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It was over.
The sun had risen, casting its golden light upon a now silent junkyard. What was once a night filled with moonlight and revelry was now a quiet, peaceful morning. Everyone was sound asleep with the intent on staying that way for a good long while.
Everyone but one. A single cat sat up in the cardboard box he had tucked himself away in, yawning and rubbing his eyes to chase away the exhaustion he still felt from the night before. He could do with more sleep but the sun was shining through a crack in the box, beaming right into his eyeballs like it did every morning-
"The sun?" Living up to his name, Tumblebrutus tumbled out of the box and somersaulted into the empty clearing. "It's- it's morning?"
It sure was. The sun was shining, birds were singing, it was a beautiful morning after the Jellicle Ball.
His stomach twisted. It had just been the night before, he had just been singing and dancing and partying with the tribe, how could it be morning? When had he fallen asleep?
"It's over." Tumble sat in the middle of the clearing, all alone in the sun, staring at the empty tire.
He couldn't believe that it was done. No more Jellicle Ball. The night he had waited for for so long had come and gone, leaving him to sit in the sun with only the memory for company.
It hurt. How could it have gone by so fast? No one told him that a night would flash by in a blur, that he wouldn't realize it was over until it was too late, and he was already having trouble remembering every detail now, he'd only forget more as time went on-
Tumble would not cry. Crybabies did not attend the Jellicle Ball. He had waited a lifetime to be allowed to attend and now that the night had finally come he felt like he had wasted it. How was he supposed to know that it would be over in an instant?
Desperately he tried to remember everything from start to end. Munkustrap had called everyone together and they started with the Gumbie Cat, right, and then Tugger, then Grizabella showed up, and then Bustopher, and then- and then-
All of his thoughts jumbled together as he tried to arrange them in order. So many sights, so many sounds, too many different feelings from the joy of the ball and fear from Macavity and sadness for Grizabella and then back to elation he couldn't keep it all straight. He was going to forget everything and never experience it again and it was all his fault for not paying enough attention-
"Tumble?" A tiny paw poked the small of his back. "Are you crying?"
Tumble hurriedly wiped his eyes with his paws. He hadn't noticed he had company. Jemima had spent most of the ball at his side and must have fallen asleep with him in the box.
"No." He snuffled, scuffing dirt over the suspicious tear stains on the ground. "Just… the sun's really bright."
"Yeah, it is, isn't it? I think I prefer the moonlight." Jemima squinted at him, still keeping a paw on his back.
A flash of memory. Tumble recalled her standing in the light of the moon, her face glowing as she sang a solo. Her voice was beautiful, unlike anything he had ever heard from her before. How could he forget that?
"Can you believe how quiet it is now?" She continued, leaning up against him like she had done the night before. "It's hard to think that everyone was just here singing and dancing together. I bet Munk'll sleep for a week."
Tumble looked around the empty space. If he closed his eyes he could still visualize the choreography everyone had worked so hard to learn. Munk had put so much time and thought into this single night and for what? It was over, they'd never have that night back-
"Are you sure you're not crying?" Jemima asked again.
"Yeah. 'm fine." Tumble wiped his nose on his arm, sniffed loudly, and stood. "I gotta… I gotta pee. Yeah. Bye."
Whatever she said was lost as he fled the clearing. Maybe Jemima was fine with the Ball being over, maybe she had a perfect memory, but he couldn't sit and reminisce with her.
Maybe if he wrote it all out he could remember everything that happened. Just needed to find somewhere to write.
There. A perfect patch of dirt, big enough to write down everything that had happened. Tumble grabbed a stick and started scribbling, his paws trying to keep up with his brain.
"No, Jemima wasn't standing over by Skimble during Bustopher's song, she was by me. Or was it Pounce?" Tumble scratched out his notes and tried again. The night was becoming a blur.
Panicked, he kept going. Just had to focus. Forget that he was functioning on too little sleep or that his legs were still shaky from dancing, he had to get it all written down before it was all forgotten.
Tumble made it all the way to the end of Mistoffelees's song before disaster struck.
A shadow from above descended upon him, and suddenly a furry cannonball slammed into his back, sending Tumble sprawling across the dirt.
"Ha!" The attacker crowed. "Managed to sneak up on you! Though it's not surprising since your stomping around was so loud it woke me up, there's no way you could've heard me coming."
Tumble picked himself up in time for Pouncival to sit down and smudge more of the writing. His blood turned cold.
"Pouncival!" Tumble shrieked, staring down in horror. "What did you do?"
"What? Oh." Pounce lifted his butt to look at the writing he was sitting on. "Uh, oops."
"No, no, no, I was so close to being done and you- you- you ruined it!" Tumble's vision turned red. It was too much.
"Tumble, what are you- argh!"
He snapped. Tumble leapt at the other tom and shoved him to the ground, hissing and taking a swing at Pounce's head. Pounce shrieked and squirmed away, scrambling his legs beneath him and practically flying up the nearest pile of junk.
He wasn't fast enough though, not after a whole night of physical activity, and Tumble was able to catch him at the top. Together they rolled down the pile in a hissing flurry of claws and kicks.
"Argh you brute!" Pounce yelled as Tumble bit his leg. "What is wrong with you?"
Tumble was far too upset to respond. He was exhausted, overwhelmed, incredibly upset, and now Pounce was making things worse. There was no other way for him to release the jumbled up emotions but to fight it out.
Pounce wasn't a pushover though. The smaller tom managed to land quite a few hits on his own, using his back legs to kick Tumble in several places in an attempt to shove him off.
Tumble stubbornly held on, vaguely aware that they had stopped rolling and were now up against a cracked wooden wardrobe. The wood groaned in protest as the two toms continued to fight on and around it.
"Tumble I swear to Heaviside and the Everlasting Cat above I have had it!" Pounce spat as they wrestled in the dirt. "If you don't stop I'm gonna-"
"Gonna what?" Tumble interrupted. "Ruin everything more? I oughta-"
"Break it up!" Suddenly the ground vanished as Tumble flew upwards by his armpits. Pounce came with him, still clutched in his grasp.
"He's trying to eat me argh make him stop!" Pounce shrieked, swinging wildly in Tumble's hold.
"You- ack!" Tumble gagged as the scruff of his neck was abruptly pulled, causing him to let go of Pounce. The world whirled end over end as he was flipped around and away from the fight.
"You're coming over here." The voice of authority left no room for an argument.
Tumble's head spun as he was flipped around again and deposited unceremoniously back on the ground by what seemed to be an unmovable mountain. He tried to chase after Pounce again but was promptly picked up and put back where he started, forcing him to sit and catch his breath.
"Bwuh?" It took a minute for the giant before him to focus into a familiar shape. "Plato?"
There was no mistaking the white and tabby tom. Not many Jellicles could simply pick up a pair of fighting cats and fling them around without getting hurt.
Sheepishly Tumble looked around. It seemed that he and Pounce's fight had ended up at the doorstep to Plato's den. Now Plato and Victoria's den, seeing that they were made official at the Ball.
"Uh… sorry." Tumble flinched at the sour look Plato was giving him. The usually mild mannered tom was bringing out the disapproval in full force.
"Sorry? Why're you apologizing to him when it was my face you were kicking in?" Pounce demanded from his side of the clearing. "Look what he did to me Vicki, and for what?"
Tumble turned to him to see him being tended to by Victoria. The queen was checking him for injuries, her own fur a bit rumpled from the sudden wake up call of two toms beating each other up outside her door.
"I'd like to know why you were kicking his face in so early in the morning." Plato stood in the way, an immovable obstacle to prevent another fight.
"He ruined my- my stuff!" Tumble wasn't quite sure how to describe his emotional ramblings hastily scrawled in the dirt.
"It was an accident! I didn't know you were hogging the junkyard with your- your whatever it was!" Pounce pointed an accusatory paw at Tumble, only to immediately have it be batted down by Victoria.
"Tumble, I think you know that Pounce wouldn't be coordinated enough to purposely sabotage your stuff." Plato muttered. "Not after spending all his energy at the Ball."
"But it's all gone. I'm going to- to forget." Oh no. He could feel the tears welling up again. With Plato standing over him it'd be impossible to get away before anyone saw him-
"Tumble!" Heaviside help him it was Jemima again. It was like his tears were a magnet for her. "There you are! Why'd you run off?"
Again she put a paw on his back, her kind eyes staring into his own. Through the tears he could see her small concerned smile for him. It was too much.
He broke down.
"Whoa, wait, what's going on?" Pounce gasped. "Why're you crying, you never cry!"
"Is he hurt?" Victoria asked.
"What happened?" Plato chimed in.
"Tumble-"
"Tumble-"
"Tumble-"
"Give him some space." Jemima was right next to him, her touch the only thing anchoring him in the storm of tears that had erupted. "It's ok Tumble, just let it out."
Tumble couldn't have stopped it if he tried. Hot waves of embarrassment flushed over him as he felt everyone's eyes on him but the tears still flowed. Too late to save face now, they were going to laugh at him for years for this.
"Uh, Vicki, Plato, uh, can you check my back for um, fleas?" Pounce's dumb voice broke in. "Over here?"
Plato and Victoria obliged, leaving Jemima the only one still around. Tumble didn't mind her as much. Gently she rubbed his back as he hiccuped, not asking him to do anything but cry it out.
Eventually he felt calm enough to come up for air. Pounce had dragged Victoria and Plato over to the other side of the clearing. Next to him Jemima purred, butting her head against cheek to wipe away his tears.
"Thanks." Tumble sniffled.
"Feel a little better?"
"Uh… yeah." He admitted. "A little."
The embarrassment was still there but having Jemima next to him was better than being alone. And Pounce coming up with a terrible excuse to distract Plato and Victoria was oddly touching.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Jemima asked. "You don't have to."
"It's ok. I think I can now." Tumble wiped his nose on his arm and waved Pounce and the others over.
"So." Pounce was nearly vibrating with confused worry. "What was that about?"
"Uh… I'm upset." And apparently stupid, Tumble inwardly groaned. Talking about anything else was preferable to this.
"We can see that." Victoria settled down next to him, Plato joining her, the five of them forming a small circle.
"Was it what Pounce did?" Plato asked.
"Hey! That wasn't-" Pounce was interrupted by Plato sticking his foot in his face.
"No, I mean yes, but not that." Tumble quickly said. "I, uh, was trying to write down everything that happened at the Ball before Pounce messed it up. But it was a waste of time anyways. I… I…."
Not again. Roughly he wiped his eyes on his shoulder as the tears started to fall.
"Why were you writing everything down?" Jemima asked.
"Because… because I don't want to forget what happened." Tumble cried. "But I didn't realize that the night would go so fast and I didn't pay attention to everything and now it's over and- and- I ruined it and I'm so stupid and it's all my fau- oomph."
It was hard to continue the spiral into despair when four cats were piled on top of him. Any further tears shed were immediately absorbed by the purring pile of fur. It was rather nice, if a bit stifling.
"'kay, 'm better." Tumble mumbled once the tears slowed. He was losing feeling in his legs, probably because Jemima had wrapped herself around his torso in a surprisingly crushing hug.
The group returned to their circle, slightly soggy from the tears but looking better.
"Tumble, you're a doofus but you're not stupid." Pounce declared. "Saying that you're ruining the Ball because your brain isn't big enough to remember everything is really, really dumb."
"But we'll never get to have that experience again." Tumble protested. "It was just that one time and now it's over."
"That's what makes it special." Jemima insisted. "If there was a Jellicle Ball every day then it wouldn't be something to look forward to. It wouldn't be as memorable."
"We'd also die from dancing so much." Pounce added.
"I know." Tumble hiccuped. "But- but we'll never have that first night again. I didn't realize that it would be over so fast, I was too busy- too busy-"
"Too busy having fun?" Plato suggested.
"Yeah." Tumble frowned. Saying that he was devastated because he had too much fun to take it all in didn't make much sense now that it was pointed out to him.
"Tumble, judging by how much you were grinning I think you had a perfect first Jellicle Ball." Victoria said. "And a memorable one. You can't be expected to have a photographic memory of everything that happened. No one can."
"Well… maybe the twins… or Munk." Plato pondered.
"They don't count."
"Right." Plato shook his head. "Y'know, I don't remember everything from the first Ball I went to, but the stuff I do remember was great. And if I want to remember something specific I just ask the others who were there with me. Between us all we've got the whole night covered."
"I guess." Tumble had to admit he forgot that the majority of the tribe had been to numerous Jellicle Balls.
"Yeah, if you ever need help remembering how you tripped over your tail and fell flat on your face during the Gumbie Cat number I'll be here to remind you." Pounce declared.
"That didn't happen."
"Sure it did, how would you know? You just said you don't remember."
"I remember a lot of stuff Pounce!"
"Good, hold on to that." Plato hastily leaned in to stop the impending fight. "And if you ever want help remembering what happened you can always talk to me."
"Sure, though most of the memories Plato will have are of Victoria's bu- mmph!" Once more Pounce was cut off by Plato's foot in his face.
"Why don't we focus on next year?" Victoria squeaked. There was a tinge of desperation cracking her normal composure.
"Next year?" Tumble perked up a little.
"Isn't it early to be thinking about that?" Jemima asked.
"It's never to early to look ahead. Look, Munk's already planning for the next one." Victoria pointed across the way.
Sure enough the silver tabby was out and about, staggering around in what might have passed for a dance of some sort.
"Uh, is he ok? Do we need to get-" Jemima's voice of concern was suddenly drowned out by a commotion from the pile of junk behind them.
"I swear we have to tie him to one of those harnesses." Alonzo emerged from behind a dented stove, fur sticking up in several different directions and his tail dragging behind him.
"I'm right there with you." Demeter was right behind him, looking like she had been dragged across the entire junkyard. "Every year he gets up earlier and earlier the morning after and I can't take it anymore. I'm going to wither away next year if I have to get up and go find him again."
"I thought his fight with Macavity would be enough to tire him out but nooooo-" Alonzo abruptly stopped, Demeter bumping into him and knocking them both to the ground. "Argh Deme that's my tail- oh. Good morning. All of you."
Tumble, Pounce, Plato, Victoria and Jemima stared at the two new arrivals. In the most undignified manner the two managed to untangle themselves and sprawl separately on the ground.
"Have you seen a Munkustrap anywhere?" Demeter asked politely through gritted teeth.
Victoria pointed.
"Thank you." Alonzo wearily got to his feet, helping an exhausted Demeter to her own, and the two headed off to collect Munkustrap.
"Well." Plato said.
"What I was saying before all of… that… was that soon enough we'll be planning the next Jellicle Ball." Victoria smoothly continued. "Some earlier than others."
"But it won't be the same." Tumble sighed.
"Well no duh. You can't have the same night twice." Pounce rolled his eyes. "That's boring."
"But this Ball was so much fun." Tumble protested. "How can the next one be better?"
"You'll just have to make it that way." Jemima grinned. "Take all the things you liked from this one and make sure it happens in the next one."
"But leave room for new stuff." Plato added. "And maybe take out the stuff that didn't go so well."
"Like Macavity kicking everyone's butts." Pounce muttered. "And Griz crashing Tugger's song. And me getting in trouble for having a snack."
"You ate half the buffet by yourself." Jemima stated.
"Well all that dancing can't just come out of nowhere!" Pounce patted his legs. "Need to fuel these bad boys for those awesome jumps!"
"Right." Victoria pointed turned away from the sight. "Tumble, it's understandable to be sad about the Ball being over. It passed by so quickly, but that doesn't mean it was wasted. And next year will be here before you know it."
"I… I guess you're right." Tumble took a deep breath. "It's just… a lot to take in."
"Sleeping it off helps." Plato yawned.
"Agreed." Victoria looped her arm through her mate's and tugged him back toward their den. "I think we've done enough here. We still have sleep to catch up on."
"Sleep. Right." Pounce snickered. "After what you two were up to at the ball I can only- no, wait, we're leaving!"
The slightly exasperated, mostly crazed look in Plato's eyes sent the three off to a safer refuge, one high up on a pile to junk overlooking the junkyard. Tumble and Pounce settled down in a rocking chair with Jemima squeezed between them, the hurts from before soothed by her happy purrs. Soon she was fast asleep.
"Hey, uh, Pounce?" Tumble murmured as Jemima slumbered between them.
"Huh?" Pounce, who had started to doze off himself, turned a curious eye towards him.
"Sorry for pummeling you."
"It's ok. I know you were just weepy over the ball being over. You can make it up to me by getting me breakfast later."
"I was not weepy."
"Uh huh." Pounce opened both his eyes to properly roll them.
"I was sad. But not weepy."
"Sure."
"But I'm not sad anymore. Or weepy."
"Good." Pounce closed his eyes and curled up closer to Jemima, draping a paw over her side and pointedly grabbing Tumble's arm. "Now go to sleep, it's too early to be feeling stuff."
Tumble snorted but obliged, finally settling down. The anguish of the morning was slowly fading away, replaced with the fond memories of the night before and the hope of what was yet to come.