Tugger woke up, startled.
"What the-" he started, looking up into Tristram's big blue eyes that were currently glaring down at him. "Get down from there!" He rolled over grumbling, causing the little kitten to fall off of him.
"I was in the middle of a nice dream!" Tugger said, glaring at the kitten who just cheekily grinned up at him and arched an eyebrow in response. "You're just like mom; always sleeping in and not getting up until way past noon. Besides, Misto and Munkustrap said that it was time you got up anyway."
Tugger groaned again. He never had liked getting up early, but the fact that he had been ordered to, made it all that much worse. The Maine Coon reluctantly got up and worked out the kinks in his joints before noticing that Tristram was copying everything he did. Feeling awkward, he headed toward the den entrance as the little kitten followed at his heels.
"Remind me to have a nice long chat with that uncle of yours," Tugger said as he ruffled his brown mane, angrily heading out the entrance. He quickly stopped and walked back in again, staring at the bottom of the wall defiantly. There was Bombalurina. Sleeping soundly. She was all curled up and probably hadn't a care in the world.
How come she gets to sleep? Tugger asked himself mentally, before Tristram practically dragged him out of the den.
"How nice to see you up on this fine morning, Rum Tum," Munkustrap greeted, smugly patting the maned tom on his back.
"Alright, now that I'm up, what do you want?" Tugger asked, annoyed. Mistoffelees let out a small laugh; Tugger never was one for family events.
"We are taking your son down to the lake for the day, and maybe a couple of other places… Care to join us?" the tuxedo tom said, grinning bemusedly as they began to walk away. Tugger shook his head aggravated and stubbornly followed after the three cats. Fatherhood was tiring.
The trespassing sunlight spread out across the large den, causing Bombalurina to stir. I slept like a rock. How long had it been since she had last had a sleep like that? Too long.
As the red queen got up, she noticed that she was alone in the large den. The warm air brushed across her fur as she made her way out toward where Demeter's den hopefully was still located. It was so odd waking up in the junkyard again after being away from it for such a long time! Everyone seemed to be welcoming her back easily, to her surprise. She hadn't expected that to happen at all, and she wasn't too sure that she should trust it. Tugger and Tristram seemed to be getting along just fine and enjoyed spending time together, but how long would that really last?
Bombalurina smiled when she spotted Munkustrap and Demeter eating breakfast together; at least there was one happy couple in the junkyard. The two cats smiled when they noticed her watching, and invited her to join them.
"Good morning, Bomba! How did you sleep?" Demeter asked, trying to hide her all knowing smile from the scarlet queen.
"Fine, though I woke up and Tristram and Tugger both weren't there. And you know that there's something wrong when he isn't still asleep. And say, aren't you suppose to be down at the lake?" Bombalurina asked the silver tabby, as he handed her a bowl of cream.
"Let's just say that Tugger was having issues that needed resolving, so after about an hour I left with Mistoffelees," Munkustrap said as he glanced at Demeter, who smiled back kindly at him. If Tugger and Tristram were to grow close, that would mean that Bombalurina would have to see a lot more of the tom; whether or not she wanted to. They would have to accommodate to each other to meet the needs of their son, and hopefully grow closer to each other as well. Munkustrap and Demeter would make this work.
Bombalurina felt her face begin to burn. So now the Rum Tum Tugger wanted to take an interest in her son? Even though she knew that it was Tugger's right to spend time with Tristram, she didn't approve of it at all. Where was he when they needed him the most? Why did he get to be the hero and come into Tristram's life when the hardship was over?
"Since you're not doing anything today and Jenny, Jelly and I are getting together with Bustopher Jones, would you like to join us? I'm sure that you would be welcome to come if you would like to," Demeter said, smiling that soft smile of hers, convincing Bombalurina to hastily agree.
Bombalurina sat stiffly on a tire completely lost in thought and alone. It had only been a mere week and a half since she had come to the junkyard, and yet she knew that her son was being taken away from her. Every time she found herself alone with him to talk or try and take him somewhere, Tristram would always blurt out about how much fun spending time with Tugger had been or how wonderful he was. It was always Tugger this, or Tugger that. Every time that Bombalurina wanted to spend some quality time alone with her son, Tugger himself would manage to pop up and steal him away. The red queen felt that she was fighting a loosing battle; Tristram loved Tugger and wanted to spend time with him. The father that he had never had.
She missed her son. She was agitated by Tugger's common presence in her life, and his new presence in her son's life. Tristram had only started to call him dad and Tugger was already starting to take the role of preferred parent; never mind the fact that she had been the one who had always been there for the kitten; the one who raised him. Bombalurina felt scorned.
"Hi Mom!" Tristram shouted at the red queen, spying her sitting on the tire. Bombalurina turned to greet the little kitten but felt a hiss rise in her throat as she spotted the Rum Tum Tugger close behind. Ignoring the cocky tom and her suddenly raging attitude toward him, she smiled down at Tristram and rubbed heads with him. "And what have you been up to lately?"
"Nothing much." Bombalurina grinned; this was good. He actually remembered the walk she had scheduled with him; maybe she would actually have some time with him!
"I know that we had this weird walk thing planned, but dad just said that he wanted to show me this old amusement park that the humans shut down years ago! It's not good for humans any more, but its sure good for cats! Well, that's at least what he said."
Bombalurina was stunned. Finding her voice again she looked down at the hopeful kitten and tried not to let her emotions show. "Yes, um, have fun."
Tristram grinned and ran ahead of Tugger, anxious to get going. Bombalurina got up from the tire numbly. Maybe it was the fact that he had looked so happy; so free! So much like a kitten, that she had let him go. Maybe it was because she knew that he'd have much more fun with Tugger then he'd have with her. Whatever the reason, that comment had shattered the remaining pieces of what heart she had left. Tugger was trying to take Tristram away from her, and it was working. She would loose her son. Dejectedly she started to walk away. She probably wasn't a very good mother, anyway.
Tugger watched the red queen make her way across the junkyard and curl up into a corner. She was isolating herself from the world, and he didn't understand why; he had tried to make her life easier by taking Tristram off her hands. Shouldn't she be happy? He knew that she hadn't been spending much time with any of the cats, other than the odd few visits with Demeter every now and then… Other then that she seemed to be condemned to solitude all of the time. She was not at all the social cat he was used to her being. He knew that he'd been hogging Tristram a bit, and he knew that it hurt her, but that seemed to be why he did it, despite knowing that it was wrong. It was sick. He was a masochist, he had to be. He wanted her so much, but he wanted to hurt her so much more. He had to scoff. This is not turning out to be a very healthy relationship, is it?
He wanted to rattle her and make her angry. He wanted her to feel the pain of having her only kitten stripped away from her like he had. He wanted to fight her and he wanted to make her happy again, all at once. It was so mixed up! But, he reasoned, it wasn't going to change anytime soon, unless he started to be the bigger cat.
He had enjoyed tormenting her. At least, it had started off that way. He had thought that she would make a fuss about it and argue with him; something (anything!) along those lines, but she hadn't. She let him spend time with Tristram despite her true feelings, which he seemed to know all too well. They had both changed so much over the years, yet remained exactly the same. While he knew nothing at all about her recent life, he knew everything that could be known about her past and so he could still predict her reactions perfectly. Their relationship, to him, seemed to go past love and hate; it ran deeper than the physicality it portrayed, and despite all of their efforts, they couldn't seem to get away from each other and move on. They were, in his mind, indestructible.
Tugger looked at the red queen again and felt anxiety towards her. He didn't want her to be on her own anymore… He supposed that he really never had; he just wanted her to see what it had been like for him, but something in him didn't want that for her anymore because his actions had made him realize how stupid and childish he was acting. Telling Tristram to wait, he approached the fuming queen, ignoring how he now felt that much more insignificant next to her.
"Hey Bomba," he said as he summoned up enough courage to call her by her old pet name. He could feel his vocal chords about to give out as Bombalurina's apathetic gaze caught his, clearly waiting for what he had to say to be over. "What?"
"I just wanted to know if… If you wanted to come with us?" Tugger stated plainly, after much contemplation. It was best to just say it. That way, if he got shot down horribly, he wouldn't have looked like a huge idiot.
Bombalurina looked taken back by his question and stared at him confused. "Wha- what did you just say?"
"Do. You. Want. To. Come. With. Us," Tugger replied, clearly getting his cockiness back in full swing.
Head held high and tail in the air, Bombalurina stepped past the tom and sauntered over to her son, all of a sudden feeling so much more confident.
The moonlight made everything look magical as Bombalurina sat outside Tugger's den. It was midnight and sleep seemed to have been avoiding her, so she had decided to go stargazing; one of her favourite past time activities.
She had laughed today for the first time. She had smiled, and frolicked after her son without a care in the world. It was like she was a kitten again. She had actually had a good time and was elated about it. Her confidence was returning. Sadly though, with it so did her conscience. The stars had away of bringing the truth out to slap her in the face.
Who was she?
Was she like Grizabella?
The question hurt and haunted her more then she would have liked to admit.
A warm presence beside her ended her short-lived contemplation. Turning around, she came face to face with the shiny white teeth of her smiling, longtime rival.
"You looked like you were having fun today," Tugger commented.
"I was," Bombalurina said stiffly. She really did not want to do this now. "Thank you for letting me come today, even though I know that it's not what you wanted."
"And how exactly would you know what I want?" he was clearly hurt by her remark and getting agitated by her always-menacing attitude toward him. "Look Bombalurina, I'm not going to try and compete with you; I don't want to anymore."
"I could beg to differ," Bombalurina hissed. "It seemed like that was exactly what you wanted."
Tugger let out a frustrated grunt and buried his head into his paws. "I really, really don't get you," his tail twitched, "I mean; I'm actually trying to be nice."
"Maybe you shouldn't try so hard," Bombalurina hissed as she got up and walked to the edge of the trash cliff and looked up at the stars.
"Okay, why do you do that? Why do you always do that?" he grunted.
"Do what?" she hissed back.
"Why do you always act like that? Why are you always so eager to snub cats when they get too close? Particularly me!" Tugger spat. He hadn't expected the raw emotions of her words to get to him like they had. Of course she didn't answer him- she just continued staring at the night sky.
Tugger walked over and grabbed her arm, forcefully turning her around, unable to stand the constant pressure that was building. He would find out the answer one way or another, damn her pride and falseness. He immediately stopped when he noticed fresh tears running down the sides of her face for the second time. He cringed. He really couldn't handle tears.
Bombalurina rarely cried, and when she did, it was in privacy. She would usually run if someone found her crying, but now she was just standing there, not caring.
That's what unnerved him. That's what made the whole situation seem pathetic. If she would just show some sort of emotion other than this, that would let him know that she still cared-
"You must think that it's been easy for me to come back to this," she gestured to the junkyard, "after living in that," she spat the last word, "but it's not. It's just not." She was trying not to sob. "It hurts when someone you've raised and always been there for- someone you love with all your heart-" she let a raspy little sound escape her mouth," just turns away like that, and can spend time with, and get along so well with someone who they have never known and-"
She broke down.
Tugger froze. His lungs felt like they were swelling; he was certainly going to die from lack of oxygen. The pain in his chest was growing unbearable and he was terrified.
"I guess that it never occurred to me, that after sleeping with toms for five years and making all these stupid, useless sacrifices, that he'd want to come home and get to know you! And that you'd want to know him..." her voice was tiny, but still so heated. "I never thought about what might happen and even though I tried my best, he still needed everyone here! No matter what I did or choose to do, I guess that I just can't replace you! I can't replace the one and only Rum Tum Tugger!" she was shouting now as she turned away from Tugger's gaze. "And I hate you for it. I hate you so damn much, but I can't get away!"
"Wait I never- I never meant- I mean, I didn't know that you felt that way! If I had have known, I would have stopped, I wouldn't have acted like how I've been acting, I just- Bombalurina, Tristram loves you!" Tugger was utterly speechless and desperately trying to find words that would express what he was feeling. "I could never replace the bond that you and him have! I don't plan to! I never meant to make you feel like that. I just-"
"It's okay- don't worry about it. I don't know why I get so upset about these things. I mean, it was my decision to sleep with toms, not his. No wonder he likes you so much. Just forget about it," Bombalurina said as she quickly began to wipe the tears from her eyes and walk away, Tugger once again, forced to hold her back.
"Stop it! Stop shutting me out! You can't just keep running from your emotions! What happened in that place, it was horrible, but you can't keep beating yourself up about it!" he tried to get her to understand whre he was coming from, but the red queen just struggled to get up and away from him. "I'm fine! For crying out loud, I don't care about those stupid bastards in that place!"
It was in that sentence that Tugger realized that she needed to have this talk with him; she needed to know what he had to say. Tugger grabbed the restless queen and warped his arms around her as she clawed and hissed and tried to run away. "It's okay- you're okay. You're safe here. You don't have to hide around me, you know that."
It was stupid and futile, and he didn't know exactly what he was saying, but his words were soothing her and she hated and loved him all the more for it. Maybe it was because she had shared so much with him before- because she had trusted him with her life at one point, that she cried into his mane. Maybe it was because she knew that they were both so much the same, so much alike, and that he needed this as much as she did, that she began talking to him, and telling him how horrible things had been and how it hurt, hurt, hurt so much.
"I never thought that it could feel like this- No one knows how bad it was to have to give yourself to violent- For a living! No one knows how much I hate it! It's not fair, Tugger! It's just not fair! And they don't care! They never care!" he held her tighter, and squeezed her harder, knowing that she needed to be helped; she needed it so much more than she would admit. She was so much stronger, and so much weaker, then she or anyone realized. "I know Bomba, I know. I know that none of the queens in the junkyard or any of the toms know what it's been like for you. They're rude, heartless cats at times with no souls, no clue. Just ignore them, they don't understand. It's okay though, you're safe here. You're safe with me. No one will find you; no one will ever hurt you again. I won't let them." his heart was hammering and his blood pumping with life that had been dead to him for years. He felt hope swell for the first time, and nuzzled her head. "I want to be friends with you Bombalurina. I don't want it to always seem like we're competing for Tristram's attention. We're both his parents. We need to both be there for him."
Bombalurina looked up at the tom suddenly. She hadn't expected him to understand her predicament, but here he was. It felt good to have someone understand her, but it mortified her as well. If she became friends with him, let him in again, things would change. Things would hurt. Her heart would break all over again. But maybe, it would also began to heal? It seemed like he was her cure and her disease. "I'd like that, Tugger."
His blue eyes seemed to glow brighter as she said that, and it made her happy and uneasy all at once. "Do you think that I'm like Grizabella? That I leave situations when they get too tough to handle? I never thought that true until now. I heard some of the queens talking earlier this week, and they said that they don't think I'll stick around for too much longer."
Tugger seemed surprised at this comment, and growled deep in his throat. "They don't know what they're talking about. Ignore them. I do think though, that we should take them up on their little bet; prove them wrong. We'll let them see just how long you are staying for, and that Tristram will have the best kittenhood no matter what." He sounded so sure, and she didn't know what to make of it. He had driven her out, after all. Why did he suddenly want her back?
"I think I'm going to go to bed now, I'm pretty tired," Bombalurina said as she moved away from the tom, suddenly realizing how close they had been. Her cheeks were growing hot and she didn't fully understand why. She had been much closer to toms in the last few years… Maybe it was the purity of the situation that made her feel so uncomfortable? Moving into the den she stopped to look back at him.
"Goodnight, Bombalurina." It was almost a whisper, but it was enough to get the message across.
"Goodnight," she whispered back. "Oh and Tugger? Thanks. For everything."
He had grown up, and she thought that it was about time that she did the same.
