Home Lives:
A Case Study

Oneshot Summary: The Theatre Cat/The Caretaker Cat. A look into an hour with the one person who still cares about the fate of the old cat-actor Gus and the one person who found it in him to care about the old actor's daughter and caretaker Jellylorum. post-musical

Story Type: Family, Tragedy, Hurt/Comfort

Next Chapter: Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer (Story Type: Family, Humor)

Pairings: Canon (including one-sided) (possibly temporarily), I.E. MunkustrapDemeter AND OTHERS. Also look out for: TuggerBombalurina, SkimbleshanksJennyanydots, CoricopatTantomile, and whatever else pops up. I'll take your opinions into concideration. ^.^

Disclaimer: I don't own the "CATS" movie. If I owned the "CATS" movie, Mistoffelees would have a longer dance number and Gus would have been the one to go to the Heavyside Layer instead of Grizabella (after all, the poor man/cat IS older and probably deserved it more...). Go away now while I mourn this horrible loss.

Notes/Warnings (you only have to read what's bolded/italicized/underlined if you want):
For the first time, the death of a Jellicle and unintentional (?) self-starvation. This is a very sad chapter and I'm hoping to make a few people cry. I know I did when thinking about writing it, let alone actually writing it...
It turned out a bit differently than the other two, but who am I to complain? I just do what the characters tell me to, haha. Now enough with the boring stuff; let's start the story. Make sure you have your tissues ready.

Gus/Jellylorum:
A Healed Theatre Owner

(1)-

Gus is the cat at the theatre door;

His name, as I ought to have told you before,

Is really Asparagus-but that's such a fuss

To pronounce that we usually call him

Just...Gus.

-(1)

For years and years, Gus the Theatre Cat sat loyally outside of the old theatre house where he used to act, oblivious to the passing of time. He left only when his darling daughter Jellylorum took him somewhere for food or warmth, or when she fetched him to participate in the Jellicle Ball, where he regaled the kittens and even the oldest of cats there with stories of his own past. The last Jellicle Ball he had attended was the one where darling Grizabella, his younger cousin and the one who had followed in his footsteps as an actor(/actress) at the cost of no longer being a part of Uncle Deuteronomy's Jellicle Tribe, had been taken to the Heavyside Layer. Gus had been sad to see her go, but even his slightly broken mind knew full well that he would join her soon.

And join her soon he did; merely a week after that fateful Ball, Jellylorum had come for her morning visit with her father to find him curled up in a ball. When she went to joyfully wake him, she was sent into a state of instant shock to find him newly dead, his fur still warm even in the nippy spring air and with his lack of heartbeat.

Jellylorum, the Healer of the Jellicle Tribe, had been a loyal daughter from the beginning. Her father had already been old when she entered Queenhood at seventeen, he being fourty-seven years old, and she gave up any hope or want of a mate in favour of being his caretaker. So, naturally, when she found out that he had died after being cared for by her almost solely for over twenty-three years, she went a little crazy. She cried, she screamed, she begged, and finally she fell into a state of feeble disbelief and curled up around her dear father's stiffening body, gazing glassily at his face. She slipped in and out of consciousness without realizing it, and soon, four days had passed without her having been moved in the least as delerium began to take hold.

It was then that she met the theatre owner for the first time.

The Old Angel Theatre had been in business for fourty years when the son of its original owner, one Jacob Seraphi, inherited it. He was sorrowful over the loss of his father at the time, but at the same time he was thrilled to finally own the theatre he had grown up in, complete with the old cat who had been living outside for as long as he could remember.

Every week, when he came in to check up on the place, Jacob greeted the cat fondly called Fiddle after a part he or his ancestor (no one really knew for sure if the cats were even related, but it was legend to think that every cat generation had one who looked exactly like the theatre cat before it to look after the place) once played in Jacob's father's own musical creation. He would scratch the old cat behind the ears, make sure it wasn't looking sickly, then feed old Fiddle a bit of crust from his sandwitch before going inside. Fiddle always followed and seemed to be doing his own inspection of the place, recieving another bit of crust for his trouble and a final scratch before Jacob went off to spend time with his grown children.

However, that week, Jacob became concerned when Fiddle wasn't sitting in front of door like he expected. It only took a few moments for the theatre owner to check the alley next to his theatre, and it was then that he stumbled upon the horrifying, sad, and pitiful sight of Fiddle, dead, with an older brown- and blond-furred cat curled up around it, looking nearly dead itself.

Jacob instantly scooped up the slightly larger cat and felt faint relief when he realized it was still breathing, even if it was shallowly. The cat (or rather Queen-it was a female, he quickly realized) was thin as a rake and her fur was matted with dirt as if she hadn't cleaned herself in a while. She was quickly rushed to the conveniently close vet's clinic and instantly put in intensive care.

The whole time the cat was in the vet's office, Jacob couldn't help the worry and curiosity that surrounded him. Poor Fiddle was dead, and based solely on the female cat's reactions to this fact, he gathered the old cat's daughter had found him and decided to die. He wasn't sure if that was normal cat behavior, but there was no doubt in Jacob's mind that that was what had happened. He vowed to take care of the female cat in honour of his old childhood pseudo-pet and patiently waited for the Queen to awake.

And awake Jellylorum did-another three days later, a week almost to the hour after her father had died. She was deeply confused to find herself in an unknown house in what she thought, based solely on the descriptions other cats had given her, was the kind of bed humans made specificly for their pet cats. She meowed as loudly as she could only to hear her own voice crack from dissuse.

Before Jellylorum could puzzle over that confusing bit of information, a strange human male she had never seen before, probably about her age in human terms, with dark skin and a kind face.

"Good, you're awake," the man said as he walked over and gently sat down beside her. He inclined his head in a pseudo bow and Jellylorum blinked in surprise before nodding back, watching curiously as the man chuckled to himself. "Sorry if you think I'm odd-I think I read somewhere that you're supposed to bow to a cat when you meet them. My name's Jacob. I own the theatre where Fiddle lived."

Memories suddenly flooded Jellylorum and she remembered with stunning clarity what had happened. Walking up, noticing her father was still asleep, chattering happily about what they were going to do that day-but when she got closer, it turned out her father wasn't asleep-he was-dead-

The human Jacob suddenly gathered her into his lap and began stroking her head as she mewled patheticly.

"Poor thing," he muttered, his large fingers careful as he combed through Jellylorum's soft fur. She blearily wondered who had washed it before realizing it didn't matter. Her father was dead; as dead as Aunt Grizabella, more so; since he wasn't chosen to go to the Heavyside Layer by Great-Uncle Old Deuteronomy, there was no guarentee he would even be reborn...

"It's hard losing a father, isn't it?" asked Jacob whimsicly. Jellylorum glanced up without meaning to and saw the lost look on the human's face. "I just lost mine a few years ago. It was...weird-sad-not to have him there anymore. But after his funeral, I made a promise to him that I would carry on his Theatre and make sure it stayed up to his standards."

A slight smile crossed Jacob's face and he glanced down at the stunned Jellylorum. "You know, I've known Fiddle for my whole life, as long as I've known my father. He was already part of the Theatre when I came along. I always wanted to take him home with me, but Father didn't allow it; he was allergic to cats, even though he loved them dearly. But I took care of him as best as I could. I imagine you did as well?"

Jacob gently scratched Jellylorum behind the ears and she purred lightly despite herself, startled she could. How could she purr with her father dead? More importantly, how could she purr with her father dead without feeling remorseful about doing so? Just a few hours, days, maybe weeks ago she had found her father...

'Smiling,' Jellylorum suddenly remembered, eyes widening slightly as she looked away from Jacob's face. 'He was...smiling. In his death. He...was he ready to pass on? To go to the Heavyside Layer? With his parents, his siblings, his aunt and uncles...his cousins?'

"You know, I've been meaning to get a cat," Jacob said abruptly, cutting into Jellylorum's thoughts. She looked up at him in mild confusion as he went on, a slight smile in place. "What do you think? Two orphans of The Old Angel Theatre, toughing it out together and keeping the place running for our fathers?"

A thousand thoughts ran through Jellylorum's head, most of them being against the idea of becoming a common house cat, but then an image of her father welled up in her mind. Of dear old Gus, of the calm and cheerful look in his eyes even when thinking of the most tragic moments in the theatre he had lived in for as long as she could remember. Despite herself, Jellylorum arched her neck and back into Jacob's hand as he gently stroked her fur, agreeing with his terms.

Jacob was apparently one of the rare humans who understood animals, since he smiled faintly at her.

"Excellent," he said with a chuckle, continuing to stroke Jellylorum's fur. "Well, then, Althea, what do you say we get going? It's about time I check up on the Theatre again...and perhaps we can do something about poor Fiddle's body while we're down there..."

Althea, Healer, Wholesome. Yes, Jellylorum thought as she was carefully picked up and carried with care by Jacob, it was the perfect name for a Healer who needed healing herself. Hopefully, the first step along that path would be burrying her father's body.

It would be a long process, but she quickly became confident that, with Jacob's help, she could pull through and help her father's dream to stay alive.

Gus/Jellylorum:
Epilog

Up in the Heavyside Layer, Gus the Theatre Cat watched his daughter grow stronger with the human he himself had helped raise in his own way. It warmed his heart as he watched the two heal each other in ways they didn't even know they needed to be healed, and grew stronger for their experiences. It was fifteen years later, when Jellylorum was cheerfully acting the part of Macbeth's cat in a play in the Theatre, that his dear cousin sauntered over curiously to look over his shoulder at the show of the world below.

"Ah, she's grown beautiful, like her father," Grizabella noted with a slight smile. "You should be proud."

And as Jacob praised Althea for her job well done and recieved a purr and a nuzzle for his trouble, Gus couldn't help but smile his agreement.