In the Year of the Cat (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

51. Home, Part Two

(Caution: This chapter contains mature content. Viewer discretion advised.)

I lay there in the dark, tossing about on top of the covers, assuming every position at every angle in which I might trip off to unconsciousness. But my eyes would not close and stay. All I knew was that the man I loved was fifteen feet away in the next room, and we hadn't said anything even close to "Goodbye."

I looked at the Android to see I had been rolling around restlessly for the past hour and a half. Two thirty in the morning, and I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep. And even if K does call in the next minute, I'm whipped, and the trip back is going to be much harder on me than the one that sent me here. I need sleep. I need it now.

Freddie had a bottle of sleeping pills in his medicine cabinet. However, it wouldn't do either of us any good if I knocked on his door and roused him when he himself probably hadn't slept for the past thirty-six hours, at least.

I sat up in bed, remembering a story my mother had told me about a vacation she took in Mexico once. She too was suffering from insomnia at the time, and a local had described this delicious drink to her called horchata, which supposedly would help assuage the sleeplessness. If my memory served, it was basically just warm milk with cinnamon and rice, but according to my mother, it worked wonders, and she slept like a baby thereafter.

"Hey, if it works, I'm in," I muttered to myself. "Freddie, hope you don't mind if I use the kitchen really quick."

So I climbed off the bed, smoothing the wrinkles I'd made in the duvet and snatching up the Relic. Very carefully I opened the door and tiptoed out, nearly tripping over Oscar in the process.

"Why can't you be polite and meow first?" I hissed playfully, scooping him into my arms. "You know I'm blind as a bat without my contacts." I don't know why that cat loved me so much- but then, there's no accounting for taste, especially where animals and their people are concerned.

Freddie's own door was shut. Because my nosiness knows no bounds, I laid my ear up against it, listening for any telltale noises, but all was still.

I set Oscar down on the floor and whispered, "Meet you at the bottom." Then, putting the Relic between my teeth, I straddled the banister one last time and slid quietly down, catching myself before I could fall. I couldn't see any fuzzy, multicolored balls of fur on the sofa; I can only assume Tom and Tiffany had joined their daddy.

With Oscar padding along at my heels, I strode into the dark kitchen, setting the Relic on the counter. I turned on one light over the sink. In the interest of time and my impatience, I decided to forego the rice part and just make a little cinnamon milk.

"Would you like some, too, Cat?" I whispered, quietly putting a saucepan on the stove. "Let's make yours without cinnamon, just in case."

I poured about two cups' worth of milk into the saucepan and turned on the heat. My sleep-deprived brain wandered as I studied my little green-eyed friend. Oscar did look like Cat from Breakfast at Tiffany's. I wondered if that made me Holly Golightly or Paul Varjak, George Peppard's character.

Oh, I'd be Paul, most definitely, because Freddie has to be Holly -the high-handed extrovert with an aloof outer shell belying the fragile soul and guarded, soft heart.

"Here you go, you slob," I said playfully, pouring Oscar a saucer of heated milk. I bent over, humming "Moon River" as I set it down in front of him. In quiet delight, I watched him dunk his whiskers into the saucer, his rough tongue lapping up the warm, sweet milk. With a sigh, I stood back up and turned around-

And almost had a heart attack when I saw a man's silhouette looming right behind.

"GAH!" I screamed, covering my mouth and remembering in the very next split second the only person it could possibly be. I began to laugh, overjoyed that we had a chance to say a proper, heartfelt good-bye and maybe find some closure.