Disclaimer: The SWAT Kats are owned by Hanna Barberra and the Tremblay Brothers. I own the OCs.
Once again, I have to thank my BETA/Muse Misarae.
A brief refresher:
Turmoil broke down and cried after he was gone. Now she knew that T-Bone was never going to be hers, no matter how much she wanted him to be. After a good five minutes, she got up and took a hold of the communicator that T-Bone had given her and held it to her chest. She then said though her tears, "This Callie is one lucky she-cat. I wish you both happiness." Turmoil sank down onto her mattress and resumed crying.
T-Bone made his way back to the Cyclotron, took one last look behind him, and thought to himself, "I'm sorry that I cannot be the tom that you want me to be, Turmoil. You will find that special someone soon." Then T-Bone sped out of the western tunnels on the Cyclotron, heading for the wharf and a hopefully already waiting Razor.
As T-Bone arrived at the wharf, he found that Razor was already there waiting for him.
"Took you long enough. You should have been done over an hour ago. What happened?" Razor asked.
"I ran into Turmoil down there and she sort of, 'took me out of commission', with a pipe," T-Bone replied.
"So let me get this straight. You ran into your ex-girlfriend and she hit you with a pipe? Some relationship there, buddy," Razor said.
T-Bone said insisted, "She was never my GIRLFRIEND! Although, since she has been in prison, she has definitely softened up. If I wasn't so infatuated with Callie, I might have taken a shot at her. She has a plan to capture Dark Kat. It is crazy enough that it might work."
"You always have picked the 'hard to get' she-cats. Let's get out of here and find the Lieutenant." Razor said.
The two left the wharf in search of Felina and her squadron.
They managed to get a hold of her on the radio and asked her to meet them at a diner in the Downtown section of the city. One that knew the pair and would not ask questions.
"I will meet you there in ten. You are buying!" Felina replied, severing the connection before the two SWAT Kats could respond.
"Sharp as ever. You think you can handle that one, Razor?" T-Bone asked.
"I do not know, but it will sure be fun trying," Razor replied.
At the diner, Felina got a booth that was as far from the rest of the crowd as possible. While she waited for the SWAT Kats to arrive, she ordered a Lemon/Lime soda and a slice of Tuna Pie. She looked out of the window into the back alley and saw the SWAT Kats arrive and park their bikes back behind a dumpster, then proceed into the back door of the diner.
They arrived at the booth a few minutes later. Then Razor said to Felina, "I hope we did not keep you waiting too long? It's not nice to keep a pretty she-cat waiting."
Felina looked up at him questioningly, and then thought, "Did he just call me 'pretty'? I must be tired. No way would either of the SWAT Kats ever think of getting involved with an Enforcer."
Razor and T-Bone sat down on the bench across from her just as her order arrived.
"Couldn't wait, Lieutenant?" T-Bone asked.
"Not when you have been at this for over seven hours straight." Felina replied before taking a bite of her pie.
T-Bone and Razor both placed their orders with the waitress, who gave them both a wink before slinking off to the kitchen.
"She did not walk like that for me. She has the hots for you two," Felina said to the two toms.
The two ignored her comment and started to tell Felina of Turmoil's plan to capture Dark Kat. She liked what she heard, up to the point that Turmoil was going to have to pretend to seduce T-Bone.
"Are you nuts? Did you ever think what that is going to do to Callie when she finds out that you two are snuggling up to each other?" Felina stopped her tirade dead in its tracks. She suddenly realized that she had just accidentally told T-Bone that Callie had feelings for him, and that she would be devastated by seeing T-Bone and Turmoil together. Felina looked down at her plate, hoping that the SWAT Kats had missed the last thing she said.
Unfortunately, they hadn't.
"Callie.. likes me?" T-Bone cautiously asked Felina.
Felina replied, "If she ever finds out that I told you that, I will skin you alive. You understand, SWAT Kat?" Then she added, "Ever since that kiss in her office, she has not been quite herself. She doubted that she was in your league. After convincing her that you might have feelings for her, she broke down and admitted that she has been interested in you for some time now. If you ever hurt her in any way, shape, or form, I will personally hunt you down, kill you, and then have you stuffed and mounted. Do I make myself clear, T-Bone?"
T-Bone had no idea what to say. Although his heart was now thumping in his chest very hard. Then he thought to himself, "Callie does have feelings for me! I am either the luckiest tom, or the stupidest, for not doing anything sooner. I am heading over there later to face either my new lover or executioner. I hope that it is the former." Then he replied to Felina, "I would rather die than hurt her in any way. As I told Razor earlier, I feel real good around her. I am not sure if it is love, but it is real damn close. I want to be with her. I want her to be the first thing that I see in the morning and the last thing at night. I will never jeopardize what I might have with her. If she doesn't return my feelings for her, I am the one who will be devastated."
Felina and Razor were now in shock at T-Bone's confession. They both knew that they liked each other, but had no idea that T-Bone was that far gone.
"Well T-Bone, you had better tell her that real soon. She is having doubts about herself and whether you are even interested in her at all," Felina said to T-Bone.
"I am seeing her tonight after Razor and I go back to the hangar and I freshen up. When I spoke to her last, the detail that your uncle assigned to her was doing nothing to keep her calm. She sounded worse than a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs," T-Bone replied, then added, "I hope that I can get her to relax and sleep. She was really wound up."
"My uncle assigned a bunch of 'emotionless idiots' to her? Wait until I get my paws on him. He is not going to like what is coming!" Felina said angrily.
Their order arrived along with a napkin with the waitress' phone number on it, folded up nice and neat under the corner of T-Bone's plate.
"Thank you," T-Bone replied to the waitress as she left with a wink. He took the napkin and threw it away.
Felina smiled and then thought to herself, "Those two are in for a wild ride. Goddess, I hope that they are happy together."
They all finished their meals and headed their separate ways. Razor ended up paying the check, since T-Bone and Felina got up and ran out of the front door of the diner while he was not looking.
"Typical," Razor thought to himself as he mounted his Cyclotron.
Once back at the hangar, T-Bone re-filled his Cyclotron while Razor started working on a few devices that T-Bone might need once he was in Turmoil and Dark Kats' clutches.
T-Bone said to Razor once he was done re-fueling, "I am heading over to Callie's. I hope to be back in a few hours." Then he was off.
"Be gentle with her, buddy. She is one in a million," Razor said to himself.
Callie had settled into her bedroom and was working on the city's budget for next year. She was already dressed for bed since it was 9:30 at night. "I wonder if T-Bone forgot my invitation," she thought to herself. She placed her work down in her lap as a single tear started to form in her left eye.
T-Bone arrived in an alley just behind Callie's apartment building and hid the Cyclotron. Then he fired a rope and a grappling hook to the roof and winched himself up. Felina told him that Callie's apartment was on the northwestern corner of the building, so he knew where to rappel down to. He stopped right outside her bedroom window and rapped on the glass softly.
Callie heard someone or something knocking on her window. She put down her work and went over to the window. As she opened up the curtain, she saw T-Bone dangling on a line. Her heart started to race when she saw him and his big smile. Callie opened the window and pulled him in, then closed the window and the curtain.
Once inside, T-Bone asked Callie, "How are you holding up, beautiful?"
Callie just ran to him, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest before bursting into tears.
T-Bone was not expecting that at all. Callie was one of the strongest cats he knew. To see her like that made his heart break. The only thing that he could do was return the hug and whisper in her ear "It's alright, I am here now. Nothing is going to hurt you." Then he kissed the top of her head while rocking her like a kitten. He kept it up, as she soaked his G-suit with tears. Not that he minded.
This went on for about a half hour before Callie was able to regain composure enough to pull back slightly, away from his chest, and look up into his mask as she said, "I'm sorry. I did not mean to have a breakdown. I don't know what came over me."
"It's alright, beautiful," T-Bone said while wiping away a stray tear. "I am here for as long as you need me, and for whatever you need me for, love," he continued.
"Did he just call me 'love'?" Callie shot him a questioning look as she thought to herself. Then her thoughts took a different turn. "But what about Chance? He has been flirting with me for years now, but never actually made a move. He always had a different she-cat on his arm every time I saw him at school. He hardly ever paid much attention to me there. I was not really his type. I was just another pretty face who buried herself in her studies instead of partying. Then there is T-Bone, always there when I needed him, always affectionate. I never heard that he was a player, and HE IS RIGHT HERE! I have always felt like a giddy high school girl with a crush around T-Bone, and never felt like that when I was with Chance. The spark just wasn't there as it is with T-Bone."
Finally, she got up the nerve to say," Thank you, T-Bone, but did you just call me 'love'?"
T-Bone was now really nervous. He just confessed to her that he loved her. Er, sort of. Then he replied, "Yes, I did. I have no idea why it has taken me so long to do it. I guess I didn't think that a classy, smart, and gorgeous she-cat like you would go for someone like me. I am just a vigilante pilot who lives in a hangar. What could I offer her?"
"And here I am thinking that you have she-cats throwing themselves at you all the time. Why would you even think of bothering with someone like me?" Callie said through a sniffle.
"Are you kidding? Ever since I first saw you, I was a goner. I have not even looked at another she-cat. My eyes are only for you," T-Bone replied.
Callie started crying again. Then said through the tears, "You have made me so happy. This has been tearing me apart. Since you kissed me back at the office, all sorts of feelings came to light that I had no idea existed. Every time I see you, or even hear your name, my heart beats about a hundred times faster. I start to sweat and I can't think straight." She then reached up and kissed him, then she said ever so softly, "I love you too."
T-Bone could not believe what he was hearing. Callie just said that she loved him! He was so overfilled with joy that he picked her up and swung her around.
She started to laugh through the tears. As he put her back down, she asked him, "I really do not want to spend the night alone. Can you stay?"
T-Bone had not been prepared for this. On one paw, he wanted to comfort her, but on the other, was he really ready for such a big step? He replied, "Yes."
Callie cleaned off the bed and then climbed in. T-Bone went into the bathroom and removed his G-Suit, then climbed into bed with her.
Callie placed her head on his chest, listened to his heartbeat, and smiled, then went to sleep.
T-Bone looked down at his sleeping angel, wrapped his arms around her, and kissed the top of her head before whispering, "Goodnight my love." Then he proceeded to fall into a deep sleep.
As the new couple slept peacefully, Callie's body started to glow pink.
Across town at an old antique shop, an amulet that had been encased in glass started to glow. The shop's owner walked over to the amulet after noticing the glow, then said, "It has taken 28 years, but your powers are starting to awaken. I will be seeing you soon, my granddaughter." She smiled very happily.
End of Chapter