Subject: [DarkSlash] Fic: Cat Trek of the Reman Slayers (7) Spotslash: Buffy/STDS9 C/O)
Date: Sat, 03 Apr 2004 00:16:41 -0000
From: "sycoraxil" <sycoraxil@yahoo.co.nz>


Summary: Finally, Kitty Fantastico and her Starfleet allies have
inflicted a crushing defeat on her nemesis, the First Evil, murderer
of her husband Patches and destroyer of the entire Romulan species.
In this final episode, two feline Starfleet officers have reached the
end of an idyllic week on Bajor...

Disclaimer: Kitty Fantastico was a creation of Joss Whedon, UPN and
Mutant Enemy. Spot is a creation of the Star Trek the Next Generation
franchise and the Estate of the late Gene Roddenberry.


Kitty trailed a paw in the water, and she attracted an unwary fish,
who was snagged in order to provide her and her new paramour, Spot
the Trill feline symbiont, with one final evening's food. Kitty had
resigned from her position at Starfleet and had received a message
from her world's Sunnydale one day later. She was needed back home,
to assist her humans and the slayer against the First Evil, once
more.

Spot accepted it, although not without some sadness. He knew that
this day would come after Kitty defeated the First, but he had
dreaded it. And he knew she had too. Released from her vengeance
orientation, their care for one another had become love, but each of
them had their respective duties. And Spot also appreciated Kitty's
role in resolving his own obsession with justice for Data's own
recent death, which didn't hurt as much now that she was here. He
also knew that she couldn't stay, but he realised that she cared for
the humans Willow and Tara, and had her own responsibilities four
hundred years ago, in an alternate past.

So they had resolved on a compromise. Each year, one of them would
visit the other's historical period, and they would spend those
stolen moments together, like this one. They cuddled together as
Kitty assembled her travelling effects in a carrybag:

"So soon?"
"Thank you, Spot. I wish that I could stay here, in this moment, with
you."
"Yeah, but things are tough back home."
"I'm not running out on you, am I? I mean, with the Romulans gone,
there's going to be an interstellar power vacuum in this timeline.
I feel that I should stay-"
"Kitty, don't you *dare* blame yourself for what happened to them.
Their psitech opened the portal that enabled the First and ubervamps
to cross over to this timeline, recklessly endangering everyone in
it. They have to bear some degree of responsibility for what
happened. And we can handle it."
"I'll miss you, Spot."
"I love you, Kitty. But I guess it's too soon after Patches death for
you to have any sort of regular commitment to anyone else."
"Give me time, Spot. One day, perhaps. As it is, you've helped me to
avenge his death, and I've found someone else to share part of my
life with. It'll have to be stolen moments for a while."
"Come back, Kitty. Destroy the First's foothold in your own time, and
we can begin to build a life together."

"Until next time, Spot." She nuzzled him affectionately, as the small
black and white feline that had saved a world padded toward an
ambient circle of golden light, which opened onto a candle-shrouded
room with three humans holding hands. She took one last look at Spot
for the time being, and smiled gently at him. It tore at her heart
too, but at least her life wasn't as empty anymore. Then she padded
into the circle and out of the timeline that she had called home for
the last few months, into the hell-haunted city that she had been
born, mated, and raised her brood of vampire kittens within.

Willow and Tara embraced her as she appeared in their midst, but they
could tell that there was something different. As Doug Mercer knelt
alongside Kitty, she looked up at him:
"At peace, Kitty? Good. We need that."

And with those words, Kitty Fantastico resumed her life, fighting
alongside Buffy Summers the vampire slayer and her allies, as she
prepared to face her adversary once more. And several centuries in an
alternate future, a Trill feline nuzzled the wiccan talisman on his
servocollar and padded toward the assembly spot:
"Commander Spot to Trim Flinders. One to beam up."

                          THE END