Archive of Our Own

Juggling an umbrella and a crutch with only one completely usable hand was tough, but Jean Vicquemare was just managing it. His dominant hand – bandaged so thoroughly over his stitches as to make his fingers all but useless – pushed the handle up and against his body, with the shaft balanced precariously against his shoulder. The task was made slightly more difficult by the heavy Frittte bag dangling from that elbow: cigarettes, two frozen meals, and a wrapped up hot dog straight from the heat lamp. The umbrella caught a gust of wind and slipped yet again, and Jean stopped with a sigh to readjust it before he could get too wet. At this rate, he'd have to add pneumonia to the reasons for his sick leave.

He knew he wasn’t supposed to be walking around; Gottlieb had taken one short look at Jean’s swollen sprained ankle and sentenced him to two weeks’ bed rest before fitting him with the bulky ankle brace. Jean hadn’t even been able to make an argument for desk duty, as the cuts he’d sustained trying to stop his fall had made holding a pen impossible. But after just two days on medical leave, he’d already started going stir-crazy inside his apartment and had desperately needed some fresh air – and besides, he’d been out of smokes. A walk in the rain may not be what the doctor ordered, but it was what Jean needed.

He stopped at an intersection, waiting for the light to change and wondering if he should wait until he got home to eat the rapidly-cooling hot dog or find some sheltered area to wrestle with his burdens and eat it now. Jean was still deciding, a scowl pulling his eyebrows together, when he heard a strange, high-pitched noise over the sounds of the rain and passing MCs. He turned, glancing around the bushes lining the sidewalk, when – there! Just barely visible underneath one of the bushes: a tiny kitten, muddy and shivering, crying out and staring directly at him.

When the light changed a second later, the people at the intersection all shuffled away, leaving Jean alone, staring at the kitten as it took a few delicate, shaky steps towards him on the concrete. Jean looked around, hoping someone else would do something, some other passerby who would know what to do with this creature. But there was no one else, and now the kitten was sitting at his feet, looking up at him. 

Before he could second-guess himself, he shuffled his crutch and umbrella situation, bent down, scooped the kitten up with his good hand, and deposited it into the Frittte bag at his elbow. Then he shoved his crutch under his armpit again and started home. The plastic bag gave him some concern at first, but the kitten’s near-constant meowing reassured him that it could breathe just fine.

Half an hour later, Jean shouldered his front door closed behind him and dropped his wet umbrella onto the floor of the entryway. The meowing Frittte bag still hanging from his elbow, he looked briefly around his apartment before coming up with a cardboard delivery box he’d been meaning to recycle for several weeks. He dropped the box on the floor against the only open wall of the kitchen, then carefully lowered the Frittte bag to a counter nearby. With his good hand, he reached in and pulled the kitten out of the bag, then placed it into the empty box so it would stay put. 

He stood over the box, frowning. “What am I going to do with you?” 

The kitten stared up at him, trembling.

Jean shook his head, shrugged out of his raincoat, and turned to dump the remaining contents of the Frittte bag onto the counter. The frozen meals were tossed blindly into the freezer before he tore open the hot dog’s wrapping. The kitten had slightly crushed it, and there was cheap ketchup smeared all over the inside of the package, but Jean shrugged and ate it anyway in four quick bites. 

He licked a stray smear of ketchup off his hand, thoughtful. What did cats even eat? Was this thing old enough to eat meat? He vaguely remembered there being cats in the barns he spent time in as a child but, as far as he knew, they were mostly feral and hadn’t needed much care.

He ran a hand through his hair, sighing loudly into the quiet space. What had he been thinking, bringing that thing home? He looked down at it again, chewing the inside of his cheek. 

“Okay,” he said, to himself or to the kitten.

Jean opened his refrigerator: virtually empty. He pushed aside the various condiments in the door, vainly hoping there might be something hidden behind them. He pulled out the milk (it was technically past its expiry date, but it still tasted fine) and considered it, before remembering something Harry had once said:

“Jean-Jean! Did you know that most cats are actually lactose intolerant? Weird, right?”

The oddly visceral memory from probably more than three years ago jarred him, and he tossed the milk back into the fridge more forcefully than he’d meant to. Thinking about the Harry from before, even from the earliest days before things were at their worst, still sometimes put Jean on edge. Even innocuous memories would do it sometimes: like the time Harry had gotten on one of his research kicks and had spent two weeks reading every book the city’s library had on cats.

Focusing again, he looked back into the fridge. Practically all that was left in there were a bag of surprisingly fresh apples and some questionable leftovers of a rice and cheese dish Jean had made on a more motivated day. Nothing for a cat to eat, as far as he knew.

Maybe the freezer? He pulled open the freezer door again and struck pay dirt: underneath the new Frittte-brand frozen meals, several plastic-bagged chicken breasts he’d packed away a few months before, knowing he wouldn’t have the motivation to cook them before they went bad otherwise. He pulled two out and set them on one of his few clean plates to thaw.

In the meantime, the kitten was still shaking and soaked to the skin. Jean wasn’t even sure what its coloring was under the mud. He grimaced at the messy kitchen, then set about making room in the sink, stacking the dirty dishes on the counter beside it. He ran the water until it was somewhat warm, found a clean dishcloth amidst the chaos, and then considered his bandaged hand. After a moment, he grabbed the empty Frittte bag from where it still lay on the counter, pulled it over his bandages, and tied it roughly around the wrist, using his teeth when one hand didn't provide enough leverage.

He turned back to the kitten’s box. Using his good hand, he picked the thing up and set it in the sink, then gently held it in place when it tried to scuttle away. He managed to pinch the dishcloth with his bandaged fingers through the plastic, and push it with some finesse against the muddy fur. The kitten wriggled and chirped, annoyed, but the mud finally ran down the drain.

Now the kitten was even wetter than before, but a dry towel helped with the worst of that. Jean tucked the thing back into its box, leaving it the towel to keep it warm. As he watched, the kitten shook its tiny paws out and quietly began to lick its mussed fur down. As it dried, he was able to discern its true coloring: plain, dull brown, striped tightly with darker bands across the back, legs, and head, with a white patch that spanned the chin, chest, and belly. The breed? Cat, he decided with a shrug.

Jean turned to check the chicken – still frozen solid. He frowned again. How long would it take? Frustrated, he put the frozen meat into a bowl and began to run warm water over it, hoping the plastic bags he’d packed them in would remain sealed. He left the water running over the sides of the bowl, snatched up the slightly-crushed box of cigarettes from the counter, and made his slow way out to his tiny balcony to kill five minutes. His armpit was chafed from the crutch, so he left it behind and haphazardly hopped there instead. His braced ankle and bandaged hand were pulsing with pain – it had already been a long day, and he knew he’d overdone it – but the rush of the nicotine took the sharpest edges off of his discomfort.

When the meat was thawed, he set about cooking it. With some difficulty, he was able to chop each of the chicken breasts into four rough chunks, which he tossed plain into a pan with just a bit of olive oil. As the smell of the cooking meat started to spread throughout the kitchen, Jean realized that he was genuinely hungry, even after the hot dog. He portioned the meat out: one chunk into a small bowl for the cat to have now, two for himself with some salt and pepper, and the rest into a larger bowl to put into the fridge for later. He picked at the plain chicken with a fork until it had broken into somewhat more manageable pieces for the little thing, and ate his own while waiting for the cat’s to stop steaming. 

The kitten was apparently ravenous: it attacked the chicken the moment Jean put the bowl down in its box. He watched for a while, before his eyes drifted to the towel – and to several tiny red marks across it. Immediately, he grabbed the kitten up and inspected it, despite its mewling struggles to get back to its meal, and spotted the problem: the bottoms of its paws were red and raw, and one was split and bleeding. Jean’s heart constricted painfully – what was he supposed to do about this? What had even happened? He put the kitten back down to let it finish eating.

By the time it was done, he had a plan. He soaked another clean dishcloth in olive oil and scooped the kitten up against his chest to carry it to the couch. There he sat and balanced it on its back against his legs to get a good view of its paws – chapped and raw like Judit’s hands in the winter, just as he’d thought. He didn’t have the thick lotion she used to rehydrate and protect her sensitive skin (and besides, he was worried about the kitten licking it off), but this should do. Using his bandaged hand to brace the kitten in place, he gently dabbed the olive oil onto each paw pad, then returned the fussy creature back to its box. 

All of that done, Jean was abruptly exhausted. It was well past sundown, and his bed called to him. He hurriedly took his medication with a glass of milk – anything else could wait until the morning. Lacking the energy to hop, he used the hated crutch and made his way to his room where he dropped into bed, still fully clothed in his sweatpants and t-shirt. His various pains and his racing thoughts kept him up a while longer, but finally he dropped off to sleep.

Far too early the next morning, Jean was startled awake by a high-pitched mewling. How was it possible for such a small creature to produce such a loud sound? Groaning, he pulled himself out of bed and hobbled to the kitchen.

With a pang of intense guilt, Jean realized that he’d forgotten one very important aspect of caring for an animal: the kitten had urinated in a corner of the box. The towel and its fur were wet and stinking. Belatedly, he also realized that he’d never given it any water to drink. 

“Idiot!” he berated himself, hitting the heel of his good hand roughly against his forehead. 

He rummaged around his apartment, finally coming up with another cardboard box – this one slightly larger than the first – and brought it and a clean towel back to the kitchen. Into the box he placed a small bowl of water and a low planter that had once housed one of Jean's many doomed plants to serve as a temporary litter box. He brought the kitten to the sink and cleaned it again, then dried it with the towel and put both into the box. He watched, his guilt weighing even heavier on him, as the kitten rushed to the water bowl and drank greedily. Quickly, he pulled another chunk of chicken from the fridge, shredded it roughly with his hands, and gave it to the hungry beast. He couldn’t be sure if he was feeding it enough, or too much. He would have to look into this soon – but it wasn’t like he was going to keep this thing.

Was he? 

No, of course not.

But then, why bring it home?

When the kitten was done eating, he picked it up again to check its paw pads. Still raw, and he was sure that sitting on a urine-soaked towel for who-knew-how-long hadn’t helped matters. He oiled its paws again, then started a fresh pot of coffee and went outside for a smoke. 

Twenty minutes later, caffeinated and buzzing with nicotine, Jean felt ready to do... well, what? He couldn’t go running, and his small set of free weights held little interest if he could only work out one arm. The rest of C-Wing had laid claim to his open cases before he had even hobbled out of the lazareth, so casework was out. And the thought of leaving the apartment made his armpit ache and his injured ankle throb. But he was too restless to sit around; he needed to do something. He took stock of his small living space and groaned. The place was a mess; he had no idea how long this chemically-induced motivation would last, but he figured he should probably take advantage of it. He turned on the radio for some music and set to work.

The cleaning was far from thorough – while he did actually wash almost half of the dirty dishes, the rest of the cleaning was mostly just a general sorting and decluttering – but making the place more orderly kept him busy and passed the time well. The kitten spent most of the day curled up asleep in the warm towel. Jean paused a few times during the day to wipe more oil on its cracked pawpads, and with each application the kitten was more willing to walk around. He was surprised at how quickly it was healing; by the end of the day the kitten was scrabbling about in its box, meowing with apparent boredom.

"I just oiled your feet!" Jean admonished, as the kitten dug at the makeshift litter box. Its paws were now caked with dirt, stuck fast to the oil. With a huff he snatched up the little thing and hopped to the kitchen sink. Once the water ran warm, he started washing each muddy paw yet again, much to the chagrin of a now far more lively kitten.

"Yeah, yeah, you'll live," he grumbled, not unkindly, over the indignant meows. It was only after he had cleaned all four paws that he realized there was no towel within reach. Wishing for the thousandth time that week that he had another usable hand, he put the kitten down on the counter and turned to reach for the towel on the kitchen island behind him. 

He wasn’t more than a step away when the kitten, freed, suddenly sprinted away towards the edge. Jean dove after it with a shout, catching it just as its wet little paws met with empty air. He held it tight to his chest for a moment, breathing hard, then pulled it back to look into its eyes.

“You can’t just go running off like that! It’s dangerous!” he barked at the squirming, oblivious thing. Jean took a deep shaky breath, which caught in his throat as he processed his own words.

Jean watched as Kitsuragi took a half-step in front of Harry and put a restraining hand on his arm. “You can’t go running after him! It’s dangerous!” Kitsuragi said hotly.

The three of them looked down into the narrow alleyway below them, a ten foot drop onto who-knew-what in the dark. Junk and debris lined both walls, narrowing the alley further. Twenty feet away and gaining ground fast: their suspect.

Harry grinned, and without a word shrugged past Kitsuragi and took a running leap towards the mouth of the alley. For a second, he seemed to hang in the air – before dropping down gracefully and moving into a run without missing a beat.

Kitsuragi sighed in relief or anger and shook his head. Without stopping to think about it, Jean took a few steps back to prepare for a running leap of his own.

“Officer, no! Harry was stupid to try it, it’s a miracle he didn’t – Jean!” he called as Jean sprinted past him.

As soon as Jean was in the air, he knew he’d calculated it wrong – the angle of his body felt off, and the ground was coming up too quickly. In an instinctive attempt to slow his fall, one hand flailed out for the junk piles beside him – catching a cracked and jagged fish tank on the way down – before he fell on one ankle with a sickening sound. 

Jean’s bandaged hand pulsed with the memory. Why had he tried it? He wasn’t sure. And they’d lost that suspect, in the end. He swallowed hard and forced himself to take a slow breath. Looking into the kitten’s eyes, he muttered, “I guess you're not the only foolish one, eh?” With some difficulty he dried off its paws and oiled them again. After a quickly heated frozen dinner for Jean, and more shredded chicken for the kitten, it was time for bed. 

Wash face. Brush teeth. Take meds. Make sure doors are locked. Check that the kitten is situated in its box. Lights out. Hobble to bed.

Jean's injuries ached. Another day of overextending himself, it seemed. Oh well, it would help him fall asleep and stay asleep. The kitten settled back into its towel nest and Jean let himself pass out in bed.

The following evening, after a maddeningly quiet day of listening to the radio, reading, and napping with the rapidly-healing kitten, there was a knock on the front door. Jean glanced up from where he’d been relaxing on the couch – he’d brought the kitten with him after its dinner, and it had finally fallen asleep after grooming for several minutes, but the knock had startled it awake. Grumbling, he struggled to his feet, snatched up the kitten, and hopped over to place it back into its box against the kitchen wall. Leaning on that wall, he stepped carefully forward and opened the front door to reveal Harry Du Bois, carrying two bulky paper bags.

“Surprise!” Harry said cheerily.

“What are you doing here?” Jean asked, as Harry pushed past him into the kitchen to put down the bags.

“Groceries! Since you can’t really go out, with your ankle. It was Kim’s idea,” he added somewhat sheepishly. “And we probably should have done it sooner in the week, sorry.”

“Euhm, okay. Thanks.”

Harry’s eyes fell on the kitten’s box. Not sure why, Jean felt himself trying to block Harry’s line of sight, but it was too late. Harry gasped almost reverently, and his voice went syrupy.

“Who is this?” he asked, moving forward to get a closer look. 

Jean’s words stuck in his throat. Somehow, he just wasn’t ready to share this with anyone yet. But his former partner was already reaching into the box.

Harry picked the tiny creature up under its shoulders, its front legs splayed out flat in front of it, and held it up to his eyes. He stared between it and Jean for a minute, nodding several times and focusing like he was listening hard. His face contorted from one expression to another as the kitten hung there, patient and entranced. This again. Jean let out a quick breath through his nose. Harry was nodding now and hummed in quiet agreement when the kitten let out a tiny sneeze. At last, he smiled and kissed the kitten on the top of its head, then pressed it gently to his chest and supported it there with his big hands. He grinned at Jean.

“You’re going to keep her, right? How come you haven’t named her yet?”

“Her?”

“Duh. What have you been calling her this whole time?”

Jean rolled his eyes. He didn’t even bother to wonder how Harry seemed to already know how the kitten had ended up in the apartment. “I don’t know… Cat? It doesn’t matter, I can’t possibly keep her – it. With the hours we work, I’d never be home to take care of it.”

“So take her to work with you,” Harry said, like it was obvious.

“To work? And what, keep her in my desk drawer? Feed her in between investigations? She needs constant attention – she’s worse than you, Shitkid.” Jean immediately felt a twinge of guilt. 

It had been six months since his former partner had seemingly been reborn as a new man. It hadn’t been easy for Harry, dealing with his memory loss on top of his various addictions and withdrawals, and it hadn’t been easy for the precinct to trust him at first; least of all was Jean, who had agreed quickly to Captain Pryce’s suggestion that Harry and Jean spend some time partnered to other people for a while. The newly transferred Kitsuragi had been the only one to stand steadfastly by Harry in the beginning, but over time Harry had carefully earned back the trust and support of the rest of the precinct. He still struggled with sobriety from time to time, especially his alcoholism, but he’d really turned a corner over the last few months. 

Still, old habits die hard. And it probably would be easier for Jean to completely drop the "shitkid" moniker and stop worrying so much if Harry could curb his occasional self-destructive foolhardiness and his habit of talking to trash cans.

Harry, however, didn’t appear to have heard the dig and instead seemed to be thinking over the question seriously. Jean quickly changed the subject: “How are things going at the precinct, anyway?”

It took Harry a beat to shift trains of thought, but when he focused again he smiled. “Great! Everything is great! Super smooth, everyone’s working hard and doing great!”

“Really? You’re not having trouble with the workload?”

“With superstars like me and Kim there? No way, we’ve absolutely got this!”

Jean felt a pang. Not that he’d wanted everything to completely fall apart without him, but he’d assumed (hoped?) that C-Wing would at least feel his absence. “Oh, I see,” he said, striving for nonchalance. “Well, that’s… good. That’s good. Great.” Seeking a distraction, he turned to start putting the groceries away. He pulled too many cans from the bag, stacking them precariously against his chest.

"So, what have you been up to?" Harry asked as he grabbed the cans out of Jean’s hand. Jean tried to keep his annoyance off his face. He grabbed a loaf of bread instead, determined to put something away on his own.

"What do you think? I can barely make it up and down the stairs so I've just been sitting here for the last five days." He twisted the package of cold cuts away before Harry could take them, wincing as the momentum put his weight on his bad foot for a moment. Harry was about to say something but promptly closed his mouth when he caught Jean's stormy gaze.

"I would do better," Jean continued, "if I could do something apart from reading and listening to the radio all day."

"I'm sure your kitten friend keeps you busy! You really should give her a name--"

"How's the Williams case going? It wasn't going far last week; we hadn’t even named the case yet. I could look over things, give you a call if I notice anything--"

"Uh, actually, Judit is doing some interviews later this week for that. So that's being taken care of."

"Wait, really?"

"Yup! You don't have to worry about anything! We're doing totally fine; you just focus on healing up. We've got this all under control!"

Again, that pang. It seemed like they really were doing fine without him. Jean's mood was souring by the moment. The ache in his foot sharpened as if to mock him. 

Suddenly, all the groceries were put away, with Harry having put away three things to each one of Jean's.

"Well, that's all of it!" Harry's beaming smile faltered as he finally seemed to notice the extent of Jean's mood. "Uh, is there anything else I can...?

"No. Thanks." Jean tried to keep his voice level, neutral. Be nice, he did get you food, even if it was Kitsuragi’s idea. Even if it's taken away from his time being productive at work. So productive, apparently they can breezily make do without you.

"Oh, okay then." Harry rubbed the back of his head. "Well, uh, take care then! Rest up!" 

Jean could only manage a noncommittal grunt as he let Harry out, locking the door behind him.

Silence, thick as his self-loathing. And then, a small but insistent mew. 

"Yeah, yeah," Jean sighed, pulled out of his thoughts. He pulled out the last of the shredded chicken to feed the kitten and refilled her water bowl. But when he thought about feeding himself, of the cans he would have to open, food he'd have to heat up, even something as simple as a sandwich, his will shriveled up and his body became heavy with a bone-deep weariness.

Oh well, the kitten was fed. Jean wasn't even that hungry anyway.

With a tired, undignified hobble he got in bed and fell asleep.

As Jean woke, slowly, the next morning, he thought he remembered hearing a knocking sound on the edge of sleep. Had he dreamed it? He wasn’t sure. He ran a hand across his face, letting his nails catch at his stubble and the scars on his cheeks, as he debated getting up to check.

He had just woken up and already he felt exhausted. Jean tried to turn away from the sunlight pouring in through the window beside his bed, but the room’s other window was bright, too – an unfortunate trick of the architecture that made sleeping in more difficult than it needed to be.

He also had to use the bathroom, to a suddenly uncomfortable degree.

He pushed himself out of bed slowly and hobbled to the bathroom. His limbs felt leaden; his whole body, heavy. The kitten started up her reedy mewing the moment she heard him shuffling around, scrabbling at the walls of the box that, at this point in her recovery, barely contained her. Jean ignored her. When he finished in the bathroom, he remembered the knocking he’d thought he’d heard and went to check the front door.

At first, when he opened the door to an empty hallway, he simply stared. Of course it had been a dream; or if it hadn’t, whoever had knocked wouldn’t still be there. Then he looked down: a book and a labeled paper package sat on the dingy carpet. He brought them inside without thinking and had already put them on the counter before his brain caught up to him enough to properly identify them.

The book was called “The Care and Raising of Kittens,” and the package, a 5 pound bag that was somewhat difficult to maneuver with one hand, was labeled “Kitten Kibble,” with various nutritional facts printed on the back. He blinked. Harry. A weary irritation came over Jean. Did Harry really think Jean was that incompetent?

As if in response, the kitten let out her loudest meow yet.

Jean dropped the book onto the coffee table, and a handful of kibble into the kitten's bowl. She went at it with gusto, as if she hadn't eaten the entire time she’d been in Jean's care.

"I guess you wanted some real food, eh?" Jean muttered bitterly. A diet of only shredded chicken couldn’t possibly have been enough for her, nutritionally. Figures he wouldn't be able to take care of a damn cat. Why had he even brought her home? He'd been fussing so much on her stupid paws; meanwhile he had been slowly starving her.

He dropped himself on the couch. Fuck it. Fuck today. He closed his eyes and listened to the kitten munch away at her food.

Jean hadn't realized he had fallen asleep until he was waking up, the late afternoon sun filtering weakly through the sliding glass door behind him. As he slowly came to, memories of the past few hours came back: waking up just long enough to use the bathroom and feed the cat before going back to sleep. His exhaustion was still there, like soft hands pulling him under deep, warm water, tempting him to close his eyes again. But Jean was just uncomfortable enough, just hungry enough, to be denied that escape.

He took a deep breath and noticed a small weight pressing at his chest. He brought a hand up and was met with downy kitten fur and a squeaky trill.

"How the hell did you get out of your box?" he rasped, his voice scratchy from almost a full day's worth of sleep. The kitten yawned and stretched out her front legs, tiny needle claws pricking his skin through his thin t-shirt. He grabbed at her tiny paws, examining the pads as she wriggled around in play and indignation. They were so much softer now, Jean noted, rubbing the tiny black and pink things against his thumb. Well, at least he’d managed to do something right.

He scooped up the kitten and pulled himself upright. He desperately wanted to go to sleep again, but by now the kitten was fully awake and hungry. She wiggled in his careful grip, squeaky kitten meows coming from that tiny mouth.

"I'm working on it," Jean grumbled as he placed her back in the box, followed by a new handful of food and some fresh water. He knew he had to feed himself, as much as he really, really didn't want to bother. Dinner was a can of peas and a can of meat, mixed and heated in a pot over the stove. He wasn't sure if its tastelessness was due to the ingredients themselves or just his complete disinterest in eating.

Now what? He was up, but too tired to really do anything. Conversely, he was also too awake to fall back asleep with any ease right now. He ran his hand through his hair: a greasy disaster. 

Fine. That was something that he could manage.

The tub barely fit him on the best of days, but with two limbs that couldn't get wet it was an awkward affair. Still, it was better than nothing, and far easier than a shower. His bad foot hung suspended over the tile floor, calf against the cold enamel lip of the tub, a dingy wet washcloth draped over the knee. A plastic cup floated in the soapy bathwater to be used on his hair. He’d once again tied a plastic bag around his bandaged hand. He’d considered taking the brace off just to bathe, but Gottlieb had given him an estimated timeline of recovery, and according to it, it was too soon to take the brace off. It was also too soon to be on his feet as much as he had been, but he’d decided to ignore that part.

The soft lapping of bathwater echoed across the chipped tile of the bathroom. He had left the door open just in case the kitten decided to cause any chaos while he was occupied, but so far it was quiet beyond the doorway. His head felt cottony and unfocused, cold where it rested against the tile wall. Any motivation he possessed had been used to draw the bath and get himself into it; he had none left for the actual act of bathing. The bathwater cooled.

Suddenly, piercingly, an urgent mew bounced off the tiles, and two paws and a pair of oversized kitten ears reached over the lip of the tub, shortly followed by the rest of the kitten's head. She let out another meow, mouth wide with tiny teeth.

"How is it that you are both so quiet and so loud?" 

She meowed again. 

"I don't know what you want." 

Meow.

"You'll have to wait. I’m almost – " Jean paused. He wasn’t “almost done”; he hadn't even started. And, come to think of it, how long had he been sitting there trying to muster the motivation? He glanced at his good hand; the fingers were cold and pruny. These long, empty days were bad for him. At least when he was up to his ears in work he didn't have time to feel so tired, so unmotivated. Though apparently, all that was needed to get work done was for him to stop babying Harry. Was Kitsuragi really that much better at wrangling Harry than he had been? What use – ?

With Jean distracted, the kitten jumped onto the wet lip of the tub and promptly slipped into the water, scrabbling at Jean's exposed flesh and interrupting his thoughts. He gasped and grabbed for her with both hands, gasping again when the movement pulled against the stitches under his bandages. Adrenaline spiking through him, Jean glared at the kitten, speechless. Dripping wet, she simply looked up at his face and meowed again.

“You're a menace.”

Another meow; this time it sounded like she was admonishing him for letting her get wet.

"Well, I can't help you right now." He set the soggy kitten down on the threadbare bath mat, where she started shaking out her paws. "You'll have to wait until I'm done in here before I can dry you." As if to say that that would not do, the kitten began licking at a paw to begin drying herself.

Jean breathed out a quick huff of laughter and shook his head. He grabbed the washcloth and rewet it with the lukewarm water and finally proceeded with his bath. He finished as quickly as his injuries would allow, and by the time he’d finally gotten himself dried and dressed again, he was surprised to see that it was after six in the evening. How had he lost almost an entire day?

He was mulling this over when someone knocked on his door yet again: sharper, more perfunctory knocks than when Harry had come over. Still somewhat dazed, he opened the door to find Kim Kitsuragi standing there, looking agitated. Caught completely off guard, Jean let him in without thinking. “Good evening, Lieutenant. How are things at the station?” he asked automatically.

Kitsuragi stopped just inside the door and looked Jean in the face. “I’m not here to talk about the station. I’m here to talk about you, Officer Vicquemare.”

Jean felt a trickle of dread gathering in his stomach, and said nothing.

Kitsuragi seemed to gather his thoughts. “I was not planning on talking to you about this originally, at least not until you had fully recovered. I did not want to pile more onto your metaphorical plate. But the more I thought about it, the more I felt I needed to speak to you.” He took one more breath, and then said what was on his mind: “That stunt you pulled, that got you hurt – what were you thinking?”

Jean gaped, taken aback. No words came to mind at first, but in the face of Kitsuragi’s stare, he found himself trying to answer. “I… I suppose I was thinking that Harry had made the jump, so why couldn’t I?” That wasn’t quite right, but it was as close as he would get.

"You are not Harry," Kim said plainly, and Jean felt a crack in his chest.

Of course he wasn’t Harry. He wasn’t as fucked up as Harry, but – more importantly, it seemed – he would never be as good as Harry either. Jean had spent years looking out for Harry and yet somehow he could still never measure up to the great Supercop that was Harrier mother fucking Du Bois.

"Harry should not have attempted that jump,” Kim continued, “and I've spoken to him about how stupid it was, but – ”

Jean cut him off. “I know. I heard.”

“What?”

“I overheard you, outside the lazareth Monday night,” Jean said dully, and started quoting: “‘He is your subordinate, and ten years your junior.’ ‘He looks up to you, and looks to you to see how he should act in the field.’” He paused, then added under his breath, “Like I’m a child.”

Kitsuragi hesitated. “I apologize. You were not meant to hear that. It was what Harry needed to hear at that moment, but I do know that you are a grown adult and can make your own decisions.” He picked up steam again. “But it’s because you are a grown adult that I am here. I may blame Harry, but you can’t. Regardless of what he may have done, you should not have tried that jump.”

“Why, because I’m not as fit as him?” A sarcastic smile pulled up one side of Jean’s mouth.

“No,” Kitsuragi said, his frustration bubbling through his careful control. “Because it was a stupid and dangerous thing to try, no matter who you are. You need to start prioritizing your own existence more – your own health and safety. You don't seem to realize that there are people who care whether you live or die!”

Jean stared at the other man, utterly speechless, thrown by this unexpected sincerity. Kitsuragi sighed heavily, visibly attempting to regain his cool.

“That’s all I came here to say. Rest well. See you next Monday.” 

Before Jean could say another word, or even move, Kitsuragi was already out the door.

Jean stared at the door in complete silence for a long moment, unable to will his body into motion. Finally, he heard the purring of the little kitten as she came padding out of his bedroom towards him. Belatedly, he thought to be annoyed. “What, you left me to deal with Kitsuragi all on my own?” The kitten gave him an inscrutable cat expression. Jean just sighed.

"Whatever. Fuck it. Might as well call it a night." He scooped up the kitten and placed her in her box before hobbling to bed, foregoing his usual pre-bed ritual. His mood had been sour all day, and Kitsuragi's unexpected visit had succeeded in completely darkening it.

Stupid. Stupid. You brought this on yourself.

His ankle ached as if to admonish him. He dropped himself on the edge of the bed, resting his face in his good hand. A familiar feeling rose in his chest, too slow and insidious to recognize before it took hold.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

He pulled at the hair that had fallen in his face, the resulting pain appropriate punishment. For what? For everything. For jumping when Kitsuragi said not to. For not landing the jump. For not being as quick-footed as Harry. For not being as good as Harry.

His eyes burned beneath his hand and his nails dug into his face, as if he could scratch out the self loathing. No. This was to satisfy the self loathing. This was what he deserved for fucking up. For failing the team. No, they didn't actually need him. All they needed was a Harry no longer held back by Jean's constant nagging. The chewed-on edges of his nails sunk deeper. That, and Kitsuragi. No need for a satellite-officer who constantly overstepped the boundaries of his rank.

Stupid stupid stupid stupid–

The sound of items crashing to the floor shocked him out of his thoughts: the kitten had escaped her box again and had jumped onto his nightstand, knocking over nearly everything on it.

"God fucking –" He stopped himself. No. No need to take this out on the kitten. He stood and picked her up and, without thinking about it, put his face in her soft fur. A deep purr rumbled within the delicate fluff of her chest and stomach. Finally he took in a shuddering breath and pulled her away to place her on the bed. 

He bent down to start picking up the items that had been victims of the kitten’s acrobatics. Thankfully the glass of water had been mostly empty, and was undamaged. Pages of a weeks-old newspaper were scattered about, but would be easy to pick up. The electronic clock was fortuitously still plugged in, so he wouldn’t have to reset it. A pill bottle–

Jean paused. When was the last time he’d taken his meds? He squeezed his eyes shut. His face hurt. Host in heaven… No wonder he'd been struggling so much. It would have been a rough day at the best of times – especially Kitsuragi’s visit – but in hindsight he knew that he would have been able to handle things better if he'd been medicated over the last twenty-four hours.

He took one and finally laid down. He knew it was too soon for the pill to actually take effect, but he could already feel his emotions calming down, his ability to cope returning. As if her plan had been a complete success, the kitten immediately helped herself to the warm expanse of Jean’s chest and curled up in the center.

“You really are a menace,” he breathed softly. With a click he turned off the light, letting the darkness and the kitten’s engine-loud purr guide him to sleep.

The rest of the second week passed agonizingly slowly, but the presence of the kitten kept Jean from descending too far into his own brain, because at the very least he always had someone to talk to. After her first escape from her box, it became much more difficult to convince her to stay within its confines, and she mostly roamed freely around the apartment. Her constant dogging of his heels could be somewhat irritating, but he had to admit that waking in the middle of the night to the warmth of her tiny body pressed against him was comforting in its way. As much as he tried to keep a distance between himself and the kitten, he steadily found himself more and more attached to her.

Without anything to differentiate one day from another, Jean had begun to completely lose track of the days. He sat down one afternoon to count the days out, and was surprised to realize that he only had three more days before his planned return to work. He got up and hobbled to the radio to make a call to the station and confirm things, dodging around the kitten as she tried to get underfoot. He’d been planning to talk to Gottlieb, but Harry intercepted the call.

“Hey, Jean! How’s the ankle?”

Jean was somewhat taken aback. “Euhm, it’s better.” It was still a bit sore, but Jean was sure he could take the brace off if he needed to. “I was hoping to speak to Gottlieb about it –” 

Harry cut him off, “and your hand?”

“My hand is also better,” Jean said, getting annoyed again. The scabs on his hand still stung when he stretched them too far, but the stitches had fallen out on their own and the color of the surrounding skin was good. In hindsight he realized that everything was right on track with the timeline Gottlieb had predicted. “If I could speak to him, though –”

But he was interrupted again. “And how’s your sweet little kitty doing?”

Jean sighed. “She’s fine. Harry, you’re making me nervous – is Gottlieb alright? How are things at the station?”

“Oh, he’s fine! He’s just busy, he can’t talk.”

“And everything else?”

“We’ve been doing great! Don’t worry about it, we’ll see you on Monday. Oh!” he said, suddenly excited, “and I've been thinking a lot about how you can get away with bringing your kitten to work with you; she can be our barn cat!”

“The station doesn't have a barn.”

“Whatever, stable cat then, station cat, whatever you want to call her! She wants to come with you when you go back to work, and anyway, we need a mouser! Pryce keeps complaining about mouse nests in the hay loft; he even mentioned last week about starting to look into bringing in a cat – it’s perfect!”

“Harry, a newborn kitten can’t be expected to suddenly become a champion mouser overnight.”

“She’s not a newborn; she’s like four months old! Didn’t you look at the chart in the book?” Jean felt another stab of irritation at this, but Harry went on. “And I don’t expect her to become a champion overnight, but everyone starts somewhere. She’ll learn. And you can keep an eye on her while she does.”

Jean sighed heavily. If he was honest with himself, he would admit that he had no real reasons to object, but he didn’t want to cede the point just yet. “I’ll think about it,” he allowed. Even so, he knew Harry considered it a done deal, and he could almost see the man’s satisfied grin.

“Great! See you Monday!”

Jean said his farewells and hung up, then looked over at the kitten where she’d been dozing on the couch. He was surprised to see her eyes open and watching him.

“What do you think? Do you want to be a station cat?”

As if in answer, she yawned widely. Jean had no idea what that could mean, but as he watched her face stretch through her yawn, he was seized with a bizarre urge to place his finger in between her jaws, just to see how she would react. He held back, but even the mental image had him chuckling.

He sat heavily beside her, earning a sharp trill in protest. Chuckling again, he reached down and petted her head gently until she settled back to sleep.

It had become clear to Jean over his medical leave that the station didn’t actually need him, but maybe this little creature could find a purpose there; at least she could be useful to them. He tried hard not to resent her for it.

“Alright, little one. You’re coming to work with me on Monday.”

He knew she was already asleep, but her soft purring sounded to him like satisfied agreement.

Monday morning, Jean walked to work carrying two bags and balancing his crutch over one shoulder. A Frittte bag in his dominant hand contained the hated ankle brace. Over the weekend, he’d spent a few hours at a time without it to get used to walking normally again. The only soreness left now was some minor chafing and bruising, and he was sure that would go away soon enough. He flexed the hand carrying that bag, now free of bandages: his skin still bore scabs that felt a little tight, but they were quickly fading to scar tissue – and he was able to hold a pen well enough now, without any pain.

The other bag, worn across his body and resting against his hip, was an old gym bag. Its partly structured interior made it an ideal makeshift carrier for the kitten, once Jean had tucked her usual towel into the bottom of it for warmth and comfort.

Sooner than he’d anticipated, Jean arrived at the old silk mill that housed the 41st precinct and hesitated on the threshold. He’d looked forward so much to ending his convalescence, but now that he was actually here, he was seized with dread, and he began catastrophizing: What if Kitsuragi had told Pryce that he was a dangerous liability to himself and others? What if they transferred him to another precinct? What if he was fired the second he walked through the door? What if he was only here to drop off the kitten? Now that they knew they could do without him, why would they keep him around?

He was starting to get caught up in his own thoughts again when he heard a soft meow from the gym bag at his hip. Jean shook his head and continued inside.

On his way to his desk, he almost collided with Judit, who was carrying a stack of papers and looking harried. When she recognized Jean, she sighed and her face broke into a tired smile.

“I’m so relieved you’re here!” she said. Before Jean could react, though, someone called her name from across the room. She nodded quickly to Jean and hurried off.

Already dreaming of his second cup of coffee, Jean finished crossing the bullpen to his own desk. He leaned the crutch against the side of it and dropped the bag with the brace roughly onto his chair, then set the makeshift cat carrier down on the desk much more carefully, just barely missing a large stack of file folders. His eyes narrowing, he began to thumb through them: case paperwork, going back two weeks. Each folder had a colored mark on the front, and a signature from a member of the task force. Jean was trying to make sense of the system at play, when he noticed Kitsuragi hurrying over to him. Jean’s heart began to pound, remembering their last meeting.

“Officer Vicquemare, you’re here earlier than usual,” the lieutenant said. Was he surprised that Jean was on time on his first day back? Annoyed? He thought he saw anxiety in Kitsuragi’s eyes, but Jean didn’t have time to wonder about that, as the other man continued: “I apologize. I was hoping to speak to you before you got to your desk. I imagine this pile may be a bit overwhelming.”

Forcing himself to calm down and ignore his fears, Jean picked up one of the folders. “Is this the Williams case? I thought this was taken care of?”

“No, we’ve had no new leads on that. We were really hoping you could take another look at it. In fact, every file with a blue mark on it is one we really wanted your insight on.”

Jean looked through the pile of file folders. More than half of them had a blue mark. “And the green marks?” he asked.

“Those are all cases that were originally yours, that we were able to make some headway on, but need follow up this week or next. They’re not urgent, but I thought it would be a good idea for you to touch base with whichever officer handled each case before taking charge of them again.”

Jean nodded, giving a cursory glance inside a few of them. Many of the files had paperwork that was significantly messier or more unclear than Jean would have allowed, though the files from Kitsuragi were the opposite: almost overly clear and precise, even when there wasn’t much to say. Some of the remaining folders, he noticed, did not actually have signatures on them at all; these all bore red marks.

“Ah,” Kitsuragi said over his shoulder. “The red marks are files that are particularly pressing, as the preliminary work has not yet been completed. Unfortunately, no one on the task force had exactly the right skill sets for these cases, and, to my embarrassment, we weren’t even able to make a start on them in your absence.”

“Looking at all of this, it seems like you’ve all been having a hard time keeping up – was it particularly busy?” Jean wondered.

Kitsuragi grimaced. “Again, I’m embarrassed to say this, but no, not particularly. We should have been able to handle a single detective taking leave for two weeks, but in truth, we really struggled. C-Wing really needs some more officers so that we can delegate better if a similar situation comes up again. It was especially hard this last week, but we were able to hold out because we knew that, come Monday, you’d be coming back.”

“But, Harry said –”

“I know,” Kitsuragi cut him off. “We wanted you to focus on your recovery. Also,” he hesitated, appearing more uncomfortable. “Before anything else, I wanted to speak with you about the visit I paid you at your home.”

Jean braced himself, saying nothing.

“It was unnecessary, and inappropriate, especially while you were still recovering. This is no excuse, but I realized that the person I was truly upset with was myself, for not making more of an effort to stop you both.” He was talking more quickly now, unable to meet Jean’s eyes. “I know that you are both capable of making your own decisions, but I believe that at the time, I felt that I was personally responsible for your injuries, especially in those first moments when you were hurt. I was so afraid, looking down at you in that alley…” Kitsuragi faltered, then steadied himself and finally met Jean’s gaze. “I regret that I took those feelings out on you and Harry. I know that’s something I need to work on. Anyway, I sincerely apologize.”

Jean had listened to this speech in shock, and struggled to find his voice again. He found himself thinking of the kitten again, so tiny, as she’d jumped from the counter into open air. He’d thought that she’d done it for adventure – like Harry had. But why had Jean jumped? He’d tried to answer that question for himself over the previous two weeks, and had come close, but it wasn’t until now that he could put it together. He’d always wanted so badly to prove himself worthy, to prove that he was just as good as everyone else. He’d spent his career weighted down by his rank, by his upbringing, even by his own brain, and he’d struggled so hard to make it look easy.

Another image of the kitten came to his mind: of her soaking wet, approaching painfully on the sidewalk, crying out for help. And then another: stuck in a box, meowing impotently up at him, asserting herself. She’d struggled for independence, even while being so dependent on him. Was that why she’d jumped? To prove that she could? That she didn’t need help, even if proving that meant hurting herself? Jean shook his head; he was overthinking this. The kitten wasn’t him: she had been smart enough to ask for help when she really needed it. He took a breath and answered at last:

“You were right. I hadn’t given any thought at all to the consequences before I jumped. It was rash, and impulsive. I wanted to prove that I could do it, and I didn’t care if anything happened to me. And…” he realized this as he said it, “you were right that I should care. Thank you.”

Kitsuragi cleared his throat and nodded. They stood in awkward silence for a few seconds, before a meow from Jean’s gym bag broke the standoff and they both chuckled. Kitsuragi gave Jean a rare smile, carefully subdued as usual, and there was genuine warmth when he said, “welcome back, Officer.”

Jean’s throat tightened. He never would have predicted the flood of emotions that could accompany the simple assurance of being needed, being valued and thought of. He ran through a few jokes in his head to deflect the feelings, but then remembered whom he was speaking with and thought better of it. He swallowed hard, and nodded. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I’m ready to get some work done.”

“That’s good to hear, because we really need to catch up on these case files. Please go and get our new mouser situated, and then come get to work.”

“Yes, sir.”

Six Months Later

“Chitchat!” Jean called from the main door to Precinct 41’s stables.

With a chirruping meow, the tabby appeared as if from nowhere at the top of a stack of hay bales inside the door. She’d grown a lot in the past six months, her limbs now long and graceful. She was also far more agile now, and as she’d honed her instincts, the mice that used to nest in the precinct’s stables had quickly learned that their warm place to sleep was not worth the threat of a competent mouser. Captain Pryce had had no complaints about her job performance; she, Kitsuragi, and Minot were perhaps the only members of C-Wing that could be said of.

“There you are,” Jean said, reaching out to scratch behind one of the cat’s ears and earning a pleased trill. He smoothed his hand down her back a few times, and then stepped back to hoist a large bag of cat food onto one hip. He brought the bag over to the nook where her food and water were kept, and topped up her gravity-loaded food bowl. He eyed the matching water bowl suspiciously. “Either you haven’t been drinking enough water, or someone’s been refilling this for me again. Which do you suppose, Chitchat?” The cat had jumped down and was now curling herself almost aggressively against Jean’s legs. She meowed as if in response to his question.

Her name, when she’d finally been given one, had come from Harry. Early on, Harry had joked good naturedly that the cat was just like himself, needing constant attention and care at first so she wouldn’t make messes everywhere. When Jean had said, “What, should I start calling her Shitcat, then?”, Harry had laughed heartily and immediately partially translated that to Shit chat, which quickly evolved into Chitchat. The name became even more fitting when the cat turned out to be extremely vocal and social as she grew, meowing at everyone who entered the stables like it was her duty to greet them, and becoming indignant if they didn’t greet her back.

She was meowing like that now, too, so Jean rolled his eyes and reached down to pet her some more. “So demanding,” he sighed, shaking his head and straightening up again. “So. Should we open a case to investigate? The Case Of The Refilling Water Jug? I’ll give you three guesses, but they have to rhyme with ‘hairy’.”

“Did someone say my name?” Harry said as he came around the corner. 

“Oh, speak of the devil,” Jean joked, and Harry froze, wide-eyed.

“What did I do this time?” Then he caught sight of Chitchat at Jean’s feet and broke out into a huge, dopey grin. “But first I have to say hello to the princess!” he said in a thick, sing-song voice and dramatically dropped to his knees in front of her.

Chitchat startled and scampered quickly away to jump up onto one of the dividing walls between the stalls. Harry’s face fell pathetically, and Jean couldn’t help but give one short, dismissive laugh.

This happened often. Their station cat enjoyed people, but only on her own terms, and she often had trouble dealing with Harry’s levels of enthusiasm. He always came at her with such undisguised affection, and it rarely failed to scare her off.

“You’ll get her someday,” Jean said, and helped Harry to his feet. “You’ve just got to chill out a bit.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Harry mused, brushing stray bits of straw from his slacks. “So what is it that I was being accused of?”

“Oh, that’s right – have you been refilling Chitchat’s water jug?”

“No, not since last time. I remember you like to keep track of that yourself.”

“Hmm. Well, there goes my primary suspect.” Jean shook his head. “Did you need something?”

Harry clapped his hands, as though physically marking the change of topic. “Yes. Torso and McLaine were asking if you’re coming to the bar with us tonight for the task force get-together, since we all have the same weekend off for once.”

Jean thought about it. “Maybe. Where are we going?”

“It’s a new place. I’ve heard their mocktails are amazing.”

This sparked some interest in Jean. The last couple of bars the task force had tried out together had had little on the menu for those few of their party who weren’t partaking in alcohol: Harry was still sober, Kitsuragi rarely drank in public, and Jean had cut back a lot, too, as his medication reacted poorly with booze. He’d been finding things a bit easier since he’d been better about staying on his meds consistently. His depression wasn’t magically cured, not by any stretch of the imagination, but he’d been working hard, and his new therapist had been helping him develop better coping mechanisms on top of everything else. There were still bad days – bad weeks, sometimes – but there were more good than bad.

Even with the promise of good mocktails, though, Jean still felt like prolonging the question. A small part of him still hesitated to engage with social outings, but for the most part he just enjoyed teasing Harry. “I don’t know. I have to water my plants.” Jean had started collecting plants again and had even, apparently miraculously, been able to revive a few of his old plants he’d thought were completely dead.

Harry scoffed at him, taking the reasoning seriously at first. “How long could that possibly take? Do it tomorrow!” Then he caught sight of Jean’s barely suppressed smile, and huffed as he realized the joke. “Okay, so you’re coming, right?”

“Yes, yes, I suppose I am.”

Jean put away the cat food bag and turned to leave the stables. Chitchat followed close behind. “Oh, are you coming home with me tonight?” he asked her.

The tabby went home with Jean a few nights a week. He left it up to her usually, but she always seemed to know when he especially wanted her with him anyway. During the winter, she’d come home with him almost every evening, seeming to sense that he particularly needed her company on those long, dark nights. Now that the spring was coming around again, she’d been less attentive to him, but he still knew to expect her most weekends.

Chitchat was a working cat and was kept at the precinct because she had a job to do, but the majority of the station had taken to her almost immediately, treating her like a pet. She liked to do rounds throughout the day, apparently checking in on the various wings and departments, and everyone perked up when she came to visit them. But her bond with Jean was special. It was his desk she napped on during the day, especially when he was at the station doing paperwork, and it was his voice she’d answer to even if she should have been too far away to hear him.

The two men and the cat got back to the bullpen, and Chitchat automatically climbed into the gym bag Jean still used as her carrier, stored permanently under his desk for her. Jean started tidying up his desk for the night, packing up anything he needed to bring home with him. A moment later, Kitsuragi joined them.

“Detective, did you ask Officer Vicquemare about this evening?” he asked Harry, who only grinned and gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up. Kitsuragi stared at him for a moment before asking, “so… is that a yes?”

Jean snorted lightly. “Yes, he asked, and yes, I’m coming.”

“I’m glad,” Kitsuragi said, and Jean was touched at the relief he saw in his face.

“I just need to drop Chitchat at my apartment first, and then I’ll meet you all there. Oh, that reminds me: you haven’t seen anyone going into the stables any more than usual, have you? Someone’s been filling her water jug, and I was wondering who it was.”

Kitsuragi’s posture stiffened somewhat, and the very tips of his ears became tinged with red. “Oh,” he began, then stopped. He cleared his throat, and continued, “that was me, actually.”

Jean raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Was it?”

“Yes. She, euhm. She’s been meowing at me lately while I do deskwork, and when I get up to see what she wants, she leads me back to the stables and meows in front of her water and food bowls. I thought maybe they weren’t, well… fresh enough for her. So from time to time, I wash and refill her water jug and shake up her food.” Kitsuragi cleared his throat again. His ears were getting redder by the second.

Jean and Harry exchanged a glance. It was clear to both of them that Chitchat had swindled the lieutenant; Jean already cleaned out her water jug every time he refilled it, and her dry kibble didn’t need to be freshened. However, Jean was unexpectedly charmed by the image of the serious Lieutenant Kitsuragi following a cat around and folding to her demands, and it seemed from the sparkle in Harry’s eyes that he was feeling the same way. Simultaneously, the two carefully schooled their expressions, unwilling to embarrass Kitsuragi by laughing at him when he was already obviously uncomfortable. 

“I can stop doing that, if you’d prefer,” Kitsuragi said, lacking his usual conviction. 

“No, that’s alright. I’m sure she appreciates it,” Jean said, and leaned back to look at Chitchat in her carrier and gave her a chagrined frown. “So you’ve got Kitsuragi to pamper you, have you?” The cat simply blinked slowly up at him, and Jean shook his head. He smiled at Kitsuragi to reassure him. “Just let me know next time; I like to keep track of how much water she drinks.” 

Kitsuragi nodded. “Of course.”

“In that case,” Harry announced, grinning, “I declare The Case Of The Refilling Water Jug to be closed!”

Jean glanced suspiciously at him. “So you were listening before you came into the room! I knew it! How much did you hear?”

Harry dodged out of the way of the swat Jean aimed at his shoulder. “Ah, but Jean-Jean! I wasn’t listening with my ears! It doesn’t count!”

“What the hell are you on about, shitkid?” Jean still threw the old nickname at Harry from time to time, as Harry had said he actually liked it.

“I was listening… in my mind,” he clarified, tapping a finger at the side of his head. 

Kitsuragi raised an eyebrow and shook his head. “Ah, of course. We should have known,” he said drily, then turned to Jean and changed the subject. “Do you need the address for the bar?”

“Yes, please,” Jean said, and Kitsuragi turned to make use of a notepad on Jean’s desk. 

Jean bent down to zip the gym bag up just enough so that Chitchat couldn’t climb out, then stood to sling the strap over his shoulder and carefully put the bag into place at his hip. Kitsuragi handed him the paper with the address, folded, and he put it into his pocket without looking at it. "Thanks. Are you heading straight there?"

"I have a bit of paperwork left to finish, and then I'll be heading over. I should be there right around the same time as you. And you, Harry?" Kitsuragi asked, turning to face him.

Harry thought for a few seconds. "I'm done for the night, but I don't want to walk over alone. Can I wait with you?"

Kitsuragi smiled so subtly that only Harry or Jean could have caught it. "Of course."

"In that case, I'd better get going," Jean said, fighting the urge to tease his colleagues. He thought he’d seen something secretive pass between them, but maybe Kitsuragi was just pleased that Harry had made the wise decision not to go to a bar alone.

They made their farewells, and Jean headed out to the exit, waving at other officers on his way. On the threshold, he paused to admire the final rays of the early spring sunset, just visible between the city’s tallest buildings. His nose caught the sweet smell of the tiny blossoms in a nearby gardenbox, finally blooming after the dreary winter, and he found himself smiling. He patted the bag at his hip.

“Not too bad, eh?” he said under his breath. As if she’d heard him, Chitchat meowed. Jean chuckled, and started his walk home.