Slowly, the sense of something...filtered through the white-noise generators into his sleeping mind. He struggled towards consciousness, aware that something was wrong, then clumsily yanked out the earplugs to hear a terrible scream shattering the peace of the night. Still not fully awake, but very much alert, he bounded off the bed, instinctively grabbing his gun as he did, listening for the source of the noise.

Outside. The voice came again, like the cry of a desperately frightened child, but eerily inhuman at the same time, accompanied by another high, thin cry, barely audible over the volume of the first voice.

Inhuman? He shook the last vestiges of sleep from his mind as he descended the stairs, his initial alarm fading, but not quite ready to set his gun aside yet. Blair was just hurrying out of his room, already awake, and looking vaguely guilty at seeing Jim.

"Uh, Jim," he began, awkwardly. "I can explain--"

"MHRE~AO~W~!(weeeu~)"

'Breathe,' Jim told himself, and did so, trying to control his irritation. Something foreign tickled his sinuses, but he ruthlessly filtered out the irritant and dialed down. He glanced up at the clock. 3AM.

"MRHAO~W~!(weeeu~)" 'I am calm. I am relaxed. I am letting this go.' He could feel his brain starting to throb inside its bony prison. Was it irritation, exhaustion, or an allergic reaction?

"MHURAAAOW~!(weeeu~)" Even Blair flinched at that one.

"Explain what, Dr Doolittle?" He opened the door a crack, to see two cats outside, one that might have been called tortoiseshell but was mostly black, sitting and watching him expectantly with enormous green eyes.

"weeeu," it said, in a friendly manner.

"WRR~MAO~!" said the other, a large mackerel-and-white tom, then seeing that the door was open, it shut up, seemingly abashed. It ran off a little distance, watching him nervously.

"weeeu," said the dark-furred cat as he opened the door a little wider to let Blair see them.

"Oh man," he said, staring at the cat calmly watching Jim. "I think we still have a can of tuna around the house, do we?" he asked anxiously, and hurried into the kitchen.

Jim blocked the open doorway with his leg just as it seemed about to saunter in, and did some more breathing exercises. "Did it ask for tuna?" he demanded, a little testily. He glared at the cat, which said "weeeu" again, almost conversationally. The tom came a little closer, almost began to yowl, then seemed to think better of it and took off again.

"What? No! But she must be hungry after coming all this way--um. Oh, right. How..." Blair trailed off as he worked the can-opener, and frowned in thought. "I can't explain this," he said after a moment as he carried the can and two plates to the door.

"I'm not sharing plates with a cat," Jim protested, and Blair hastily replaced his booty with disposable ones. "What do you mean you can't explain?" He got out of the way as Blair blithely went out and set out the tuna for the cats.

"weeeu," said the female gratefully as it began eating. The tom waited for Blair to retreat before daring to approach.

"I don't know how they got here either," said Blair, watching the cats with a bemused expression. "I mean, I shared my lunch with them yesterday, but I didn't, like, give them your address or anything! I don't know how they got here from campus."

"From Rainier?!" The outburst made the tom jump and stare at Jim fearfully, and he felt vaguely guilty about frightening the animal, until he remembered how it had woken him from a sound sleep.

"Yeah," said Blair helplessly. "Maybe they took the bus." They watched the furry couple eat.

The female finished her portion, made a fierce, sharp noise and smacked the tom. He retreated, and looked pitifully on as she began eating his share as well.

"Remind you of anyone?" asked Jim casually.

"Sam isn't like that," Blair protested.

"I didn't mention her," Jim replied with a slight smile.

"MHRRAOW~!" said the tom, and ran away. Jim inhaled deeply, and sneezed. "I'm calling Animal Control," he growled. "MRROUW~!"

"You can't do that, she's got kittens!" Blair said quickly. "Shh!" he told the tom, which stared at him, and cut itself off with a strangled sound. He hurried back into the kitchen to look for more tuna.

"She's got--How did you know that? And what is she doing here if she has kittens?"

"Maybe something happened to them?" suggested Blair without much confidence.

"Then she's barking up the wrong tree," said Jim firmly, disregarding the confused metaphor. "I am not a pet detective."

"Well, she doesn't seem concerned, at least," Blair offered. The less-than-concerned mother in question had finished her late supper and was placidly washing her face. The tom also settled down across the corridor.

"I'm going back to sleep," said Jim. "Lock the door." He turned his back on all three of them and climbed the stairs stiffly.

***

The tom was gone in the morning. The female watched them lazily as they hurried off to work, greeted them cheerfully as they returned in the evening, but finally vanished the morning after.

"Don't feed any more strange cats," warned Jim direly, holding his nose as Blair cleaned away a parting gift from one of them. Blair only nodded by way of reply, also holding his breath.

***

Mild spoilers for some episode, title forgotten. (Anyone know which one it is?).

"Uh, Jim? You remember that dog you fed in the park?"