Chapter Text
The stages of being cursed are, Clarke discovers when she wakes up one morning as a fucking cat, very similar to the stages of grief.
Denial is a gimme. While she was aware that being cursed was an option, which put her ahead of most people, there's a difference between knowing that people could, in theory, be turned into animals and thinking it would ever happen to her. It's an effort, cursing someone into cat form. And Clarke hadn't thought she'd pissed anyone off that much recently, if she ever had.
So she tells herself it must be a dream, it must be a mistake, that it's going to wear off soon, that it's anything but what it is.
When she fails to wake herself up or change back, though, she moves onto anger, and she at least makes that one productive. She doesn't want to destroy her own possessions or starve to death, so she channels her rage into throwing herself against the screen in her bedroom window until it pops out, and then she shreds it, just for good measure.
She doesn't really have anyone to bargain with, so it's mostly bargaining with a higher being she doesn't actually believe in, asking for this to be one of those twenty-four-hour curses, promising to be a better person in some indefinable way, apologizing to whoever she pissed off so much that they turned her into a fucking cat and promising not to kill them if they turn her back.
Then it starts to rain, and in no time she's cold and hungry and miserable and firmly into the depression stage of grief, which is where she stays for a long time. She moved to the city only a few months ago, and she doesn't really have much of a support system, certainly not a support system that could help with her being changed into a cat. She's not going to go to her boss or her last one-night stand and try to communicate her identity. She doesn't have a single good way to deal with this situation, doesn't even have an idea of where to start.
But acceptance comes, eventually, when it's been two days and her stomach is empty and grumbling. Whatever happened, whatever caused this, it's her life now, and her options are to figure out how to deal with it or die, and there's no way she's dying of being a cat.
So she's going to deal.
It's still not easy. She may be a cat, but her brain is still human and still wants to do things the human way. She has to force herself to eat things she'd never touch, left to her own devices, rooting around in garbage cans, letting her instincts take over as she stalks birds and small rodents. It's gross, but she doesn't have a lot of other options. She doesn't know the city well enough to figure out where the witches are, but she figures she'll find them sooner or later. All she has to do is survive long enough to get cured or break the curse.
It's still not a particularly good existence, which is probably why the smell of sushi in the park hits her so hard. It's the first food she's encountered in two fucking months that appeals to not only her cat stomach but her human self, which is probably why she's reckless in going after it. Plus, she has an advantage that ordinary cats lack: she understands people. She knows, for a fact, that the guy sitting on the bench has even odds of shooing her away if she goes begging, but she also knows that humans aren't actually prepared for a cat to jump onto them out of nowhere and steal their shit. She can be in and out with a piece of fish before he knows what hit him.
The first part of the plan goes off without a hitch. She bounds up, jumps into the guy's lap, ignores his oof of pain to grab the biggest piece of fish she can see. It would be the perfect crime, except that there's nowhere for her to go with the fish; there's a fountain on the other side of the bench she didn't notice, and she's already moving that direction. She could turn around, but she'd look stupid and, really, it's not like the guy is going to take his fish back, at this point. It's been in her mouth.
Besides, she's a cat. She's cute. So she revises her plan and turns around to curl onto the bench next to the guy, purring up a storm as she tucks into the fish. She thinks it's tuna, pretty high quality, too. She finishes it in three bites and doesn't even have time to start licking her paw before there's another piece in front of her.
"Go ahead," says the guy, when she just sort of stares at it. "You look like you need it more than I do."
Even if she could, Clarke wouldn't want to argue with him. The fish is the best thing she's eaten in her life, it feels like, and every time she finishes one piece, he gives her another. It's so fucking good, she can't--
She can't pay attention to anything else, which is how the guy gets a hand under her ribs, lifting her up gently as she finishes her last piece.
"It's okay," he says. He's got a deep, rumbling voice, but he pitches it soft and soothing. "It's okay. It's not far." She starts to squirm, but he adds, "Trust me, my place is nice. There's more fish."
Getting taken in by a kindly stranger had been something Clarke had been thinking of, off and on. It seemed like a better prospect than living on the street, and she might be able to use the computer or something to do some incognito-mode browsing to try to figure out what had happened to her, assuming she could get her paws to cooperate. The biggest stumbling block had been finding someone who wouldn't bring her to an animal shelter, which seemed way too risky. And this guy could be lying, obviously, but she is a cat. He has no reason to think she understands him, so the tone of his voice matters a lot more than the content. He's reassuring her, but he's reassuring her that he's taking her home.
She nuzzles into his chest and purrs.
"Okay, you're good with that one, huh?" He gives her head a scratch. "Yeah, I thought so. No collar, huh?"
Clarke gets the impulse to talk to animals, but it's weird to be on the other side of it. She feels as if she should be responding, but there's nothing to say. She doesn't have a collar, as he can plainly see. She also doesn't have human vocal chords.
"I need something to eat before my meeting anyway," the guy goes on. "You ate my lunch."
That one seems like his fault, but Clarke can't say much about that. Instead, she turns her attention to the guy himself. He's got her cradled in his arms, which are warm and firm. She can feel corded muscle under her skin, both on his arms and his chest; he seems to be in pretty good shape. He's wearing slacks and black shoes, fairly unremarkable work clothes, and he has a quick, even gait.
She cranes her head up to actually see his face, and that one is harder. The angle is all wrong, so his chin blocks most of his features; she can tell he's clean-shaven, with tan skin and dark curly hair, but that's about it.
"I really hope you're house-trained," he mutters, and Clarke purrs harder.
*
The guy's name is Bellamy Blake, which she figures out by jumping up on his counter and reading some of his mail. He shoos her down almost immediately, which is probably fair, and then scoops her up and brings her into his bathroom.
"I'm not going to have time to pick anything up until after this meeting," he says. "So if you're going to pee just do it somewhere easy to clean, deal?"
He closes the door, and Clarke immediately runs over to scratch it and yowl. She appreciates his taking her in and all, but he didn't even give her water. And the fish made her thirsty.
Luckily, he's back in a few minutes with a muttered, "Jesus Christ." But he also has a bowl with canned tuna and another empty bowl he fills up with water in the sink, so as random humans go, he's a very good one.
He gives her a scratch behind the ears as she starts to lap up the water. "Okay, uh--I'll see if I have time to go online and look for your owner while I'm waiting for Monty, okay? But I'll get some stuff in case I don't find anything too. Just sit tight."
She's not expecting to see him again before he leaves, but he's back again about twenty minutes later to put a folded up towel on the ground, presumably for a bed, and a couple balls of wadded up tin foil.
To make sure he knows that the gesture is appreciated, she goes over and curls up in the towel, purring up a storm. Her eyes are closed, but she hears a soft snort of laughter, feels his hand giving her head one more scratch. "Okay, see you later, cat."
The bathroom isn't a particularly great hangout, but Clarke really is grateful for the towel. By her increasingly questionable count, she's been a cat for about two months, and she hasn't really been sleeping very well since then. It's less the discomfort of sleeping outside and more paranoia; she's a predator, she knows, but there are still plenty of threats around. She's had dogs barking at her, other cats chasing her out of their territory, scooters and bikes coming out of nowhere, to say nothing of cars. It's a huge relief to just be somewhere safe, quiet, and comfortable, and even if she decides she has to bail because Bellamy can't keep her, she'll at least have gotten some good sleep out of it.
She doesn't know how long she sleeps, but the sound of the toilet flushing is what finally wakes her, and she startles up. The light is on and Bellamy is washing his hands, the water on low, as if he's trying not to wake her. Outside, she can see it's gotten dark. For all she knows, it's the middle of the night.
She stands and stretches, letting out a mrowr so Bellamy knows she's awake.
"Hey," he says, his voice still carefully soft. "Thanks for not shitting on any of my stuff."
She bumps against his legs, like she's seen real cats do, and he picks her up and scratches her behind the ears. "Good news, I got you some stuff."
She hadn't gotten much of a look at the apartment before, but it's pretty nice. He seems to have the whole second floor of a small house, and it's all hardwood floors and windows, probably bright and sunny during the day. He brings her into what looks like a bedroom, but it's pretty much empty aside from the cat stuff and some pictures on the wall. Maybe he just moved in and hasn't unpacked yet.
He shows her the litter box he set up and the station where he set up food and water. To her disappointment, he's gotten her some dry kibble instead of more tuna, but it's probably the thought that counts. Plus, he seems like a softie; if she refuses to eat the kibble, he'll probably try something else.
The last thing he shows her is a cardboard scratching post, which she figures will be another one of those nice gestures that she'd appreciate more if she was a real cat, but then she gets a whiff of--something. Something she's definitely never smelled before, something that makes her whole body go haywire with the need to get closer to it.
Bellamy chuckles as she rams her face into the scratching post. "Oh good. The guy at the pet store said not all cats like catnip."
Catnip. That explains some things.
"Have fun," says Bellamy, and Clarke's having so much fun already that she barely even notices when he leaves.
*
She wakes up the next morning and gives her scratching post a wide berth. Getting high as a cat was definitely fun, but she can't just spend her whole day hallucinating and running around Bellamy's house. She's got investigating to do.
Without a phone or watch, it's been tough for Clarke to check the time, but it seems like late morning, judging from how how much sun is streaming in the windows and where it's coming from. She's expecting that Bellamy will already be at work, but when she pads into the kitchen she finds him sitting at the island, doing something on his laptop.
Maybe it's Saturday? It's not like she's been doing great figuring out what day of the week it is since she transformed.
She weaves her way between the legs of Bellamy's stool, mewling hopefully, and Bellamy startles.
"Oh, hey, cat."
At some point, she assumes he'll come up with a name for her, but his just calling her cat is kind of endearing. She can't really get a read on him, if she's honest; he doesn't seem upset to have her, but he also doesn't seem particularly thrilled, for all he adopted her with no hesitation. She remembers when Wells found a stray puppy when they were kids and it was basically the most exciting thing that had ever happened to him. Bellamy seems to think of it as mostly an act of mundane charity.
Case in point: he reaches down, gives her one quick pet, and then stops paying her any mind.
Not that she minds, really. She takes the opportunity to explore his place a little, first the kitchen and living room, and then the place she's really interested in, his bedroom. By this point, she's gotten to see more of him, enough to have a guess at his age--mid-to-late twenties, a few years older than she is--and a sort of general read of his personality. He's handsome without putting too much effort in, working a kind of absent-minded genius vibe that probably gets him laid as regularly as he wants.
His room has the same kind of feeling to it. She'd assumed, based on the number of books in his living room, that all his books were out there, but he seems to be trying to single-handedly keep print media alive. There are shelves lining the walls of his room, too, taking up most of the room that isn't his bed. He's got some laundry strewn around and the bed isn't made, but it's more cluttered than messy. He could get it tidy in about ten minutes if he had to.
She jumps up onto the bed and gets hit with a strong whiff of his scent, shampoo and soap and earthy boy scent. Weirdly, it makes her feel welcome here, safe, and she thinks she'd rather sleep in here than on the nice cushion he put in the other room. That didn't smell like anything.
He's got a clock radio on his bedside table that gives her all the information she's looking for about time: Thursday at 10:47, which just raises more questions.
For a few seconds, she just sits on the bed, twitching her tail, trying to think of her next move. She can't really try to use his do research while he's here, and she doesn't want to escape and give up on a good situation unless she has a firm idea of where she's going. Running off into the wilderness might seem like a good idea if she hadn't already been in the wilderness; now she's into creature comforts. She regretted leaving her own apartment so quickly in under a day. She's not making that mistake again.
Maybe he's in grad school. He left the house yesterday, so he'll definitely do it again. He has to get groceries and stuff. She can figure something out. And she saw screens in several of his windows; if she has to escape, she can.
There are a lot worse places than this to spend a few days, if it comes to that.
Once she's finished exploring the oddly empty apartment, Clarke goes back to the kitchen. Bellamy is exactly where she left him, although he's gained a mug, so he probably moved at some point. He's got a day of stubble on his cheeks and his glasses are pushed up on his forehead like they were doing him more harm than good.
It took Clarke a few weeks to get used to her new jumping range, but by now the calculations are pretty easy. She lines up and leaps onto the stool next to Bellamy, making him jump, and from there onto his lap.
"Uh, hi," he says.
She's seen a lot of cats, so she knows what she can get away with. She turns up the purring as she paces over his legs, ostensibly trying get comfortable but mostly because she wants to see what he's working on. It's definitely a word document, but the formatting looks wrong for a paper. The paragraphs are too short, and there are quotation marks, so it must be--
His hand comes down on her back, a firm pat that's more to push her down than to show affection. "If you're going to be a lap cat, can you at least sit down?" he grumbles.
It's not as if his lap is a bad place to be. She sits up straight, facing the laptop, which is definitely weird, but that's another advantage of being a cat. Cats are always weird.
"This is what we're doing?" he grumbles. "Fine."
And it really does seem to be fine with him. He repositions a little so he can type without bothering her, but then he gets back to work, occasionally taking a break to scratch her head. It feels good and she does want to not be too suspicious, so when he goes too long without petting her she butts her head against his arm, which he seems to find cute. Clarke hasn't gotten a great look at her cat self's face yet, but she thinks she's probably adorable.
Before she knows it, the sound of typing and Bellamy's even breathing lulls her back to sleep.
She can always figure out what to do about the curse tomorrow.
*
Despite her best efforts, that ends up being her routine at her new home. Bellamy leaves the apartment only rarely, and never for very long. When he goes, he tends to close his laptop, and Clarke never really has time to do any more than try to get it open before she gets paranoid and closes it again.
So mostly, she's been eating--just to be fair, she did try the kibble, but it was gross, and she howled by her bowl until Bellamy got her more tuna--sleeping, getting high on catnip, and making sure to be cute enough that Bellamy won't throw her out. And, when she's not busy with any of those other things, she's trying to figure out his deal.
He seems to switch between writing what she thinks is a (honestly pretty good) sci-fi novel and working as some kind of online tutor. He reads and comments on academic papers, and he seems to have chats going with both friends and clients, most of the time.
At least, she hopes they're friends. When she can get in close enough to read without raising suspicions, she'll see things like how are you holding up, which doesn't seem like something a client would write, and his standard response of fine.
Her best guess so far is that he had a roommate he had a thing for and it went wrong so they moved out. It explains the emptiness of the apartment, the reason he had a spare room just waiting to be filled with cat stuff. And there is something melancholy about Bellamy, some aura of loneliness and loss that still seems raw.
Clarke does her best to help. If and when she gets out of this, she's going to pay him back for the room and board and cat supplies, but in the meantime, she figures she can just be a good pet. Which is, admittedly, a little weird, but she sleeps at the foot of his bed and purrs when he pets her and keeps his lap warm when he's sitting for more than a few minutes. It's not hard, but she does think she's a pretty good cat. Even if she doesn't want to be.
Thanks to his bedside clock, she knows it's been exactly two weeks since he brought her home when he puts on his coat and says, "Okay, I've got a meeting with my editor. Don't wreck the house." He gives her ears a scratch. "See you tonight."
It's only one, so if he's not planning to be home until tonight, she's got hours to herself. She can actually get some stuff done.
And she really needs the time. She's gotten pretty good at opening the laptop, but trying to enter his password with her paws and nose takes a few tries, and then she has to get an incognito browser open, which involves a lot of coordination, and then she's faced with the realization that she has no idea where she's going from here.
Clarke is not a witch. Clarke's mother is a witch, and she spent many years of Clarke's life hoping that Clarke had the gift, but she just doesn't. She can put together basic spells, but she doesn't have the magic to power them, and that means that she's not really a part of the community. Her mother brought her to the coven at home, and she joined the one at her college too, but she hasn't looked up the local one because she doesn't really feel like she belongs. She really only has one resource to call on her, no matter how much she doesn't want to.
So, after what feels like twenty years, she gets an incognito email open and manages to type out what is by far the worst email she's ever written:
hi mom its clark i'm cursed cat
i m cat
stayin wt guy hes nice stealing his comp he doesn know i,m humn
pleas he;p
On the one hand, it's terrible. On the other hand, it's probably the best she's going to do, and she thinks it gets the idea across. And she has no idea how she'd ever manage to edit for more coherency. Hitting the backspace causes more problems than it solves.
She sends the email and checks the time; finds it's not even that three. Ideally, she'd stay by the laptop, waiting for her mother's reply, but the effort of getting the email sent really took it out of her. Plus, she's crepuscular now; just because she thinks she should sleep all night and be awake all day, it doesn't mean her cat body agrees.
At least she manages to log herself out of Chrome and close the window without fucking up any of Bellamy's tabs in the process, which is a major accomplishment. She closes the laptop, jumps off the island, and pads over to the sofa, where Bellamy has left a hoodie bundled on one of the cushions.
Definitely enough productivity for one afternoon.
*
"I can't believe you didn't tell me you got a cat!"
Clarke is jolted out of sleep by an unfamiliar voice, and when she blinks her eyes open she sees Bellamy has actual friends with him, to her surprise. They're both guys, and one of them is already coming over, kneeling down by the couch and offering her his hand to sniff.
"Yeah, this doesn't scream third-life-crisis at all," says the other guy, still by the door with Bellamy.
"Shut up," says Bellamy, without heat. "It jumped into my lap and stole my lunch, what was I supposed to do?"
"Take it to a shelter."
"It's a picky eater and it's comfortable around people," Bellamy explains, as the guy near Clarke starts scratching her ears. He's not quite as good at is as Bellamy is, but affection is affection. "I think it's got to be someone's pet. I put some fliers up."
"So you want to keep it but you're pretending you're trying to find the owner," says beanie guy.
"Have you named it?" asks the other one.
"No, because I might not be keeping it."
"Dude, just name the cat."
"You're not my dad, Miller."
"Did you check the sex?" asks the guy who's petting her, not-Miller. Clarke thinks the answer should be obvious from the way Bellamy keeps calling her it, but it's not as if she minds. She'd rather be called it than have anyone checking out her genitalia.
"I'm not forcing the cat to confirm to the gender binary," says Bellamy. "It's a cat."
"Sounds about right," says Miller. "Where's your beer?"
Apparently, the plan is for the three of them to hang out and play video games, although the guy who was petting her--Bellamy's editor, whose name she eventually figures out is Monty--is more interested in petting her than actually participating in the games. In theory, there's nothing wrong with that, but she's still a little worried he's going to try to force the gender issue, so she finally hisses and runs off to sulk in her bedroom until the strangers go away.
She'd say the cat brain was taking over, but it's pretty much exactly what she did every time her roommate had friends she didn't like over. This isn't really new behavior for her.
She's dozing by the time Bellamy's friends leave, but the sound of the light switch in his room gets her attention. She scampers in right as he's pulling on pajama pants, and he smiles as he flops onto the bed.
"Yeah, I can get too much of people too."
He sounds genuinely exhausted, so she sticks her head under his hand, encouraging him to pet her. As usual, he doesn't need much prompting, and the two of them lie in companionable silence for a while.
When his hand stops, she assumes he's fallen asleep, but instead he says, "Miller's right, you probably could use a name."
It's not something Clarke is particularly concerned about--she really doesn't care what he calls her--until he actually starts listing possibilities, at which point she realizes there are plenty of names she'd actually hates. "Something mythological, maybe? Sphinx or Manticore or Chimera. Or, I don't know. Fuck, I hate coming up with names. I already have to do it enough for work."
Clarke yawns, which she hopes counts as a no, and he sighs and sits up. "It's not like it's hard. I named my sister, I can name you. Let's see, uh--Adams," he says, looking at one of his bookshelves. "Or Douglas, I guess. Isaac Asimov. Peter Beagle. Ray Bradbury. Lois McMaster Bujold. Any of those working for you?"
Clarke flops onto his back. He's on his sci-fi shelf, which means he might actually hit Clarke, depending on what he's got on there. She's kind of curious.
"Octavia Butler, definitely not. Kristin Cashorne, Becky Chambers, Arthur C. Clarke--" She meows her approval, making Bellamy startle. "Yeah?" He sits down next to her and scratches her ears. "I guess you do kind of look like an Arthur. Arthur works."
Oh well. Maybe she'll poop in his shoe.
*
Being named Arthur isn't the cause of Clarke's bad mood, she's pretty sure. It's not actually worse than being called cat. Honestly, it's a little funny. He was so close to somehow actually hitting her name, and then he fumbled in the endzone.
Mostly, she's getting annoyed with her whole situation. In a way, it had been easier before she'd been adopted, when she just was worried about survival, when she hadn't had all this downtime where she wasn't doing anything. Being a house cat isn't bad, but it's not being a herself, and it's not letting her get back to being herself either.
Bellamy clearly notices she's pissed off and takes it with pretty good grace. She shreds a roll of paper towels and he yells at her, which is fair, and throws up on his bathroom floor, which is admittedly an accident, but he still cleans it up and strokes her back and asks if she's feeling okay.
He's too nice. He's so nice it stops being helpful and becomes one more thing that's annoying her. Seriously, how dare he?
Her general irritability is why, nine days and zero long-term trips out of the house after Bellamy's meeting, she decides it's worth it to try using his computer during the night.
The thought had obviously occurred to her before. Over the days when she'd been waiting for him to just fucking leave, she'd toyed with the idea of booting up the computer while he was asleep, but she'd been worried about fucking it up and waking him. Bellamy's a pretty deep sleeper, but if she knocks over his laptop, he's going to wake up and murder her, and she wouldn't blame him.
But now she's used the laptop successfully once. She knows how to do it, and Bellamy's alarm doesn't go off until 8:30 on weekdays. She's got a full seven hours, so she can be careful. Make sure she doesn't break anything.
And she really does need to check her email. It's so much worse, knowing her mom could be saying things. Knowing she could have a solution.
She leaves the bed and makes her way down the moonlit hallway to the kitchen. His laptop is on the coffee table instead of the island, but that's no problem. She noses the top open and gets the password in only a few tries, now that she's done it before. The laptop whirs to life, and she hisses at it softly, warning it against waking him.
Clarke gave up on reading over Bellamy's shoulder pretty soon after she started living with him, once she'd figured out his password and his apparent occupation. It wasn't worth raising his suspicions to get more information, especially not when she doesn't really need to know anything more about him. Sometimes she'll see things in passing, but she hasn't really been paying attention to the specifics. Bellamy seems to live on his computer; of course he's always doing things on there.
But when the computer starts up and she's confronted with an email draft, she can't help snooping. Bellamy feels like an unanswered question, a mystery waiting to be solved. He seems like such a good guy to be so alone, and she does need to know why that is.
The email is addressed to Octavia Blake, and the subject is simply Just want to talk.
Maybe he's divorced? Maybe his wife moved into another room when they separated, and she finally just left. That would have been really tough on him.
Hey, O, he's written. I know you had to leave and I'm not trying to convince you to come back. I got the message loud and clear. That's not why I'm emailing you. No matter what else happens, you're always going to be my sister, and I'll always love you. I'm sorry I didn't realize how hard the last few years were for you, and I wish
The cursor is still blinking at the end of the thought, an incomplete sentiment that he apparently doesn't know how to finish. It's a shame; she'd like to know what he wishes for.
Clarke settles back on her haunches, rereading the short message as she slots the new information into place. He had mentioned a sister when he was looking for names, said if he could name his sister, he could name a cat. And he'd snorted when he came to Octavia Butler on his shelves.
Does he always just go to authors when he needs to name something? He's such a dork.
She goes to get her incognito browser up, but she's a little distracted. Bellamy probably shouldn't even be top ten on her list of worries right now, but somehow he keeps pushing in there, an itch she can't shake. She can't do anything to help him right now, but she wants to. She wants to fix herself and then come back and figure out how to fix him too.
She wants to be there for him, and suddenly, she is.
Since she's just sitting on the couch, the transformation doesn't break anything. She was a cat and then suddenly she's a human again, like some great cosmic light switch was flipped. As suddenly as the curse came, it's gone, and she's naked in a stranger's living room, on his laptop, in the middle of the night.
"Shit," she breathes.
At least she can talk again.
Her incognito window is still there, but she uses it to pull up google maps instead, to find a route from here back to her own apartment. She doesn't have any money, but it's only a forty-minute walk. She could make it there and--
Be locked out of her apartment. She disappeared off the face of the earth and missed at least two rent cycles; her apartment probably won't even be her apartment anymore. She hadn't lived there long enough for her landlord to start to like her. He'll just think she's a flake.
When she switches over to her email, she does see some angry messages from said landlord, a bunch of reminders from her credit card, all sorts of shitty stuff she's going to have to deal with now that she's back to normal. Some of her friends have sent messages asking how she's liking her new job, and if she goes over to her work email, she's sure her boss will have fired her.
Just for fun, she googles Clarke Griffin missing person and finds her mom did at least come up with a "sudden family emergency" excuse, albeit two months late. It won't save her job, given the total radio silence, but at least the cops won't be looking for her.
Fuck, she's going to have so much to do.
Abby has sent five replies to Clarke's message, which seems about right, maybe even a bit low. With actual human hands, it's at least easy to check them all, one of those things she used to take for granted and definitely won't for at least a year. A few months as a cat is definitely going to do some long-term damage.
Most of Abby's advice isn't relevant anymore, now that Clarke is naked and slowly freezing on a stranger's couch, but there is one thing that will actually help: an address and telephone number for a local witch who knows something about curse-breaking. Not that she needs that anymore, but the abrupt end of the curse is concerning in and of itself, and she'd feel better if someone could tell her why it happened and promise that it won't happen again. And the witch will probably be able to help her get some clothes and get her stuff back.
Still, she finds herself dawdling. She emails her mother to let her know what happened. She looks at the angry emails she's gotten, finds out she was evicted before she ever got in touch with Abby but her stuff is at least in storage, puts together the actual timeline of how long she's been like this--almost three months, all told--and at what point each part of her life went wrong, and then finally checks how to get to the witch's house.
But it still feels shitty, leaving without telling Bellamy. She's going to steal his hoodie and, by all appearances, his cat, and it's not like she can leave a note. She might not ever see him again, and the thought makes her shift, shrink, her skin going strange and furry for just a second, flickering back to her feline form like a fucking threat.
She definitely needs to see this witch. But after that, she's going to come back and see Bellamy.
Even for a human nose, the scent of him is overwhelming when she pulls the hoodie on. It might even be more overwhelming, because the smell isn't as strong, but it's more appealing. As a cat, she liked snuggling with him, but now she kind of wants to snuggle and then they make out. Which is another thought to be having later, or maybe never. Her hormones are probably out of whack right now. That probably happens.
The hoodie is big on her, as she hoped, not really quite long enough to be a dress, but it's the middle of the night and she's hoping she won't see anyone. All her parts are covered, and she grabs a steak knife too, just to be safe.
It's her first time going outside since Bellamy took her home, and her first time outside as a human for almost three months. Her perspective is different, and her awareness too. She wishes she could hear better, that she wasn't so conspicuous, that cars driving by wouldn't take any notice of her, like they wouldn't if she was still a cat.
She wishes she'd stolen a pair of Bellamy's shoes, while she was at it.
She jotted down the directions to the witch's house on a piece of scrap paper, but it's an hour walk, and longer because she screws up a few times. By the time she finally gets there, the sun is starting to tint the sky pink. She feels more exhausted than she has in her entire life, but it's probably just all the stress. Plus, animal-to-human transformation, and her flicker back to animal. That's got to be a strain on her body, to say nothing of her brain.
The witch's name is Luna, which seems a little on the nose, but whatever. Clarke traces the sigil for assistance required on her door, and then her mother's name sigil, since Abby said she'd be getting in touch. The door glows green for a second, flashes back welcome, and then opens.
The house is small and warm, welcoming. It's late summer, so being out in nothing but a hoodie hadn't been nearly as bad as it could have been, but she was still getting cold and hungry and just--
She needs to talk to someone, and her first choice was too complicated.
"I assume you're Abby Griffin's daughter," says a voice. Clarke whirls to see a woman with wild red curls and piercing eyes coming down the stairs, the perfect image of an eccentric witch, except for the fluffy bathrobe she's got wrapped around herself. "Welcome back to humanity. You're still cursed."
"You can tell just by looking?"
Luna shrugs, crossing the room to the kitchen. "You have an aura. Coffee? Tea?"
Her mouth waters. "Coffee would be amazing. Sorry for waking you up."
"I keep strange hours." She grabs a pot and starts filling it. "So, tell me what happened. Your mother was upset but vague."
"Yeah, I couldn't give her a lot of information." She sighs. "I woke up and I was a cat. I panicked and left my apartment, which was stupid, in retrospect. I should have stayed and tried to get in touch with my mom from there, but at the time I was just worrying about how I was going to starve to death if I stayed there."
"I wouldn't expect anyone to be rational in this situation. It seems as if you took care of yourself well enough."
"You wouldn't say that if you'd seen me last month."
"And I suppose you're probably a bit cold. Let me see if I have anything for you to wear while the coffee finishes."
She comes back with pajama pants and a tank top, and Clarke gets changed in her small bathroom. She pulls Bellamy's hoodie back too, tries not to let her mind wander back to him. She didn't actually develop a crush on a guy when she was a cat, did she? That would be pathetic.
But--he's a really good guy.
By the time she's done, Luna has coffee for her, and they go to sit on the couch for the inevitable awkward conversation.
"Your mother said you don't have any enemies," Luna says to start them off. It feels like a generous read to Clarke, but even if there are plenty of people in the world who dislike her, she still doesn't think any of them could curse her, even if they wanted to.
"None like this."
"I'm not surprised." She squints at Clarke, then puts her mug down to trace a few sigils in the air. "The strange thing is, while you are cursed, I don't think the curse was placed on you."
"I don't think I get the distinction."
"I think you're collateral damage. You don't seem to have been the target, but your curse is tied to--something else. Maybe not even a curse, honestly. It's always hard when amateurs do this, it's so much harder to untangle the strings of intention. What were you doing when you turned back?"
The connection jumps out, but it doesn't make any sense. "I was staying with this guy," she says, slow. "He found me in the park a couple weeks ago. And when I thought about how much I wanted to be human so I could help him, and I turned back into a human. And then when I thought about how I probably wouldn't see him again, I kind of--flickered back to being a cat. But that doesn't make any sense!"
Luna is unruffled. "It makes a lot of sense to me."
"I'd never even met the guy before, why would my curse have anything to do with him? Or his curse with me, I guess."
"Amateur," Luna says, as if this explains everything. "When people put together their own spells, things go wrong. The magic decides what to do on its own. He needs help?"
"I think so." It feels weird, talking about Bellamy's private issues to a stranger, but Luna doesn't know her, or Bellamy, or anything. And this has to be it, right? She somehow got turned into a cat so she could fix Bellamy's life. It doesn't make any sense, but it still somehow makes more sense than anything else. "He's been having a rough couple months, he never leaves his apartment."
"That makes sense," says Luna, nodding. "Someone--a concerned friend, a loved one--cast a poorly defined spell to get him some help, and the spell roped you into helping. If you think about not helping, the curse flares up. I could have done something better," she adds, like that's the biggest issue in this scenario. "This is so inefficient."
"So what do I have to do to break the curse?" she asks. "How do you fix someone?"
"If you bring him by, I can take a look. I assume he doesn't know about any of this."
"No, but I think I probably have to tell him." She rubs her face. "I need to get you feeling better about your life or I'll keep turning into a cat. No one wants to hear that."
"It might not be as bad as you think," Luna muses. "For one thing, he has someone in his life knows enough about magic to have cast this spell, so maybe he'll be more prepared for it than you think. And this might be one time where the caster's lack of training works to your advantage."
"Meaning what, exactly?"
Luna shrugs. "The magic picked you, left to its own devices. That means that whatever needs to be done, you can do it."
Despite the night she's had--despite the three months she's had--she has to smile. "Yeah, I guess there's that."
*
Luna lets her use the phone to call her mom, and even gives her a ride over to the storage unit where all her stuff is being kept. She gets actual clothes that belong to her, including undergarments, which she never thought she'd miss so much, and makes sure her landlord didn't steal anything, which he didn't. With her phone and her wallet in her bag and her teeth brushed--to say nothing of some non-tuna food in her stomach--she feels (no pun intended) human again, albeit not really ready to talk to Bellamy.
Still, he's probably spent the morning tearing his hair out trying to figure out what happened to his cat. Clarke owes him some explanations. And no matter how nervous she is, she can't just not see him. Even leaving aside the curse, she would regret if she never saw him again. She likes him, and she wants to tell him what's going on, hear his opinions, come up with a plan together. She's never really talked to him, can't even begin to guess what that's going to look like, but she wants to find out almost as much as she's terrified of it.
Luna drops her off after lunch, and she takes a second to just breathe in a few deep breaths. She does know him, sort of. Well enough to be sure she can get him to listen.
She makes herself ring the doorbell, and, when there's no response after a minute, makes herself do it again, longer and more obnoxious. She remembers the blare of it from when he ordered takeout when she was living there; it's not a pleasant sound.
There's a thumping as he comes down the stairs, giving her a second to prepare herself, try to figure out what she can say. It's all going to sound insane, she just needs him to listen long enough she can convince him. It's not as if she doesn't have evidence. She could tell him--
The door opens and there he is, so much harder to comprehend now. She hadn't known how tall he was, really, but he has a few inches on her. His hair is messy as always, his glasses askew, and it's just--
Wow, he's cute. Like, really cute. Stupid cute.
His eyes flick down to the hoodie she has folded in her arms. "Can I help you?"
"I think I'm supposed to help you." She wets her lips, trying to figure out any way to say it aside from just saying it and coming up blank. Like ripping off a band-aid, that's the only way. "Look, this is going to sound insane? But I was your cat and I want to be friends." She holds up the hoodie. "I brought this back for you."
"Huh," he says, and closes the door in her face.
Well, it's a start.