AUTHOR'S NOTE: Well, I thought I'd be taking a week-long break after finishing The Pariah Heroic, but it looks like I couldn't resist. I guess I really enjoy writing, so at least we can all suffer through this together, WAHAHAHAHAH. Enjoy, everyone!

Wild Rose

CHAPTER 1

The sky was darkest and the moon was brightest during the Jellicle Ball. The soberest of the human police would sleepily look up from his beat, and wonder why the Brighton Road junkyard was glowing with lights and alive with clattering noise, but put the blame on his lack of rest and turn away, every five minutes.

The festival was concentrated into one part of the junkyard, the central clearing, where the toms were dancing and the kittens were singing and anyone who was hostile to glorious disorder was not welcome. It was a wonder, then, how so stealthily and quietly, the most beautiful queen of the Jellicle Tribe had managed to slip away into a nook of the junk piles.

Even without the shine of old Christmas lights, her fur glowed scarlet. In the presence of Nobody and Nothing she maintained her regality, her lithe movement. She blinked in that experienced, teasing way that drove toms mad and made lesser queens jealous. It was both vanity and self-consciousness at work. Standing tall in the very side of the junkyard, staring under heavy and black-lashed lids, she confronted the silvery old cat who she'd caught staring at them from the corner.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"What a warm hello to your mother," the aged queen dryly replied. "Come nearer; let me see you, Bombalurina."

"We're not to be touched by outsiders," said the scarlet Jellicle bitingly. "…or traitors."

"Is that what they call me now?" Grizabella sighed, looking to the beaten ground. "How is your father? Is he still in theatre?"

Bombalurina stiffened, still regarding her with animosity. "What do you care about Father? He isn't your mate any longer."

"Don't be so rude with me," snapped Grizabella, narrowing her faded eyes. "I have a right to still know of him."

"You broke his heart."

"I left because it was in my nature," the old silver queen answered firmly.

"Nature!" Bombalurina laughed harshly. "That's ridiculous. You're ridiculous. Go away from our junkyard. Nobody wants to see you."

Grizabella sighed again. "You're exactly like me. In every way."

"I am nothing like you," said the younger queen. "I'm a Jellicle. I'm not a traitor."

"But you are a Glamour Cat." The words came from Grizabella's mouth like dust, flying out from a book long-kept but never opened. They were familiar, but unwelcome. "Like me, you are a Glamour Cat. It is in your nature, as it is in mine."

"I am nothing like you," Bombalurina repeated, but it sounded less rigid. "I won't go your way, ever."

"It's not whether you want to," Grizabella said dimly. "It is in your fate. Inescapable. You grow as a rose among grass. You escape from other's cages. You keep secrets beneath smiles. You do the best in your worst. You bring the proud to their knees."

Bombalurina stared at her mother, her eyes glinting through the dark. "Is that what you did?"

"With great regret," she nodded, and as the music from the Ball grew louder she began to slink away, slowly. "I hope the tribe will accept me back tonight. Even as Glamour Cats, we have consciences, my darling."

"You're wrong about me," called out Bombalurina sharply. "I'm nothing like that."

"You're a rose among grass," Grizabella called back, disappearing into the black.

The Jellicle Ball carried on.

Three Months Later

The junkyard was dreary. Ugly, even. While humans no longer came to dump their garbage, the Jellicles had admittedly grown to be rather spoiled and simply tossed their items anywhere they pleased. When the amount of space in the central clearing had been reduced by roughly a third, Jennyanydots decided to do something about it.

Rallying the help of Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer, the only cats who were allowed to go out of the territory, they gathered loose soil from ruined gardens and placed it around the perimeter of the junkyard. From there, the Gumbie Cat grew roses.

Amidst the usual black and blue and gray of the junk piles sprung deep red and green. The blossoms grew upwards and curled around the fence wire, their scent reminding the Jellicles how musty the real junkyard actually smelled, and making them grateful. Humans were partly baffled to see flowers around the decrepit yard, and some scoffed, and some admired, but soon as time went by opinions mattered less and the area came to be simply known as it simply was: a junkyard with roses.

"…and then remember that time we tried to pull the fence apart, when we were younger?" the Rum Tum Tugger said, lying on his back atop the tire and staring up at the sky. "We were trying to make some kinda door, and Munkus got so mad that he told Uncle Skimble and we ended up having to polish the wire. Again."

"When was the last time he forced us to polish it?" asked Bombalurina. She was lying on the tire with the lanky, golden Maine Coon, her head beside his. "I think it was more than a year ago, when we were teenagers. We made baby Victoria cry because we told her that her fur would turn black soon."

Tugger let out a laugh, brushing a hand through the fur on the side of his head. His fingers made slight contact with her scarlet fur, meshing it partly along with his. "We were such bullies. Everyone hated us."

"And now everyone loves you," Bombalurina snorted. "You're the reason the queen-kittens were willing to go through puberty. I forget that exact moment you went from pest to pleasure. Neither do the elders, really. They still hate you."

"Ah, they don't matter," Tugger waved a lazy hand at the endless sky. "They only matter if everyone agrees with them about me."

"What if I did?" Bombalurina sat up, and smirked at her best friend.

"You could never possibly hate me." Trademark arrogance.

"Of course not. You're like a brother to me."

Tugger groaned. "That's the worst possible thing you could say to any tom, Bombie."

The red queen laughed and turned to gaze at the roses that were tangled through the fence wire. "What can I say? If you have your power with moves, I have my power with words."

"That still makes me the winner – actions speak louder than words," replied the Tugger, charmingly. "…and I happen to be a great man of action."

Bombalurina suddenly felt his tongue graze the side of her cheek, and she jerked away as far as possible.

"Jerk," she muttered aloud, and Tugger began to laugh hard at her.

The medic's den was a sore fit for a junkyard – it was to be kept sterile as possible. Bombalurina stared blankly at its walls, draped with clean old sheets.

"A little more, darling," Jennyanydots said to the black-and-golden queen on the makeshift bed. "Just push a little more."

Demeter's face was teary with pain; the tender bulge at her belly seemed to burn with writhing life. Bombalurina stood in front of her, holding a warm blanket ready for the fourth kitten of her litter.

When finally the last kitten slid out, quiet as a cloud, Bombalurina brought a practiced slap to its rear, causing it to breathe its first breath and to howl loudly at the world. She wiped away the remaining blood, as Jennyanydots had taught her, and carried the silver kitten, striped with black and gold, to Demeter's side where the rest of its siblings lay.

"It's a girl," Bombalurina said to Demeter, who was lying exhausted on the bed. "What would you like to name her?"

"Myrtle," the new mother breathed, slowly. "We'll name her Myrtle."

Bombalurina nodded and – laying Myrtle aside Silas and Ambrose and Newton – she sighed.

This was duller than she'd wanted her life to be.

"Thank you so much, Bombalurina," Jennyanydots plodded over to her side, patting her shoulder. "You took care of this litter well. Delightful Gumbie Cat work."

"You're welcome," the scarlet queen replied mechanically.

"J-Jenny," said Demeter weakly. "Is Munkustrap here? Can I show them to him?"

"He'll come in a while, dear," the Gumbie Cat replied, and then turned to Bombalurina. "Could you please go out and take a rose from the fence? She needs something to smell to keep her awake."

Without another word Bombalurina nodded, and promptly walked out of the medic's den.

In honesty she was bored by her existence as a midwife apprentice. She watched new life hesitantly bloom, while her own flitted away without incident.

Stepping down the rocky incline of the heap, she gently inhaled and did what the elders used to tell her and her friends to do as kittens – concentrate on the better part of her life.

She was no longer Macavity's mate. After what he'd done to Demeter, how could she be? Their passion had been exciting, fleeting – but dangerous nonetheless.

She was kept sane by the time spent with her best friend, the Rum Tum Tugger. Undeniably they were so alike – flirty, and rambunctious, and possessing a view of life that was both cheerful and loaded with sarcasm. After all, life was a celebration and they were the guests, they both believed.

The scarlet queen sauntered over to a side of the fence, where the clusters of roses were thickest. She lightly brushed her hand over the brambles, feeling for the flower with the softest petals, even though that wasn't required.

Finding an especially large, fully bloomed one, she dug her fingers underneath and pulled it out, the stem snapping loudly. As she did, she heard a rustle from outside, and distracted, pressed the pad of her finger into a thorn.

"Shit," she hissed under her breath. As she transferred the flower to her other hand she saw a dark new red spring out from the tip of her finger, glistening lightly under the sun.

She heard a rustle again, and looked up. Standing mere feet away from the junkyard, vague as the air, was a cat.

Bombalurina blinked, astonished. For the longest time, she hadn't seen a cat who wasn't a Jellicle. The outsider had charcoal fur, but sparks of deep orange peeked out from underneath. Unlike the head fur of that of the Jellicles, that made sure to keep them above neck level, his own fell wildly past his shoulders, unkempt.

His eyes were an untamed yellow.

Soon as Bombalurina blinked again, the outsider had turned and darted away, quick as the blood that bloomed from her hand.