Part 10 - Domesticated

Xander sat in the living room of the small apartment looking at the closed bedroom door, wondering exactly why he felt guilty.

It wasn't like he'd done anything to feel guilty about. All he'd done was ask the girl her name, and tell her that Snowball wasn't a good name for a girl, that it belonged to a cat.

So what did she do? She turned into a cat, and locked herself in his room. Leaving him out here to clean up the remains of the breakfast she'd managed to get him from somewhere, and trying to figure out what he'd done wrong, and how to fix it.

He'd knocked on the door once, then tried to open it but it was locked. He'd tried calling through the door to say he was sorry, but that didn't seem to work either.

All he could think to do now was to leave, and hope she settled down soon. Hopefully before her brother Moo or whatever came by to check on her. All he needed was an overprotective war god brother on his case for making his baby sister mad somehow.

Finally giving up, he walked over to the door he'd been glaring at for the last half hour, and knocked on it once more. "Hey. Snowball. I'm going out. If you want to sulk in here all day that's fine. But I've had enough of feeling sorry I want you to have a prettier name for a prettier girl than the one I would have given you as a cat. Hell, If I'd known it would cause a problem like this, I'd have just called you 'Cat' and left it at that. I'm sorry, ok?"

He turned away and was in the process of opening the front door to head out towards the back stairs when the bedroom door opened softly behind him, and he heard the girl's voice call out softly, "What did you just say, Xander?"

Sighing, Xander turned back towards the once more human looking girl, and said, "I said I was sorry, and that I just thought you deserved a prettier name as a person than Snowball."

The girl shook her head, and said, "No, after that."

Xander shrugged, thinking back, "I said that if I had thought it'd cause a problem I'd have just called you Cat and left it at that."

She smiled at him, her whole face seeming to light up, and she said, "You can, if you want. I wouldn't mind, I guess."

Xander wasn't sure what she was saying, but seeing her smile he really didn't care. However he decided he needed to take a chance and try to clarify whatever it was she was talking about before he went and either upset her or made her mad at him again later. "Um, I can what?"

"Call me Cat."

Xander felt a wash of relief flood his system. Cat was a much more normal name for a girl than Snowball. Granted, calling a cat Cat would seem stupid or uncaring to some people, so perhaps he could work out a compromise. He should make sure now, before he got in trouble later. "Uh, ok. I'd like to call you Cat, at least when you look human. Do you want me to stop calling you Snowball when you look like a cat?"

She giggled, and asked, "So you want to call me Cat when I look like a girl, but when I look like a cat you want to call me Snowball still?"

Xander shrugged, "I just don't want to call you 'Hey You' all the time. But your name is your choice. I'll call you whatever you want, even if I look like an idiot doing it. Just please don't get mad at me."

She shook her head, "I'm not mad at you. I was upset that you didn't want me to be a cat. Because if you didn't want me to be a cat then I'd have to give that up, and I like being a cat. It's a part of who I am. It always has been, for as long as I can remember."

Xander shrugged, and said, "I don't want you to change who you are, and I'm sorry if you thought I did. That wasn't what I meant when I said Snowball was a good name for a cat. I didn't mean you couldn't be a cat. I just thought you deserved a human name for when you weren't a cat. And all I did was make you mad at me."

She crossed the room in a flash, although not quite literally, and threw herself into his arms, grabbing him around the neck and kissing him soundly once more.

"Thank you, Xander." She said.

Xander was confused again. Snowball, or Cat, whatever he called her, was the most confusing person he had ever dealt with. But her kisses were certainly very nice. He could get used to those very fast.

Cat finally broke away, breathing deeply, then looked up into his eyes, her own shining with happiness again as she asked, "So where are we going today?"

That was a good question. Xander hadn't really had any plans for the day, he was just tired of being in the apartment. It was already early afternoon, and he was supposed to be ready to start working at six that evening, but the next five hours were his to do with as he, or rather, he thought taking in Cat's face, they choose. "Uh, do you have any recommendations?"

Cat smiled, then said, "How about shopping. I know you got some clothes last night, but nowhere near enough. We can go to stores and see what looks good on you, then I can be proud of you while I watch you work tonight."

Xander was leading the way towards the rear stairs when she said that, causing him to pause, "Uh, watch me work?" he asked.

She nodded, "What, do you want me to stay in the apartment all night? If you really do, then I will, but otherwise, well, I just figured, I mean, I can maybe help out. Cary drinks for the vampires or something. I could even help out as a bouncer if they need me to. I'm pretty strong, compared to a vampire you know."

That wasn't something Xander had even thought about. Up 'till now he had been considering his interactions with the vampires as they effected himself alone. Of course, up till now he'd been considering Cat as well, a cat.

If Cat wasn't a cat, then she would end up having to interact with LaCroix at the very least. More than likely she would end up having to deal with others as well. And sooner or later, they'd want to see some identification on her. Himself as well, although as he had proved to himself the night before, if he was willing to use the mind control mojo in the people in charge he could just as easily make them believe they had seen his ID, checked it out and fount it to be good.

But what about Cat. If she wasn't with him, what would she do?

"Uh, Cat, I think I know what we need to do today. We need to go see a vampire named 'Aristotle' He sets up the other vampires here with fake IDs, so that they can get by in modern society."

"So? Why would we need to see him for that?" Cat asked, genuinely confused.

"Um, incase someone wants to see your ID?" Xander explained.

Cat shrugged, and pulled a wallet out of a back pocket he knew for sure had been empty before she got it, since he had been kind of checking out her rather nice butt as they walked to the mall.

Fishing inside it, she withdrew a Canadian driver's license and ID card. The name on the card read "Cat S. Ball" it listed her age as twenty two years old, and showed her residence as the apartment above the Raven.

Xander raised an eyebrow at that, and said, "Ok, perhaps you don't need to go, but I will."

With a shrug, Cat dug in the wallet again, fishing out a second card. "Here" she said, passing it to him.

Taking this card, he saw it had his face on it, with his name listed as "Alexander Harris", aged twenty two as well, and showed the same address as Cat's ID.

He looked at it, then back at her, and asked, "Where?"

She smiled at him and asked softly, "I'm a goddess, remember? Those are in the system as well. After all, why do things half-way?"

Xander didn't know what to say, so he simply said "Thank You." At which point she smiled again and leaned up to kiss him. Kisses from Cat were really nice he thought again.

They soon arrived at the mall, where apparently the theme for the day was "Torture Xander".

Cat dragged him into several stores, where she had him try on various combinations of shirts, pants, and jackets. Then she made him wander around in several different pairs of shoes. But the most frustrating thing of all was she never chose anything. Over and over he would have to go put something on, wander back and forth in front of Cat, then go and switch it for something else and start the whole process over again, with no resulting purchases. It was the lack of any material proof that his efforts were of use which was annoying him the most.

On the flip side, Cat was great. He found that simply being around her tended to make him feel better. He tried picturing going through something like this with Buffy or Willow – who he still missed like a missing limb – but couldn't imagine it being even half as, well, not fun, but pleasant. As pleasant as being forced to change clothes over and over again could be.

Finally, he found he couldn't take it any more, and as they exited yet another store Xander stopped, and turned to Cat. "No more. I'm sorry Cat, but I can't take it any more. This whole afternoon, other than your company, feels like a big waste of time. I mean you haven't liked anything at all. I don't care anymore. Let's just get the next thing you think looks half-way decent, then grab some food and call it a day."

Cat blinked up at him, a quizzical expression crossing her face, and asked, "You aren't enjoying this?"

"I don't feel like it's accomplishing anything. I mean, if we were lugging bags of clothes around, at least we'd have some trophies to show we had succeeded in our quest to find something you liked for me to wear. But instead, it all just seems so futile."

Cat frowned at that, then shrugged, and handed Xander a bag, which he automatically lifted from her outstretched hand.

Looking down at the bag, which felt rather heavy, and bore the logo of one of the last stores they had visited, Xander asked, "Uh, what's this?"

Cat smiled at him and replied, "Some of the clothes I liked from that store."

Xander wasn't sure he was tracking events properly, so he attempted to clarify, asking, "Um, did I miss the point where we bought stuff, or did you get it while I was changing back into my own clothes?"

Cat shook her head, "No. I didn't bother with them until just now. You said if you were carrying a bag of clothes you'd feel better. I want you to be happy, so I got you a bag of clothes to carry. Wasn't that what you wanted?"

Xander was not liking what he was thinking, hoping he was wrong, he asked, "Uh, you didn't just take them from the store, did you?"

Cat frowned at him and shook her head, "No, why would I do that? That'd be stealing, and stealing is wrong. I hope you wouldn't want me to start taking things that don't belong to us. I will if you really want me to, but I won't be happy."

Xander wasn't sure now what was going on, but at least he didn't have to worry about security grabbing them for shoplifting or anything. "No, I don't want you to start taking things from people. That's why I asked. I wanted to make sure you hadn't done so without realizing that it'd be stealing. I'm glad you didn't. So where did these clothes come from then?"

Cat looked at Xander like he had asked where the sunlight was coming from on a cloudless day, before shrugging and simply saying, "I handed them to you."

Xander suppressed the desire to roll his eyes at that and instead asked, "Yes, I remember that, but where did you get them from to hand to me?"

Cat looked confused for a moment, then said, "Um, I made them for you?"

Xander wasn't sure what to say to that. He stood there in the mall, looking at the bemused expression on Cat's face while he tried to sort things out in his head as people flowed past them on both sides.

Finally Xander started to speak again, carefully keeping his tone as neutral as possible. "I'm sorry Cat, but I think I'm having a real life Daren Stephens or Tony Nelson moment here, and it's kind of freaking me out."

Cat didn't understand the reference, so she asked, "What is a Darren Stephens or a Tony Nelson moment?"

Xander sighed and then tried to explain, "When I was growing up there were a couple of TV shows I used to watch sometimes during the summer when I was off, or when I was home sick from school. One of them was called 'Bewitched' and was about a normal man named Daren Stephens who was married to a really powerful witch. He never wanted her to use her magic, even though if she never did there wouldn't have been anything to see on the show. The other one was called 'I dream of Jeanie', it was about an astronaut who found a Genie in a bottle. She was always trying to grant wishes for him, while he was trying to keep people from finding out she was a Genie, especially his boss. Anyhow, your pulling a bag of stuff we should have bought out of nowhere just threw me for a loop, and all I could do was think about how I don't want to be like Daren or Tony. But at the same time, well, it just feels wrong to me to have clothes I didn't buy which I should have."

Cat seemed to think about that, then she said, "So you don't want the clothes I made for you?"

Xander shook his head, "No", he started to say.

Seeing her face fall he went on quickly, "I mean, yes. I want the clothes. I'm just not comfortable with you making them so, well, casually I suppose."

Cat's smile came back at that, and she bounced up and kissed him quickly, then stepped back again and looked at him happily. "I'm sorry you aren't comfortable about my making you things. I can try not to if you really want. But it's kind of a part of who I am."

Xander shook his head and replied, "I don't want you to be different from yourself. That's not what I'm saying. In fact, that's what I meant when I said I didn't want to be a Daren or a Tony. I don't want to put limits on what you would otherwise do. I just need to adjust to it. The problem is me, not you. Gosh, I sound like we're breaking up already, and I'm just getting to know you."

She smiled at him at that, and said "We can't break up. We're married. Or at least betrothed." Suddenly another shop caught her eye, and she said, "Since you are tired of trying on clothes, why don't I do it for a little bit, and you can tell me what you like."

Suddenly feeling very scared, Xander let Cat grab his free hand, and drag him across the mall towards Victoria's Secret.

Xander sat before the dressing rooms almost wishing he was back in hell. Ok, perhaps that was a little strong. Still, he certainly wasn't comfortable.

First of all, he was the only guy in the place. Oh no, that male employee over at the counter certainly didn't count. Not with the way he was checking out Xander more than the female customers were.

Next, there was the fact that those female customers were so blatantly checking him out. It was worse then working the bar in the Raven, at least there a lot of the females (and most of the males) seemed more interested in his neck than other parts of his anatomy.

It also didn't help that every few minutes the blood flow in his body would be routed away from maintaining his almost-permanent blush towards another singular portion of his body, one which no matter how he chose to sit seemed determined to make it's opinions of Cat's clothing known to the entire establishment. Which only served to renew the blush once it, er, relaxed again. Now that he really thought about it, Hell wasn't all that bad. There he only had to worry that just about everything he encountered wanted to kill or eat him. The blood flow problems in hell could usually be handled with a bandage until his healing could take effect. That was so not the case here.

The dressing room door opened again, and Cat came back out, this time wearing the tight blue jeans and tank top she had had on earlier that day, and carrying the stack of clothes she had been modeling for him. She walked up to him and bent over, forcing him to gaze at her cleavage as she whispered in his eat, "These are for me. Is it ok if I make the money to pay for them, or should I just put them back and make them later?"

Xander closed his eyes so his brain might be able to siphon enough blood from elsewhere so as to be able to function, and considered what she was saying. Finally he managed to reprocess it enough for a coherent response. "Unghuh." he said assuredly.

Cat stepped back and raised an eyebrow, silently indicating he should try again, and so he took a breath, held it, counted to ten, checked that he had made it to ten for sure, and wasn't at 1.0 or something, then tried to speak once more. "Yes. Go ahead and make the money to pay for the clothes, as opposed to making the clothes. Although in a way making the money is stealing from the government since the money is supposed to represent resources which back it."

Cat nodded and said, "I hadn't thought about that. Perhaps later I can make something to sell, and then just destroy the money I get to pay it back so it balances out."

Xander shrugged, and said, "That's why I'm having a problem with you just making stuff. Depending on what you are making, you may still be stealing in some way. For example, when you made the clothes for me earlier, even though you didn't steal from the store we were shopping in, you did steal the design from the people who paid to make the clothes we didn't buy. Granted, that's nothing like stealing the clothes entirely, but it's not the size of the theft that counts, it is the theft it's self."

Cat's eyes widened as she thought of exactly what the implications of what Xander had said were. Whenever she made something instead of buying it, she was in a way stealing from the people she would have otherwise bought it from. Not directly, as they still had what they had had before, but in the way that by not buying from them she hurt their business, and the businesses of all the people up the line who helped contribute to the sale she didn't complete. She had never even considered such a thing before.

She immediately vowed to come up with a way to pay back whatever she could to make up for any damages she could have caused in her ignorance. Suddenly feeling guilty even though she hadn't really ever done anything to hurt anyone, she looked at her husband and marveled at her fortune at having been rescued by a man who was so wise, kind, and even cute. She had understood almost from the moment he rescued her why her Uncle had after thousands of years chosen this person to be his champion, and had acted to empower him as he had, even if he had bent the rules a lot by doing so, and managed to create powerful opposition to her new husband's very existence.

The more she had learned about Xander, the more she had liked him. His actions in saving her aside, she had watched as he fought opponents forgoing possible advantages at times. When the demons had almost caught them she had tried to open a portal back to his home. She now knew she had failed, in a way, in that his home was not this world, but had succeeded as well, in that this world was also his home.

She had followed him that night in the woods, listening as he talked to himself. She had watched his interaction with the driver of the red vehicle, and noted that he did not act to force anything, appearing to have been content to be left in the forest had the driver chosen to do so.

She had not therefore been as surprised when upon their arrival in the city he again forwent the use of his powers, instead using them merely to aid himself in blending in to the environment, and despite many opportunities to use force or compulsion to obtain additional resources had slept in a tree, and washed himself and his belongings in a cold lake.

When he had later told his story to LaCroix, the vampire who's memories he apparently shares, she paid even greater attention to his story than did the enraptured vampire. It was at that point that she decided she wanted to wed her hero, if he would have her. When she had told her mother of her choice, she was surprised at the ready agreement she received. Apparently ever since she had spoken with her family while following Xander through the woods that first night after leaving Hell, her mother had been investigating the young man who was swiftly winning her only daughter's affections. And had been herself impressed by what she had found out. She had apparently spoken to many higher, and even a few lower, powers in her attempt to gain the measure of the person who by their traditions held the remainder of her youngest child's existence in his hands, whether he knew it or not. And apparently other than the Powers, who mostly spoke of how he messed up their carefully laid plans and threatened their programs for his home dimension, no one had anything actually bad to say of him. And for any being that is a rare thing indeed.

So, she counted herself as an exceedingly lucky goddess to have a chance to even know such a man. And if she could win his heart as he had won hers, she would be joyous beyond description. The fact that he had already seemed to accept her as a friend was almost enough to make her giddy. When she had felt the bindings of the spell placed on her by her kidnappers which had locked her in her cat form slipping away she had almost woken Xander up to introduce herself, but instead had contented herself with using her restored form to hug the man who her Mother and her Uncle had decreed to be her new Husband. Waking up in his arms that morning had been the best experience in her life. It had actually made up for all the torment she had gone through in being kidnapped and taken to hell so that a demon lord could sacrifice her and drain her power to boost his own. Of course the argument which had followed, when she thought he didn't want her to be a cat anymore, but wanted her to just be a human wasn't very nice. But after she had realized he hadn't meant what she thought he had said, she had become deliriously happy again. Until now, when he pointed out how using her abilities to just make whatever she wanted could still be inadvertently causing harm to those around her, from whom she didn't obtain the items she otherwise would have. While the thought of causing harm to others, however slight and unintended it may be, was depressing it was still offset that now that her husband - for that was what he was in her mind, consummated marriage or not – had pointed this out, she could take steps to if not rectify the damages she may have caused in the past, at least prevent or reduce their impact in the future. He was so wise. And cute. And kind. And cute. She was so lucky.

As they exited Victoria's Secret, Xander's stomach took the opportunity to let them both know that it hadn't appreciated the lack of blood flow during the past hour or so, but would forgive them if it was provided the appropriate sacrifice of food. Xander's nose on the other hand seemed inclined to lead him towards a food court, where the stomach's sacrifice could be readily found. Turning to Cat, he asked her "Hungry?"

Cat blinked at him, hi question apparently drawing her out of some introspective thoughts. After a moment she shook her head, and replied, "Not really. I, uh, generally don't eat. I mean, I can, I really like those Twinkies you gave me, we need to get more of those I think, there should always be golden cakes with cream in them around, but I don't have to eat. I mean, unless you want me to. Then I'll eat something. Because like I said, I can eat if I want to. It's just that I usually don't. Eat that is."

Xander stopped walking, and stared at her for a bit, "You don't have to eat? Uh, but if you don't eat, you die. Everyone knows that."

Cat shook her head and said, "You don't have to either, you know. I mean, I know you're used to it, and sure, you feel a lot better when you aren't hungry, but tell me something, what happens when you die?"

Xander blinked. "Uh, you go to heaven, or if you've been bad, you go to hell?"

Cat shook her head and said, "No, I mean you. When YOU die, what happens?"

Xander pondered this for a moment, then saw what she was getting at, "Uh, I get better?"

Cat nodded, "Yep. If you die, your quickening heals the damage which caused you to die, or in your case both your quickening and your vampire healing combine to correct the damage which caused you to die, and then you come back, good as new. Granted, if you starved to death, you'll still be hungry when you come back, but you WON'T be starving. So, in theory you could avoid eating. Granted, it probably wouldn't be fun, but if you had to, you could."

This was a conclusion Xander had never even remotely considered. There were times when he was in Hell that he would have rather died than eat what he ended up having to consume, especially when it came to something like draining a demon for blood, or eating a possibly sentient vanquished foe. Had he realized that just by dying he could have avoided such events, he gladly would have. But he had never even considered that he could simply not eat, and not somehow die for good.

Shaking his head, he resumed leading the way to the food court. Glancing at his new watch, he realized that as soon as they finished eating they would need to head back to the Raven so Xander could get ready for his shift which started in only two hours. At least he'd have company for the meal, even if she didn't eat.