A/N: Another one-shot, kinda angsty-sad (or at least it's supposed to be). I can't vouch for how well it turned out, but Chapter 3 of the Misto fic is giving me trouble and this idea popped in my head while I was listening to my sister's Savage Garden CD. It's set sometime after the events in "Someday", but from Tumble's POV this time. Basically a 'what if' thingummy, but a little dark. Let me know whatcha think, kitties. Now, on wit da ficcy!
Disclaimer: "You Can Still Be Free" is property of Savage Garden and whoever else. Exclusive rights to CATS belong to ALW and RUG. I'm just borrowing it for awhile. "...of Heaven and Hell" is, of course, part of an excerpt from "Jellicle Songs for Jellicle Cats" - more specifically, Tumblebrutus' solo.
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Cool breeze and autumn leaves
Slow motion daylight
A lone pair of watchful eyes
Oversee the living
I promised myself I wouldn't forget. I remember clearly standing before his grave, vowing to whatever god could hear me that his memory would live on through me; that I would find a way to make it happen. Memory. It's a funny thing, really. When I was smaller, memories for me were images - remembered sensations of my mother's warm tongue against my fur, biting into my first real kill, staring down at my new baby sister as she lay curled up in Mother's arms. Our baby sister. It was our job to introduce her to the world, to teach her what happiness was. This was a lesson neither of us wanted her to learn.
Grizabella told us that memory is not always something we like to look back on. Sometimes it is painful. Sometimes it visits us in our sleep when it has been banished from our waking thoughts, torturing and devouring the one that bears it.
She had no idea.
Feel the presence all around
The tortured soul
A wound unhealing
No regrets or promises
The past is gone
I tried to stop him. I've told myself that so much that I'm starting to believe it. Somehow the idea that I tried to stop the inevitable makes the burden easier on my heart. Actually having an impact makes no difference, but if I can convince myself that I would have done something if I could, then I can live with it. If you call this half-existence living. At least I'm able to fool most of the others. They just accept my sudden introversion as a normal side effect to the tragic death of a loved one. The adults try to understand and the other kittens try to coax me back out to play with them. They act as though nothing ever happened, but I can't. It used to be that every waking moment of the day I would see his face grinning down at me, and sometimes he even spoke to me, telling me not to worry about him, that we would see each other again.
How can I believe that? Why would he want to see me again? In a sense, I'm the one who killed him. And I still haven't forgiven myself.
I used to be able to remember the whole day as if it was a recording playing incessantly in my mind - always rewinding and replaying the part that I had tried so hard to forget.
It was early in the morning when he woke me up. I remember hissing at him - the dream he had woken me up from was one I would have liked to get back to - but he wasn't deterred in the slightest. He just grinned at me and batted playfully at my whiskers. "Up, Tumble, get up! You'll never guess what I found!"
Wiping the lost sleep from my eyes, I glared at him irritably. "What is this thing that's so important it couldn't wait until later?"
For a second I thought the resulting grin might split his face in half. He half-pulled me off of my perch in the old tire, jumping around excitedly. "That's what I'm gonna show you if you can just wake up for two seconds and follow me!"
Not really having a choice in the matter, I followed him groggily. We were the only ones up, but he didn't bother with trying to be quiet. I remember having to shush him more than once before we were out of the Junkyard proper and right next to the small road that ran from the Junkyard all the way to Tottenham court. Sitting down, I said: "All right, if you don't tell me right now what this thing is that I'm losing sleep over, I'm heading straight back."
"But if I tell you then it won't be a surprise, and that's half the fun," he chirped, practically doing backflips across the road.
I followed, but slower. "I'm serious," I protested, stopping on the other side. "At least let me go get the other guys so they can see it too."
His eyes widened for a second, and he shook his head adamantly. "It's something you have to see now."
By this time I was getting rather annoyed, not only at my interrupted dream cycle, but at his stubbornness, as well. "Why do you have to be such a kitten all the time? Nothing you want to show me can be that important!"
His face fell, and instantly I felt guilty, but then the hurt in his eyes turned to anger. "Well then if you don't want to see it, then you can go back for all I care! Go back to your damn sleep!"
"I will," I retorted heatedly, walking back across the road. Behind me, the fire in his eyes died, and he called my name, running after me across the road.
I don't remember anything after that except the squealing of brakes and a broken scream.
I had lost him.
Pouncival.
But you can still be free
If time will set you free
In some ways, it's a small blessing that I don't remember much. What I can remember sticks in my mind like an acrid taste, souring everything I come in contact with. The moments of happiness are few and far between for me now. It's not only because I lost my only brother, but also that no one else seemed to be much affected by it. At first the shock was enough to make it seem like they were sad, but now only a handful really were affected, to my mind. Mother was, of course. All the other adults spent all the spare time they could comforting her. We got less comfort than perhaps we needed - Etcetera and me. Of course Etcy would be sad. She loved us both, but I had always known that Pounce was her favourite brother. He was the one that would play with her for hours on end when the other queen kits were at home and I was too busy. They had so many inside jokes I couldn't even begin to count them, and he was also the one who helped Mother teach her how to hunt.
She sobbed in my arms when I told her. It hurt to see her smiling face in pain, but I had to stay strong for her. Since Pounce wasn't there to help hold her up anymore, I had to be the protector.
Maybe that's why I never cried. I prefer that thought to the other that haunts me at night.
You killed him. If you had been a better brother, he would still be here. And he'd hate you for what you've done. Murderer.
Time now to spread your wings
To take to flight
The life endeavor
Aim for the burning sun
You're trapped inside
I don't dare to tell anyone. They would either insist that the voice in my head is spewing utter nonsense, or they might shun me, the second of which I find most likely. How would you feel if someone came up to you and told you that they had killed your son or your brother? And that person was also your son or brother? I will spare them the pain, since I cannot spare myself.
Electra tells me it's time to move on, that Pounce would have wanted me to get on with life. She's really the only one who sees that I haven't been getting on with life. I had never taken her seriously before; she was just another screaming member of the Tugger Fan Club - fun to be around, but not one to turn to for a deep conversation.
She had been playing tag with the other younger kittens that day, and I, as per usual, was on top of Pounce's favourite old rocking chair, lost in my thoughts. I had been watching them with half of an eye; too lethargic with new grief to join in, and closed my eyes when Jemima tackled her older sister, hissing and swatting at her ears playfully. Only too clearly back then could I visualize how my brother and I used to have that much fun giving ourselves up to reckless abandon. It was painful to dredge up those memories so close to my grief, though later I would come to wish that I still could. With my eyes closed I hadn't noticed that the tabby kitten had come up to where I was until her nose was inches from my face.
She cocked one eyebrow quizzically, and her penetrating eyes seemed to see straight into my heart and recognize the struggle there. The part of me that wanted to get out and play all my feelings out versus the part that was still in mourning. Without saying a word, she settled down on the rickety chair beside me and licked my face with soft, caring swipes of her tongue. The gesture comforted me and at the same time reminded me of my mother. Strangely enough, it calmed me down enough to the point where I would talk. I poured all my emotions out to her, and she took it all, sitting beside me like some wise witch's familiar with her face expressionless. When I had finished she told me something that made my own ears prick up and my view of her change considerably. She told me that she and Jemima were only half sisters - they shared the same mother. Before Jennyanydots had met the Railway Cat, there had been another tom in her life. Electra wasn't even born yet when a Pollicle killed her father. She must have mistook my shocked speechlessness for apathy, for then she placed one paw gently under my chin and lowered her face to my sitting eye level and said: "I never had a chance to get to know my father. Would you rather waste the rest of your life as a lifeless shadow of your lost one, or be grateful for the times you were fortunate enough to have together?"
But you can still be free
If time will set you free
But it's a long long way to go
She more than anyone has been helping me through the past months. We spent considerably more time together than ever before, sometimes talking about each other's past or even joking a little. With her help I began to feel again, to experience the world again not for myself alone, but also for the one that was taken from it so abruptly. She assured me that if I imagined him as still being with me, then his memory would become a source of comfort and inspiration to me rather than a ticket to self-loathing. But not she with her worlds of comfort, nor Tantomile or Coricopat with their unearthly wisdom, nor Mistoffelees with all his magic, could predict what Jemima would do for me.
It was raining on the day that I found her by his grave, which at the time had seemed terribly fitting to me. Little Jemima calling down the tears of the gods to a lament. I started to pad silently towards her, not wanting to disturb her, but also somewhat worried, for her small form was shaking uncontrollably and her fur was soaked through. Then she turned to face me, and I came face to face with the tears in her soulful green eyes - how much they mirrored the tears of my heart! Her voice was soft, as it always was, but carried with it a hint of happiness that danced through it like a light and coloured every word. "I can hear him," she told me shakily.
"What does he tell you?" I asked just as softly, managing to mask the pain.
She gave a little sob and placed one paw gently over my own. "He says...that he has found the Heaviside Layer, but he is not content."
I felt like giving a sob of my own then. What fate had I doomed my brother too, that he could not find happiness even in the other life?
"But..."
My head jerked up at that one word. At that moment it seemed as though that one word could change my entire life. But what? But what?
"He said...to watch for him soon." She swiped at her tears angrily with one paw. "He told me that I would know him when he came. He wanted to talk to you."
She had unknowingly helped to convince me that I was not the only one affected by Pouncival's death, but she could not keep her words from echoing in my mind.
He wanted to talk to you...
...talk to you.
For the next few days I pondered Jemima's words in solitude. I told no one, not even Electra. This was one matter I had to work out for myself. Jemima had said that he was coming soon. But how soon was soon? I almost wished it could be interpreted as 'never', then I wouldn't have to deal with the guilt I felt was imminent. Of course he would want to talk to me about his death. About how I killed him.
Then Tugger and Bombalurina's first litter arrived, and everything changed.
One of the kittens was a little smaller than the rest, with the dominant tabby markings and red under-colouring, but one feature stood out to everyone who saw him.
There was a grey patch over his left eye.
Keep moving way up high
You see the light
It shines forever
Sail through the crimson skies
The purest light
The light that sets you free
Naturally, I avoided the kitten like the plague. From the first moment I had seen it, something in my mind told me, "Get as far away from it as you can. If it really is him, he'll be better off this time without you."
The change in my manner was noticeable to everyone, although most of them kept their silence. I knew it was hurting them to see me regress from the progress I had been able to make in the past few months, but I didn't care.
If time will set you free
I watched the kittens from the sidelines, mostly. I laughed to myself whenever the one with the patch on his eye would chase an errant butterfly through the Junkyard. He did remind me a lot of Pouncival, and I noticed Jemima seemed to be his primary choice as playmate. There never looked to be any unusual dialogue between them, however, so I kept my mouth shut.
It was during that period that I indulged the explorer part of me. I got to the point where I knew every piece of trash and every patch of grass in the Junkyard proper and up to the old road. It took awhile before I could muster enough courage to actually cross the thing, but what I found there when I did was enough to send me over the edge and back again. I may have forgotten his face, but I swear to the Everlasting Cat I will never forget what I found that day.
Past the old road, there was a clearing that looked large enough to fit two human houses in. Many good-sized stones lay strewn about it. At first I thought the pattern was random, but then I realized that the rocks formed words with their positions. Not words as humans see them, but words visible only to cats, in our own peculiar language. The stones spelled out: "To the bestest brother ever. Love, Pouncival."
I was off by myself when he sought me out. I remember looking up from my reverie to find the undersized kitten staring intently at me. Then he said them. The words that dispelled all my doubts and left me in a crying heap at this small creature's feet.
"I love you, brother."
Sail through the wind and rain tonight
You're free to fly tonight
And you can still be free
If time will set you free
And going higher than mountain tops
And go high the wind won't stop
And go high
Free to fly tonight
Free to fly tonight
Free to fly tonight
Free to fly tonight
Free to fly tonight
THE END