There was a cat on their kitchen table. An overlarge ginger tom who occasionally went by the name Sinatra. It was sprawled out in a sunbeam exactly as it should be, its belly proudly exposed. Daring, just daring, for the brave to set their hand in that trap.

The kitchen window had been open. This was all the further invitation required. That it had declined said invitation for over a year was a moot point. Today, on this arbitrary afternoon, it had accepted.

It had been over a year since Calley had last seen Ghost. Coincidentally, it had been over a year since Cafas had started cheating on him with the aforementioned woman.

It had been two days since Officer Swartz and Depty Johnson had their lovely discussion on this matter over a quaint cup of NYPD break room coffee.

The cat lay on the table, warm and fire-coated from the sun.

It was trying to remember, with each slow curl of its tail tip, whether the kitchen window had been open on the other occasions he'd disdained to visit this location. Was his First Retainer still faithful, or merely forewarned?

The cat lay in a sunbeam on the kitchen table of one Maya Swift. The cat lay there as if it owned the place. This used to be true.

It was time the cat had a talk with its First Retainer.

Flowers. Check. Overnight bag full of junk that needed to be here instead of at the Mansion. Check. There were a few groceries in hand that she had to juggle too, but nothing too heavy. She knew better.

This was going to be perfect, a grand welcome home!

She juggled it all fairly well through the door. The keys she dropped in the entrance. That was fine. Maya used a little hip to get the door to closed. The shoes, she stepped out of one after another on purpose. Shoes were evil and to be avoided at all costs. They could be tidied later, when she went back for the keys. The bag dropped next to the wall and the elemental only had groceries and flowers by the time she made it to the kitchen.

She hummed as the ingredients were spread on the bench and the vase was fetched. Merengue cookies were on the menu. If it weren't for the sugar, they would be the perfect dessert for this weird protein thing Cafas did all the time.

The flowers got in a vase. The vase got some water. The whole shebang went onto the table. Onto the... occupied table. The vase hovered above an orange tail flick. She leaned out around the flowers to see the owner of the tail, an orange tabby.

He did not look terribly pleased at flowers, sunlight, or... her.

What was his name? Sinister? Singer... something...

Maya sat, flowers still in hand.

"Calley."

This was supposed to be less awkward as a cat. That was the whole point of coming as a cat instead of showing up with scuffing feet on her doorstep. The cat lay still and stared up at the vase that he really hope her hands were solid enough to not drop on his head, and refused—on principle—to let this be awkward. Cats were never out of their element, other people just weren't excepting their reality to a satisfactory degree. Such people needed correcting.

The ginger tom sat up, directly in front of her hastily acquired chair. He curled his tail around his paws. He yawned, exposing delicate teeth and a fair showing of tonsils.

“Ghost,” the feline rejoined. “My left ear is unsatisfactorily itchy, and Cafas is a cheating bastard who, upon reflection, I do not hold you accountable for.”

He had not quite meant to say that last. But as a cat means everything it says, he demonstrated his unconcern with a head butt to her arm, his whiskers flicking to free themselves of trailing flowers. The aforementioned ear twitched its demand.

"Ah." She was tripping over herself to scritch that ear before Calley had even gotten to the juicy part.

> "—and Cafas is a cheating bastard who, upon reflection, I do not hold you accountable for.”

Her fingers hesitated against that soft fur for the briefest of moments before she scratched and smoothed her friend's fur. The flower vase teetered precariously with only one hand to balance it against her thigh, but she was grateful to have some cover, something to hide her face behind.

"It's really my fault." It being the whole boyfriend stealing situation. "Please, if you have to hate someone, can it be me?" Not that she wanted that. But she did deserve it.

Maya stole a moment away from ear scratching in order to heft the vase onto the table. The arrangement could not occupy the middle of the table— that spot was occupied —so it sat rather close to the edge.

She reached back toward Calley with a cringe ready on her features. She'd weather any claws or teeth if that'd somehow make things better.

Scritching: satisfactory.

Speech: meritorious only of unblinking cat eyes.

"Don't you dare not make excuses for yourself." Thus ordered the cop who was a cat who had broken into her apartment and was now sitting on her table. "And don't you tell me who to hate, either. I hate being told who to hate."

He chased after her fingers when they moved, cat paws and cat body and cat tail indiscriminately entering table space irregardless of objects already occupying.

There were zero hisses or scratches, but the weather man predicted a high chance of imminent flower vase on her floor.

Maya had read once that cats only blink when they trust you.

It was in a magazine. So it should have been true because it was in print. As a seller of the printed word, she put more stock in printed words. Judging from the serious lack of blink-age, she was in serious hot water. So, of course, she could not point out that she had not told him who to hate. She had made a polite request of a cat. Which... apparently amounted to the same thing.

It also had taken her more time than was pretty to untangle what he'd said. 'Don't you dare not make excuses for yourself.'

"I don't want you to hate me." And she quickly added, "Sir." Maya tried to defend the vase at first with strategic scritches that encouraged a certain feline to lean away from the crystal. "But I'd rather you hate me than to see Cafas suffering. I... really like him." That was incredibly embarrassing to admit to Cafas' former boyfriend, the subject that had caused more than a little suffering.

Cat appendages made sure there was no room on the table for vases. When it tipped off the surface, Maya rushed to catch it. To put her hands up and to slide it back into a better position. Catching things with weight took careful preparation these days. With judgy cat eyes on her, she'd been trying to move fast.

She would have liked to say that the vase went through her hands, but in all actuality, she'd bumped into the flowers in her hurry and helped them along. The vase plonked into the rug that protected the floor from such things happening and all the water ran out before Maya could find her feet.

"Shoot." She said the word like a curse and got one last pet before getting to her feet in order to find something to sop that up.