Log [Forge, Catseye] What is, is...

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

After weeks of silence, Catseye finally comes to a decision, partly because of two people who unknowingly helped nudge things along – Terry and Dani. That and a lot of time spent thinking cat thoughts.

As such, Forge walks into his room to find someone sitting on his desk, with a very serious request indeed.

Forge wandered down the hall, toweling the last of the damp from his hair. After a weekend of swimming in a sun-warmed pond, the mansion's pool - though the same size - seemed... different. Not the chlorine, not the cement, just... different.

Walking through the common area of the suite, he grabbed an apple from the kitchenette area, biting in and holding it between his teeth as he opened the door to the room he shared with Kyle.

Kyle wasn't in, which relieved Forge, because the legs hanging off the edge of his desk were far too nice to belong to his roommate. His eyebrows raised as he looked up (taking his time) before stopping on the waves of purple hair and the impish grin.

"Caffseey!" Forge blurted around the apple, before spitting it out into his hand. "You're, uh... well, um, hi?"

"Hello." Blinking at him slowly, Catseye pointed at the apple. "ShinyBitsBoy's apple is juicy and dripping." Swinging her legs, she placed her hand back on the desk, not waiting for his reaction. Her decision had been made, and there was only one course to follow now.

"Catseye wants to see what ShinyBitsBoy found about her family now."

Forge's jaw dropped, as did the apple, slipping from his fingers to bounce on the carpet. "You want what? I mean, um... of course. Sure. Let me just..." He leaned to the left, then the right, before reaching cautiously to Catseye's side, opening his desk drawer and removing a folder full of papers that appeared to have been crumpled and smoothed out again.

"Before I show you this," he said, tapping the folder against the desk, "you really want to know this? Because if you say no, and you want to forget I found it, then I promise I won't ever say anything about it and things can be like they were. I just want to know that you're sure about it."

Tilting her head to the side, Catseye regarded him for a moment, eyes suddenly a touch more misty than they had any right to be. "But Catseye knows now. And Catseye cannot forget." She smiled a bit, a hint of wistfulness at not being able to, a hope to reassure him blending in slowly as well. "And ShinyBitsBoy would not forget either. And... Catseye thinks it would not be fair to either of us, to pretend like that." With that she took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. Eyes wide, a brief moment of uncertainty catching up with her before she thrust her hands forward towards him, open and waiting for him to give her the file.

With a sigh, Forge handed the folder over, turning around to lean against the desk next to Catseye. "That's as much as I could find. Your birth certificate, hospital records, telephone listings cross-referenced with listed addresses. Voter registration lists, all that's mostly just data. But here," he tapped a sheaf of papers he'd clipped together. "That's all the current information. That's your family."

Folding his hands together, he sat quietly, watching to see what her reaction would be.

Bringing her legs up on the desk, not realizing that fitting them next to her would be unsuccessful right away, Catseye finally settled for sitting cross-legged, the file propped on her legs. She stared at it for a moment, before hesitantly poking one claw along the side, flipping it open slowly. The sheaf of clipped papers rustled obligingly in the process, though Catseye allowed herself a moment longer before looking at those, eyeing the birth certificate she'd seen not so long ago more closely this time.

Tiny pinpricks over the inkprint of each tiny toe, she saw. Looking down at one of her feet, she wriggled the toes, bemused as the size difference. "So small." The whisper escaped her even as she ran a claw along the paper - and then flipped it over, eyeing the listings and other data, which meant nothing and then some, to her. Finally, with a small sigh, tail waving idly behind her back, she reached for the sheaf of papers instead, pressing the top one smoothly down before starting to read it.

Forge picked up the birth certificate, reading through it silently, then smirking to himself. "You were a tiny baby," he said quietly, tapping the paper.

Going quiet again, he watched as Catseye flipped slowly through the pages, soaking in the information. Unsure of how much she'd understand, Forge just kept quiet, waiting for any question, any comment, any sort of reaction other than the quiet concentration that seemed to fill the room.

The picture of a small boy leapt out at her and Catseye stopped, suddenly, staring at it for a long time, taking a deep breath and not finding the scent that should be there, oddly enough. She frowned, puzzled at the instinctive reaction, and read the caption underneath instead. Something about one of those sports humans liked - at that point, she swallowed a bit, blinking as she jarred out of her observation by the implications of what she was holding, in regards to thinking that way.

With a small breath, which she held for a moment, Catseye dismissed the thought for now, and determinedly kept going through the papers. "Evan." The name was a statement more than anything else, the silence broken as she spoke the others names softly as well. "Harrison. Rebecca. Harold." The rs were rolled a bit, as though she were savoring the words. With a small, impatient frown she bent over the papers, reading more, and then finally pulled back, shaking her head.

"Catseye does not understand. Why does this paper say she is dead? Catseye is not..."

Forge thought for a while. "I did some checking on that. This was filed in the spring, after there'd been a big blizzard. You know, lots of snow. A lot of people around here were snowed in. Where your family lived that time," he pointed to an area on a map circled in blue with the dates, "kind of out in the country a bit. It's been built up since, but really rural back then. It was probably a few weeks until they could get a car out to the city."

He tapped his fingertips together, thinking. "No phone, maybe no power - and they thought their daughter had gone missing. Look here," he held up the birth certificate. "You were born with a tail, you can even see where the tiny claws were. Who's to say you couldn't shift into a cat - kitten - that early? The paper..."

Sliding off the desk, Forge started arranging papers on his bed, pointing to the Lost Kitten poster. "One of your brothers made this, probably Evan, the older one. So he knew that there was a purple cat - you. If you went missing, in the snow? They could have looked for months, before... before thinking the worst."

Peering at the death certificate once more, Catseye still look perplexed, though the dates there did seem to concur with his theory. "Catseye supposes that... to know, Catseye would have to... ask." The 'them' went unsaid, even as she bit her lip - and then winced, opening her mouth slightly with a low hiss of displeasure at her own stupidity.

And the stupid habits one picked up from hanging around humans. A pained expression followed that thought, as well, only adding to the general air of sudden discontent about the girl.

"Ask?" Forge did a double-take at the idea. "Wait, you mean... actually go find them? You... you want to do that?"

Catseye stared at him for a moment, wonderingly. "How else is Catseye going to know, if ShinyBitsBoy could not find out when he looked so hard in the first place?"

Stuttering and stammering for a moment, Forge just nodded dumbly. "Right, then we find them. I mean... if you want me to help, that is. I could talk to Mr. Kylun, or Dr. McCoy, or someone could drive you, I've got their address." He hunched his shoulders, leaning slightly away from Catseye. "But I'll help you if you ask me to."

"Catseye would like that, yes," she replied with perfect serenity, as though his reaction had gone entirely unnoticed. When thinking got too complicated, doing was just fine, really. "Catseye knows how curious ShinyBitsBoy is, anyway." Eyeing the file more, knowing that there were still so many things she did not understand, so many things she should, in fact, understand, Catseye sighed. "CatHeadMan already helped find the Cat Lady once... Catseye thinks he would help again."

Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Forge relaxed visibly. "I... thanks. I was afraid... I didn't know if you'd want to talk to me or have anything to do with me after all this. I mean... I know I should have asked you first but I thought it was the right thing and, I mean, I wasn't thinking - I shouldn't have just dropped it on you like that. It wasn't right, and it wasn't fair, and I'm sorry."

"Mrr." Blinking bemusedly, Catseye set the file down and looked at Forge, until her eyes widened suddenly in comprehension. "...ShinyBItsBoy is very silly." Hopping off the table, she pounced, careful of his arm by habit now - and hugged him, laughing lowly and crying a bit as well, not sure why. "Catseye knows ShinyBitsBoy would never hurt her on purpose. Catseye knows."

"Never," Forge repeated, patting Catseye on the head. "I just... I was worried. I know I do stupid things, and I'm trying to fix that."

"Okay." Pulling back, Catseye wiped at the tears that had come with the laughter, still smiling. "Catseye does not want to do this alone." There was a hint of woefulness in her voice, an unfathomable fear of what she might find. "That is all Catseye can think to say right now."

"Then you've got it," Forge agreed. "I mean, you snuck into a hospital to make sure I didn't have to go through the hard stuff by myself, I can at least do the same for my friend, yeah?"

A brilliant smile answered him, at that, and Catseye bounced a bit. "Good!" The look soon turned to sheepish though, and she went back to retrieve the file from the desk. "In that care, can ShinyBitsBoy explain this to Catseye please?" She pulled out on of the medical papers and handed it at him gravely.

Forge pulled his glasses up and looked over Catseye's shoulder. "Ah," he said, squinting at the faded printing. "That's the doctor's report from right after you were born. You see, there really wasn't much experience with infant mutations fifteen years ago..."

Forge scooted closer, throwing an arm over Catseye's shoulders as he proceeded to explain the report and other incidental details to Catseye, smiling broadly whenever something would produce a laugh of amusement, wonder, or outright incredulity.

It was good to have his friend back.