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It was Monday — one of those days when Natalie Lambert questioned why she had chosen to go into pathology in the first place. The past weekend had brought, in addition to the usual customers, a multiple fatality car crash on the Gardiner Expressway, an explosion in a bar in Chinatown and an unexplained epidemic at Wellesley Hospital. The cold storage lockers were all full, and here she was: working on her day off.
She was getting ready to start her second autopsy, and taking as much time as possible. It was the kind of examination that Natalie most feared and hated: a five year old girl named Amber Tang-yuk, covered in burns from the explosion, whose only crime was that she had been in the wrong restaurant at the wrong time. Natalie stood over the tiny body, scalpel in hand, trying to work up the nerve to cut, when the telephone rang. Relief at having yet another reason to delay shot through her. Shoving her baseball cap back with one latex gloved hand, she answered, "Lambert."
"Nat, are you going to be there for a while?" Nick's voice sounded guarded, even over the telephone.
"Probably all night. We're backed right up. It's a lot worse than Grace hinted at over the phone earlier." Natalie sighed wearily. "I don't think I'm going to get to go home any time soon. Why?"
"I've run into a small problem, and I was hoping you could help me with it."
"What?"
"You know those kittens that someone dropped off on my doorstep?"
"Yes?" Nat stretched cautiously, trying to work some of the kinks out of her spine.
"Well...I was hoping that you would help me out by finding a home for one of them."
Balancing the headset between her shoulder and ear, Natalie took a stack of papers from an orderly who poked his head around the door. She thumbed through the reports while she listened to Nick. "Sure, Nick. No problem. I can't keep him though. The last time I tried to introduce another cat into my household, Sidney almost ate him for dinner."
"So, I can bring him over?" Nick asked hopefully, eager to regain control of his loft from the miniature furry terrors that had taken over.
Tracing her thumb down a line of test results, Natalie muttered distractedly, "Hmmm....sure ... whatever."
A few minutes later, Natalie found what she was looking for in the report and realized that the annoying beeping in her ear came from a disconnected phone line. Hanging up the phone, she dumped the papers on her desk, scribbled a couple of notes, and then remembered her surgical gloves. She quickly stripped them off and snapped on a new pair, moving to begin the autopsy before she starting thinking about it all over again.
Grimly controlling an urge to cry, Natalie made the first incision. She moved swiftly and automatically through the examination, her clipped voice recording observations into the microphone hung over her head.
It was finally over. Natalie took a shaky breath, and began stitching Amber's mutilated body back together.
"Nat?" Nick peered around the door.
"Come on in." She gestured with a bloody glove to Nick. "I'm just finishing up."
He peered at the body on the examining table, bending a little awkwardly, with one arm wrapped over his chest, firmly holding his jacket closed. "Bomb or car?"
"Bomb." Natalie swiped at her forehead with her arm. "She was only five years old, Nick."
"Nat...." Nick began awkwardly. "I'm sorry."
"You're not responsible for everything that goes wrong in this world." Exhaustion and stress made her speak more sharply than she intended. Unwilling to apologize, she turned her back to Nick and started sorting the tissue samples she had taken from Amber.
He stared at her bent head for a moment, then moved around so he was standing next to her. Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a kitten and placed him on the lab counter in front of Natalie. Green eyes gazed up at her, from a tiny white face dominated by over-size rusty red ears and a skull cap marking of the same red fur. Another island of red marked the middle of his back, setting off the white fur that covered the rest of his body.
"Nick!" Natalie grabbed at a couple of slides from under the kitten's paws. "Why did you bring him here?"
"You said I could bring him over right away." Nick hung his head slightly, assuming the little boy lost look that usually got him what he wanted.
"I said... I...." Natalie fumed. "Why would I want you to bring a kitten to the morgue?"
"But I thought...."
"Thought? What exactly were you thinking, Nick?" Natalie glared at him, as she rescued some papers that the kitten was sniffing at with interest. "As a matter of fact, do you ever think?"
Nick stared at her dumbfounded. His mouth worked but no words emerged. This was not the reaction he had expected. The strained silence was broken by the piercing ring of his cellular phone.
"Knight." Nick backed away a couple of steps. He listened closely to the voice at the other end of the phone, nodding and making the occasional agreeing noise. At the end of the call, he slipped the phone back in his pocket and turned to Natalie. "That was Tracy. They've located a suspect in the bombing. I've got to go."
Before she could disagree, he flew out the door, leaving her with the kitten. She stared at the offending feline in disgust. "Just great. Now what am I supposed to do with you?"
"Mrrow!" The kitten pushed his nose against her hand and purred.
"You are kind of cute. With paws like that, it looks like you're going to grow up to be a big guy." Natalie picked him up and checked the tag around his neck. "Rusty, hmmmm. It suits you." She sat on the edge of her desk and stroked the kitten pensively. "I have no idea what I'm going to do with you though. I can't take you home with me ... and I definitely can't leave you here."
Looking around the room, Natalie's eyes lit on a box of body bags. Holding Rusty in one hand, she emptied out a couple of bags, and put unrolled cotton bandages on top of the rest. "That should be comfortable for a while, and hopefully keep you amused."
Rusty yawned unconcernedly when Natalie placed him in the centre of the make-shift nest. He kept one eye on the human as he pushed and pulled the bandages until he was satisfied with the arrangement. He settled in, began grooming himself and surreptitiously examined his surroundings.
Natalie returned to Amber, determined to make the little girl as presentable as possible before her father arrived to identify the body. She checked her watch. Half an hour left. There should be just enough time if she hurried.
Watching the human mumble and play with whatever was on the table in the middle of the room became boring very fast. Rusty gave his left paw one final lick and decided it was time to explore. A short scramble and he was out of the box. Shaking himself — and stretching for good measure — he wrapped his dignity around himself and headed for the string he had spied on the other side of the room.
Padding silently, Rusty skirted the table on the opposite side to the human and sat down. The strands were clear and a quick bat revealed that they were soft as well. He amused himself for a little while hitting them backwards and forwards, tangling them around each other and the shiny pole. Then, he looked up and saw that the ropes were hanging down from bags balanced at the top of the pole. He narrowed his eyes, but could not decide what was in the pouches. He returned to toying with the strands, but kept sneaking quick glances up the pole.
The game rapidly became boring; curiosity nagged incessantly at the corner of his mind. What exactly was in those bags? Rusty tugged gently on a couple of dangling strings. The pole rocked a little, but that was all. Peering around, he reassured himself that the human was still busy, and wasn't taking any notice of him.
Natalie finished the last stitch with a flourish, and blindly reached behind her for a sheet to cover Amber. Just in time too. Her father should be there any minute.
Gathering his back legs, Rusty leaped and sank his claws into the soft strands, pulling himself upwards.
The door opened and Grace poked her head around. "Mr. Tang-yuk is here. Shall I bring him in?"
"Fine." Natalie straightened the sheet and smoothed the sides. "I just finished."
"You okay?" Grace frowned.
"I'm fine. Just tired. I had planned on catching up on my sleep today."
"Maybe next time." Grace smiled sympathetically. "He brought his other kid with him. I'll keep her occupied in the waiting room until you're done in here."
The pole wobbled threateningly as Rusty continued his climb.
"Mr. Tang-yuk, this is Dr. Lambert." Grace disappeared out the door, leaving behind a lost-looking Asian man.
With the efficiency of long practice, Natalie took the father by one arm and led him gently towards the table in the centre of the room. She murmured reassuringly the entire time, knowing he wasn't really listening. With a brief movement, she lifted a corner of the sheet from Amber's face. He nodded and covered his eyes.
CRASH!
The two humans jumped and spun around just in time to see Rusty sprawled on top of an IV pole, tangled in tubing and soaking wet from the contents of the clear bag that had burst open on impact.
"DADDY!" A high-pitched scream pierced the silence, followed by a small shape hurtling through the door. A young girl of maybe seven or eight skidded to a stop just before stepping on the frightened kitten. Her dark eyes rounded with wonder as she slowly knelt down and picked up Rusty. "Ooooh," she breathed.
"I am so sorry. I don't.... This shouldn't have..." Natalie pressed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. She was definitely getting a headache.
"You okay, Mei-Mei?" The father knelt down on the other side of the pole and stroked one hand down his daughter's arm.
Mei-Mei raised her grimy, tear-stained face, clutching the purring kitten to her chest. "Can we keep him, daddy?"
"I think he belongs to Dr. Lambert." Mr. Tang-yuk glanced at Natalie for confirmation.
"Actually, Rusty doesn't belong to anyone. A friend asked me to find a home for him."
"Please, daddy?" The little girl kissed the red fur on the top of Rusty's head.
Her father hesitated for a moment, then looked from the little girl on the floor to the sheet- covered table and back again. Sorrow flashed through his eyes. "If you take care of him."
"I promise." Mei-Mei smiled.
Mr. Tang-yuk gathered his daughter and Rusty into his arms. Before he went out the door, he turned to Natalie. "Thank you."
As soon as the door closed, Natalie collapsed into her chair, squeezed her eyes shut and took several deep breaths. She definitely had to get some sleep.