A single hand woke her up, carefully and gently stroking the top of her head until she gained enough consciousness to open her eyes. Where everything had once been clear as day, the now hazy sunlight gave everything the impression of being blurry and inconsistent. She looked up at who had woken her. It was only Junior, still filled with all of the joy of a child on a Christmas Day.

Lady yawned, picking her head up and blinking rapidly, eyes looking for the nearest window. Much to her unpleasant surprise, it was clearly already evening, which would explain the color of the sun. She had been asleep for what had practically been the entire day and it frustrated her to no end. At first she had written occasions such as that off with nothing more than a tired chuckle, but as the problem became more frequent and more intense, it had slowly grown to become a bane within her life.

"Are you ready to go for a walk, girl?" Junior, asked her, leash in hand and small jacket draped smartly over his shoulders. He was already bent down, anticipation all too high.

She didn't really though, "The wonders of old age", but the look on Junior's young and gullible face was too much to depressingly deny, or say 'no' to and so she figured, both by mind and by heart, that one last walk wouldn't hurt anyone. Just to the park and back, how much effort could that possibly take? And so much to Junior's pleasure, she stood up and yapped as excitedly as she could. Even barks, the natural sound of the dog, were difficult for Lady to muster up, most of the time coming out hoarse and much too soft, indiscernible to anyone that didn't have the ears of a dog.

Junior quickly attached the leash to her collar, taking care to ensure that it wouldn't choke her, picked up one of his toys, a wooden car, that he had gotten as a Christmas present earlier and led her out of the large, but humble house, "Mother and Father say that we can go to the park too. Maybe we could even play, if you're feeling up to it."

They waited for Jim Dear and Darling, Junior giddy with excitement and Lady looking longingly over to the spot in the garden where she went every day. A spot that had first been nothing, but dirt, before becoming a place of mourning and eventually transforming to the only place she ever went to speak her mind. She allowed her tired mind to drift while they waited, the slowing beat in her body never being lost to her. She wondered if she might see Dizzy that day, considering how long it had been since the small, but passionate dog had last made herself known. It was a Tuesday after all and that seemed to be the only day that the Pembroke Welsh Corgi made her weekly commute out in the city, preferring every other day to stay with her owner.

"You ready to go buddy?" Jim Dear suddenly appeared, quickly throwing on a hat and holding the door open for his wife.

"Such a lovely evening," Darling mused. "We must go to the park."

"If you say so Darling," he chuckled, shutting and locking the door, while Junior squirmed with even more excitement.

The numbness in her paws was almost too much to bear when they finally reached the park.

Lady sat down with a huff of exhaustion, panting and having to take several moments before she could recompose herself. She watched on with drooping and lazy eyes as Darling laid down a small picnic blanket and a basket.

The Sun warmed her dull coat as she climbed a grassy hill, her owners not paying her much attention, save for a quick, "Don't go too far girl." The grass almost seemed to stretch out before her, in different shades of green which made her head hurt. The top was getting ever so closer and so despite her tiredness and the throbbing in her head, she fought on, determined to see the top, determined to at least have one last thing in life even if it would kill her.

She gasped when she thought that she could make out a figure at the top of the hill, one which turned back to her and winked, before running off.

"W-wait!" Lady shouted with all of her might despite her heavy panting. "Wait! Don't g-go, I'm almost there!"

Alas, even as she reached the top and laid down, body shaking with exhaustion and mind in a conflicted decision to either close her eyes, or look further down the hill, the figure was long gone, having made his leave like a real tramp, like one which had all the time in the world for singing and stealing, but none for her.

"At least that wasn't the Tramp I know and love," she muttered, almost incoherently to herself.

And that was where she sat, unperturbed and for a brief moment in a world that was entirely her own. That was until something slammed into her side, at a force that was enough to make her jump.

"Whoops! Sorry girl," Junior apologized from down the hill. "Could you bring it back to me?"

Suddenly a feeling of slyness overcame her and Lady all of a sudden completely oblivious to the aches, throbs and pains picked the ball up in her mouth, racing down the hill at full-speed. Junior bent down, prepared to receive both the ball and the excited frolics of his dog, but was much surprised when Lady ran past him instead and raced for several more feet before dropping the ball and turning back to the boy.

"To me girl, to me" he tried again, pointing at himself rather cartoon-ish manner.

Lady instead barked at him loudly and wagged her tail in the air. Taking the bait, Junior ran after her and the ball, only to be left behind in a dusty cloud of...dust. Lady raced around, for the first time in a long time being able to stretch her legs. She ran around trees, under bushes and even through a small pit of sand, glancing back occasionally to make sure Junior, who just like her, was covered from head to toe in leaves, grass and dirt, was still chasing her. Only after a few more laps was Junior finally able to close the gap between them and successfully wrestle the ball away.

"Where'd you get all th-this energy from girl," he panted heavily, as Lady stood around his feet, tail still wagging furiously. "You up for another round?" he asked and smiled thoughtfully when he heard a 'woof' in response. "Alright, go get it!"

And that was how it was for much of the late afternoon and early evening. Ball flying through the air, paw steps raining across the ground, ball in mouth, boy chasing after dog, boy and dog fighting like two real hooligans. The cycle repeated itself until neither could go on any further, both mutually deciding to call it a tie, as soon as they dropped onto the grass. They laid together for a while before walking back to the picnic site where Jim Dear and Darling lazed.

"Lady!" Darling gasped upon seeing the dirty state of her dog, who merely whined and flopped down next to her. "Junior!" she gasped next upon seeing her son, whose jacket was stained with green and brown and whose knees were scratched and bruised. "Both of you will be getting a long bath at home, I cannot believe that you could get so filthy at such a late hour. How in the world..."

Much of Darling's interrogation and scolding was missed by Lady's ears, who by then, had her eyes shut firmly, ready to fall asleep.

"Lady?" Tramp walked around the home lost, trying to find his mate.

They had moved in the day before and even after giving himself a tour of the place, he still couldn't wrap his head around it's drawn out and confusing layout.

It wasn't as though it were necessarily large either. It looked strange, smelled strange and it's lack of a dog door unnerved him, but the humans liked it and so he stayed put indoors.

It took a while, but he eventually came upon her sitting in front of one of the few windows in the house, it faced the small backyard, much like the one from their old home.

"Lady?" he said again, sitting down beside her. "What are you thinking of?"

"Home," she answered him bluntly. "Jock, the kids, you."

"Me?"

"What would I do without you?"

Tramp sighed and backed away from her slightly, "I think you'd be just fine without me.

"I forgave you a long time ago. Long before Jim Dear and Darling even considered moving."

"Doesn't change what I did to you. How hypocritical I was being."

"Tramp..." she gave him a look only he would ever understand, one which they had shared many times, but only ever used under certain circumstances.

"Yes, I know you love me, I love you too, but again that doesn't change anythi-"

He stopped when she nuzzled against him, slowly, surely and effectively getting her mate to calm down. While at first Tramp tensed up, a byproduct of the strong trust which had gradually weakened between both of them, he slowly found himself relaxing accepting the nuzzle gratefully and giving back one of his own.

"You're the best," Tramp spoke into her fur. "You're the best thing that ever happened to me Lady. Thank you."

Lady replied with an uncharacteristically cocky smirk, "I know I am and you're welcome."

Silence settled between them for a long time, as they let their breathing fill in the gaps and count down the time. They watched, for a while, the steady flow of traffic and took note of the climbing trees in the yard just opposite theirs.

"Do you ever wonder about the pups?"

Lady smiled warmly, "Off course I do, all the time."

"Do you ever worry about them?"

"Jim Dear and Darling made sure they all got good homes. Why should I worry?"

Tramp paused thoughtfully before speaking again, "You don't even worry about Scamp and Angel? Still can't believe that they would have rather lived out there, than in a nice warm home."

"They've got each other," she shrugged. "I'm sure they'll be just fine. What did you say about that place? 'It's all our's for the taking...beyond those distant hills...'"

Tramp chuckled, remembering those words well, "Yeah well, that was a long time ago. And it's not exactly safe up there either."

"It must have been hard, the things you went through."

"Well after a few days, I came to my senses and left to find food, spent a while living the scared, sheltered life, met Peg and Bull and well the rest is history," he looked forwards dreamily. "Have I ever apologized for how they treated you in the slammer?"

Lady shook her head, "Why there's no need to apologize. They were the kindest ones there...well Peg was anyways. That's a dog I wouldn't have minded getting to know more about."

"N-no," Tramp awkwardly cleared his throat. "Trust me, that's one dog you meet once and then move on from."

"If you say so," she nuzzled into him again. "I love you Tramp."

"I love you too," he swallowed nervously, 'Pidge', Pidge', just say it,' and looked down at her absentmindedly, "Lady."

"Coward."

"Alright little guy, if you really want to hear a story I'll give you a story..."

...the legend first appeared in the late 1800's. Bee-man was the son of an unhappy slave. His father made plenty of money after escaping and making this sort of system which let them make plenty of those fancy shoes, the type your parents would put on proudly after the Civil War, that's the one that Lincoln fought in to free the slaves. Now bee-man had been sent to the best schools and had grown up in polite society, kinda unusual for someone like him back in those days, heck it's still a little unusual today. He had plenty of talent when it came to ink and paint and just about all the rich white folks went to him when it came to the showing off all their dollar bills and the fact that they're 'higher on the food chain than all the rest of us'. It was for the latter reason that he was approached by this wealthy, prideful landowner to capture his daughter's unheard of beauty, his words not mine. Well, of course, the two of them went and fell deeply in love, and wouldn't you know it she became pregnant. Hm...poor Bee-man, had the whole town on him after that. The father executed a terrible revenge. He paid a pack of the harshest, meanest boys known to man to do the deed. They chased Bee-man through the town, it was basically a while show for everyone, all the way to Cabrini-Green, right between the red and whites. Now this is where the story gets a little foggy, but I've still got my version in my head. What they did was they went ahead and chopped his hand clean off. No one came to his aid, barely anyone batted an eye, even with all his screams of agony. But this was just the beginning of his pain . Nearby there was this bee farmer and he caught wind of the whole thing. They took just about all of his hives, hives filled with hungry, angry bees and smashed each of these hives and stole the honeycomb...then they smeared it over his still, barely breathing body. Bee-man was stung to death by the bees, so you can guess why they call him that. They burned his body on a giant pyre and then scattered his ashes. Where? Nobody knows, but some say that if you stand in front of a mirror and say his name five times, he shall return and exact revenge on all those who-"

Lady released a strange mix of a bark and a whine as the young woman's story began to reach it's terrifying and most likely bloody ending, one which would likely not pass easily through Junior's growing mind.

"Message received," Helen threw her hands into the air. "No scaring the child I'm supposed to be babysitting," her head turned sharply in the direction of the house, "smells like the cake is ready, then we can go to the park and if all goes well, we shall see Mr. and Mrs. Brown tomorrow when they get back from their business meeting."

She promptly left to deal with her baked goods, leaving Lady, Tramp and Junior to their own deeds.

Tramp was the one to break the silence as he chuckled absentmindedly.

"What's so funny?" Lady asked him.

"Oh, it's nothing, just that story of her's, reminds me a lot about a story I once told Scamp, kept him up for days."

"And here I was thinking that he ate too much," she glared at him, annoyed.

"He said he could handle it," Tramp retorted defensively. "Junior could probably handle it too," he placed his head in between his front paws, before his ears perked up. "Speaking of which, where is Junior?"

They looked both ways worriedly, before staring in horror at Junior who had somehow made his way out of the gate and into a cart that was readying to take off. The driver failed to notice the child sitting in the back of the wagon, even as two dogs barked at him urgently.

With no words between them, they both rushed after Junior, hurrying their paces, as the cart drew further and further away. Their aged, shorter legs being no match for the long and muscular legs of the horses.

"It's getting really far away, I don't know if we'll be able to- umph!"

Tramp suddenly crashed into a different form, his momentum doing nothing to lessen the impact, even as all of his speed came to a resounding halt. He stood up as Lady rushed to his aid.

"Are you okay? I'm so, so sorry, I didn't see you coming, if I did I would have moved out of the way and..."

Tramp stood up, too dazed to pay attention to what was being said to him.

"...so, what were you guys chasing after anyways?"

When he was able to recompose himself and keep his eyes in one spot, he looked up to see the glowing, happy face of the dog who had just spoken, "W-wagon, where did it go?" he looked around, dismayed to see that it was likely far beyond their reach at that point and that meant that Junior was as well.

"I didn't see any wagon around." As she spoke, the tag attached to her collar shook lightly. "What's so important about an old wagon anyways?"

Lady walked up urgently, "Our master's son somehow wandered into the back of it and now he could be anywhere."

"That's, yup, that's a problem..." she trailed off, thinking for a moment. "I'm sure he won't be that difficult to find, c'mon if he gets dumped somewhere, the word will start spreading pretty quickly," she began to walk off, before turning to face them. "My name's Dizzy by the way."

"Lady."

"Tramp."

"Nice meeting you two."