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Truthfully, she was happy that she was out of there before the impending snow had started to seriously threaten to fall down south. Roman had things to get back to - mostly her cat, who was left with the little family that lived two floors under her. There was, of course, a girl who got along with Czarina better than she ever had - and there was a moment there, that she thought about just calling and saying -- you should let her keep the cat, to the girl's mother (Joanne, they'd met the first time she'd moved in there, getting having appointments to look at apartments something like ten minutes apart - and of course, her little girl (Emma) had decided that they needed to be friends). The problem with that then became well what would be stopping her from picking up the important parts and just going. Somebody was either going to love what she did with the apartment or they'd repaint and trash the fixtures that she'd put up. It would have been like she'd never been there at all - and wasn't that nicer sometimes?
What actually happened with that call, because she was the sort of person who liked talking on the phone rather than reading on the phone, and Ro couldn't say she blamed her, was that she'd be back for a little bit, sooner than anticipated - but if Emma wanted to keep her a little longer -- oh, oh no! No that's fine, she's got a recital she's got to practice for anyway, and they'll BOTH be happy to see you -- the rest of the conversation turned to happy mumbles and chattering about what the recital would be, how long she'd been practicing, a new guy that Joanne had met at work in sales or something to that effect. She sounded happy in the middle of the cold and that was really all she wanted to focus on - there were still happy people, or people who were willing to look at things from that perspective still.
There was a moment when she'd crept back through the door at too early or too late, it was still dark outside, that she thought she made it in before anyone knew - that wasn't the case. Going through the living room, it was dark and everything was where she'd left it. The shoes that were on the inside corner of the sofa, where she'd had her throw blankets and the extra pillows - although why she didn't leave her slippers there, that thought drifted in as a kind of annoyance. The suitcase and bag were discarded along the way in the hallway - she was going to the bathroom, wash off the stink of airplanes and people asking her what she thought about contour and how the hell she got into a conversation about make up gurus when the trip was two hours and some change, but there it was. Ro groped around the counter top short of realizing that all her hair ties were in the other room, of course they were - like everything else. Her feet shuffling along the hardwood until she got to her room. Pulling the comfortable-but-now-itchy feeling clothes off of herself, and rummaging there in the dark with her skin prickling up and paling from the cold, she found her robe. Big and fluffy and blue, she pulled it around herself tight and snuggled her face down into the over-fluffed neck of it. And she found the hair tie she was after, right by the bedside table, right where David Bowie had kept it for her.
"Oh, don't start," she said, twisting her hair up into a mess of curls that sat right on the crown of her head - looking and talking at the photograph. -- these were the times that she almost wished she could change him out with Nick Cave more than she did - Nick Cave's photograph didn't seem to judge her nearly as much. And at that point, there was a soft stretch, a yawn that was barely above hearing and a set of four little black paws that came trotting sleepily over. Czarina weaved her way through Ro's ankles and sat, looking up at her rather expectantly - her big eyes and her tiny fangs were the only things that Ro could make out properly there in the dark. But it was enough - more than. The mew caught her off and she'd knelt down, scooping the small cat up into her arms so she could scruff and rub her nails under her chin, "and how long have you been here, little majesty, huh?"
The cat blinked her big eyes up at her and yawned again, "that's about how I feel, how'd you know," leaning in to kiss the cat's forehead before turning the covers back on the bed - she pulled herself and the cat in, making a spot for her on her side of the bed with a pillow that was too plump for anything except the cat to just..lay on. She watched her knead and settle, slitting her eyes open to look at her as if to see if she was going to get up and leave again without saying or asking. She wasn't, of course. Not for a while. Ro's hand lifted from under the blanket to ruffle her fingertips between the cat's ears, "how would you feel about getting sashimi tomorrow?" This was not a real question, the cat liked eel, she'd get her some eel. And maybe something on the way home for the downstairs neighbors - the ones that didn't play Joy Division at 3am, the ones that looked after her.
The cat seemed to be fine with this idea - but more than anything she was just as happy to be home in her bed, with the bed where it was supposed to be. (Czarina had been informed by the downstairs neighbors to not tell Roman that there was a welcome home cupcake waiting for her in the fridge - and that they enjoyed having her over. But they'd tell Roman that themselves - the cat was indifferent, they were sweet, but they weren't her home.)
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