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"You think that little guy needs to pee?" Plum asked. He tapped his fingers on the edge of his laptop screen absentmindedly.
"She's a girl," Reacher said. He squinted his eyes down at the pile of fluff in his hands. The kitten looked back up at him, bright blue eyes unblinking. "And yeah. Probably."
"There's a green space up to the left," Tamara said. "That far enough off the road?"
Reacher looked at the clock on the car. "It'll do for a minute."
She flicked the blinker on. Reacher, Jacob, and Plum shot her a look. The kitten just kept staring up at Reacher.
They pulled up to a crumbling curb, shaded from the main road by a wide-branching oak and a smattering of scraggly bushes alongside the street.
Reacher went for his seatbelt and carefully shifted the cat into one arm. "This isn't a field trip—I'll be back in a few seconds."
"Oh!" Plum sucked in an excited breath. "Look! Taco stand!"
Reacher sighed, his hand on the handle stilling. "Fine. A few minutes."
The early evening sun was warm on them where it came through the dappled canopy, finally peaking out from behind the clouds that had been blanketing the sky all day. Tamara shook out her knees and swiveled her feet on her ankles as soon as she was out of the driver's seat. Jacob kept a grip on his door as he looked out to the fields next to them, where a handful people, some alone and some in groups, were scattered about walking or playing with old nets and goals. Plum just stood there smacking his hands over all of his pockets, Reacher assumed looking for his wallet.
"No cards," Reacher reminded, eyes steadily casing the sidewalks in and around the park. Tamara made a humming noise as she worked out something in her neck.
Jacob shut his car door softly, eyes still glued somewhere out in front of him. "The only cash I have is my lucky two dollar bill. Ben gave it to me for my birthday when he was twelve."
Nobody spoke, for a long moment. Then another. The birds chirped overhead and a few kids yelled over a missed goal on the far field.
"Well!" Plum piped up, slapping his hands on his thighs. "You guys have taken half my burners, my fire extinguisher, my car, and my home, so what's a few tacos? On me, dudes." Plum practically shot off toward the rickety old food truck a few meters down the road.
The rest of the group still stood in silence. Jacob blinked and looked down at his shoes. Tamara shot Reacher a look over the hood of the car that Reacher deliberately did not meet.
Thank god for the damn kitten.
She started meowling like a maniac, aggressiveness of her snarls only tempered by the fact that she sounded like the smallest squeaky toy ever made.
Reacher blew out a breath and immediately made a wide berth around the front of the car to get to the grass, grateful for the excuse to walk away. Not that he usually needed one, but still.
He took a few more good-sized strides into the park before putting the kitten down, staying crouched next to her with a hand prepared to shoot out in case she tried to make a run for it. He heard low voices from behind him and resolutely focused on the small creature in front of him, padding around in the grass with rigid legs and stilted meows. Reacher wondered if the thing had ever even been in grass before.
Eventually she did pee, which made Reacher significantly less irritated by their ridiculously risky field trip. It was also pretty hard to be that irritated when the kitten decided to start nuzzling into his palm, thoughts of running off far from her little mind, it seemed, in favor of getting scratched behind her ears.
Plum was on his way back to the car, arms laden with foil glinting bright in the setting sun, when something large and brown came flying through the air at them. Reacher had just enough time to scoop the kitten up and bound to his feet before a size seven football thudded to the ground in front of them, bouncing, eventually rolling to a stop a yard or so from his feet. He saw Jacob come up off the street in his peripheral.
"Hey! My bad," a kid yelled as he came sprinting toward them, brown hair, floppy and poorly cut, in his eyes.
"No harm, no foul," Reacher replied as the kid came to a halting stop in front of him. He snapped down for his ball and popped back up in one quick motion, before Reacher could do the same in a slower manner. He flashed a sheepish grin—or at least, Reacher assumed it was sheepish. He could barely make out the boy's eyes through all that hair.
The kid threw a look behind him, out toward where he'd come running from. "Man," the kid huffed.
"All good?" Reacher asked.
The kid's lip twisted into a frown, but then he shrugged. "Yeah. Hey! One of you wanna go long?"
Reacher blinked. He tightened his hold on the kitten. Before he could speak, Jacob pipped up from next to him. "Yeah man, I got you."
The boy flicked his gaze from Reacher to Jacob and back again, but after a beat shrugged and tossed the ball to Jacob. "Make it good!"
Jacob caught the ball and chuckled. Reacher realized that was the first time he'd heard anything like that from him. He spun the ball between his fingers. "You got it. You got three seconds…"
The boy broke out into a wide, gap-toothed grin and darted in a dead sprint down the field. Reacher watched as Jacob took a few more steps into the park, eyes narrowed with focus and hazy with something else, his arm winding back.
He let loose the ball with an arm and swivel that Reacher'd seen on T.V. It soared high, right into the sun. Reacher huffed as he watched the boy turn his head and almost wipe out when he panickedly tried to add on a burst of speed.
Jacob had followed his pass and taken a few slow steps past Reacher, lips almost tilting up as he watched. He let out a whoop between cupped hands when the kid just barely caught it between his fingertips, wiping out for real this time. He popped back up quick enough with an answering holler, holding the football up in victory.
"Don't tell him I was impressed by that," Tamara muttered to Reacher from where she'd also quietly moved up beside him.
Reacher shifted the cat to his other arm. "I won't if you won't."
The boy came jogging back, out of breath but smiling through it. "One more time?" He glanced around at their motley crew, eyes lighting up on the kitten for a moment, before looking back at Tamara and holding his hand with the football straight out to her.
She raised her eyebrows. "Me?"
The boy shrugged. "You must be cool if you're hanging out with these two guys."
"Hey!" Plum grumped.
Tamara smirked and shrugged her jacket off. "Actually," she said, holding it out to Reacher and not deigning to make sure he took it before letting it go. "They're only cool because they're hanging out with me."
She took the ball, tossing it up and testing the feel of it. The second she pulled her arm back the boy was off with another one of his toothy grins. Tamara threw the ball into a high arc, not going quite as far as Jacob's but with just as perfect a rotation.
Reacher finally let loose a smile. "We could form a team." Tamara shot him a disbelieving look, and Jacob actually snorted.
"Count me out," Plum called. He held up the small pile food he was still balancing. "I'll just be the water boy."
They watched as the boy caught the ball again, this time remaining thankfully upright. Tamara and Reacher started to walk the few steps back toward the car, Reacher holding her suit jacket back out to her, but Jacob stayed back a few more seconds to yell out to the boy. "Hey kid! Want a taco?"
The boy started sprinting toward them again. Endless energy, youth.
"I only got enough for us four…" Plum said.
"You should eat, Jacob," Tamara said, reaching for the biggest foil-wrap in Plum's arms before anyone else could.
Jacob shrugged. "I'll just have half of yours."
"Like hell you will."
"Not going to go for third down?" Plum asked as Jacob came up to him and plucked another taco from his hands.
"No," he said, immediately, toneless. "We need to get back on the road."
Plum frowned at the sudden change in energy, as did Tamara. Reacher couldn't decide whether the switch-flipped dourness was a good sign, or a red flag.
The kid came rushing back with loud wheezing breaths before Reacher could ruminate too long, still grinning. "You mean it?" he asked Jacob through gulps of air.
"Yeah, kid." Jacob tossed the foil underhanded to him. It hit its mark dead-center and the kid caught it against his chest and clutched it tight. "Thanks, dude!" He shot them all one last wide grin, plus an extra big one for the kitten, and then took off back into the park without another word. Jacob stared after him for a few beats, a twisted, unreadable look on his face, before turning back around to the team and decidedly not meeting anyone's eyes.
Plum shrugged and looked at Reacher as the man came up to him. "Your turn," Reacher said, thrusting the kitten into Plum's arms in exchange for the taco Plum held out.
"What—hey now, I can't—I'm not—"
Reacher was already tuning him out, moving around to the right side of the car and grabbing for the door handle. He pretended not to notice Tamara handing something shiny and silvery to Jacob below her waist, or the look Jacob shot her.
"Are you allergic?" He eventually heard Jacob ask.
"No, just—wait." A beat. "Yes! I am so allergic—"
"Nope. You got her, man."
Tamara let out a humorous scoff. "You blew that one, Russell."
Reacher buckled himself back into the passenger seat, letting out a long sigh as his muscles bunched up once more to mold into the just-this-side-of-too-small seat. He shoved his heels out into the footwell as far as they would go, which wasn't far, and finally started to unwrap his taco from its foil.
By the time Reacher finished his food—barely half a minute later, as the thing was palm sized and barely a snack for him, and also the cheese to beef ratio had been surprisingly nailed—the rest of the team was finally settling into their seats and the bickering about the cat was still going strong.
He interrupted Tamara laying into Plum about how absolutely nothing he was wearing was too expensive for a few claw snags by twisting his shoulders as far as he could and holding out his left hand. The guys had switched seats, so Reacher caught the eyebrows raising slowly on Jacob's face.
"Pass her up," Reacher grunted when no one moved. Plum hurriedly did as he was told without another word, seemingly worried that Reacher might take it back any second. Reacher took the little thing back into his arms more gently than appearances would suggest he could, turning back around to settle her comfortably against his chest.
There was a heavy moment of silence in the car.
It was Jacob who broke it. "Softie!"
Reacher would have been miffed with most anyone else accusing him like that, but the word was said with something closer to kindness and teasing rather than belittlement, and the knowledge of what lay ahead for the man made Reacher's temperament a little mellower than usual.
Tamara finally turned the ignition on and put the car in reverse, tilting her head around a bit to look in the mirrors. "You just gonna take that, big man?" She asked.
Reacher glared at her, then looked back down into the steel blue gaze of the kitten. She meowed up at him, and bopped her paw on his shirt until it got caught in the fabric and he felt microscopic pin-pricks over his heart. Reacher shrugged a shoulder. "I like animals."
"The man likes animals," Plum muttered.
Reacher tilted his head toward the back seat, and caught the corner of a smile on Jacob's lips.
Just a little one, but a real one. It mellowed him even further, for a moment.
He resettled once more in his seat and watched as Tamara U-turned at the intersection down the road, heading back to the main drag. Back to D.C.. Back to the mission.
He ran his fingertips lightly up and down the kitten's fluffed-up spine as a distraction from Plum's rather savage attacking of his own taco behind him. The sun was setting now, glowing on the horizon, dripping a lazy shade of gold over the world outside the window. Reacher didn't quite sleep—of course he didn't sleep, not here, not now—but he let himself slip into a gentle, distracted lull. Focused his senses on the rumble of asphalt beneath the car tires, the quick-dimming gradient of twilight in the sky, the vibration of purrs filling his chest.
Half an hour until the world started turning again. The kitten mewled quietly, sharp little teeth showing as she scrunched her sleepy face up, then threw her tiny head into his chest and nuzzled him until she tired herself out and drifted off to sleep, tucked as close as she could be.
The corner of Reacher's mouth twitched up for a moment. He thought about Sampson, and the CIA and their cages, and the look in Anna Merrick's eyes before she pulled the trigger. He held the kitten tighter.
He was absolutely, he decided, with that mellowness softening his sharp edges for one last moment, handing her to Jacob next time.