AN: Written for the Fall Fandom Free For All, upon the request of querulouspeg, who wanted Kate and Declan at the UK Sanctuary. Also, this story was inspired, in a round about sort of way, by Ptolemy Kitten, who is in training to be an appropriate minion and who is otherwise discovering the world.
Spoilers: None at all.
Rating: Teen. There is a cat in some peril, but it ends well.
Disclaimer: Sadly, I still have no legal claims on Sanctuary.
Characters/Pairing: Kate Freelander, Declan MacRae, special guest appearance by the Yellow Slime Mold.
Summary: In which Kate and Declan save a cat from a ptree (by which I of course mean a pterodactyl).
First Responders
Kate woke up to sirens.
As a general rule, sirens were not a good thing. In past days, they had heralded impending capture and necessitated a quick exit that typically required her to leave behind any number of things to which she had become attached. Nowadays, Kate more often found herself running towards the sirens than away from them, having stopped running from the law (more or less), and taken up with an organization that was (more or less) above it. The sirens were no longer something to fear.
That did not mean she had to like waking up to them though. Especially since British sirens were somehow louder than the ones in Old City. Especially since she was still on Old City time, had stayed up way too late trading shoe laces with the slime mold, which was definitely happy to see her no matter what Declan said to the contrary. And most especially since she had been woken up after too few hours of sleep.
The sirens stopped, and Kate thought about trying to go back to sleep, but before she could drift off, there was a hammering on her door that could only mean the emergency was a bit more local than she'd thought.
"Freelander, are you awake in there?" Declan called out.
Kate muttered several uncomplimentary things about the British army and its tendency to turn out officers who were completely functional in the morning, but she was already kicking back the covers and fumbling around for a hair elastic. By the time she got to the door, she was almost presentable.
"As if anyone could sleep through this racket," she said as she opened the door.
Declan was, naturally, perfectly turned out in spite of the hour. Apparently you could not, in fact, take the Special Forces out of the man. He held out a tac vest and she put it on over her pajamas. It was chilly in the UK Sanctuary, so she was wearing her flannels. He looked at them and his eyes sparkled, but he said nothing as she carefully rolled up the ankle cuffs so she wouldn't trip if she had to run.
"You'd be surprised," Declan said when she looked at him again. He smiled at her and passed her a tranq rifle to go with the side-arm she already carried tucked into her elastic waistband underneath the vest.
"I bet you I wouldn't," she replied, automatically checking the gun as soon as it was in her hands.
"I think I'll pass on that, actually," Declan said wisely. "Do you want the details or are you in the mood for a surprise?"
"Just tell me it's not a ride," Kate said.
"Oh, I think you'll like this one," Declan said, ushering her into the lift.
The strike team was waiting for them there, and Kate found herself wishing, once again, that she had this kind of back-up in Old City. Magnus wasn't cheap, exactly, but she did prefer to operate with a small staff. Usually, Kate liked that, but there was something to be said for a group of ex-Special Forces accompanying her into the fray instead of a psychiatrist and a tech geek.
"So if it happened on site, why were there sirens outside?" Kate asked as the lift descended.
"We had a small breach," Declan told her. "One of the neighbours saw something they're not supposed to and found it alarming enough to call the police."
"Will they trace it back here?" Kate asked.
"Probably," Declan said. "It was the pterodactyl."
"We have a pterodactyl?" Kate said. "That is so cool!"
"I'm sure Mr. Eddington's cat disagrees with you," one of the soldiers murmured.
"Ouch." Kate winced. "Really?"
"Myfanwy doesn't usually have to chase his food," Declan said. "But when he gets the opportunity, it's hard for him to resist."
"So what's the plan?" Kate asked.
"Well, Myfanwy came home on his own this time," Declan said. "But he's still got the cat."
"Alive?" Kate said.
"Possibly," Declan said. "The cat is our priority."
"You made me get out of bed in the dead of night to rescue a cat?" Kate said incredulously.
Several of the strike team snickered, and Declan cracked another smile. The lift finally reached the right floor and the doors opened.
"Well, you're rescuing a cat from a pterodactyl," Declan pointed out as they exited and fell into ranks with Kate and Declan at the front. "It's sort of your job."
"You are so buying me breakfast," Kate said, and lifted the tranq gun up to brace it against her shoulder.
The scene inside the pterodactyl enclosure was absolute chaos. Declan whispered a brief explanation about why the creature had been moved into the sublevels after the incident with the Cabal on the grounds that it would make escape more difficult, and Kate managed not to give a sarcastic reply as to how well that was working out. Then the doors opened, and it was all business.
The strike force deployed along the walls, providing cover fire while Kate and Declan approached the pterodactyl and the absolutely terrified cat. Myfanwy seemed to have lost interest in eating the cat, probably on account of the ear-splitting noises it was making, but the pterodactyl still had the terrified feline in his clutches, seemingly unwilling to relinquish his prey even if he had lost interest in making an early breakfast out of it.
Kate, being smaller, was able to get under the pterodactyl's wings. She went ahead of Declan, who did his best to keep the creature from taking an interest in Kate. This mostly involved making a lot of noise and then moving quickly to avoid Myfanwy's teeth. With the aid of the distraction, Kate got right up to the claws before she ran into a problem.
She was no expert in normal animals, but she was pretty sure that the cat was in no condition to be rescued. It was frantic, and Kate was sure she'd end up with more scratches than she wanted if she tried to grab it. Her first instinct was to tranq it, but she was pretty sure that her doses were intended for the much larger pterodactyl, and if she shot the cat, she might kill it. She was absolutely positive she would never live that down.
"Any time now, Freelander!" Declan shouted. He was retreating now, and Kate was going to have to make her move soon.
"Dammit," she swore. "Here, kitty! I promise not to eat you, which is probably a better offer than you're going to get from anything else this morning!"
Her words did nothing to quiet the poor animal down, and when she grabbed it by its hind legs, it went for her hands with its teeth. She cuffed it, gently of course, and it hissed at her.
"You're a grateful type," she said, beginning her own retreat.
She found the easiest course was to essentially roll the cat up in a ball and press it against her tac vest as tightly as she could. The vest was bullet proof, after all, so it stood to reason that it was cat proof too. She made her way quickly to the exit, where the strike team was covering for her.
"Clear!" she shouted as she crossed the threshold, and the door slid shut behind her.
The cat, sensing that the danger had passed, gave a tremendous yowl, and when she flinched away from it, it jumped out her arms and flew off down the hall. Most of the strike team took off after it.
"Dammit!" she shouted. "Declan, I lost the cat."
Declan started to laugh, leaning against the wall as he tried to stay on his feet.
"I'm so glad you think this is funny," Kate said, only a little bitter.
"It is pretty funny," Declan said.
"I'm going back to bed," Kate said.
"Oh no you aren't," Declan said. He did his best to swallow his laughter and stand on his feet, but he was still chuckling. "We have to find the cat before the slime mold does, or Mr. Eddington will sue us and I hate explaining that sort of expenditure to the accountants."
"At least make sure we have cat-appropriate tranqs this time," Kate said. She cracked her neck. "That thing still has claws."
"If we're lucky, it won't find the secret passages into the wine cellar," Declan said gaily. "Then we won't have to worry about the intelligent rats and their laser grid security system."
"I hate you."
"Did you have other plans for this morning?" Declan asked, passing her the small dosage tranqs.
"Not really," Kate shrugged. "How the hell did you get a pterodactyl in the first place?"
"I'll tell you when we catch the cat," Declan said.
"Deal," Kate said, and they went off down the hall.
finis
Notes: The story of how Declan gets a pterodactyl is called "All For Love (And A Little For the Bottle), by st_aurafina (AO3)
Gravity_Not_Included, October 4, 2011