(it's mid-summer, the height of conference season, and one of you is speaking and one of you is part of the organization running the event and you have to go it'd be ridiculous not to just because one of your cats might be a little sick or something)
[img[Teddy|http://superopinionated.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/teddy.jpg]]
(you already have a checkup scheduled for them both within the next day, so whatever it is that's bothering Teddy (if it's even anything) can get solved then...you kind of hope they can't find anything, the vet is so expensive)
(the most she's had is six, the fewest is two, but usually three to five at any one time, not counting the cats in the neighborhood she feeds.)
Teddy
(all the other cats go in the direction you set them in, stay easily coralled, but this one cannot be swayed, must know what is outside the informal pen of arms and legs and toys on the floor, must climb everything, see everything, go everywhere)
You're [[23 years old|you're not even a person yet]] and this is how you decide to [[get a second cat|you don't need another animal]]: Your nana, [[collector of stray cats|a woman who always needs something other than herself to care for]], had a pregnant cat give birth in her backyard. You go over to [[visit the kittens|creatures even more helpless than you]], six of them, when they are about seven weeks old. One of the cats, your nana has named him Chip, is [[the most fun to play with|when does determination transform into a stubborn failure to learn]], so you decide to adopt him. \n\nYou rename him Theodore, [[Teddy for short|Coming Home]].\n
You are trying to do some work while on your trip, waking up at 4:00am or just staying up all night to talk to your dev team in Romania. This works out because you end up getting a lot of calls at weird hours from your mom, updates as the doctors update her, requests to try different treatments, run more tests.\n\n(the vet said Teddy was fine, but your mom didn't believe them; she took him to an emergency animal hospital)\n\n(when Teddy first came in they said he was too sick and dehydrated to survive the initial round of treatment)\n\n(how did you miss something like that?)\n\nI'm going to skip ahead to the autopsy results, I won't make you wait three sleepless, expensive days and nights to get an answer: Kidneys with cells so malformed and unusual the hospital requested permission to send samples to a university lab for further study.\n\nNone of the tests or treatments could have ever worked, even if you hadn't run out of money to keep trying.\n\nBy the time you fly home, [[Teddy|Teddy]] has been euthanized and cremated. His remains are in a box in a drawer...you keep saying you're going to bury him. You haven't yet.
(you don't know it but you're in a brief window of time between when you had to drop out of film school and move back into your childhood bedroom because of depression and when you'll have to move out of your current apartment and back into your childhood bedroom because of your deeply fucked up personal finances (caused, in part, by depression))
(you also hunt down Christopher before you go and hug him and smell his fur and talk to him a little bit, because Christopher is Your Cat and he's getting older, and you're just glad that at least he seems perfectly healthy...Teddy is barely seven and easily treatable, but if Christopher got sick it'd probably mean something serious)
(Teddy startles and panics when you decorate the house for holidays, he briefly forgets who Christopher is if one of them goes to the vet for a day, how will he last the rest of a lifetime without another cat around? \n\nor will he just forget him?)
December 11, 2012
(she moved in in the spring, she's been looking for work but hasn't found any yet, so she spends by far the most time with the cats and prefers Teddy...but then again, with Christopher so clearly preferring you, //everyone// prefers Teddy since he likes just about everyone equally)
You bring Teddy home to the [[apartment|how can something so small be so loud]]. It takes a few weeks, but the social dynamics [[establish themselves|like a tiny dark mirror clone]], and you start describing him as the cat you got for your cat. Your cat Christopher [[adores you|an undeserved and utterly welcome affection]] and Teddy adores Christopher. You wonder how things will be when Christopher, seven years older, inevitably dies first and [[Teddy is left|a cruel godless universe has left us unable to talk to our pets]] without his favorite living creature.\n\nAs it turns out, you were worrying about the [[wrong thing|Saying Goodbye]].
(you can barely keep yourself and your current cat alive, you even kill plants)
"I think something's wrong with Teddy." You and your spouse's suitcases are in the living room, you're about to [[leave for several days|it's like work but your friends are there and you're all drunk]]. Your [[mom|...]] brings it up. You turn and [[look at Teddy|never kid a kidder]] on the couch. "Oh, yeah, maybe." You all agree your mom will [[take him|who needs a baby when you have pets]] to the vet. You sit next to Teddy and pet him briefly as a [[goodbye|what is it like to be the second-most loved]] before the cab comes and then you're off.\n\nThat's the [[last time|Three Horrible Days and then Nothing]] you see Teddy.
(Christopher takes a step and then Teddy takes a step, Christopher lifts a paw and Teddy lifts the same paw, Christopher hisses at Teddy and Teddy waits, waits, until they are grooming each other and sleeping curled up together, because Christopher is gentle to the core and Teddy is too stubborn to give up on trying to be friendly)
(you love picking all six up at once, pinned between your forearm and your body, feeling them warm and soft and so so small)
(you live in a small apartment building with four units, and the moment you open the main door, you can hear him through your door, down the hall, crying and crying and crying with loneliness...until the day you bring Christopher back home from your mom's house, and then they are playing too much to pay much attention to you)
(You rescued Christopher off the street when you were seventeen and he was maybe one...he's a street cat who credits you with the easing of all his infections and pains and the introduction of steady food and warm safe places to sleep, you can see it in his eyes when he stares at you and purrs deeply and stretches a paw up to pat you gently on the mouth)
Courtney Stanton
(instead of immediately flopping down the way Teddy flops on every surface he encounters, he very carefully sits -- more of a lean, really -- and then he slowly lowers himself the rest of the way until he's curled up and looking normal again)