((ooc: Branching off from Mission! Wedding.))

Kitra. She was like a shining beacon of foreboding in his life. Through no particular malice, she called doom down upon his head. The first time they had met, her slip-ups had lead to Abyss putting together the pieces, and realizing Calley was a spy; that had lead to Calley having a charming conversation with the Kabal’s former leader. Oh, and torture. Charming, charming torture. That hadn’t broken his brain at all.

Right, Slate?

...What?

Nothin’, nothin’.

This time? She waved to him. Innocent. Friendly. It was because of that wave that a Kat-born ambush had time to wrap itself around him.

>> “Calley!”

“Geck!” It was too late for him, now. Far too late. The happiness in her voice would soon change, he knew, to something far more guilt-inducing.

>> “You're back! I haven't seen you in forever!”

“It’s good to see you, t—”

>> “You failed all your classes, you know.”

“Classes? Ha! Clearly, a tomcat has no need for—”

>> “And 'catting around town' isn't a very good excuse for being gone four months.”

“...Yeeeeah. Err. I, uh...” Calley grinned down at the girl in a purely non-sheepish, non-eye-contact-avoiding manner. “Those were, umm, some nice posters you made. In Central Park. I, err...” Err. Should he have admitted to seeing those? Now she knew he knew she’d missed him, but still hadn’t come back. Why hadn’t he come back? He’d meant to. Most promptly. Because one note really wasn’t such a good excuse for, “Four months?” He parroted, blinking. Calendars: they had been his enemy, from the very beginning.

Kat hug: warm. Simultaneously:

Retreat path: blocked. His habitual smile twitched into place on his lips.

>> “...What if you had died? I wouldn't have even known.”

“I think Slate would have known. And told you. Maybe?” Not the right answer. “Ah! That is to say—die, me? When have I ever—” Even worse answer. Was he managing to get smaller, or was she managing to get larger, with every moment of unblinking accusing staring?

He hunched down. Just a little. And, tentatively, hugged her back. He wanted very badly to shift to cat form. People just didn’t stay angry at cats. And cats didn’t care if they did.

He did not think Katrina wanted him as a cat right now, though.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, somewhere above her shoulder.

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?

>>“You saw my posters?”

Guilt kinda had a weird gravity. It didn’t work everywhere, like regular gravity: if you were catting around the city, you were immune. Attending Order dinners, turning girls into mice, stalking pigeons: all immune. It was only when you got close to the guilt source that it started taking hold. Kind of like a black hole, except it was bi-directional. It pushed you down toward the ground, making you a lot smaller. At the same time, it drew you towards its center, so you couldn’t get away. Your eyes ended up caught in the riptide, so that you found yourself looking not at your own shoes, but at hers.

>> “Where were you?”

Was he supposed to have a good answer for that? It was like a test he hadn’t studied for, or a report he hadn’t done any work for: he’d been given the assignment months ago, but it just hadn’t seemed important at the time. But now he had to present. And the teacher was staring at him. And neither of them could figure out how he could have been so stupid. Calley had a lot of experience, with things like that.

Hair tickles feel as silly as forgiveness.

>> “I missed you. I didn't even get to tell you congratulations on having your own body.”

Her face was buried into his shirt: it seemed only fair that his chin got to rest on the top of her head. “I missed you, too. I tried to make you cupcakes, once,” for my birthday, “but I guess you weren’t here, then.” I waited in your room all day. “And then I kinda...” Yeah.

“Thank you,” he grinned, for the having-his-own-body. It was kinda nice, he had to admit. Though maybe a little lonely, which he didn’t have to admit.

His eyebrows scrunched together: something was registering on his chin-o-meter. “Are you taller?”

>> Slate, you're not listening to me are you?

...Not intentionally.

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.

Fault. It was a concept Calley had always been quite unclear on, insomuch as it applied to him. The definition was straight-forward enough: when bad things happened, someone was responsible. That person was ‘at fault’. It ‘was their fault’; the ‘fault’, one could even say, was ‘with them’. That last one was always kind of curious, to Calley. Fault didn’t seem to have a smell or a taste or a touch. It didn’t really have a body of which to speak. So how could it be with someone? Not that he’d really bothered to philosophize about it. After all, it was never his fault.

Incident that had started his Kabal employment: not his fault. (He’d simply broken into the vampire’s apartment; it was Hunter AuntiePantyHuff that’d had a problem with that, not him.)

Incident with Syn’s hairbrush: not his fault. (If there was any fault there, it was her fault for coming back to her room before he’d properly stolen the thing.)

Incident with Luke, and the mauling thereof: not his fault. (He wouldn’t have mauled the man if Luke didn’t taste like glowing idealism.)

By definition, really, any situation were he himself ended up hurt in any way, shape, or form was not his fault. It was the other person’s. Any situation were he didn’t end up hurt either A) had no fault involved, or B) didn’t concern him.

He was shaking slightly when Katrina’s illusions faded. Her fingers played with the top button of his coat. His eyes watched them. Kind of. Mostly, they just didn’t look at her face.

(Fault did not have sound or smell, but it did have sight and taste and fear.)

She had been hurt. A lot. He didn’t need to see it to the end to understand that. He liked Katrina. He hadn’t ever really thought about it, but he’d never wanted to see her hurt like that.

(This situation concerned him.)

His posters. The posters of him. That was the reason she was there. Going alone was her own fault, and it was stupid. Why hadn’t she at least grabbed some Abyssi on her way past the Sanctuary? (Her fault.) And then the man had hurt her. (His fault.) But she still wouldn’t have been there, if it wasn’t for him.

He could have called. Or left a new note. Or scratched on her window, cat eyes reflecting in the moonlight.

He hadn’t. She went to the park. The man had hurt her. That was Calley’s fault.

Now he knew.

“I’m sorry,” he promised, into her hair. “I’m sorry. I won’t leave again. You can buy a leash for me. I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t crying. Only the person who got faulted got to cry. He just had a lot of fault with him, all of the sudden, and it was sort of... leaking out.

>>>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.

>> “I forgive you.”

“But can you?” He asked her hair. It was almost gold: that was a wise color, wasn’t it?

It wasn’t really a question about cans and can’ts. He didn’t know what question he was asking, or what question he was trying to ask. She said she forgave him. But the feeling in his chest didn’t go away. It still felt like if he let go of her—if he let her out of his sight—then something worse would happen. Was that what she felt every time he disappeared?

He thought he understood why she kept yelling at him to keep in touch. Maybe. Finally. That didn’t make him feel any better, though.

“Are you supposed to feel better when people forgive you?” He asked. It wasn’t something he had much experience with.

>>>Is Koga someone you value?

Katrina tickle-chin nodded her golden haired head to Calley's first question. To Slate's, she did the mental equivalent, if there was such a thing. Out loud she added quietly, "To feel better you have to forgive yourself, too."