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Alexis never saw herself as someone who would adopt a cat.
Working at the clinic should’ve been enough to steer her away from that forever — she’s seen some things — and she’s never liked animals in the first place.
But it’s just like…
It’s just this cat, though.
Alexis sees him from the window as she’s passing by the rescue, sitting on this carpeted tower thing (called a cat tree she later learns). He’s licking his cute lil paws and, when he rubs that paw over his face, Alexis notices that he has… eyebrows?
Well, it looks like he does because he’s got these black patches of fur all over him, and two of them happen to be right above his eyes. The little guy looks at her through the glass, and she’ll never be able to explain it, but she feels… something.
That something convinces her pull open the door — just to say hi — and it settles in her chest when the rescue lady puts the little furball into her arms. That something wraps around her heart and squeezes when those big eyes focus on her.
“We took him in last week,” the woman tells her. “We don’t know where he came from — he was just wandering around. Fending for himself.”
“How old is he?”
“The vet says between one and two years?” The woman gives her a non-committal wobble of her hand. “He’s a little skittish around strangers, but… he’s really warmed up since he got here, so we think he had a home at some point.”
Alexis frowns. “So you think someone just… kicked their cat out?”
“Could be… or he could’ve run away. Could’ve gotten lost.” The woman sighs. “Animals end up on the street for lots of different reasons.”
The bundle of fur blinks. It’s weird, but Alexis feels a sort of… kinship with the cat. They’re both here alone, fending for themselves while hustling in the city. This little guy might’ve had a home at some point — and who knows what that home was like? Maybe it was great, and loving, and, like, way better than it was when he was a baby cat… but maybe he needed to live in place with more opportunities to reach his full potential…
Fine, or maybe she’s just projecting.
But… still. She thinks he gets it.
Having some company would be nice. It wouldn’t be so quiet in her apartment, for one. She’d always have someone to come home to, for two. Plus, Alexis is a sucker for someone looking at her with such adoration… even if that someone is a cat.
So, next thing she knows, she’s got a cat carrier in one hand and a bag with what the woman at the rescue deemed the “essentials.”
Because, apparently, Alexis Rose is adopting a cat.
ted mullens
okay, so omg funny story
…i got a cat?
like you adoptext a cat?
yeah!
i saw his cute little face in the window and i don’t know what happened, text. i think you rubbed off on me. like, i couldn’t leave him
aww, alexis! that’s big MEWS.
i’m so happy for you!
yes, thank you, we’re very happy together
i was just wondering if you had time to facetime later? the lady at the rescue told me what to get, but maybe you can tell me if i’m missing anything??
of course, alexis
what’s the little guy’s name, btw?
you’re gonna laugh
i’ve been calling him david
LOL the eyebrows
omg YES, text. you get me.
always
i’ll call you later
And Alexis doesn’t really mean to name the cat after her brother.
At first, it’s, like, a joke she shares with herself.
Because, when she brings him home, he explores the small apartment with his tail straight up in the air, stepping carefully as if he’s watching for grenades. He can’t speak, obviously, but she somehow feels his judgement from across the room.
“Okay, I literally just cleaned this weekend,” Alexis says, “so it can’t be that dirty.”
Arms folded, she watches from the couch until he, eventually, decides that it’s up to his standards; she knows he’s calmer when he hops up onto the cushion next to hers. “Good enough?” she asks, reaching out boop his little pink nose. He flinches, but she reaches out to do it again anyway…
…and he bats her finger away before she can get too close to his face.
“Okay, David,” Alexis says, smiling a little to herself. “Is that how it’s gonna be?”
He rubs his face all over her cashmere sweater: “Cut it out, David.”
He jumps onto the table and steals a fry from her plate: “Ew, David!”
And it just… kind of sticks.
brothers
meet your nephew!
Button
Awww!! your very own grumpycat
David
you got a CAT?
WTF
omg i haven’t told you the best part yet
his name is david!
Button
😂😂😂
David
EXCUSE ME?
don’t you see the resemblance???
Button
😂😂😂😂
David
keep that up and i’ll be calling a divorce lawyer
Button
just showed stevie. she says he has your eyes, david.
jocelyn is also here. she thinks he is “very very handsome"
congrats, alexis. i’m happy for you.
thank you PATRICK
David
ok
Button
see you at 12, honey
David
don’t think i’ll be coming into the store today.
we love you too, uncle davie! xo
David
choke on cat food, alexis.
Nothing smells worse than cat pee.
Literally. Nothing.
Alexis has been all around the world and nothing beats the sulfurous smell that comes from the litter box if she forgets to empty it after a few days.
There are cats that use the toilet, right? She totally saw that in a movie.
How hard can that be?
It’s not that Alexis is lonely.
Alexis knows lonely. Her childhood? Now that was lonely. Lonely is an empty dining room table; it’s an entire wing to herself, not just out of luxury, but by choice. Lonely is sitting on a chartered plane that her parents sent to pick her up when she “ran away from home” at fourteen… because they couldn’t be bothered to come get her personally. It’s trying over and over to get their attention and getting nothing but David’s tired, disappointed eyes as he rescues her for the umpteenth time.
Lonely is a cancer — it’s a dark spot that starts at her fingertips, then grows, and grows, and grows until she’s boarding a stranger’s yacht and throwing herself into the open arms of danger just to fucking feel something.
Okaa-ay… That got a little dark for a sec.
The point is… This feeling? It’s nothing like that.
Alexis has friends, real friends, and a real family that’s borderline smothering sometimes. Her father, previously too busy with his empire to know what continent she was on, calls twice a week at minimum to check in. Her mother is still flighty as hell, back to filming Sunrise Bay, but she’s discovered social media and feels the need to comment on almost every post Alexis makes.
Meanwhile, she and David text regularly during the week about nothing and everything, on top of their weekly FaceTime every Wednesday. (Because, yep, they have cute lil sibling daties — like real adults who make an effort to set aside time for each other.)
Not only that, but she has active threads with Patrick, Twyla, and Stevie. If she’s being honest, Alexis thinks she might hang out with Stevie more than she did back in Schitt’s Creek, now that Stevie travels to New York for RMG so often (and, Alexis suspects, as an excuse to see Ruth). Hell, even Ted texts her, in yet another display of how their relationship was the healthiest she ever had.
(Seriously — who talks to their exes this much?)
Anyway, Alexis is not lonely. She has no reason to be lonely.
Buuut, some nights, the quiet of her apartment is so loud that it sends a familiar chill down to her bones. Because, as much as she’d complained about it, Alexis got used to her brother’s loud breathing from the twin bed just feet away from hers; she came to expect the melodic voice of her mother, always complaining about something, on the other side of the wall. Sure, it’s never silent in the city, but even that’s new to her now. The steady hum of New York is very different than the crickets and birds back in Ontario.
And it’s not that she doesn’t like it there.
Alexis had meant it when she’d said she needed a bigger pot to grow in; and she can feel her roots stretching into the rich soil of the city, like she’s finally been set free. So, like, don’t get her wrong, Alexis wants this. It’s just a bigger adjustment than she’d expected?
Because, okay, sometimes she misses the simplicity of her tiny pot. Mostly, she misses the comfort that came with feeling home for the first time in her life.
Ugh. This thought-track got sappy.
Moving on.
Alexis dangles her little puff-ball-on-a-rod teaser thing for David to bat around with his paws while she tells him about her day… and sometimes she swears he’s actually listening.
At least, he’s listening as intently as human David did in their shared motel room.
(That is, not very well.)
(But it’s something.)
David (the cat) walks around her apartment with his chin in the air, openly making displeased sounds or batting things away when he doesn’t like something in his path. One night, Alexis sets an outfit on the bed he just… knocks it off with his paw — over and over, until she finally resigns and picks a new dress.
When they sit on the couch, he jerks away if she tries to pet him unprompted… but later headbutts her palm for attention when he wants it.
And, yes, then there’s his fucking eyebrows.
If the similarities make his company especially comforting, Alexis keeps that information to herself.
That whole… toilet training thing…?
Not happening.
Alexis growls at her phone when her face replaces their text message thread. He’s not getting the answer he wants, she guesses, because now he’s starting a FaceTime call.
She pokes the ‘accept’ button a little too hard.
“What, David?”
David’s picture frowns at her. “What is going on with you?”
“Nothing’s going on with me, David.”
“Alexis, you got a cat, now you’re asking my husband to commit grand larceny—”
(“—It’s not larceny when we’re married, and one sweater doesn’t qualify as—”)
“—I just want to know you’re okay.”
Trying not to be too pleased by his concern, Alexis shakes her head. “I’m fine, David. It’s just…” she sighs. “It’s different now. Being by myself. I guess I’m not… used to it.”
“Are you not happy out there?” he asks. “I thought this was what you wanted.”
“It was!” she blurts. “It is. It is what I want. I just need to adjust.”
David raises a brow. “And having a cat is helping you adjust?”
“Surprisingly… yes.”
“Okay…” David looks doubtful.
“Change is hard, but it doesn’t mean it’s, like… a bad thing.” Alexis sighs. “And besides, David, I’ve been stealing your sweaters since I was, like, ten — it’s no biggie.”
Her brother blinks. “You have not.”
“Um, yes, I have, David.”
“No you haven’t.”
“Yes, I have.”
“I would’ve noticed my clothes going missing!”
“Please, before we lost the money, you literally had more clothes than you could ever wear.” She rolls her eyes, and she’s glad they’re on FaceTime, so he can see it. “It’s like Jeff Bezos noticing a dollar missing from his bank account.”
Somewhere off-camera, Patrick snorts.
“Mmkay,” David sniffs. “I resent that comparison, but… point taken.”
(Seven business days later, a package arrives containing a Givenchy sweater from, like, six seasons ago, a Rose Apothecary-branded collar and food bowl, three bags of treats, and Alexis’s favorite face cream. Human David isn’t so bad, she supposes.)
There is a box in Alexis’s room that she hasn’t unpacked, and that she never touches.
She first packed it in the motel, months before her move, set it aside, and only pulled it out when it came time to leave… Even then, it was just unloaded from the car and pushed under a new bed.
In it, there’s a jewelry box that holds a locket, a pair of scrubs, a Schitt’s Creek kickball league t-shirt, and a few other seemingly unrelated items. Someone else might think it was just a pile of junk, but Alexis knows (and her brother would probably know)… it’s her Ted box, tucked away for safe-keeping.
Buried beneath it all sits the very first gift Ted gave her. It’s a book now nearly six years old, with pages yellowing slightly at the edges — Opening Your Heart To Animals: A Guide To The Benefits Of Caring For Something Other Than Yourself.
Maybe she’ll finally get around to reading it now.