What Goes Around...

Part Forty Five

Chapter Forty Five

Freya woke with her head still on the bench on the kitchen. It was dark, and something was weaving and purring around her ankles. Looking down she saw four white paws against the darkness of the floor. Reaching down she scooped up the ever boisterous and now far bigger Indiana.

"So little man, you're waking me up hey?"

The cat rubbed against her body purring wildly in response. Glancing at her watch she groaned, "it's two o'clock in the morning!"

As she shook her head and prepared to feed the animal, another body flung itself against her ankle. Retrieving the black eared Marie Curie, she smiled dropping her head to nuzzle her nose in both of their fur.

"Typical cat. Who cares what the time is? It's all about you, hey?"

Dropping them to the floor, she felt her way to the kitchen and found the light above the cooker. It cast enough light that she could find the cupboard that stored the cat food, and their bowls that Mitchell Cooper insisted on kicking them under one of the cupboards when they weren't eating.

Retrieving them, she filled the bowls with sachets of kitten food, they were extravagantly expensive, but she had forced Mitchell Cooper to buy them so she doubly enjoyed feeding the cats, knowing they'd eaten into his wallet, literally.

Except tonight.

He'd been missing for more than twenty four hours, not a phone call or a message. Should she call the police? That was what you did when someone was missing. But was he missing? She'd thrown down an ultimatum, and he'd run off. That wasn't missing. That was bloody stupid. But then that was him.

She wasn't going to move out, not now. She was going to take her time, make sure it was the right time, the right place, a tear prickled the back of her eyes as she thought about life without him, as much as she'd tried to avoid it, she had become hugely dependent on him, and if this wasn't love...then it was as close as she'd ever know. He occupied her every thought, she longed to be near him, she constantly forgave him all his slurs, his avoidances, they wound each other up, but she loved that he challenged her.

She just wished he'd come home. As the hours ticked by she had to accept the fact that this was never going to work out, that she couldn't pretend she didn't feel the way she did about him. All she could hope was that he'd come back...and they could work out a way to be parents together without her heart breaking anymore.

The kittens had wolfed down their dinner, and were once again winding around her, so she scooped them up into her arms, "come on then guys. YOU at least want to share my bed!"

She had barely reached the bottom step, a cat under each arm when she heard a vehicle pull into the driveway. Her heart stopped, she froze mid step, at this ridiculous hour there was only one person it could be. She had a second or two to decide what to do. Most of her wanted to run, dash upstairs and bury herself under her duvet, pretend that he wasn't there. But she knew that would solve nothing. So she stood still, listening for the door over the almost deafening pounding of her heart.

"You're up? It's almost three am, what's wrong?"

Freya took several deep breaths as she drank in the sound of his voice, then she turned slowly to face him. He looked good, she'd wondered if he'd be troubled, but there was no sign of that as he crossed the lounge to her.

"What's wrong?" She asked quietly. "Nothing really, I fell asleep on the chair." She gestured to the lounge.

"You must be exhausted."