Just a little h/c wallow. More fic that was lying abandoned on my hard disk. You always hurt the one you love, and I love Remy. Those not into wallowing may want to skip this one.

"Okay," Linguini says nervously as I step off his hand onto the steel surface of the examining table, "what do we do now?"

"There are two basic shots for inoculation of rats," the vet says to Linguini, "that will give protection from all the major diseases that can infect humans."

My head swims with the stinging smell of chemicals and disinfectants.

"And he can go… uh, I can take him in a restaurant?" Linguini confirms.

Although I know the steel's sterile, it feels unclean under my feet. Menacing.

The vet gestures expansively. "On the moon, if you so choose."

It's cold here on the unforgiving metal, and I hate being talked about as though I wasn't there. But we've discussed this. I can't hide forever, and the best way for me to appear in the restaurant is to get a certificate that I've had all the shots required by the health department. It's still a bit iffy even then, but I have every confidence in the persuasive powers of Colette's meat cleaver.

"You okay with that, Little Chef?"

Even as I nod, I hear the vet laugh. "You'd think he understood you, the way you talk to him!"

Suddenly, the table seems colder, the white coat looming above me a lot more frightening. I'd mostly forgotten the demeaning feeling of being less than human, but now it comes back full force.

And it only gets worse when the doc produces a needle. My brain freezes with only one thought: Mon Dieu, it's huge.

The long, gleaming steel pole, half as thick as my wrist, glints evilly under the fluorescent light, its obliquely slashed edge like a reed cut crosswise, sharp and glinting. Terror strikes into my heart as the doctor wields it, reflections sliding up and down the flashing barrel, and I can see the tapered edge of the knife-like surface. I imagine it going into my flesh, taking out a neat round hole. He fills it with liquid and squirts it into the air, then turns matter-of-factly to me. As he does, he smiles, and the bright light reflects off his white teeth.

I can't do this.

The chromium barrel coming towards me, the stainless-steel table cold under my bare feet, the bland, uncaring face of the human wielding the implement—I flash, for a fleeting second, to the torture scene from the movie Brazil. It's just a shot, I think to myself, but I can't help the whimper of fear as I skitter backwards…

"Don't you have any smaller needles?"

The vet looks annoyed at the interruption.

"Do you?" Linguini presses. His voice snaps me out of my reverie.

The doc sounds irritated. "We could use a smaller one for this first shot, but we'd still have to use this big one for the last, so I…"

"Use the smaller one now."

The vet smiles tolerantly. "You're obviously very tenderhearted, M. Linguini. But there's no need for..."

"Use the smaller one now."

Another light laugh. "My dear Monsieur Linguini, you mustn't be so emotional about your pets. They don't feel pain the same as we do, you know."

Linguini sets his jaw. "If you don't use the smaller one now, I'm leaving and taking him with me."

The doctor huffs with annoyance, but he puts the monstrous syringe down and I almost faint with relief. For a milquetoast, Linguini sure packs a lot of steel when he has to – mostly defending me, I concede ruefully. The white-coated man turns, fumbles with the syringe, his exact motions hidden by his broad back, and I'm so riveted by his every move that I completely miss Linguini squatting down to my eye level.

"Hey," he murmurs softly. "It'll be over soon."

My throat is closed. I try futilely to swallow, but my body, chilled to the bone, won't obey me. I can't meet his eyes. I manage a nod. It feels like a supreme achievement.

The white-coated figure comes towards me, and I can't take my eyes off the needle. The syringe is as big as I am. It shames me that I start to tremble. You shouldn't have antagonized him, I think in panic, seeing the annoyance on the vet's face.

The man looks at me, cold, impassive. His businesslike, impersonal fingers reach out for me. It's necessary, it's necessary, I tell myself, forcing myself to remain still, fighting years of flight instincts, in addition to the gut-wrenching terror that has me hyperventilating.

"Wait."

I register annoyance from the man standing over me, but Linguini holds up a hand. "Just a second." He moves closer, so close I can see every freckle, his red hair shading me from part of the harsh light above. He reaches an arm out to me over the cold steel surface, held out as though to shake hands, thumb facing upwards. "You wanna hold onto me?"

I don't even think as I throw myself gratefully into the embrace. His finger and thumb encircle me like Emile's arms, and I wrap my own around the base of his thumb, my chin resting on the skin between forefinger and thumb, my chest pressed against the warmth of his palm. My fingers burrow into his sleeve like a lifeline. Not so cold now, and not so alone. "I'm ready."

Linguini nods. "Okay."

"Really, M. Linguini, you are much too…" But whatever he is much too is drowned out by the pain that brings tears to my eyes. The needle feels like a knife ripping into my shoulder, and then the liquid it pushes into me burns like acid, a sheet of flame blazing down my back. It's impossible to hold back a gasp, and I rear back to bite down. What am I doing? I stop myself just in time. If I'd bitten down onto Linguini's hand, I'd have gone right through, maybe severed a tendon. My teeth close on empty air and I feel my head lashing from side to side.

Gasping and panting, I notice that the vet's withdrawn the needle. I'm slumped limp and shaking in Linguini's embrace, his fingers wrapped tightly around me, his thumb stroking my back. His other hand is stroking the blazing wound in my shoulder, smoothing down the grain of my fur. I can't speak. With chagrin I withdraw my claws from the holes they tore in Linguini's sleeve when my hands tightened involuntarily. "Huh." I never even noticed.

"You okay, Little Chef?"

I nod and try to smile, but it's too much for me. I'm overwhelmed, and out of the corner of my eye I see the bigger needle being prepared. If this one hurt so much, what will the other be like? If I were human I'd be sweating right now.

Linguini looks at me with entirely too much shrewdness in that guileless face. "You're not, are ya?" A gentle finger comes up and brushes my cheek. "You're crying!"

I shrug—pointless to deny it. I guess my eyes did tear up some.

"It hurt you a lot, didn't it?"

There's no answer for that, except a lie. I shake my head again.

"Ah, Little Chef." The sympathy in his eyes just blows me away; he always could see right through me. "Listen. You want we should cancel this right now?"

What? But the health inspectors.. the restaurant…

"Screw the health inspectors and the restaurant. I don't want you hurt." Those big brown eyes bore into mine, full of sincerity. "Just say the word and we're outta here. What do you say?"

It's amazing. Out of all the things he could say, Linguini has probably hit upon the one thing that could give me the strength to go through with it. Just knowing he's there, on my side, is enough. "Bring it on," I gesture with a devil-may-care motion.

"You sure?"

"M. Linguini, I have other patients in need of my…"

"He's not ready," Linguini snaps, so sharply that the vet is silenced. When he speaks again, his voice is a caress. "Are you sure, pal?"

For answer, I give a firm nod, and move into his fingers' embrace. As an afterthought, I pull his handkerchief out from where it's stuffed into his sleeve, and wad it into my mouth, to bite down on. Linguini trains worried eyes on me, but doesn't say anything. I give him the thumbs-up. Allez.

"When you're ready, Doctor," Linguini tells him.

There's no gentleness in his fingers as he pinches my flank, and then there's nothing but blinding agony. The pain is worse than my worst fears—my skin ripping and parting as the sharp, beveled edge punches through me, then the feeling of my flesh and muscle popping and tearing, the plunger, as thick as my arm, gouging its way through my muscles, rupturing them—I'm on fire, and I can hear myself screaming. This can't possibly be therapeutic. I feel like I'm dying, and I bite down on the handkerchief, hard, and flail in Linguini's embrace, writhing in pain. He grips me tightly, anchoring me, but I'm spasming and sobbing and screaming, and it's not getting better.

"Stop it! Stop it!" Linguini's yelling, and a bunch of other stuff I can't make out too well through the screaming of my body.

"We are almost done, M. Linguini. Be patient."

"You're killing him! Stop it NOW!" He keeps yelling, but his shouting becomes a garbled background noise. My vision starts to tunnel down, my head begins to buzz, and a cold, inescapable grip begins to pull me down to vertiginous darkness. I welcome it, reach for it, but flinch violently as I feel the plunger being withdrawn.

"There. All done. Now that wasn't so bad, was it?"

Linguini's finger presses down on the site immediately, pushing hard to silence the screaming nerves, massaging the pain away, blocking it with pressure. Too late, though. My body is flame, and I can't move, and his touch is the only thing that doesn't hurt. "Ah, Little Chef," he murmurs, his voice edged with pain. "Why'd you go through with it? Ssh... it's over, it's over… won't hurt you any more…"

Under the gentle pressure, the immediate jump-out-of-your-skin searing pain recedes, but it leaves my body still flaring with agony, an acid burn pumping with every heartbeat. I try to smile, to show I'm okay. But my knees are water, and I can't stifle my weeping, coming out in uncontrolled sobs. Linguini's fingers hold me tight, his other hand coming round to lift me off the table and into the softness of his cupped palms, and that's good, because my legs can't support me anymore. It's all I can do to lie there in his embrace, humiliated by my breakdown.

There are loud human voices around me. Linguini's ragged voice, yelling.

"What did you do to him?"

"It's a perfectly routine..."

"Don't give me routine! Look at him! He's a mess!"

"M. Linguini, your over-emotionalism…"

"My over-emotionalism! How about your cold-bloodedness?! He's my friend! You think I'm not supposed to care? Look at this!" His stroking of my shoulders pauses for a split-second and I feel a gentle finger swipe my thigh. "He's bleeding! Look at the state he's in! Are all your patients like this when you give them a shot—half-dead?"

"Really, this over-dramatization…"

I try to tell Linguini I'm all right, but I get dizzy all over again when I try to move. He sees it and gets even madder. Is that his voice sounding like a woman's? I blink, try to focus my hearing. I realize that Colette's in here with us now. Later, I'll deduce that she was drawn here by all the yelling, but for now I just accept her protective presence and smile weakly.

Colette opens her mouth to greet me, but her eyes meet mine, and she snaps her mouth shut. I'm stunned by the concern, sympathy, tenderness, revealed in her gaze. She turns away, to someone I can't see. Deciding I really must see what's going on, I shift slightly. She's holding an older, white-coated man firmly by the elbow - still this side of aggressive, but with the air of a woman who's not letting go until she gets some answers. "Tell M. Navoiseau what happened, Alfredo," she orders. "He is the clinic manager. Qu'est-ce qui c'est passé, mon cher?"

I struggle to clear my head and shake off some of the weakness as Linguini explains something or other about the injections. His words falter, and then, heedless of the dangers of used syringes, he bends, rips the lid off the biohazard container, and points to the needle lying on the top of the heap. "Look at that!!" he yells at them. "Is that normal for a rat?"

The clinic manager gives a cursory glance into the bin, does a double-take, pulls the glasses out of his pocket, slips them on, bends lower, looks closely, and then, slowly, ever so slowly, he turns to face the vet. When he speaks, there's a note in his voice that scares even Colette.

"You used a 16 gauge needle?" he hisses dangerously.

"It's perfectly okay for use on animals…" the vet says defensively.

Navoiseau takes a step towards the vet, livid with rage. "Are you blind, man? It's a rat, not a water buffalo!"

"The textbooks say that this kind of vaccine should only be used in a 16 gauge…"

"For use on exceptionally heavy, well muscled animals," the manager's voice rises to a roar, "moose, horses, bears, elephants!"

He opens his mouth to speak again, but Colette turns to face him, appalled. "He used a syringe on our friend that's meant for elephants??"

Navoiseau turns to her. "To give you some idea in human terms, it would feel like a two-inch lead pipe being stuck through you without anesthetic."

A number of things happen then in rapid succession; it's only in hindsight that I'm able to sort them out. Linguini makes a strangled sound and snatches away the hand that's been stroking my throbbing flank, as though I'm so fragile that his touch will shatter me. The manager rounds on the vet, his voice rising to a roar, "How did you ever get your degree? Have you no mercy? How could you torture the poor creature like that?" I start to take offense at being called a poor creature. And Colette launches herself at the vet and punches him so hard he flies backwards into the window.

He slams hard into the wall, dislodging the Venetian blind, which detaches itself and falls on his head. Slumping, he slides down the wall, out cold.

Navoiseau looks at Colette coolly. "Merci, Madame," he thanks her. "If you hadn't done that, I would have."

"I want him fired." Colette's tone freezes my blood, and it's not even me she's angry at.

"Consider it done." The manager takes a step towards me. "Now let's see the damage…"

Fear chills me. I shrink back.

Linguini's hands are instantly up in a shield, protecting me. "Nobody touches him."

"Monsieur, I just want to see if the needle injured any vital…"

Colette steps in front of both of us. "Nobody," she grates out, "nobody touches him without his permission."

I can't see the vet, but I hear him take a step back. "Monsieur, Madame, I must check that the needle has not ruptured anything, that there is no severe bleeding..."

"It is a little late for that, don't you think?" Colette mutters, but she steps aside, letting me see the man. "Qu'enpensez-vous, monp'tit Chef?"

The blood's still trickling down my leg, and I can see the logic of what he says, but nothing will make me get up on that steel table again. Desperately, I burrow into Linguini's chest and his fingers are immediately curled about me, his thumb and forefinger encircling my shoulders. As he strokes me comfortingly, I feel tremors I didn't even know I had starting to subside. "No-one will make you do anything you don't want to do," he says, and I know it's a promise I can count on.

"It could be dangerous," Navoiseau says, and for the first time, he looks at me. His eyes are sincere, and warm, not like that other cold bastard. I'd like to trust him, but I'm still hurting…

"What are the risks if you do not check on him now?" Colette asks with sharp practicality.

"Paralysis," the manager says gently, with regret. "Internal bleeding. Death."

I hear Linguini's gasp, and he moves his hands away from his chest to look me in the eyes. "Please, Little Chef?"

My eyes flicker to the table. No way. I see Linguini following my gaze, and feel the sudden shudder that goes through him as he understands how it feels to stand alone on cold steel already slick with your blood, waiting for someone to hurt you. "Whatever you say," he reassures me, but he looks over at Navoiseau's worried face, and his brow creases anxiously.

Colette's eyes flash with a glimmer of an idea. Not looking at the doctor, she turns to me questioningly. "How about if he examined you right where you are, mon Chef? Would you feel comfortable with that?"

I feel my breath coming faster as I glance from the doctor's expectant expression to Colette's urgent eyes to Linguini's pleading face. It still makes fear coil in my stomach, but if it's right here, in my friend's arms, I guess I could bear it… As though reading my thoughts, Linguini wraps warm fingers around me again. "You can make him stop anytime you say the word," he assures me.

I close my eyes and slump into his embrace. "Okay."

"Hurry it up a bit, s'il vous plait."

Colette taps her foot as the medical secretary prepares the certificates, glancing over to her husband and his friend waiting at the door. The actual examination proved somewhat anticlimactic, which Colette feels is all to the good – she doesn't think the rat could have taken any more, at that point. Even as the senior physician examined him, as gently as possible, she saw how he flinched and clutched at Alfredo's sweater, fabric bunched up in tiny, trembling hands. She watched, unwilling to let either of them out of her sight, as the doctor probed; seen how tense he was, how rigidly he held his body, trying to breathe through the panic, even though Alfredo was right there, hands cupped securely round him, bending low to hunch over him, nose-to-nose, crooning soft words the whole time. She shakes her head as she watches the two of them now—Alfredo stroking the tiny, sore muscles with gentle fingers, the little chef snuggling in tight within the crevice between Alfredo's hand and his clothing, seeking refuge there—and finds herself smiling. The affection between the two is palpable, stronger now after a year of working together, and far from being jealous, Colette feels warmed by it, privileged to bask in this extraordinary friendship's unexpected and unusual glow.

The secretary finally looks up from her desk (Colette stifles an eyeroll at the bleached blonde curls and thick mascara) and hands them over. Signing for them, she triumphantly carries them over to the pair, unable to help the huge grin that's spreading over her face. "Mon amour… mon ami… voilà!"

Two pairs of brown eyes look up to face her. At once, the tiny face lights up, the expressive eyes filling with pride. But from the dull, shell-shocked look in his normally warm eyes, Alfredo doesn't think it was worth the price. Pointless regret in her opinion, since the price is already paid and it's time to reap the fruits.

She holds the certificate carefully out to where the little Chef can grasp it and read. It's unwieldy, though, so she spreads it out on a chair and waves him to it. Alfredo places him carefully on the surface of the certificate, and he reads it slowly, head turning back and forth on the page. He looks up at them in evident delight, and Colette smiles back at him. "Congratulations!"

Alfredo's still wearing that stricken expression, and she elbows him in the ribs. "He's over it," she whispers. "Come on, smile! For him! It's what he wanted, remember?"

"Mm…kay." Not a sterlingly intelligent reply, but it'll do. Bending and extending a hand for the rat to hop onto, her husband manages a shaky smile. But when the rat climbs stiffly off the document and onto Alfredo's palm, smiling cheerfully despite his obviously sore body, his legs so shaky he has to support himself on his friend's other hand (all-too-willingly offered), he leaves the certificate smeared with a trace of his blood.

Alfredo's smile disappears and he actually lets out a little cry before he can stop himself, and Colette hustles them both out of the clinic. I'll have to have a chat with Alfredo, she decides.

The opportunity comes not long after, when Colette decides to place the certificate in a pretty frame she picked up at the marché de Clignancourt a few months ago and hang it up in the restaurant, next to her Diplôme des Hautes Etudes Culinaires and Alfredo's diploma from back home.

"Aw, no, Colette!" Alfredo whines. "Please don't hang that up there!""

She could chivvy him into it, she knows, but this is one time that it pays to be gentle. She turns, laying down the hammer and nail, looking him in the eye. "Why no hang it up?"

"I…just…every time I look at it, at his blood on it…" Alfredo shudders. "I'll remember that day."

"But it's something he earned. He might want it up there with our certificates, something to be proud of. N'est-ce pas, cheri?"

"I… Alfredo sighs, deflated. "Sure he deserves it. It's just the way he paid for it, Colette," he waves a despondent hand, "in—in pain and hurt." Beat. "You didn't see what it took out of him to get those shots."

"He did look terrible afterwards," Colette concedes. "But he's fine now, cheri. It's over."

But Linguini shakes his head stubbornly. "I wish things didn't have to be so hard for him. I wish he didn't have to—to go through all that. Some days it gets to me how they discriminate against him. It makes me so mad. I just wish there was something I could do."

"Mais si, Alfredo."

"Huh?"

"There is something. You do it already."

"But I…"

"You are his friend. You're there for him when he needs you."

"Huh? Oh, that! …uh…" Linguini splays his hands, indicating that this goes without saying. "Yeah," he nods fervently. "Always. But…"

Colette draws him into a fond embrace. "I think you will find," she says gently into his chest, "that it is enough."

"No, it's not! I…"

Pulling away, Colette just smiles, though she does roll her eyes in exasperation. "Go talk to him. I think he'll tell you," her voice gains confidence, "that it is."

"Hey, Little Chef, I'm sorry about that day. You know, at the vet's."

"Huh?" I gesture to him as best I can, genuinely surprised. "You're sorry? It's that connard who should be sorry. You saved my life back there." It's an exaggeration, I know, but hey, if not my life, at least my sanity.

My friend tuts and shakes his head violently. Then he breathes in through his teeth, looks up, then down, and all around—standard Linguini-at-a-loss-for-words syndrome. I wait patiently. Some things can't be rushed. When he finally says it, it surprises me.

"I wish you hadn't had to pay the price you paid."

I melt. Looking directly into his eyes, I try to show him all the gratitude I feel. You were there with me.

"I…guess so, Little Chef," he falters, a hand reaching out to caress my fur, "I know, but I'm still sorry. I… I just…"

The memory of that day flashes in my mind again – the day I admitted who I was, the day I stopped pretending: the day I burst into Gusteau's, heedless of who saw me, completely prepared to die. When I least expected it, he came between me and the knives and the flames, and stood his ground and said, "Don't touch him!" It was the last thing I expected, and the first shining surprise of my life. The first of many, as it turned out. Gesturing, I hope my meaning is clear: I know nothing will hurt me too bad as long as you're there with me.

His face softens at that, and he smiles. "I'll never let anything hurt you if I can stop it. I want you to be happy. I… I love ya, Little Chef."

I shrug at that, taking a deep breath as I think of what to say and how to say it. I never expected to say it, and wonders will never cease, but… me too, I guess.

Linguini understands. He gives me a sincere smile and a thumbs-up as he goes back to work, and I'm left pondering that when I said "Change starts when we decide", how little I knew back then, how my life keeps changing beyond what anyone could have predicted…

…and for the better.