He started awake to someone on the street yelling "It is ten o'clock in the goddamn morning--!" and the cat pawing at his nose.

She had wiggled her way up his chest, incidentally putting pressing on some of the bullet wounds, and was tapping insistently on his face with one paw. The ice packs had both melted, so fully half his shirt was wet and sticking to him. "What?" he asked the cat, catching her paw in his good hand.

She meowed and pulled her paw free. Then put the other one on his chin.

"Fuck off," he mumbled, and levered himself upright. She meowed again, and this time he heard the rumble of air in her stomach alongside the kittens. Right, of course, she was eating for nine. He dredged up his mental list of what was in the pantry, wondering what was cat-appropriate...and if he gave her food, he'd need to rig up a litterbox, too. Which meant litter. Which...was not happening, with the way his shoulder was still throbbing, because he couldn't carry a heavy bag and his cane in the same hand.

He put some milk in a cereal bowl for the cat and called Claire. "Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten," she said immediately.

"Hi, Claire," he said.

"Did you just wake up?"

"Dozed off on the couch," he admitted. "I think I tore my rotator cuff."

"Doing what, exactly?"

"Uh, parkour?"

She sighed loudly. "Is it urgent? I can't be leaving here early, I just got this job."

"I've got ice. And a sling. I think."

"All right. I'll come by around seven and you're paying for dinner."

"Thank you."

At his feet, the cat threw up.

---

Half an hour, two rolls of paper towels, half a package of deli ham and one dry shirt later, the cat curled up on his lap while he did some research.

There were plenty of animal shelters in New York City, but the first few he called either admitted they were at capacity, or talked about a massively pregnant cat with such obvious strain that he felt safe assuming. He did managed to get an appointment the next day with a veterinarian--within walking distance, even--to at least confirm that the cat and all the kittens were healthy.

Then, running low on options, he called Karen.

"Are you hurt?"

"Why does everyone--never mind," because he already knew the answer. "And I'm not. I mean I am, but that's not what I was calling about. Technically."

"How bad is it?"

"Just tweaked my shoulder," he said, which was also technically true. "But I can't carry anything with that arm for a while and I...I need cat litter."

There was a suspiciously long silence on the other end. "Did you get a cat?" Karen asked warily.

"No. Well, sort of. I'm not keeping her."

"But there is a cat."

"Yes. Why would I ask you to bring me cat litter if there wasn't a cat?"

Karen did not answer that, which Matt probably should've been grateful for. "I'm taking my lunch in about forty-five minutes, I can run you some supplies. Are you at home?"

"Yeah, I'll be here."

"All right. See you then."

He put his phone down and gave the cat an absent pat. Now that she was clean and fully dry, her fur was soft and silky to the touch. He couldn't feel any sign of a microchip, but she had to have been a pet once, to be this affectionate with a human. Somebody had lost her--or she had lost them.

"You're making me maudlin," he informed the cat, who sort of yipped at him in reply.