Chapter Text
Kal had just wanted to get away.
From everything and everyone who knew what had happened. Even if that meant he had to leave his best friend — his Mand’alor — behind for a while.
Kal needed space.
So he rented a small apartment on Vanquo — the planet where he could get furthest away from it all, while still remaining in the Mandalorian sector — and planned to stay there while he licked his wounds and worked with his lawyer to help him through the divorce process with Ilippi.
It was a smaller planet with a more agriculture-tech based economy. Not the richest of the Mandalorian planets, or even compared to Bandomeer — the closest planet to Vanquo, even if it was outside of the sector — but it was the third largest food and tech producer in the sector. His family had some land holdings here, and maybe it wouldn’t have been a bad place to settle down, if he was able to get visitation rights with his kids…
Kal shook thoughts of his children away — Ilippi would never let him see them, anyways. He moved to unload the first set of boxes from his new speeder. He’d packed light. He didn’t need much anyways.
The third time Kal went out to his speeder to grab a couple of boxes was when he saw them. A tiny cat was standing by the dumpsters, about 15 meters away, staring at Kal.
…Well it wasn’t really a cat, more like a large kitten. Or at least a cat just starting to grow out of its kittenhood. It was so small!
The tiny cat was dirty enough, and the sun was low enough in the sky, that Kal couldn’t quite make out the colour of its fur.
Kal stared back at the cat for a moment. The kitten stood still, as if frozen by Kal’s state. Kal sighed and shook his head, heading inside with a load of boxes. When he came back out again, the cat was gone.
Kal wondered if the cat was owned by one of the other residents of this complex. After all, outside cats weren’t outlawed here on Vanquo like they were back on Mandalore. On Mandalore, the planetary council was trying to give the local bird populations a fighting chance. They were some of the few endemic animals of the planet that had survived, as some had followed the Mandalorians into the domes after the Dral'Han, all those centuries ago.
Kal had a brief thought that he hoped someone was taking care of the tiny cat, and then went on with getting his apartment set up.
When Kal woke up the next morning, the first thing he noticed was the unique smell that lingered in the air from the last tenant. It wasn’t a bad smell, just… it didn’t smell like Kal’s home, it smelled like someone else lived here.
But maybe nowhere would smell like home to him again, not after losing Ilippi and his three kids. Even so, that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to make this apartment feel as much like home as possible.
Kal moved out of the singular bedroom and into the open-concept living room and kitchen. A large sliding transparisteel door led out from the kitchen into the building’s courtyard, which backed onto the lot set aside for tenant speeder parking.
Kal opened the sliding door wide to let in some air, before he turned back to the kitchen and hunted through some of the supplies he’d brought to make breakfast. After breakfast he would call his business manager and make an appointment to meet up and go over the Skirata holdings here on Vanquo.
It only took him a few minutes of unpacking the boxes of dishes and cookware to find everything. Kal cooked up some nerf patties and nuna eggs on the stove. He turned with a hot skillet, intending to plate the cooked food on the plate he’d left on the island, only to realize something was standing in the open transparisteel door.
Staring at him from the threshold was the little cat he’d seen last night.
The kitten started up at Kal quietly, its little tail standing straight up in the air, ready to bolt at the slightest sign of danger.
“You’re a little feral thing, aren’t you,” Kal said to the cat quietly.
Hoping he wasn’t making a big mistake, Kal broke off a small chunk of nerf patty and tossed it towards the little cat. The little nugget of meat landed on the cheap lino floor, right in front of the tiny cat’s paws.
Now, in the morning light, Kal was pretty sure it was a little orange thing. It was a little hard to tell when the cat’s fluffy fur was so dirty and unkempt. He wondered if the little cat was ill, even most feral cats he’d seen around Vanquo hadn’t looked this dirty.
The cat took a tiny step into the apartment to sniff at the chunk of cooked meat before snatching it up with its mouth and gobbling it down.
Poor little cat must be hungry.
Kal tossed it another piece of meat, making the cat take another step into the apartment to eat it. Now all but its tail was inside the apartment.
Kal tossed another, and another, leading the cat in and around the island until he was out of nerf meat and the cat was only a couple steps away from him.
The cat looked up at him, balancing tensely on all fours, as if ready to run.
“You were hungry, weren’t you?” Kal asked the cat calmly.
It must have been a trick of the morning light, but Kal could swear the cat gave him a tiny nod.
“I’m not gonna hurt you. I just want to give you a pet,” Kal said gently.
The cat blinked up at Kal, but didn’t dash off when Kal crouched down, shifting his weight back onto his heels.
He reached one tentative hand out and gently lowered it to the cat’s head.
The cat bumped into Kal’s hand, pushing back so that Kal knew the cat was interested in Kal’s tentative touch. Kal rubbed his hands through the fur on the top of Cat’s head. It was a bit crusty. It was obvious that this cat hadn’t seen a bath in a long time.
“You’re very dirty. Could I… Would you let me give you a bath, Cat?”
Kal gently grabbed the little cat by its sides and pulled it in, before picking up the little animal and pressing it to his chest as he stood. Kal passed around the island, heading for the glass door. He felt the cat stiffen in his arms and he swore he could feel its little heart race from where it was pressed up against Kal, as he neared the door.
Kal slid the door shut and then walked back through the apartment and into the only ‘fresher in his apartment.
Kal carefully put the tiny cat in the bathtub and moved to grab the spray hose attached to the wall. He set it down onto the bottom of the bathtub, realizing he should roll up his sleeves before he started any water.
He then grabbed the gentle, unscented baby shampoo Kal had used when he was going on missions for the Haat Mando’ade. If he used his favourite sandalwood and rosemary shampoo, the smell would be quite strong inside his helmet, and had the added drawback if he needed to do anything that required stealth around any species that had sensitive olfactories. This gentle shampoo should work on Cat in a pinch. If the animal ended up staying here long term, Kal would buy cat shampoo. He doubted it though, no one stuck around Kal long term.
His birth parents had gotten rid of Kal as soon as they could, his adoptive father had died after only a few years as his family, and his wife and young children had left him too. This tiny, helpless cat probably wouldn’t stay either.
Kal moved to turn on the spray and the cat jumped back, making a crying whine as the water touched its little paws.
“What is it?” Kal quickly picked up the spray head so he could hold it away from Cat. As he did, the spray hit his other hand and he winced, the water was freezing cold. “Sorry Cat, I didn’t realize it would come out so cold. Here, I’ll warm it up.” Kal told the little cat seriously and reached over to adjust the dials.
The cat whined up at him, its big blue eyes on full display.
Kal huffed and kept adjusting the temperature, checking it on his own wrist. When it was only slightly warmer than room temperature and cooler than he personally preferred, he carefully aimed the spray down and moved it slowly up Cat’s tiny paws and legs.
“Is that better?”
The cat only replied with a pleading meow, as if trying to tell Kal that the cat really didn’t need a bath.
“You’re okay,” Kal reached out with his free hand and stroked the cat’s head. “This won’t hurt, I promise.”
Kal used the spray head and his hand to gently wet the cat’s coat, moving wet fur aside so the water could soak into the fur underneath. He made sure to avoid the cat’s face and ears, he would use a damp cloth to get those spots afterwards.
“You’re so calm,” Kal remarked steadily. Kal had helped care for strill in the past, but he hadn’t really dealt a lot with felines, so he wasn’t sure what to expect. But he had heard that cats and their cousins, tookas, didn’t like water all that much. He’d expected a lot more scratching with those claws. “You’re a good cat, aren’t you?” Kal soothed softly.
The cat meowed back, his grey-blue eyes gazing intently up at Kal the whole time, as if Cat could understand all the answers to the questions of the galaxy from Kal’s face alone.
Finally, the cat was plenty wet and Kal picked up the baby shampoo.
As he soaped up the cat’s fur, trying to really get all of the gunk out of the animal’s fur, he noticed what he was sure were testicles between the cat’s legs. “So, you’re a little boy cat.” Kal said, moving his hands to make sure each little leg was lathered up.
The cat took a step away from Kal, towards the wall, and Kal could swear the cat looked almost… wary. That couldn’t be right, could it? Could cats look wary?
“I don’t care,” Kal assured the little cat. “But at least I won’t be calling you ‘it’ all the time.”
Kal grabbed the spray head he’d left on the bathtub floor and began to rinse down the little cat. “There you go, I bet that feels much nicer, doesn’t it?”
The cat meowed mournfully, twisting a little out of the reach of the spray, before going still when Kal gently told him to stop moving.
Finally, except for Cat’s little face, the cat was clean, and Kal reached to the towel rack so he could dry the cat.
Wrapping the cat in a towel, Kal pulled Cat up out of the bathtub and set him on the ‘fresher floor.
As Kal began to dry Cat, the tiny animal startled licking Kal's arm from where his little face poked out from underneath the towel.
"Oh, do you think I need a bath too?" Kal asked, amused.
Kal's hands paused from where they were rubbing the terry cloth through Cat's fur. He realized he was smiling. Kal was smiling. For the first time since Ilippi had told him she was leaving and taking their children with her, he didn’t feel like the galaxy was ending.
Kal took in a deep breath, suppressing the overwhelming sadness that bubbled up in his chest, at the thought of his ex-wife and his three sweet kids. He missed them so much.
The rough tongue started licking his arm again, creating weird swirls in the dark blond hair on his right forearm.
“Thank you Cat,” Kal said roughly, gently rubbing the towel again. He wanted to get Cat as dry as possible, so the little guy wouldn’t get cold.