Mission! We're not dead! (Kat)

He repeated 'four months' as if he hadn't realized how long it had been. Maybe cats didn't have a very good sense of time passing, but a boy certainly could look at a calendar every once in awhile. Didn't they have those wherever he had been?

Katrina tilted her head at him, “You saw my posters?” ...and didn't come back? The betrayed half of that statement didn't need to be spoken out loud. Her voice turned very small, “Where were you?” Translated, why didn't you come back when I needed a friend more than anything?

>>>“I think Slate would have known. And told you. Maybe?”

Katrina frowned, would Slate tell her if he knew? He hadn't even thought to tell her when he had gotten his own body. Nor had Calley for that matter. Neither of them would be winning any prizes for effective communication any time soon. Had either of them even heard of email?

“I don't think he would remember, he's not very good at that.”

>>>“Ah! That is to say—die, me? When have I ever—”

More frowning. Only maybe twice that Katrina knew about. One car accident, and one incident that had left him sulking for days without telling her much of anything about what had happened. And once in a dream, maybe; she couldn't rightly remember.

Calley hugged her and apologized and she put buried her face in his stiff blue suit collar, short hair unintentionally tickling his jaw as she hugged him back. He had come along way from when his version of consolation was an open palmed poke on the back, but it looked like he still had a lot to learn.

“I missed you,” she told his collar. “I didn't even get to tell you congratulations on having your own body.” And you missed my birthday. Not that she had a party or anything, holed up in her room as she had been. And my first kiss. Katrina blinked, at Calley's ear, realizing something suddenly. Slate, you're not listening to me are you?

Oops. She hadn't meant to think quite that loudly. Sorry. Just... ignore me, I'll try not to be so loud. How did one go about not thinking loudly? She had no idea, really. Probably it was best just to not think about anything she didn't want over heard. For the time being. Until she could figure out how not to have Slate overhear her every thought.

>>>“I missed you, too. I tried to make you cupcakes, once, but I guess you weren’t here, then. And then I kinda...”

Yeah.

Luckily for him, Katrina was getting really good at the forgiveness thing. She'd had lots of practice lately.

>>>“Are you taller?”

She shrugged. She hadn't switched to wearing long pants for the winter yet, and it was hard to tell with skirts if they were a little shorter than they were supposed to be. “I dunno, maybe.” With all the things that had changed, height wasn't one to which she had paid much attention.

“Are you skinnier?” She poked his tummy. He was always a little scrawny, but nowhere near where he'd been the winter of the Resistance. She had thought he was going to shrivel up and vanish back then. These days he just skipped right to vanishing. At least, wherever he'd been he was eating alright. Probably. She couldn't help but worry. He had a bad habit of not talking good care of himself.

“I was so worried about you. I made posters and...” He already knew that. “And when I was hanging them up in the park...” It didn't get any easier to tell it, no matter how many times she tried. The words just seemed to catch in her throat and refuse to come out any farther than that. Mutinous vocal chords refused to let them pass any farther, no matter how much she wanted to tell him. Friends were supposed to tell stuff like that, the good stuff and the bad stuff. She'd told Slate that once, but it was easier to tell someone else to do something than it was to do it yourself.

Maybe if she started with something good, it would be easier to share the bad.

“I learned something new,” she said sitting up straight again so she could see his face and he could see hers. Then she closed her eyes and focused on seeing his face in her mind instead. Everything that was Calley, from silly grin to baby blues eyes, from spots here and there to all over stripes. Then she thought about what she wanted only him to hear. Without her lips moving at all, her voice spoke. Without her vocal chords dictating what she said or didn't say, words filled the space between them.

“I can tell secrets now that only one person can hear. Or see.” She swallowed, now for the hard part. ”Something bad happened, while you were gone. I was being stupid. I went to the park by myself, because no one was around to go with me.” Pictures were still easier than words, even if all she had to do was think them. So, pictures it was.

For Calley's eyes only, the room around them changed. It was still difficult to affect multiple senses at once on a large scale when she was blocking everyone but him from seeing, so there was no sounds or smells to accompany the pictures, just still snapshots of what had happened, like stepping into a comic book that was anything but funny.

The green eyed man trying to hand her a bottle of Coca Cola. Green-eyes pointing to the poster, then pointing down the pathway. Katrina, leaning over a sewer grate to look under a bush.

Darkness.

The sewer. Water running. Katrina running. Green eyes smiling menacingly down at her as he choked her into unconsciousness a second time.

Tied up. Hair and clothes sliced off. Burned. Cut. A bloody knife came dangerously close to her eye, but caught only tears.

And that was as far as her concentration could hold. The snapshots faded. She wiped one or two real tears off her cheeks with her sleeve.

“Slate saved me, in the end,” she added out loud, but still rather softly to be heard by anyone whose lap she wasn't sitting on. Her eyes were trained downwards, at his blue and black striped tie. Her fingers played with the top button of his coat. There. Now he knew.

>>>Who kissed you? Is it anyone I know?

>>>“I’m sorry... I’m sorry. I won’t leave again. You can buy a leash for me. I’m sorry.”

The threads of life never stayed straight in the loom. Light and dark colored strands crossed, overlapped, and twisted around each other in a dizzying pattern until a person wasn't quite sure what to feel when.

Calley's not-tears were contagious, and the blonde teen found herself not-crying and sniffling along with him. At the same time, she couldn't help but smile at Slate's curious question and failure at subtlety. People didn't usually ask things like that so blatantly, especially when someone had just expressed concern that someone else had overheard something they weren't supposed to over hear. But this was Slate, and he was new to many things like this.

Usually things like kissing are considered private, so it's rude to ask about it. You normally should wait until someone volunteers the information. She didn't want him to feel bad though (she had enough people feeling bad because of her right now), so she added, It's okay this time, since you didn't know. And we're friends, so I don't mind telling you if you keep it a secret; it was Koga.

Katrina suddenly wondered if not-crying translated over into non-spoken words. Slate didn't have much of a mental tone when he spoke to her, so it was hard to tell if feelings and emotions could be heard over the mental link. Could anger be heard telepathically, or pain, or fear, or heartache?

Throughout her mental message to his twin, Katrina hugged Calley tight. She snuggled right up under his chin for comfort, like two threads the fates had twined together on the loom. Not light and dark this time, just two different colors trying to find their place in the overall pattern. She didn't want him to feel bad for her sake, but she didn't know what to say to make things better for him either.

“I forgive you,” she promised his shirt collar. Forgiving Calley was much simpler than forgiving the green eyed man, and much simpler than forgiving herself. It was love that made forgiveness so easy.