as the second floor..." He stood up, downing the rest of his tea before heading towards the sink, looking back towards her. "Upstairs... Let's go."

Flarie gave a heavy sigh, and sat there. "No, you go ahead, I'll go up to bed in a few minutes. Really!"

"Wrong answer..." He sighed, padding back towards her only to stare down at her soon after. "Either tell me what's going on... Go up to bed... Or I'm going to carry you up to your own room myself." That tone of voice... He almost sounded like he was talking to one of the children.

"And if I opt for none of the above? What're you gonna do? Ground me? I'm not one of the children you know.."

"I could pick you up anyways." He grinned, reaching a hand out to run gently alongside her face. "I know you're not one of the kids... But I can worry about you. You live in this house just as much as anything else does."

She rolled her eyes. "A lot of things live in this house. You can worry about them, I'm fine. Go to bed now. Or I'll carry you up there."

He sighed and in that one sound echoed all of the displeasure that anyone could offer to the world... Such drama... So obvious he was a woman beneath all of that manly guise.

"Fine."

With that, he dropped his hand from the side of her face, padding slowly towards the hallway that lead on to the stairs.

With a sigh of relief, she got to her feet and took her stuff to the sink. After she'd set it down, she stood there for a moment, looking down at her reflection in the tea. She knew she couldn't hide things from Skye forever...But it was still so soon...She'd have lots of time to tell him...Later.

She gave one last look at her own reflection, and shuffled off to the stairs, shaking her head. "I am such a horrid person.."

Flarie quietly slips into Skye's room in the early hours of the morning, while everyone was still asleep. She still couldn't sleep herself...Nope. Just wasn't gonna happen. She stood there for a minute and frowned...Trying to remember why exactly she'd come in here in the first place...

After a moment she just sighed, and sat at the end of the bed, waiting for him to wake up..

Usually quite the heavy sleeper, it must've been quite the suprise that he actually opened one eye to look at Flarie when she flopped onto the edge of his bed. As his eyes opened further a soft light flooded the room from one of the bedside lamps... It was a wonderful enchantment and if he ever saw that sorcerer again he would thank him for teaching it.

"Thought you weren't ever coming in here again..." He propped himself up on his elbow, blanket falling away enough to reveal a nicely toned torso. There should've been laws against things like that...

She looked down at her nails...Yes, that was a fine distraction...She'd have to remember to murder Skye later...When she felt like it. "I couldn't sleep. And it was boring, sitting in my room all night.."

"So you decided to wake me up?" He raised an eyebrow, a sly grin slipping over his lips. Hell, it wasn't like he'd been sleeping for long anyways...

"Going to finally tell me what was on your mind or are you going to lie down and we'll both get a bit of shut-eye?" One track mind... Silly male mind. Of course, at least the 'one track' wasn't that. It was obviously either sleeping, which he seemed to do too much but never enough of... Or whatever was wrong with Flarie.

Her reply was just a grumble, and she made no move to do anything. She thought about her problem...and started to feel physically sick. Ergh..Not now. She tried to push the feeling aside, and finally looked up at him. "I'd like to sleep, but I don't think that's going to happen."

"It can happen..." He grinned. "Anything can happen." With one fluid motion he snatched her into his arms, pulling her back down against the bed with him. "Lullaby and goodnight... Go to sleep little Flarie..." He sang softly in a teasing tone.

She laughed and looked over at him, poking out her tongue. "I'm not a child, I doubt that'd work on me!" This wasn't so bad...But why did she still feel so sick?..Ergh..

"Seriously, sweetie... You should sleep. Maybe that's why you've been so off lately..." He continued to hold her in one arm, reaching down to pull an extra blanket up over her with the other.

Uck..That feeling...Was horrid. She jumped up off the bed and quickly made her way to the door. "No..No it's not that...I've got to go, I don't feel so good.."

He sat up, keeping his blanket draped over his lower half as he looked after her. "Flarie... Maybe you should see a doctor." He seemed genuinely worried. "You haven't been yourself for a while now..."

She opened the door, and made her way into the hallway quickly, only replying with "Will do it later!" before she sut the door and ran off.

He stared off after her before flopping back onto the bed, pulling a pillow over his face. A scream soon followed, muffled greatly by the fluffy barrier. Damn women anyways...

He hadn't slept most of the night. He was miserable. Irritated that Flarie wouldn't tell him what was wrong and suffering from some sort of moody insomnia he had locked himself away in his tower not long after she had left his room.

A soft glow eminated from beneath the door, flickering from time to time. Something was going on up there...and most of the household had decided to avoid it for a reason.

She stood outside the door, looking down at the light coming from beneath it. She was unsure as to if she wanted to go in...Her daughter Laire had told her that Skye had spent most of the day in there. Was he angry with her? Did he know already?..No, he couldn't possibly know, or he'd have asked about it. She reached out for the knob...then withdrew her hand, and started to walk away, then stopped herself. "Grrr...Stop being so stupid..."

Suddenly, the door slipped open and one of the two white housecats, Cloud, came streaking out, ducking into the library where she would continue to hide for the next hour or so. That cat rarely left the tower when Skye was up there... But now the door was left open...

Music drifted down the stairwell... Something that sounded like an odd combination of classical music mixed in with a driving gothic rock beat. So that was where Irvyn had gotten his taste in music...

She squeaked and nearly fell over as the cats ran past her. Damn animals..Always running rampant through the house. She looked up at the open door...The music caught her interest. It was certainly different from anything she normally heard. Then again, Lana has taken to singing, and Laire listens to that bubblegum pop s**t. She slowly crept back towards the door and peeked inside..

She would see a dark stairwell that was lit with glittering wall sconces. As modern as the rest of the house was this definately had the 'old world' sort of feel to it. The light continued to flicker from the upstairs area...and the music seemed to drift louder.

With a heavy sigh, she moved towards the stairs, and slowly started to climb. Stupid nauseous feeling still clung with her, and seemed to get worse as she climbed. It was probably from the nerves now though, moreso than anything else.

The closer she got to the top of the tower the louder the music became... From the last couple of stairs she would see what looked to be a 'typical' laboratory set up with various test tubes and vials along with everything else that wasn't 'typical'. Rows and rows of books lined the walls along with strange talismans and jars of various ingrediants.

And where was Skye amongst it all? He wasn't working on a potion... Instead, he was... Dancing? Yes. Eyes closed, he was waltzing with an invisible partner, loosing himself completely to the tempo of the music.

The elven girl slowly slipped into the room, leaning against a wall and watching for a few minutes, her head tilted to the side. This certainly was a funny sight. She only wished she had a video camera on her.

"Where did you learn to dance?"

Thinking he had been alone to his thoughts and musings, the sound of a voice caught him completely offguard. He turned quickly to face Flarie, tripping over feet that were still far too large compared to what he had been previously used to, and tumbling to the floor.

From the polished wooden boards that made up the floor of his lab he looked up to her sheepishly. "Why is it that I can never seem to stay on my feet when you are around?"

"Because I'm just that beautiful?" she replied with a giggle. "What're you doing up here all alone?"

"Perhaps..." He grinned as he helped himself to his feet, dusting off his pants as he did so. "I come up here to think...to sort through my thoughts and clear my mind."

"I see," she said. Her thoughts returned to why she was up here in the first place, and another wave of nausea washed over her. She slowly slid down the wall, until she was sitting on the floor. "What is it you need to think about? Doesn't seem like you have very many problems...You're a guy now. Guys don't have problems!" She snickered and looked around the tower. This place wasn't that bad. Seemed like a nice escape from the rest of the house.

"What's this? I stand up and you sit down on the ground?" He raised an eyebrow at her before shaking his head, pulling his body up onto his workbench, legs dangling nicely down over the edge.

He pondered her words for a moment before responding. "Sweet Flarie, male in body does not always mean male in mind... What you see before you... That is just an exterior. On the inside I am still the same person I always was... You've just gotten to know me a bit better." He nodded.

The tower was his favorite escape... His workroom for experiments and his hideaway from life. Of course, many of the other various creatures seemed to like it as well. All were missing at the moment though...

Yeah...gotten to know you better. "I think getting to know you better was the problem," she said, looking down at the floor. "And I can sit down here if I wanna, I still don't feel good."

"Well... Would you prefer that we were still nothing more than two strangers residing within the same house?" He continued looking down at her, unable to keep from feeling a bit hurt for some reason.

She felt bad. Maybe she shouldn't have said that exactly. "Well, no...I just..." She stopped, and sighed, looking up at him. "I'm pregnant."

His brain stopped working. It had to have. For a moment he could've sworn that his ears had heard Flarie say that she was pregnant. When it started working again things began to click into place... Moodiness... Not feeling well... Yes, it all made sense.

"Congradulations, Flarie." He grinned. "Who's is it?"

Men.. "It's yours," she squeaked, looking back down at the floor, pretending to find interest in something there. She so very much just wanted to disappear at the moment...To crawl away and hide.

His grin slowly faded from his face and then, before anything could be done otherwise, he feinted dead away, slumping across the work bench and knocking various vials over in the process. Luckily, they were all empty and only one or two rolled to the floor to shatter.

With a frightened squeak, Flarie jumped to her feet and rushed over to Skye, checking to see if he was ok. She shook him some and looked around for something that might wake him up. "Come on..Get up...You're a grown...man. Don't do this!"

He was breathing... That was a good enough sign. Of course, he was still out cold. Around the room she'd find various vials and bottles of things...a few of them with a strong enough odor to wake the dead, let alone a many who had just passed out cold.

She growled slightly and got to her feet, looking through the stuff around everywhere. She opened a few of the vials and sniffed them, finally coming across one she was sure would wake Skye. She held it out as far away from herself as she could, holding her nose shut and sticking out her tongue as she moved back over to Skye and held it under his nose..

His nose wrinkled and he began a series of coughs and sputters that ended with him sitting up, looking dazedly around the room. "I had the oddest dream... For a moment I could've sworn that you said you were having my baby..."

She frowned and replaced the cork in the bottle, and put it as far away from herself as possible. "I'm afraid it wasn't a dream Skye.."

"But... You can't be... I mean, you can be... But it can't be mine." Denial. "Maybe it was that guy from town that you were hanging around last month... You know... That one who owns that shop with the shoes?" Good job... Keep going on like that and he was likely to get something thrown at him... In his own lab, none the less.

For a moment, she looked as if she wanted to cry. "Fine..You don't have to believe me, it's alright," she said moving for the door and sniffling.

Wait... She was crying? No. She wasn't supposed to be crying... He hopped down from the table, quickly padding after her and gently taking her by the arm. "I..." He had no idea what to say, but he had the feeling that he should say something. "I'll do whatever I can to help you raise our baby."

She turned and looked up at him for a moment...Then hugged him and left, still sniffling. She needed time to think about this...LOTS of time...Dear god...How would they tell the kids?...

She was nothing but a lump on the bathroom floor....Laying there and staring out the window at the partially clouded night sky. She felt horrid..Why'd they call it morning sickness? It lasted all the time. She knew this was only the beginning as well..There was much much more she still had to go through...And at then end of all of it she'd get...A screaming baby? Her mind wandered back to when Lana was still a baby, and at the time she'd found herself lusting after a child of her own. One of her flesh and blood...But Raising Lana was fine...And then came Emmy and Laire...They were all easy to deal with...

But how would a real baby be??

She moved to her knees, and slowly stood up. She finally was starting to feel well enough to go back to bed. Her eyes fell on her reflection in the mirror as she made her way to the door...God did she look like s**t. Maybe this is why she decided not to have a mirror in her room. She shuffled back down the hallway and curled up on her bed, trying to find that sleepiness she was feeling before she'd gotten sick...

But it wouldn't come...And she ended up spending most of the night staring out the window and thinking about the future...And what she had to look forward to.

Her eyes fluttered open sometime later in the night, and she sighed. Stupid sick feeling keeps waking her up...Well, at least she'd gotten a good while of sleep..

She looked up at Skye and noticed he was still asleep, so she slowly slipped out of bed and out the door, shutting it as quietly as she could behind her.

"Sleeping with Skye again? Isn't that what got you knocked up the first time?" A voice said from the end of the stairway.

"Shh! You'll wake him up! And we were NOT doing that this time," she hissed in reply to the bunny girl sitting on the stairs.

"Whatever you say...I'm going back to bed." And with that remark, she walked off, leaving Flarie alone in the hallway.

She just shook her head and grumbled, going back up to her room and sitting down at her desk, whipping out her notebook once more.



She dropped the pen and shoved the book back in her desk, and wandered back over to her bed, falling face first onto it, and miraculously, falling right back to sleep..

Skye's Thoughts ~ February 24th...

I've been working on this bloody crib for hours... Still not finished... Stupid hands can't find the right pieces... Stupid brain can't comprehend the instructions. There's just too much of it.

I'm not going to sleep until I finish this damned thing... Can't be much more, eh? Just needed a little break to write... I think I see that piece I've been looking for.


Sometime later he finished the crib... Far too tired to make his way back to his own room he simply collapsed onto the floor, curling up to sleep beneath his beautiful piece of work.

Flarie blinked, and stood there for a moment, and shook her head. She headed back out into the hallway and grabbed her bags, going off to her own room, and putting her new clothes away. She had begun to wonder what color Skye was going to paint that room, if they didn't even know what the baby was yet. She wondered if she should be worried...and the room wouldn end up..yellow or something. Yellow was blinding..

She plopped down on the soft seat at her desk, and slipped some of her new books into a drawer, before reaching into another and pulling out her notebook.

Skye's Thoughts ~ February 27th...

The house has been far too quiet lately. It's a bit unsettling. Irvyn has holed himself up in his new room... Rearranging things and making the necissary changes to make that tower 'his.'

Ash has been spending more and more time with her phoenix, Altair. I suppose that I am to blame for that. I have given her hope that just as her bird is reborn, that perhaps she too can be 'reborn' in a sense... That maybe, just maybe, she can right what was wronged in that fire and regain her voice. She has such high hopes... I couldn't crush them.

I should get back to work... Go and spend some time at the Living Stone. Everything there has gone forgotten about... I don't want to lose intrest in things so easily. I haven't lost intrest in my humble little shop... My mind has just been elsewhere.

If I distract this easily now... What will happen when the baby comes?

I shouldn't be a parent... But it's a little to late for that, isn't it? I won't back out on Flarie now. I told her I'd be there for her and I will.