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There’s the faintest whiff of crisis in the air when the condo door slides shut behind Kaidan. Something about the kitchen light being on, even though he’s home a little later than usual. A break in routine setting off his military instincts. He puts down his bag and crosses the hall.
The first thing he sees is Shepard standing over the kitchen’s center island, peering intently at a holoprojected page emitted from behind the stove. Usually used for recipes and so on, all he can see on it right now is what looks like an extranet text page. She looks up when he comes in. Her brows are furrowed. On the table is a plain box.
“Is everything okay?” he asks. They both have good days and bad ones, and sometimes he’s not quite sure which he’s coming home to.
“I went out this afternoon,” she says, “found something on the way home.” She eyes the box.
The item in question is half a meter square at most, made of the unmarked fabricator-extruded honeycomb easily created and recycled on demand. The top flaps are loosely folded one over the other.
He can’t quite read her tone, and it prickles his alarm. “Uh, ordnance?”
She frowns and shakes her head, but her mouth stays shut in a line. Kaidan edges around the island and lifts the box flaps. The bright overhead lights reflect in beady eyes, catch on tiny teeth as a weedy yowl filters up through the opening. It makes him jump and let go. He looks at Shepard. She regards him with eyebrows knitted up.
“Oh!” he says, reaching for the box flaps again. This time he opens one a little ways, just enough to admit some light.
There’s a bedraggled, furry body with triangular ears squeezed into one corner, scrunched into a heap of dark-colored towel. It hisses it at him.
When he looks up again, Shepard is chewing on a fingernail. “It’s, uh…”
“A kitten,” he finishes.
“It was just,” she gestures vaguely, “there, in the street near the west end market. All alone in the rain, in the delivery zone. I couldn’t… Do you think it belongs to anyone?”
Kaidan glances inside the box again. There’s no collar in evidence around the grey-furred neck, and the critter looks far too young for one anyway.
“He’s tiny,” he says, tapping his omni-tool. A quick low-gain scan shows nothing but a skinny blob of hissing fur and heat. “I don’t see an ID chip, either, which means he’s never been through a shelter, and most likely not a home. All pets are supposed to be chipped now.”
“That… happens here, right?” She cocks her head. “On Earth? Loose animals?”
“Strays? Tale as old as time, unfortunately. Feral cats can survive on their own, even if it isn’t very good for them. Or us.”
“That’s why we didn’t have them,” she says vaguely, “on Mindoir I mean.”
“Invasive Species Act.”
“Yeah. Well, and then the Alliance wasn’t big on pets, and…” she points. “A lifetime in space, would you believe this is the closest I’ve ever been to one?”
“By your expression, I do.”
“I put a water dish in there, but I wasn’t sure what food might be safe.” She points to the open holo over the stove. “I was trying to look it up. I didn’t know milk was bad for them.”
“It’s an old misconception.”
She shifts her weight. “I’m glad I checked first.”
Kaidan eyes her. “Are you okay?”
Shepard smirks and swipes a hand over her hair. “Yeah, yeah. I’m… Well, it’s just so small. I was afraid of hurting it. But I couldn’t just leave it there, it looked so skinny and pathetic and all alone...”
“You did the right thing, I think,” he assures her. “After the Reapers, there are probably a whole lot of new homeless cats out there. There are shelters trying to round up all the stray housepets, but it’s got to be an overwhelming job.”
“On top of all the other overwhelming jobs.”
He nods ruefully. He can’t help but lift the box flap again. “You are just a little bit, aren’t you?” he says softly.
The kitten meows. Its eyes are open, and while skinny, he can’t see any other immediate health issues. He wonders if there are any veterinarians in their patchwork post-war neighborhood.
Shepard slips up behind him, resting her chin on his shoulder. “I was thinking some of that chicken breast in the fridge? It isn’t marinated in anything.”
“Hm, good idea. Hopefully he’s into solids at this point. Cook it, cut it up into small pieces and I it should be okay as a stopgap until tomorrow.” He lifts the top flap a little more. “What do you think, little bit? Chicken?”
The kitten meows at him, trailing off into a half-hearted yowl.
‘Is that a yes or a no?”
Meow.
Kaidan smiles at Shepard. “The customer will try chicken.”
It’s a day later when Kaidan comes home to what seems like an empty house. First he checks the downstairs bathroom. With the door closed, lights down low, the temperature turned up to cozy and the box left on its side as a hidey-hole, it seemed as good a place as any to keep their houseguest out of mischief overnight.
But he finds the room empty, even the box moved. His brief hunt turns up the door to the downstairs guest bedroom, closed. Using a soft manual touch, he slides it partially open and pokes his head in.
He finds Shepard sitting on the floor, back to the wall facing the large bed in the center of the otherwise empty room. A datapad is in her lap and two more beside her. She turns and smiles at him. “Oh, hey. Better keep the door closed.”
He slips inside. The evening light slants through the partially dimmed windows, splashing an oblong rectangle across the bed and carpet. On the wall opposite Shepard, on the other side of the bed, the box hutch sits on its side next to another fabricator-extruded object -- a shallow pan filled with a layer of litter.
“I didn’t feel right leaving it all alone,” Shepard says as Kaidan plops himself down beside her, shuffling his back to the wall. His shoulder protests mildly, sore from the day’s biotic demonstrations.
He can’t help but smile.
“I went out again to where I found it,” she says. “Looked around some more. But I couldn’t find any others, or any lost notices.”
“I contacted a couple of shelters,” he says. “Everything is pretty full. They said they’d try to find a spot, but as it is, they’d have to put the little bit in quarantine for a few days anyway. So I offered to look after him for that time. If that’s okay with you?”
“Seeing as I’m home and all.”
“If it bothers you-”
“No, no, it doesn’t. I just don’t have any experience with pets. I’ve been reading what I can. Picked up that kitten chow and everything.” She smirks. “Pretty sure right now someone is writing a breathless blog post about Commander Shepard buying cat food. Anyway, I just don’t want to do a bad job of it, you know? It’s so… small and vulnerable.”
“You do have a fairly successful history of picking up galactic strays, don’t you?” He bumps her shoulder with his. “Pretty sure little bit will be less work than an adolescent tank-bred krogan clone with a lot of killer programming.”
“More or less… Those fish might disagree with my track record, though.”
“Well, we’re not distracted trying to save the galaxy, right? We’re keeping him warm, fed and safe. Where is he, anyway?”
“Was out and about earlier, but bolted under the bed when you opened the door.” She waggles a datapad. “I was regaling it with classified intel and bits of bad prose. It wasn’t impressed.”
Kaidan tilts his head curiously at the pad. “Writing?”
“Compiling reports. Mission data. Filling in details, bits and pieces.”
“It’s starting to sound like you’re getting dangerously close to a biography.”
She chuckles darkly. “I don’t know, sometimes I think it’s a fantasy. Getting the whole story in one place. No one else really knows it, you know. All the messy details.”
He frowns.
“I think maybe I’m afraid I’ll forget too. Maybe I’m just wasting my time, or maybe it’ll be good to work through all of it. Maybe it’ll help…” she trails off. “Of course they’ll never let me publish it, not without blacking out half the content. Maybe I’ll just give it to the geth, and they can publish it after I’m dead.”
He exhales through his nose. “I thought the geth were going to try to... step in against that eventuality.”
“I’ll cross that River Styx when I get to it.” She taps the datapad against her knee. “I’m not even sure why I’m compelled to do it. It’s all just… processing.”
Kaidan reaches out and squeezes her hand. It all seems so insurmountable some days. He wonders if they all got so used to the daily weight of dread and loss that their minds assume it to be a default state. He still wakes up some mornings so deeply sure… of something terrible just beyond his reach. A something that never materializes.
“Watch this.” Shepard puts the datapad down in her lap and reaches down beside her. With a flick of her wrist, a silvery ball flies low over the carpet, bouncing and spinning off the wall.
A streak of dark fur bolts out from behind the bed, bounding after the ball in the most artful combination of grace and abject clumsiness Kaidan has ever seen in one package. Overlarge paws splayed, the kitten swats at the ball, then leaps, as if startled at the inevitable reaction to its opposing action. Back arched and every hair standing on end, the kitten performs a series of rigid sideways bounces, hissing, then topples over, pounces again, and races back under the bed.
“... wow.” Kaidan says.
“I know, right? That is some nuclear grade cute right there.”
He rolls himself to his knees and stretches out to snag the silvery ball, which turns out to be a tight wad of aluminium foil.
“I should’ve known,” he murmurs, rolling it around between his fingers as he sits back down.
“The extranet suggested it.”
“As cat toys go, I think the tin foil ball is something of a classic.” He flicks it across the floor, provoking another attack of ridiculous ballet from the lurking predator. Shepard laughs. As always, the sound sends a rush of warmth through Kaidan’s chest.
This time the ball comes to rest close to Shepard’s foot. The kitten starts to chase, then stops and seems to prevaricate on the spot for a few seconds before retreating.
“Come on,” Shepard murmurs, leaning forward to roll the ball back and forth with the tip of her finger.
The kitten meows, managing to seem a little indignant despite its akimbo fur. Green eyes stare them down. Kaidan wonders what breed he might be. The face is classically catish, with an endearing roundness about the cheeks. It’s definitely a classic old felis catus, though, not one of the oddball designer breeds that come out of test tubes and cost a small fortune.
“C’mere, you little chicken,” Shepard says.
Kaidan chuckles. “Still not sure to make of us.”
“I guess.” Her tone suggests she’s not remotely resigned to that status. She sticks her tongue out at the kitten. It bounces a few times then scampers away.
“Do you want me to be home more often?” Kaidan ventures.
He didn’t miss the flicker of tension across her brow. She watches the kitten patrol the edge of the bed frame, feet silent on the carpeting. “I don’t want to take you away from what’s helping you.”
Kaidan exhales, careful and quiet. He hates that tension. It’s been crawling like ants all over their shared life lately. Sometimes he wonders if it ever left.
“We’re in this together,” he says evenly.
A small noise of exasperation that escapes her. “I know that. I do. You have to believe me… if I had an answer, I would tell you.”
“I do.” He bites off the same flood of buts that always chase after those words. It’s becoming ritual. He doesn’t want it to become rote.
“I miss…” she seems to chew on the thought for a while. The kitten disappears behind the bed. “Certainty,” she says finally. “When I had it, I mean.” She makes a face. “Unfortunately it usually came with someone actively trying to kill me.”
Kaidan nods. “You mean the field.”
“Yeah.” She sounds guilty, conflicted. “But, I don’t actually miss people trying to kill me. Just…”
“Sometimes I think… I should go back, just because then all this anxiety will at least make sense. Like that?” He bites his lip, wondering where that admission came from. Long nights. Random moments, faces in the crowd. A phantom hum in his implant.
Shepard squeezes his hand.
“It’s like that, yeah,” she says. “I’m trying to figure out what I want. I’ve never had to do that before, you know? It’s always been decided for me in one way or another. I always knew where to put myself. I knew who I could trust. With my life. With my life.”
She picks up the foil ball again and gives it a toss. As if summoned by magic, the kitten reappears and gallops after it.
She snickers. “I’ll tell you one thing, though. This sure isn’t hurting.”
Two days pass and Kaidan has trouble focusing on his classes. His thoughts keep wandering home. For a while, the job had been doing the task of keeping him focused, now it feels like an annoyance that he’s glad to escape from. His throat feels a little raw, but the walls of the apartment close around him in a welcoming embrace, and he knows exactly where to look.
When he pokes his head into the guest room again, he finds Shepard still keeping the watch, except she’s made herself comfortable with a couch cushion to sit on. There’s an empty plate and coffee mug with her stack of datapads, and her socks are discarded in a lump. Kaidan sits down again, nuzzling her neck in greeting.
“Hey lover,” she says softly, cupping his jaw with a warm palm.
“How’s our little interloper doing?”
She smiles. “Okay, I think. Seems to be eating fine. Definitely more bouncy. And curious.”
“I scared him off again, didn’t I?”
Shepard wiggles her fingers. “You come from that strange domain of ‘the other side of the door’.”
Despite her pronouncement, this time the kitten reappears less than a minute later, padding around the safety of the bed. They watch in silence as the critter traces a circuitous route, sniffing the whole way, but wending ever closer. Shepard wiggles her toes, the separate toe plates on her prosthetic foot attempting to keep up with the natural ones. The kitten ogles them, ears pricking at the soft sound of servo motors. The hedge of wiggly brown worms proves irresistible, and soon the kitten is nosing around her ankles.
Shepard seems to pick her moment. Smoothly, she curls her fingers around the kitten’s torso and picks it up, eliciting a mild meow of protest as she drops him in her lap. The kitten wobbles around the uneven topography of her legs, hemmed in by gentle fingers, making soft noises of complaint.
“Yes yes,” Shepard murmurs, “I’m a taskmaster.”
“It took me a lot of work to get into that lap, little bit,” Kaidan says gravely. “I hope you appreciate that.”
Shepard snorts softly. “All you had to do was smile at me. I don’t recall it being that much of a chore.”
“The chore was the whole uniform, commanding officer, and galactic peril part. You know, not being able to just ask you out on a date.”
“Would you have?”
He lays his head briefly on her shoulder. “I probably would’ve wasted some time being chicken about it, but I’d like to think I’d have at least tried. I learned that lesson a while back, at least.” He makes a face at the kitten. “Kitty kitty…”
The kitten meows. Shepard glances at Kaidan. “I always figured you for a dog person. As these things go.”
He chuckles. “Well, don’t get me wrong, I’ve known some great dogs. But when I was a kid my parents had a cat.”
“Really?” Cat ownership would be a mundane declaration for most, but her tone makes it clear it isn’t, not for a colonial.
“Her name was Legaya,” he says. “My Mom’s, more or less. She was an outdoor cat, so she was gone a lot, and kind of aloof when she was inside. But sometimes, when you weren’t expecting it, she’d come and curl up next your leg. I always loved that.”
He reaches over and wiggles a finger at the kitten. “I guess I developed a soft spot for-” The little creature springs, wrapping both paws and sharp little mouth around his digit. “Ow. For critters that are - ow, hey - a little harder to love.”
“It sure is pointy.” Shepard gently pries the kitten free and plops him back in her lap. “None of that,” she says, touching its nose.
“Dogs are great. Unconditional love. But cats…” He cocks his head. “It’s more that cats pick who they attach to. It’s usually a little more work to gain their trust. So if a cat likes you...” he nudges her shoulder, “it’s sort of special.”
She quirks a smile. “Sounds familiar.”
“I thought so.”
The kitten follows her fingers, tripping on the uneven footing of her lap and rolling over. Something prods at Kaidan’s memory as it squirms, feet in the air. “Hm.”
“What?” Shepard says. The kitten finds its feet again, sniffing after the teasing fingers.
“I’m not an expert but I think he might be a she.”
“Really?”
Kaidan frowns. “A vet will know for sure. But that’s my best guess. I, uh, didn’t get a good look at the undercarriage until now.”
Shepard goes quiet, staring down. “Little orphan girl, huh?” With supreme gentleness, she strokes the kitten’s head. “For a big orphan girl.”
The kitten meows, wobbly, leaning into Shepard’s fingers.
“You… thinking about it?” he says tentatively.
She looks at him. He can’t stop the smile tugging at the sides of his mouth.
“We… we really could, couldn’t we?” she says. “I mean if no one claims it- her, she’d need a home anyway…” She scratches the kitten’s head in little circles. By its expression, this is the new best thing in the world.
He draws his knees up and folds his arms on them. “Big house…”
“Too big.”
“Yeah, I still find it weird too. But that’s a lot of space to run around in for a little critter. Get some toys, a scratching post, maybe a roost. Having a cat is some work, but as responsibilities go, we’ve both dealt with much worse.”
“Easier than running a ship, anyway. Are they easier or harder to take care of than fish?”
Kaidan chuckles. “Probably a little more work. But on the other hand, if you forget to feed her she’ll come sit on your face until you do.”
For a few seconds, she seems to be trying to decide if he’s kidding. “That’s... oddly reassuring.”
“I’m biased, but I think it’d be a good fit. Cats are pretty good at taking care of themselves. I just foresee one challenge.”
“What’s that?”
“By the looks of things, I’ll just have to get used to sharing you.”
“You’re okay with that?” she says with a smirk.
“Might be tough.” He peers down at the kitten with mock seriousness. “Hear that, little bit?”
The kitten stares back, all ears and big green eyes. She meows. Shepard meows back, in a startlingly accurate imitation save for the lower register. This seems to startle the kitten, touching off an exchange of competing meows and an increasingly perplexed kitten. Finally Shepard falls silent, chuckling, and resumes gentle scratching.
“I think I’m going to take a few days off,” Kaidan says.
“Yeah?”
“Well, I’ve never had a kitten before, either. I don’t want to miss it all.”
She grins. “Good. You can help me clean up after the accidents.”
“That’s part of the deal, yes. And I’ll find out what we need to do for shots and so on from a vet. ID chip, fixing, all-”
Shepard freezes, hands out. “Listen,” she whispers.
A soft rumble emanates from her lap. The kitten’s toes flex as she nudges Shepard’s palms. Shepard stares down in wonderment at the purring ball of fur oozing contentment all over her legs.
“And that right there is the best thing about cats,” Kaidan says softly.
Days off prove to be an even better idea than he thought. There’s a subtle release of tension in the air as he cooks a big breakfast, researches a good veterinary clinic and attends to his first pass at the ritual of litter scooping. They talk about where to put the litter long-term and what they might need to cat-proof in the rest of the house.
It seems to him Shepard already smiles more. She talks to the kitten, asking her opinion and giving knowing looks. Kaidan jokes about them conspiring, and Shepard smiles in a perfect copy of the kitten’s upturned mouth. Small things, he thinks happily to himself as he layers on more pancakes. Nothing fixes all problems, but small things have power.
The second night they put on a movie, an old favorite Kaidan hasn’t seen since he left Earth all those years ago. Shepard lets him sprawl on her on their overstuffed couch. He drowses as the movie wears on, Shepard absently running her fingers through his hair, the warmth under him easing the soreness in his shoulders. This solitude still feels new, still haunted by a vague paranoia that some new crisis is going to come bursting over the comms any minute now.
But for the first time in a little while, they’re not quite alone. A dark silhouette of ears crests the far arm of the couch, accompanied by the soft sound of claws in in fabric. The kitten clambers up, then scampers up to the wide couch back. Kaidan can see her inspecting him as she approaches, assessing the landscape of bodies below. The lights are low, and the large vidscreen dances in her owlish eyes.
Kaidan raises his eyebrows at her. “Ha hah. See, little bit, today the lap of glory is mine.”
Shepard snickers. Her breath tickles his ear. The kitten meows, examining him from her perch with little tilts of the head, as if she can divine an opening through which to get to Shepard.
Shepard clucks her tongue. She snakes her arm out and picks up the kitten, and plops her down on Kaidan’s chest. “There,” she says, “you better get used to him, he was here first.”
He winces at the prickle of surprised claws as the kitten steadies herself just below his sternum. She pads in a circle, and Kaidan tries not to chuckle out loud at the feeling of little paws across his stomach. She sniffs him curiously, nose touching his knuckles.
A strange whim hits him. He draws a slow, even breath, then lets a hum flow through his mutant nerves. The air shimmers across his chest. The kitten freezes, hair standing up. Shepard makes a faint noise of surprise.
A wave of subtle blue flickers across him. The kitten’s head snaps to follow it, its paws splayed. A laugh escapes him, making the blue ripple with fluidity, a shallow sea of liquid light. The kitten dances in place, spinning and batting at the formless flickers.
What he isn’t prepared for is when she springs straight up in the air and lands paws-first… just below the belt.
Pain shoots up and down, snapping him closed like a clam with a yelp of surprise. The kitten bolts, tracing pin-prick claws all the way down his leg and off the end of the couch.
Shepard explodes into helpless laughter. Kaidan can only flop to one side, letting out a shamefaced moan.
“That was…” Shepard says between gasps, “oh my gods…”
“Don’t ever let me hear you say I don’t make you laugh,” he mutters in a strained voice.
“You poor dear. Maybe you should be wearing a cup when you tussle with fearsome beasts.”
“Har har.”
“I guess it’s a good thing she doesn’t weigh a lot yet?”
He grunts. She rubs at his neck, stomach bouncing with laughter under his shoulders. “Be good and I’ll kiss it better later.”
“I’m always good,” he mutters, “that’s part of my problem.”
She leans close and breathes into his ear, “Except when you’re not.”
There is a sudden temptation to cut movie night short, but apparently the reprieve is a brief one. The little predator is soon back, creeping up his leg. Kaidan makes a face at her, one hand cupped protectively over his bruised anatomy. She seems unperturbed, the fright quickly overtaken by the search for a warm lap. She walks right over his arm back onto his belly, pads in a small circle then plops into a heap.
“Wow, actually sitting down?” Shepard remarks. “Amazing! After a whole day literally and figuratively climbing the walls...”
“I guess a multiple-hour game of Tin Foil Ball and Laser Pointer would wear anyone out,” Kaidan says.
“Culminating in ‘catch the ball’,” she chortles. “Balls.”
He lets out a long-suffering sigh. “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”
“Not on your life.”
He glares down at the kitten. She yawns and licks her paw. He can feel the tiny body breathing against his, nestled against his arm like she owns the place. Shepard is still pretending not to laugh but he can feel her holding it in. His crotch throbs sullenly.
“It’s a good thing you’re so cute,” he murmurs, scratching the kitten’s neck.
When Garrus arrives at the door, it’s immediately obvious Shepard’s been telling stories. Even as he enters, the turian is already checking the corners like he used to check for snipers. But the kitten has made herself scarce, perhaps spooked by the literal alien at the door.
They’re safely installed in the living room with drinks laid out and a virtual fire crackling on the holodisplay when the kitten finally puts several more tiny holes in the couch cover to climb to the top, a meter away from Garrus.
Kaidan clears his throat. “You’ve got a visitor.” He points.
Garrus turns his head, his plated brow climbing a little. The kitten freezes, hair standing on end, eyes wide and round. The two regard each other for a long moment.
“Spirits,” Garrus says. “It’s so small.”
“Still a baby, really.”
The kitten pads on the spot, possibly considering her escape routes, then it looks back at the turian.
“All that fuzz,” he mutters, peering back at it. “Doesn’t that drive you crazy?”
“We’re sort of fuzzy ourselves,” Shepard says with a shrug.
“Mammals.” He wiggles his fingers at the kitten, who meows at him, bouncing away and almost slipping off the back of the couch. “Does it bite?”
“A little, but not out of aggression. Mostly her claws are rather sharp. They’re retracted most of the time, though.”
“I doubt they’d bother you anyway,” Kaidan says. Definitely not the turian’s tougher plates, at any rate.
The kitten vanishes behind the couch again. The conversation meanders, but Kaidan keeps being distracted by the silent but dramatic war between the kitten’s wariness of this new visitor and dreadful curiosity. By the time Garrus finished his drink and launches into a lengthy diatribe about the current state of turian hierarchy politics, curiosity seems to have the upper hand. Well into the turian’s second drink, Kaidan watches the little interloper creep closer and closer.
Garrus trails off mid-sentence when a pair of paws and ears crest the horizon of his bony high collar. Kaidan chews his lip to keep from laughing.
“I’m being... invaded,” Garrus protests mildly, lifting his chin.
Undeterred, the kitten clambers right into the fold of cloth created by the collar. Garrus’ plated face flexes into a series of uniquely perturbed expressions as the little creature noses around, makes herself at home, squirming against his neck.
“You must be warm,” Shepard remarks, her expression beatific.
Garrus’ mandibles twitch. The kitten paws at the scarred end of the mandible closest to her. His eyes narrow as they fix on Shepard. “Your little mammal apparently likes my moving parts.”
At this point, Kaidan gives up any pretense and chortles behind his hand. “I should be filming this.”
“Do you need a rescue?” Shepard asks.
“Er, no, I don’t think so,” Garrus says. “As long as it keeps claws to itself, hm?”
“Just don’t startle her.”
He drums his fingers on one leg. “Riiiight.”
Looking a little bewildered, Garrus attempts to find his lost train of thought. It’s obvious he’s trying to keep reasonably still, but inevitably his mandibles animate in time with his words. Nestled into the crook of his plates, the kitten can’t seem to help pawing at his mandibles each time they jump. Which, naturally, only makes them jump more. After several minutes of this, Garrus trails off in mid-sentence again.
“It’s… vibrating,” he says, concern threading into his tone.
Shepard rolls her eyes with mock theatricality. “That’s it, you’re done for.”
“It’s not going to bite, is it?”
Kaidan laughs behind his hand again. Garrus shoots him a narrow look.
“You two have too much free time,” the turian grumbles. The kitten paws at him. “How would you like a nice diplomatic incident to keep you busy for a little while?”
There shouldn’t many places a little critter can hide in a house that, while reasonably big, still looks suspiciously like a sales-catalog model. They haven’t had enough time as quasi-civilians to acquire a comfortable amount of lived-in clutter. And yet, on the afternoon Shepard is out, Kaidan manages to lose the kitten somewhere.
After considerable searching and rising consternation, it’s the faintest sound that alerts him. He freezes in place, straining to hear. A light tapping. Coming from the living room. He frowns into the room, as if by will alone he can cause the escapee to appear. Finally, the sound comes again. The A/V cabinet.
He kneels down and opens the sliding door. There is a yowl of protest.
“There you are, you little twerp,” he mutters.
The kitten pulled some of the wiring out of his careful layout and is frozen in the act of batting it around, blinking in the sudden influx of light.
“How the heck…” Kaidan sighs, half annoyed and half relieved. He reaches in and carefully extricates her, and gets a solid nibbling for his trouble.
“Well, you’re none the worse for wear, thank goodness.” He cocks an eyebrow at her. “I guess telling you ‘don’t chew that’ isn’t going to be much help, hm? Me or the wires.”
He leans over and peers into the depth of the cabinet, mystified. The door had been closed. He has to scrunch way down and stick his head partway into the dark cabinet to finally spot the circle of light coming from inside -- a hole on the other side near the floor.
“Air vent I guess,” he grunts. He puts the kitten down gently. “Go on, scoot. I have to make something to block this hole.”
She meows indignantly, as if being consigned to the floor were a grave insult.
“Yes, yes. Curse me for trying to keep you from electrocuting yourself.”
He goes to scratch her head but she scampers away.
“No gratitude, I tell you.” He waggles a finger. “Just you wait, little bit, that roost I ordered is going to be the toast of your little kitty brain.”
She stares at him.
“Even if you probably end up thinking the box is more fun.” He makes a face. “Which you will, because that’s how these things work.”
He climbs to his feet and muscles the ottoman over to more or less block the side of the cabinet the hole is on. Denied, the kitten trails after him, meowing faintly, as he crosses the hall and kitchen to the laundry and utility room to where their domestic fabricator sits next to the fuse box and central server. Naturally, since the door is usually closed, the kitten immediately invites herself in. Juggling the fabricator interface, Kaidan has to use his foot to keep her from climbing into the server stacks to chase after the array of flickering lights. As a result, getting a piece of plastic screening with a frame made takes twice as long as it should.
By the time he’s done, he’s fairly sure he might have made a grave error in introducing the kitten to a room that is simultaneously forbidden but also full of the most exciting blinking things she’s yet seen. As he heads back into the living room, he hears her meow irritably at the closed door.
He’s forced to get way down on the carpet to get at the cabinet air vent from the outside. He spends a few minutes fighting with the springy material, wedging it into place. Soon, he can feel paws on the back of his legs.
“Are you peeved that I’m blocking off your little cave, or do you miss Shepard?”
Meow.
“Yeah, I know. I miss her too. But those diplomats insisted. And you don’t say no to a Dalatrass, I guess.” He rolls his eyes dramatically back at the kitten. “No respect for tiny cats, I’m telling you.”
The new grate seems secure enough. Very slowly, he rolls over, reaching around to lift the kitten around to his front, putting her down on his stomach. She pads around, scrutinizing the peaks and valleys of the folds of his shirt.
“Where’s your tin foil?”
The kitten ignores him.
“Sure, make me go and get it.”
That gets a meow.
“I have toenails older than you and you’re already ordering me around.”
She circles. Her tail is stiffly alert, and her head moves with quick little searching motions.
He eyes her sidelong. “Waaaaaait, I think I know what you’re looking for.” He sighs. “Okay, but… no jumping on my bits this time around, capiche?”
This time he spares one hand as a protective measure as he summons up a light corona of dark energy. The kitten’s fur puffs out and she prances sideways, swatting at the faint ripples of light. Kaidan laughs helplessly at the patter of paws across his body. Soon she’s bounding in circles, chasing and pawing and tumbling.
After a particularly sharp pounce, he lets the built-up energy flare and die, leaving the kitten splayed on his laughter-bouncing stomach. He flops back, chuckling and breathing a bit hard. She meows.
“Thousands of credits of experimental technology,” he mutters, “years of military service, a dozen commendations, Spectre status and the Star of Terra… and now I’m a living cat toy.”
The kitten pads up his chest and sniffs at his chin, then rubs her head on it.
“You saved me from that mean old blue ghost, didn’t you little bit?” He scratches her head. He can feel the patter of her excited heartbeat under his hand.
“You got used to us awfully fast for a stray. Hm. Maybe you weren’t born a stray? In which case…” he trails off, frowning. “Well, let’s not think too hard about that. Seems like everyone in this house had a rough start in life, huh?” She rubs against his fingers. “But we found each other.”
He feels his feet and pant legs warming. The evening sun slants in the bay windows, crawling across the carpet to climb up his body. The silence of this place creeps up on him sometimes. He should be playing some music or something. But instead, he can hear the kitten’s breathing, the little noises she makes. A marvel of warmth, life, intention and budding personality in a package not much bigger than his hand.
“Be a good friend, okay?” he says quietly. “Sit in Kye’s lap and purr, sleep on her pillow, walk on all her datapads, and all that good stuff. I promise she’ll be the best mom you could ask for. She’s a little rough around the edges at first but she’ll spoil you rotten if you let her.” He winks at the kitten.
It’s a bit later, by the sun’s creeping progression, when he hears the front door open. The kitten’s ears perk up, and she sits up, but doesn’t seem to want to leave the range of scratching fingers. Maybe tired from chasing the blue ghost.
Shepard comes into his field of view, looming upside down. A wry smile curves her mouth. “I leave you alone for a day, and come home to find you lazing around with another woman.”
Kaidan spreads his hands. “It’s not my fault. She pinned me down.”
“A likely story.”
Shepard stretches, peels off her jacket and flings it to couch, then slowly collapses to the carpet beside him. The kitten echoes the move in a curious roll, pawing the air.
“How’d it go?” he asks.
Shepard shrugs and flops onto her back, head resting on his stomach. “About as well as one could expect. Thank goodness the dalatrass has such a quick mind… she seems to be able to shift gears faster than most. It’s a heck of a lot easier to work with someone whose entrenched positions can be dug out within my lifetime. I’m still not sure why I get called to these meetings, though.”
“Maybe because you’re the dynamite for these entrenched positions.”
She stares at the ceiling. “I’m going to make a career of yelling at politicians, aren’t I?”
Kaidan picks up the kitten and drapes her furry body across Shepard’s forehead. “Take one kitten. Doctor’s orders.”
Shepard actually giggles as the kitten flounders around and finally rolls down her face into an unceremonious heap on her collarbone. With both hands she assaults the kitten with scratches, prompting a wild flail of paws.
“Hey, d’you think Ash liked cats?” Shepard says.
Kaidan blinks. The sunlight streaming in the window is turning a gentle orange, tinting the wispy clouds outside. “I have no idea,” he says, “it never came up. Why?”
“I was thinking of a name. You name pets, right? At least something more concise than ‘please stop chewing on my toe?’”
He chuckles. “Some people do just resort to ‘Cat’, but yeah, I like naming them. You’re thinking of naming her after Ash?”
Shepard squirms a bit. “Well, I don’t know, it was an idea. I just can’t decide if it’s disrespectful or not. I wish…” She trails off.
Kaidan, too, wishes they’d been afforded the time to get to know the answer to those questions.
“You know,” Kaidan muses, “I think she’d probably be okay with it. Using her name for something we didn’t care about, that would be disrespectful. But pets are family. They’re loved. And little bit has already settled right in, don’t you think?”
“She certainly took to kissing a turian pretty quickly. That suggests she might be right for the team.”
Kaidan chuckles. It makes Shepard’s head bounce on his stomach.
“What do you think, fuzz-n-claws?” Shepard says, tickling the kitten. “Would you like to be named after a badass hero and a great friend?”
The kitten flails some more. Shepard meows at her, and she meows back.