You pretty much give her free range of the house after that, though she just follows you instead. Since you have no intention of letting her go back to whoever her previous owner was, you spend the rest of the afternoon figuring out what to do with her. You're pretty sure you can't just dump her at the pound either. Even if they took trolls, it just wouldn't feel right. Besides, what if the original owner popped up and got her again? Or someone else got her and couldn't take care of her? Or someone else got her and they ended up being an animal abuser too? No. You were not going to do that. That left you with two options; find a friend to take care of her, or do it yourself. You doubted you could convince any of your friends to take on a troll so you needed to figure out a place for her to stay. You also needed to learn about trolls but you'd save that for later. Instead, you set your sights on cleaning up the guest room. A box seems down right wrong and Rose would kill you if you'd put her in her room. Putting her in your room would also be a very bad idea. With your ungodly sleeping habits, you doubted she'd get the rest she'd needed.

Cleaning up the room is interesting to say the least. Since you never actually had guests, the room had officially unofficially become the dumping grounds for stuff that didn't really have a place. For the most part, you just rearranged stuff. The boxes that were scattered on the floor and on the bed moved to the walls. You thought that with Nepeta following you around, she'd be in the way. Instead, when she saw what you were doing, she joined in to help you. You don't let her do much, she's so skinny you're afraid she'll get crushed by a box she's carrying, but pretty soon all the boxes were carefully lined up against the wall. That left a twin bed, a small dresser and a closet. It wasn't much but it would work. It doesn't take long until you've remade the bed with white sheets and an big dark pink blanket with a heart on it. Once again, Nepeta tries to help out and this time you let her. Making the bed when you're little is the best and she does seem to enjoy it. You spot her watching the sheets when they flutter down after a toss. As soon as she notices you watching her though, the smile disappears. It's good to see the room cleaned up. However, Nepeta's extremely tired afterwards though which concerns you greatly.

"Ta da!" You exclaim, moving in front of her with arms out wide. She stares at you, thoroughly confused. "This is officially your new room!" And then her eyes are the size of saucers. To say she's amazed would be an understatement.

"Really?" She asks, little more than a whisper.

"Of course!" She looks around the room with a whole new perspective. Growing up with a sister several years younger, you've seen some seriously happy kids before. But you've never seen anyone look as happy and surprised as Nepeta did just then. Not even on Rose's first Christmas. She wanders around the room, as though she's trying to store every nook and cranny of it in her memory. Grabbing onto the soft fabric of the blanket, the little troll stares at you like you're a saint.

"I- I've never- I-..." She looks like she's about to cry, she's so happy. She almost does too. "C-Can I hug you?" Well fuck if that doesn't just melt your heart. "Sure." You say, leaning down. She walks over to you like she's afraid you'll suddenly tell you no. Her body's skinny and tiny and frail. She smells like the forest and feels like hugging another human. Maybe 'pet' isn't the right word for her after all.

Over the next few days, you start to learn more about her. First and for most, she loves cats. Not like. She loves them. You regularly catch her acting more like a cat than... whatever she is. She take cat naps a lot, always stretching out afterwards just like a cat would, hands in front and butt in the air. You've learned not to let her catch you watching her. It's absolutely adorable and when she does manage to spot you, she immediately stops and usually looks guilty. She must have been scolded for it at her old home. If you could even call it a home.

Speaking of sleeping habits, she slept buried under a pile of scarves. This one you didn't notice right away since you give her her privacy. It wasn't until you'd stuck your head in her room to get her up that you'd noticed. She was about as graceful a sleeper as you were. Meaning that you found her halfway out of her pile in the full glory of dramatic-arm-flail sleeping position, the scarves tossed around her as though she'd exploded. The only thing that actually remained was that heart blanket which she'd managed to cocoon the lower half of her body in. It's you're laughter that wakes her up. You feel bad when she jerks off the bed in surprise, but that just adds to the humor and laugh harder. The look on her face is even worse as she immediately sets to work gathering up the scarves, apologizing every five seconds along the way. It takes a few minutes but you finally stop laughing long enough to tell her it's ok and that she can keep them if she wants. Nepeta's a little confused at the news but doesn't argue. Instead she just plops them back on her bed and you two get the day started.

She takes up playing some of your video games and you are perfectly ok with that. It gives you time to not only work on editing your drunken creations but to also look up more information about trolls. According to the internet, trolls had different blood colors. Ok, you knew that much but you find out that it actually does mean something. Apparently the different colors coordinated with the body temperature a troll might have as well as some of the sickness that they could get. A low temperatured sea troll had to be treated differently than a hot blooded maroon troll. Nepeta was an olive blood based on the charts you found, putting her pretty much in the middle of everything. You also find out that trolls are supposed to eat a special kind of food made by Crockercorp. You do some online comparison shopping and find out that even on sale, the shit's pretty expensive. Based on how much Nepeta's been eating and how she hasn't been getting sick from eating human food, you decide to skip the Troll-Chow. Even though the trolls in the commercials seem perfectly fine with it, the stuff looks about as appetizing as rat crap. You also look at some of the clothes that could be custom made for trolls, which would made sense since they had tails and gills and ****, and nearly spit out your martini. If the Troll-Chow was expensive, then a person had to be crapping gold to afford fancy clothes for their troll. Nepeta was just going to have to deal with more of Rose's hand-me-downs cause no way in hell can you afford that. You do end up taking her to Walmart the next day to get some clothes though. You expected to get some flack for it when you visited the store with her but at most you get some curious questions and that's it. You can ignore the stares and Nepeta doesn't even seem phased by the attention so the trip goes off without a problem. By the time the two of you make it home, Nepeta has a whole new array of clothes that actually fit her. Mostly just pants and shirts, many of which sport a cat theme or are green, and one or two dresses. She also asked you for a blue winter hat with a cat face on it and damn it if she didn't melt your heart when she did. She was going to be one hell of a con artist once she got over her initial hesitation around you. While you're there, you do a little grocery shopping too and stock up on some kid friendly snack foods. You let her pick out what she wants to eat and, after some prodding, she goes to town. You have to tell her no when she tries to load up the shopping cart with the entire candy isle but other than that, she doesn't go too overboard. She immediately grabs up anything with a cat on it, including three boxes of Frosted Flakes, animal crackers, iced animal crackers, and a box of some weird japanese candy she found in the asian section. Were you spoiling her a little? Probably. But after living where she had, she deserved a little spoiling.

Unfortunately, you notice something new by the second week she's there. At first you thought it was just some weird troll thing you hadn't found out about yet, despite having read hours worth on the internet about it, but now you're starting to think it's something else. She's started coming out of her room later and later and it's as though she's lost her energy. Even though she's never gone flying through your house like a bat out of hell, you can tell she's very energetic. She was always perfectly behaved but you could tell she wanted nothing more than to go outside and run around for hours. When you offered to play tag with her the other day, she hesitated but you could see it in her eyes that she wanted to tear out of the house that very instant and play. This little escapade ended up with your horribly out of shape ass on the ground and her freaking out because she was afraid of getting in trouble. You had to explain that you were just a fat ass and after that she slowed down considerably when running from you. Now though, now she practically looks dead. You find her on sitting on the couch just staring at the wall, or standing in the middle of the room as though she's forgotten why she's there. She's started eating less too, which worries you even more. That girl could go through food like nothing you'd ever seen. But that's not what got you into an absolute frenzy. Nepeta let you pick her up. The entire time she'd been with you, she'd never let you do that. Even when you went to Walmart, she either walk along beside you or, when she wanted in the cart, she'd just climb in herself, something that seriously freaked you out the first two or three times she did it. And the one time you'd managed to sneak up on her and pick her up, she flipped the fuck out and nearly took a bite out of you. When you saw her going in for the attack, you'd dropped her and both of you had an apologizing contest.

It was late and both of you were still up. You, of course, were just getting into another drunk writing session and had come downstairs to get more whiskey. You'd already had enough to get yourself nice and tipsy and Nepeta was just standing there in the middle of the room once again. Being the genius drunk you were, you decided it would be a good idea to sneak up behind her and give her a little scare since she had been so lifeless lately. You shouldn't have been able to sneak up on her, you were about as quiet as someone tipsy could be, but Nepeta didn't move as you came closer. When you were close enough, you stuck, easily sliding her off her feet and up into the air in your arms. You pulled her close and gave her a good long hug. Nepeta struggled against you a little but after just a few minutes she fell still and just let you hold her. That snapped you out of some of you drunken fuzziness. She should have tried to attack you or pushed you away, it wasn't like she wasn't strong enough, or something. This was wrong. Very, very wrong. Panic is starting to get to you. She's too hot in your arms. It's like the life has been sucked out of her and her normally green tinted face has paled into a flat grey. And even though her eyes are open, they're glazed over with fever. Immediately, you shift her in your arms so you only have to use one arm to carry her, grab the phone and phone book and head to her room. You've got her under her usual pile of scarves with her blanket on the bottom when you get ahold of the vet's office. It was the first one on the list in the phone book and you can only hope that they're still open. Your hope it dashed when you're met with an answering machine. You systematically go through the list, only to be met again and again by an answering machine. It was too late, almost midnight now, but at last you finally reach someone at an animal hospital. The girl on the other end of the line is obviously tired but she's human and that's good enough for you.

"Hi, I have a troll and sh-" The lady cuts you off right then and there.

"I'm sorry ma'am. We don't treat trolls here." She was perfectly polite but it was still irritating. You're Nepeta was sick and needed help.

"But she's very sick and needs to be seen as soon as possible. Please?" You can hear the lady sigh into the phone. Apparently it was too late for this shit. In her mind at least.

"I'm sorry, ma'am. We can't do it. There is however a smaller clinic that will take trolls not far from where we're located. They're not open right now but you may be able to get in tomorrow morning." Damn it. You'd wanted to get her looked at before then. But on the other hand, Nepeta obviously wasn't in the right condition to travel and it was late, way too late for a trip to the vet's.

"Can you tell me where they are?"

"Of course ma'am. Do you have something to write this down with?" Her tone implied that she didn't want to deal with you the next morning so you'd better write it down now. After some fumbling around, you manage to scrounge up a pen and piece of paper. "Alright. It's called Breathe of Life at 108 Page St. The phone number is 864-8726."

"Thank you. Thank you so much." You finish up writing the number, seriously hoping that you'll be able to read it in the morning.

"Of course, ma'am." After a long pause she adds, "Good luck with your troll," and hangs up. You just stare at the phone in your hand for a few moments. What you were hoping for, you don't really know. You glance as Nepeta sleeping under her pile of scarves. Her little face is screwed up tight, undoubtably from fever nightmares. Gosh you just want to bundle her up and make it all go away for her. She's had such a sucky life already, she deserved better. It's not like you were going to get anymore writing done tonight so you settle down in the chair you'd brought in. Seems like you were going to stay here all night.