"It's not our cat," Sherlock said gruffly, clearly exasperated.
"Really?" John looked up from where he had crouched down, petting the grey fluffy feline, "she seems to think she is."
"It isn'tour cat," the detective said firmly, "It's nothing personal, you understand, but I'm too busy with my work. We have no time to dote over a cat."
"Mm-hm," the doctor responded in the sort of humming tone that said he acknowledged Sherlock's words but clearly didn't believe them.
"What are you doing?"
Sherlock flinched a little and glared behind him as John sleepily stretched and yawned, "Just putting out some food."
John raised an eyebrow, "cat food?"
"Well. For various wildlife."
"For the grey cat that keeps hanging around here, you mean."
"I can't be held responsible if she happens to eat it," Sherlock huffed, "it's just a moment of simple charity to the natural world. That's all."
"Not even because you noticed she was pregnant?"
"She's pregnant? I mean - what, no. No, of course not. Absolutely not," the detective spluttered, who then quickly excused himself. John couldn't help but laugh.
John wasn't too surprised to find an empty space where Sherlock should have been when he turned over in the night. After all, he'd observed the past two weeks.
Sherlock had borrowed a book on cat care and slipped it in among his notes while recording his experiments, and then found a wicker basket and started to quietly collect raggedy blankets to place in it. John had pretended not to notice.
But tonight, he made two cups of tea before stepping out into the living room. Predictably, Sherlock was there, sitting beside the wicker basket. The grey mother cat was purring away like a car engine.
"How's not-our-cat?" John joked softly as he handed Sherlock his cup of tea.
"Still not our cat," he fussed before immediately reaching out to the basket of kittens, damp and nuzzled up against their mother, "but this one is definitely our cat. Maybe also this one. And this one too. Oh, and we're keeping Abernathy, too - the little calico at the end."
John feigned being hurt. "You've already started naming them without me?"
"Well, I did wait to name the rest until you were here.."
