The two cats circled the house a few times looking for a way into the house
but eventually were forced to just sit and wait. It was still rather early
in the morning so they decided to just watch the house and see what
happened.
After an hour or so a woman with a bunch of cleaning supplies arrived and entered the house. After that, the house seemed to come alive and muffled voices could be heard. Suddenly the door was thrown open and a young blonde woman in a business suit came running down the front steps of the house, juggling a pile of papers and talking into a cell phone.
"No...I'm on my way...uh huh...What do you mean they don't have it is stock!...They had it yesterday...okay, okay, I'll deal with it when I get in..."
Artemis turned to Luna with a huge grin on his face.
"Well, I think we may be getting close."
Luna pushed him slightly, "Why don't you follow her. I'll keep watch over the house, okay."
Artemis nodded and raced after the blonde while Luna did another circuit of the house to see if during all the morning activity a way into the house had been created.
* * * * *
Artemis raced after the blonde, following her down into the London underground and just barely making it onto the same train that Mina got on. Once on the train, Artemis decided that boldness was called for and wove his way carefully through the crowded train, dodging feet and ankles, taking special care not to let anyone trample on his tail.
Once he reached the blonde, still talking on her cell, he purposefully ran into her.
"Meow!"
* * * * *
Mina looked down in surprise. She had been talking to Lexia, her assistant about the day's agenda when something had slammed into her ankle. Looking down, she saw a small, white cat.
"Oh my god! How did you get on here, huh?" Mina asked, bending down to offer her hand to the cat to sniff.
Once the cat had sniffed her fingers, it rubbed its head against her hand.
"Lex? Yea, I'll talk to you when I get to the office, okay? Okay, bye." Mina said into her cell before sticking it back into the small purse she was carrying.
Cautiously, Mina picked the small cat up, surprised that it was so friendly. She would have thought all the people on the train would have scared the thing witless but it wasn't.
"Well, little one, I don't think you are supposed to be on here so we're just going to have to make sure you get off, okay?" Mina said.
She was wondering how the cat had managed to get on the train in the first place. It could have just been a stray. London was full of them and the cat didn't have a collar but it was also extremely clean. Most of the strays she had seen were rather more wary of people too. Maybe someone had brought his or her pet cat into the station and it had run away?
At her stop, she walked off the train with the little cat and went over to the information desk for the station.
"Excuse me?"
She talked to the man behind the desk, explaining that she had found the cat and was wondering if anyone had reported one missing or lost. The man called a few people and finally replied that no one was looking for a cat. He then offered to take the cat and place it in a shelter. Mina was tempted but the poor thing seemed to understand the man and meowed pitifully at her.
"No. If its alright with you, I'll leave my phone number her with you in case anyone comes looking for it and I'll just keep it for now."
"No problem, miss."
After leaving the station, Mina decided that the best thing to do was just go to work. She didn't have time to go home and drop the cat off so it would just have to spend the day in the office with her.
She stopped in front of a brick building and went in, taking the elevator up to the fifth floor. As the elevator doors opened see allowed herself a small feeling of pride to see 'her' agency. She had been able to rent out the entire floor of this business building. There were several offices but half of the floor was a photo shoot area. Magazines and fashion designers rented the space from her, using her photographers and models for their publications.
When she had first started modeling she had been having a hard time just keeping herself alive from day to day. But she had saved everything that she could and as her career had taken off she had been able to put more and more away. She had watched so many of the others party and spend their money on alcohol and the occasional drug. Mina had never been that big of a party person. At least not that type of party. She loved to hang out with people but she hated the way she felt when she was drunk. She had to be in control of herself. She didn't know why the thought of being drunk scared her so much but it was like a part of her demanded that she always be ready to take whatever the world threw at her and she couldn't do that when she was drunk.
So, two years ago, she and her partner, Alex, an awesome photographer who had been in the business for longer than Mina had been alive, had started Topaz Modeling agency. Mina had continued to model and Alex was still taking pictures two years later but they were already starting to get quite a reputation for professionalism and reliability. Occasionally there would be tight months but they were getting less frequent and both Mina and Alex were making decent money. Enough for Mina to be able to continue living in her house. She and two other girls had bought it together a couple of years ago but both of them had since moved out. It was more than she needed but she had grown rather attached to the thing and was glad she could still afford it. She could even afford a maid to come once a week and clean up the disaster area that Mina couldn't help but leave in her wake.
But she was still saving as much money as she could. It was an old habit and one that she wasn't inclined to try and break any time soon. And it was pretty easy to do since she didn't go out much anymore. She just had too much work to do these days.
Lex was sitting at her desk outside of Mina's office and smiled as she saw Mina walk over.
"What's up boss lady?"
Mina had hired Lex several months ago. She was a few years older than Mina and treated Mina more like a friend most days than a boss, giving her opinion frankly and honestly. For that alone, Mina was grateful but Lex also was so good at her job that it was hard to believe that she hadn't been doing it for years. Part of the growing reputation that Topaz was earning lately was because of Lex and her way of handling everything smoothly and efficiently.
Mina popped the small white cat down on her desk.
"Look what I found." Mina said with a smile.
"What a beautiful cat!" Lex exclaimed, offering her fingers to the cat, which sniffed them politely before shamelessly trying to get its head scratched.
"I found him on the tube this morning on my way to work. I think I'm going to keep him if no one tries to claim him. I've been thinking about getting a pet anyway. That house is just too large for just me to live in, you know?"
"That's great Mina. Were you going to keep him here for the day? The models will probably fall over themselves to pet him." Lex said without looking up from where she was petting the now purring cat on her desk.
"Hee hee. That's all right. Just as long as I get him back at the end of the day. Would you mind running out to the store and buying some cat food for me? I have to track down what happened to the shipment that we were supposed to get this morning. Just charge it to the company account and I'll deal with it later." Mina asked.
"No problem boss lady. Shopping with other people's money is always fun. As long as I'm buying food, you want me to pick up other things that you might need for him?" Lex asked as she grabbed her purse.
"That would be great. Thanks Lex." Mina said with a smile and picked the white cat up, "Alright you, stop distracting my staff. You can hang out in my office till Lex get backs with your stuff."
For the rest of the morning Mina was on the phone. The white cat had settled down on one of the chairs in her office and seemed to have gone to sleep.
Lex returned eventually with several shopping bags full of different types of cat food, litter, toys and a couple food bowls. She had even bought one of those cat-climbing things. The white cat had inspected everything carefully and seemed amused by it all. When the climbing thing had been set up in one corner, he had climbed to the top and sat there looking down at her.
"Hmm...Lex, I think you just gave my cat a superiority complex." Mina said, looking up at him.
"Nonsense. He's a cat. Cats have an inborn superiority complex. I had nothing to do with it."
Alex stopped by once, already having heard about the cat. It was nice to see that the office rumor mill was still working faster than the speed of light.
"Hey kido!"
"Hey old timer." Mina replied, not bothering to look up from the e-mail that she was typing.
"So where's the kitty?"
Mina waved in the general direction on the climber and went back to typing. Once she hit send she looked up to see Alex petting the white cat, which was almost falling over from pleasure.
"So, did you just come in to see the cat like everyone else or do you actually need me?" Mina asked with a slight quirk to her lips. People had been finding reasons to visit her all morning. She had thought about putting the cat out into the main area so people would stop interrupting her but had figured that then the fur ball would become even more of a distraction for people.
"Mina, you know I always want to talk to you. The cat's just an added bonus." Alex said, chuckling as he settled down into one of the spare chairs.
For the next hour or so they discussed business. These little 'meetings" that they had allowed the two of them to talk about what was going on so both of them were kept informed on what the other was doing and any problems that going on.
Eventually Alex had to leave. He was doing a photo shoot to do that afternoon and was meeting their clients for lunch before hand. As he walked out he gave the white cat a good-bye scratch under the chin.
"Thought of a name yet?"
"Nope. Any ideas?"
"Snowball?" Alex suggested teasingly.
The cat hissed.
Alex laughed, "All right. I'll take that as a no. I'll catch ya later Mina."
Mina looked at the cat after the door closed behind Alex.
"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you understood that."
The white cat just looked at her with wide, innocent eyes.
* * * * *
Alex gave Mina a ride home that night because she hadn't really wanted to take all the cat stuff, including the cat, onto the tube. He had helped her lug everything into the house as well before leaving.
Mina set up the climber in one corner and the litter box next to it. When she finished she watched the cat sniff around the house and wondered again where it had come from. It was just way too friendly to be a stray. But there hadn't been a collar on it, or even a flea collar.
Eventually giving up on her speculations she headed towards the kitchen and started dinner.
* * * * *
Artemis was looking for Luna. She had said that she was going to stay at the house but he didn't know if she was still outside or if she had gotten in. He couldn't smell her in the house so she was probably still outside.
So if Luna was outside, that meant he had to find a way outside. After prowling around the house a little he found an open window. It wasn't open enough for him to fit through but that didn't mean he couldn't push it open a little further.
Once it was open enough for a cat to fit through, he stuck his head out, looking for any sign of his companion. There was a slight movement in the shadows and then Luna materialized next to him at the window.
"Hey Luna." Artemis said. He told her all about his day, telling her about Mina, her job and her co-workers.
"We should go tell Serena that' we've found her." Luna said when he finished.
"You should go Luna. I'm going to stay here."
"What? Are you sure?" Luna asked, surprised.
"Yes. I think it's for the best. Someone should stay here to look after her. Besides, she knows I'm here and it would be wrong to just leave her with no explanation."
Luna looked at him for a moment, her eyes seeing more than Artemis wanted her too.
"I understand." She finally said.
"Thanks Luna."
"Anytime partner."
* * * * *
Hey! Me again. Have I mentioned I love you all? hee hee. Thanks for reviewing. Hope you all like this chapter.
SlvrDrgn ~ don't worry. I'll get the two kitties together. But I'm going to play with them some more first.
Izzy ~ Jupiter? Hmmm...maybe. Right now I haven't decided between Ami or Lita. Though Lita will probably be harder for them to track down...
DarkFairy ~ Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy. And Serena will be in into the next chapter.
neoqueen ~ I'm almost 95% sure I'm going to stick the generals in. Though they are going to cause a whole new set of issues for the scouts.
Nathronoelei ~ hey! I'd be glad to look at anything you send me. Anything for an Anita Blake fan (only a few more months till Cerulean Sins! 2003! woo hoo!!!)
Adyen ~ one Sailor V coming up...
CrimsonDraggon ~ glad you like it. ; )
Fallen_Angel ~ um...soon is a realative term...there are some things that I want to put in before the next scout is found...
S. L. Butterworth ~ hee hee...I'll try and stick more Serena/Darien stuff in for ppl like you
Venus Smurf ~ you are too, too cool. Mina's your fav, huh? I never would have guessed looks at your name and grins Anyways, I hope you like what I do with your fav character.
After an hour or so a woman with a bunch of cleaning supplies arrived and entered the house. After that, the house seemed to come alive and muffled voices could be heard. Suddenly the door was thrown open and a young blonde woman in a business suit came running down the front steps of the house, juggling a pile of papers and talking into a cell phone.
"No...I'm on my way...uh huh...What do you mean they don't have it is stock!...They had it yesterday...okay, okay, I'll deal with it when I get in..."
Artemis turned to Luna with a huge grin on his face.
"Well, I think we may be getting close."
Luna pushed him slightly, "Why don't you follow her. I'll keep watch over the house, okay."
Artemis nodded and raced after the blonde while Luna did another circuit of the house to see if during all the morning activity a way into the house had been created.
* * * * *
Artemis raced after the blonde, following her down into the London underground and just barely making it onto the same train that Mina got on. Once on the train, Artemis decided that boldness was called for and wove his way carefully through the crowded train, dodging feet and ankles, taking special care not to let anyone trample on his tail.
Once he reached the blonde, still talking on her cell, he purposefully ran into her.
"Meow!"
* * * * *
Mina looked down in surprise. She had been talking to Lexia, her assistant about the day's agenda when something had slammed into her ankle. Looking down, she saw a small, white cat.
"Oh my god! How did you get on here, huh?" Mina asked, bending down to offer her hand to the cat to sniff.
Once the cat had sniffed her fingers, it rubbed its head against her hand.
"Lex? Yea, I'll talk to you when I get to the office, okay? Okay, bye." Mina said into her cell before sticking it back into the small purse she was carrying.
Cautiously, Mina picked the small cat up, surprised that it was so friendly. She would have thought all the people on the train would have scared the thing witless but it wasn't.
"Well, little one, I don't think you are supposed to be on here so we're just going to have to make sure you get off, okay?" Mina said.
She was wondering how the cat had managed to get on the train in the first place. It could have just been a stray. London was full of them and the cat didn't have a collar but it was also extremely clean. Most of the strays she had seen were rather more wary of people too. Maybe someone had brought his or her pet cat into the station and it had run away?
At her stop, she walked off the train with the little cat and went over to the information desk for the station.
"Excuse me?"
She talked to the man behind the desk, explaining that she had found the cat and was wondering if anyone had reported one missing or lost. The man called a few people and finally replied that no one was looking for a cat. He then offered to take the cat and place it in a shelter. Mina was tempted but the poor thing seemed to understand the man and meowed pitifully at her.
"No. If its alright with you, I'll leave my phone number her with you in case anyone comes looking for it and I'll just keep it for now."
"No problem, miss."
After leaving the station, Mina decided that the best thing to do was just go to work. She didn't have time to go home and drop the cat off so it would just have to spend the day in the office with her.
She stopped in front of a brick building and went in, taking the elevator up to the fifth floor. As the elevator doors opened see allowed herself a small feeling of pride to see 'her' agency. She had been able to rent out the entire floor of this business building. There were several offices but half of the floor was a photo shoot area. Magazines and fashion designers rented the space from her, using her photographers and models for their publications.
When she had first started modeling she had been having a hard time just keeping herself alive from day to day. But she had saved everything that she could and as her career had taken off she had been able to put more and more away. She had watched so many of the others party and spend their money on alcohol and the occasional drug. Mina had never been that big of a party person. At least not that type of party. She loved to hang out with people but she hated the way she felt when she was drunk. She had to be in control of herself. She didn't know why the thought of being drunk scared her so much but it was like a part of her demanded that she always be ready to take whatever the world threw at her and she couldn't do that when she was drunk.
So, two years ago, she and her partner, Alex, an awesome photographer who had been in the business for longer than Mina had been alive, had started Topaz Modeling agency. Mina had continued to model and Alex was still taking pictures two years later but they were already starting to get quite a reputation for professionalism and reliability. Occasionally there would be tight months but they were getting less frequent and both Mina and Alex were making decent money. Enough for Mina to be able to continue living in her house. She and two other girls had bought it together a couple of years ago but both of them had since moved out. It was more than she needed but she had grown rather attached to the thing and was glad she could still afford it. She could even afford a maid to come once a week and clean up the disaster area that Mina couldn't help but leave in her wake.
But she was still saving as much money as she could. It was an old habit and one that she wasn't inclined to try and break any time soon. And it was pretty easy to do since she didn't go out much anymore. She just had too much work to do these days.
Lex was sitting at her desk outside of Mina's office and smiled as she saw Mina walk over.
"What's up boss lady?"
Mina had hired Lex several months ago. She was a few years older than Mina and treated Mina more like a friend most days than a boss, giving her opinion frankly and honestly. For that alone, Mina was grateful but Lex also was so good at her job that it was hard to believe that she hadn't been doing it for years. Part of the growing reputation that Topaz was earning lately was because of Lex and her way of handling everything smoothly and efficiently.
Mina popped the small white cat down on her desk.
"Look what I found." Mina said with a smile.
"What a beautiful cat!" Lex exclaimed, offering her fingers to the cat, which sniffed them politely before shamelessly trying to get its head scratched.
"I found him on the tube this morning on my way to work. I think I'm going to keep him if no one tries to claim him. I've been thinking about getting a pet anyway. That house is just too large for just me to live in, you know?"
"That's great Mina. Were you going to keep him here for the day? The models will probably fall over themselves to pet him." Lex said without looking up from where she was petting the now purring cat on her desk.
"Hee hee. That's all right. Just as long as I get him back at the end of the day. Would you mind running out to the store and buying some cat food for me? I have to track down what happened to the shipment that we were supposed to get this morning. Just charge it to the company account and I'll deal with it later." Mina asked.
"No problem boss lady. Shopping with other people's money is always fun. As long as I'm buying food, you want me to pick up other things that you might need for him?" Lex asked as she grabbed her purse.
"That would be great. Thanks Lex." Mina said with a smile and picked the white cat up, "Alright you, stop distracting my staff. You can hang out in my office till Lex get backs with your stuff."
For the rest of the morning Mina was on the phone. The white cat had settled down on one of the chairs in her office and seemed to have gone to sleep.
Lex returned eventually with several shopping bags full of different types of cat food, litter, toys and a couple food bowls. She had even bought one of those cat-climbing things. The white cat had inspected everything carefully and seemed amused by it all. When the climbing thing had been set up in one corner, he had climbed to the top and sat there looking down at her.
"Hmm...Lex, I think you just gave my cat a superiority complex." Mina said, looking up at him.
"Nonsense. He's a cat. Cats have an inborn superiority complex. I had nothing to do with it."
Alex stopped by once, already having heard about the cat. It was nice to see that the office rumor mill was still working faster than the speed of light.
"Hey kido!"
"Hey old timer." Mina replied, not bothering to look up from the e-mail that she was typing.
"So where's the kitty?"
Mina waved in the general direction on the climber and went back to typing. Once she hit send she looked up to see Alex petting the white cat, which was almost falling over from pleasure.
"So, did you just come in to see the cat like everyone else or do you actually need me?" Mina asked with a slight quirk to her lips. People had been finding reasons to visit her all morning. She had thought about putting the cat out into the main area so people would stop interrupting her but had figured that then the fur ball would become even more of a distraction for people.
"Mina, you know I always want to talk to you. The cat's just an added bonus." Alex said, chuckling as he settled down into one of the spare chairs.
For the next hour or so they discussed business. These little 'meetings" that they had allowed the two of them to talk about what was going on so both of them were kept informed on what the other was doing and any problems that going on.
Eventually Alex had to leave. He was doing a photo shoot to do that afternoon and was meeting their clients for lunch before hand. As he walked out he gave the white cat a good-bye scratch under the chin.
"Thought of a name yet?"
"Nope. Any ideas?"
"Snowball?" Alex suggested teasingly.
The cat hissed.
Alex laughed, "All right. I'll take that as a no. I'll catch ya later Mina."
Mina looked at the cat after the door closed behind Alex.
"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say you understood that."
The white cat just looked at her with wide, innocent eyes.
* * * * *
Alex gave Mina a ride home that night because she hadn't really wanted to take all the cat stuff, including the cat, onto the tube. He had helped her lug everything into the house as well before leaving.
Mina set up the climber in one corner and the litter box next to it. When she finished she watched the cat sniff around the house and wondered again where it had come from. It was just way too friendly to be a stray. But there hadn't been a collar on it, or even a flea collar.
Eventually giving up on her speculations she headed towards the kitchen and started dinner.
* * * * *
Artemis was looking for Luna. She had said that she was going to stay at the house but he didn't know if she was still outside or if she had gotten in. He couldn't smell her in the house so she was probably still outside.
So if Luna was outside, that meant he had to find a way outside. After prowling around the house a little he found an open window. It wasn't open enough for him to fit through but that didn't mean he couldn't push it open a little further.
Once it was open enough for a cat to fit through, he stuck his head out, looking for any sign of his companion. There was a slight movement in the shadows and then Luna materialized next to him at the window.
"Hey Luna." Artemis said. He told her all about his day, telling her about Mina, her job and her co-workers.
"We should go tell Serena that' we've found her." Luna said when he finished.
"You should go Luna. I'm going to stay here."
"What? Are you sure?" Luna asked, surprised.
"Yes. I think it's for the best. Someone should stay here to look after her. Besides, she knows I'm here and it would be wrong to just leave her with no explanation."
Luna looked at him for a moment, her eyes seeing more than Artemis wanted her too.
"I understand." She finally said.
"Thanks Luna."
"Anytime partner."
* * * * *
Hey! Me again. Have I mentioned I love you all? hee hee. Thanks for reviewing. Hope you all like this chapter.
SlvrDrgn ~ don't worry. I'll get the two kitties together. But I'm going to play with them some more first.
Izzy ~ Jupiter? Hmmm...maybe. Right now I haven't decided between Ami or Lita. Though Lita will probably be harder for them to track down...
DarkFairy ~ Thanks! I'm glad you enjoy. And Serena will be in into the next chapter.
neoqueen ~ I'm almost 95% sure I'm going to stick the generals in. Though they are going to cause a whole new set of issues for the scouts.
Nathronoelei ~ hey! I'd be glad to look at anything you send me. Anything for an Anita Blake fan (only a few more months till Cerulean Sins! 2003! woo hoo!!!)
Adyen ~ one Sailor V coming up...
CrimsonDraggon ~ glad you like it. ; )
Fallen_Angel ~ um...soon is a realative term...there are some things that I want to put in before the next scout is found...
S. L. Butterworth ~ hee hee...I'll try and stick more Serena/Darien stuff in for ppl like you
Venus Smurf ~ you are too, too cool. Mina's your fav, huh? I never would have guessed looks at your name and grins Anyways, I hope you like what I do with your fav character.