When Chris woke up in the morning she was not surprised to find Jake
already up and about.
Yawning she wandered into the kitchen where she found Jake frying eggs. "Morning," she said pouring herself coffee.
"Uh, hi," he replied, "Sleep good?"
She nodded, "Yep really good." She set her coffee on the table to cool and walked over to the window. The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Puddles dotted the yard. She turned and started to walk back to the table, "That was quite the storm last-" suddenly her foot hit a wet spot on the floor and her legs slid out from underneath her. She landed hard on her back. "Ow." A drop of water fell from the ceiling and hit her on the forehead. Then another. She lifted her arm and pointed at the ceiling. "Roof's leaking."
"Huh? What was that?" Jake said turning around, he didn't see her anywhere, "Where'd you go?"
"Down here," he heard her voice coming from behind the table. He walked around and saw her sprawled on the ground and crouched next to her. "Whoa, what happened? Are you OK?" he asked, concerned.
"Fine," she replied sitting up and rubbing her head, "Just seemed like a good day to take a trip."
He offered her a hand and lifter her up. Once fully upright she twisted around to look at her back, now drenched with water. She shook the water out of her tail then looked from the puddle on the floor to the ceiling.
"Roof's still leaking," she said and left to go change out of her soggy clothes.
Jake quickly cleaned up the puddle and put a large pan under the drip to catch the water.
When Chris came back there was a plate of eggs waiting for her at the table, "Wow," she said as she sat down, "that's service. Thanks."
"No problem," Jake said, scraping the last of the eggs onto a plate for Chance, "I'll be right back." He put the frying pan onto the counter and jumped up the stairs, taking them two at a time and yelling, "Chance! Get outta bed!"
Jake reached the top of the stairs and found his foot sinking into a soggy patch in the rug. He looked up and saw that the roof was leaking here too.
"Crud," he muttered shaking droplets of water off his foot. "Chris!" he shouted down to her, "Clean up on isle twelve! Bring another pot up here will ya!"
"No problem!" she shouted back to him.
He continued walking down the hall and found himself standing in another soggy spot just outside Chances door. "Make that two pots!" he shouted down to her.
A few seconds later she came bounding up the stairs. Finding the first wet spot she dropped the first pot, and when Jake pointed out the second spot she put the second pot down.
Jake tapped on the door, "Chance get up! We have to fix the roof!"
A groan was heard from within. The groan slowly got louder, then turned into and odd mix of babbling and cursing.
Jake and Chris exchanged confused glances.
A few syllables came drifting trough the wall, "Wet," there was a lot of thrashing, "Water? Water! Soggy wet water!" an odd groggy groan shout came through the wall, followed by a loud thumping noise.
Jake pushed Chris against the wall, "We might want to stand back."
Suddenly the door flew open and a soggy Chance stood before them in his boxers. He was breathing hard and had water dripping off his hair and his fur was stuck in big wet clumps all over his body.
He gestured madly back at his bed, "Wet! Water! Soggy!" he made a gesture where he held his left hand up high and dropped it into his right, "Water dripping on me all night!"
Jake and Chris looked at him blankly then broke up laughing.
"Not funny!" he grumbled spinning on his heel and striding off down the hall, he reached into the bathroom and grabbed a towel on his way past.
Turning to glare at Chris and Jake, who were still laughing at him, he didn't see the pot sitting at the top of the stairs.
"Chance!" Jake shouted, seeing what was about to happen, "look out!"
Chance put his foot right into the pot, he glare turned to a look of surprise and then horror as he lost his balance and teetered precariously at the edge of the stairs. He grabbed for something, anything to hold onto as he fell faster downward. His hands found nothing but his foot popped up and by some stroke of luck caught on the banister, arresting his downward fall. Chance yelped with pain as the banister dug into his foot and then again as his body slammed into the stairs. His foot held and he didn't slide downwards any farther.
Jake and Chris ran to him and half carried, half dragged, him back up the 4 or 5 stairs and laid him out on the floor in the hall.
Jake crouched by his head and looked into his eyes, "Buddy," he said seriously, "Kats are supposed to land on our feet. Are you ok?"
"Must've slipped my mind," Chance grumbled, "I'm fine. Still soggy, but fine."
Chris looked him over, he had a long gash across his forearm, just below his left elbow. She reached out and touched it, "Ow!," Chance hissed, jerking his arm away.
"Relax Chance." Chris said reaching for it again, "We need to clean this up. Can you walk?"
"Yes! I can walk!" he shot back, and clambered to his feet. "See?" he said stepping forward with his left foot, "I can walk just-" he let out a yelp of pain as he shifted his weight onto his left foot. Jake and Chris caught him as he fell forward.
"Oh yeah, I can see that walking is high on you list of talents," Chris said, rolling her eyes.
"That foot was just getting better too. That's the foot that Horse messed up a couple days ago. I just bashed it on the banister," Chance mumbled.
They helped him down the stairs and laid him out on the couch. Chris went into the kitchen to find the first aid kit Jake said was in there and found their eggs. She balanced the three full plates and the first aid kit in her arms and went back into the small living room.
"Here this'll make you feel better," she said, giving Chance his eggs.
Jake took the first aid kit and Chris sat on the coffee table eating her eggs and watching Jake expertly wrap up Chance's arm.
"Wow," she said through a mouthful of food, "where'd you learn to do that?"
Jake shrugged, "Basic Enforcer first aid."
"I'm surprised you can still do it so well, the Enforcers were a long time ago weren't they?"
Jake glanced at her, "I'm not that old," he said with a grin. Besides, he thought to himself, It's not like I haven't had enough practice. Occupational hazards you could call it.
"That's not what I meant," Chris back paddled slightly.
"It's understandable," Chance said with a smile, "he seems like a geezer to my youthful good looks."
Jake glared at him, "Be thankful you're already injured, or else I would rearrange those good looks right off your face, and kick you in the knee just for good measure. . ."
"But you wouldn't because you need me to help you fix cars," Chance said, still grinning.
Jake rolled his eyes, "And the roof. How are we gonna pay for that?"
Chris spoke up, "I saw some old shingles in that shed out back yesterday. You could nail those on yourself right?"
Jake sighed, roofing was a hard job but there was no way they could pay for a pro to come do it. It looked like he was going to be roofing himself, Chance was limpy for the time being , Jake couldn't expect him to go climbing around on a rooftop.
"I'll help you as much as I can, but me and heights don't mix very well," Chris mumbled, half sheepishly.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jake hit his thumb with the hammer for the third time and swore louder then ever. These damn shingles just wouldn't stand still. The wind blew the piles of shingles off the roof and Jake was half thankful that Chris was down there to catch them, but she could be more helpful up here.
Chris heard Jake swear for the third time and sighed. She felt so useless down here. She could catch the lost shingles and pull them back up onto the roof with the pulley they rigged but beyond that she was useless. She thought briefly of going up there to help but she quickly pushed that out of her mind, too scary. A particularly hard gust of wind threw the whole pile off the roof. She gathered them up and put them in the pulley box. She yanked them up to the top and as Jake gathered them he said, "Chris, do you think you could help me out up here?"
Her heart stopped, "Up, there?" she said meekly.
Jake nodded, "Do you mind?"
"Um, yeah, I think that, I could, yeah. How hard could it be?"
She walked over her ladder and out her hands on the first rung. They were shaking slightly. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her mouth was dry. She opened her eyes again and looked up the ladder. It seemed so high. . .
Just concentrate on what's right in front of you, she told herself. One step at a time. She put her foot onto the ladder then leaned in slightly and quickly put her other foot up. So far so good. She put one hand up then the next and took another step up. Then another. And another. She wondered vaguely how high up she was but forced herself not to. Or tried to force herself not to, there the thought still was, ticking away at the back of her brain. She squeezed her eyes shut.
She heard the door slam and Jake yell at Chance that he should go lay down and ice his foot. It seemed like they were shouting so far away. She heard Chance start whistling invincible. Unconsciously she found herself humming along
"It's a do-or-die situation
we will be invincible"
Listen to the words, she told herself, this is easy, you can do this. Yeah right, the more cynical side of her brain mumbled.
She took two more steps up the ladder. Suddenly a great gust of wind shook the ladder, her eyes flew open and she saw how high she was. She shrieked and the world started spinning around her. Her vision went blurry.
"Chris? Chris!" she heard somebody shouting a long way away. She clutched the ladder and closed her eyes again. Oh god, so this was how she was going to die. She couldn't catch her breath and her breathing became labored.
"Chris! I got the ladder your not going to fall."
"You can't keep it from falling! You can't!" She moaned.
"Yes I can, trust me. Can you take a step down?"
She pressed her face against the cold metal of the ladder, "No. I can't move."
"Try it, come on, nothings going to hurt you." She realized vaguely it was Chance speaking to her.
"I'm going to fall." Her voice shook.
"Chris look at me," this was a different voice.
"I can't."
"Chris, look at me." Jake. It was Jake.
Slowly she turned her head and looked up into Jakes brown eyes.
"Now listen to me," he said calmly, "Chance has got the ladder. It won't fall. Now take a step down."
She nodded and glanced down, the word spun again and she couldn't catch her balance.
"I can't! I can't look down," tears were running down her cheeks.
"Don't look down. Chris, look at me."
She did and he smiled at her, "Good now take a step down. Feel for the next rung with your foot."
Still looking at him she did this, "I can feel it."
"Now shift your weight onto it."
"I'm going to fall." Her voice cracked.
"No your not."
Jake watched her shift her weight down.
"Ok, now what?" She looked at him with frightened eyes.
"Do it again."
She nodded slightly and felt for the next rung. She started to shift her weight onto it. Suddenly her foot slipped off the rung. She fell screaming through the air and landed in Chances arms, gasping for breath. Jake was down in an instant and she threw her arms around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder.
Jake put his arms around her mumbling, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chris sat on the couch, leaning against Jake with a blanket around her. She gazed off into space as she spoke, "It's so embarrassing. I strive to be strong, tough. I always just had to be. A had a bunch of brothers and an alcoholic father. He was abusive, and fear was always kind of a natural state at home. I learned to live with it, to block it out. That's why it's so weird that this fear takes over me like this. I hate it. I'm sorry you guys had to deal with it." She paused, "Thanks. I don't think I could've made it as far up as I did with out Chance's whistling."
Chance raised an eyebrow, "I was whistling?"
Chris nodded, "Yeah, 'Invincible'"
Chance laughed a little, "A big lot of good being higher did you. . .When I was a kitten I used to love climbing up on top of the fridge. I fell off once and banged myself up pretty bad, had to go to the hospital and get 9 or 10 stitches." He noticed the looks he was getting. He shrugged, "Just saying that it's a valid fear. That whole fear of falling thing."
"It's not the fall that hurts," Jake pointed out, "It's the landing."
"Oh yeah, the way you guys are talking I want to run right out and climb something."
Yawning she wandered into the kitchen where she found Jake frying eggs. "Morning," she said pouring herself coffee.
"Uh, hi," he replied, "Sleep good?"
She nodded, "Yep really good." She set her coffee on the table to cool and walked over to the window. The sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Puddles dotted the yard. She turned and started to walk back to the table, "That was quite the storm last-" suddenly her foot hit a wet spot on the floor and her legs slid out from underneath her. She landed hard on her back. "Ow." A drop of water fell from the ceiling and hit her on the forehead. Then another. She lifted her arm and pointed at the ceiling. "Roof's leaking."
"Huh? What was that?" Jake said turning around, he didn't see her anywhere, "Where'd you go?"
"Down here," he heard her voice coming from behind the table. He walked around and saw her sprawled on the ground and crouched next to her. "Whoa, what happened? Are you OK?" he asked, concerned.
"Fine," she replied sitting up and rubbing her head, "Just seemed like a good day to take a trip."
He offered her a hand and lifter her up. Once fully upright she twisted around to look at her back, now drenched with water. She shook the water out of her tail then looked from the puddle on the floor to the ceiling.
"Roof's still leaking," she said and left to go change out of her soggy clothes.
Jake quickly cleaned up the puddle and put a large pan under the drip to catch the water.
When Chris came back there was a plate of eggs waiting for her at the table, "Wow," she said as she sat down, "that's service. Thanks."
"No problem," Jake said, scraping the last of the eggs onto a plate for Chance, "I'll be right back." He put the frying pan onto the counter and jumped up the stairs, taking them two at a time and yelling, "Chance! Get outta bed!"
Jake reached the top of the stairs and found his foot sinking into a soggy patch in the rug. He looked up and saw that the roof was leaking here too.
"Crud," he muttered shaking droplets of water off his foot. "Chris!" he shouted down to her, "Clean up on isle twelve! Bring another pot up here will ya!"
"No problem!" she shouted back to him.
He continued walking down the hall and found himself standing in another soggy spot just outside Chances door. "Make that two pots!" he shouted down to her.
A few seconds later she came bounding up the stairs. Finding the first wet spot she dropped the first pot, and when Jake pointed out the second spot she put the second pot down.
Jake tapped on the door, "Chance get up! We have to fix the roof!"
A groan was heard from within. The groan slowly got louder, then turned into and odd mix of babbling and cursing.
Jake and Chris exchanged confused glances.
A few syllables came drifting trough the wall, "Wet," there was a lot of thrashing, "Water? Water! Soggy wet water!" an odd groggy groan shout came through the wall, followed by a loud thumping noise.
Jake pushed Chris against the wall, "We might want to stand back."
Suddenly the door flew open and a soggy Chance stood before them in his boxers. He was breathing hard and had water dripping off his hair and his fur was stuck in big wet clumps all over his body.
He gestured madly back at his bed, "Wet! Water! Soggy!" he made a gesture where he held his left hand up high and dropped it into his right, "Water dripping on me all night!"
Jake and Chris looked at him blankly then broke up laughing.
"Not funny!" he grumbled spinning on his heel and striding off down the hall, he reached into the bathroom and grabbed a towel on his way past.
Turning to glare at Chris and Jake, who were still laughing at him, he didn't see the pot sitting at the top of the stairs.
"Chance!" Jake shouted, seeing what was about to happen, "look out!"
Chance put his foot right into the pot, he glare turned to a look of surprise and then horror as he lost his balance and teetered precariously at the edge of the stairs. He grabbed for something, anything to hold onto as he fell faster downward. His hands found nothing but his foot popped up and by some stroke of luck caught on the banister, arresting his downward fall. Chance yelped with pain as the banister dug into his foot and then again as his body slammed into the stairs. His foot held and he didn't slide downwards any farther.
Jake and Chris ran to him and half carried, half dragged, him back up the 4 or 5 stairs and laid him out on the floor in the hall.
Jake crouched by his head and looked into his eyes, "Buddy," he said seriously, "Kats are supposed to land on our feet. Are you ok?"
"Must've slipped my mind," Chance grumbled, "I'm fine. Still soggy, but fine."
Chris looked him over, he had a long gash across his forearm, just below his left elbow. She reached out and touched it, "Ow!," Chance hissed, jerking his arm away.
"Relax Chance." Chris said reaching for it again, "We need to clean this up. Can you walk?"
"Yes! I can walk!" he shot back, and clambered to his feet. "See?" he said stepping forward with his left foot, "I can walk just-" he let out a yelp of pain as he shifted his weight onto his left foot. Jake and Chris caught him as he fell forward.
"Oh yeah, I can see that walking is high on you list of talents," Chris said, rolling her eyes.
"That foot was just getting better too. That's the foot that Horse messed up a couple days ago. I just bashed it on the banister," Chance mumbled.
They helped him down the stairs and laid him out on the couch. Chris went into the kitchen to find the first aid kit Jake said was in there and found their eggs. She balanced the three full plates and the first aid kit in her arms and went back into the small living room.
"Here this'll make you feel better," she said, giving Chance his eggs.
Jake took the first aid kit and Chris sat on the coffee table eating her eggs and watching Jake expertly wrap up Chance's arm.
"Wow," she said through a mouthful of food, "where'd you learn to do that?"
Jake shrugged, "Basic Enforcer first aid."
"I'm surprised you can still do it so well, the Enforcers were a long time ago weren't they?"
Jake glanced at her, "I'm not that old," he said with a grin. Besides, he thought to himself, It's not like I haven't had enough practice. Occupational hazards you could call it.
"That's not what I meant," Chris back paddled slightly.
"It's understandable," Chance said with a smile, "he seems like a geezer to my youthful good looks."
Jake glared at him, "Be thankful you're already injured, or else I would rearrange those good looks right off your face, and kick you in the knee just for good measure. . ."
"But you wouldn't because you need me to help you fix cars," Chance said, still grinning.
Jake rolled his eyes, "And the roof. How are we gonna pay for that?"
Chris spoke up, "I saw some old shingles in that shed out back yesterday. You could nail those on yourself right?"
Jake sighed, roofing was a hard job but there was no way they could pay for a pro to come do it. It looked like he was going to be roofing himself, Chance was limpy for the time being , Jake couldn't expect him to go climbing around on a rooftop.
"I'll help you as much as I can, but me and heights don't mix very well," Chris mumbled, half sheepishly.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Jake hit his thumb with the hammer for the third time and swore louder then ever. These damn shingles just wouldn't stand still. The wind blew the piles of shingles off the roof and Jake was half thankful that Chris was down there to catch them, but she could be more helpful up here.
Chris heard Jake swear for the third time and sighed. She felt so useless down here. She could catch the lost shingles and pull them back up onto the roof with the pulley they rigged but beyond that she was useless. She thought briefly of going up there to help but she quickly pushed that out of her mind, too scary. A particularly hard gust of wind threw the whole pile off the roof. She gathered them up and put them in the pulley box. She yanked them up to the top and as Jake gathered them he said, "Chris, do you think you could help me out up here?"
Her heart stopped, "Up, there?" she said meekly.
Jake nodded, "Do you mind?"
"Um, yeah, I think that, I could, yeah. How hard could it be?"
She walked over her ladder and out her hands on the first rung. They were shaking slightly. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her mouth was dry. She opened her eyes again and looked up the ladder. It seemed so high. . .
Just concentrate on what's right in front of you, she told herself. One step at a time. She put her foot onto the ladder then leaned in slightly and quickly put her other foot up. So far so good. She put one hand up then the next and took another step up. Then another. And another. She wondered vaguely how high up she was but forced herself not to. Or tried to force herself not to, there the thought still was, ticking away at the back of her brain. She squeezed her eyes shut.
She heard the door slam and Jake yell at Chance that he should go lay down and ice his foot. It seemed like they were shouting so far away. She heard Chance start whistling invincible. Unconsciously she found herself humming along
"It's a do-or-die situation
we will be invincible"
Listen to the words, she told herself, this is easy, you can do this. Yeah right, the more cynical side of her brain mumbled.
She took two more steps up the ladder. Suddenly a great gust of wind shook the ladder, her eyes flew open and she saw how high she was. She shrieked and the world started spinning around her. Her vision went blurry.
"Chris? Chris!" she heard somebody shouting a long way away. She clutched the ladder and closed her eyes again. Oh god, so this was how she was going to die. She couldn't catch her breath and her breathing became labored.
"Chris! I got the ladder your not going to fall."
"You can't keep it from falling! You can't!" She moaned.
"Yes I can, trust me. Can you take a step down?"
She pressed her face against the cold metal of the ladder, "No. I can't move."
"Try it, come on, nothings going to hurt you." She realized vaguely it was Chance speaking to her.
"I'm going to fall." Her voice shook.
"Chris look at me," this was a different voice.
"I can't."
"Chris, look at me." Jake. It was Jake.
Slowly she turned her head and looked up into Jakes brown eyes.
"Now listen to me," he said calmly, "Chance has got the ladder. It won't fall. Now take a step down."
She nodded and glanced down, the word spun again and she couldn't catch her balance.
"I can't! I can't look down," tears were running down her cheeks.
"Don't look down. Chris, look at me."
She did and he smiled at her, "Good now take a step down. Feel for the next rung with your foot."
Still looking at him she did this, "I can feel it."
"Now shift your weight onto it."
"I'm going to fall." Her voice cracked.
"No your not."
Jake watched her shift her weight down.
"Ok, now what?" She looked at him with frightened eyes.
"Do it again."
She nodded slightly and felt for the next rung. She started to shift her weight onto it. Suddenly her foot slipped off the rung. She fell screaming through the air and landed in Chances arms, gasping for breath. Jake was down in an instant and she threw her arms around his neck, sobbing into his shoulder.
Jake put his arms around her mumbling, "I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry."
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Chris sat on the couch, leaning against Jake with a blanket around her. She gazed off into space as she spoke, "It's so embarrassing. I strive to be strong, tough. I always just had to be. A had a bunch of brothers and an alcoholic father. He was abusive, and fear was always kind of a natural state at home. I learned to live with it, to block it out. That's why it's so weird that this fear takes over me like this. I hate it. I'm sorry you guys had to deal with it." She paused, "Thanks. I don't think I could've made it as far up as I did with out Chance's whistling."
Chance raised an eyebrow, "I was whistling?"
Chris nodded, "Yeah, 'Invincible'"
Chance laughed a little, "A big lot of good being higher did you. . .When I was a kitten I used to love climbing up on top of the fridge. I fell off once and banged myself up pretty bad, had to go to the hospital and get 9 or 10 stitches." He noticed the looks he was getting. He shrugged, "Just saying that it's a valid fear. That whole fear of falling thing."
"It's not the fall that hurts," Jake pointed out, "It's the landing."
"Oh yeah, the way you guys are talking I want to run right out and climb something."