Winston needed a win, so they let him have the parking spot. (Which, in all fairness, can be categorized as a win only so long as you don't try to open the door.)
Nick needs a win, too. But he can't let himself win, because he's not that guy. Nick's the quitter, the grump, the loser. And he's okay with that. At least he knows who he is. It's comfortable.
This is what is going through his mind as they scatter in different directions in the parking garage, leaving Winston to figure a way out of his shiny new spot. He takes the long way back to 4D, both wanting and not wanting to make it to the apartment before Schmidt and Winston (should he ever escape his car) and risk being alone with Jess.
They couldn't just pick up where they left off, and besides, what would he even say? Hey, remember when you dropped your fishsticks? Best just to avoid it; forget it ever happened. Go back to normal – their new, weird, shaky normal, but hey, it's all they have. (Or so he tells himself.)
The thought of fishsticks reminds him of just how hungry he is, that he hasn't eaten so much as a sour ball in hours. Well, except for that garbage with chocolate on it. The things some people throw away! He picks up his pace and heads for the apartment, straight for the kitchen and the freezer to pick out his microwaved delicacy for the evening. He takes stock of its contents, freezer open with cold air blowing on his face, and he's deciding which kind of burrito will be most delicious when he notices the gap on the shelf where the fishsticks used to be.
Ignoring the growling protests of his stomach, he sighs his President-of-the-United-States-deciding-whether or-not-to-go-to-war-sigh, grabs a hoodie and heads out the door.
He hears the singing before he sees her – it's not obnoxiously, drunkenly loud or anything, but she's not being timid about it either. And why should she, with a voice like that?
Midnight
Not a sound from the pavement
Has the moon lost her memory?
She is smiling alone
She stops singing as he approaches, studies him for a moment before she speaks.
"What are you doing here?"
"I was hungry." He indicates the box of fishsticks in her hand. He can't read her expression to tell if she's still mad about the fine print of the roommate agreement. Fine print? What did Schmidt take him for, a lawyer?
"You don't even like fishsticks," she says with a tinge of annoyance in her voice before resuming her song. Still mad, he decides.
In the lamplight
The withered leaves collect at my feet
And the wind begins to moan
"Don't you think you should be singing a song about dogs or something?" He interrupts, "you know, to scare them away?"
"I told you not to criticize me!"
"I'm not!" He smiles a little, waves his hands back and forth as if to indicate surrender. "I'm just saying, why this song?"
"It's from Cats," she explains, and at his puzzled look adds, "the musical? By Andrew Llyod Weber?"
"That sounds like my nightmare," he says, only half-joking.
"You're criticizing."
"Not you, though, Andrew Floyd Weber. You only said not to criticize you."
"Andrew Lloyd Weber," she corrects. "And I know you know who he is, Nick, he's very famous."
And with that, she resumes her seafood-and-song assault against the cat army.
He steps aside and watches her for a moment as she throws the fishsticks not so much at the cats as near them – far be it from Jessica Day to throw anything, even food, at any animal, even a gang of ruthless street cats that had claimed her car for their own. Either that, or she has horrible aim.
Memory
All alone in the moonlight
Another sigh.
"Alright. Gimme some damn fishsticks."
Without waiting for an answer, he reaches into the box and grabs a fishstick that bounces off a cat's paw and onto the ground when he throws it. The black cat jumps off the hood of the car after the food and disappears into the night.
"Two points," Nick says.
"Bye, Katsopolis!" Jess says at the same time, calling after the cat.
"You named them?" Nick laughs, his eyes wide.
"Yes," she says matter-of-factly.
"You named the feral cats that are preventing you from driving your car. And you named that one," he points down the alley, "after Uncle Jesse from Full House?"
"So what?" Jess says defensively. "Just because they're homeless doesn't mean they don't deserve names. You see that crabby looking on there? The really scruffy, dirty one, the one that's just sitting there, judging us?"
"Yeah."
"His name," she says triumphantly, "is Nick."
"You named a cat after me?" His eyes and smile grow wider.
She nods, and adds, "a grumpy, turtle-faced cat."
"That cat looks nothing like me!"
But truth be told, he's a little flattered that she named a cat after him – even if it is the most pathetic, miserable looking cat he's ever seen. He'd never admit it, though, no sooner than he'd admit that the cat did, in fact, bear a slight resemblance to him.
They both reach into the box for more ammo, and his hand brushes hers as they each grab for the same fishstick. He lets go and pulls his hand back so quickly that she almost drops the box (again).
"Sorry," they mutter in unison, equally flustered. He tilts the box toward her, indicating that she should go first.
They throw fish sticks in silence until only Nick Cat remains.
"I don't think he's leaving, Nick. We may have to adopt him."
"No way," Nick shakes his head. "We are not getting a cat."
"Well, we're running out of fish sticks," she shrugs.
"Jess, that cat probably has all sorts of diseases!" She doesn't look convinced, so he continues. "And you don't know its backstory! It could be the leader of some sort of cat mafia, or a catnip dealer, or, or – ooh! A vampire cat! And that's why it doesn't want fishsticks! It can only feast on blood."
"Nick Cat is not a vampire."
"This'll be great for my next novel. I'm finding that zombies are kind of limiting business for Julius Pepperwood."
"There's already a book with a vampire cat."
"What?! No!" Nick faces falls at this. Where's his win, dammit?
"Yeah, the cat, Chet, is turning all the other cats into vampires, and..." She trails off when she notices his expression. She softens and adds, "but I'm sure you could write a way better vampire cat story."
Nick changes the subject then, because at least that's one thing he's good at, one idea not stolen from him before he even comes up with it.
"Last fishstick. Gotta make this one count."
"Right. You throw, I'll sing."
Touch me
It's so easy to leave me
All alone with the memory
Of my days in the sun
If you touch me
You'll understand what happiness is
She belts the final verse, Nick gaping at her as the implication of those last lines hits him. If Jess dwells on the meaning behind the lyrics, she doesn't let it show.
"C'mon, Miller, throw it already!"
Her command pulls him back to the present and he throws the stick reflexively, without really paying attention to where it might land. It seems to fall short, but at the last moment, Nick Cat lunges forward into the air and snaps his jaw shut around the food, running off with a final hiss.
"We did it!" Her face lights up, and Jess turns and high fives him. For a split second it seems like they might be headed toward another awkward hug when Nick speaks up.
"So, now that your car's been liberated, where are you gonna go?"
Jess freezes.
"Oh, I have to go to the place, y'know, to get... a thing," she gropes around for her keys and an answer, but it's clear that she hasn't thought so far as where she would actually go when the cats were vanquished. "Do you need any things? From the place?"
"Well, we are out of fishsticks," Nick offers.
"Right! Yes!" Grateful for a destination, Jess heads toward her car. As she reaches the driver's side door, she spins around and fixes him with a stare. "Aren't you coming?"
"But I don't even like fishsticks!" Nick argues, yet he makes his way to the car all the same.
Seatbelt buckled, Jess turns at looks at him – really looks at him for the first time since Schmidt interrupted their conversation, or whatever the hell it was turning into. Her eyes dart to his shirt and she smiles a little bit; he can tell that she's biting her lip ever so slightly.
"What are you looking at?" Do I have something on my shirt?
"Nothing," she says, and she starts the car.
He glances down at the hoodie zipped up over his flannel – black, with crunchy white drawstrings and a distinct red lipstick stain on one of those strings – and he's hit with the realization that even if he did do laundry more than twice a year, he still wouldn't be washing this particular article of clothing anytime soon. And that's when he knows. That's the win.
Julius Pepperwood and his gal Friday, Jessica Night ride off into the inky LA darkness in search of fishsticks, and something in between normal and weird. Finding that last part would be Pepperwood's trickiest case to date, but he is, after all, a detective.
Look
A new day has begun