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null, "preview_size_y": null, "initial_file_md5": "6258f9d60e8506711f5c57ca98787eba", "full_file_md5": "6258f9d60e8506711f5c57ca98787eba", "large_file_md5": "", "small_file_md5": "", "thumbnail_md5": "590a085fe26762d4e8c4ca4289289a27", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2013-06-14 06:39:12.773313+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "14 Jun 2013 08:39 CEST", "thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/551/551041_Fritti_017_-_lotsa_surprises.jpg", "thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/551/551041_Fritti_017_-_lotsa_surprises.jpg", "thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/551/551041_Fritti_017_-_lotsa_surprises.jpg", "thumb_huge_x": "200", "thumb_huge_y": "196", "thumb_large_x": "200", "thumb_large_y": "196", "thumb_medium_x": "120", "thumb_medium_y": "118" } ], "pools": [ { "pool_id": "17153", "name": "Care Bear fanfiction", "description": "This Pool/Folder/Group/Whateveryouwannacallit is the one where I'm putting all my old Care Bear stories that I have written way back when. Almost all of them are sexual in nature, too.", "count": "22", "submission_left_submission_id": "427186", "submission_left_file_name": "551039_Fritti_016_-_kiss_and_make_out__i_mean_up.doc", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/551/551039_Fritti_016_-_kiss_and_make_out__i_mean_up.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/551/551039_Fritti_016_-_kiss_and_make_out__i_mean_up.jpg", "submission_left_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/551/551039_Fritti_016_-_kiss_and_make_out__i_mean_up.jpg", "submission_left_thumb_huge_x": "200", "submission_left_thumb_huge_y": "196", "submission_left_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_left_thumb_large_y": "196", "submission_left_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_left_thumb_medium_y": "118", "submission_right_submission_id": "427193", "submission_right_file_name": "551046_Fritti_018_-_more_surprises.doc", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_huge": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/huge/551/551046_Fritti_018_-_more_surprises.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/large/551/551046_Fritti_018_-_more_surprises.jpg", "submission_right_thumbnail_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/thumbnails/medium/551/551046_Fritti_018_-_more_surprises.jpg", "submission_right_thumb_huge_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_huge_y": "196", "submission_right_thumb_large_x": "200", "submission_right_thumb_large_y": "196", "submission_right_thumb_medium_x": "120", "submission_right_thumb_medium_y": "118" } ], "description": "Well, here is a real long story! And I went into a good bit of drama in it, too! There's sure plenty of things, besides the sex, you wouldn't have ever expected in the Kingdom of Caring! Oh yes, and I mentioned a quite controversial subject in this story too; you might be shocked! That's a warning, there >~.^< Oh yeah, and I ran out of snappy titles by this point, too... sue me >~.^<\nThis features, mostly, Proudheart Cat and my own CareBear Cousin fursona Frolicheart Puma.\nThere's also a few other of the custom characters mentioned, and the first mention/cameo appearance of my friend EB's new bear Nocturnalheart Bear.\n\n\nOf course, the Care Bears, Care Bear Cousins, Care a Lot, The Forest of Feelings, and the entire Kingdom of Caring and associated things are not mine but © Those Characters From Cleveland; I just borrowed them for some fun =~.^=\n\nAnd if you don't want you childhood memories raped; [b][i]don't read this![/i][/b]\n\nAlso;\n\nFrolicheart Puma is © me\nCunningheart Snowleopard is © me\nFeralheart Vixen is © me\nRoyalheart Tiger is © EB and used with permission\nNocturnalheart Bear is © EB and used with permission", "description_bbcode_parsed": "Well, here is a real long story! And I went into a good bit of drama in it, too! There's sure plenty of things, besides the sex, you wouldn't have ever expected in the Kingdom of Caring! Oh yes, and I mentioned a quite controversial subject in this story too; you might be shocked! That's a warning, there >~.^< Oh yeah, and I ran out of snappy titles by this point, too... sue me >~.^<
This features, mostly, Proudheart Cat and my own CareBear Cousin fursona Frolicheart Puma.
There's also a few other of the custom characters mentioned, and the first mention/cameo appearance of my friend EB's new bear Nocturnalheart Bear.


Of course, the Care Bears, Care Bear Cousins, Care a Lot, The Forest of Feelings, and the entire Kingdom of Caring and associated things are not mine but © Those Characters From Cleveland; I just borrowed them for some fun =~.^=

And if you don't want you childhood memories raped; don't read this!

Also;

Frolicheart Puma is © me
Cunningheart Snowleopard is © me
Feralheart Vixen is © me
Royalheart Tiger is © EB and used with permission
Nocturnalheart Bear is © EB and used with permission", "writing": "A twinkling, cheerful dawnbreak filled Care a Lot and the Forest of Feelings with a soft, gentle milky morning light. The smiling yellow sun slowly climbed up into the blue sky, looking down benignly on both parts of the cloudly Kingdom of Caring. In Care a Lot, little StarBuddies floated from window to window to look at the Care Bears waking up (except for Grumpy Bear, who scolded at his alarmclock and pulled the sheets up over his head with a moan, and of course Bedtime Bear, who had shortly before returned from his nightly mission and was just going to sleep). In the Forest of Feelings, birds tweeted their happy songs to greet the sun, and flowers opened up and turned their heads to the light. It seemed that it would once again become one heck of a beautiful day.\n\nOn a small clearing in the Forest of Feelings, the door of a cloud cottage opened, and two feline Care Bear Cousins stepped outside. It were Frolicheart Puma and Proudheart Cat, who still lived together in Frolicheart's cottage since Proudheart's cottage had not yet been completed. Frolicheart'd had to rebuild it from the clouds up, and it really was a whole lot of work, especially when you know how incredibly perfect Proudheart always had to have everything. And, of course, Frolicheart wanted nothing more but to give the love of his life the most perfect cottage in the whole Forest of Feelings, so he really spent 1000% of his attention on getting everything perfect. As Frolicheart walked up to a bright white 1960 Chevrolet Impala convertible (he used that car for a daily driver now since his bright white 1968 Mercury Cougar convertible had been flattened by the entire front wall of Brightheart's workshop falling down on it during the flood Noheart had created), Proudheart hugged and kissed him.\n \"I'll stop by arrround noon with lunch, Frrolichearrrt,\" she smiled.\n \"That sounds perfect, pussycat,\" the beige-orange puma smiled back. \"You'll be pleasantly surprised by the way your house is already looking now. It's even more beautiful than it used to be.\"\n \"That sounds purrrfect too,\" Proudheart said with a soft giggle. \"Maybe I'll even stop by way beforrre noon. You've gotten me currrious.\"\n \"Better watch out with that,\" Frolicheart said with a grin, getting into his bright white Impala convertible. \"After all, \"curiosity killed the cat\", remember?\"\nProudheart laughed and gave Frolicheart a playful swat across his ears.\n \"Ohh, you! Don't you trrry making smarrrt rremarrks on [i]me[/i], misterrr!\"\n \"You're right, I should better try making your new house the prettiest cottage in all of the Forest of Feelings,\" Frolicheart smiled, starting the engine of his Impala. He leaned over the edge of the driver door and kissed Proudheart. \"I'll see you turning up somewhere around noon then, pussycat.\"\n \"Surrre,\" Proudheart smiled.\n\nShe looked at Frolicheart as the beige-orange puma backed the white Impala convertible around his cottage to the large shed at the back, where his collection of classic cars was stored in. There was a double-axle trailer standing just outside the shed, filled to capacity plus a bit more with building materials of all sorts. He hooked up the trailer to the towing bracket on his white Impala, checked the lash strings with which he had secured all the materials piled up on the trailer, found them all holding the enormous pile of materials in place perfectly safely, got back into the white Impala and drove off his driveway and down the rainbow path that disappeared between the trees. Proudheart waved after him until the car disappeared between the trees, then she drew a happy sigh and went back into Frolicheart's cottage, closing the door behind her. In the mean time Frolicheart arrived at Proudheart's cottage, which was indeed already looking beautiful after all the work he had done on it. It was almost finished; just a couple of bay windows on the first and second floor needed to be build and put in place, plus the balcony all around the first and second floor had to be finished up, and the roofs of both the front porch and the cottage itself were as yet made waterproof with a huge blue tarpaulin because the shingles still had to be put on, but for the rest the cottage already looked inhabitable.\n\nAnd Frolicheart had been quite right; it did look even more lovely than it had before. The beige-orange puma had really done way more than his best to get everything more than 1000% perfect. Quite frankly, he had not done that only because Proudheart was the love of his life. He had also done it a bit because he still had the feeling he had to make up for his terrible slip-up with Swiftheart, even though Proudheart had forgiven him for that. But any which way, the beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin had gone through extremes to get Proudheart's cottage looking like it did now. Like he had been searching for parts for his rare Boss 429 Mustang on Earth after his caring missions when he was rebuilding that, he had now spent much of his time after his caring missions to look around on Earth for beautiful things to build into Proudheart's cottage. And in that way, he had once had the good luck to find an old monestary being torn down, enabling him to take a whole lot of incredibly beautiful building materials to the Forest of Feelings. The supporting poles of the huge front porch he had built onto Proudheart's cottage, for instance, came from that monestary, and it were solid oak joists carved with beautiful patterns of long, curly vines. A few of the ground floor windows Frolicheart had put in came from that monestary as well, and it were magnificent colorful picture windows, depicting several scenes of the Garden of Eden. Like that, the beige-orange puma had built a lot of the monestary's materials into Proudheart's new cottage, both inside and out, making it look like something from a fairytale. After all, Proudheart deserved nothing less.\n\nPulling up into what was left of the front garden (of course that needed to be completely redone too as it has been washed away by the flood, and was now filled with pieces of building materials and all), Frolicheart parked his car, got out and started unloading the trailer. Off came, among others, a huge pile of packets of shingles, since the beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin had decided to first shingle the roof of the front porch today, seeing as that he needed to stand on that and walk across it to be able to reach the first floor walls for the work that had to still be done there. He placed all the packets of shingles upright against one side of the porch, and when he had put all the packets there he went into the cottage. A few moments later he appeared at one of the first floor windows (or at least, the opening in the wall where one of the windows was supposed to be put in), and he climbed out, onto the roof of the porch. He pulled up a packet of shingles, unpacked it, took away the first part of the blue tarpaulin covering the porch roof and started putting the shingles in place.\n\nWorking hard but with care, Frolicheart made good time at the first part of the porch roof. After he had put about three or four packets of shingles in place, however, his working slowed down a bit, as he had to walk across the part of the roof he had already shingled to the side, where the rest of the packets were standing, to pick up new packets each time. Nevertheless, he kept up his steady pace, and after a couple of hours he had already shingled half of the porch roof. That's when he decided to take a little break, and he sat down on the porch roof, leaning with his back against the first floor wall, taking sips from a bottle of fruit lemonade he had put in the sill of one of the first floor windows. After having emptied the bottle, he twisted around a bit to the window behind him to put the bottle away, but he looked around again when a voice called out his name. With a smile, Frolicheart noticed Nobleheart Horse standing at the gate of Proudheart's front garden, looking up at the cottage admiringly.\n \"Wow, Frolicheart,\" the purple horse said. \"That is looking beautiful.\"\n \"Thanks, I do my best,\" Frolicheart said with a smile.\n \"I'd say,\" Nobleheart said. \"I'd even say you're doing way more than your best. Proudheart's cottage has never looked so beautiful.\"\n \"That [i]was[/i] the intention, Nobleheart,\" Frolicheart grinned. \"Surely you agree she deserves nothing but the very best?\"\nNobleheart nodded with a smile.\n \"Maybe you're right. It's just that I hadn't really expected you to be so handy with tools you could build a house looking [i]this[/i] beautiful. I mean, okay, you're one of the best where it comes to fixing and restoring cars, but a house is sure is something very different.\"\n \"Someone who is handy enough to rebuild a car back to showroom state usually is a real handyman who won't twist his paw for any kind of project, Nobleheart,\" Frolicheart grinned.\n \"I guess you're right,\" Nobleheart said with a slight grin. \"So how's it going?\"\n \"Quite alright,\" Frolicheart said. \"This porch'll be ready today in any case, and maybe I'll get some of the first floor windows in place as well.\"\n \"Then I won't hold you from your work any longer, Frolicheart,\" Nobleheart smiled. \"Good luck.\"\n \"Thanks Nobleheart, and goodbye,\" Frolicheart said with a smile.\n\nWhile the purple horse walked away, throwing a last admiring glance at Proudheart's cottage, Frolicheart got up and walked to the side of the porch roof to get yet another packet of shingles. Returning to the spot where he had left off just now before his little break, he started unpacking the packet, but suddenly decided to first get a few more packets of shingles up on the porch roof, so he wouldn't have to interrupt his work after every ten shingles (which was the amount of shingles in one packet) to get a new packet. So he rose up again and walked back to the side of the porch, pulling up a few more packets and carrying them to the unshingled part of the porch roof one by one. In passing, he glanced his watch, and noticed with a smile it was almost a quarter to noon. Proudheart would be there soon. Taking the last packet of shingles leaning against the side of the porch, Frolicheart walked back to the spot where he was working with it, taking care in not stumbling over the packets he had already lain down there. However, bad luck struck the beige-orange puma when he took the last few steps. The wind had been playing a bit with the now loosened tarpaulin, and had blown it slightly over the shingles Frolicheart had already unpacked. Therefore, the beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin couldn't completely see where he was putting down his feet anymore, and he stepped onto one of the loose shingles. Pivoting on the edge of the last fastened shingle, the loose shingle flew upwards and hit Frolicheart in the back of the head. The force of the blow made Frolicheart fall over forwards. He fell onto the tarpaulin, which tore open, and with a cry the beige-orange puma fell down further, landing on the floor of the porch on his back with a loud thud.\n\nFor a moment Frolicheart lay on the porch floor a bit dazed, but then he raised himself a bit, leaning on one paw while rubbing the back of his head with his other paw, groaning with eyes squeezed. Some sliding noises above him however drew his gaze upwards, and his eyes widened when the puma saw what was happening above him. The packet of shingles he had dropped at his fall had fallen onto the other packets and the loose shingles, and those were now all teetering over the edge of the last fastened shingle. Catching the flap of the torn tarpaulin with one side, the first packet of shingles veered sideways and suddenly fell down, knocking a supporting beam of the porch roof out of place in its fall. Both the packet of shingles and the supporting beam fell down right next to Frolicheart, delivering a hard blow to one of the supporting poles of the porch roof. The tremors of the blow sent the other packets of shingles sliding down, and Frolicheart curled up in instinct and covered his head with his arms when the packets fell down everywhere around him. Two of them hit another of the supporting poles of the porch roof, which made the entire porch roof slowly sway a bit. The movement was just a bit more than the other supporting beams could handle, and they broke out of their connection to the cottage wall. One nightmarish moment Frolicheart looked up with wide eyes and his mouth sinking open, then he averted his head and stretched his arms above him in a feeble attempt to protect himself as the entire porch roof came down upon him with a rumbling crash.\n\nNot so very far away, Proudheart was driving down the rainbow path in her orange 1970 Mercedes 280 SL. On the passenger's seat was a wicker basket filled with all kinds of great goodies, covered with a cheery flowered sheet, and the orange kitty hummed a merry tune to herself while driving to her cottage to have lunch with Frolicheart. Very suddenly, however, she looked up with a shock when she heard a loud crash coming from somewhere between the trees ahead of her. With a twist of her stomach, Proudheart realized that the noise came from... the place where her cottage was! In a frenzy of anxiety, the orange feline Care Bear Cousin floored the accelerator, racing across the last part of the rainbow path to her cottage. Bringing the car to a stop next to Frolicheart's white Impala with squealing tyres, Proudheart looked at the heap of rubble that had once been the front porch of her cottage. Some clouds of dust were still drifting down around it. An everlasting moment long Proudheart sat in the car looking at the devastation with wide eyes, but then she jumped out of the car and ran up to her cottage.\n \"Frrolichearrrt! Frrolichearrrrrt! Wherrre arrre you! Frrrolicheeeearrrrrt!!\"\n\nWhen she reached the wreckage that formerly was the front porch, Proudheart stopped dead in her run. She gasped hard as her stomach turned over again. Between the heap of shingles and beams and poles, a beige-orange paw was visible. Again all Proudheart could do for a few moments was staring wide-eyed as the terrible realization dawned in her. Then she fell down on her knees with a choked cry and started pulling at the shingles and everything else.\n \"NOOOOO!! Frrolicheeeeeearrrt!! Oh please nooo!!\"\n\nShe began feverishly pulling and tugging at the shingles and all, flinging them aside whenever she managed to get one loose, slowly uncovering more of the beige-orange arm. At the sound of running feet behind her she looked around. Swiftheart Rabbit, Loyalheart Dog and Brightheart Racoon came running up to the cottage, also stopping short when they saw the ruined front porch.\n \"Oh my stars, what happened here?!\" Brightheart said. \"We heard the sound of something collapsing, and...\"\nProudheart looked up at the three Care Bear Cousins, her eyes streaming with tears.\n \"Please help meee!\" she wailed. \"Frrolichearrrt's underrr this!\"\n \"What?!?! Oh no!!\" Swiftheart gasped.\n \"Oh my stars!!\" Loyalheart yelped.\n \"Good grief,\" Brightheart muttered. He eyed the heap of wood. \"Okay, we've gotta act quick! Loyalheart, you start at that end! Swiftheart, you start at the other end! I'll help Proudheart here! Go from the top down!\"\n\nUnder Brightheart's lead, the four Care Bear Cousins started clearing up the rubble, pulling away shingles and beams and poles from the top of the heap down. Quite soon they had reached the framework of the roof, and they could see more of Frolicheart's body lying underneath it. Proudheart sank down on her knees again, clapping her paws over her face crying. Swiftheart gasped. Brightheart and Loyalheart shook their heads. The beige-orange puma was still alive but unconscious, and blood covered his face and chest, while his left arm was lying next to his body in an unnatural angle. The four Care Bear Cousins could tell he had apparently tried to more or less catch the roof when it came down.\n \"Good grief, terrible,\" Brightheart mumbled again. He pushed his fingers in his eyes for a moment, then looked up again. \"Alright, Proudheart, Swiftheart, listen carefully,\" he said softly. \"Loyalheart and I will try to lift this frame off him. When we've gotten it up high enough, you two get him out from under there. But be careful! We don't know what kind of injuries he has. Try to keep him as steady as possible.\"\n\nSwiftheart nodded silently. Proudheart lowered her paws and looked up at the purple racoon, and slowly she nodded too, tears still rolling down her face. Brightheart turned to Loyalheart and directed him to a spot at the frame, while he stepped up to another spot himself. They both took one of the heavy oak poles and wriggled them under the edge of the frame, trying to get them as far under as possible. Then they put their shoulders under the poles, and at Brightheart's countdown of \"three, two, one, push!\", they both pushed as hard as they could. With the oak poles as levers, the two Care Bear Cousins managed to lift up the frame of the porch roof a bit. When it was up high enough, the purple racoon said \"now!\", upon which Proudheart and Swiftheart crawled a bit under the framework and got a hold of Frolicheart, Proudheart at his shoulders and Swiftheart at his legs. Very carefully, they pulled the unconscious puma out from underneath the framework, laying him down on the clouds in front of the porch. Right after that Brightheart and Loyalheart let go of the poles, panting. The framework fell down again with a crunch. Panting from the effort, the purple racoon and the blue puppy turned around, looking at Proudheart, Swiftheart and Frolicheart. The orange kitty had buried her face in the blood-covered fur on Frolicheart's chest, crying hard. The blue bunny was sitting next to the two felines on her knees, silently shaking her head with her paws over her mouth. Loyalheart also shook his head, and Brightheart sighed. He put a paw on Swiftheart's shoulder.\n \"Swiftheart, run to Care a Lot as fast as you can and warn Take Care Bear,\" he said softly.\n\nThe blue lapine Care Bear Cousin looked up, nodded, rose to her feet, softly and reassuringly squeezed Proudheart's shoulder, and then she was off in a blur. Loyalheart and Brightheart both knelt down next to Proudheart and tried to soothe the heart-rendingly crying kitty. The purple racoon, hearing the silent moans coming from Frolicheart, gently pulled Proudheart to a slightly more upright position. The way the framework of the porch roof had lain on the beige-orange puma, plus the quiet moans coming from him now, made Brightheart suspect he had broken or at least bruised a few ribs, and Proudheart was still resting her head and arms on his chest, so the purple racoon calmly lifted the orange kitty a bit to relieve the stress on Frolicheart's chest. Loyalheart meanwhile had taken the flowered sheet from the top of the wicker basket standing in Proudheart's car and gingerly dabbed Frolicheart's face with it, cleaning away some of the blood. It revealed a gash just over the puma's left eye, so Loyalheart pressed the sheet down upon that to try and stop the bleeding a bit. Moments later, the blue puppy and the purple racoon looked up when Swiftheart reappeared at their side, panting a bit from the hard running she'd done.\n \"Take Care... Take Care Bear is on her way,\" she said, drawing deep breaths.\n \"Thanks, Swiftheart,\" Brightheart said. \"I guess all we can do now is wait.\"\nThe blue bunny nodded and sat down next to Proudheart. She gently pulled the crying orange kitty against her body and wrapped her arms around Proudheart's shoulders.\n \"Ssssshh now, Proudheart,\" she whispered, her own voice trembling a bit. \"Stop crying now, okay? Help is underway. Everything will be alright.\"\n\nProudheart flung her arms around Swiftheart's body and buried her face in the bunny's blue fur, still shocking with sobs. Swiftheart held her close, slowly rocking back and forth while rubbing Proudheart's shoulders and ears. After a few more moments, Swiftheart, Loyalheart and Brightheart looked up when a very special Cloudsmobile stopped close to them. It kinda looked like a station wagon, and Take Care Bear stepped out of it. She shook her head at what she saw.\n \"Oh my stars,\" the red-orange Care Bear with the heart-shaped apple-symbol said, stepping up to the group of Care Bear Cousins. \"What exactly happened here?\"\n \"I'm not sure,\" Brightheart said. \"All we heard was a crash of something collapsing, and when we came here we found Proudheart pulling at all that wood over there, and she said Frolicheart was under it.\"\n \"Oh my,\" Take Care said softly, kneeling down next to the unconscious but softly moaning beige-orange puma. \"Doesn't sound good at all.\"\nBrightheart nodded morosely.\n \"He was lying on his back, pinned down under the framework of the porch roof. I'm guessing he has a few broken or bruised ribs, and his left arm was in a very strange angle, so that's probably broken too.\"\n \"And he has a rather deep cut just above his left eye,\" Loyalheart added, still holding the flowered sheet on that spot.\n\nTake Care Bear nodded silently, carefully examining the unconscious beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin. After some time she nodded again, walked to her station wagon-like Cloudsmobile, opened the back doors and pulled out a stretcher. With Brightheart's and Loyalheart's help, the red-orange Care Bear carefully put Frolicheart on the stretcher and secured him, and then put him in the back of the Cloudsmobile.\n \"I'll get him to the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts,\" she said, closing the back doors of the Cloudsmobile. \"You guys get Proudheart there, okay? Looks like she can do with a little tranquilizer.\"\n\nBrightheart nodded again. While Take Care Bear got into her special Cloudsmobile and drove off, the purple racoon calmly led Proudheart to her orange Mercedes and put her in it, getting in behind the wheel himself. A little furtheron, Loyalheart unhooked the trailer from Frolicheart's white Impala and got in next to Swiftheart sitting behind the wheel of it. Behind each other, they drove out of the Forest of Feelings and into Care a Lot, towards the Hall of Hearts. Take Care's station wagon-like Cloudsmobile was already there. Unsurprisingly, when the four Care Bear Cousins got inside the Hall of Hearts, almost all of the Care Bear Family was already gathered at the door to the medical wing. As Loyalheart and Brightheart gave all of them the best report they could give them on what had happened, Swiftheart led Proudheart through the door and closed it behind her.\n\nIn the room beyond the door, Take Care Bear was standing at one of the many beds, treating Frolicheart, but she looked up when Swiftheart led Proudheart inside. She stopped what she was doing for a moment to steer Proudheart to a bed as well, and she gave the orange kitty a small pill and a glass of water. Proudheart refused to take it, however, looking at the bed Frolicheart was lying in with wide, anxious eyes.\n \"He'll... he'll b-b-be okay, w-w-won't he?\" she whimpered.\n \"He'll be just fine, Proudheart, don't worry,\" Take Care soothed. \"Now, come on, please take this. You need to sleep off the shock a bit. I can't have you getting sick too, you know, I have my paws full enough as it is already.\"\n \"Are you s-s-surrre he'll... he'll... get b-b-betterr?\" Proudheart sniffled.\nTake Care put a paw on the cat's shoulder with a soft smile.\n \"Proudheart, I [i]promise[/i] you. Okay? Now, come on girl, please take this now and go to sleep.\"\n\nSoothing as it was, Take Care Bear's voice had gotten the slightest undertone of authority in it. Proudheart looked up at the red-orange bear, sniffed hard, wiped her face with a paw, accepted the pill and the glass of water, and she washed the pill down with a drink from the glass. Take Care nodded satisfiedly, took the glass back from Proudheart and gently lay the orange feline Care Bear Cousin down in one of the beds, covering her with the sheet. Proudheart drew another deep breath and rubbed her eyes with a paw again, and slowly she sank into a deep sleep. Swiftheart looked at it for a moment and sighed, then turned to Take Care Bear.\n \"You're really positive you'll get him fixed up again, right?\" she asked softly.\n \"Yes I am,\" Take Care said, her voice becoming slightly less patient. \"You've done well to get him out from under that wood so quick. And now; out, please! I have a lot of work to do.\"\n\nThe blue bunny nodded silently and left the room, closing the door behind her again. All the other members of the Care Bear Family were still out there as well, either waiting at the door or aimlessly pacing through the Hall of Hearts. The moment Swiftheart exited the medical room, many of them stepped over to the bunny to bury her in questions. Questions Swiftheart could not give really informative answers to, as it were questions that whirled inside her own head as well. So the blue lapine Care Bear Cousin just joined the others in pacing through the Hall of Hearts. Watery smiles washed over her face as she paced around the hall and found Wish Bear sitting at the heart-shaped symposium-table with her eyes closed, wishing dearly that everything would turn out alright, while a few chairs furtheron at the same table Heaven Bear was sitting, also with her eyes closed and her paws folded in front of her face, praying that everything would turn out alright. Swiftheart's expression turned darn serious again though when she passed the stairs to the first floor and found Nobleheart and Trueheart sitting there on the steps. The purple horse was hanging his head with his paws folded in his lap, while the yellow bear was holding an arm around his shoulders, comforting him. And my stars, did Nobleheart look old right now, with the strain showing on his face.\n\nAfter a few hours, in the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts, Take Care Bear wiped her brow and drew a deep breath when she had finished her treatment of Frolicheart. She had placed a cast around his chest to secure the ribs he had broken, she had packed his lower left arm in bandages since that also was indeed broken, she had stitched the cut over the puma's left eye plus a few other rather nasty cuts, she had checked and rechecked very carefully for signs of internal bleedings but luckily had found none. Proudheart, having woken up an hour and a half earlier, had refused to leave the room, insisting instead to help Take Care with treating Frolicheart. Being done now, Take Care Bear washed her paws, took a towel to dry her paws, and right away mopped her brow again as well. Then she turned back to Proudheart, who was standing at the bed Frolicheart lay in.\n \"He's... rrreally gonna be okay, rright?\" the kitty asked softly.\n \"Yes, Proudheart,\" Take Care said with a smile. \"He'll be up and at it again in no time. You really don't have to worry about a...\"\n\nThe red-orange Care Bear stopped, seeing that Proudheart was too busy watching Frolicheart to listen to what Take Care was saying. Giving her forehead a last wipe with the towel, Take Care decided that she'd better go out and give some information about Frolicheart's state to the rest of the family. She stepped over to the door leading into the Hall of Hearts and opened it, but no sooner had she stepped through or she was hit by a tidal wave of questions that almost knocked her off her feet.\n \"How's he doing?!\"\n \"Will he be okay?!\"\n \"Is he gonna get better soon?!\"\n \"What...\"\nTake Care waved her arms up and down.\n \"Whoa, whoa, settle down everyone!\" she said, raising her voice to sound over the flood of questions. \"Frolicheart is gonna be alright...\" The loud cheering from all Care Bear Family members this remark brought out totally drowned the rest of Take Care's words. \"...but he is going to need a whole lot of rest so I want it QUIET!!\" she repeated testily.\n\nThe sharp tone and the volume of the red-orange medical Care Bear's voice made all the others wince collectively, and they made sure to quickly shut their mouths. Take Care Bear was one of the most amiable Care Bears in the Kingdom of Caring, but she also was one of the most caring ones, a real close runner-up to Trueheart Bear, and she would defend the well-being of her patients with all her might if she had to, even if that meant getting angry with any other member of the Care Bear Family, [i]including[/i] Trueheart and Nobleheart. The red-orange medical Care Bear now looked around her at the large group of bears and cousins and gave a short nod with her head.\n \"What exactly happened?\" Royalheart asked.\n \"I'm quite sure that all of you have heard from Loyalheart and Brightheart what they found, and that is about all I know myself too,\" Take Care said. \"Proudheart couldn't tell me very much news, and Frolicheart is still asleep, so I really don't know what exactly happened.\"\n \"How's Proudheart doing?\" Swiftheart asked.\n \"She woke up a good hour and a half ago, and she's just fine,\" Take Care said. \"In fact, she insisted on helping me treating Frolicheart.\"\nNobleheart stepped forward slowly, still looking as old and worn as anyone had ever seen him looking. There actually were lines of stress and worry on his face.\n \"A few more details would really be appreciated, Take Care,\" he said in a grave voice.\nTrueheart was still holding an arm wrapped around the purple horse's shoulder. Take Care heaved a soft sigh and nodded, starting to tick off on her fingers.\n \"Alright. Frolicheart broke three ribs on the left side and one on the right. He also broke his lower left arm, and he has a concussion. Not too serious though, luckily. I had to stitch that cut over his eye...\" The red-orange bear drew a line above her left eye with a finger for emphasis, \"...plus a couple of other rather deep cuts. Luckily he doesn't have any internal damage though. From what I've heard, he's been real lucky with that. What with a roof having fallen on him, I wouldn't have been surprised if the broken ribs had perforated his lungs, but thank heaven that didn't happen.\"\n \"So... he's gonna be okay, like you said, really?\" Cunningheart said, holding Royalheart by a paw and looking worried.\nTake Care Bear nodded again.\n \"He'll be fine, but I don't recommend him going on any caring missions for a while. In fact, I want to keep him here for some time, for observation.\"\n \"How long do you think you'll need?\" Tenderheart asked.\n \"About a week or two, maybe three,\" Take Care answered. \"After that, I can let him go home. Those ribs and his arm will heal themselves in a week or three more, maybe faster if he takes it real calm.\"\nNobleheart drew a deep sigh of relief and looked up at the red-orange Care Bear.\n \"Can we... see him now?\"\nTake Care hesitated for just a moment.\n \"I... Well, I guess so.\" She looked up at the group of bears and cousins, and mostly Trueheart and Nobleheart. \"But just the two of you for now, and not for too long either. He really needs a whole lot of rest.\" She directed her gaze at the rest of the Care Bear Family. \"All the rest of you can come back tomorrow, and not before noon.\"\n\nAll bears and cousins nodded in agreement, though reluctantly, and they all left the Hall of Hearts. Take Care Bear led the way for Nobleheart and Trueheart to the door leading into the medical wing and held it open for them. The three of them stepped into the room, seeing Proudheart sitting at the bed, softly talking to Frolicheart, holding the beige-orange puma's right paw in both her own. At the sound of the trio entering the room she looked up.\n \"He's awake!\" she said, obvious relief sounding in her trembling voice.\nNobleheart and Trueheart stepped up to the bed. The purple horse sat down on the left edge, while the yellow bear sat down at the opposite side.\n \"How are you feeling, boy?\" Nobleheart asked softy, carefully placing a paw on Frolicheart's left shoulder.\nFrolicheart grimaced, coughed softly and promptly winced in pain, then spoke up in a soft and rather hoarse voice.\n \"Like I've been run over by a transport truck holding eight Cadillac Eldorados. And those weigh two point two tons each. I have a terrible head-ache, and everything below my head frankly isn't very much better off.\" He drew a deep breath, or at least as deep a one as he could manage without hurting his damaged ribs too much. \"But I've been told that I'll be fine.\"\n \"That's good to hear,\" Trueheart said with a soft smile, giving Frolicheart a very careful hug.\nNobleheart sighed deeply and softly rubbed Frolicheart's left shoulder.\n \"You gave me a darn right scare, boy. [i]Again[/i],\" he said softly. \"You're going to give me plenty of grey hairs if you keep that up.\"\nFrolicheart turned his ears sideways in a feline signal of guilt.\n \"I'm sorry,\" he mumbled. \"I really feel bad for scaring all of you like that.\"\nHe said it very apologetically, drawing another sigh from Nobleheart.\n \"That's not how I meant it, Frolicheart,\" the purple horse said softly. \"It's not like it was your fault. I'm sure you didn't do it on purpose, but it's just that you have scared the daylights out of me. If... if anything, anything really serious, were to happen to any of you...\" He forced himself to not finish that sentence. \"So what exactly happened, boy?\"\n\nThe beige-orange puma drew another very careful deep breath and told the two Care Bears and the two Care Bear Cousins everything that had happened; how he had started unpacking that one packet of shingles, how he had decided to first get all the other packets on top of the porch roof, how he had been smacked in the head when he stepped onto that one loose shingle that suddenly pivoted upwards and how he had fallen to the floor of the porch, how all the packets of shingles had fallen down after him, in their fall knocking loose a supporting beam of the porch roof and unbalancing the whole thing, which had resulted in the roof coming down on him. When he had finished his story he sank down in the pillows, obviously tired, and Take Care Bear reacted instantly.\n \"Okay, I think that's been enough for the visiting hours for today. You...\" She pointed a finger at the injured beige-orange puma, \"... go to sleep. You need your rest. The rest of you...\" She pointed a finger at the door leading into the Hall of Hearts, her voice again getting that edge of inarguable authority, \"...[i]out[/i].\"\nBoth Trueheart and Nobleheart stood up from the bed and bade their good-byes to Frolicheart.\n \"Just get better, Frolicheart,\" the yellow bear smiled, giving the puma a soft kiss on his heart-shaped nose. \"We need you to scare us silly with zooming by in a car from Earth.\"\n \"You got it, Trueheart,\" Frolicheart smiled wearily.\nNobleheart softly ruffled the tuft of fur between Frolicheart's ears with a paw.\n \"Get well soon, boy,\" he whispered. \"Please.\"\n\nFrolicheart just nodded this time, and he sank back down in the pillows with his eyes closed while Trueheart and Nobleheart walked to the door and stepped through it, leaving the room. Proudheart remained where she was, however, and sensing Take Care's gaze upon her, she looked around at the red-orange Care Bear.\n \"It's time to let him sleep now, Proudheart,\" Take Care said gently, but authoratively. \"He really needs his rest.\"\nProudheart, displaying a bout of true feline stubbornness, shook her head, determinedly.\n \"I'm staying with him tonight, Take Carrre. In case he needs me.\" Take Care Bear blinked her eyes in surprise, then lifted one eyebrow. \"I won't stay up all night, I prromise,\" Proudheart added quickly. \"It's just that... I can't just leave him herrre, and I wanna be herrre forr him if he needs a drrink orr something.\"\n\nTake Care thought for a moment. As much as she'd like to stay at Frolicheart's bedside herself, she still had to make herself available for all the others, and besides, there was very little she could do for the injured beige-orange puma now anymore anyway.\n \"Well... okay, it's your decision,\" she agreed. \"But don't overdo it!\" she right away added warningly, pointing a finger at Proudheart's nose. \"You've gotten a terrible shock from what happened, and you need to rest almost as much as he does. So no matter what happens, but I want to see you getting some sleep tonight as well, understood?\"\n \"I will, Take Carrre,\" Proudheart said gratefully. \"Thank you.\"\n\nTake Care gave one short nod with her head and excused herself, disappearing into the small office in the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts, leaving Proudheart alone with the sleeping Frolicheart. Proudheart pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed, taking the beige-orange puma's right paw in both her own again. Take Care Bear's warning notwithstanding, the orange kitty sat up at Frolicheart's bedside the entire night, looking at him, just looking at him, and worrying. Most all through the night Frolicheart slept soundly, although every now and then he would stir in his sleep, aggravate one of his injuries and moan, which terrified Proudheart, causing her heart to leap up into her throat every time it happened. Luckily, it didn't happen very often. The night slowly slid by, and before Proudheart even realized it, rays of sunshine already started peeking in through the windows. She wearily looked around at the windows, realizing she had indeed sat the night away at Frolicheart's bedside. Take Care was gonna blow a couple of fuses if she found out.\n \"Mh... Proudheart?\"\nThe sudden mentioning of her name made the orange kitty sit bolt upright in her chair, and she looked down on the bed, where Frolicheart had opened his eyes and looked back up at her.\n \"Frrolichearrrt! Oh, you'rre awake!\"\n \"I guess I am, yeh,\" the beige-orange puma said, rubbing his eyes with his right paw, wincing when he touched the stitches over his left eye. \"Sorry if I scared you again.\"\n \"Ohh, don't worrry about me, I'm much too busy worrrying about [i]you[/i]!\" Proudheart said. \"How arrre you feeling? Arrre you feeling any betterrr alrready?\"\nFrolicheart drew a careful deep breath.\n \"Well, it still hurts when I breathe,\" he moaned. \"So I won't even get started on talking or eating. Which in a way is quite annoying, because I [i]am[/i] quite hungry. And I still have a head-ache the size of the Kingdom of Caring.\" He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and managed a smile for Proudheart. \"Other than that, I guess I'm okay.\"\n \"If it hurrts to talk, maybe you should stop doing it,\" Proudheart suggested, gently rubbing Frolicheart's right shoulder.\nThe beige-orange puma tilted his head a bit and sent Proudheart a strangely mischievous glance.\n \"I also said it still hurts to breathe, does that mean I should stop doing that as well?\"\nProudheart also tilted her head a bit, but her look at Frolicheart more was a mix of reproach and worry.\n \"It seems like you rreceived a verrry harrd blow to the head somehow, because that morrre sounded like something Playfulhearrt would say.\"\nFrolicheart looked up at Proudheart with a look of mock horror on his face.\n \"Hey yeh, you're right. I must be further gone than I thought.\" He gasped dramatically. \"Oh no! I've slipped down too far! It's too late for me now! I can't be saved anymore. Or... do you think another knock on the head might help?\"\nProudheart shook her head with a huff.\n \"Stop it, now you'rre just scarrring me.\"\nFrolicheart raised his right arm and gently ran his fingers over Proudheart's whiskers.\n \"I'm sorry pussycat, I didn't mean to.\" He regarded her intently, seeing the weary look in, and the rings under her eyes. \"You have been up all night, haven't you?\"\n \"It was... nothing,\" Proudheart mumbled, stifling a yawn. \"You would have done the same forr me.\"\nFrolicheart nodded softly.\n \"Yeh, you got that right.\" He looked up at Proudheart and softly ran his fingers over her whiskers again. \"But I don't want you staying up whole nights just for me, pussycat. I really hate to think of you getting yourself sick, just on my account. I don't want that to happen.\"\n \"But what if you had woken up and had needed me?\" Proudheart said.\n\nFrolicheart wanted to say something but paused, not really knowing what to reply. And before he could think of something, the door leading into the Hall of Hearts opened. Both feline Care Bear Cousins looked up and around to see whom it was coming in. It were Hugs and Tugs, running up to the bed giggling.\n \"Frolicheart! Frolicheart!\" they cheerily called out.\nProudheart, seeing what this was going to lead to, jumped up from her chair, posted herself between the two younger Care Bears and the bed Frolicheart was lying in, and she spread her arms.\n \"Whoa, hold it rright therrre, Hugs and Tugs! Don't even think about jumping onto Frrolichearrrt!\"\nThe two younger Care Bears scrabbled to a halt, looking up at Proudheart disappointedly, and even a bit bewildered by the cat's firm tone of voice.\n \"Awww, Proudheeeart...\" Tugs moaned.\n \"Why can't we, Proudheart?\" Hugs asked.\n \"Because he is not feeling well enough forr you two to be pouncing on him just yet,\" Proudheart said, looking down on the two younger Care Bears. \"You may not intend it, but you might hurrt him verrry bad when you jump on him.\"\n \"We'd never do that!\" Tugs said.\nHugs twirled her fingers into and out of each other behind her back, looking up at Proudheart.\n \"Would a hug hurt him, Proudheart?\" she asked softly.\nThe orange kitty smiled at the little pink bear.\n \"I don't think that would hurrt him, Hugs. Just be carrreful you do it on a spot wherrre he doesn't have any bandages, okay?\"\n \"Oh goodie goodie gosh!\" Hugs said happily. She climbed onto the bed Frolicheart was lying in, and she gave the beige-orange puma one of her world-famous, patented Care Bear hugs around his neck. \"I so hope you're feeling better, Frolicheart!\"\n \"With that wonderful hug I just got, and with you two being here, how can't I?\" Frolicheart smiled.\nTugs, having also climbed onto the bed, cleared his throat importantly, looking very smug.\n \"We made you a card, Frolicheart,\" he said, handing the puma a card. \"We hope it'll make you get better soon.\"\n \"I'm pretty sure it will, big boy,\" Frolicheart said with a soft grin, gently pushing his right fist against Tugs' cheek.\n \"And just how are you feeling today, dear?\"\nBoth Frolicheart and Proudheart looked up, seeing Grams Bear standing at the foot of the bed. The two felines looked slightly surprised; neither of them had heard the lightgrey bear entering the room.\n \"I'm... feeling better,\" Frolicheart said.\n\nTechnically, that [i]was[/i] true, and at least it sounded better than saying he still was in quite a deal of pain. Yet it didn't seem like Grams was buying it, however she didn't get into it. She merely reached down and brought up a basket she had placed on the floor.\n \"I thought you might be hungry, dear, so I made you a little breakfast,\" she smiled, placing a fold-out tray on Frolicheart's bed and putting a bowl of porridge on it.\nProudheart looked at that a little surprised at first, but she figured that it was the best breakfast Frolicheart could be fed right now, what with the injuries to his chest and all. Frolicheart, feeling just how hungry he was, smiled at Grams.\n \"Thanks a lot, Grams. I can do with that.\"\n \"You're welcome,\" Grams smiled. \"Eat up, you'll need the strength.\" She turned to Proudheart and eyed the orange kitty. \"And you will be needing some sleep, sweetie. It looks like you haven't slept a wink last night.\"\n \"Well, I...\" Proudheart started, but Grams silenced her by holding up a paw.\n \"Ah ah, no, I don't want another word out of you. You really should lie down and catch some sleep. Come on now sweetie, do it for this old bear, please?\"\n\nProudheart realized there was no arguing with Grams, and quite frankly it was one of the last things she wanted to do. So she just climbed into the bed standing right next to the one Frolicheart was lying in. Grams smiled and turned to her, placing a paw on the kitty's shoulder and gently pushing her over to her back while softly humming a strange tune. Proudheart yawned and rubbed her eyes with her paws sleepily. A moment later she was lying curled up on the bed, fast asleep, and Grams gently tucked her in. Frolicheart looked at it with a smile.\n \"That's really clever, Grams.\"\n \"You learn when you have two like [i]those[/i] to take care of,\" Grams said with a soft giggle, nodding at Hugs and Tugs. \"Now, eat your breakfast, dear, before it gets cold.\"\n\nFrolicheart nodded a bit and swallowed a spoonful of the porridge. He right away winced and fought the urge to double up in pain. Eating with a couple of broken ribs sure was [i]not[/i] a pleasant experience, but the beige-orange puma doubted that not eating at all would help him very much. So he just tried to stand the pain as best as he could and forced himself to eat as much as he could. He managed to empty the bowl halfway through, but then he put the spoon in the bowl and sank down in the pillows with a sigh. Grams picked up on the signal and took the bowl and the tray.\n \"Well, I do think we have visited enough for today,\" she smiled. \"When you're better, I hope you'll drop by for breakfast, Frolicheart. I'll make pancakes.\"\n \"If that isn't one of the best incentives for me to get well soon, I don't know what is,\" Frolicheart smiled tiredly.\n \"I do, the very best incentive for you to get well soon is lying in the bed next to you,\" Grams giggled softly. She bent over a bit and gave the beige-orange puma a soft kiss on the cheek, then gathered up Hugs and Tugs and headed for the door. \"Now you take care of yourself, okay?\"\n \"Bye Frolicheart!\" Tugs called out.\n \"Byebye Frolicheart! Get well soon!\" Hugs added, waving at the puma.\nWith a soft smile, Frolicheart waved back at them. Then they disappeared through the door, and he sank back down on his back, placing his paws over his face with a soft groan, his ribs still hurting badly from the eating.\n \"Arrre you still alrright?\"\nFrolicheart lifted his paws again, seeing Proudheart sitting upright in the bed next to his and stretching.\n \"I'm fine,\" he reassured her, although he did not exactly feel very fine at the moment. \"Why don't you go get yourself something to eat too, pussycat? You must be as hungry as I was.\"\nProudheart stretched again, licked a paw and rubbed her whiskers.\n \"Well... well, alrright then,\" she said, a bit hesitatingly. \"But I'll be rright back.\"\n \"Don't worry, I ain't going nowhere,\" Frolicheart said dryly.\n\nProudheart managed a smile, and she pressed a soft kiss on the beige-orange puma's lips. When she had left the room, Frolicheart eased back on the bed, trying to get as comfortable as he could get, and he closed his eyes, knowing that sleep, as it is said so very often, is the best medicin. Meanwhile, Proudheart slowly strolled into the cafeteria of the Hall of Hearts, rubbing her eyes with the back of her paw as she went. Most of the other bears and cousins were there too, having breakfast or preparing for their caring missions for the day. Desiring nothing more than a quick bite by herself so she could return to Frolicheart quickly, Proudheart shuffled past the counter, taking a small breakfast roll and a glass of milk, and then made her way to a table at the back wall with her tray. Of course, after not much more than four steps, the orange kitty was waylaid by a couple of the others, who inquired about her and Frolicheart's health. She just answered they both were fine, but it didn't seem like that went down with the others.\n \"Are you sure you're aljight, Pjoudheart?\" Tenderheart asked.\n\nProudheart nodded silently. Tenderheart didn't really buy it; he thought the kitty looked very tired, and it quite frankly didn't take exactly very much to guess why. Yet the brown bear was tactful enough not to voice his thoughts aloud. The other two Care Bears, Love-a-Lot and Wish, accompanied by Swiftheart, also didn't really seem like they believed Proudheart, but they also didn't say it.\n \"Want to have breakfast with us, Proudheart?\" Love-a-Lot asked in her soft, gentle voice.\n \"Please?\" Wish added.\n\nProudheart never was one to turn her friends down, and in fact, right now she was too tired to do it, so she just nodded again, silently and wearily. The five of them walked to one of the tables, sitting down around it, Tenderheart on Proudheart's right side, Love-a-Lot on her left side, and Wish and Swiftheart opposite her.\n \"So how is he now, Proudheart?\" Wish asked as they ate.\n \"Well enough to have visitorrs, I guess,\" Proudheart said softly, taking a weary sip from her glass of milk. \"Grrams and Hugs and Tugs stopped by this morrrning.\"\n \"If that's so, maybe we ought to pay him a visit as well,\" Swiftheart said. \"That is... if you'd let me, Proudheart?\"\nThe three Care Bears nodded in agreement at Swiftheart's first remark, but they all three turned to their breakfast and studied it intensely at the bunny's second remark. Proudheart looked up from her breakfast roll for a moment, then sighed and cast her eyes back down.\n \"Yes, alrright,\" she said softly. \"I'm...\" She looked up again. \"I'm not angrry at you anymorrre, Swifthearrt. I've forrgiven Frrolichearrrt, I guess I can just as well forrgive you too.\"\nSwiftheart looked obviously relieved.\n \"Thanks, Proudheart,\" she said. \"I promise I really won't try to seduce Frolicheart ever again.\"\n \"You'd betterr not!\" Proudheart said, for a moment [i]still[/i] flaring up. Right away, however, she lowered her head again. \"Sorrry, I didn't mean to yell at you. It's all happened, we'd do betterr to forrrget.\"\n\nSwiftheart nodded silently, and so did the three Care Bears around the table. Having finished their breakfast, they all five made their way to Frolicheart's temporary residence in the Hall of Hearts' medical wing. Stepping through the door, they looked at the bed the beige-orange puma was lying in, and saw he was awake.\n \"Fjolicheart?\" Tenderheart said.\nFrolicheart looked up and saw the party of five entering the room. He merrily waved. With his right arm, obviously.\n \"Hey, hi everyone. How are you?\"\nHe tried to sit up in a somewhat straighter position, but Proudheart, already next to his bed, held him down, fearing he might unneccesarily hurt his ribs or anything else by doing something silly he wasn't yet capable of.\n \"It's not exactly us who should be asked how we feel, Frolicheart,\" Wish Bear pointed out with a smile. \"The question here should be, how are [i]you[/i]?\"\nFrolicheart smiled a bit.\n \"Oh, I'm...\" He wanted to say \"fine\", but right at that moment he shifted his broken left arm a bit, and a sharp stab of pain surged through his body, making him grimace for a moment. \"Well, I've been better,\" he admitted. \"But it's not so bad.\"\n \"Yeah right, and next thing, you'll tell us Grumpy Bear is a cheerful ray of sunshine,\" Swiftheart remarked.\nFrolicheart grinned a bit, but right away grimaced with pain again.\n \"Oh, don't strrain yourrrself too much, please now,\" Proudheart said, looking worried.\nLove-a-Lot gently stroked the tuft of fur between the beige-orange puma's ears back over his head with a paw, smiling.\n \"Is there anything we could do for you, Frolicheart?\" she asked in her soft sweet voice.\n \"Just your company already is very nice,\" Frolicheart said, managing a smile again. \"But for the times when I'm alone in here, something to read would be good. Say, Proudheart...\" he added, turning to the kitty, \"... you know that stack of Chevy High Performance and HotRod Magazines on the coffee table over at my place? If you could bring me those sometime today, I would be really grateful.\"\n \"Of courrrse,\" Proudheart smiled. \"But do make surrre you get plenty of sleep, okay?\"\nFrolicheart brought a mock look of authorative seriousness to his face.\n \"Well, [i]that[/i] very same counts for [i]you[/i] too. I already told you I don't want you missing sleep and getting sick over me, pussycat.\"\nProudheart still smiled.\n \"I'll trrry my best.\"\n \"That's my kitty,\" Frolicheart smiled.\n\nThe conversation drew smiles from Swiftheart and the other three Care Bears as well. They stayed and talked with Frolicheart for a while, but eventually it became time for Tenderheart to start handing out their caring missions for that day, and for the others to [i]go[/i] on their caring missions for that day, so they left the medical wing again. Proudheart was excused from her caring missions, for obvious reasons. When Frolicheart managed to get in a short nap, the cat rushed over to the puma's cloud cottage to pick up the magazines he had asked for, and she returned just in time to find him waking up, [i]and[/i] to get a small tirade spilled over her by Take Care Bear, who indeed wasn't all too happy with Proudheart having sat up the entire night at Frolicheart's bed, [i]despite[/i] her warning.\n \"I... I just wanted to be therrre forr... forr when...\" Proudheart tried.\n \"Oh well, never mind, never mind now, it's happened,\" Take Care waved the feline's excuses away. She turned to Frolicheart and handed him two pills and a glass of water. \"Here, take this.\" Frolicheart swallowed the pills, grimaced again and took a drink of water. \"These will help ease the pain, but you will get drowsy though,\" Take Care said, taking back the glass. \"Now, as for you...\" she added, turning back to Proudheart. She sighed softly. \"I guess you can stay, but...\" She warningly pointed a finger at Proudheart's heart-shaped orange nose, \"...you had better made sure you turn in early tonight and get a good night's sleep, understood? Because if you don't, the Great Wishing Star stand me by, I'll fill you so full of valium you'll be drowsier than Bedtime Bear for a week. Got it?\"\nProudheart nodded silently, a bit guiltily even, taking her seat in the bedside chair again. Frolicheart smiled a bit.\n \"I told you so,\" he mumbled under his breath.\n \"Right,\" Take Care said, ignoring Frolicheart's remark but secretly smiling over it. \"Then I'll now leave you again, but I'll be back in the morning to check on you.\" She sent Proudheart a significant look. \"On [i]both[/i] of you.\"\n\nProudheart just nodded silently again, not really knowing what to reply actually. Take Care Bear had a knack for making you feel like you had been terribly disobedient, and she also had a knack for making you feel really guilty about it. And besides that, there was a strange thing about the red-orange bear, a sort of radiation, that made you feel like you could do nothing else but both respect her and obey her. After all, she was one of the most important Care Bears in the Kingdom of Caring, looking after and mending the health of all Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins.\n\nWhen the red-orange medical Care Bear had left, Proudheart and Frolicheart talked a bit more about thisies and thatsies, holding paws all the while. But eventually, the painkillers Take Care had given Frolicheart demanded their toll, and the beige-orange puma found it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. Proudheart, noticing this, smiled a bit and bent over to press a soft kiss on Frolicheart's lips.\n \"I guess I'd betterrr let you rrest forr a while,\" she smiled.\n\nShe rose up from the bedside chair, but the way the muscles in her back and legs all said hello at that surprised her a bit, and made her wonder just how long she had already been sitting there. A look at one of the windows confirmed her thought it had been -very- long. It seemed like just minutes ago she'd had breakfast with Tenderheart and the others, yet her look out the window showed her the sun had almost set outside.\n \"You may be right,\" Frolicheart mumbled sleepily, around a yawn.\n \"I'll be taking a little nap myself, but don't you worrry, I'll be rright herrre next to you all the time,\" Proudheart said with a smile.\n\nThis time, Frolicheart mumbled something Proudheart couldn't make out anymore. With another smile, she whispered \"sweet drrreams, my loverrr\" and pressed another soft kiss on the puma's lips. Then she laid herself down on the bed next to Frolicheart's and curled up for a little cat-nap herself, after having turned off the lights. The two felines were found exactly like that, both asleep in their beds, first by Take Care Bear, who nodded [i]very[/i] satisfiedly to herself at it, and next by Nobleheart and Trueheart, who had decided to stop by for a little visit. Seeing the two cats were asleep, they just stood in the middle of the dimly illuminated room in silence to look at them, both holding an arm around the other's shoulder and smiling. When after fifteen minutes neither of the feline Care Bear Cousins gave any sign of waking up soon, Nobleheart and Trueheart agreed they'd better leave, but for some strange reason, they stepped up to the beds and sat down in a chair next to them, Trueheart at Proudheart's bedside, Nobleheart at Frolicheart's bedside.\n\nFor quite a while, they just sat there in silence, Nobleheart looking at Frolicheart's chest gently rising and falling on his breath-rate, and Trueheart gently tucking in Proudheart and softly stroking the tuft of fur between the kitty's ears out of her face. After that the yellow bear with the multi-colored specks all over her body and the multi-colored flock of hair upside her head turned slightly in her chair and directed her look at Nobleheart, who just kept looking at the soundly sleeping beige-orange puma.\n \"Feeling better now, Nobleheart?\" she whispered with a smile.\nIt took a little time before Nobelheart realized Trueheart had spoken up, but when he did he looked up and met the yellow bear's smiling gaze.\n \"That boy...\" he whispered back, nodding at Frolicheart. \"He's given me more worries than any of the others has, and yet, for some strange reason, I love him more than any of the others.\"\n \"I know,\" Trueheart smiled. \"And I also know why you do. It's his fickle character, the troubles he's had in his life before he came into the Family, the way he can from one moment to the other revert back to his shy, introvert side that draws you to him. That introvert side of his makes him such a troublesome boy now and then, and that's why you always want to give him that extra bit of care. I feel the same way sometimes.\"\nNobleheart sighed a little.\n \"He reminds me of myself when I was just a foal.\"\n \"I know that too,\" Trueheart smiled, reaching out and placing a paw on Nobleheart's leg. \"I know you better than you think I do.\"\nNobleheart sighed again, but around a smile this time, and he put one of his own paws on top of Trueheart's resting on his leg.\n \"I really don't know what I should do without you, my sweet,\" he smiled.\n \"Don't worry about that, you worry enough about our boys and girls as it is already,\" Trueheart said with a sweet smile.\nNobleheart smiled again and took Trueheart's paw in both his own, softly squeezing it.\n \"I love you.\"\nTrueheart placed her other paw on both of Nobleheart's paws holding and softly squeezing her paw, and she softly squeezed the horse's paws too.\n \"And that, I know as well. But it's nice to hear you saying it every so often.\"\n\nNobleheart sent Trueheart a last smile, then turned his look back to Frolicheart in the bed next to him. The puma was sleeping soundly, calmly, yet sometimes he stirred a bit in his sleep, which drew a soft moan from him as it hurt one of his woundings. Every time it happened Nobleheart softly shook his head.\n \"I can't understand, I just can't understand why when there's serious trouble in our Family, it's with this boy,\" he muttered softly.\n\nTrueheart smiled and squeezed the purple horse's paws again, as she had very well heard what he had said. But just as she wanted to offer an answer to it, both she and Nobleheart looked up when the door going from the medical wing to the Hall of Hearts opened. Half expecting Take Care Bear to step inside, Trueheart and Nobleheart were slightly surprised to see Bedtime Bear entering the room.\n \"Hey, Bedtime?\" Trueheart said softly, to not disturb the two sleeping felines. \"What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be patrolling Earth now?\"\n \"Nocturnalheart Bear is taking over my round,\" the blue bear said briskly, so very much unlike his usual drowsy way of speaking during daytime, though keeping his voice down for the same reason Trueheart had whispered instead of spoken normally. \"I came to sit watch here tonight. You two should really be getting some sleep.\"\nTrueheart smiled, and Nobleheart also managed a smile.\n \"That's very nice of you, Bedtime,\" he said softly. \"But I don't think I can sleep a wink, knowing...\"\n \"I had calculated that,\" Bedtime said with a smile. He reached into a small cloud knapsack he had with him and brought up a tiny flask with something silverish in it, handing it to Nobleheart. \"Take this, that'll help you.\"\nNobleheart looked at the tiny flask with a very slight frown of surprise.\n \"Your special sleeping moondust?\"\nTrueheart let out the softest of giggles.\n \"Who would have guessed there'd come a time you would have to use that on any of us.\" She rose up and gave Bedtime a hug. \"But thanks a lot, Bedtime. It's very sweet of you to think about it.\"\nBedtime nodded with a smile.\n \"It's not done for any of you to be sitting night watches here. You really have to leave that to the one bear, or actually the two bears now, who are fitting for that. So just leave it to me, and get yourselves some good sleep, okay?\"\n \"Thanks again, Bedtime,\" Trueheart smiled. \"But were you planning on sitting watch here every night, while Nocturnalheart takes over your rounds on Earth, did I understand that correctly?\"\n \"Not quite,\" the blue bear smiled. \"We're taking turns, Nocturnalheart and I. One of us patrols Earth at night while the other sits watch here, in turns. So, consequently, Nocturnalheart will sit watch here tomorrow night while I patrol Earth, and then the night after that I will sit watch here again while he patrols Earth, and back and forth like that until Frolicheart can go home again.\"\n \"It's so sweet of you,\" Trueheart said, hugging Bedtime with a smile again. Then she pulled Nobleheart up from his chair by a paw. \"Come on, Nobleheart, Bedtime is right, you should get yourself a good night's sleep.\"\nFor a moment Nobleheart hesitated, but then a smile broke through on his face, and he rose up.\n \"Thanks so much, Bedtime,\" he said softly, placing a paw on the blue bear's shoulder. \"I know Frolicheart is in good paws with you and Nocturnalheart.\"\n \"Don't worry about a thing, Nobleheart,\" Bedtime smiled reassuringly. \"I'll keep my eyes on him all through the night.\"\n\nNobleheart smiled again, and after a last look at Frolicheart and Proudheart, he and Trueheart left the medical room, softly closing the door behind them. Bedtime pulled up a chair and positioned it right in between the two beds, so he could keep a good look on both felines at the same time. After making sure Proudheart and Frolicheart were sleeping soundly, the blue bear reached into his cloud knapsack again and brought up a notebook and a pencil. He crossed his legs, leaned the notebook on his left knee, flipped a few pages, looked at it for a moment while thinkingly tapping his blue heart-shaped nose with the end of the pencil, then smiled and started scribbling. What he was doing? Well, Bedtime made up bedtime stories to tell to children from Earth, and, having sat watch more often, guarding over either a child from Earth or someone from the Care Bear Family who had nightly troubles, the blue bear had found that it both helped him pass the time and helped him remembering his own made-up bedtime stories better when he wrote them down as he sat a nightly watch.\n\nHalfway through the night Proudheart stirred a bit and started slowly waking up. Just at that time Frolicheart also stirred, which made his flank press onto his painful left arm, and he moaned in his sleep again. Right away Proudheart sat upright with a jolt, looking at the bed next to her with wide eyes. Surprise mixed with the worry in her pretty amber eyes when the orange kitty found Bedtime Bear sitting in a chair between their beds. The blue bear was also looking at Frolicheart, but he looked around when Proudheart spoke up.\n \"Bedtime? What arrre you doing herrre?\"\n \"Watching over you two,\" Bedtime smiled.\nProudheart smiled a bit, but right away frowned a little.\n \"Wow, thanks, but... what about yourr missions?\"\nBedtime again explained the schedule he had worked out with Nocturnalheart Bear, drawing another smile from Proudheart.\n \"That's so sweet of you two. Thanks so much. If I'm rreally honest, those nightly watches do get to me a bit.\"\n \"As I already said to Nobleheart, nightly watches should be left to the bears suited for them, namely Nocturnalheart and myself,\" Bedtime smiled. He rose up a bit and put a paw on Proudheart's shoulder. \"Now, get back to sleep, Proudheart. You need your sleep. Don't worry about anything, I'm here and I won't be going anywhere till morning, promise.\"\n\nProudheart smiled a bit again and sank back down on the bed. As she had a little trouble getting back to sleep, Bedtime read her the story he had been writing down in his notebook, and that not only helped Proudheart falling asleep, it even made her sink away into slumber with a deep smile on her face. With both felines sleeping again, Bedtime eased back on his chair and added another new bedtime story to his notebook. Through the rest of the night everything remained calm, and Bedtime left the medical room the next morning after a sincere thank-you from Take Care Bear. With the sleep having done the orange kitty a world of good, Proudheart was more easily persuaded this time to tend to herself a bit and get herself a good breakfast and a bit of grooming, and again Grams Bear stopped by with an easy to swallow breakfast for Frolicheart. With the help of the painkillers Take Care had given him, the beige-orange puma already managed better to eat, and he finished every last bite from the bowl of porridge Grams had brought him this time. For lunch and dinner, the caring grey bear brought Frolicheart some very good soup, and the puma's spirit was pleasantly lifted by Loyalheart, Brightheart and Swiftheart stopping by for a visit during the day, and a little into the evening even Feralheart Vixen came to visit him, although the vulpine Care Bear Cousin was looking around her a bit uneasily. However, the special nature-bonded vixen had also brought Frolicheart a little something, a drink that smelled strongly of herbs, and although it tasted a bit strange, Frolicheart found it almost immediately seemed to help ease the pain he was still feeling at nearly every move he made.\n\nWhen the sun had set, Nocturnalheart Bear came over to sit watch in the medical room. The deep dark scarlet, almost black bear with the bat-winged heart-symbol on his tummy took the same seat Bedtime had taken the previous night, and he sat through a calm, quiet night with both Frolicheart and Proudheart sleeping soundly and trouble-free. He even managed to get in a couple of his special naps. Unlike Bedtime Bear, Nocturnalheart did not have such a high need for much sleep that it made him sleep almost every hour of the daytime like Bedtime did after having been up all through the night. Instead, the nightly Care Bear could satisfy the need he had for sleep with short naps, and over time he had mastered the art of acquiring a special internal alarm which empowered him to take naps of exactly the length he specified for himself in his head. If he decided to take a nap of five minutes, he would therefore not sleep a second [i]more[/i] than five minutes. The other thing Nocturnalheart did [i]not[/i] have in common with his best friend Bedtime was that he could also develop a terrible morning crossness, which made him act grumpier than Grumpy Bear, but luckily that never lasted long, and all the other members of the Care Bear Family had learned to stay out of the almost black red-furred bear's way early in the morning. Due to that slightly less pleasant asset of his character, however, Nocturnalheart just grumbled something in answer to Take Care's thank-you the next morning and slammed the door behind him when he left the medical room.\n\nDays came and went as usual, and each day had Frolicheart feeling slightly better than the previous. Much thanks to Take Care's care and Grams' soup, which the grey bear had enriched with a herbal potion she had been offered by Feralheart Vixen. Proudheart, still insisting on spending all of her time with her lover, did however slowly regain the pace of her life a bit as well, which was most obvious in the time she took in the morning to groom herself. Both feline Care Bear Cousins and Take Care had had a good laugh (although it had hurt Frolicheart's ribs) when, to help ease his boredom, Tugs had brought the beige-orange puma a few toy cars to play with, all models of sixties muscle-cars. Frolicheart learned a lot from his lying in the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts, because every now and then one of the other bears or cousins came by with a medical problem Take Care had to solve. This gave the beige-orange puma an insight in his family's health-issues he had not thought he would ever know about. However, on the fifth day, something happened that left him positively stunned. Just as Take Care was checking a chart, a knock on the door leading into the Hall of Hearts sounded.\n \"Enter,\" Take Care said without looking up from the chart.\n\nThe door opened, and Cheer Bear stepped through it, cautiously closing the door behind her. She walked into the room, and although she greeted Frolicheart and Proudheart cheerfully, both felines noticed that there was something about the pink bear. There was a look on Cheer's face both feline Care Bear Cousins had never seen there before. Take Care also looked up when Cheer came closer, and, recognizing the look on Cheer's face, the medical Care Bear let out a sigh.\n \"My stars Cheer, [i]again[/i]?\"\n\nCheer nodded silently, with a strange expression of both guilt and mischievous satisfaction. She reached into her pink fur and brought up a small phial, which she handed to Take Care Bear. The red-orange medical Care Bear looked at the phial, or more at a small sort of dipstick that was in it, and sighed again.\n \"Yep, no doubt about it, you hit the jackpot [i]again[/i].\" Take Care let out a huff. \"Well, you know the routine by now, so come over here.\"\nCheer nodded again, stepping past the beds.\n \"How are you feeling now, Frolicheart?\" she asked as she passed the bed the puma was in.\n \"I'm feeling much better already,\" Frolicheart said. \"But... what's wrong with you?\"\n \"Oh, nothing, nothing, don't worry,\" Cheer said airily.\n\nWithout any further explanation, the pink bear walked on, heading for a very strange bed in a corner of the room. The bed in itself looked like just a hospital bed, apart from the fact that it had handles at the head-board, and very strange stirrups at the foot-end. Take Care Bear was already waiting at that bed, and she motioned at it silently. Cheer climbed into the bed and lay down on her back, placing her feet in the stirrups. It forced her into a position with her butt slightly lifted and her legs into the air, widely spread. Take Care planted her foot on a pedal a couple of times, pumping up the hydraulic jack under the bed so the bed went up a bit, and she took position between Cheer's widely spread legs. She pulled near a strange-looking machine on wheels, switched it on, took a strange thing hanging from the machine by a twirled cable and placed that thing on the pink bear's rainbow-decorated tummy while directing her look at a screen in the machine. Craning their necks, Frolicheart and Proudheart also tried to see what was showing on the screen. It looked like a sort of moving X-ray photo, and Take Care studied it intensely, moving the thing on the cable over Cheer's tummy. She stopped dead however when the screen showed a small light speck in the dark blot that was showing, and with another sigh Take Care nodded and took a small step back, still looking at the screen.\n \"Hm, looks like it's ten days underway, two weeks at the most.\" She directed her look at Cheer's face. \"Can that be correct, Cheer?\"\n \"Right as every time, Take Care,\" Cheer said, with a soft giggle since the thing on her tummy was tickling her a bit. \"And you know that as soon as I feel it, I come to you for the test.\"\n\nTake Care nodded again, a bit grimly. She took the thing away from Cheer's tummy, and took another step back. With mouths hanging open and eyes wide in surprise, Proudheart and Frolicheart saw how the red-orange medical bear launched a Care Bear Stare from her tummy symbol, sending it straight into Cheer's vagina. The pink bear twitched and giggled softly, but made sure to stop that when Take Care stepped up close to her to place the strange thing on the twirled cable back on the pink bear's tummy again. The screen now only showed the dark blot, the very light speck that had been there earlier now was gone. Take Care nodded again, took the thing away from Cheer's tummy and switched off the machine, and she waved a \"get up\" gesture with her right paw. When Cheer was standing next to the bed, Take Care looked at her seriously.\n \"That's been the seventh time now, Cheer. Why, just [i]why[/i] are you so darn stubborn to ignore my advice about protection?\"\n \"Oh come on Take Care, it doesn't feel a fraction as good when a guy is wearing...\" Cheer started with a giggle.\n \"I meant the [i]female[/i] versions of protection, miss nympho!\" Take Care burst out. She right away threw a quick glance at the two staring felines a little furtheron in the room however and lowered her voice. \"Honestly Cheer, I'm worrying about this. Why don't you just let me perform a sterilization on you, or at least place a diaphragm or an IUD in you?\"\nCheer giggled a bit again.\n \"Well, quite frankly, it feels really nice when you...\"\n \"Alright, out out OUT!\" Take Care said, raising her voice impatiently, pointing her arm at the door to the Hall of Hearts.\n\nWith another giggle Cheer walked back to the door, in passing merrily waving at Frolicheart and Proudheart, who looked after her with their mouths still hanging open and their eyes still wide. Just before the pink bear reached the door, Take Care suddenly looked up and called after her.\n \"Wo, wo, hold on Cheer, one more thing!\" Cheer looked around, and Take Care pointed a finger at her, her voice still impatient. \"This has been the [i]last[/i] time, Cheer! Got it? This is the last time I've helped you with this!\"\nFor the first time a look of shock came to Cheer's face, and she turned around completely.\n \"What? But, Take Care... You're the only one who can help me, what if I...\"\n \"I don't care!\" Take Care huffed. \"You just be more careful then next time! But I won't help you anymore, you hear me? Stars, I'm in Care a Lot to look after the health of all of you, and to heal all of you when needed, and [i]this[/i] is very bad for your health too, Cheer! So just remember it, I'm not helping you anymore. If you get yourself into this situation [i]again[/i], tough luck for you, but then you'll be stuck with it!\"\n \"But... Take Care...\" Cheer said.\n \"No, I don't want to hear another word about it!\" Take Care said impatiently. \"You now know the deal, Cheer Bear! This has been the last time I have helped you with this! Good bye!\"\n\nCheer looked at the red-orange medical Care Bear a little wide-eyed and wanted to say something, but Take Care simply turned her back to her. Drawing a sigh, Cheer stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her. When the door had closed behind the pink bear, the two felines directed their stunned looks back at Take Care Bear, who was still standing at the strange bed with the stirrups, shaking her head with the fingers of her right paw in her eyes, sighing.\n \"Uh... Take Care?\" Frolicheart said softly. He just -had- to ask. \"You're... you're not going to tell us you just... you just did an... an abortion on Cheer, are you?\"\nTake Care lowered her right paw and raised her head, and she looked at the two stunned felines with a grim expression.\n \"No, I'm not going to tell you that indeed,\" she grunted. \"Professional secret, you know?\"\n\nWithout another word, she grabbed the chart she had been studying and disappeared in the small office, slamming the door behind her a tad loudly. Frolicheart and Proudheart looked at the door for a moment in silence, and then at each other with their wide eyes. However, from one moment to the other, they both started suddenly snorting, eventually ending up in a fit of laughter.\n \"Who would have everrr thought [i]that[/i]!\" Proudheart giggled.\n \"With Cheer's rep?\" Frolicheart hiccuped. \"If someone had told me I wouldn't even have been that surprised, but to have seen now that it actually [i]is[/i] true, I...\"\n\nHe started laughing again, but he couldn't keep it up for very long, since it seriously hurt his damaged ribs. The laughing had proved to be a perfect medicin though, because for the rest of the day the beige-orange puma felt really great. He and Proudheart did comply with Take Care's request however to not speak to any of the others about what they had unintentionally witnessed.\n\nMore days passed, and by now each and every member of the Care Bear Family had visited Frolicheart at least once, and a few of them had already done so more than once. Of course, Trueheart and Nobleheart stopped by every day, as did Grams since she had taken it upon herself to feed the beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin with easy to swallow food. She had however brought pancakes for him one day too, and although it still hurt him when swallowing, Frolicheart had eaten them with relish. Knowing how the red-orange medical Care Bear acted with only his best interest at heart, the beige-orange puma still did as she told him to, but by now there was a twinge of boredom starting to gnaw at him by having nothing else to do but lying in bed all day. So, after her morning check-up on the puma on the ninth day, Frolicheart decided to ask Take Care for her permission to do something else for a change, since she had said he would be in the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts for about two weeks more before she would let him go home.\n \"Hey, Take Care?\"\n \"Mm-hm?\" the red-orange bear said, checking a chart.\n \"All this lying here in this bed is boring me silly,\" Frolicheart smiled. \"Can't I go out for a bit? Stretch my legs? Get a little change of scenery?\"\nTake Care looked around.\n \"What? Well, quite frankly I don't really recommend that yet, Frolicheart.\"\n \"Aw, c'mon,\" the beige-orange puma said. \"I won't strain myself, I'll just take a walk around the Hall of Hearts or something with Proudheart, okay? And besides,\" he added shrewdly, \"surely you agree it's good for me to stretch my legs, use my muscles and get a breath of fresh air by now, don't you?\"\nTake Care Bear raised an eyebrow for a moment, but then a smile crept onto here face.\n \"Very shrewd, feline,\" she grinned. \"But alright, I have to admit you are right. Okay, so I'll let you take a little walk.\" She pointed a finger at Frolicheart's heart-shaped orange nose. \"But don't you go do any silly things now, understood? If I find out you've been doing something you're not quite up to yet, I swear I'll chain you to the bed for the rest of these two weeks.\"\n \"I promise, Take Care,\" Frolicheart grinned, working himself up into a sitting position.\n\nWith a soft giggle, Proudheart helped him get up and step out of the bed. She supported him for a moment since the sitting up after more than a week of having lain down on his back gave the beige-orange puma a slight head rush, but the next moment his small spell of dizziness had passed, and he rose up from the bed. Take Care put a sling around his neck he could rest his broken left arm in, and she checked him over again before allowing him to walk out of the medical wing, once more warning him to take it slow and don't do anything silly. Frolicheart just answered with a grin, put his right arm through Proudheart's left arm (out of affection, of course, but this time also a little for support), and together with the orange kitty he walked out of the room and into the Hall of Hearts. It was deserted now, what with everyone being on a caring mission, so the two felines just walked through it and stepped out onto the soft fluffy clouds of Care a Lot.\n\nFor a moment Frolicheart squeezed his eyes and blinked against the sun, but then he took as deep a breath as he could take and smiled. The air was smelling nicer and fresher than it had ever seemed to smell, and the sun seemed to smile so much more cheerful today, while the song of the birds sounded extraordinarily happy. It had Frolicheart walking around with a deep smile on his face the whole time, while pressing himself a bit up against Proudheart, who also was looking extremely happy, continually purring under her breath. After a slow start around the Hall of Hearts, Frolicheart got a bit more steady on his feet, his muscles in his back and legs getting used again to being put to work, and the two felines lightened their pace a little. They looked at the Caring Meter for a moment, seeing the heart-shaped needle being quite indecisive of where to point to, going to twelve o'clock each time one of the bears or cousins had completed a caring mission on Earth, only to right away droop again when a new need for a caring mission presented itself. It seemed like a very busy day, which also was a rather clear by Care a Lot being deserted.\n\nHowever, at the staroscope, both feline Care Bear Cousins noticed Wish Bear intently scanning Earth, and the turquoise bear was slowly shaking her head a bit. Frolicheart looked aside at Proudheart for a moment, and both cats smiled at each other, while Proudheart softly nodded. Still arm in arm, they walked up to the staroscope.\n \"Hello Wish, something not right?\" Frolicheart asked with a smile.\nThe turquoise bear almost bumped herself a black eye on the staroscope with her sudden move at that, but when she looked up she smiled very deeply.\n \"Oh! My stars, Frolicheart! How good to see you up and walking again! How are you feeling?\"\n \"A bit woozy still, but remarkably well actually,\" the beige-orange puma smiled. He nodded at the staroscope. \"So what were you shaking your head over?\"\nWish sighed around a smile.\n \"Well... It's a good thing you're already feeling better, Frolicheart, because we really need you. There's a bit of trouble down there, and it's really a job that should be handled by you, but with you out of the running still, Tenderheart had to go at it himself, and he's not having very much success, I'm afraid.\"\n \"Let me have a look?\" Frolicheart said.\nHe stepped up to the staroscope and looked through it, seeing a house down on Earth where Tenderheart Bear was desperately trying to get a girl to talk to him, without any success.\n \"What's the exact story, Wish?\" the puma asked, not taking his right eye away from the staroscope.\n \"That girl's name is Penny, and she's very very unhappy because of some problem I don't know the exact cause of,\" Wish said. \"And she's afraid to talk about it, to anyone. Even to Tenderheart, as you can see,\" she added with a soft sigh.\n \"I see that, yeh,\" Frolicheart nodded, still looking through the staroscope. \"Hmmm.\" He rose up again. \"It'll do me good to pick up the pace of my life again. I'll go down and give Tenderheart a paw.\"\n \"Are you sure you can handle that, Frolicheart?\" Wish said.\n \"I'm sure, yeh,\" Frolicheart smiled. \"Proudheart can drive me, all I have to do is talk to the girl. That won't strain me too much. And as I said, it'll do me good to start fulfilling my duty in the Family again.\"\n \"If you say so...\" Wish shrugged. \"But what does Take Care think about that?\"\nFrolicheart chose to not having heard that question, and he just turned to Proudheart.\n \"Surely you'll give me a lift down to Earth, pussycat, won't you?\" he smiled. \"Sadly, with this arm like this, driving is something I still won't be doing for a while yet.\"\n \"Of courrrrrse I will,\" Proudheart purred.\n\nShe conjured up a Cloudsmobile, and both felines got in it. Proudheart drove them down the rainbow path and out of the Kingdom of Caring. As she calmly steered the car through the sky, Frolicheart rested his right arm on the edge of the passenger door and leaned back with his eyes closed, enjoying the breeze ruffling his fur and whiskers. Too soon for the beige-orange puma, who was really enjoying the ride after so much time, they had arrived at the house where Tenderheart was still desperately trying to get the girl to talk to him. Proudheart parked the Cloudsmobile and jumped out, and Frolicheart also airily hopped over the passenger door, although he did double up slightly and outed a soft \"oow\" under his breath when he landed on the ground, the impact of his feet on the ground all too clearly tangible in his damaged ribs. Proudheart immediately was on the other side of the Cloudsmobile and put her paws on Frolicheart's shoulders worriedly.\n \"Heavens, arrre you alrright?\"\n \"Fine, fine, don't worry,\" the beige-orange puma said, slightly gasping. \"A little unexpected sting in my chest from the landing, should have known. It's nothing bad.\"\nTenderheart, who had looked up with surprise at the Cloudsmobile landing, looked even more surprised when he saw who came out of it.\n \"Fjolicheart?\" the brown bear said. \"What are you doing here?\"\n \"Coming to give you a little help,\" Frolicheart said with a smile, drawing a last few deep breaths to drive away the last painful tingles in his chest.\n \"Is Take Care okay with that?\" Tenderheart asked. Seeing the look that came to Frolicheart's eyes, he tilted his head a little with the slightest of frowns. \"Fjolicheart, does Take Care even [i]know[/i] you're out here?\"\nThe beige-orange puma was saved by the girl speaking up.\n \"Uh... hello? Are you Care Bears too?\"\nIgnoring Tenderheart's slightly stern expression, Frolicheart stepped over to the girl with a smile.\n \"We're Care Bear Cousins, Penny. I'm Frolicheart Puma, and this is my girl, Proudheart Cat. As I said to Tenderheart just now, we've come to help you.\"\n\nThe little girl looked rather wide-eyed at the puma. Not because she was seeing a small beige-orange puma with a sweet symbol on his tummy who talked to her, but more because the beige-orange puma with the sweet symbol on his tummy who was talking to her had a sling around his neck in which was resting his heavily bandaged left arm, because the sweet symbol on his tummy was half obscured by a cast that was around his chest, and because there were several stitched cuts in his face, with a particularly nasty one just over his left eye.\n \"Gee, what... what happened to you?\" she asked softly.\nFrolicheart smiled again.\n \"I had an accident while I was building a new house for my girl Proudheart, Penny. But we didn't come down here to talk about my problems, we came here to talk about your problems.\" He took the girl by a hand with his right paw. \"Come on, walk with me a bit, okay?\"\n\nHolding the girl by her hand, he led her to the side of the house, where a big canopied swing chair was standing in the garden. Tenderheart wanted to follow them, but Proudheart stopped him. For a moment the brown bear frowned again. However, he did realize that he himself was getting nowhere with the problems the girl was having, and he did admit to himself it really was the kind of job Frolicheart was perfectly suitable for to take on. So he walked to the Cloudsmobile with Proudheart, leaned against it and just looked at Frolicheart and the girl sitting on the canopied swing chair. It sure seemed to be going better than his own tries, at least the girl was talking to Frolicheart, although neither Tenderheart nor Proudheart could hear what they were saying. After about a minute or ten, give or take, both Proudheart and Tenderheart smiled when they saw how the girl very carefully hugged Frolicheart and pressed a soft kiss upside his head, between his ears. Right after, they got up from the swing chair and stepped over to the Cloudsmobile.\n \"Thank you again, Frolicheart,\" the girl said with a smile. \"And be careful, okay?\"\n \"I will, Penny,\" Frolicheart smiled. \"If you promise me you won't let your problems get to you like this anymore. That's really not healthy. Okay?\"\n \"I promise, Frolicheart,\" the girl Penny smiled, giving the beige-orange puma another careful hug.\n \"I trust your promise,\" Frolicheart said smiling. \"Well, I better get myself back home, before Take Care Bear finds me missing. She'll probably kill me when I get back if she founds out what I've done.\"\n \"I'll keep my fingers crossed for you that she didn't find out,\" the girl Penny giggled.\n \"Thanks,\" Frolicheart grinned merrily.\n\nHe got into the Cloudsmobile, and so did Proudheart and Tenderheart. As Proudheart drove off into the sky, the girl Penny waved after them smiling. On their way back to the Kingdom of Caring, Tenderheart bent over to the front seats a bit from the back seat he was sitting on.\n \"That seemed to have gone well, Fjolicheart,\" he said. \"I've tjied to get Penny to talk to me about her pjoblems for almost half an hour, but she wouldn't tell -me- what was bothering her.\"\n \"No offense, Tenderheart, but with children as introvert as that, you have to know the ways,\" Frolicheart said with a smile. \"And seeing as how I recognize the signals so clearly because I have been exactly the same myself, I'm just a little better than the rest of you in knowing those ways.\"\n \"Well, cjedit to you,\" Tenderheart smiled. \"It's really good to have you in the Family, and it's really good too having you up and ajound again.\"\n \"Well, help me hoping Take Care doesn't find out about this, because she threatened to chain me to the bed if I did anything silly,\" Frolicheart said with a grin. \"It already took me some shrewdness to get her to even allow me to walk around in the first place.\"\n \"I'll fend herr off if she trrries to chain you down, Frrolichearrrt,\" Proudheart smiled.\n \"And I'll put in a good wojd for you,\" Tenderheart promised with a grin.\n\nWell, it would be needed, because after having gotten into Care a Lot and having driven some way down the rainbow path towards the Hall of Hearts, Proudheart suddenly looked up and merrily said \"uh oh...\", which made Frolicheart and Tenderheart also look up. And sure enough, just outside the Hall of Hearts, Take Care Bear was standing, looking out over the rainbow path with her paws in her sides, and an obviously displeased expression on her face. When Proudheart had stopped the Cloudsmobile at the Hall of Hearts, the glimmer in Take Care's eyes already made Frolicheart duck a bit in the passenger's seat, his ears pointing sideways guiltily.\n \"Has your hearing been affected by that knock you received on the head, Frolicheart?\" Take Care hissed. \"Did the hit give you amnesia maybe? Or was I just not clear enough when I said I didn't want you doing anything you aren't up to yet?\"\n \"I'm sorry, Take Care,\" Frolicheart said. \"It was just that when Wish told us...\"\n \"Shut your mouth, feline!\" the red-orange medical Care Bear grunted. She pointed a finger at the door of the Hall of Hearts. \"Just get your tail back in there and into that bed [i]right this instant[/i]!\"\n \"Come on now, Take Care,\" Tenderheart said soothingly. \"Fjolicheart helped me very well with a pjoblem I wasn't getting...\"\n\nHe stopped talking when the red-orange bear set her shimmering eyes upon him. The look in Take Care's eyes told the brown bear \"stay out of this, you!\" even clearer than her mouth did. With Tenderheart effectively silenced, Take Care directed her glittering look back at Frolicheart, and once more pointed her finger at the door of the Hall of Hearts, silently this time, her agitated expression doing some clear enough talking. The beige-orange puma guiltily got out of the Cloudsmobile and shuffled into the Hall of Hearts. Leaving Tenderheart to drive off in the Cloudsmobile, Proudheart followed Frolicheart inside, with Take Care at her heels. The beige-orange puma got back into the bed he had not left for over a week, and Proudheart put the covers over him before sitting down in the chair next to the bed. For the entire rest of the day, Take Care did not out a single word to Frolicheart, but when Proudheart had left the medical room for a little while to get a bite to eat, the red-orange bear sat down in the bedside chair and looked at Frolicheart seriously.\n \"Frolicheart, listen,\" she started, in a soft voice. \"I'm really not doing this to tease you, you know. You have been badly injured, you have been extremely lucky you weren't even more severely injured than you are, and you really need to take it very slow and carefully for the coming time.\"\n \"I know, Take Care,\" Frolicheart said guiltily. \"But it's just, when I saw how much trouble Tenderheart was having with that introvert girl...\"\n \"I know, I know,\" Take Care said, putting a paw on the puma's shoulder. \"And I do think it was really sweet of you to go out and help him, but honestly, you're just not up for that yet! Your body needs a whole darn lot of rest to heal itself, and if you now already start straining yourself, it won't be able to. Listen, even when I've let you go home, even when your arm and ribs have healed, I still don't want you to drive yourself when going out on a caring mission for at least a month. After the hits they've taken, your ribs and your arm need plenty of time to get gradually reacquainted with being put to work. Any sudden high pressure on them, and it'll be bam! Injury again. So you really gotta learn to take it slower and more careful from now on, Frolicheart. And... I hate to say this, I know how you love it, but... I would really rather see you'd stop racing with those cars, you know.\" Frolicheart wanted to sit up with a jolt and say something, but Take Care still had her paw on his shoulder and kept him down. \"No no, hear me out, please. Listen Frolicheart, those ribs you've broken will always stay very sensitive, even after they're fully healed. Any sudden aggravation or intense labour, like with jogging or something, can cause them to snap just like that again. And...\" Take Care shook her head a bit. \"I've seen you racing, Frolicheart. I've seen how you throw those cars around, and I know what kind of impacts your body suffers from that. And with the way your ribs will be in, even after they're fully healed... Pulling away full speed from the starting line in a drag-race and the car landing on its front wheels will already have you back in here with your ribs in half, Frolicheart. Even that kind of impact already will be enough for your ribs to break again, that's how sensitive and weakened they will remain after what you've now been through. So... from a professional medical point of view, I really couldn't let you do that kind of thing anymore.\"\nFrolicheart sank down on his back with his right paw over his face.\n \"Well... You might as well kill me now for disobeying you then, because that would be like taking away the joy of my life,\" he whimpered softly.\n \"I'm sorry Frolicheart, but I'm only thinking of what's best for you, for your health,\" Take Care said.\n \"My physical health maybe, but you sure don't seem to consider my mental health,\" Frolicheart grumbled from under his right paw.\n \"Oh, that's not...\" Take Care started. She sighed softly and rubbed Frolicheart's right shoulder. \"Well, let's talk it over some other time, when you're feeling better. Right now, you'll have enough work as it is to [i]get[/i] better. And...\" She gently pulled Frolicheart's right paw away from his face and smiled at him. \"I really don't mind if you go on little walks with Proudheart, and I don't even mind if you let her drive you around Care a Lot for a bit, but don't do anything like you did this morning anymore, okay? Not for another two to three weeks at least. Please promise me that?\"\n \"Oh, alright, I promise,\" Frolicheart said. \"I know you only act in my best interest, Take Care, but please remember that I'm a puma, an active feline, and all this lying still with nothing to do is driving me up the wall.\"\n \"I know that, Frolicheart,\" Take Care smiled. \"And as I said, you can go have a little fun with Proudheart every now and then, just don't overdo it yet.\"\n \"Does 'not overdoing it' also mean I won't get to have sex with her for another couple of weeks?\" Frolicheart said with a slight grumble.\nSurprisingly, instead of becoming agitated, Take Care let out a soft giggle.\n \"Just as long as you let [i]her[/i] do the work and [i]you[/i] don't take too deep breaths, I'm fine with it. For your information, my dear feline, sexual relief is highly appraised medically.\" She rose up from the chair, but suddenly sent Frolicheart a serious look. \"Just also be careful in that other respect when you would do it, okay? I [i]don't[/i] want Proudheart coming to me [i]too[/i] for...\"\nQuite unexpectedly, Frolicheart suddenly sat up straight and grabbed Take Care by an arm with his right paw, and there was a slight glimmer of agitation in his eyes.\n \"Take Care, listen to me and listen good,\" he said, with the merest trace of a growl in his voice. \"Proudheart and I discussed that matter a long time ago already, and if she would get pregnant, we'd have the kitten and be proud and happy beyond belief, understood?\"\nTake Care Bear freed herself from Frolicheart's grasp and gently ruffled the tuft of fur between his ears with a smile.\n \"I'm only happy to hear that.\" She calmly pushed the beige-orange puma back onto his back in the bed. \"Now, try and take a nap, in about half an hour Grams'll be here with dinner for you.\"\n\nFrolicheart nodded and let himself be tucked in by Take Care, and the red-orange Care Bear even surprised him a little by pressing a soft kiss on his cheek before walking to her little office. He smiled when he closed his eyes though, and he had fallen asleep even before Proudheart returned in the medical room. When she found her lover asleep, she smiled herself and just sat down in the chair at Frolicheart's bedside, leafing a bit through one of his Chevy High Performance magazines. All those souped-up cars still couldn't really capture her interest, but she did admit that great jobs were done on paint coats and such. She [i]could[/i] appreciate the level of perfection the builder of a hot rod availed himself of in that. After some time the orange kitty put the magazine aside and gently woke up Frolicheart when Grams stepped into the medical room with her wicker basket. She put the fold-out tray on Frolicheart's bed and put a plate covered with a lid on it. When she took away the lid Frolicheart sniffed appreciatively.\n \"Hmmm, that smells great, Grams,\" he smiled.\n \"Thank you,\" Grams said with a giggle. She reached into the basket again and brought up a small bowl closed with a lid. \"Hmm, I don't know if I'll let you have this, Frolicheart. I've heard you've been a bad boy today, and bad boys won't get dessert in my book.\"\nProudheart giggled, and Frolicheart grinned a bit.\n \"Aww Grams, pleeeeeze?\" he begged grinning.\nGrams giggled again.\n \"Well, first finish your dinner, we'll see after that.\"\n\nThere was a bit more giggling and grinning, and Frolicheart ate the dinner Grams had brought for him with relish again. By now, the caring grey bear had started bringing him things more filling than soup, and Frolicheart found he already had much less troubles with chewing and swallowing his food. It still hurt his ribs, true, but not to such an extend anymore he wanted to double up in pain every time he swallowed. In the evening of course Trueheart and Nobleheart stopped by for a visit again, and slightly to both felines' surprise the purple horse also scolded Frolicheart for having gone down to Earth to help Tenderheart on his caring mission, although his scolding more sounded like a plea to not do it anymore until Take Care said he could, because Nobleheart wanted nothing more than for Frolicheart to first get fully back to health again. Frolicheart promised he would really listen to and obey Take Care Bear from now on, although he did keep the fingers of his left paw crossed under the bedsheet.\n\nMore days passed calmly, in which Frolicheart grew stronger by the day. Take Care let him get up and about every day as much as he wanted to, with the only warning not to go on a caring mission anymore, not even to help one of the other bears or cousins, until she had given her fiat. The beige-orange paw promised, cross his heart, that he wouldn't, and he really didn't do it anymore, although Proudheart did have to remind him of his promise every now and then. When Frolicheart's second week in the Hall of Hearts' medical wing had half passed, the red-orange medical Care Bear replaced the cast around his chest for a sort of corset with bandages, which gave Frolicheart a little more freedom to move, and it helped his breathing go easier too. His strength also grew by the day, which was still mostly to be contributed to the powerful herbal potions Grams got from Feralheart Vixen and which she mixed through the food she made for Frolicheart.\n\nAt day twelve of Frolicheart's stay in the Hall of Hearts' medical wing, Take Care Bear suddenly got a startle when she went to the restrooms to freshen herself up a bit and heard moaning coming from behind the door. Rushing in right away, the red-orange medical Care Bear badly surprised Proudheart, and she was rather surprised herself too when she found the cause of the moaning. The orange feline Care Bear Cousin appeared to be pawing herself in the restrooms. When the first shock had subsided and Take Care had overcome her surprise, she smiled a bit.\n \"What are you doing that for, Proudheart?\"\n \"Uh... Well...\" the kitty said, a bit embarrassed. \"I... I needed it, and I figurrred you would think, with the state Frrolichearrrt is...\"\nTake Care put a paw on Proudheart's shoulder, reassuringly.\n \"He mentioned something like that a few days ago, Proudheart. But I gave him my permission to go for a bit of sexual relief, as that's very important for your health. I only advised him to not take too deep breaths in view of the damage to his ribs, and have you doing the work. Other than those things to keep in mind, I have no objection to you and him doing it.\" She winked a bit. \"Just keep it calm and be careful, okay?\"\nProudheart breathed a sigh of relief, and she even smiled a bit.\n \"Thank you, Take Carrre. I rreally do miss my sweet tomcat's loving and carrresses, but I just thought...\"\n \"As I said, as long as the both of you are a bit careful, I have no objection to you two going for a bit of sexual relief,\" Take Care smiled. \"I know how important that is.\"\nProudheart nodded happily.\n \"Thanks again.\"\n\nShe quickly left the restrooms, leaving Take Care Bear behind with a smile. The red-orange medical Care Bear freshened herself up, and then decided not to return to the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts for at least the next hour. Besides, as she noticed with a giggle, Proudheart had very shrewdly locked the door leading from the Hall of Hearts into the medical wing. She also switched off the lights, although that didn't make all that much of a difference since warm sunlight still poured in through the windows. However, Proudheart more or less took care of that by drawing the curtains at all the windows, and when all curtains were closed the medical room had gotten a semi-dimmed, intimate atmosphere. After having done all that, Proudheart turned around and stepped over to Frolicheart, who was lying in the bed looking rather surprised at all of Proudheart's actions with the door and the curtains, and the excited blush on her face.\n \"Hey, Proudheart? What, uh... what did you do that for?\" he asked.\n \"Forrrrr a bit of prrrrrivacy, loverrrrrboy,\" the orange kittie purred smiling, gently running a paw along the side of Frolicheart's face and over his whiskers.\n \"Privacy. For... what?\" Frolicheart said, a slow grin breaking through on his face when he thought he recognized the blush on Proudheart's face and the twinkle that had come to her pretty amber eyes.\nProudheart sank down on the side of Frolicheart's bed and ran her paw along his face again, softly purring.\n \"Take Carrre caught me in the rrrestrrrooms just now, Frrrolichearrrt, when I was... well, touching myself,\" she smiled.\n \"Aww, I knew it, you're suffering from the continence my current state of health forces us into as well,\" Frolicheart said. \"I'm very sorry about that, pussycat, but Take Care did tell me...\"\nProudheart bent over a bit and softly placed a finger on Frolicheart's lips, silencing him with a smile.\n \"She told [i]me[/i] that therrre was no medical objection to us two having a little sexual rrrelief, sweethearrrt,\" she whispered smiling. \"As long as we kept two things in mind, and that was that I should do the worrrk, and you should be carrreful with how deep brrreaths you take.\"\nFrolicheart nodded with a smile, bringing up his right arm and softly taking Proudheart by the wrist of her right arm, taking her finger off his lips.\n \"That's what she told me too, pussycat,\" he smiled, kissing Proudheart's finger.\n \"Rrright,\" Proudheart whispered with a smile, bending over a little more and bringing her face close to Frolicheart's. \"And I know it must be just as harrrd forrr you as it has been forrr me, so that's why I prrrovided us with a little prrrivacy. That way nobody will disturrrb us when we...\" Proudheart suddenly giggled softly. \"Well, when we go get ourrr medically apprrroved porrrtion of sexual rrrelief.\"\n\nFrolicheart let out a soft grin and let go of Proudheart's right wrist, raising his arm a little more to run his fingers over her soft chest. Due to what she had already been doing in the Hall of Hearts' restrooms, Proudheart's soft fluffy breasts were still swollen with excitement, and the beige-orange puma very softly ran his fingers over the perky pink nipples that peeked out from the white fur. Proudheart shivered softly and drew a deep, purring, trembling breath, closing her eyes for a second to let the whole wave of pleasant warm tingles roll through her at the tender touch from her lover she'd had to miss for such a time now. Then she opened her eyes again and looked down on Frolicheart with a smile, taking his right paw in both her own and gently steering it away from her body.\n \"Sweethearrrt, you prrromised both Take Carrre and Noblehearrrt that you would do as Take Carrre said, and she said that I should be the one doing the worrrk,\" she whispered with a soft giggle. \"So stop taking initiatives, alrrright? Just lie back and rrrelax, and enjoy what I had in mind forrr you.\"\n\nWith another grin, Frolicheart let himself sink down on his back in the bed, letting everything that Proudheart was planning to do come over him. The orange kitty rose up from the bed and slowly pulled the sheets away from Frolicheart's body. Then she sank back down on the edge of the bed and swung her legs upwards so she came to sit on her knees. Bending over, she brought her face close to Frolicheart's again and pressed her lips on his, searching for his tongue with hers and purring when her tongue found it. Leaning heavily on one paw, the orange kitty brought her other paw forward to let it softly slide over Frolicheart's ears, and down the side of his face to his bandaged chest, around his bandaged left arm resting on his chest in the sling, and further down over his tummy. A soft purr also started rolling from Frolicheart's throat at the tender tummy rub, and he shocked softly when Proudheart's soft fluffy fingers slid even further down, curling themselves around his stiffening member.\n\nNot breaking her kiss, Proudheart let her fingers gently trail along the length of Frolicheart's hardening member, softly running along the outlines of his balls each time she reached them before going upwards again. The beige-orange puma had trouble maintaining the kiss as his tender orange feline lover caressed his tool to full capacity, and his breath deepened yet stayed within the range of not being painful to his damaged ribs. He shivered when Proudheart's caresses became slightly more intense, and soft moans intermingled with the purrs still rolling from his mouth and dying in their passionate kiss. When Proudheart felt her fingers had reached their goal of getting her loverboy fully ready for the game, she finally broke the kiss and turned around slowly, nuzzling her way across Frolicheart's bandaged chest and his soft tummy to his loins. Frolicheart shivered again at the soft but pleasant tickling of Proudheart's whiskers over his body, and he closed his eyes with a moan when the orange kitty very softly started running her tongue along the length of his hard orange dick. Her whiskers kept tickling Frolicheart dick and balls, as did her breath, bringing the beige-orange puma a load of wonderful sensations.\n\nHe slightly raised his trembling right arm again, letting Proudheart's long, sleek tail slide through his fingers, moaning at every tickle of her whiskers, every soft stroke of her warm, moisty tongue over his dick. His own tail twitched idly, the tip every now and then slapping the bed. Still Proudheart kept working her gentle, tender ways with her soft tongue, very gently and gradually building up the sexual tension in Frolicheart's body so it wouldn't strain and hurt him. The fingers of her right paw softly caressed his tail and his balls, and she slowly let her weight rest on her right flank so she could bring her left paw to Frolicheart's tummy to rub it again. The extra wonderful caress was the little extra it took for Frolicheart to explode, and with a deep groan he climaxed. Proudheart, feeling the sudden contraction of his body, quickly closed her lips over the head of Frolicheart's pulsating orange dick, catching his entire warm load and swallowing it happily. All the while she did not stop caressing his balls and tail with her right fingers and his tummy with her left paw, slowly rubbing the tension back out of the beige-orange puma's shuddering body. When Frolicheart had relaxed, Proudheart turned around again and laid herself down next to him on her left flank, softly running her fingers through his whiskers with a purr. With eyes still tightly closed, Frolicheart was taking quick, superficial breaths, and he slowly wrapped his right arm, upon which Proudheart was lying, around the kitty's shoulders. Smiling and still purring, Proudheart gently wiped the sweat off his forehead, meanwhile pressing soft kisses on his cheeks, muzzle and closed eyes.\n\nAfter some time Frolicheart managed to get his breathing a bit more under control, and he opened his eyes. Pulling Proudheart a bit closer against his body, he rolled his head to kiss her soft, velvety lips. Proudheart folded her arms around his shoulders and answered his kiss with a purr, her whiskers catching the message of love and gratitude Frolicheart's whiskers sent her. For a while they just kissed, the only sound breaking the silence being their mixed purrs. Then Frolicheart eventually broke the kiss and opened his eyes, looking at Proudheart with a twinkle of love in his light greenish yellow eyes.\n \"I want you, pussycat,\" he whispered smiling. \"I've missed you so bad.\"\n \"So have I,\" Proudheart answered purring, nuzzling Frolicheart. \"It was harrrd missing yourrr loving, almost as harrrd as having to see you lying herrre in this bed, injurrred and unable to do anything.\" She lovingly nipped Frolicheart's neck and slowly rose up. \"I so want you too, sweethearrrt. You just keep lying back and rrrelax.\"\n\nRising up even further, Proudheart slowly crawled to the foot-end of the bed on her knees. Her soft paws slid down over Frolicheart's bandaged chest and his tummy, coming to a rest between his legs. Again the orange feline Care Bear Cousin's soft, fluffy fingers worked their loving magic on the beige-orange puma's dick, having it back to full capacity in mere seconds. After having pressed a soft kiss on the head of Frolicheart's dick, Proudheart raised herself even more and placed her knees on both sides of the puma's hips, and her left paw next to his left shoulder. Her right paw slid between their bodies and wrapped around Frolicheart's hard orange dick, and while slowly lowering herself, Proudheart gently steered the tip of the puma's dick to the moist opening between the swollen, silky lips of her longing orange pussy. The moment her warm, moist nether lips had a grip of Frolicheart's dick, Proudheart placed her right paw next to his right shoulder, hung her head between her arms and pressed her muzzle on his lips to smother his groan when she lowered herself until her tummy touched Frolicheart's.\n\nLeaning on her paws, Proudheart made sure her chest and breasts did not press onto Frolicheart's bandaged chest nor his bandaged left arm which still rested on his chest in the sling as she started slowly rubbing her tummy against his. His groaned purrs still smothered by Proudheart's kiss, Frolicheart brought up his right arm and placed his right paw on the kitty's head, tenderly caressing her ears and every now and then lovingly squeezing her neck. Twirling her tail into Frolicheart's, Proudheart started slowly moving her hips up and down, purring hard in her kiss at the feeling of the beige-orange puma's hard, throbbing dick sliding in and out of her warm, moist pussy. Her gradually increasing breath mixed with Frolicheart's while their heart-shaped noses pressed against each other's, and their combined purrs melted into a smooth though irregular rumble of pleasure. With her paws already having brought her halfway to the mountainous peaks of desire in the Hall of Hearts' restrooms, Proudheart reached her first climax quite quickly, and she just managed to restrain herself enough not to thump her body against Frolicheart's when the wonderfully relieving orgasm surged through her.\n\nDigging his right fingers into Proudheart's shoulder and groaning with eyes squeezed, Frolicheart slightly bucked his hips when he felt his loverkitty's warm, slippery pussy cramping around his dick and releasing a flow of slimy juices over his tummy and his balls. Proudheart mashed her tummy against Frolicheart's for a little while, blissfully moaning her purrs while holding his dick deep inside her cramping, flowing orange pussy, until all the heavy tremors of climax had ebbed away a bit. Then she started moving her hips up and down again, breaking the kiss and placing her head in her neck so her purred gasps of lust could freely flow from her mouth. Slowly, Proudheart's movements became a bit more rapid as a new orgasm started building inside her quivering body, and Frolicheart bucked his hips a bit harder to meet the orange kitty's thrusts, a second relief also rising in his body. Feeling his cooperation, Proudheart carefully sped her movements up a little more, sopping herself and her lover once more to the soaring clouds of satisfaction. A two-voiced yowl of lust echoed through the medical room when the two feline Care Bear Cousins simultaneously reached their second climax.\n\nPanting her purrs, Proudheart let the satisfied relaxation wash over her, and she let herself roll onto her left flank, half on and half next to Frolicheart's trembling body. With her right leg resting on top of Frolicheart's left leg and her right arm lying over his bandaged chest, Proudheart snuggled up against the beige-orange puma and buried her face in his neck, purring deeply. Frolicheart wrapped his right arm around the kitty's shoulders and rolled his head a little, pressing his face into the tuft of silky fur between Proudheart's pointy ears, breathing heavily. It didn't take too long before the relaxation of sexual satisfaction pulled the two felines into a deep, happy slumber.\n\nOutside the medical room, in the Hall of Hearts, Take Care Bear had been silently listening at the door for the past half hour or so, a deep smile curling her lips at what she heard. She turned that smile upside down into a quite angry frown every now and then however when one of the Care Bears or Care Bear Cousins stepped up to her to wondrously ask her what she was doing and what was going on. The expression which this gave the red-orange medical Care Bear kept the others from asking any further and making sure they were someplace else the next moment, allowing Take Care to lay her ear against the door again to resume listening. When all she heard was nothing more but a deep, steady purr, Take Care smiled deeply and fished up a key from somewhere in her red-orange fur. She unlocked and opened the door to the medical wing, slipped inside and closed and locked the door behind her again. Then she stepped up to Frolicheart's bed, still wearing her deep smile, which deepened even further when she saw the two satisfied feline Care Bear Cousins blissfully asleep in each other's arms. Taking her stethoscope, Take Care checked on Frolicheart's heartbeat and breath-rate, nodded to herself contentedly, gently put the bedsheet over the two sleeping cats and tiptoed to her office. She could dismiss Frolicheart from the medical wing and let him go home real soon now, he sure already was strong and capable enough again.", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "A twinkling, cheerful dawnbreak filled Care a Lot and the Forest of Feelings with a soft, gentle milky morning light. The smiling yellow sun slowly climbed up into the blue sky, looking down benignly on both parts of the cloudly Kingdom of Caring. In Care a Lot, little StarBuddies floated from window to window to look at the Care Bears waking up (except for Grumpy Bear, who scolded at his alarmclock and pulled the sheets up over his head with a moan, and of course Bedtime Bear, who had shortly before returned from his nightly mission and was just going to sleep). In the Forest of Feelings, birds tweeted their happy songs to greet the sun, and flowers opened up and turned their heads to the light. It seemed that it would once again become one heck of a beautiful day.

On a small clearing in the Forest of Feelings, the door of a cloud cottage opened, and two feline Care Bear Cousins stepped outside. It were Frolicheart Puma and Proudheart Cat, who still lived together in Frolicheart's cottage since Proudheart's cottage had not yet been completed. Frolicheart'd had to rebuild it from the clouds up, and it really was a whole lot of work, especially when you know how incredibly perfect Proudheart always had to have everything. And, of course, Frolicheart wanted nothing more but to give the love of his life the most perfect cottage in the whole Forest of Feelings, so he really spent 1000% of his attention on getting everything perfect. As Frolicheart walked up to a bright white 1960 Chevrolet Impala convertible (he used that car for a daily driver now since his bright white 1968 Mercury Cougar convertible had been flattened by the entire front wall of Brightheart's workshop falling down on it during the flood Noheart had created), Proudheart hugged and kissed him.
     "I'll stop by arrround noon with lunch, Frrolichearrrt," she smiled.
     "That sounds perfect, pussycat," the beige-orange puma smiled back. "You'll be pleasantly surprised by the way your house is already looking now. It's even more beautiful than it used to be."
     "That sounds purrrfect too," Proudheart said with a soft giggle. "Maybe I'll even stop by way beforrre noon. You've gotten me currrious."
     "Better watch out with that," Frolicheart said with a grin, getting into his bright white Impala convertible. "After all, "curiosity killed the cat", remember?"
Proudheart laughed and gave Frolicheart a playful swat across his ears.
     "Ohh, you! Don't you trrry making smarrrt rremarrks on me, misterrr!"
     "You're right, I should better try making your new house the prettiest cottage in all of the Forest of Feelings," Frolicheart smiled, starting the engine of his Impala. He leaned over the edge of the driver door and kissed Proudheart. "I'll see you turning up somewhere around noon then, pussycat."
     "Surrre," Proudheart smiled.

She looked at Frolicheart as the beige-orange puma backed the white Impala convertible around his cottage to the large shed at the back, where his collection of classic cars was stored in. There was a double-axle trailer standing just outside the shed, filled to capacity plus a bit more with building materials of all sorts. He hooked up the trailer to the towing bracket on his white Impala, checked the lash strings with which he had secured all the materials piled up on the trailer, found them all holding the enormous pile of materials in place perfectly safely, got back into the white Impala and drove off his driveway and down the rainbow path that disappeared between the trees. Proudheart waved after him until the car disappeared between the trees, then she drew a happy sigh and went back into Frolicheart's cottage, closing the door behind her. In the mean time Frolicheart arrived at Proudheart's cottage, which was indeed already looking beautiful after all the work he had done on it. It was almost finished; just a couple of bay windows on the first and second floor needed to be build and put in place, plus the balcony all around the first and second floor had to be finished up, and the roofs of both the front porch and the cottage itself were as yet made waterproof with a huge blue tarpaulin because the shingles still had to be put on, but for the rest the cottage already looked inhabitable.

And Frolicheart had been quite right; it did look even more lovely than it had before. The beige-orange puma had really done way more than his best to get everything more than 1000% perfect. Quite frankly, he had not done that only because Proudheart was the love of his life. He had also done it a bit because he still had the feeling he had to make up for his terrible slip-up with Swiftheart, even though Proudheart had forgiven him for that. But any which way, the beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin had gone through extremes to get Proudheart's cottage looking like it did now. Like he had been searching for parts for his rare Boss 429 Mustang on Earth after his caring missions when he was rebuilding that, he had now spent much of his time after his caring missions to look around on Earth for beautiful things to build into Proudheart's cottage. And in that way, he had once had the good luck to find an old monestary being torn down, enabling him to take a whole lot of incredibly beautiful building materials to the Forest of Feelings. The supporting poles of the huge front porch he had built onto Proudheart's cottage, for instance, came from that monestary, and it were solid oak joists carved with beautiful patterns of long, curly vines. A few of the ground floor windows Frolicheart had put in came from that monestary as well, and it were magnificent colorful picture windows, depicting several scenes of the Garden of Eden. Like that, the beige-orange puma had built a lot of the monestary's materials into Proudheart's new cottage, both inside and out, making it look like something from a fairytale. After all, Proudheart deserved nothing less.

Pulling up into what was left of the front garden (of course that needed to be completely redone too as it has been washed away by the flood, and was now filled with pieces of building materials and all), Frolicheart parked his car, got out and started unloading the trailer. Off came, among others, a huge pile of packets of shingles, since the beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin had decided to first shingle the roof of the front porch today, seeing as that he needed to stand on that and walk across it to be able to reach the first floor walls for the work that had to still be done there. He placed all the packets of shingles upright against one side of the porch, and when he had put all the packets there he went into the cottage. A few moments later he appeared at one of the first floor windows (or at least, the opening in the wall where one of the windows was supposed to be put in), and he climbed out, onto the roof of the porch. He pulled up a packet of shingles, unpacked it, took away the first part of the blue tarpaulin covering the porch roof and started putting the shingles in place.

Working hard but with care, Frolicheart made good time at the first part of the porch roof. After he had put about three or four packets of shingles in place, however, his working slowed down a bit, as he had to walk across the part of the roof he had already shingled to the side, where the rest of the packets were standing, to pick up new packets each time. Nevertheless, he kept up his steady pace, and after a couple of hours he had already shingled half of the porch roof. That's when he decided to take a little break, and he sat down on the porch roof, leaning with his back against the first floor wall, taking sips from a bottle of fruit lemonade he had put in the sill of one of the first floor windows. After having emptied the bottle, he twisted around a bit to the window behind him to put the bottle away, but he looked around again when a voice called out his name. With a smile, Frolicheart noticed Nobleheart Horse standing at the gate of Proudheart's front garden, looking up at the cottage admiringly.
     "Wow, Frolicheart," the purple horse said. "That is looking beautiful."
     "Thanks, I do my best," Frolicheart said with a smile.
     "I'd say," Nobleheart said. "I'd even say you're doing way more than your best. Proudheart's cottage has never looked so beautiful."
     "That was the intention, Nobleheart," Frolicheart grinned. "Surely you agree she deserves nothing but the very best?"
Nobleheart nodded with a smile.
     "Maybe you're right. It's just that I hadn't really expected you to be so handy with tools you could build a house looking this beautiful. I mean, okay, you're one of the best where it comes to fixing and restoring cars, but a house is sure is something very different."
     "Someone who is handy enough to rebuild a car back to showroom state usually is a real handyman who won't twist his paw for any kind of project, Nobleheart," Frolicheart grinned.
     "I guess you're right," Nobleheart said with a slight grin. "So how's it going?"
     "Quite alright," Frolicheart said. "This porch'll be ready today in any case, and maybe I'll get some of the first floor windows in place as well."
     "Then I won't hold you from your work any longer, Frolicheart," Nobleheart smiled. "Good luck."
     "Thanks Nobleheart, and goodbye," Frolicheart said with a smile.

While the purple horse walked away, throwing a last admiring glance at Proudheart's cottage, Frolicheart got up and walked to the side of the porch roof to get yet another packet of shingles. Returning to the spot where he had left off just now before his little break, he started unpacking the packet, but suddenly decided to first get a few more packets of shingles up on the porch roof, so he wouldn't have to interrupt his work after every ten shingles (which was the amount of shingles in one packet) to get a new packet. So he rose up again and walked back to the side of the porch, pulling up a few more packets and carrying them to the unshingled part of the porch roof one by one. In passing, he glanced his watch, and noticed with a smile it was almost a quarter to noon. Proudheart would be there soon. Taking the last packet of shingles leaning against the side of the porch, Frolicheart walked back to the spot where he was working with it, taking care in not stumbling over the packets he had already lain down there. However, bad luck struck the beige-orange puma when he took the last few steps. The wind had been playing a bit with the now loosened tarpaulin, and had blown it slightly over the shingles Frolicheart had already unpacked. Therefore, the beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin couldn't completely see where he was putting down his feet anymore, and he stepped onto one of the loose shingles. Pivoting on the edge of the last fastened shingle, the loose shingle flew upwards and hit Frolicheart in the back of the head. The force of the blow made Frolicheart fall over forwards. He fell onto the tarpaulin, which tore open, and with a cry the beige-orange puma fell down further, landing on the floor of the porch on his back with a loud thud.

For a moment Frolicheart lay on the porch floor a bit dazed, but then he raised himself a bit, leaning on one paw while rubbing the back of his head with his other paw, groaning with eyes squeezed. Some sliding noises above him however drew his gaze upwards, and his eyes widened when the puma saw what was happening above him. The packet of shingles he had dropped at his fall had fallen onto the other packets and the loose shingles, and those were now all teetering over the edge of the last fastened shingle. Catching the flap of the torn tarpaulin with one side, the first packet of shingles veered sideways and suddenly fell down, knocking a supporting beam of the porch roof out of place in its fall. Both the packet of shingles and the supporting beam fell down right next to Frolicheart, delivering a hard blow to one of the supporting poles of the porch roof. The tremors of the blow sent the other packets of shingles sliding down, and Frolicheart curled up in instinct and covered his head with his arms when the packets fell down everywhere around him. Two of them hit another of the supporting poles of the porch roof, which made the entire porch roof slowly sway a bit. The movement was just a bit more than the other supporting beams could handle, and they broke out of their connection to the cottage wall. One nightmarish moment Frolicheart looked up with wide eyes and his mouth sinking open, then he averted his head and stretched his arms above him in a feeble attempt to protect himself as the entire porch roof came down upon him with a rumbling crash.

Not so very far away, Proudheart was driving down the rainbow path in her orange 1970 Mercedes 280 SL. On the passenger's seat was a wicker basket filled with all kinds of great goodies, covered with a cheery flowered sheet, and the orange kitty hummed a merry tune to herself while driving to her cottage to have lunch with Frolicheart. Very suddenly, however, she looked up with a shock when she heard a loud crash coming from somewhere between the trees ahead of her. With a twist of her stomach, Proudheart realized that the noise came from... the place where her cottage was! In a frenzy of anxiety, the orange feline Care Bear Cousin floored the accelerator, racing across the last part of the rainbow path to her cottage. Bringing the car to a stop next to Frolicheart's white Impala with squealing tyres, Proudheart looked at the heap of rubble that had once been the front porch of her cottage. Some clouds of dust were still drifting down around it. An everlasting moment long Proudheart sat in the car looking at the devastation with wide eyes, but then she jumped out of the car and ran up to her cottage.
     "Frrolichearrrt! Frrolichearrrrrt! Wherrre arrre you! Frrrolicheeeearrrrrt!!"

When she reached the wreckage that formerly was the front porch, Proudheart stopped dead in her run. She gasped hard as her stomach turned over again. Between the heap of shingles and beams and poles, a beige-orange paw was visible. Again all Proudheart could do for a few moments was staring wide-eyed as the terrible realization dawned in her. Then she fell down on her knees with a choked cry and started pulling at the shingles and everything else.
     "NOOOOO!! Frrolicheeeeeearrrt!! Oh please nooo!!"

She began feverishly pulling and tugging at the shingles and all, flinging them aside whenever she managed to get one loose, slowly uncovering more of the beige-orange arm. At the sound of running feet behind her she looked around. Swiftheart Rabbit, Loyalheart Dog and Brightheart Racoon came running up to the cottage, also stopping short when they saw the ruined front porch.
     "Oh my stars, what happened here?!" Brightheart said. "We heard the sound of something collapsing, and..."
Proudheart looked up at the three Care Bear Cousins, her eyes streaming with tears.
     "Please help meee!" she wailed. "Frrolichearrrt's underrr this!"
     "What?!?! Oh no!!" Swiftheart gasped.
     "Oh my stars!!" Loyalheart yelped.
     "Good grief," Brightheart muttered. He eyed the heap of wood. "Okay, we've gotta act quick! Loyalheart, you start at that end! Swiftheart, you start at the other end! I'll help Proudheart here! Go from the top down!"

Under Brightheart's lead, the four Care Bear Cousins started clearing up the rubble, pulling away shingles and beams and poles from the top of the heap down. Quite soon they had reached the framework of the roof, and they could see more of Frolicheart's body lying underneath it. Proudheart sank down on her knees again, clapping her paws over her face crying. Swiftheart gasped. Brightheart and Loyalheart shook their heads. The beige-orange puma was still alive but unconscious, and blood covered his face and chest, while his left arm was lying next to his body in an unnatural angle. The four Care Bear Cousins could tell he had apparently tried to more or less catch the roof when it came down.
     "Good grief, terrible," Brightheart mumbled again. He pushed his fingers in his eyes for a moment, then looked up again. "Alright, Proudheart, Swiftheart, listen carefully," he said softly. "Loyalheart and I will try to lift this frame off him. When we've gotten it up high enough, you two get him out from under there. But be careful! We don't know what kind of injuries he has. Try to keep him as steady as possible."

Swiftheart nodded silently. Proudheart lowered her paws and looked up at the purple racoon, and slowly she nodded too, tears still rolling down her face. Brightheart turned to Loyalheart and directed him to a spot at the frame, while he stepped up to another spot himself. They both took one of the heavy oak poles and wriggled them under the edge of the frame, trying to get them as far under as possible. Then they put their shoulders under the poles, and at Brightheart's countdown of "three, two, one, push!", they both pushed as hard as they could. With the oak poles as levers, the two Care Bear Cousins managed to lift up the frame of the porch roof a bit. When it was up high enough, the purple racoon said "now!", upon which Proudheart and Swiftheart crawled a bit under the framework and got a hold of Frolicheart, Proudheart at his shoulders and Swiftheart at his legs. Very carefully, they pulled the unconscious puma out from underneath the framework, laying him down on the clouds in front of the porch. Right after that Brightheart and Loyalheart let go of the poles, panting. The framework fell down again with a crunch. Panting from the effort, the purple racoon and the blue puppy turned around, looking at Proudheart, Swiftheart and Frolicheart. The orange kitty had buried her face in the blood-covered fur on Frolicheart's chest, crying hard. The blue bunny was sitting next to the two felines on her knees, silently shaking her head with her paws over her mouth. Loyalheart also shook his head, and Brightheart sighed. He put a paw on Swiftheart's shoulder.
     "Swiftheart, run to Care a Lot as fast as you can and warn Take Care Bear," he said softly.

The blue lapine Care Bear Cousin looked up, nodded, rose to her feet, softly and reassuringly squeezed Proudheart's shoulder, and then she was off in a blur. Loyalheart and Brightheart both knelt down next to Proudheart and tried to soothe the heart-rendingly crying kitty. The purple racoon, hearing the silent moans coming from Frolicheart, gently pulled Proudheart to a slightly more upright position. The way the framework of the porch roof had lain on the beige-orange puma, plus the quiet moans coming from him now, made Brightheart suspect he had broken or at least bruised a few ribs, and Proudheart was still resting her head and arms on his chest, so the purple racoon calmly lifted the orange kitty a bit to relieve the stress on Frolicheart's chest. Loyalheart meanwhile had taken the flowered sheet from the top of the wicker basket standing in Proudheart's car and gingerly dabbed Frolicheart's face with it, cleaning away some of the blood. It revealed a gash just over the puma's left eye, so Loyalheart pressed the sheet down upon that to try and stop the bleeding a bit. Moments later, the blue puppy and the purple racoon looked up when Swiftheart reappeared at their side, panting a bit from the hard running she'd done.
     "Take Care... Take Care Bear is on her way," she said, drawing deep breaths.
     "Thanks, Swiftheart," Brightheart said. "I guess all we can do now is wait."
The blue bunny nodded and sat down next to Proudheart. She gently pulled the crying orange kitty against her body and wrapped her arms around Proudheart's shoulders.
     "Ssssshh now, Proudheart," she whispered, her own voice trembling a bit. "Stop crying now, okay? Help is underway. Everything will be alright."

Proudheart flung her arms around Swiftheart's body and buried her face in the bunny's blue fur, still shocking with sobs. Swiftheart held her close, slowly rocking back and forth while rubbing Proudheart's shoulders and ears. After a few more moments, Swiftheart, Loyalheart and Brightheart looked up when a very special Cloudsmobile stopped close to them. It kinda looked like a station wagon, and Take Care Bear stepped out of it. She shook her head at what she saw.
     "Oh my stars," the red-orange Care Bear with the heart-shaped apple-symbol said, stepping up to the group of Care Bear Cousins. "What exactly happened here?"
     "I'm not sure," Brightheart said. "All we heard was a crash of something collapsing, and when we came here we found Proudheart pulling at all that wood over there, and she said Frolicheart was under it."
     "Oh my," Take Care said softly, kneeling down next to the unconscious but softly moaning beige-orange puma. "Doesn't sound good at all."
Brightheart nodded morosely.
     "He was lying on his back, pinned down under the framework of the porch roof. I'm guessing he has a few broken or bruised ribs, and his left arm was in a very strange angle, so that's probably broken too."
     "And he has a rather deep cut just above his left eye," Loyalheart added, still holding the flowered sheet on that spot.

Take Care Bear nodded silently, carefully examining the unconscious beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin. After some time she nodded again, walked to her station wagon-like Cloudsmobile, opened the back doors and pulled out a stretcher. With Brightheart's and Loyalheart's help, the red-orange Care Bear carefully put Frolicheart on the stretcher and secured him, and then put him in the back of the Cloudsmobile.
     "I'll get him to the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts," she said, closing the back doors of the Cloudsmobile. "You guys get Proudheart there, okay? Looks like she can do with a little tranquilizer."

Brightheart nodded again. While Take Care Bear got into her special Cloudsmobile and drove off, the purple racoon calmly led Proudheart to her orange Mercedes and put her in it, getting in behind the wheel himself. A little furtheron, Loyalheart unhooked the trailer from Frolicheart's white Impala and got in next to Swiftheart sitting behind the wheel of it. Behind each other, they drove out of the Forest of Feelings and into Care a Lot, towards the Hall of Hearts. Take Care's station wagon-like Cloudsmobile was already there. Unsurprisingly, when the four Care Bear Cousins got inside the Hall of Hearts, almost all of the Care Bear Family was already gathered at the door to the medical wing. As Loyalheart and Brightheart gave all of them the best report they could give them on what had happened, Swiftheart led Proudheart through the door and closed it behind her.

In the room beyond the door, Take Care Bear was standing at one of the many beds, treating Frolicheart, but she looked up when Swiftheart led Proudheart inside. She stopped what she was doing for a moment to steer Proudheart to a bed as well, and she gave the orange kitty a small pill and a glass of water. Proudheart refused to take it, however, looking at the bed Frolicheart was lying in with wide, anxious eyes.
     "He'll... he'll b-b-be okay, w-w-won't he?" she whimpered.
     "He'll be just fine, Proudheart, don't worry," Take Care soothed. "Now, come on, please take this. You need to sleep off the shock a bit. I can't have you getting sick too, you know, I have my paws full enough as it is already."
     "Are you s-s-surrre he'll... he'll... get b-b-betterr?" Proudheart sniffled.
Take Care put a paw on the cat's shoulder with a soft smile.
     "Proudheart, I promise you. Okay? Now, come on girl, please take this now and go to sleep."

Soothing as it was, Take Care Bear's voice had gotten the slightest undertone of authority in it. Proudheart looked up at the red-orange bear, sniffed hard, wiped her face with a paw, accepted the pill and the glass of water, and she washed the pill down with a drink from the glass. Take Care nodded satisfiedly, took the glass back from Proudheart and gently lay the orange feline Care Bear Cousin down in one of the beds, covering her with the sheet. Proudheart drew another deep breath and rubbed her eyes with a paw again, and slowly she sank into a deep sleep. Swiftheart looked at it for a moment and sighed, then turned to Take Care Bear.
     "You're really positive you'll get him fixed up again, right?" she asked softly.
     "Yes I am," Take Care said, her voice becoming slightly less patient. "You've done well to get him out from under that wood so quick. And now; out, please! I have a lot of work to do."

The blue bunny nodded silently and left the room, closing the door behind her again. All the other members of the Care Bear Family were still out there as well, either waiting at the door or aimlessly pacing through the Hall of Hearts. The moment Swiftheart exited the medical room, many of them stepped over to the bunny to bury her in questions. Questions Swiftheart could not give really informative answers to, as it were questions that whirled inside her own head as well. So the blue lapine Care Bear Cousin just joined the others in pacing through the Hall of Hearts. Watery smiles washed over her face as she paced around the hall and found Wish Bear sitting at the heart-shaped symposium-table with her eyes closed, wishing dearly that everything would turn out alright, while a few chairs furtheron at the same table Heaven Bear was sitting, also with her eyes closed and her paws folded in front of her face, praying that everything would turn out alright. Swiftheart's expression turned darn serious again though when she passed the stairs to the first floor and found Nobleheart and Trueheart sitting there on the steps. The purple horse was hanging his head with his paws folded in his lap, while the yellow bear was holding an arm around his shoulders, comforting him. And my stars, did Nobleheart look old right now, with the strain showing on his face.

After a few hours, in the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts, Take Care Bear wiped her brow and drew a deep breath when she had finished her treatment of Frolicheart. She had placed a cast around his chest to secure the ribs he had broken, she had packed his lower left arm in bandages since that also was indeed broken, she had stitched the cut over the puma's left eye plus a few other rather nasty cuts, she had checked and rechecked very carefully for signs of internal bleedings but luckily had found none. Proudheart, having woken up an hour and a half earlier, had refused to leave the room, insisting instead to help Take Care with treating Frolicheart. Being done now, Take Care Bear washed her paws, took a towel to dry her paws, and right away mopped her brow again as well. Then she turned back to Proudheart, who was standing at the bed Frolicheart lay in.
     "He's... rrreally gonna be okay, rright?" the kitty asked softly.
     "Yes, Proudheart," Take Care said with a smile. "He'll be up and at it again in no time. You really don't have to worry about a..."

The red-orange Care Bear stopped, seeing that Proudheart was too busy watching Frolicheart to listen to what Take Care was saying. Giving her forehead a last wipe with the towel, Take Care decided that she'd better go out and give some information about Frolicheart's state to the rest of the family. She stepped over to the door leading into the Hall of Hearts and opened it, but no sooner had she stepped through or she was hit by a tidal wave of questions that almost knocked her off her feet.
     "How's he doing?!"
     "Will he be okay?!"
     "Is he gonna get better soon?!"
     "What..."
Take Care waved her arms up and down.
     "Whoa, whoa, settle down everyone!" she said, raising her voice to sound over the flood of questions. "Frolicheart is gonna be alright..." The loud cheering from all Care Bear Family members this remark brought out totally drowned the rest of Take Care's words. "...but he is going to need a whole lot of rest so I want it QUIET!!" she repeated testily.

The sharp tone and the volume of the red-orange medical Care Bear's voice made all the others wince collectively, and they made sure to quickly shut their mouths. Take Care Bear was one of the most amiable Care Bears in the Kingdom of Caring, but she also was one of the most caring ones, a real close runner-up to Trueheart Bear, and she would defend the well-being of her patients with all her might if she had to, even if that meant getting angry with any other member of the Care Bear Family, including Trueheart and Nobleheart. The red-orange medical Care Bear now looked around her at the large group of bears and cousins and gave a short nod with her head.
     "What exactly happened?" Royalheart asked.
     "I'm quite sure that all of you have heard from Loyalheart and Brightheart what they found, and that is about all I know myself too," Take Care said. "Proudheart couldn't tell me very much news, and Frolicheart is still asleep, so I really don't know what exactly happened."
     "How's Proudheart doing?" Swiftheart asked.
     "She woke up a good hour and a half ago, and she's just fine," Take Care said. "In fact, she insisted on helping me treating Frolicheart."
Nobleheart stepped forward slowly, still looking as old and worn as anyone had ever seen him looking. There actually were lines of stress and worry on his face.
     "A few more details would really be appreciated, Take Care," he said in a grave voice.
Trueheart was still holding an arm wrapped around the purple horse's shoulder. Take Care heaved a soft sigh and nodded, starting to tick off on her fingers.
     "Alright. Frolicheart broke three ribs on the left side and one on the right. He also broke his lower left arm, and he has a concussion. Not too serious though, luckily. I had to stitch that cut over his eye..." The red-orange bear drew a line above her left eye with a finger for emphasis, "...plus a couple of other rather deep cuts. Luckily he doesn't have any internal damage though. From what I've heard, he's been real lucky with that. What with a roof having fallen on him, I wouldn't have been surprised if the broken ribs had perforated his lungs, but thank heaven that didn't happen."
     "So... he's gonna be okay, like you said, really?" Cunningheart said, holding Royalheart by a paw and looking worried.
Take Care Bear nodded again.
     "He'll be fine, but I don't recommend him going on any caring missions for a while. In fact, I want to keep him here for some time, for observation."
     "How long do you think you'll need?" Tenderheart asked.
     "About a week or two, maybe three," Take Care answered. "After that, I can let him go home. Those ribs and his arm will heal themselves in a week or three more, maybe faster if he takes it real calm."
Nobleheart drew a deep sigh of relief and looked up at the red-orange Care Bear.
     "Can we... see him now?"
Take Care hesitated for just a moment.
     "I... Well, I guess so." She looked up at the group of bears and cousins, and mostly Trueheart and Nobleheart. "But just the two of you for now, and not for too long either. He really needs a whole lot of rest." She directed her gaze at the rest of the Care Bear Family. "All the rest of you can come back tomorrow, and not before noon."

All bears and cousins nodded in agreement, though reluctantly, and they all left the Hall of Hearts. Take Care Bear led the way for Nobleheart and Trueheart to the door leading into the medical wing and held it open for them. The three of them stepped into the room, seeing Proudheart sitting at the bed, softly talking to Frolicheart, holding the beige-orange puma's right paw in both her own. At the sound of the trio entering the room she looked up.
     "He's awake!" she said, obvious relief sounding in her trembling voice.
Nobleheart and Trueheart stepped up to the bed. The purple horse sat down on the left edge, while the yellow bear sat down at the opposite side.
     "How are you feeling, boy?" Nobleheart asked softy, carefully placing a paw on Frolicheart's left shoulder.
Frolicheart grimaced, coughed softly and promptly winced in pain, then spoke up in a soft and rather hoarse voice.
     "Like I've been run over by a transport truck holding eight Cadillac Eldorados. And those weigh two point two tons each. I have a terrible head-ache, and everything below my head frankly isn't very much better off." He drew a deep breath, or at least as deep a one as he could manage without hurting his damaged ribs too much. "But I've been told that I'll be fine."
     "That's good to hear," Trueheart said with a soft smile, giving Frolicheart a very careful hug.
Nobleheart sighed deeply and softly rubbed Frolicheart's left shoulder.
     "You gave me a darn right scare, boy. Again," he said softly. "You're going to give me plenty of grey hairs if you keep that up."
Frolicheart turned his ears sideways in a feline signal of guilt.
     "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I really feel bad for scaring all of you like that."
He said it very apologetically, drawing another sigh from Nobleheart.
     "That's not how I meant it, Frolicheart," the purple horse said softly. "It's not like it was your fault. I'm sure you didn't do it on purpose, but it's just that you have scared the daylights out of me. If... if anything, anything really serious, were to happen to any of you..." He forced himself to not finish that sentence. "So what exactly happened, boy?"

The beige-orange puma drew another very careful deep breath and told the two Care Bears and the two Care Bear Cousins everything that had happened; how he had started unpacking that one packet of shingles, how he had decided to first get all the other packets on top of the porch roof, how he had been smacked in the head when he stepped onto that one loose shingle that suddenly pivoted upwards and how he had fallen to the floor of the porch, how all the packets of shingles had fallen down after him, in their fall knocking loose a supporting beam of the porch roof and unbalancing the whole thing, which had resulted in the roof coming down on him. When he had finished his story he sank down in the pillows, obviously tired, and Take Care Bear reacted instantly.
     "Okay, I think that's been enough for the visiting hours for today. You..." She pointed a finger at the injured beige-orange puma, "... go to sleep. You need your rest. The rest of you..." She pointed a finger at the door leading into the Hall of Hearts, her voice again getting that edge of inarguable authority, "...out."
Both Trueheart and Nobleheart stood up from the bed and bade their good-byes to Frolicheart.
     "Just get better, Frolicheart," the yellow bear smiled, giving the puma a soft kiss on his heart-shaped nose. "We need you to scare us silly with zooming by in a car from Earth."
     "You got it, Trueheart," Frolicheart smiled wearily.
Nobleheart softly ruffled the tuft of fur between Frolicheart's ears with a paw.
     "Get well soon, boy," he whispered. "Please."

Frolicheart just nodded this time, and he sank back down in the pillows with his eyes closed while Trueheart and Nobleheart walked to the door and stepped through it, leaving the room. Proudheart remained where she was, however, and sensing Take Care's gaze upon her, she looked around at the red-orange Care Bear.
     "It's time to let him sleep now, Proudheart," Take Care said gently, but authoratively. "He really needs his rest."
Proudheart, displaying a bout of true feline stubbornness, shook her head, determinedly.
     "I'm staying with him tonight, Take Carrre. In case he needs me." Take Care Bear blinked her eyes in surprise, then lifted one eyebrow. "I won't stay up all night, I prromise," Proudheart added quickly. "It's just that... I can't just leave him herrre, and I wanna be herrre forr him if he needs a drrink orr something."

Take Care thought for a moment. As much as she'd like to stay at Frolicheart's bedside herself, she still had to make herself available for all the others, and besides, there was very little she could do for the injured beige-orange puma now anymore anyway.
     "Well... okay, it's your decision," she agreed. "But don't overdo it!" she right away added warningly, pointing a finger at Proudheart's nose. "You've gotten a terrible shock from what happened, and you need to rest almost as much as he does. So no matter what happens, but I want to see you getting some sleep tonight as well, understood?"
     "I will, Take Carrre," Proudheart said gratefully. "Thank you."

Take Care gave one short nod with her head and excused herself, disappearing into the small office in the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts, leaving Proudheart alone with the sleeping Frolicheart. Proudheart pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed, taking the beige-orange puma's right paw in both her own again. Take Care Bear's warning notwithstanding, the orange kitty sat up at Frolicheart's bedside the entire night, looking at him, just looking at him, and worrying. Most all through the night Frolicheart slept soundly, although every now and then he would stir in his sleep, aggravate one of his injuries and moan, which terrified Proudheart, causing her heart to leap up into her throat every time it happened. Luckily, it didn't happen very often. The night slowly slid by, and before Proudheart even realized it, rays of sunshine already started peeking in through the windows. She wearily looked around at the windows, realizing she had indeed sat the night away at Frolicheart's bedside. Take Care was gonna blow a couple of fuses if she found out.
     "Mh... Proudheart?"
The sudden mentioning of her name made the orange kitty sit bolt upright in her chair, and she looked down on the bed, where Frolicheart had opened his eyes and looked back up at her.
     "Frrolichearrrt! Oh, you'rre awake!"
     "I guess I am, yeh," the beige-orange puma said, rubbing his eyes with his right paw, wincing when he touched the stitches over his left eye. "Sorry if I scared you again."
     "Ohh, don't worrry about me, I'm much too busy worrrying about you!" Proudheart said. "How arrre you feeling? Arrre you feeling any betterrr alrready?"
Frolicheart drew a careful deep breath.
     "Well, it still hurts when I breathe," he moaned. "So I won't even get started on talking or eating. Which in a way is quite annoying, because I am quite hungry. And I still have a head-ache the size of the Kingdom of Caring." He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and managed a smile for Proudheart. "Other than that, I guess I'm okay."
     "If it hurrts to talk, maybe you should stop doing it," Proudheart suggested, gently rubbing Frolicheart's right shoulder.
The beige-orange puma tilted his head a bit and sent Proudheart a strangely mischievous glance.
     "I also said it still hurts to breathe, does that mean I should stop doing that as well?"
Proudheart also tilted her head a bit, but her look at Frolicheart more was a mix of reproach and worry.
     "It seems like you rreceived a verrry harrd blow to the head somehow, because that morrre sounded like something Playfulhearrt would say."
Frolicheart looked up at Proudheart with a look of mock horror on his face.
     "Hey yeh, you're right. I must be further gone than I thought." He gasped dramatically. "Oh no! I've slipped down too far! It's too late for me now! I can't be saved anymore. Or... do you think another knock on the head might help?"
Proudheart shook her head with a huff.
     "Stop it, now you'rre just scarrring me."
Frolicheart raised his right arm and gently ran his fingers over Proudheart's whiskers.
     "I'm sorry pussycat, I didn't mean to." He regarded her intently, seeing the weary look in, and the rings under her eyes. "You have been up all night, haven't you?"
     "It was... nothing," Proudheart mumbled, stifling a yawn. "You would have done the same forr me."
Frolicheart nodded softly.
     "Yeh, you got that right." He looked up at Proudheart and softly ran his fingers over her whiskers again. "But I don't want you staying up whole nights just for me, pussycat. I really hate to think of you getting yourself sick, just on my account. I don't want that to happen."
     "But what if you had woken up and had needed me?" Proudheart said.

Frolicheart wanted to say something but paused, not really knowing what to reply. And before he could think of something, the door leading into the Hall of Hearts opened. Both feline Care Bear Cousins looked up and around to see whom it was coming in. It were Hugs and Tugs, running up to the bed giggling.
     "Frolicheart! Frolicheart!" they cheerily called out.
Proudheart, seeing what this was going to lead to, jumped up from her chair, posted herself between the two younger Care Bears and the bed Frolicheart was lying in, and she spread her arms.
     "Whoa, hold it rright therrre, Hugs and Tugs! Don't even think about jumping onto Frrolichearrrt!"
The two younger Care Bears scrabbled to a halt, looking up at Proudheart disappointedly, and even a bit bewildered by the cat's firm tone of voice.
     "Awww, Proudheeeart..." Tugs moaned.
     "Why can't we, Proudheart?" Hugs asked.
     "Because he is not feeling well enough forr you two to be pouncing on him just yet," Proudheart said, looking down on the two younger Care Bears. "You may not intend it, but you might hurrt him verrry bad when you jump on him."
     "We'd never do that!" Tugs said.
Hugs twirled her fingers into and out of each other behind her back, looking up at Proudheart.
     "Would a hug hurt him, Proudheart?" she asked softly.
The orange kitty smiled at the little pink bear.
     "I don't think that would hurrt him, Hugs. Just be carrreful you do it on a spot wherrre he doesn't have any bandages, okay?"
     "Oh goodie goodie gosh!" Hugs said happily. She climbed onto the bed Frolicheart was lying in, and she gave the beige-orange puma one of her world-famous, patented Care Bear hugs around his neck. "I so hope you're feeling better, Frolicheart!"
     "With that wonderful hug I just got, and with you two being here, how can't I?" Frolicheart smiled.
Tugs, having also climbed onto the bed, cleared his throat importantly, looking very smug.
     "We made you a card, Frolicheart," he said, handing the puma a card. "We hope it'll make you get better soon."
     "I'm pretty sure it will, big boy," Frolicheart said with a soft grin, gently pushing his right fist against Tugs' cheek.
     "And just how are you feeling today, dear?"
Both Frolicheart and Proudheart looked up, seeing Grams Bear standing at the foot of the bed. The two felines looked slightly surprised; neither of them had heard the lightgrey bear entering the room.
     "I'm... feeling better," Frolicheart said.

Technically, that was true, and at least it sounded better than saying he still was in quite a deal of pain. Yet it didn't seem like Grams was buying it, however she didn't get into it. She merely reached down and brought up a basket she had placed on the floor.
     "I thought you might be hungry, dear, so I made you a little breakfast," she smiled, placing a fold-out tray on Frolicheart's bed and putting a bowl of porridge on it.
Proudheart looked at that a little surprised at first, but she figured that it was the best breakfast Frolicheart could be fed right now, what with the injuries to his chest and all. Frolicheart, feeling just how hungry he was, smiled at Grams.
     "Thanks a lot, Grams. I can do with that."
     "You're welcome," Grams smiled. "Eat up, you'll need the strength." She turned to Proudheart and eyed the orange kitty. "And you will be needing some sleep, sweetie. It looks like you haven't slept a wink last night."
     "Well, I..." Proudheart started, but Grams silenced her by holding up a paw.
     "Ah ah, no, I don't want another word out of you. You really should lie down and catch some sleep. Come on now sweetie, do it for this old bear, please?"

Proudheart realized there was no arguing with Grams, and quite frankly it was one of the last things she wanted to do. So she just climbed into the bed standing right next to the one Frolicheart was lying in. Grams smiled and turned to her, placing a paw on the kitty's shoulder and gently pushing her over to her back while softly humming a strange tune. Proudheart yawned and rubbed her eyes with her paws sleepily. A moment later she was lying curled up on the bed, fast asleep, and Grams gently tucked her in. Frolicheart looked at it with a smile.
     "That's really clever, Grams."
     "You learn when you have two like those to take care of," Grams said with a soft giggle, nodding at Hugs and Tugs. "Now, eat your breakfast, dear, before it gets cold."

Frolicheart nodded a bit and swallowed a spoonful of the porridge. He right away winced and fought the urge to double up in pain. Eating with a couple of broken ribs sure was not a pleasant experience, but the beige-orange puma doubted that not eating at all would help him very much. So he just tried to stand the pain as best as he could and forced himself to eat as much as he could. He managed to empty the bowl halfway through, but then he put the spoon in the bowl and sank down in the pillows with a sigh. Grams picked up on the signal and took the bowl and the tray.
     "Well, I do think we have visited enough for today," she smiled. "When you're better, I hope you'll drop by for breakfast, Frolicheart. I'll make pancakes."
     "If that isn't one of the best incentives for me to get well soon, I don't know what is," Frolicheart smiled tiredly.
     "I do, the very best incentive for you to get well soon is lying in the bed next to you," Grams giggled softly. She bent over a bit and gave the beige-orange puma a soft kiss on the cheek, then gathered up Hugs and Tugs and headed for the door. "Now you take care of yourself, okay?"
     "Bye Frolicheart!" Tugs called out.
     "Byebye Frolicheart! Get well soon!" Hugs added, waving at the puma.
With a soft smile, Frolicheart waved back at them. Then they disappeared through the door, and he sank back down on his back, placing his paws over his face with a soft groan, his ribs still hurting badly from the eating.
     "Arrre you still alrright?"
Frolicheart lifted his paws again, seeing Proudheart sitting upright in the bed next to his and stretching.
     "I'm fine," he reassured her, although he did not exactly feel very fine at the moment. "Why don't you go get yourself something to eat too, pussycat? You must be as hungry as I was."
Proudheart stretched again, licked a paw and rubbed her whiskers.
     "Well... well, alrright then," she said, a bit hesitatingly. "But I'll be rright back."
     "Don't worry, I ain't going nowhere," Frolicheart said dryly.

Proudheart managed a smile, and she pressed a soft kiss on the beige-orange puma's lips. When she had left the room, Frolicheart eased back on the bed, trying to get as comfortable as he could get, and he closed his eyes, knowing that sleep, as it is said so very often, is the best medicin. Meanwhile, Proudheart slowly strolled into the cafeteria of the Hall of Hearts, rubbing her eyes with the back of her paw as she went. Most of the other bears and cousins were there too, having breakfast or preparing for their caring missions for the day. Desiring nothing more than a quick bite by herself so she could return to Frolicheart quickly, Proudheart shuffled past the counter, taking a small breakfast roll and a glass of milk, and then made her way to a table at the back wall with her tray. Of course, after not much more than four steps, the orange kitty was waylaid by a couple of the others, who inquired about her and Frolicheart's health. She just answered they both were fine, but it didn't seem like that went down with the others.
     "Are you sure you're aljight, Pjoudheart?" Tenderheart asked.

Proudheart nodded silently. Tenderheart didn't really buy it; he thought the kitty looked very tired, and it quite frankly didn't take exactly very much to guess why. Yet the brown bear was tactful enough not to voice his thoughts aloud. The other two Care Bears, Love-a-Lot and Wish, accompanied by Swiftheart, also didn't really seem like they believed Proudheart, but they also didn't say it.
     "Want to have breakfast with us, Proudheart?" Love-a-Lot asked in her soft, gentle voice.
     "Please?" Wish added.

Proudheart never was one to turn her friends down, and in fact, right now she was too tired to do it, so she just nodded again, silently and wearily. The five of them walked to one of the tables, sitting down around it, Tenderheart on Proudheart's right side, Love-a-Lot on her left side, and Wish and Swiftheart opposite her.
     "So how is he now, Proudheart?" Wish asked as they ate.
     "Well enough to have visitorrs, I guess," Proudheart said softly, taking a weary sip from her glass of milk. "Grrams and Hugs and Tugs stopped by this morrrning."
     "If that's so, maybe we ought to pay him a visit as well," Swiftheart said. "That is... if you'd let me, Proudheart?"
The three Care Bears nodded in agreement at Swiftheart's first remark, but they all three turned to their breakfast and studied it intensely at the bunny's second remark. Proudheart looked up from her breakfast roll for a moment, then sighed and cast her eyes back down.
     "Yes, alrright," she said softly. "I'm..." She looked up again. "I'm not angrry at you anymorrre, Swifthearrt. I've forrgiven Frrolichearrrt, I guess I can just as well forrgive you too."
Swiftheart looked obviously relieved.
     "Thanks, Proudheart," she said. "I promise I really won't try to seduce Frolicheart ever again."
     "You'd betterr not!" Proudheart said, for a moment still flaring up. Right away, however, she lowered her head again. "Sorrry, I didn't mean to yell at you. It's all happened, we'd do betterr to forrrget."

Swiftheart nodded silently, and so did the three Care Bears around the table. Having finished their breakfast, they all five made their way to Frolicheart's temporary residence in the Hall of Hearts' medical wing. Stepping through the door, they looked at the bed the beige-orange puma was lying in, and saw he was awake.
     "Fjolicheart?" Tenderheart said.
Frolicheart looked up and saw the party of five entering the room. He merrily waved. With his right arm, obviously.
     "Hey, hi everyone. How are you?"
He tried to sit up in a somewhat straighter position, but Proudheart, already next to his bed, held him down, fearing he might unneccesarily hurt his ribs or anything else by doing something silly he wasn't yet capable of.
     "It's not exactly us who should be asked how we feel, Frolicheart," Wish Bear pointed out with a smile. "The question here should be, how are you?"
Frolicheart smiled a bit.
     "Oh, I'm..." He wanted to say "fine", but right at that moment he shifted his broken left arm a bit, and a sharp stab of pain surged through his body, making him grimace for a moment. "Well, I've been better," he admitted. "But it's not so bad."
     "Yeah right, and next thing, you'll tell us Grumpy Bear is a cheerful ray of sunshine," Swiftheart remarked.
Frolicheart grinned a bit, but right away grimaced with pain again.
     "Oh, don't strrain yourrrself too much, please now," Proudheart said, looking worried.
Love-a-Lot gently stroked the tuft of fur between the beige-orange puma's ears back over his head with a paw, smiling.
     "Is there anything we could do for you, Frolicheart?" she asked in her soft sweet voice.
     "Just your company already is very nice," Frolicheart said, managing a smile again. "But for the times when I'm alone in here, something to read would be good. Say, Proudheart..." he added, turning to the kitty, "... you know that stack of Chevy High Performance and HotRod Magazines on the coffee table over at my place? If you could bring me those sometime today, I would be really grateful."
     "Of courrrse," Proudheart smiled. "But do make surrre you get plenty of sleep, okay?"
Frolicheart brought a mock look of authorative seriousness to his face.
     "Well, that very same counts for you too. I already told you I don't want you missing sleep and getting sick over me, pussycat."
Proudheart still smiled.
     "I'll trrry my best."
     "That's my kitty," Frolicheart smiled.

The conversation drew smiles from Swiftheart and the other three Care Bears as well. They stayed and talked with Frolicheart for a while, but eventually it became time for Tenderheart to start handing out their caring missions for that day, and for the others to go on their caring missions for that day, so they left the medical wing again. Proudheart was excused from her caring missions, for obvious reasons. When Frolicheart managed to get in a short nap, the cat rushed over to the puma's cloud cottage to pick up the magazines he had asked for, and she returned just in time to find him waking up, and to get a small tirade spilled over her by Take Care Bear, who indeed wasn't all too happy with Proudheart having sat up the entire night at Frolicheart's bed, despite her warning.
     "I... I just wanted to be therrre forr... forr when..." Proudheart tried.
     "Oh well, never mind, never mind now, it's happened," Take Care waved the feline's excuses away. She turned to Frolicheart and handed him two pills and a glass of water. "Here, take this." Frolicheart swallowed the pills, grimaced again and took a drink of water. "These will help ease the pain, but you will get drowsy though," Take Care said, taking back the glass. "Now, as for you..." she added, turning back to Proudheart. She sighed softly. "I guess you can stay, but..." She warningly pointed a finger at Proudheart's heart-shaped orange nose, "...you had better made sure you turn in early tonight and get a good night's sleep, understood? Because if you don't, the Great Wishing Star stand me by, I'll fill you so full of valium you'll be drowsier than Bedtime Bear for a week. Got it?"
Proudheart nodded silently, a bit guiltily even, taking her seat in the bedside chair again. Frolicheart smiled a bit.
     "I told you so," he mumbled under his breath.
     "Right," Take Care said, ignoring Frolicheart's remark but secretly smiling over it. "Then I'll now leave you again, but I'll be back in the morning to check on you." She sent Proudheart a significant look. "On both of you."

Proudheart just nodded silently again, not really knowing what to reply actually. Take Care Bear had a knack for making you feel like you had been terribly disobedient, and she also had a knack for making you feel really guilty about it. And besides that, there was a strange thing about the red-orange bear, a sort of radiation, that made you feel like you could do nothing else but both respect her and obey her. After all, she was one of the most important Care Bears in the Kingdom of Caring, looking after and mending the health of all Care Bears and Care Bear Cousins.

When the red-orange medical Care Bear had left, Proudheart and Frolicheart talked a bit more about thisies and thatsies, holding paws all the while. But eventually, the painkillers Take Care had given Frolicheart demanded their toll, and the beige-orange puma found it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. Proudheart, noticing this, smiled a bit and bent over to press a soft kiss on Frolicheart's lips.
     "I guess I'd betterrr let you rrest forr a while," she smiled.

She rose up from the bedside chair, but the way the muscles in her back and legs all said hello at that surprised her a bit, and made her wonder just how long she had already been sitting there. A look at one of the windows confirmed her thought it had been -very- long. It seemed like just minutes ago she'd had breakfast with Tenderheart and the others, yet her look out the window showed her the sun had almost set outside.
     "You may be right," Frolicheart mumbled sleepily, around a yawn.
     "I'll be taking a little nap myself, but don't you worrry, I'll be rright herrre next to you all the time," Proudheart said with a smile.

This time, Frolicheart mumbled something Proudheart couldn't make out anymore. With another smile, she whispered "sweet drrreams, my loverrr" and pressed another soft kiss on the puma's lips. Then she laid herself down on the bed next to Frolicheart's and curled up for a little cat-nap herself, after having turned off the lights. The two felines were found exactly like that, both asleep in their beds, first by Take Care Bear, who nodded very satisfiedly to herself at it, and next by Nobleheart and Trueheart, who had decided to stop by for a little visit. Seeing the two cats were asleep, they just stood in the middle of the dimly illuminated room in silence to look at them, both holding an arm around the other's shoulder and smiling. When after fifteen minutes neither of the feline Care Bear Cousins gave any sign of waking up soon, Nobleheart and Trueheart agreed they'd better leave, but for some strange reason, they stepped up to the beds and sat down in a chair next to them, Trueheart at Proudheart's bedside, Nobleheart at Frolicheart's bedside.

For quite a while, they just sat there in silence, Nobleheart looking at Frolicheart's chest gently rising and falling on his breath-rate, and Trueheart gently tucking in Proudheart and softly stroking the tuft of fur between the kitty's ears out of her face. After that the yellow bear with the multi-colored specks all over her body and the multi-colored flock of hair upside her head turned slightly in her chair and directed her look at Nobleheart, who just kept looking at the soundly sleeping beige-orange puma.
     "Feeling better now, Nobleheart?" she whispered with a smile.
It took a little time before Nobelheart realized Trueheart had spoken up, but when he did he looked up and met the yellow bear's smiling gaze.
     "That boy..." he whispered back, nodding at Frolicheart. "He's given me more worries than any of the others has, and yet, for some strange reason, I love him more than any of the others."
     "I know," Trueheart smiled. "And I also know why you do. It's his fickle character, the troubles he's had in his life before he came into the Family, the way he can from one moment to the other revert back to his shy, introvert side that draws you to him. That introvert side of his makes him such a troublesome boy now and then, and that's why you always want to give him that extra bit of care. I feel the same way sometimes."
Nobleheart sighed a little.
     "He reminds me of myself when I was just a foal."
     "I know that too," Trueheart smiled, reaching out and placing a paw on Nobleheart's leg. "I know you better than you think I do."
Nobleheart sighed again, but around a smile this time, and he put one of his own paws on top of Trueheart's resting on his leg.
     "I really don't know what I should do without you, my sweet," he smiled.
     "Don't worry about that, you worry enough about our boys and girls as it is already," Trueheart said with a sweet smile.
Nobleheart smiled again and took Trueheart's paw in both his own, softly squeezing it.
     "I love you."
Trueheart placed her other paw on both of Nobleheart's paws holding and softly squeezing her paw, and she softly squeezed the horse's paws too.
     "And that, I know as well. But it's nice to hear you saying it every so often."

Nobleheart sent Trueheart a last smile, then turned his look back to Frolicheart in the bed next to him. The puma was sleeping soundly, calmly, yet sometimes he stirred a bit in his sleep, which drew a soft moan from him as it hurt one of his woundings. Every time it happened Nobleheart softly shook his head.
     "I can't understand, I just can't understand why when there's serious trouble in our Family, it's with this boy," he muttered softly.

Trueheart smiled and squeezed the purple horse's paws again, as she had very well heard what he had said. But just as she wanted to offer an answer to it, both she and Nobleheart looked up when the door going from the medical wing to the Hall of Hearts opened. Half expecting Take Care Bear to step inside, Trueheart and Nobleheart were slightly surprised to see Bedtime Bear entering the room.
     "Hey, Bedtime?" Trueheart said softly, to not disturb the two sleeping felines. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be patrolling Earth now?"
     "Nocturnalheart Bear is taking over my round," the blue bear said briskly, so very much unlike his usual drowsy way of speaking during daytime, though keeping his voice down for the same reason Trueheart had whispered instead of spoken normally. "I came to sit watch here tonight. You two should really be getting some sleep."
Trueheart smiled, and Nobleheart also managed a smile.
     "That's very nice of you, Bedtime," he said softly. "But I don't think I can sleep a wink, knowing..."
     "I had calculated that," Bedtime said with a smile. He reached into a small cloud knapsack he had with him and brought up a tiny flask with something silverish in it, handing it to Nobleheart. "Take this, that'll help you."
Nobleheart looked at the tiny flask with a very slight frown of surprise.
     "Your special sleeping moondust?"
Trueheart let out the softest of giggles.
     "Who would have guessed there'd come a time you would have to use that on any of us." She rose up and gave Bedtime a hug. "But thanks a lot, Bedtime. It's very sweet of you to think about it."
Bedtime nodded with a smile.
     "It's not done for any of you to be sitting night watches here. You really have to leave that to the one bear, or actually the two bears now, who are fitting for that. So just leave it to me, and get yourselves some good sleep, okay?"
     "Thanks again, Bedtime," Trueheart smiled. "But were you planning on sitting watch here every night, while Nocturnalheart takes over your rounds on Earth, did I understand that correctly?"
     "Not quite," the blue bear smiled. "We're taking turns, Nocturnalheart and I. One of us patrols Earth at night while the other sits watch here, in turns. So, consequently, Nocturnalheart will sit watch here tomorrow night while I patrol Earth, and then the night after that I will sit watch here again while he patrols Earth, and back and forth like that until Frolicheart can go home again."
     "It's so sweet of you," Trueheart said, hugging Bedtime with a smile again. Then she pulled Nobleheart up from his chair by a paw. "Come on, Nobleheart, Bedtime is right, you should get yourself a good night's sleep."
For a moment Nobleheart hesitated, but then a smile broke through on his face, and he rose up.
     "Thanks so much, Bedtime," he said softly, placing a paw on the blue bear's shoulder. "I know Frolicheart is in good paws with you and Nocturnalheart."
     "Don't worry about a thing, Nobleheart," Bedtime smiled reassuringly. "I'll keep my eyes on him all through the night."

Nobleheart smiled again, and after a last look at Frolicheart and Proudheart, he and Trueheart left the medical room, softly closing the door behind them. Bedtime pulled up a chair and positioned it right in between the two beds, so he could keep a good look on both felines at the same time. After making sure Proudheart and Frolicheart were sleeping soundly, the blue bear reached into his cloud knapsack again and brought up a notebook and a pencil. He crossed his legs, leaned the notebook on his left knee, flipped a few pages, looked at it for a moment while thinkingly tapping his blue heart-shaped nose with the end of the pencil, then smiled and started scribbling. What he was doing? Well, Bedtime made up bedtime stories to tell to children from Earth, and, having sat watch more often, guarding over either a child from Earth or someone from the Care Bear Family who had nightly troubles, the blue bear had found that it both helped him pass the time and helped him remembering his own made-up bedtime stories better when he wrote them down as he sat a nightly watch.

Halfway through the night Proudheart stirred a bit and started slowly waking up. Just at that time Frolicheart also stirred, which made his flank press onto his painful left arm, and he moaned in his sleep again. Right away Proudheart sat upright with a jolt, looking at the bed next to her with wide eyes. Surprise mixed with the worry in her pretty amber eyes when the orange kitty found Bedtime Bear sitting in a chair between their beds. The blue bear was also looking at Frolicheart, but he looked around when Proudheart spoke up.
     "Bedtime? What arrre you doing herrre?"
     "Watching over you two," Bedtime smiled.
Proudheart smiled a bit, but right away frowned a little.
     "Wow, thanks, but... what about yourr missions?"
Bedtime again explained the schedule he had worked out with Nocturnalheart Bear, drawing another smile from Proudheart.
     "That's so sweet of you two. Thanks so much. If I'm rreally honest, those nightly watches do get to me a bit."
     "As I already said to Nobleheart, nightly watches should be left to the bears suited for them, namely Nocturnalheart and myself," Bedtime smiled. He rose up a bit and put a paw on Proudheart's shoulder. "Now, get back to sleep, Proudheart. You need your sleep. Don't worry about anything, I'm here and I won't be going anywhere till morning, promise."

Proudheart smiled a bit again and sank back down on the bed. As she had a little trouble getting back to sleep, Bedtime read her the story he had been writing down in his notebook, and that not only helped Proudheart falling asleep, it even made her sink away into slumber with a deep smile on her face. With both felines sleeping again, Bedtime eased back on his chair and added another new bedtime story to his notebook. Through the rest of the night everything remained calm, and Bedtime left the medical room the next morning after a sincere thank-you from Take Care Bear. With the sleep having done the orange kitty a world of good, Proudheart was more easily persuaded this time to tend to herself a bit and get herself a good breakfast and a bit of grooming, and again Grams Bear stopped by with an easy to swallow breakfast for Frolicheart. With the help of the painkillers Take Care had given him, the beige-orange puma already managed better to eat, and he finished every last bite from the bowl of porridge Grams had brought him this time. For lunch and dinner, the caring grey bear brought Frolicheart some very good soup, and the puma's spirit was pleasantly lifted by Loyalheart, Brightheart and Swiftheart stopping by for a visit during the day, and a little into the evening even Feralheart Vixen came to visit him, although the vulpine Care Bear Cousin was looking around her a bit uneasily. However, the special nature-bonded vixen had also brought Frolicheart a little something, a drink that smelled strongly of herbs, and although it tasted a bit strange, Frolicheart found it almost immediately seemed to help ease the pain he was still feeling at nearly every move he made.

When the sun had set, Nocturnalheart Bear came over to sit watch in the medical room. The deep dark scarlet, almost black bear with the bat-winged heart-symbol on his tummy took the same seat Bedtime had taken the previous night, and he sat through a calm, quiet night with both Frolicheart and Proudheart sleeping soundly and trouble-free. He even managed to get in a couple of his special naps. Unlike Bedtime Bear, Nocturnalheart did not have such a high need for much sleep that it made him sleep almost every hour of the daytime like Bedtime did after having been up all through the night. Instead, the nightly Care Bear could satisfy the need he had for sleep with short naps, and over time he had mastered the art of acquiring a special internal alarm which empowered him to take naps of exactly the length he specified for himself in his head. If he decided to take a nap of five minutes, he would therefore not sleep a second more than five minutes. The other thing Nocturnalheart did not have in common with his best friend Bedtime was that he could also develop a terrible morning crossness, which made him act grumpier than Grumpy Bear, but luckily that never lasted long, and all the other members of the Care Bear Family had learned to stay out of the almost black red-furred bear's way early in the morning. Due to that slightly less pleasant asset of his character, however, Nocturnalheart just grumbled something in answer to Take Care's thank-you the next morning and slammed the door behind him when he left the medical room.

Days came and went as usual, and each day had Frolicheart feeling slightly better than the previous. Much thanks to Take Care's care and Grams' soup, which the grey bear had enriched with a herbal potion she had been offered by Feralheart Vixen. Proudheart, still insisting on spending all of her time with her lover, did however slowly regain the pace of her life a bit as well, which was most obvious in the time she took in the morning to groom herself. Both feline Care Bear Cousins and Take Care had had a good laugh (although it had hurt Frolicheart's ribs) when, to help ease his boredom, Tugs had brought the beige-orange puma a few toy cars to play with, all models of sixties muscle-cars. Frolicheart learned a lot from his lying in the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts, because every now and then one of the other bears or cousins came by with a medical problem Take Care had to solve. This gave the beige-orange puma an insight in his family's health-issues he had not thought he would ever know about. However, on the fifth day, something happened that left him positively stunned. Just as Take Care was checking a chart, a knock on the door leading into the Hall of Hearts sounded.
     "Enter," Take Care said without looking up from the chart.

The door opened, and Cheer Bear stepped through it, cautiously closing the door behind her. She walked into the room, and although she greeted Frolicheart and Proudheart cheerfully, both felines noticed that there was something about the pink bear. There was a look on Cheer's face both feline Care Bear Cousins had never seen there before. Take Care also looked up when Cheer came closer, and, recognizing the look on Cheer's face, the medical Care Bear let out a sigh.
     "My stars Cheer, again?"

Cheer nodded silently, with a strange expression of both guilt and mischievous satisfaction. She reached into her pink fur and brought up a small phial, which she handed to Take Care Bear. The red-orange medical Care Bear looked at the phial, or more at a small sort of dipstick that was in it, and sighed again.
     "Yep, no doubt about it, you hit the jackpot again." Take Care let out a huff. "Well, you know the routine by now, so come over here."
Cheer nodded again, stepping past the beds.
     "How are you feeling now, Frolicheart?" she asked as she passed the bed the puma was in.
     "I'm feeling much better already," Frolicheart said. "But... what's wrong with you?"
     "Oh, nothing, nothing, don't worry," Cheer said airily.

Without any further explanation, the pink bear walked on, heading for a very strange bed in a corner of the room. The bed in itself looked like just a hospital bed, apart from the fact that it had handles at the head-board, and very strange stirrups at the foot-end. Take Care Bear was already waiting at that bed, and she motioned at it silently. Cheer climbed into the bed and lay down on her back, placing her feet in the stirrups. It forced her into a position with her butt slightly lifted and her legs into the air, widely spread. Take Care planted her foot on a pedal a couple of times, pumping up the hydraulic jack under the bed so the bed went up a bit, and she took position between Cheer's widely spread legs. She pulled near a strange-looking machine on wheels, switched it on, took a strange thing hanging from the machine by a twirled cable and placed that thing on the pink bear's rainbow-decorated tummy while directing her look at a screen in the machine. Craning their necks, Frolicheart and Proudheart also tried to see what was showing on the screen. It looked like a sort of moving X-ray photo, and Take Care studied it intensely, moving the thing on the cable over Cheer's tummy. She stopped dead however when the screen showed a small light speck in the dark blot that was showing, and with another sigh Take Care nodded and took a small step back, still looking at the screen.
     "Hm, looks like it's ten days underway, two weeks at the most." She directed her look at Cheer's face. "Can that be correct, Cheer?"
     "Right as every time, Take Care," Cheer said, with a soft giggle since the thing on her tummy was tickling her a bit. "And you know that as soon as I feel it, I come to you for the test."

Take Care nodded again, a bit grimly. She took the thing away from Cheer's tummy, and took another step back. With mouths hanging open and eyes wide in surprise, Proudheart and Frolicheart saw how the red-orange medical bear launched a Care Bear Stare from her tummy symbol, sending it straight into Cheer's vagina. The pink bear twitched and giggled softly, but made sure to stop that when Take Care stepped up close to her to place the strange thing on the twirled cable back on the pink bear's tummy again. The screen now only showed the dark blot, the very light speck that had been there earlier now was gone. Take Care nodded again, took the thing away from Cheer's tummy and switched off the machine, and she waved a "get up" gesture with her right paw. When Cheer was standing next to the bed, Take Care looked at her seriously.
     "That's been the seventh time now, Cheer. Why, just why are you so darn stubborn to ignore my advice about protection?"
     "Oh come on Take Care, it doesn't feel a fraction as good when a guy is wearing..." Cheer started with a giggle.
     "I meant the female versions of protection, miss nympho!" Take Care burst out. She right away threw a quick glance at the two staring felines a little furtheron in the room however and lowered her voice. "Honestly Cheer, I'm worrying about this. Why don't you just let me perform a sterilization on you, or at least place a diaphragm or an IUD in you?"
Cheer giggled a bit again.
     "Well, quite frankly, it feels really nice when you..."
     "Alright, out out OUT!" Take Care said, raising her voice impatiently, pointing her arm at the door to the Hall of Hearts.

With another giggle Cheer walked back to the door, in passing merrily waving at Frolicheart and Proudheart, who looked after her with their mouths still hanging open and their eyes still wide. Just before the pink bear reached the door, Take Care suddenly looked up and called after her.
     "Wo, wo, hold on Cheer, one more thing!" Cheer looked around, and Take Care pointed a finger at her, her voice still impatient. "This has been the last time, Cheer! Got it? This is the last time I've helped you with this!"
For the first time a look of shock came to Cheer's face, and she turned around completely.
     "What? But, Take Care... You're the only one who can help me, what if I..."
     "I don't care!" Take Care huffed. "You just be more careful then next time! But I won't help you anymore, you hear me? Stars, I'm in Care a Lot to look after the health of all of you, and to heal all of you when needed, and this is very bad for your health too, Cheer! So just remember it, I'm not helping you anymore. If you get yourself into this situation again, tough luck for you, but then you'll be stuck with it!"
     "But... Take Care..." Cheer said.
     "No, I don't want to hear another word about it!" Take Care said impatiently. "You now know the deal, Cheer Bear! This has been the last time I have helped you with this! Good bye!"

Cheer looked at the red-orange medical Care Bear a little wide-eyed and wanted to say something, but Take Care simply turned her back to her. Drawing a sigh, Cheer stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her. When the door had closed behind the pink bear, the two felines directed their stunned looks back at Take Care Bear, who was still standing at the strange bed with the stirrups, shaking her head with the fingers of her right paw in her eyes, sighing.
     "Uh... Take Care?" Frolicheart said softly. He just -had- to ask. "You're... you're not going to tell us you just... you just did an... an abortion on Cheer, are you?"
Take Care lowered her right paw and raised her head, and she looked at the two stunned felines with a grim expression.
     "No, I'm not going to tell you that indeed," she grunted. "Professional secret, you know?"

Without another word, she grabbed the chart she had been studying and disappeared in the small office, slamming the door behind her a tad loudly. Frolicheart and Proudheart looked at the door for a moment in silence, and then at each other with their wide eyes. However, from one moment to the other, they both started suddenly snorting, eventually ending up in a fit of laughter.
     "Who would have everrr thought that!" Proudheart giggled.
     "With Cheer's rep?" Frolicheart hiccuped. "If someone had told me I wouldn't even have been that surprised, but to have seen now that it actually is true, I..."

He started laughing again, but he couldn't keep it up for very long, since it seriously hurt his damaged ribs. The laughing had proved to be a perfect medicin though, because for the rest of the day the beige-orange puma felt really great. He and Proudheart did comply with Take Care's request however to not speak to any of the others about what they had unintentionally witnessed.

More days passed, and by now each and every member of the Care Bear Family had visited Frolicheart at least once, and a few of them had already done so more than once. Of course, Trueheart and Nobleheart stopped by every day, as did Grams since she had taken it upon herself to feed the beige-orange feline Care Bear Cousin with easy to swallow food. She had however brought pancakes for him one day too, and although it still hurt him when swallowing, Frolicheart had eaten them with relish. Knowing how the red-orange medical Care Bear acted with only his best interest at heart, the beige-orange puma still did as she told him to, but by now there was a twinge of boredom starting to gnaw at him by having nothing else to do but lying in bed all day. So, after her morning check-up on the puma on the ninth day, Frolicheart decided to ask Take Care for her permission to do something else for a change, since she had said he would be in the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts for about two weeks more before she would let him go home.
     "Hey, Take Care?"
     "Mm-hm?" the red-orange bear said, checking a chart.
     "All this lying here in this bed is boring me silly," Frolicheart smiled. "Can't I go out for a bit? Stretch my legs? Get a little change of scenery?"
Take Care looked around.
     "What? Well, quite frankly I don't really recommend that yet, Frolicheart."
     "Aw, c'mon," the beige-orange puma said. "I won't strain myself, I'll just take a walk around the Hall of Hearts or something with Proudheart, okay? And besides," he added shrewdly, "surely you agree it's good for me to stretch my legs, use my muscles and get a breath of fresh air by now, don't you?"
Take Care Bear raised an eyebrow for a moment, but then a smile crept onto here face.
     "Very shrewd, feline," she grinned. "But alright, I have to admit you are right. Okay, so I'll let you take a little walk." She pointed a finger at Frolicheart's heart-shaped orange nose. "But don't you go do any silly things now, understood? If I find out you've been doing something you're not quite up to yet, I swear I'll chain you to the bed for the rest of these two weeks."
     "I promise, Take Care," Frolicheart grinned, working himself up into a sitting position.

With a soft giggle, Proudheart helped him get up and step out of the bed. She supported him for a moment since the sitting up after more than a week of having lain down on his back gave the beige-orange puma a slight head rush, but the next moment his small spell of dizziness had passed, and he rose up from the bed. Take Care put a sling around his neck he could rest his broken left arm in, and she checked him over again before allowing him to walk out of the medical wing, once more warning him to take it slow and don't do anything silly. Frolicheart just answered with a grin, put his right arm through Proudheart's left arm (out of affection, of course, but this time also a little for support), and together with the orange kitty he walked out of the room and into the Hall of Hearts. It was deserted now, what with everyone being on a caring mission, so the two felines just walked through it and stepped out onto the soft fluffy clouds of Care a Lot.

For a moment Frolicheart squeezed his eyes and blinked against the sun, but then he took as deep a breath as he could take and smiled. The air was smelling nicer and fresher than it had ever seemed to smell, and the sun seemed to smile so much more cheerful today, while the song of the birds sounded extraordinarily happy. It had Frolicheart walking around with a deep smile on his face the whole time, while pressing himself a bit up against Proudheart, who also was looking extremely happy, continually purring under her breath. After a slow start around the Hall of Hearts, Frolicheart got a bit more steady on his feet, his muscles in his back and legs getting used again to being put to work, and the two felines lightened their pace a little. They looked at the Caring Meter for a moment, seeing the heart-shaped needle being quite indecisive of where to point to, going to twelve o'clock each time one of the bears or cousins had completed a caring mission on Earth, only to right away droop again when a new need for a caring mission presented itself. It seemed like a very busy day, which also was a rather clear by Care a Lot being deserted.

However, at the staroscope, both feline Care Bear Cousins noticed Wish Bear intently scanning Earth, and the turquoise bear was slowly shaking her head a bit. Frolicheart looked aside at Proudheart for a moment, and both cats smiled at each other, while Proudheart softly nodded. Still arm in arm, they walked up to the staroscope.
     "Hello Wish, something not right?" Frolicheart asked with a smile.
The turquoise bear almost bumped herself a black eye on the staroscope with her sudden move at that, but when she looked up she smiled very deeply.
     "Oh! My stars, Frolicheart! How good to see you up and walking again! How are you feeling?"
     "A bit woozy still, but remarkably well actually," the beige-orange puma smiled. He nodded at the staroscope. "So what were you shaking your head over?"
Wish sighed around a smile.
     "Well... It's a good thing you're already feeling better, Frolicheart, because we really need you. There's a bit of trouble down there, and it's really a job that should be handled by you, but with you out of the running still, Tenderheart had to go at it himself, and he's not having very much success, I'm afraid."
     "Let me have a look?" Frolicheart said.
He stepped up to the staroscope and looked through it, seeing a house down on Earth where Tenderheart Bear was desperately trying to get a girl to talk to him, without any success.
     "What's the exact story, Wish?" the puma asked, not taking his right eye away from the staroscope.
     "That girl's name is Penny, and she's very very unhappy because of some problem I don't know the exact cause of," Wish said. "And she's afraid to talk about it, to anyone. Even to Tenderheart, as you can see," she added with a soft sigh.
     "I see that, yeh," Frolicheart nodded, still looking through the staroscope. "Hmmm." He rose up again. "It'll do me good to pick up the pace of my life again. I'll go down and give Tenderheart a paw."
     "Are you sure you can handle that, Frolicheart?" Wish said.
     "I'm sure, yeh," Frolicheart smiled. "Proudheart can drive me, all I have to do is talk to the girl. That won't strain me too much. And as I said, it'll do me good to start fulfilling my duty in the Family again."
     "If you say so..." Wish shrugged. "But what does Take Care think about that?"
Frolicheart chose to not having heard that question, and he just turned to Proudheart.
     "Surely you'll give me a lift down to Earth, pussycat, won't you?" he smiled. "Sadly, with this arm like this, driving is something I still won't be doing for a while yet."
     "Of courrrrrse I will," Proudheart purred.

She conjured up a Cloudsmobile, and both felines got in it. Proudheart drove them down the rainbow path and out of the Kingdom of Caring. As she calmly steered the car through the sky, Frolicheart rested his right arm on the edge of the passenger door and leaned back with his eyes closed, enjoying the breeze ruffling his fur and whiskers. Too soon for the beige-orange puma, who was really enjoying the ride after so much time, they had arrived at the house where Tenderheart was still desperately trying to get the girl to talk to him. Proudheart parked the Cloudsmobile and jumped out, and Frolicheart also airily hopped over the passenger door, although he did double up slightly and outed a soft "oow" under his breath when he landed on the ground, the impact of his feet on the ground all too clearly tangible in his damaged ribs. Proudheart immediately was on the other side of the Cloudsmobile and put her paws on Frolicheart's shoulders worriedly.
     "Heavens, arrre you alrright?"
     "Fine, fine, don't worry," the beige-orange puma said, slightly gasping. "A little unexpected sting in my chest from the landing, should have known. It's nothing bad."
Tenderheart, who had looked up with surprise at the Cloudsmobile landing, looked even more surprised when he saw who came out of it.
     "Fjolicheart?" the brown bear said. "What are you doing here?"
     "Coming to give you a little help," Frolicheart said with a smile, drawing a last few deep breaths to drive away the last painful tingles in his chest.
     "Is Take Care okay with that?" Tenderheart asked. Seeing the look that came to Frolicheart's eyes, he tilted his head a little with the slightest of frowns. "Fjolicheart, does Take Care even know you're out here?"
The beige-orange puma was saved by the girl speaking up.
     "Uh... hello? Are you Care Bears too?"
Ignoring Tenderheart's slightly stern expression, Frolicheart stepped over to the girl with a smile.
     "We're Care Bear Cousins, Penny. I'm Frolicheart Puma, and this is my girl, Proudheart Cat. As I said to Tenderheart just now, we've come to help you."

The little girl looked rather wide-eyed at the puma. Not because she was seeing a small beige-orange puma with a sweet symbol on his tummy who talked to her, but more because the beige-orange puma with the sweet symbol on his tummy who was talking to her had a sling around his neck in which was resting his heavily bandaged left arm, because the sweet symbol on his tummy was half obscured by a cast that was around his chest, and because there were several stitched cuts in his face, with a particularly nasty one just over his left eye.
     "Gee, what... what happened to you?" she asked softly.
Frolicheart smiled again.
     "I had an accident while I was building a new house for my girl Proudheart, Penny. But we didn't come down here to talk about my problems, we came here to talk about your problems." He took the girl by a hand with his right paw. "Come on, walk with me a bit, okay?"

Holding the girl by her hand, he led her to the side of the house, where a big canopied swing chair was standing in the garden. Tenderheart wanted to follow them, but Proudheart stopped him. For a moment the brown bear frowned again. However, he did realize that he himself was getting nowhere with the problems the girl was having, and he did admit to himself it really was the kind of job Frolicheart was perfectly suitable for to take on. So he walked to the Cloudsmobile with Proudheart, leaned against it and just looked at Frolicheart and the girl sitting on the canopied swing chair. It sure seemed to be going better than his own tries, at least the girl was talking to Frolicheart, although neither Tenderheart nor Proudheart could hear what they were saying. After about a minute or ten, give or take, both Proudheart and Tenderheart smiled when they saw how the girl very carefully hugged Frolicheart and pressed a soft kiss upside his head, between his ears. Right after, they got up from the swing chair and stepped over to the Cloudsmobile.
     "Thank you again, Frolicheart," the girl said with a smile. "And be careful, okay?"
     "I will, Penny," Frolicheart smiled. "If you promise me you won't let your problems get to you like this anymore. That's really not healthy. Okay?"
     "I promise, Frolicheart," the girl Penny smiled, giving the beige-orange puma another careful hug.
     "I trust your promise," Frolicheart said smiling. "Well, I better get myself back home, before Take Care Bear finds me missing. She'll probably kill me when I get back if she founds out what I've done."
     "I'll keep my fingers crossed for you that she didn't find out," the girl Penny giggled.
     "Thanks," Frolicheart grinned merrily.

He got into the Cloudsmobile, and so did Proudheart and Tenderheart. As Proudheart drove off into the sky, the girl Penny waved after them smiling. On their way back to the Kingdom of Caring, Tenderheart bent over to the front seats a bit from the back seat he was sitting on.
     "That seemed to have gone well, Fjolicheart," he said. "I've tjied to get Penny to talk to me about her pjoblems for almost half an hour, but she wouldn't tell -me- what was bothering her."
     "No offense, Tenderheart, but with children as introvert as that, you have to know the ways," Frolicheart said with a smile. "And seeing as how I recognize the signals so clearly because I have been exactly the same myself, I'm just a little better than the rest of you in knowing those ways."
     "Well, cjedit to you," Tenderheart smiled. "It's really good to have you in the Family, and it's really good too having you up and ajound again."
     "Well, help me hoping Take Care doesn't find out about this, because she threatened to chain me to the bed if I did anything silly," Frolicheart said with a grin. "It already took me some shrewdness to get her to even allow me to walk around in the first place."
     "I'll fend herr off if she trrries to chain you down, Frrolichearrrt," Proudheart smiled.
     "And I'll put in a good wojd for you," Tenderheart promised with a grin.

Well, it would be needed, because after having gotten into Care a Lot and having driven some way down the rainbow path towards the Hall of Hearts, Proudheart suddenly looked up and merrily said "uh oh...", which made Frolicheart and Tenderheart also look up. And sure enough, just outside the Hall of Hearts, Take Care Bear was standing, looking out over the rainbow path with her paws in her sides, and an obviously displeased expression on her face. When Proudheart had stopped the Cloudsmobile at the Hall of Hearts, the glimmer in Take Care's eyes already made Frolicheart duck a bit in the passenger's seat, his ears pointing sideways guiltily.
     "Has your hearing been affected by that knock you received on the head, Frolicheart?" Take Care hissed. "Did the hit give you amnesia maybe? Or was I just not clear enough when I said I didn't want you doing anything you aren't up to yet?"
     "I'm sorry, Take Care," Frolicheart said. "It was just that when Wish told us..."
     "Shut your mouth, feline!" the red-orange medical Care Bear grunted. She pointed a finger at the door of the Hall of Hearts. "Just get your tail back in there and into that bed right this instant!"
     "Come on now, Take Care," Tenderheart said soothingly. "Fjolicheart helped me very well with a pjoblem I wasn't getting..."

He stopped talking when the red-orange bear set her shimmering eyes upon him. The look in Take Care's eyes told the brown bear "stay out of this, you!" even clearer than her mouth did. With Tenderheart effectively silenced, Take Care directed her glittering look back at Frolicheart, and once more pointed her finger at the door of the Hall of Hearts, silently this time, her agitated expression doing some clear enough talking. The beige-orange puma guiltily got out of the Cloudsmobile and shuffled into the Hall of Hearts. Leaving Tenderheart to drive off in the Cloudsmobile, Proudheart followed Frolicheart inside, with Take Care at her heels. The beige-orange puma got back into the bed he had not left for over a week, and Proudheart put the covers over him before sitting down in the chair next to the bed. For the entire rest of the day, Take Care did not out a single word to Frolicheart, but when Proudheart had left the medical room for a little while to get a bite to eat, the red-orange bear sat down in the bedside chair and looked at Frolicheart seriously.
     "Frolicheart, listen," she started, in a soft voice. "I'm really not doing this to tease you, you know. You have been badly injured, you have been extremely lucky you weren't even more severely injured than you are, and you really need to take it very slow and carefully for the coming time."
     "I know, Take Care," Frolicheart said guiltily. "But it's just, when I saw how much trouble Tenderheart was having with that introvert girl..."
     "I know, I know," Take Care said, putting a paw on the puma's shoulder. "And I do think it was really sweet of you to go out and help him, but honestly, you're just not up for that yet! Your body needs a whole darn lot of rest to heal itself, and if you now already start straining yourself, it won't be able to. Listen, even when I've let you go home, even when your arm and ribs have healed, I still don't want you to drive yourself when going out on a caring mission for at least a month. After the hits they've taken, your ribs and your arm need plenty of time to get gradually reacquainted with being put to work. Any sudden high pressure on them, and it'll be bam! Injury again. So you really gotta learn to take it slower and more careful from now on, Frolicheart. And... I hate to say this, I know how you love it, but... I would really rather see you'd stop racing with those cars, you know." Frolicheart wanted to sit up with a jolt and say something, but Take Care still had her paw on his shoulder and kept him down. "No no, hear me out, please. Listen Frolicheart, those ribs you've broken will always stay very sensitive, even after they're fully healed. Any sudden aggravation or intense labour, like with jogging or something, can cause them to snap just like that again. And..." Take Care shook her head a bit. "I've seen you racing, Frolicheart. I've seen how you throw those cars around, and I know what kind of impacts your body suffers from that. And with the way your ribs will be in, even after they're fully healed... Pulling away full speed from the starting line in a drag-race and the car landing on its front wheels will already have you back in here with your ribs in half, Frolicheart. Even that kind of impact already will be enough for your ribs to break again, that's how sensitive and weakened they will remain after what you've now been through. So... from a professional medical point of view, I really couldn't let you do that kind of thing anymore."
Frolicheart sank down on his back with his right paw over his face.
     "Well... You might as well kill me now for disobeying you then, because that would be like taking away the joy of my life," he whimpered softly.
     "I'm sorry Frolicheart, but I'm only thinking of what's best for you, for your health," Take Care said.
     "My physical health maybe, but you sure don't seem to consider my mental health," Frolicheart grumbled from under his right paw.
     "Oh, that's not..." Take Care started. She sighed softly and rubbed Frolicheart's right shoulder. "Well, let's talk it over some other time, when you're feeling better. Right now, you'll have enough work as it is to get better. And..." She gently pulled Frolicheart's right paw away from his face and smiled at him. "I really don't mind if you go on little walks with Proudheart, and I don't even mind if you let her drive you around Care a Lot for a bit, but don't do anything like you did this morning anymore, okay? Not for another two to three weeks at least. Please promise me that?"
     "Oh, alright, I promise," Frolicheart said. "I know you only act in my best interest, Take Care, but please remember that I'm a puma, an active feline, and all this lying still with nothing to do is driving me up the wall."
     "I know that, Frolicheart," Take Care smiled. "And as I said, you can go have a little fun with Proudheart every now and then, just don't overdo it yet."
     "Does 'not overdoing it' also mean I won't get to have sex with her for another couple of weeks?" Frolicheart said with a slight grumble.
Surprisingly, instead of becoming agitated, Take Care let out a soft giggle.
     "Just as long as you let her do the work and you don't take too deep breaths, I'm fine with it. For your information, my dear feline, sexual relief is highly appraised medically." She rose up from the chair, but suddenly sent Frolicheart a serious look. "Just also be careful in that other respect when you would do it, okay? I don't want Proudheart coming to me too for..."
Quite unexpectedly, Frolicheart suddenly sat up straight and grabbed Take Care by an arm with his right paw, and there was a slight glimmer of agitation in his eyes.
     "Take Care, listen to me and listen good," he said, with the merest trace of a growl in his voice. "Proudheart and I discussed that matter a long time ago already, and if she would get pregnant, we'd have the kitten and be proud and happy beyond belief, understood?"
Take Care Bear freed herself from Frolicheart's grasp and gently ruffled the tuft of fur between his ears with a smile.
     "I'm only happy to hear that." She calmly pushed the beige-orange puma back onto his back in the bed. "Now, try and take a nap, in about half an hour Grams'll be here with dinner for you."

Frolicheart nodded and let himself be tucked in by Take Care, and the red-orange Care Bear even surprised him a little by pressing a soft kiss on his cheek before walking to her little office. He smiled when he closed his eyes though, and he had fallen asleep even before Proudheart returned in the medical room. When she found her lover asleep, she smiled herself and just sat down in the chair at Frolicheart's bedside, leafing a bit through one of his Chevy High Performance magazines. All those souped-up cars still couldn't really capture her interest, but she did admit that great jobs were done on paint coats and such. She could appreciate the level of perfection the builder of a hot rod availed himself of in that. After some time the orange kitty put the magazine aside and gently woke up Frolicheart when Grams stepped into the medical room with her wicker basket. She put the fold-out tray on Frolicheart's bed and put a plate covered with a lid on it. When she took away the lid Frolicheart sniffed appreciatively.
     "Hmmm, that smells great, Grams," he smiled.
     "Thank you," Grams said with a giggle. She reached into the basket again and brought up a small bowl closed with a lid. "Hmm, I don't know if I'll let you have this, Frolicheart. I've heard you've been a bad boy today, and bad boys won't get dessert in my book."
Proudheart giggled, and Frolicheart grinned a bit.
     "Aww Grams, pleeeeeze?" he begged grinning.
Grams giggled again.
     "Well, first finish your dinner, we'll see after that."

There was a bit more giggling and grinning, and Frolicheart ate the dinner Grams had brought for him with relish again. By now, the caring grey bear had started bringing him things more filling than soup, and Frolicheart found he already had much less troubles with chewing and swallowing his food. It still hurt his ribs, true, but not to such an extend anymore he wanted to double up in pain every time he swallowed. In the evening of course Trueheart and Nobleheart stopped by for a visit again, and slightly to both felines' surprise the purple horse also scolded Frolicheart for having gone down to Earth to help Tenderheart on his caring mission, although his scolding more sounded like a plea to not do it anymore until Take Care said he could, because Nobleheart wanted nothing more than for Frolicheart to first get fully back to health again. Frolicheart promised he would really listen to and obey Take Care Bear from now on, although he did keep the fingers of his left paw crossed under the bedsheet.

More days passed calmly, in which Frolicheart grew stronger by the day. Take Care let him get up and about every day as much as he wanted to, with the only warning not to go on a caring mission anymore, not even to help one of the other bears or cousins, until she had given her fiat. The beige-orange paw promised, cross his heart, that he wouldn't, and he really didn't do it anymore, although Proudheart did have to remind him of his promise every now and then. When Frolicheart's second week in the Hall of Hearts' medical wing had half passed, the red-orange medical Care Bear replaced the cast around his chest for a sort of corset with bandages, which gave Frolicheart a little more freedom to move, and it helped his breathing go easier too. His strength also grew by the day, which was still mostly to be contributed to the powerful herbal potions Grams got from Feralheart Vixen and which she mixed through the food she made for Frolicheart.

At day twelve of Frolicheart's stay in the Hall of Hearts' medical wing, Take Care Bear suddenly got a startle when she went to the restrooms to freshen herself up a bit and heard moaning coming from behind the door. Rushing in right away, the red-orange medical Care Bear badly surprised Proudheart, and she was rather surprised herself too when she found the cause of the moaning. The orange feline Care Bear Cousin appeared to be pawing herself in the restrooms. When the first shock had subsided and Take Care had overcome her surprise, she smiled a bit.
     "What are you doing that for, Proudheart?"
     "Uh... Well..." the kitty said, a bit embarrassed. "I... I needed it, and I figurrred you would think, with the state Frrolichearrrt is..."
Take Care put a paw on Proudheart's shoulder, reassuringly.
     "He mentioned something like that a few days ago, Proudheart. But I gave him my permission to go for a bit of sexual relief, as that's very important for your health. I only advised him to not take too deep breaths in view of the damage to his ribs, and have you doing the work. Other than those things to keep in mind, I have no objection to you and him doing it." She winked a bit. "Just keep it calm and be careful, okay?"
Proudheart breathed a sigh of relief, and she even smiled a bit.
     "Thank you, Take Carrre. I rreally do miss my sweet tomcat's loving and carrresses, but I just thought..."
     "As I said, as long as the both of you are a bit careful, I have no objection to you two going for a bit of sexual relief," Take Care smiled. "I know how important that is."
Proudheart nodded happily.
     "Thanks again."

She quickly left the restrooms, leaving Take Care Bear behind with a smile. The red-orange medical Care Bear freshened herself up, and then decided not to return to the medical wing of the Hall of Hearts for at least the next hour. Besides, as she noticed with a giggle, Proudheart had very shrewdly locked the door leading from the Hall of Hearts into the medical wing. She also switched off the lights, although that didn't make all that much of a difference since warm sunlight still poured in through the windows. However, Proudheart more or less took care of that by drawing the curtains at all the windows, and when all curtains were closed the medical room had gotten a semi-dimmed, intimate atmosphere. After having done all that, Proudheart turned around and stepped over to Frolicheart, who was lying in the bed looking rather surprised at all of Proudheart's actions with the door and the curtains, and the excited blush on her face.
     "Hey, Proudheart? What, uh... what did you do that for?" he asked.
     "Forrrrr a bit of prrrrrivacy, loverrrrrboy," the orange kittie purred smiling, gently running a paw along the side of Frolicheart's face and over his whiskers.
     "Privacy. For... what?" Frolicheart said, a slow grin breaking through on his face when he thought he recognized the blush on Proudheart's face and the twinkle that had come to her pretty amber eyes.
Proudheart sank down on the side of Frolicheart's bed and ran her paw along his face again, softly purring.
     "Take Carrre caught me in the rrrestrrrooms just now, Frrrolichearrrt, when I was... well, touching myself," she smiled.
     "Aww, I knew it, you're suffering from the continence my current state of health forces us into as well," Frolicheart said. "I'm very sorry about that, pussycat, but Take Care did tell me..."
Proudheart bent over a bit and softly placed a finger on Frolicheart's lips, silencing him with a smile.
     "She told me that therrre was no medical objection to us two having a little sexual rrrelief, sweethearrrt," she whispered smiling. "As long as we kept two things in mind, and that was that I should do the worrrk, and you should be carrreful with how deep brrreaths you take."
Frolicheart nodded with a smile, bringing up his right arm and softly taking Proudheart by the wrist of her right arm, taking her finger off his lips.
     "That's what she told me too, pussycat," he smiled, kissing Proudheart's finger.
     "Rrright," Proudheart whispered with a smile, bending over a little more and bringing her face close to Frolicheart's. "And I know it must be just as harrrd forrr you as it has been forrr me, so that's why I prrrovided us with a little prrrivacy. That way nobody will disturrrb us when we..." Proudheart suddenly giggled softly. "Well, when we go get ourrr medically apprrroved porrrtion of sexual rrrelief."

Frolicheart let out a soft grin and let go of Proudheart's right wrist, raising his arm a little more to run his fingers over her soft chest. Due to what she had already been doing in the Hall of Hearts' restrooms, Proudheart's soft fluffy breasts were still swollen with excitement, and the beige-orange puma very softly ran his fingers over the perky pink nipples that peeked out from the white fur. Proudheart shivered softly and drew a deep, purring, trembling breath, closing her eyes for a second to let the whole wave of pleasant warm tingles roll through her at the tender touch from her lover she'd had to miss for such a time now. Then she opened her eyes again and looked down on Frolicheart with a smile, taking his right paw in both her own and gently steering it away from her body.
     "Sweethearrrt, you prrromised both Take Carrre and Noblehearrrt that you would do as Take Carrre said, and she said that I should be the one doing the worrrk," she whispered with a soft giggle. "So stop taking initiatives, alrrright? Just lie back and rrrelax, and enjoy what I had in mind forrr you."

With another grin, Frolicheart let himself sink down on his back in the bed, letting everything that Proudheart was planning to do come over him. The orange kitty rose up from the bed and slowly pulled the sheets away from Frolicheart's body. Then she sank back down on the edge of the bed and swung her legs upwards so she came to sit on her knees. Bending over, she brought her face close to Frolicheart's again and pressed her lips on his, searching for his tongue with hers and purring when her tongue found it. Leaning heavily on one paw, the orange kitty brought her other paw forward to let it softly slide over Frolicheart's ears, and down the side of his face to his bandaged chest, around his bandaged left arm resting on his chest in the sling, and further down over his tummy. A soft purr also started rolling from Frolicheart's throat at the tender tummy rub, and he shocked softly when Proudheart's soft fluffy fingers slid even further down, curling themselves around his stiffening member.

Not breaking her kiss, Proudheart let her fingers gently trail along the length of Frolicheart's hardening member, softly running along the outlines of his balls each time she reached them before going upwards again. The beige-orange puma had trouble maintaining the kiss as his tender orange feline lover caressed his tool to full capacity, and his breath deepened yet stayed within the range of not being painful to his damaged ribs. He shivered when Proudheart's caresses became slightly more intense, and soft moans intermingled with the purrs still rolling from his mouth and dying in their passionate kiss. When Proudheart felt her fingers had reached their goal of getting her loverboy fully ready for the game, she finally broke the kiss and turned around slowly, nuzzling her way across Frolicheart's bandaged chest and his soft tummy to his loins. Frolicheart shivered again at the soft but pleasant tickling of Proudheart's whiskers over his body, and he closed his eyes with a moan when the orange kitty very softly started running her tongue along the length of his hard orange dick. Her whiskers kept tickling Frolicheart dick and balls, as did her breath, bringing the beige-orange puma a load of wonderful sensations.

He slightly raised his trembling right arm again, letting Proudheart's long, sleek tail slide through his fingers, moaning at every tickle of her whiskers, every soft stroke of her warm, moisty tongue over his dick. His own tail twitched idly, the tip every now and then slapping the bed. Still Proudheart kept working her gentle, tender ways with her soft tongue, very gently and gradually building up the sexual tension in Frolicheart's body so it wouldn't strain and hurt him. The fingers of her right paw softly caressed his tail and his balls, and she slowly let her weight rest on her right flank so she could bring her left paw to Frolicheart's tummy to rub it again. The extra wonderful caress was the little extra it took for Frolicheart to explode, and with a deep groan he climaxed. Proudheart, feeling the sudden contraction of his body, quickly closed her lips over the head of Frolicheart's pulsating orange dick, catching his entire warm load and swallowing it happily. All the while she did not stop caressing his balls and tail with her right fingers and his tummy with her left paw, slowly rubbing the tension back out of the beige-orange puma's shuddering body. When Frolicheart had relaxed, Proudheart turned around again and laid herself down next to him on her left flank, softly running her fingers through his whiskers with a purr. With eyes still tightly closed, Frolicheart was taking quick, superficial breaths, and he slowly wrapped his right arm, upon which Proudheart was lying, around the kitty's shoulders. Smiling and still purring, Proudheart gently wiped the sweat off his forehead, meanwhile pressing soft kisses on his cheeks, muzzle and closed eyes.

After some time Frolicheart managed to get his breathing a bit more under control, and he opened his eyes. Pulling Proudheart a bit closer against his body, he rolled his head to kiss her soft, velvety lips. Proudheart folded her arms around his shoulders and answered his kiss with a purr, her whiskers catching the message of love and gratitude Frolicheart's whiskers sent her. For a while they just kissed, the only sound breaking the silence being their mixed purrs. Then Frolicheart eventually broke the kiss and opened his eyes, looking at Proudheart with a twinkle of love in his light greenish yellow eyes.
     "I want you, pussycat," he whispered smiling. "I've missed you so bad."
     "So have I," Proudheart answered purring, nuzzling Frolicheart. "It was harrrd missing yourrr loving, almost as harrrd as having to see you lying herrre in this bed, injurrred and unable to do anything." She lovingly nipped Frolicheart's neck and slowly rose up. "I so want you too, sweethearrrt. You just keep lying back and rrrelax."

Rising up even further, Proudheart slowly crawled to the foot-end of the bed on her knees. Her soft paws slid down over Frolicheart's bandaged chest and his tummy, coming to a rest between his legs. Again the orange feline Care Bear Cousin's soft, fluffy fingers worked their loving magic on the beige-orange puma's dick, having it back to full capacity in mere seconds. After having pressed a soft kiss on the head of Frolicheart's dick, Proudheart raised herself even more and placed her knees on both sides of the puma's hips, and her left paw next to his left shoulder. Her right paw slid between their bodies and wrapped around Frolicheart's hard orange dick, and while slowly lowering herself, Proudheart gently steered the tip of the puma's dick to the moist opening between the swollen, silky lips of her longing orange pussy. The moment her warm, moist nether lips had a grip of Frolicheart's dick, Proudheart placed her right paw next to his right shoulder, hung her head between her arms and pressed her muzzle on his lips to smother his groan when she lowered herself until her tummy touched Frolicheart's.

Leaning on her paws, Proudheart made sure her chest and breasts did not press onto Frolicheart's bandaged chest nor his bandaged left arm which still rested on his chest in the sling as she started slowly rubbing her tummy against his. His groaned purrs still smothered by Proudheart's kiss, Frolicheart brought up his right arm and placed his right paw on the kitty's head, tenderly caressing her ears and every now and then lovingly squeezing her neck. Twirling her tail into Frolicheart's, Proudheart started slowly moving her hips up and down, purring hard in her kiss at the feeling of the beige-orange puma's hard, throbbing dick sliding in and out of her warm, moist pussy. Her gradually increasing breath mixed with Frolicheart's while their heart-shaped noses pressed against each other's, and their combined purrs melted into a smooth though irregular rumble of pleasure. With her paws already having brought her halfway to the mountainous peaks of desire in the Hall of Hearts' restrooms, Proudheart reached her first climax quite quickly, and she just managed to restrain herself enough not to thump her body against Frolicheart's when the wonderfully relieving orgasm surged through her.

Digging his right fingers into Proudheart's shoulder and groaning with eyes squeezed, Frolicheart slightly bucked his hips when he felt his loverkitty's warm, slippery pussy cramping around his dick and releasing a flow of slimy juices over his tummy and his balls. Proudheart mashed her tummy against Frolicheart's for a little while, blissfully moaning her purrs while holding his dick deep inside her cramping, flowing orange pussy, until all the heavy tremors of climax had ebbed away a bit. Then she started moving her hips up and down again, breaking the kiss and placing her head in her neck so her purred gasps of lust could freely flow from her mouth. Slowly, Proudheart's movements became a bit more rapid as a new orgasm started building inside her quivering body, and Frolicheart bucked his hips a bit harder to meet the orange kitty's thrusts, a second relief also rising in his body. Feeling his cooperation, Proudheart carefully sped her movements up a little more, sopping herself and her lover once more to the soaring clouds of satisfaction. A two-voiced yowl of lust echoed through the medical room when the two feline Care Bear Cousins simultaneously reached their second climax.

Panting her purrs, Proudheart let the satisfied relaxation wash over her, and she let herself roll onto her left flank, half on and half next to Frolicheart's trembling body. With her right leg resting on top of Frolicheart's left leg and her right arm lying over his bandaged chest, Proudheart snuggled up against the beige-orange puma and buried her face in his neck, purring deeply. Frolicheart wrapped his right arm around the kitty's shoulders and rolled his head a little, pressing his face into the tuft of silky fur between Proudheart's pointy ears, breathing heavily. It didn't take too long before the relaxation of sexual satisfaction pulled the two felines into a deep, happy slumber.

Outside the medical room, in the Hall of Hearts, Take Care Bear had been silently listening at the door for the past half hour or so, a deep smile curling her lips at what she heard. She turned that smile upside down into a quite angry frown every now and then however when one of the Care Bears or Care Bear Cousins stepped up to her to wondrously ask her what she was doing and what was going on. The expression which this gave the red-orange medical Care Bear kept the others from asking any further and making sure they were someplace else the next moment, allowing Take Care to lay her ear against the door again to resume listening. When all she heard was nothing more but a deep, steady purr, Take Care smiled deeply and fished up a key from somewhere in her red-orange fur. She unlocked and opened the door to the medical wing, slipped inside and closed and locked the door behind her again. Then she stepped up to Frolicheart's bed, still wearing her deep smile, which deepened even further when she saw the two satisfied feline Care Bear Cousins blissfully asleep in each other's arms. Taking her stethoscope, Take Care checked on Frolicheart's heartbeat and breath-rate, nodded to herself contentedly, gently put the bedsheet over the two sleeping cats and tiptoed to her office. She could dismiss Frolicheart from the medical wing and let him go home real soon now, he sure already was strong and capable enough again.", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Lotsa surprises", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "application/msword", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "4", "name": "Sexual Themes", "description": "Erotic imagery, sexual activity or arousal", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "205" }