Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Amy was drowning, something dragging her down, away from the freezing cold lake’s surface.

No, not something.

Someone.

Iain.

“C’mon,” she thought, stubbornly tugging him up. To Poppy. She couldn’t let him go.

She also couldn’t breath anymore, her lungs burning. Even the police training wasn’t enough for them both to make it out alive. Love wasn’t enough. She had to make a choice. The most difficult choice in her life.

“No!”

She started screaming silently while she was still asleep, mocking bubbles rising in the water, and continued awake, jolting up on the bed, desperately grasping for air. She tried to clutch the sheets but her hand stumbled over something.

No, not something.

Someone.

Kirsten.

In her panic Amy felt both scared and relieved to not be sleeping alone for the first time in she couldn’t remember how long. Today for the first time Kirsten stayed over to spend the night. They were celebrating Kirsten almost acing her interview. With how difficult it was ‘almost’ was something, especially after ‘fucking up’. They both didn’t object to some more one on one preparation. The celebration included wine and making out on Amy’s couch. It was raining cats and dogs. Amy offered, like any decent person, any… girlfriend would do. She didn’t want Kirsten to leave and take the warmth with her.

She thought she was ready. Her subconscious apparently wasn’t. Very far from it with how vivid the nightmare was. It was worse that the reality. In the reality she couldn’t even get him out of the car.

“Hey…” Kirsten stirred, her sleepy brain yet to catch up with Amy’s ragged breathing. When it did, she sat instantly, her arms coming around Any protectively. “What’s wrong?” she whispered, Amy’s fingers finding her wrist.

“Nothing.” With her free hand Amy reached for the glass of water on her bedside table. “Just a  bad dream,” she said, taking a shaky gulp. When she was done Kirsten’s arms beckoned her back to the pillows. She wasn’t making a big deal out of it, which Amy was impossibly grateful for.

They lay in silence, their breathing coming to a perfect synch.

There was something else, rhythmically nursing Amy back to sleep and asking her to stay awake at the same time. It took Amy pretty long to untangle.

- . .-.. .-.. / -- . / ... --- -- . - .... .. -. --.

Tell me something.

“What?”

“Anything,” Kirsten said out loud, her fingers’ dance  coming to a halt.

“We had a cat,” she said, thinking about the last time she saw Poppy. Like everything else it felt bittersweet with far more bitter than sweet but right now in the darkness it was the light grounding her.

“You did?”

“Aye. Mr. Lassie,” Amy smiled into Kirsten shoulder, four years old Poppy holding a tiny kitten flashing before her eyes.

“Mr. Lassie? But-“

“-but Lassie was a dog and a Mrs, yeah. It’s just… Iain thought it was awful funny.”

“It is,” confirmed Kirsten. There was no jealousy. Kirsten understood. Almost everything for that matter, which was more than Amy could ever ask for.

“What happened to him?”

“Morag and Gordon have him.” Morag and Gordon had everyone she loved now. Even Iain to some extent. As if she hadn’t been basically their daughter-in-law for years.  Death and grief worked like that hand in hand, leaving lifeless ruins in their wake.

“They will cave.” Kirsten left a reassuring kiss on the top of Amy’s head.

“Right.” Amy didn’t want to talk about that anymore. She wanted to talk about anything but that. “Your turn to tell me something.”

As always Kirsten had much more to say than she did. Amy fell asleep listening to her quiet voice, telling her one of the endless stories that had happened to Kirsten’s father on various trawlers he had sailed on. Something about a fire on deck or in the hold. The detail escaped Amy’s exhaused, weakened grip.

***

Amy perked up, when the key turned in the lock. Kirsten had her own key now. Another milestone passed, not without obstacles, for the most part put up by Amy herself or by something she at times felt she could not control, but passed. Amy hoped she would hear about a different one soon. Minutes later, to be exact. This time in Kirsten’s career. She completely deserved it.

“So?” she asked nervously, heading to the mudroom. “You weren’t picking up your phone.”

Kirsten held a dramatic pause. “I passed! With flying colours,” she announced, coming to meet Amy in the middle. There was something else in her voice. Something Amy couldn’t quiet catch.

She understood when Kirsten evaded her hug, a fluffy creature showing it’s head up from under her coat to Amy’s great surprise.

“What-“

“Your present for helping me prepare for the interview with such diligence.” Kirsten smiled, unzipping her coat and taking a ball of red and white fur into her hands. Amy didn’t know how it was possible to guess but Mr. Lassie was red and white too. Must have been luck. Thanks to Kirsten she started to believe in it again.

“Oh my God,” she came closer, accepting the kitten from Kirsten’s hands. “Hey.” She passed her hand over the kitten’s head gently. It ‘meowed’ in reply.

“It’s a girl,” said Kirsten, finally ridding of her coat and joining Amy on the couch, the kitten between them. “There is a bag in the mudroom with everything you might need. Cat food and so on.”

“Thank you,” Amy didn’t really know what else she could say to show that the now purring present was very much appreciated, so she let actions speak for her, leaving a grateful kiss on Kirsten’s lips.

“What will you call her?” whispered Kirsten, their foreheads pressed together.

Amy blinked. She was never very good in such things. She didn’t have Iain’s colorful imagination to help her out. She was a detective. She worked with facts.

“Um… Cat?” she offered helplessly.

It was Kirsten’s turn to blink.

“You want to name a cat ‘Cat’?” she asked just to make sure, laughter starting to bubble in her chest.

“It’s short for Catheine!” Defended Amy. “You like it don’t you, Cat?” she addressed the kitten. In answer she pushed her head into Amy’s hand. “See? She likes it!” Amy said triumphantly.

“Whatever you say, Detective Chief Inspector Silva.”

“That’s right, Detective Sergeant Longacre. Congratulations by the way, I never got to say it. I’m really proud of you.”

“You were very busy with meeting Cat the cat.”

“Oh, stop it, will you!”

“Maybe. Maybe not. No promises. And also, of us,” corrected Kirsten. 

“What?”

“I’m proud of us.”

Chapter Text

Amy always thought she was Cat’s favorite person. And she had been up until they brought Will home from the hospital.

Cat was instantly fascinated by the small, sometimes screaming bundle and protective of him too. And so it stayed like that for years to come.

She would guard his sleep at night meowing loudly whenever he woke up crying.

She stoically endured him trying to grab her tail and whiskers curiously as he became older.

When he inevitably fell over and over again while learning to walk she would make a beeline to him each time and distract him from crying by bumping him softly with her head or paws.

She could always count on receiving extra treats from him, within a reasonable healthy amount of course, that being their little secret, actually known very well to everyone else in the family. That in turn was their secret, making Amy, Kirsten and Poppy share looks and giggles from time to time and act surprised when the household would run out of treats faster than they should have.

Will and Cat never betrayed each other.

“I don’t know.” Will would shrug with an innocent, angelic smile he had perfected, knowing very well that his mothers were impossible to fool. His unruly curls complimented the whole image. Cat would always meow in support of his acting efforts.

She used to pave the way, showing him the world, leading him to new discoveries when he was little. Sometimes their shenanigans would result in wet shoes and shirts tainted with grass stains.

She would sit on his desk and watch carefully with her gleaming eyes as the whole family tried to make math make at least some sense to him in solidarity and as he aced writing stories. At least a few of them were about his favorite cat, complimented by colourful drawings. Will didn’t care Matthew Bolton found them silly and laughed every time.

Sometimes Cat would flop down right onto the paper while he was making them, knocking pencils to the floor and demanding attention which he was always happy to provide.

So it wasn’t surprising at all when he ended up being the first to notice something was wrong.

Suddenly Cat wasn’t as excited about the treats anymore. And she started sleeping more.

Then it started. The devastating visits to the vet clinic that lasted up until the moment it was clear there was nothing to be done anymore to better the situation and continuing would only inflict unnecessary pain on the dear family member.

“Will, honey-“

He was angry at the universe. And sad and…He didn’t want to talk about it. At all. Not before and not after they had come home from the clinic, their crew of five becoming smaller.

Everybody started to miss Cat’s comforting presence immediately. Something shifted in the atmosphere around the house as soon as she had fallen ill but now it was irreversible, Amy and Kirsten seeking comfort in each other’s embrace at night while Poppy looked at   old pictures of Mr. Lassie and newer ones of Cat in her room but expectedly Will took it the hardest. He had put one of his drawings into the box they buried Cat in.

Poppy even did his math homework for him a few times as secretly as was possible living under one roof with two police detectives.

His new essay he had to do by himself though. Write about something that have changed you, the assignment said. And maybe he wasn’t ready to talk about it yet but he wasn’t against putting his feelings on paper. He went a little bit over the word limit but Mrs. Clark never minded.

Before he could hand it in though Matthew snatched the papers from his grip and laughed at what he had managed to read during the short few minutes when Will was too stunned to do something about it.

That time it actually stung.

He automatically remembered Poppy teaching him the fist trick about leaving the thumb outside when you clench. It came in very handy, no pun intended.

"Will…”

“What?”

“You can’t punch other kids.”

“Poppy punched that one homophobic girl once,” he reminded.

“And Mum told her the exact same thing I’m telling you right now.” Amy patted the space beside her on a bench in the park near Will’s school. She didn’t want to have to talk through the car ride.

“No, actually she taught her… never mind. Anyway, even when they are assholes?”

“Language, William.”

“Sorry.”

Amy shook her head. "Honey, I know you are sad about Cat. I know you had a special bond. And I’m sorry we lost her, you lost her. But that doesn’t excuse violence even when they are…” she looked at him pointedly.

Will snickered. And took his mother’s hand, ready to play their favorite game.

“.- ... ... .... --- .-.. . ... ..--..”

Assholes?

“... - --- .--.”

Stop.

“Okay, okay.” He sighed looking around, kicking a stone lightly absentmindedly. Amy hugged him closer to herself, his head finding her shoulder. She couldn’t bear seeing him struggle so much, her heart aching.

A light rain started drizzling, disturbing their comfortable silence. It was late autumn. So it could easily turn into a little storm.

They got up hand in hand. “C’mon. Let’s get you home.”

They walked fast and almost missed it at the gates but Will’s eyes stumbled over the little shaking creature.

“Look!” he pulled on his mother’s hand and they came closer. To the little puppy who looked up at them and whined, hope lighting up in its eyes. The fur looked a little faded because of all the dirt. Will, just like his mothers, thought he wasn’t ready for a new pet but that went right out the window.

“We will need to run it by Mum.” Amy watched as Will picked the animal up.

“She will say ‘yes’, you know she will say ‘yes’. Oh, it’s a boy! How about… Doc?”

“You are hilarious, you know that?”

“I do.“