Disclaimer: The SWAT Kats are owned by Hanna Barbera and the Tremblay Brothers. I own the OCs.
For those who don't think anything like what happens in this chapter can't really occur, let me tell you it does, sort of.
Thank you my Co-Author for all you do.
Caliber and Razor found Adonis being cradled as he cried by whom they could only assume was Dr. Feldman's wife. They could not figure out why he was an emotional wreck until they saw Pirouette lying in her bed, out cold, with wires and an IV coming from her body. Caliber shuddered, and was on the verge of tears herself before she went over to join in the hug between Adonis and Dr. Feldman's wife. She wrapped her arms around them both and said, "She will be alright, Adonis. I promise; she will be alright."
Adonis lifted his tear-stained face from Mary's shoulder and looked at his friend. He said, "I should be the one to in that bed, not her. It was my job to protect all of you girls, and I failed miserably." He turned his head to look at Pirouette and broke free of Mary and Caliber's embrace. He went to Pirouette's side and kissed her paw. He then said, "If I don't come back from what I am about to do, please know that I love you and will always be with you."
"And just what exactly are you going to do?" Razor asked, as he blocked the room's only exit.
"I'm going to find the tom who put her in this bed, and give him what's coming to him," Adonis said, his tone obviously angry.
"The hell you are! You are not going out there, hell bent for revenge! That is not how SWAT operates, and besides, he is already dead," Razor yelled.
"What do you mean he is dead? What happened?" Adonis asked.
"Empress was questioning him very aggressively, so he took the easy way out instead of answering her questions. He committed suicide right in front of her. I would appreciate it if you didn't bring it up in front of Empress, though. She is still is still very shaken up about the whole thing," Razor replied.
Adonis felt like he had been robbed of his chance to get even with the tom who almost took the one and only thing he loved away from him. He let out a primal scream and punched the wall, leaving a large indentation in it and his paw bleeding.
Henry calmly walked over to him and said, "Give me your paw."
Adonis was still filled with anger, and was about to punch Henry just for being there, when Henry said, "Look, I know that you are very upset, but think of your fiancée. How am I supposed to tell her that you got yourself thrown in jail, so you can't be here for her? Pull yourself together and lose the attitude, or I am going to throw your ass out of my hospital, personally! Do you understand, or do I need to bring you down a few pegs?"
Adonis looked into Henry's very angry gaze, and knew he meant business. Henry might have been smaller and had a gut, but Adonis had a feeling that if Henry were pushed hard enough, he would not hesitate to fight. Instead of letting the situation escalate, Adonis let out one final growl, then held out his paw for Henry to examine.
"That's better. Now, let's see how badly that wall damaged your paw," Henry said.
While Henry examined Adonis' paw, Mary went over to Adonis, grabbed his left ear, and said, "Young man, if you ever act like that again in my presence, I will not hesitate to take you over my knee, and I don't care how big you are!"
Adonis turned his head to Mary and said, "Yes Ma'am. I apologize for the way I acted."
"Good. Now, your friends brought you dinner. I suggest that you apologize to them and go eat something. You probably haven't eaten a thing since early in the day," Mary said as she let go of his ear.
The surgical nurse from the OR entered the room when she heard all of the yelling, and could not believe her bad luck. Dr. Feldman was there, as well as three SWAT Kats. There was no way she could complete her mission now. She fumbled with the syringe in her coat pocket, which was filled with morphine as she asked, "Doctor, may I be of assistance?"
"Yes, please get me a suture tray and 50ccs of Lidocane," Henry said.
"Yes, doctor," the nurse replied, then she turned and left.
Henry started examining Adonis' paw, and reached over to a tray by Pirouette's bed that held some gauze and sterile water. He cleaned the cuts while he waited for the suture tray to arrive. While he worked, he said, "You need to control that anger of yours. What are you going to do when one of your kittens accidentally breaks something? Fly into a fit of rage? Believe me, that does not work at all."
"Doc, I am not normally a cat that would fly off of the handle like I did. I guess not being able to protect the one I love just brought out a side of me that I didn't know existed, so I didn't know how to handle it, either. As you might have guessed by now, Pirouette is my life. I would do anything for her. All she ever has to do is ask," Adonis said.
The nurse returned with the suture tray and the Lidocane that Henry had ordered. She gave the tray to him and he said, "Thank you. Can you get some more gauze, please?"
"Certainly, Doctor," the nurse replied. She started to leave, but instead turned to Pirouette. She looked back at the rest of the group, and saw they were all distracted with Adonis and the doctor. Now was her chance. She walked over to Pirouette's IV, withdrew the syringe from her pocket, inserted the needle into the IV, and pushed the plunger. She withdrew the needle and put the syringe into the sharps waste bucket. Then she slowly backed away from her victim and waited for the morphine to start to take hold before she left.
Henry made quick work of repairing Adonis' paw when he heard the beeping from Pirouette's heart monitor slowing down. He quickly moved to her side and checked her pulse. It was definitely slowing to a dangerous rate. He yelled, "I need help in here, stat! Bring a crash cart, now!"
The nurse took that as an opportunity to leave the room, but Caliber stopped her and asked, "Just where are you going? The doctor needs assistance, and you are leaving?"
"I was going to get the crash cart for the doctor, so if you will step out of the way…" the nurse replied.
The nurse's tone and body language tipped Caliber off that she was lying about something. Caliber reached out, grabbed her, and said, "You are not going anywhere."
Several other nurses and doctors flooded the room with what looked like a toolbox from the garage.
Adonis looked over to Pirouette and nervously asked, "Doc, what is going on?"
"I don't know, but what I do know is that her heart is stopping, and if I don't do something now, I am going to lose her," Henry replied, and then yelled, "Someone give me a hundred of epi, stat!"
Another nurse opened one of the drawers of the crash cart, and reached in to grab a pre-filled syringe of epinephrine. He handed the syringe to Henry, who instantly injected Pirouette with it. He looked up at the monitor as sweat beaded on his forehead.
The nurse that Caliber was holding onto was getting nervous and fought against Caliber's hold. Seconds ticked by as Dr. Feldman tended to Pirouette, and the nurse's fear rose accordingly. She struggled against Caliber's hold, desperate to escape. Finally, she did the only thing she could think of, balling her right paw into a tight fist and punching Caliber in the face.
Caliber's head swung to the left as the nurse's paw connected with her right cheek. Caliber recovered from the punch and said, "Now I know something is not right with you. If you so much as move again, I am going to hit you so hard, you'll be down in the ER, and not as a nurse!"
Pirouette's pulse rose back within the normal range as the medication took hold. Once he was certain that Pirouette was going to make it, Dr. Feldman relaxed. He turned to the nurse that Caliber was holding and asked, "What did you do?"
"I had nothing to do with this. I..I was leaving to get the crash cart," the nurse replied.
"If you were going to get the crash cart, you would have been running to get it, and have gotten back here as fast as possible. So I am going to ask you one more time before I call the Enforcers to pick you up: what did you give her?" Henry asked.
Caliber grabbed the nurse even harder and brought her face within inches of hers. Caliber snarled, and then said, "You had better answer him, or you will not live long enough to see a judge!"
The nurse turned her head towards Adonis, who was now furious and appeared ready to snap her neck, if he was given a chance to get his paws on her. She then looked to Henry, who was keeping an eye on Pirouette's vital signs, and finally back to a very angry Caliber, who was so enraged that the nurse had no idea what she would do next. The nurse gulped and replied, "I didn't want to do it, but I was ordered to by a very powerful tom; the tom: the kind that if you cross, you'll end up in a pine box. That is if someone ever finds you."
Razor, being the only semi-calm member of SWAT at the moment, walked over to Caliber and the nurse. He said as he walked, "I don't know if you are going to be eligible for protection after what you have done, but if you want to have any chance at all of ever seeing the outside of prison walls again, you need to start talking."
The nurse lowered the collar of her shirt, revealing a mark on her neck.
Henry got up from Pirouette's side, and calmly made his way over to the nurse in order to examine the mark. He looked at it closely, and realized that it resembled the markings that had been etched onto the bullet he had taken out of Pirouette's shoulder. He righted himself and asked, "So you and the bullet are connected somehow. If you can explain it to us, we might be able to convince law enforcement to go easier on you"
The nurse replied, "My parents were deeply in debt. So in order to help them out, I took on a few extra jobs, patching up some very unsavory characters. They paid very well, and soon my parent's debt was gone. However, I got used to an extravagant lifestyle that my pay here could not support. I took on more and more jobs to maintain that lifestyle. Finally, I was offered a position as the staff nurse to the organization."
"So what is the name of this organization that gave you all of this money and compelled you to try and murder my fiancée?" Adonis asked, and ground his teeth together as he tried not to rip the nurse's head off.
"They are known as 'The Society', but I don't know very much about them. What I do know is that they are very well-connected to other crime syndicates throughout the city." She paused for a brief minute before she continued, "One of my other positions was to help with interrogations. Since I was the only one who had any medical training, I knew how to inflict the most pain on the subject without killing them. Those particular jobs paid more, but were very unpleasant."
Pirouette woke up in an all-white place, and she was dressed in a long, white gown. Even though she had no idea where she was, she felt at peace. There was a bright light off in the corner, and she started to walk towards it. As she entered the light, Lisa saw a she-cat with the head of a Jaguar working at a dais. Lisa calmly asked, "Where am I?"
Bast lifted her head from her work, saw Lisa standing there, and replied with anger, "It is not your time, little one. Go back from whence you came!"
Pirouette's eyes fluttered open, and she took in her surroundings. She lifted her head slowly and quickly, then lowered it back to the pillow because it pounded worse than a kick drum. She let out a pain-filled moan, which Adonis heard loud and clear.
He stood up, ran as fast as he possibly could to Pirouette's side, and kissed her forehead. He then said, "We almost lost you."
"Can I have some water, please, and possibly an aspirin? My head is killing me," Lisa stated.
Adonis grabbed the water pitcher by her bed and poured her a small cupful. He brought it to her lips and said, "Drink slowly."
She did as she was instructed by her protector. After she was finished, she put her head back down and said, "Thank you. Can someone please explain why my head is pounding? One of the doctors in the OR said I would feel nauseated, but I feel like I went four rounds with Caliber. "
Caliber laughed at Lisa's comment as she continued to hold onto the nurse for dear life. She then replied, "You would know if you went four rounds with me, Pirouette."
Pirouette laughed for a brief minute, but that only made the pounding in her head worse. She put a hand to her forehead before gingerly turning her head towards Adonis and asking, "What do you mean you almost lost me?"
Adonis took her paw in his before he replied, "You almost died. If it wasn't for Dr. Feldman's quick thinking, you would have."
Pirouette turned ghostly pale as she recalled what she had thought was only a dream. She nervously asked, "So, that wasn't a dream?"
"What wasn't a dream, love?" Adonis asked.
Pirouette did her best to recall what happened in that blinding, otherworldly place before saying, "I was dressed in this long, white robe in a place I had never been before. I walked towards a light, and when I passed through it, I saw this beautiful she-cat with the head of a jaguar. I asked where I was, and she replied that it was not my time, and to go back. If that wasn't a dream, then what was it?"
Adonis held her paw tighter, never wanting to let her go again. He remembered when his grandmother had been on her death bed years ago, and she had said something very similar to what Lisa had described. The situations were far too similar to be a coincidence. He replied, "I never told you this, Pirouette, because I didn't know you when my grandmother passed. While she was on her death bed, her heart stopped. The doctors started working on her in an attempt to revive her, and they succeeded. However, when she woke up, she kept telling us that she met a she-cat with the head of a jaguar, who told my grandmother that her time was close, and to not be afraid of crossing over I thought she was just delirious up until now. Hearing you say something so similar makes me wonder if there is some truth to it."
"I.. died?" Pirouette nervously asked.
Henry replied, "I am not sure, Pirouette. The nurse that Caliber currently has in custody added something to your I.V. that made your heart slow to a very dangerous rate. I injected a drug to get your heart back to a normal rhythm. You were still out from the anesthesia, so I have no idea about your state of consciousness."
Pirouette thought about all the things she would have missed out on if she passed, and the two things she would have missed the most were marrying Mark and giving birth to their family. She grabbed hold of Adonis' paw and said, "Hold me. Please, hold me."
Adonis started to tear up again as he brought his arms around her and said, "I am never letting you go again. I love you so much."
"I love you, too, you big softy," Pirouette replied as her own tears fell.
A couple of Enforcers and hospital security guards arrived to take the nurse to jail. Caliber was about to let her go when she said, "I hope you rot in prison for what you did." She let the Enforcers cuff the nurse and take her away.
After the guards left, as well as the Enforcers, Pirouette said, "Let me see those beautiful eyes of yours, Mark."
Mark lifted his head, unable to believe his ears. Lisa had just revealed his true identity to Henry and Mary!" He turned his head to Razor and Caliber, silently asking what he should do.
Razor walked over to the curtain and closed it, shielding them all from prying eyes and said, "Henry already knows who T-Bone and Empress are, and they trust him, so we can too." He removed his mask and Caliber followed suit.
Adonis turned his head back to his fiancée and lifted his mask over his head with his right paw.
Mary watched as all the members of SWAT revealed themselves one at a time. She said, "Well I'll be."
Henry turned to Jake and said, "You were one of the brightest students I ever had the pleasure of teaching First Aid to at the academy." He then turned to Felina and said, "I never thought that you would ever become a member of SWAT, considering your military heritage and Enforcer background."
Felina walked over and wrapped her left arm around Jake's waist. She replied, "Love does strange things, doctor."
Mary asked, "You two are in love each other?"
"More than that, Mrs. Feldman. We are engaged to marry, and she is pregnant with my kitten," Razor replied.
Mary moved over to Jake and Felina and gave them both a big hug. She said, "I'm happy for the both of you. You remind me of me and my husband when we were younger. We both grew up on different sides of the tracks. However, our love for each other knew no bounds. Against our parent's wishes, we married and had three beautiful kittens."
"Yes, and we have been happily married since," Henry said.
"Yes, happily married for over 45 years. Although he still acts like a teenager at times, just ask our daughter Daniela. She will tell you all about the practical jokes he pulls on the hospital staff," Mary said.
"Those little jokes keep the staff entertained, and the morale here is at an all-time high," Henry said.
Mark turned to Henry and Mary and said, "Well, since my cover's already been partly blown, and you now know who Razor and Caliber are, it only makes sense that you know who we are, too. I'm Mark Samuelson, and your beautiful patient is Lisa Ericson. We are going to be married in three months, and I personally can't wait until she is my wife." Mark then lowered his head and kissed Lisa.
Lisa's heart monitor started to beat faster as Mark kissed her. Henry heard the monitor and said, "Mark, as much as you want to kiss her, you are going to have to wait until she gets discharged. Her heart has gone through a decent amount of stress, and will need to heal. So no hanky-panky until she is out of here," Henry said.
Everyone, including Mary, started to laugh at Henry's comment. Mark calmed down enough to say, "Ok doc, no funny business while she is here, but in light of the situation, I am not leaving her side for a single, solitary minute."
"Mark, there is no way you can watch her 24-7. You will burn out faster than Felina can blow an engine," Jake said.
"Hey! Keep that up, lover, and you'll be sleeping on the couch tonight," Felina exclaimed and crossed her arms.
"Sorry honey, but you don't have the best track record with patrol cars. When you first started out, you went through what? Two or three a week?" Jake said.
"If the Enforcers bought decent cars, I wouldn't go through them so easily, but Jake is right about one thing, Mark. You can't watch over Lisa all day and night by yourself. As much as I like Dr. Feldman, I don't trust the security here. SWAT is going to take turns guarding her, and no one is getting in her room without the good doctor's consent," Felina said.
"That's fine by me, as long as it doesn't interfere with her medical care. I will give you a list of nurses I trust that will look after her needs. All of them have name badges with their pictures on them, and it is very easy to tell if an ID is fake," Henry said.
"Good, since she is going to be my wife, I will take the first watch. Jake, you and Felina can figure out the rest of the rotation. Oh, and please tell my new sisters that their sister-in-law is going to be fine," Mark said.
"Sisters?" Felina asked.
"Yes, Havoc and Sniper. They are like the little sisters that I never had, and I can't wait to have them become aunts to my kitten. Actually, all of SWAT are now my brothers and sisters. As time goes on, I can only see the bond between us growing stronger and stronger," Mark replied.
Jake liked hearing Mark state that SWAT was now a family. What was once two lone vigilantes now were seven and possibly more? That had not exactly been the plan when he and Chance started SWAT. However, having seven cats on the force that any one of them could call and depend on without question was very appealing to him. He said, "Felina, why don't we head home and let Mark and Lisa have some time to themselves? I'll come back in the morning and relieve him, so he can get some rest." He turned to Mark and asked, "Is that ok with you?"
Mark did not remove his gaze from Lisa as he replied, "That is fine, Jake. Please leave the food on the table, and I'll eat it later. Thank you both."
Jake, Felina, Mary, and Henry left Mark and Lisa alone in the room. Mark and Lisa's paws intertwined and Mark said, "I'm never letting you go again." He then kissed her paws.
Callie walked through the door of her apartment after letting Tina and Katerina into Felina's. She placed her keys into a basket by the door and went to find Chance. It didn't take long to find him, though. He was standing in the kitchen by the stove with the aid of his crutches, wearing one of Callie's pink, fluffy bathrobes. She asked, "And what exactly do you think you are doing?"
Chance let go of the pan that he was holding in his left paw, grabbed the handle of the crutch, and slowly turned around. He replied, "It was getting late, and I figured you would be starving by the time you got home. So I started dinner for us."
Callie didn't know whether to be angry with him for moving around, or laugh hysterically at how ridiculously cute in her bathrobe. She could clearly see his expansive chest and most of his legs since the robe was quite small for him. She covered her mouth with her paws and laughed so hard, her eyes closed, making tears of laughter stream down her cheeks. Finally, she could not hold it in any longer and doubled over laughing.
Chance watched his fiancée laugh, and apparently it was contagious, because he started laughing right along with her. That was when the knot holding the robe failed, and the robe he was wearing fell open, exposing him to her.
Callie lifted her head and saw Chance trying to cinch the robe closed with one paw, and failing miserably at it. His actions were almost as funny as him standing there in the robe itself. After a few more failed attempts at getting the robe closed, she took mercy on him, walked over, and closed it for him. But to show him that she could be as playful as a kitten, she reached inside the robe and fondled him ever so briefly. She said, "That is how I want you to be when I come home, ready to play with your soon-to-be wife." Her tail swayed back and forth as she spoke.
Chance's body responded very favorably to her, and he moaned at her delicate touch. He said, "If you want to play with your soon-to-be husband every night, then I will wear this more often." He leaned forward to kiss her, but instead his crutches slipped out from under him and he fell on top of her, trapping her underneath him.
Callie landed flat on her back with Chance lying on top of her, but the only thing that ended up being hurt was her pride . She then felt something long and hard pressing against her, and she wrapped her left arm around his neck, while her right paw slid in between the two of them and opened the robe. Then she withdrew her paw so it could join the other one around his neck.
Chance asked very softly, "What are you doing? You have me in a very interesting position that I can't do a thing about." He then briefly kissed her.
Callie pointed her finger at the stove and magically turned it off. She then zapped her clothes off of her body and wrapped her legs around his waist. She practically purred as she replied in a low, sensuous tone, "Oh, I think you know just exactly what I am doing." Then Callie raised her head, closing the tiny gap between them as she captured his lips in a passionate kiss.
End of Chapter