-Author's Note: I left you with a bit of a cliffhanger last chapter... let's solve this issue, here's the chapter-

Rob watched the recording for the third time now and again they stopped it right before the kiss. Every time they did that as if the whole situation wasn't bad enough. In front of him was a holographic recording of the last talk between Dudley and his girlfriend.

To their credit it started quite satisfying for him, it looked like they were about to break up. Then this idiot of a dog suggested one last kiss. Rob didn't know if he exactly knew how Kitty would react or if he really just did that out of nostalgic reason or for closure or whatever.

What happened then was, for him, almost as hard to watch as the stabbing that followed. They said one kiss and it almost ended on fourth base. Rob knew that this was a lot but not a gesture of two lovers parting.

Adding to all the day's dubitable glory was the fact that Kitty was chained to a chair in the corner of the lab. She wasn't moving anymore, just staring out of empty eyes at the wall not reacting to any outer stimulus. Something was deeply wrong with her, the doctor, this Ryan, said he would run some tests, and the scientist who worked with Keswick said so too. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good.

"Could we skip this part this time?" He asked and a few voices agreed. Besides him, it were Peg and Nick who also were in the lab with them. Along these two the only other nonhuman was the chief who looked unusually shaken by the events.

"What has gotten into her?" The tiny flea whispered.
"I don't know, mom would never do something like that," Nick said holding his crying grandmother in his arms.

"Some things don't add up here." Powers said as he acknowledged Rob's wish and skipped to the part of the stabbing. "I let Isaac and Ryan run some tests but if they don't come up with something… We are left with no choice."
"What do you mean?" Dumbrowski said and shifted his attention towards Powers.

"I am not a despot…" started the human captain, words that were known to always be followed up by something good. "So, I will keep to the fleets protocol and that expects me to detain her and give her a trial as soon as she is mentally capable again."
"What? No that's not…"

"She has attacked a fellow member of the fleet." Powers didn't seem to be in the mood for a discussion as he cut the chief short. "This is a punishable act. Depending on what Ryan will hopefully tell us soon, we will be somewhere between 200 years and a life-long sentence."
"But… 200 years is a lifelong sentence for mom!" Protested Nick.

"I'll take that into consideration if we get this far." Powers replied and sighed. "I cannot fathom what made her…"
"Done." Ryan entered the room pushing a stretcher with Dudley on it into the room. He was covered by a white piece of cloth in a way that just his head was visible. The physician threw a pair of blood-covered gloves onto a table nearby and took off a mask revealing the annoyed expression on his face.

"Give me the gist." Powers ordered sharply.
"The gist is that hearts don't grow on trees, and I don't have an incubator here." He irritatedly meant and then grabbed a flask from the inside of his coat. "Want some?"
"Whiskey?"

"Moonshine, self-made." The doctor stated and threw the flask to Powers who gave it a quick look and then a quick taste.
"Disgusting, suits that day. Now carry on."
"He isn't dead anymore." The doctor explained. "I luckily packed a little crate with some extra organs. Although…"

"Cybernetics?" Asked Powers and his face contorted like he just took another sip of the moonshine.
"Unfortunately yes… So expect some nagging when he wakes up."
"Hold on a minute!" Nick said. He and the still-sobbing Peg looked in utter disbelief at the two humans. "How could dad survive that?!"

"You see medicine constantly improves," Ryan said with a sarcastic tone of voice. "And ours is so far ahead that we have means and ways you can't imagine." He grinned a little complacently but then cleared his throat. "But in all fairness, it was a close call. If Kate had found the two just a few minutes later, he would be dead for good."

"Then when will he wake up?" Peg asked and released Nick from her embrace.
"Let us enjoy a few more moments of silence," Ryan said and inhaled deeply.
"Ryan, you are aware that you're talking to his mother here." Powers annoyedly laid his hand on his face.

"No, I wasn't aware," Ryan said and looked intrigued at Peg. "Now that you say it, I can see a certain family resemblance. Anyway, in a few hours, he should be back and ready again… ready and nagging."

"Very well… now we need to wait for Isaac's report on this." The captain took Ryan's flask and held in the direction of the group. "Does anybody want a sip?"
"Sure why not…" Sighed Rob and grabbed the bottle. After what he had seen, several times and on repeat, he could use a sip or two.

He had preferred wine but some hootch was better than nothing for him. In the instant of the liquid touching his tongue, he felt a burning he that his synapsis matched with boiling water instead of spirits.

"How strong is that stuff." He said spitting out half the sip he took.
"95 to 97 percent, I didn't care so much for the amount of alcohol," Ryan said nonchalantly.
"Ah that explains that… that's ten percent higher than normal schnapps." Powers nodded understandingly.

"80 percent is normal?" coughed Rob and handed the flask back to Ryan.
"You get used to it." The doctor said and took another sip.
"Done…" Isaac opened the doors to the lab and entered it. He walked to the holoprojector that had restarted the conversation between Kitty and Dudley and switched it off.

"Sorry for the wait." He said this in a way that showed that this sentence was just obligatory for him. "The shuttle's board computer isn't really made for rendering scans, had to change a few things there."

With these words, he switched the projector back on which showed a detailed graphic rendition of a brain. The only strong reaction in the group came from the only medical professional who spat out a sip of his moonshine.
"My goodness gracious." He said and stepped towards the hologram and looked at it closer. "How is she still alive?!"

"Isaac, could you explain what he means?" Powers said and looked at the scientist with a raised eyebrow. His words were emphasized by Nick who agitatedly asked. "What's with mom?"
"I am gracious, I let the doctor do the diagnosis and chime in later." With a gesture of his hand, he let Ryan have the floor.

"Do you see this part of her brain?" He turned the hologram to a region that covered a third of the brain. It looked quite nondescript from the outside, the only weird thing was that the region seemed rougher than the rest. With a move of his hand, he sliced the brain into halves and revealed the inner structure.

From the cerebrum down to the brainstem a round circle with the same outside roughness appeared. "I knew it…" Ryan grinned triumphantly. "Like you might guessed, this space-occupying lesion is a tumor. The smug bastard…" he pointed at Isaac. "Will probably tell us a little more about it but I reckon this tumor is malignant."

"So you mean she is sick?" The chief asked crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Maybe not even in control of her own actions."
"I can just speculate" Ryan mumbled shurgging.

"But I have some facts." Isaac now stepped closer to the hologram and nodded at Ryan. "Very good doctor, now go back into your OR and cut some unsuspecting people open." With a jerky movement, he turned to the others. "We took a sample of Kitty's brain tissue and ran some tests. It is a malignant degenerative tumor. If we do nothing now, she maybe has 72 hours left, and if the simulation model I created was accurate enough these will not be pleasant hours."

"We need to…" Nick was about to speak his concerns, but Powers silenced him by raising his hand.
"That still does not explain the connection with the stabbing of Dudley."
"Again, I will be generous again and let someone else do the explaining." Isaac clapped his hands and said. "Bring her in Keswick."

Keswick entered his lab. On a chain that he had wrapped around his waist, he pulled Seema in who was attached to Keswick's chain with handcuffs.
"What is she doing here?" Asked the chief angrily.

"I thought you got rid of her after you got your intel!" Rob said shocked, it was beyond his grasp why they still kept this lizard around. They had what they needed, why not accelerate the inevitable? Rob, like most of the others in the base, thought that the lizards didn't deserve sympathy. Or rather they deserved the same sympathy they showed to them.

"Stay civil…" Powers meant exasperated and then pointed at Seema. "Tell us what is going on here."
Seema looked with her one eye wide open at the holographic projector and whispered. "What kind of technology issss that."
"I think that is a question for another day," Isaac said. "Would you be so kind as to give us some insight into your last research project?"

The lizard nodded and started recollecting. "One of my last projects was about implanting certain directivessss into brainssss to create some autonomoussss working ssssleeper agent…" She looked into the faces of the surrounding crowd. Just a few nodded understandingly. "Try to imagine it like a sssseed with a tassssk and you plant it into the brain. The sssseed needssss time to germinate, in that time we would feign ssssome kind of accident through which the infected is able to flee."

"Dudley rescuing Kitty from this patrol in our case." Powers said pensively.
"Most certainly." Isaac agreed. "Although I doubt that it was the lizard's plan to have their patrol obliterated. Seema, please carry on."
The lizard sighed and obeyed. "After a few days, in the clinical test mostly three or four, the infected are ready to perform the directive."

"Is this phase triggered through something?" Ryan chimed in.
"Usually strong emotions. Anger, fear, arousal these things." She explained and then looked at the hologram of Kitty's brain again. "Thissss brain on the other hand… The tumor is huge. The specimen issss dead I suppose?"

"You are not the one to ask questions!" Rob barked angrily at her. "So shut the hell up."
"What makes you think that the person is dead." Powers intervened and sounded intrigued.
"The growth of the tumor… we jusssst had ssssuch resultssss with brainssss we artificially kept alive. But if you are implying that the sssspecimen is sssstill alive… There must be a sssspecial factor that causessss that."

"The… fentobots…" a voice croaked weakly. "I gave her… a dose so she could… understand the language." Without anybody noticing it beforehand, Dudley had sat up on the stretcher. He held one hand on his naked chest and breathed heavily. Describing him as someone who looked bad would be an understatement at this point, a more apt description would be that he looked like a zombie that just received the worst kind of news. The fact that he was just wearing boxershorts didn't help with the general look.

Nick and Peg immediately jumped towards him and took him into an embrace that would rather worsen his state than improve it. "Guys slowly…" he said while seemingly enjoying the hug.
"Good to see you back amongst the living." Powers sighed in relief. "At least that's one problem taken care of."

"What in the living hell did you put inside of me?" Dudley asked as his breath rate unstablely changed.
"A cybernetic heart." Powers said in an almost apologetic tone.
"Ah…" The dog's face looked like he had just bitten into a lemon. "That explains this disgusting feeling I'm feeling."

"Sweety, what's wrong?" Peg asked concernedly.
"Can we please focus?" Isaac said, he looked disgruntled as someone was stealing his moment.
"You are right Isaac, continue." Powers meant and gave the floor back to the scientist.

"Anyway, Dudley has a good point there. That could have prolonged the effects of the tumor. Now let us summarize what we have. A maliciously seeded infection that caused a tumor that gave Kitty a task. A simple task, it was kill everything close to you. She started with Dudley and was ready to kill the next person entering but our friend Kate was faster and could subdue her. I do not want to imagine what happened if someone less capable had entered the room." Isaac turned to Seema and nodded appreciatively. "This is not a bad concept to spread some discomfort among the enemies. Though still a bit rough when it comes to execution."

"Heartwarming, one disgusting murderous monster gives a nod to another." Ryan's voice sounded like he was about to spit on the ground in disgust.
"Hey, I do not appreciate that she helped creating it or used it. But I know a good idea when I see it."
"Monster recognizes monster, huh?"

"Enough of that." The captain ordered austerely. "This at least frees Ms. Katswell from any accusations. But it brings me to a more important question. How can we heal her?"
"Heal her?" Seema looked confused at the captain. "If you are able to, ssssomehow, sssstop the growth of the tumor you can be lucky if she can chew her food without help."

Concerned silence followed this statement, but to be precise, just half of it was concerned. The chief and Peg stared sympathetically at Kitty, Nick was close to breaking down and his hands were clawing into his father's fur now. Rob had closed his eyes, the whole day was a downslide towards the worst.

He lost her to him, a state that might be changeable, but now he had lost her to the enemy. The world got darker again and the fight they were fighting seemed now even more futile without her.
The other half of the room though seemed less devastated, they even seemed a little amused.
"I think we should consult an expert." Dudley grinned and looked at Isaac.

"Yes, an expert would be the right choice." The scientist chuckled.
The captain, with a faint smile, didn't say anything. He just flicked his fingers and pointed at Ryan.
"You want to tell me something about a patient's degenerative state, you slimy scale-covered quack? What do you know." He stood eye to eye with the lizard and laughed in her face. He turned on his heel and walked to the captain. "The patient's state is less than good but not yet critical. If I had my OR I could start with the procedure and we would be done before midnight. But I do not have those resources at hand, so we need to resort to a more widespread approach."

"What do you suggest?"
"Well… I suggest the same treatment we gave the mutt back then when we pulled him out of the black hole." He explained. "That should make her able to survive the hefty dose of fentobots that follows. That should repair the damages in a few hours… although it won't be a good time for her."

"Now hold on…" Dudley stood up, breaking the embrace of his family, and walked on shivering knees towards the doctor and the captain. "This is dangerous! You know what has happened to me after Isaac injected me…"

"I am aware…" Powers meant and tiredly started massaging his nose's ridge. "And I am aware of the impacts that'll have on her life but Dudley, we are lacking competent personal."
"Don't say impact like it is just a small thing. If I think about it for myself, I get sick but she… She has nothing else."

"Could you guys enlighten us on what you mean?" Rob meant angrily. This clique kept on spitting out riddle after riddle and wasn't even willing to give clues. If there was a way to save Kitty and it was that easy, then why was Dudley so opposed.

"A couple of millennia ago" Isaac began and seemed grateful to be able to hold a monologue again. "Our scientist discovered a way to extend our lives beyond anything we had expected for our species. 15,000 to 20,000 years of life expectancy were promised. And it worked so far… the ones who were there back then are still around, but I digress. This serum is the key to a life that comes close to what you call eternal. It made us also more resistant against harm of most kinds and environmental factors like radiation."

"Fine but what is the bad thing about that?" Asked the flea and came closer to the group.
"Two things. The first is an obvious one. It was devised for humans, as Dudley took it he had multiple organ failiures and…"
Ryan interjected and sounded more annoyed. "Hearts don't grow on trees. Replacements are scares."

"Right." Isaac nodded. "Although maybe not the biggest problem if we keep in mind that Dudley's problems started after about a week. But the other problem…"
"She is part of your community and bound to it." Powers sighed. He had his eyes closed and still massaged his nose. "Nick already said it, 200 years exceed her current life expectancy. If we give it to her she will live long past that, she will outlive all of you. We are forcing a big decision onto her like we did on Dudley."

"Back then the thing was different," Dudley explained. "I was the only one of my kind in your universe, and you did me a favor because without it I wouldn't be here. But Kitty… we would force upon her seeing Nick dying and seeing her grandkids and their kids die. She had to watch 100 generations die before she herself could…"

"But dad…" Nick slowly said. "Doesn't that apply to you too?"
"I'm trying not to think about that most of the time, I'm quite good at pushing this stuff out of my mind, at least…for now…" he said and held his chest. "Oh damn, it does something strange again…"
"Are you okay?" Nick asked and propped up his stumbling father.

"Yes, it just needs a minute. To adjust…" Dudley again contorted his face like having not only a sip of sour milk but the whole carton. "Ah better… it adjusted."
"I remember my last cybernetic limb." Isaac shuddered. "I do not envy you right now."
"Thanks for the kindness." Dudley groaned.

"But if we choose not to…" Rob said contemplating the spoken. "What are the alternatives?"
"We could put her in cryostasis," Dudley took a few steps into the center of the room towards Isaac always aided by Nick. "That would stop the further spread of the tumor and we could help her when we are on the ship."

"If we ever get there." Powers said grimly and all present looked at him petrified. He hadn't uttered any doubt about the success of the mission yet.
"Ah pessimism, the seed that buds into our victory." Isaac scoffed sarcastically.

"Realism, the fruit that let us survive." Countered Powers and then looked into each pair of eyes that concentrated on him. "We have a crew of about 60 ready soldiers down here. Most of them are not trained half as well as her. Also, thanks to Kate, it is not yet known what exactly happened in the shuttle. We don't want to undermine morale by suddenly letting her disappear."

"She is, after all, second in command," Chief confirmed the captain's words nodding. "If people start to talk about her disappearance, they will put one and one together, they are not stupid."
"Thank you chief."
"Herbert." Said the chief.
"Sly." Replied Powers and both of them nodded at each other.

"It is nice that you two are warming up to each other…" Isaac called the attention back to him as he walked to Kitty who still sat catatonically on the chair. "We need a decision, let alone for her sake."
"This isn't our decision, Isaac… Dudley, Nick, Herbert, Keswick, Rob you are the ones who should decide as the people closest to her."

The five of them exchanged quick glances, at first nobody wanted to begin talking. As the silence made itself a little too comfortable in the room Dudley took a deep breath and was about to answer but ultimately cut short by Nick's quicker reply.

"I am in favor." Nick quickly said. "Mom does not deserve to be in this state any longer." The audience around the five nodded and their gazes turned to Dudley.
"Nick please don't hate me for what I will say but I know the implications all too well. I don't want to see her falling through a similar spiral as I did. It's a no from my end."

Nick's look rested on his father. He didn't seem angry, just disappointed about the decision. Maybe the boy also wasn't happy with the options given and had some understanding for his old man.
"Well… aside from the m..m..moral implications, the risk seems too high," Keswick explained and tried to sound as reasonable as he could although the graveness of his voice revealed that this wasn't a simple move on the chessboard for him. "We do not have the resources to t..t..tend to her if an o..o..organ failure should occur. I am also against it."

The chief cleared his throat and straightened up while fixing the knot of his tie. "I think you know my decision. Kitty is too important to not have around. I am pro resurrection… or however you call that."
Now all eyes, slowly, like kids looking furtively at a forbidden magazine, moved to Rob. The wolf felt their weight on them. He was the one to tip the scale in one or the other direction.

Rob's mind wasn't storming at this moment but wasn't at peace either. It was more like a careful conveyor belt that brought every argument that was brought up again into the commando central of his mind for further inspection. First, the rational reasons came. They didn't have the resources, yes, on the other hand, if their troop dwindled further, they would soon not need any anyway.

Also, the morale impact on the base dwellers would be devastating. The best option actually would be them just being shocked about her trying to assassinate one of their allies. Rob slowly processed these and moved on. The conveyor belt started moving faster and the question of her deserving it arrived.

Rob agreed without a long decision process, she didn't deserve that but as a question of fairness arrived his egoistic side called in. Was it fair what Dudley and Kitty were doing to him? Was playing with his feelings fair? After all, he always tried to be fair, even toward Dudley. Is that how he was paid for that?

Rob shook his inner self, he needed to concentrate, the next question was there already, and the belt came to a halt as it towered in front of him. What would it mean for him and her? He was out of the picture if she reached this approximate immortality. At least he thought so, after all, why should she expose herself to the pain of letting him go after 50 to 60 years?

But then again with her alive, these 50 to 60 years were at least physically possible for him. Rob sighed. No, it was not about him right now. He needed to be fair. All reasons were valid even the self-serving one. But in the end, there was just one option that made sense to him.

"We need her." He sighed and opened his eyes after a break that not only felt long for him. "Even if this sounds cruel but we have to put the community over her wishes."
Dudley closed his eyes and then sighed. He was disappointed but wasn't making any move to stop what would happen next. Ryan had loaded something most of them hadn't seen in a while with a greyish viscous fluid and stepped closer to Kitty.

"I would advise you all to turn around, or maybe leave the room. Before Ryan uses the syringe." Powers said. "This isn't for the faint of heart."
"Nick we better go." Said Peg and pulled on the boy's shirt.
"No I need to…" the reluctant teen wanted to say but the voice of his father made him change his plan.

"Go Nick." Dudley's voice sounded like a funeral. "I saw recordings of myself, you don't want to see what happens now."
"But dad I…" Nick wanted to bring up something so he could stay but his father just shook his head.
"Go. I'll stay here with here."

"I do so too." Rob meant and tried to reassure the boy. It took the grim gazes of two men to make Nick cave in. He sighed and left with his grandmother.
"The rest of you is sure?" Powers said and he received somber nods from all of them. He gestured to Ryan to continue. And Ryan continued in a way that was special to him, special in the worst kind of meaning.

He slowly inserted the needle into Kitty's neck and rammed it with all his might upward toward her skull. A scrunching, like iron on rough stone, made the onlookers shiver and him emptying the content of the syringe directly into Kitty's brain was enough for the chief to turn around disgusted. Rob had closed his eyes already after the sound, so he wasn't seeing that anymore.

"Holy…" The chief mumbled.
"Yes… I warned you." Powers said whose back was facing the scene the whole time. "I will take a short rest. I think you all will handle what comes… Although I'd advise you to leave." The Captain yawned and strode towards the door. "I'll check on you in a few hours." He left the room but the tension everybody felt rose as Kitty, after being violently stabbed, started twitching in an erratic manner.

It weren't simple muscle spasms, the more time passed the more excessively she moved until after a short time her body shook so intensely that she broke the very chair she sat on. Rob wanted to go to her and help her, but Dudley held him back. "I know how bad it looks but it's too dangerous for you to intervene."

"But we… Kitty!" Rob gasped as the cat stood up and started moaning while contorting her arms in ways that made it more than unpleasant to look at her. Again, Rob's first impulse was to walk to her but as the groaning turned into screeching fear took hold of him. Rob had never been afraid of Kitty, not even when she was angry. This new sensation was as unpleasant as the picture of his screaming girlfriend burnt into his retina.

"Can't we do anything?" the chief pleaded as he covered his ears.
"Take Rob and get him out of here." Yelled Dudley over to him.
"No I should." Rob wanted to protest, but Dudley's final statement, and the reason he ultimately yielded, came with cruel coldness from the dog's mouth. "It's going to get worse."

Horrified the wolf looked into Dudley's eyes and needed a second to understand the whole consequence of what it meant. He gave a bitter nod and then turned around and left without looking back. The chief immediately followed him. It took Isaac and Keswick a while longer to leave but they also weren't too keen on seeing the symptoms worsen.

Just Dudley and Ryan watched the whole spectacle. The screaming, the crawling on the floor, the vomiting until there was nothing more to vomit, all while Kitty's nervous system was repaired again. The progress was visible with every hour they watched, soon her screeches became understandable, though not sensible, words.

Her movements seemed more controlled though not controlled by a conscious mind. And at the point of seeming clarity and full control, she collapsed on the floor. This time the two remaining of the former group approached her.

"I'll check this data in the shuttle." Ryan said as he pulled the medi-glove of his hand. "But if I recollect it correctly, she took it as good as you back then."
"I wouldn't call that good." Dudley said kneeling next to her.
"I saw worse." The doctor said and left the room without spending time on frivolities like civilness.

Dudley tried to gently pick Kitty off the ground. They had done it, probably. But was it worth it? Kitty lived under different circumstances than he did when they injected him. Also, she wasn't the same as him mentally. He could easily push things to the back of his mind and ignore them if they weren't necessary at the moment, at least for a while. But Kitty tended to overthink things and have them hunt her even in the non-waking moments.

"Wh..What…?" The weak voice of her lying in his arms made Dudley stop halfway to the stretcher he was on hours ago.
"Slowly…" He whispered gently and smiled at her. "Good to have you back."
"Back? Where was I?"

"Well…" Dudley sat her down on the stretcher and gently said. "What is the last thing you remember?"
Kitty looked down and sharply exhaled. "We were in the shuttle, and you asked for a last kiss and…" she looked shocked back at him.
"Yes, quite some last kiss." He said and smiled.

"Indeed…" She said blushing. "I should be angry about it but… I don't feel angry…"
Dudley smiled happily and then could have slapped himself as the side of him that hadn't fallen completely to his hormones asked. "Can you remember what happened then?"
Kitty looked puzzled at him. "I got a headache attack…" The confusion on her face vanished and was replaced by pure terror as her eyes widened. "I stabbed you… I watched you bleed…" she gasped.

Dudley replied with a nod that had an energy similar to a hat tip. "You knocked me out cold."
"But how can you be still alive?" She asked in shock as her hands touched his face in disbelief.
"Well, I'll tell you what I know…" And Dudley started summarizing the last hours.

Kitty moved from embarrassment over Nick and Rob watching the recording over concern for Dudley's heart to shock as she heard how she had acted for the last hours.
"So… this serum." She said after letting the events sink in for a moment. "It removed the tumor?"
"Removed isn't the right word… It dissolved it kind of. Actually, the little robots in your blood did the rest of it helped to prepare your body for it."

"Okay… does it have any side effects?" Kitty asked and inspected her hands ready to see some changes to her fur or their shape.
"Well, the biggest would be that your age shouldn't be a concern anymore."
Kitty gave him an inquisitive look so Dudley sighed and continued. "As someone once said to me: 15,000 years are improbable but 5,000 should be possible."

"Wait you mean that I won't age anymore?"
"Just very slowly."
Again she stared down at her hands. "I don't feel very different besides not having headaches anymore."

"That's a good start..." Dudley tried to put a smile on, but the bitterness pulled on the corners of his mouth
"5,000 years… I am the only…"
"Just you and me and the humans." He sighed. "I don't know how many of it they still have on the ship but usually not much is stored. There are not many applications after the first injection."

"Fuck." She quietly cursed and looked at her hands again. Dudley gently grabbed them and forced her sight onto him.
"Don't think about it," he whispered gently.
"Dudley… I will most certainly see…"

"Yes. I know that this is rather a curse. I've been through these thoughts, and they are anything but pleasant."
"Is it possible to undo it?" She asked timidly grasping for anything to hold on to.
"No… no this is final…"

"I didn't want this." She whispered and moved off the stretcher into his arms searching for the familiar comfort in his embrace. Dudley held her tight for a while and caught the tears that inevitably followed in his fur. She was thinking now, and he knew that with every new scenario, she ran through in her head, she wounded her soul deeply.

"There are still years ahead of us with them…" Dudley needed to hold out the prospect of something that was at least okay in the future. "You don't know how many. I mean Nick has good genes. You remember my grandma reached 95 and there was your uncle that got 104 or something."

"The uncle is an in-law." Kitty sobbed, her comment knocked the wind out of Dudley's enthusiasm. He intensified the hug and sighed. "The pain stops after a while… or at least gets bearable. And then you win back most of your life…"
"What makes you say that?" Her voice sounded frail and tired but still, she brought out a certain accusative tone.

"After my 80th birthday, I reckoned you all probably died…" he gently moved her out of the embrace to look at her. "It took me a while to stomach that. And I did really weird things to cope with that. From hobbies to conspiracy theories, nothing was off-limits. What kept me going back then was the thought of at least coming home one day. Even if I had just found mortal remains of a world that forgot me."

"But for what purpose?" she asked wiping her tears away with her sleeve. "Just to get confirmed what you feared and expected?"
"I needed that certainty… It's weird I know." He smiled a little. "But I was lucky in the end. You are all still here."
"But Nick won't after…"

"Cherish the moments." Dudley quickly said before she could say it. "Try that for me okay…"
Kitty nodded and for a while the two of them just looked at each other. Until Kitty said, "So hobbies you say?"

"Yes, a few…" He smiled.
"Like painting in oil?" she managed it to put a gentle smile on her lips.
"Who told you?" He asked with overexaggerated shock.
"Oh you know, former secret agent and so on."

"Well I…" Dudley was about to break into an anecdote about the days he so necessarily wanted to have a memory that he started learning how to paint as the shrill sound of sirens droned without a warning through the bunker.

"What's going on?!" Dudley looked around confused and as if these words were an old ritual to summon a ghost the door opened with a tired-looking Captain Powers entering.
"Enemies concentrate forces 20 miles north of the bunker." He yelled towards them and marched to a collection of crates, the freight from the torpedoes.

He pulled a weapon out of one crate that looked like a very oversized tuning fork. He shouldered the rifle and looked at them.
"We will hold the bunker and repel the attack if possible."
"Sure thing, let me grab…" Dudley tried to walk towards the crates, but Powers stepped in front of him.

"I do not need you in your state, also Kitty…" The captain looked at the cat. "You are also not fit to fight. You stay back with the rest of the ones who can't fight."
"But…"

"No this is an order." Powers stomped his foot on the ground.
"You can't…"
"Don't pull this shit now." Powers was almost growling saying that. "You and the rest are our last line of defense. Let's hope we do not need you."
Powers ran back to the door.

"Hey!" Dudley called after him and made him turn around one last time. "Good luck"
"Thanks, we'll need it."

-Author's Note: No rest for the resistance :P Hope you liked the chapter, as always don't forget to review and stay tuned-