This fic is dedicated to my baby Havoc (April 10, 2003 - December 29, 2014) and anyone who has lost a fur-baby.

Six months ago…

It was a long trip home from Alabama, and Guerrero had to recuperate before he could see his son. His child's guardians weren't thrilled when he came to visit under normal circumstances, but bruised and beaten, he looked like the no good thug they always accused him of being.

Guerrero had dropped the Eldo off with someone who owed him big time, and after securing promises that the repair to the interior would be completed by the weekend, he started a paranoid surveillance detection run that took him through three buses, a cab, a stop for takeaway from Tenglong's Chinese restaurant, two miles on foot, and a final trolley ride.

He was tired, in more pain than he would ever admit to Chance, and he was still hungry. He climbed the stairs to the back entrance of a loft he kept in the area as a safe house, entered his security code, and locked five of the eight deadbolts on the other side of the door.

He flipped on the lights and went deeper into the bolt hole. Generously speaking, the loft was little more than a walk-in pantry with a double bed, a laptop computer, microwave oven, a few changes of clothing, and a weapon's locker. There was a shower, which rarely had hot water, and a toilet. It was minimal and efficient.

Stripping out of the clothing he'd worn for the last two days, he took a quick shower, forwent a shave, and headed to the bed. On his pillow he found an assortment of dead things: two partial cockroaches, something that may have once been a rodent, and the three wings from separate creatures.

"Looks like you had good hunting, little dude," he said to the massive one-eyed cat that tracked his movement across the room. Guerrero retrieved a plastic container from under the bed and rifled through until he found a can of cat food. "As promised, Friskies."

The cat knew and understood the Freelancer's code: payment on receipt. It also understood the perks of a freelancer: that anything edible left out where it could be reached was fair game, so when Guerrero popped the lid on the can and put it out next to the half-full gravity-fed water and dry food dishes, the cat understood that it was dinner time.

Guerrero sat on the edge of the bed and pretended not to watch the cat, who pretended not to watch him, watching him. They had a tacit understanding: the cat took care of the pest control, and Guerrero left it the fuck alone. He swallowed some pills, coincidentally enough, that were stolen out of a veterinarian's office and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night, once the codeine had waned and the witching hour made the pain seem so much more acute, Guerrero rolled over into the enormous furred beast and let the warmth of the animal ease the agony until the next dose of mind-numbing relief overcame him. "Thank you, little dude."

Eight years ago…

He'd never harmed an animal – if he could avoid it – intentionally. He was, admittedly, diagnosed with antisocial behavior, a diminished capacity for remorse, a lack of fear and anxiety, and all that jazz, but he preferred to think of himself as a sociopath rather than a psychopath. Psychopathy, in his opinion, inferred a genetic or biological component, while a sociopath was more clearly a product of his environment and socialization. He'd been taught, at an early age, that animals were innocents and he still believed that, no matter how jaded the rest of his world-view became.

When he came home one night and saw movement out of the corner of his eye, he didn't hesitate to shoot, aiming more to maim than to kill. The bullet thudded into the wall; there was no cry of pain. If someone was in his apartment, he sure as hell wanted to question the stupid son of a bitch before disposing of him, but when he'd followed the movement, all he found was a cat, striped like a raccoon on his bed, licking its paw and using the wet appendage to clean its notched ear.

He'd shooed it off the bed and chased it out the door. Mistakenly, he thought that was the end of it, but when he'd woken up the next morning, he'd found a dead rat on his boot and the cat on his counter, its head deep within the open takeaway box that had been last night's dinner. He'd had to chuckle at that, since he'd liberated the food from a client's refrigerator anyway.

When he made his monthly trip across the bay into Oakland for supplies at the Walmart, he always picked up the same things: duct tape and fish lures. Occasionally he'd purchase additional items as needed from the sporting goods section of the store. They had a modest selection of hunting knives, ammo, and tarps at reasonable prices. There was enough traffic at that store that his infrequent purchases meant that he was less noticeable.

It was one of these trips that he walked into the pet section, intent on buying a new can of fish food to take when he visited his son, when he noticed the cat aisle. The cat had done mighty fine work these past few months, maybe it was time for a bonus.

The Present…

So the cat, whom he refused to name, became Guerrero's second stable relationship. It wasn't as twisted and co-dependent as with the other. The convoluted evolution of the dance that had brought him from coworkers with Junior under the Old Man to the present incarnation of being the rear guard for Christopher Chance, Guerrero could hardly call that relationship healthy for either man. But the cat… it wasn't a dependency that kept them together – hell the cat knew ways into and out of the loft of which even Guerrero had no knowledge – but a mutual respect and understanding. In the world of predation, both males could be considered Alphas, yet they shared territory just fine.

At one time or another, both of them had returned to the safe house in poor condition. The cat with his back alley disputes ending in claw marks and bald spots, scars, and bloodied paw prints. The man ending his back alley disputes in bullet and/or knife wounds, concussions, and bloodied foot prints. When the cat was injured, Guerrero knew better than to touch it, he simply put out fresh food and water, and shook a health supply of catnip on a towel and left it in a sunny spot. When Guerrero was injured, the cat would offer its saved up warmth in return.

When he returned from yet another one of Chance's suicidal mission with nothing more than bruised knuckles and a splitting headache, he expected to find yet another cache of carcasses, but finding none, he left the can of cat food under the bed in the plastic container.

"Sorry, little dude, no proof, no payout," he said to the quiet space.

The next day, still no cat. Guerrero went back his business, taking phone calls, running minor favors for contacts, doing absolutely nothing special. He made a run to the grocery and got a fresh stash of Friskies and when he went to put them into the container, he found the cat, under the bed.

Down on the floor, his head half way under the frame, Guerrero heard the cat breathing. He wasn't stupid, far from it; there was no way he was going to put his hand in there and attempt to pull the cat out, so he shifted the bed, revealing the cat, laying on its side, panting.

"For a stray alley cat, eight years has been a good long run." The cat didn't lift its head, but looked at Guerrero with his bright yellow eyes. It seemed to be saying, can you do me one last favor, big dude?

"I gotcha, little dude," Guerrero said, a strange tenderness in his voice. The cat didn't protest being wrapped in a towel or when it was placed in the cardboard box. It didn't make a sound as he put it in the Eldo or drove it to the closest vet.

When he'd checked in, they'd asked the cat's name and Guerrero told them.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Guerrero, we've done everything in our power, but Little Dude is a very sick cat."

"What are we talking about here, doc?"

"That's up to you. We can give him medicine and keep him comfortable until the end, but there is nothing we can do to stop this."

"Is he suffering?"

"Yes," the doctor said. "I'm sorry; I could sugar-coat it, but that does neither of you any good."

Guerrero understood suffering better than any man alive. He'd used his own methods to inflict it for reasons both good and bad. He's seen that relief at the end, knowing that the suffering had concluded. He'd also been on the receiving end...

"Alright, then ending it would be a kindness. I believe in that."

The doctor nodded and left him in the room to say his goodbyes as he readied for the procedure.

"I got your back Little Dude," was all he said as he stroke the cat's head for the first and last time.

The end was gentle, just a quiet last breath and was so different from the way death usually played out in front of Guerrero that he was caught off guard by the single tear that escape his right eye. He signed the last bit of paper work and paid for the procedure and cremation. He turned back, as the technician prepared to take away the cat, still wrapped in his towel. He waved the man back, bent low and spoke into the rapidly cooling ear.

"Thank you, for letting me be your person." He straightened, nodded to the tech, and then left.

When the ashes arrived a week later, Guerrero took them out into the alley, and spread them over the cat's territory as one last favor to from one Alpha to another.