A/N: This one is for PinkAngel17, who I blame entirely for even putting a pairing in my head ;) Teeny tiny warning for very far in the future character death…But very far in the future :)
Disclaimer: If I owned Criminal Minds, I'd be rich enough to have my very loud music - playing neighbour assassinated. As it is, I have a headache and not much else.
I think I must be getting old.
Sometimes, even when I try and remember what it was like to be young, I can't remember much more than how my mother was warm and the blanket was soft and the humans had very gentle hands. If I'm honest, I'm not sure there was much more to my life when I was a tiny pup.
And then the Man came. He had much darker fur on his head than my other humans, and hands that looked dark next to my pale fur. He had a jacket that smelled wonderful. It's that smell I always remember when I think about him, even after all this time. He held me close to his chest and let me hide my head in his sweater, and I didn't have to share him with my brothers and sisters. I didn't have to share him for a whole car ride, until he gave me to my Lady and she held me tight too and she smelled even better. She still smells the best, better than all the other humans I have met.
She called me Ziggy – Zig for short and Ziggy Stardust if she ever caught me doing something I shouldn't have. When I was younger, she would catch me all the time chewing on something that wasn't for chewing; I liked shoes, because some of them smelled almost the same as the Man's jacket and when he wasn't around I could pretend he was. The Lady was very good at catching me, because she was around all the time. She still is, but I'm used to her now and she's used to me. She was old when we were introduced, older than my first humans were, and now that I am old too we're like a team. We understand each other. I know that she can't run and can't bend over to pick me up or pat me, and she knows that I don't have enough teeth to eat hard food and take a few tries to jump on the chair or the bed. She says I'm her best friend. I wasn't always, I know. It used to be the Man.
She misses him, I know, because I miss him too. I miss jumping into their bed in the morning and snuggling between them. The Man loved me, but he wouldn't let me sleep on the bed with them. Now I sleep next to the Lady and although she holds me tight and strokes my head, we both know that the bed is too big without him here as well. They used to put music on and dance together and I'd prance around their feet, but she doesn't dance anymore. He owned lots of different houses, and when he went to check that the young humans living there weren't making a mess, he'd take me and I'd get lots of pats on the head and treats slipped to me. The Lady owns them now, but she doesn't go and look at them; the biggest one in her litter is in charge. They have three children, the Lady and the Man. They were grown up when I met them, and two of them have litters of their own now. When the little humans come to visit, I play for a while and then crawl into my Lady's lap and nap. They have too much energy for me, but I don't complain because my Lady loves them so much; she gives them treats when their parents aren't looking, just like she used to do for me. When they come to stay, one of the tiny ones might come into our bed and sleep with us, and for one night the bed doesn't seem quite as empty as it usually does.
When the litter isn't coming to the house and making a mess, my Lady is out visiting her friends. I get to go as well, because some of them have dogs too and the ones who don't like to see me. When I was first brought home, there were more friends than there are now. There was one very old man who had funny fur on his face and liked to throw a ball for me, but I haven't seen him for a very long time – I think he must have gone to the same place that my Man did. Now there is the tall man, who smells like he's the oldest but doesn't seem to understand that he should slow down and who has a very aloof Golden Retriever, Lennon, who gets to wear a special jacket because his human can't hear properly. There is a younger man, who is older than the litter but younger than my Lady and who sometimes takes us dogs out for a walk if the others don't feel like it, and two ladies who laugh a lot and make my Lady laugh as well. One of them has a cat that ignores us and the other just got given a pup called Scout by her oldest son; she likes to play but thankfully has learnt to tell when I've had enough. We used to visit these friends when the Man was with us but it never seemed as important then; now that he isn't here, my Lady only seems to smile properly when we are with them.
I still don't know exactly why my Man left and I don't think I ever will. I thought he was happy with us. It was sudden; one day he came home and he sat down and the Lady started to cry even before he said anything, and all he could do was hold her tight and whisper. I think I was whining, because he picked me up and hugged me too. After that he had to go to the human vet lots and lots, for so long that it almost felt normal, and then he couldn't get out of bed and all the litter and all the friends came to see us almost every day. And then one morning I woke up very early and jumped on the bed to find my Lady crying and hugging him even though he was asleep. He smelled a bit funny but he had for a while. The youngest child was sleeping in our house and she cried too, and then later the rest of them arrived and so did some other humans who put my Man on a little bed and carried him away. He was still asleep. I watched from a window, shut into a room so that I couldn't get in the way, as they put him in black car and drove away.
He never came back.
My Lady still has his jacket, and sometimes she takes it to bed with us and we both cuddle into it. It's old and soft now and the smell of him is fading but we don't care. I did wonder why he didn't take it with him when he left, because he loved it so much, but then I realised that he loved us more and he left it so we wouldn't forget him. I don't think I ever could forget him, and my Lady definitely can't, so he needn't have worried that we would.
So that's how I became my Lady's best friend. She wears bright colours again now, and changes my collar to match her every morning. The music started again, even if we don't dance, and she makes lots of things for the litter and the little ones to wear; sometimes, I'll even work up the energy to chase the ball of wool and make her laugh. We get by alright, and when she feels sad she looks at a picture of our Man and might cry for a little bit but then she'll smile and pat me on the head and we'll go out for a slow walk around the park or go and visit Lennon and his owner or play with Scout or do some baking with the little humans. Whatever we do, it's always what she wants to do.
But you know what? I don't care a bit. As long as I'm with her, I'd do anything.