Title: Ryan's Cat
Summary: Ryan finds a kindred soul.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything except the cat.
Author's Notes: This is the last chapter of this story. A final thanks for all the kind words in the reviews and on TWoP. And a final thanks to my beta, Eileen.
Chapter 7
Ryan and Cat arrived back at the house in the Range Rover after Cat's vet appointment. Ryan parked the car and grabbed Cat in her pet carrier and headed through the kitchen and out to the pool house. No one else in the family was home. Seth was out with Summer and would be until late, and Sandy and Kirsten were not home from work yet.
Ryan carried the pet carrier into the pool house and made sure to shut the door behind him. He figured that she'd be a little mad at him about the vet visit and would be more likely to run away right now, so it was even more important now to make sure the doors were shut.
Ryan put the pet carrier down on the rug near the foot of the bed, opened the door, and stood back. Cat immediately walked out of the carrier. She paused a little and looked around, like she was deciding where to go. Then she headed for the stairs, ran up them the way that cats do, and went into the kitchen.
Ryan put the carrier away on the side of the room where he had it before. Then he took the medicine for Cat and went up to the kitchen island. He sat down at the counter there and looked through the information about it. It looked straightforward, like the vet said. He opened the box and took out the medicine and checked it out. He didn't need to do anything right now. The instructions said twice a day, so he planned to do it in the morning and after dinner. While he was doing all this, he heard Cat drinking some water then digging at the litter box.
Ryan got up and took off his boots and his outer shirt, leaving him in socks, jeans, and black t-shirt. He headed over to the bed and lay down on his back. As soon as he was lying down, Cat walked onto the bed from the upper area of the pool house, across one of the pillows. She curled up within arm's reach. Good, Ryan thought, she wasn't mad after all. Ryan reached over and petted her head and ran his hands through her fur. It was so soft and warm. Cat started to give herself a bath.
Ryan was tired, he didn't sleep much in the last two nights since Cat came. And it was Friday, after another challenging week at school. And the vet visit kind of drained him. He just wanted to lie here for a while.
Like on Wednesday, once she was done with her bath, Cat stood up and climb up on him. She settled in like before, and Ryan started stroking her back like before, in long slow strokes. He could feel her warmth through his t-shirt. Ryan closed his eyes, just to rest them a little. Before he knew it, he was asleep.
When Kirsten got home from work, she headed right out to the pool house to see what happened at the vet's. Through the doors, she could see Ryan on the bed, fast asleep, with Cat sleeping on top of him. She thought that was so sweet. Kirsten remembered how her cat used to sleep lying on her the same way. She missed that.
From where she was outside the doors, Kirsten could see that there were some papers and other stuff on the counter of the kitchen island. Since Ryan wasn't available to tell her how the vet visit went, she figured she could find out from the paperwork. Kirsten entered the pool house as quietly as she could, trying to not wake up Ryan and Cat. Unfortunately, Ryan was just lightly sleeping, and he woke up quickly when she entered. He looked over at her and gave her a little smile. Cat stayed asleep.
Kirsten said quietly, "Hey. Sorry to wake you. How was the vet appointment?"
Ryan replied, also quietly so as to not disturb Cat, "Good. She's basically OK. She is a she, about 3 years old. She's been spayed. They gave her some shots and stuff. There is a little problem, and the vet gave me some medicine to give her, but it will clear up and she'll be fine."
"Medicine? Is that it up there?" Kirsten asked, gesturing towards the kitchen island.
"Yeah, that's it. I looked through the instructions. Looks easy enough."
Kirsten was relieved that Cat turned out to be healthy. She walked up the stairs and went to the kitchen island counter. She read the information sheet and looked at the medication. It didn't look too serious, and it looked like Ryan should be able to handle it.
Kirsten looked back over at Ryan and Cat, who were still lying on the bed. She headed back down the stairs and went over to the side of the bed. She reached over and carefully petted Cat, trying not to disturb her. Kirsten didn't want to make Cat wake up and jump off of Ryan, but she just couldn't resist petting her. Unfortunately, Kirsten's actions did wake Cat up. Cat got up onto her feet and walked off of Ryan and onto the bed.
Kirsten looked at Ryan and said, "Sorry."
"That's OK. I should be getting up anyway." Ryan said, but didn't make any move to actually do it.
Just as she couldn't resist petting Cat, now Kirsten really wanted to pick her up. She asked Ryan, "Is it OK if I pick Cat up? Does she like to be picked up? My cat Prince didn't like to be picked up or held, he'd push with his front paws against you and after just a couple of minutes he'd struggle until you put him down."
Ryan looked at Kirsten like he was sorry. So Kirsten said, "Oh, it was OK, he did like to come up and sit on my lap or lie on me like Cat was just doing. He just didn't like to be restrained."
Ryan gave Kirsten a half smile, and nodded. "Yeah, you can pick Cat up. She hasn't struggled yet, so I guess she likes it."
Kirsten smiled her thanks to Ryan and reached over and picked Cat up. She held Cat close and snuggled with her, enjoying every second of it. Cat started to purr. Apparently she liked it too. But then she started to show an interest in something in Kirsten's pocket.
Kirsten noticed this, and said, "Oh, I almost forgot..."
She put Cat back down on the bed with a few strokes on the top of her head, then pulled a small paper bag out of her pocket. She told Ryan, "I bought a couple more things for Cat."
Kirsten opened the bag and pulled out a couple of catnip toys. She figured it must have been the smell of the catnip that caught Cat's attention. She handed the toys to Ryan. Cat watched Kirsten's movements with interest, then stepped forward to sniff at the toys once they were in Ryan's hand. One of the toys was a simple little square of cloth, filled with catnip. The other one was in the shape of a cute little mouse, with eyes and ears and tail and whiskers, also filled with catnip.
Great, Ryan thought, something else that's cute. Kirsten saw his less than enthusiastic response. "You don't like them?"
Ryan looked at Kirsten and decided it was now or never. "No, it's not that. It's just... The mouse, it's cute. Like the little soccer balls were cute. I don't do cute."
Kirsten couldn't help but grin at that. It was so like Ryan for him to say something like that. "Of course you don't. Sorry. I'll try to remember next time. No cuteness."
Ryan knew Kirsten was probably laughing at him, on the inside, but as long as she did what she said she would, he could put up with it. So Ryan said, "Thanks."
Kirsten figured she'd better change the subject. "So I was thinking of ordering from Antonucci's for dinner. Your usual? Ziti with meatballs and extra bread?"
"Yeah, sounds good."
Kirsten gave Cat one last scratch on the top of her head and headed into the house to order dinner for the family.
Kirsten, Sandy, and Ryan sat down at the kitchen table for their dinner from Antonucci's. Kirsten had ordered three dinners, one for each of them, and Sandy had picked them up on his way home from work. They left open one set of French doors in the kitchen since it was such a nice April evening.
Ryan filled Sandy and Kirsten in on the details of his visit to the vet. And all three of them engaged in standard family dinnertime smalltalk about how their days went at work and school and about their plans for the weekend. During a break in the conversation, while all of them were busy eating, Sandy looked up from his food at their little family of three and smiled to himself.
Kirsten noticed Sandy smiling. She caught his eye and asked him, "What?"
"I was just thinking that this is nice. Just the three of us. We don't get to do this very often."
Ryan laughed softly. "Yeah, when Seth's here, we don't get to hear ourselves think!"
Kirsten and Sandy laughed at that too.
Then Sandy noticed Ryan's cat walking down the steps from the pool house, headed for the open kitchen door. Sandy was sitting at the end of the table facing the door, so he saw her first. He said, "Um, Ryan, are you letting your cat out already?"
Ryan and Kirsten followed where Sandy was looking and turned their heads towards the door just in time to see Cat walk through it. Sandy didn't like the cat coming into the house, but he already resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't be able to keep her out, so he didn't try to chase her away or anything.
Ryan, still looking at Cat, replied to Sandy, "No, I'm not. Not intentionally anyway."
Ryan looked up at the pool house and saw that the door he used when he came over for dinner was open a little. "Damn... I must not have latched the door all the way."
Ryan called softly to Cat and put his left hand down next to his chair and moved it around a little, trying to get her to come over to it. He noticed that she liked hands, probably because she associated them with getting petted. Cat looked over at Ryan and saw his hand and did walk over to it and rub her head against it. Ryan tried to reach out and pick her up, intending to carry her back out to the pool house. But Cat backed away and didn't let him get ahold of her. She turned around and headed back out the door.
Ryan was concerned, so he started to get up and go after her. But he stopped when Kirsten said, "Ryan. She'll be OK. We were going to let her out tomorrow anyway, right? And it doesn't look like she's running away. See -- she's just exporing the back yard."
Ryan looked over at Cat and indeed she was sniffing around the steps and plants right outside the kitchen door. Then she headed up the steps and started sniffing around the items up there. Ryan decided that he didn't want to let Cat out of his sight, so he said to Kirsten and Sandy, "I'm going to eat outside and keep an eye on Cat."
Ryan picked up his plate and glass and went outside to the table near the pool and sat down there. Kirsten watched Ryan go out, looked at Sandy and said, "Well, it is a nice night..."
Sandy nodded his agreement, and the two of them took their plates and glasses and went outside and sat at the table with Ryan. The three of them sat quietly and ate and watched Cat walk around checking everything out.
When Cat approached the pool, Ryan was concerned. He asked Kirsten, "What about the pool? What if she goes in or falls in? Can she drown?"
Kirsten reassured Ryan, "I wouldn't worry about it. Cats don't like water, especially chlorinated water, like the pool. I suppose it is possible that she could fall in, but cats can swim, when they have to."
Ryan nodded and went back to watching Cat. He watched her sniff at the pool and quickly move away, so he guessed that Kirsten was right. Then he watched, amused, as Cat spotted a bird and immediately crouched down and went into stalk mode. The bird flew off and Cat got out of her crouch and took a couple of steps towards where it went. It quickly disappeared, at which point Cat stopped and looked around like 'where did it go?'.
Ryan and Kirsten laughed, then went back to quietly watching Cat. Sandy shook his head, not understanding the fascination with just watching a cat wander around the back yard. So he said to them, "You know, if she was a dog, she'd be right over here with us, paying attention to us, begging us for table scraps."
Ryan and Kirsten looked at each other, and shook their heads themselves. Kirsten said with a smile, "Dog people can just never understand." Ryan nodded his agreement.
Seth arrived home earlier than expected because he and Summer got into a big fight before dinner and they never made it to dinner or the movie. When he got home, he figured that his family would still be eating, so he went looking for them in the kitchen. He found some stuff on the kitchen table like it had been used for dinner, but no family. Then he spotted them sitting at the table outside and headed out there.
Sandy saw Seth approach and said, "Hey. I thought you were going to be out late with Summer."
"We got into a fight." Seth looked at what they were eating and saw that they each had their own dinner, and that was all.
Kirsten noticed him looking at their food and figured that he hadn't eaten dinner yet. So she told Seth, "Grab a plate, we can share."
Kirsten looked over at Ryan and Sandy for agreement, and they nodded their heads and both said, "Yeah, sure."
Seth smiled at them, and headed back into the kitchen to grab a plate, utensils, and drink for himself. When he got back out, he sat down and his plate was passed around from his Mom to his Dad to Ryan. Each of them added a bit of their own dinner. So Seth ended up with a combination platter of his family's dinners: his Mom's vegetable lasagna, his Dad's sausage and pepperoni calzone, and Ryan's ziti. He started right in on it.
During the excitement of Seth's arrival, Ryan took his eyes off of Cat, so now he looked around for her. He spotted her next to the pool house, in the barbecue area. He went back to watching her, in between taking bites of his dinner.
Seth noticed that Ryan kept looking over behind him. He turned around to see where Ryan was looking, asking him, "Dude, what are you looking at?"
Sandy jumped in before Ryan could answer. He said sarcastically, "Ryan and your Mom insisted that we all sit out here and watch Ryan's cat wander around the back yard. Totally mesmerizing."
Ryan and Kirsten each gave Sandy a look of exasperation. Seth laughed. He looked back behind him and spotted the cat checking things out near the barbecue. All four of them watched as Cat jumped up next to the barbecue, investigated the area briefly, then jumped off the other side, out of sight.
Ryan didn't want Cat to go out of the yard, so he quickly got up and went over behind the barbecue area to get her. Ryan was able to grab her without too much trouble. He carried her back into the pool house through the door that was still partly open from when she snuck out. He closed the door behind him and made sure it was completely latched. He put Cat down on the bed.
To keep Cat happy, he picked up the catnip mouse and gave it to her. Ryan watched as she batted it off the bed and jumped down after it. She pounced on it and flopped down on her side. She held it in her front paws and raked it with her back claws. She brought it up to her face and rubbed her face against it, then she started licking it.
While Cat was thus occupied, Ryan went ahead and left the pool house, making sure again to completely latch the door. He went back over to finish his dinner. He continued to watch her play with the catnip mouse between bites. Kirsten was also enjoying watch Cat play with the mouse that she bought her. So cute. Seth and Sandy exchanged amused glances about how Kirsten and Ryan were so engrossed in what the cat was doing.
Then Seth remembered that Ryan went to the vet's earlier that day, so he asked him, "So, Ryan, how'd the vet appointment go?"
Ryan gave Seth a quick summary of the visit to the vet's office, trying to not go into too much detail since Sandy and Kirsten heard all of this already. Sandy noticed that this time through, Ryan mentioned something that he didn't mention the first time.
So when Ryan was done with his recitation, Sandy asked, "The vet said that you could have your cat for 10 years or more?"
Kirsten replied for Ryan, "Yes, cats typically live into their teens, unless something happens to them like getting hit by a car or getting a disease like feline leukemia. So since Cat is only 3 years old, she'll probably be around for 10 to 15 more years."
Ryan had been thinking about this ever since the vet said that about the 10 to 15 years. He'd also been thinking that he should discuss it with Sandy and Kirsten. So he took a deep breath and figured that if he didn't do it now, he never would. "Yeah, um, I've been thinking..."
Sandy, Kirsten, and Seth could see that Ryan was trying to open up to them, so they waited patiently for him to continue.
Ryan cleared his throat and continued, "I know I'll have to make a home for Cat, for that long. But I usually don't think ahead that far, you know? 10 years into the future? I mean, I don't know where I'll be next year, after I graduate and turn 18..."
Ryan stopped, not sure if he said too much. They'd never talked about what would happen after he turned 18 and the guardian thing ended. So he wasn't sure where he stood.
Kirsten and Sandy looked at each other. They'd been meaning to have a discussion with Ryan about this. Kirsten hoped that it was understood that they would send Ryan to college after high school. Apparently it wasn't.
Seth watched Ryan look uncomfortable with what he said, and he watched his parents look at each other. He wasn't sure what they were all thinking, but as far as he was concerned, Ryan was staying here.
So since noone else was talking, Seth spoke up. "You'll be here, with us. I mean, we're your family now. Right? Mom? Dad?"
Sandy said to Seth, "Yes, of course."
He turned to Ryan, "Ryan, as far as we're concerned, you're part of this family. We hoped you felt the same way. When we took you in, we made a commitment to you. Yes, OK, legally, the guardianship ends when you turn 18. But we won't stop caring about you or stop wanting you to be part of our family then."
Kirsten added, "After you graduate high school, you'll go off to college, like Seth. And you'll come home, to us, in the summers and during school breaks. At least that's what I hope you'll want to do..."
Ryan looked around from Seth to Sandy to Kirsten as they were talking. They were saying what he hoped they would. He broke out in a big smile. He told Kirsten, "Yeah, I'd like that."
The four of them exchanged smiles all around. Seth said, "So it's settled. We're permanently a family of four."
Sandy looked over at the pool house at Ryan's cat. It was her arrival that precipitated this discussion and understanding. He was kind of softening his feelings towards her. He nodded his head towards the cat and said, "Actually, I think we're a family of five."
After dinner, Seth went to call Summer and try and make up with her. Sandy and Kirsten went to have some married couple alone-time, which was what they had planned for the evening anyway since Seth was supposed to be out with Summer and they figured Ryan would be spending time with his cat. And Ryan went into the pool house to do just that.
When he entered, Cat was lying on the rug, on her side, with the catnip mouse under one paw. She looked totally out of it. Ryan wondered if catnip made cats high. Well, either way, he figured now was probably a good time to give her the medicine. Ryan went up to the kitchen island and got out the medicine bottle and the eyedropper. He filled the eyedropper with the liquid medicine like the instructions said.
Ryan went over and picked up Cat from the floor and carried her up to the island and sat her down on the counter. He opened her mouth and put in the eyedropper as far back as he could and squeezed the medicine out. Cat of course wasn't too happy with Ryan's actions. But she did swallow, and Ryan thought she got most of it. Some ended up on the counter, his hands, and her fur. He grabbed some paper towels with one hand while still holding her with the other, and wiped off the medicine from her fur.
Then he let her go and she jumped off the counter right away. Once she got to the floor, the started to wash her face. While she was doing that, Ryan wiped off the counter and went into the kitchen and washed his hands. To make it up to her, Ryan opened the kitchen drawer that currently had in it Cat's little soccer balls with the bells in them. He took out one ball and walked back around the kitchen island to where Cat was.
Ryan shook the ball to make the bell jingle, like he did last night, and it got Cat's attention, like it did last night. Ryan rolled the ball in her direction, and she chased after it. She batted it around until it ended up behind his boots under the storage shelves where his clothes were. Cat went over there to try and dig it out. She ended up on her side, reaching in behind his boots with her paw. All she succeeded in doing at this point was pushing it further in.
But lying there next to his boots, she found something new to play with -- the boot's laces. She started batting them around and biting them. Ryan didn't want her to ruin the laces, so he went over there and moved the boots away from her. He reached in and picked up her ball, shook it again, and rolled it away from the storage area, across the front of the kitchen island. Cat got to her feet and ran after it. She caught up to it and batted it around.
This time, it went bouncing down the steps into the lower area of the pool house. Cat went running down the stairs after it. Ryan followed her down. Cat caught up to the ball and batted it around the furniture down there -- the chair, the ottoman, the table. The ball ended up resting against one of the French doors, right next to the end of the cord for the door's window shade. When Cat got over there to paw at the ball, she found it more interesting to play with the cord.
Ryan went over to her and said, "What am I going to do with you?"
He picked up the ball and the cat and carried her away from the door. He put her on the bed and gave her the catnip-filled little square of cloth to keep her occupied. She lay down on the bed and immediately went to work licking it and sucking on it. Ryan took Cat's ball and brought it back up to the kitchen and put it in the drawer with the others.
Ryan walked back down the stairs and sat in the chair at the foot of the bed and watched Cat enjoy her catnip toy. After about five minutes she was out of it again, and Ryan was finding himself almost falling asleep in the chair. He was still exhausted and his little nap before dinner didn't help. Even though it was still early, he decided to get to bed and try and catch up on his sleep.
So he pulled the shades down, changed into his night clothes, brushed his teeth, turned off the lights, and got into bed. He lay down on his right side, facing Cat. She was awakened by Ryan climbing into bed. She got up and went over to him. There was a cat-sized three-sided box made up by Ryan's bent legs, his stomach, and his bent arms. Cat fit herself into this box and curled up, lying up against his stomach and his thigh. Ryan reached down and started to pet her. She started to purr.
Cat's warmth and the vibration of her purring lulled Ryan into a peaceful sleep, secure in the knowledge that he and Cat were part of the Cohen family, for good.
The End.