New Friends

A few days before Christmas, a car turned onto a suburban street in Washington, D.C., and parked at the curb in front of a house occupied by Jody Silverton, late of the U.S. Navy. When the driver's side door opened, a tall, well-built young man with a baby face unfolded his body and stepped around to the passenger side. He opened the passenger door, letting out an elegant brown cat, which immediately ran up the walk to the front porch. The cat stretched his front paws up to bat at the screen door while meowing loudly.

When the young man caught up to the cat, he knocked firmly on the door. They waited only a moment until the inside door opened, and a pretty young woman wearing sweats peeked out.

"Um, are you Jody?" the man asked.

When she affirmed that she was indeed Jody, the man said, "Um, hi, my name's Tim, and I think you know my cat."

Jody looked down toward his feet. When she saw the handsome cat, she squealed "Mikey!" She hurriedly opened the screen door and held out her arms for the cat to jump into. Woman and cat rubbed noses, which caused her to giggle with delight at the way his whiskers tickled her face.

After the two finished their greeting, the cat bounded inside. Jody invited the young man to follow. Once inside, she sat on the couch and gestured to Tim to take a seat on a chair nearby. Mikey jumped into her lap; she massaged his ears while he chin-bumped her, purring loudly.

"How did you find me?" she asked Tim.

"Well, um," he replied. "You left your name and number on my machine, and it was pretty easy to track you down from that."

"I'm glad you did," Jody told him. "I met Mikey on the absolute worst day of my life. I was so glad he came to me to get found." She frowned slightly. "Although I never did see him leave. I was kind of out of it for a while, and I just assumed you came by and picked him up."

"Uh, yeah," Tim said. "And we just wanted to thank you for finding him and being so good about letting me know where he was."

"Not a problem," Jody replied. For a moment she watched Mikey's face. "He's really something else, isn't he?" she said. "You'd almost think he can think like a human and talk like one, too."

"Um, yeah, you could think that," answered Tim, squirming uncomfortably.

"I've been through some rough times recently," Jody went on. "The only thing that's kept me going is remembering how he tried to take care of me and thinking that someday I'd like to have a cat like him."

"Uh, I know a little bit about your troubles," Tim told her. "I'm really sorry all those things happened to you."

"It was my own fault," Jody answered. "When my boy friend, Neal, the total jerk, asked me to do meth, I should have said no. I *could* have said no, but I thought I could handle it. Now I'm out of the Navy, and I'm not sure what's going to happen next."

"Did you get off meth?" Tim wanted to know.

"Yeah, I went through a 28 day program. It was a month of agony, going through withdrawal. I'll probably never get over it completely, but at least now I know enough to work it one day at a time. And I go to daily meetings to help with that."

"Congratulations," Tim said.

"And I testified at a court martial. My pimp and a john that raped me got put away for a long time. Did you know about that?"

"Well, um, yeah. Actually I work at NCIS. Our team…um…did some work on the case—surveillance, that kind of thing. So, yeah, I knew about the court martial."

"I was questioned at NCIS," Jody told him. "The nicest young man. Tony, I think his name was."

"Yes," said Tim. "Tony DiNozzo."

"Did he know you were coming to see me?" Jody asked.

"Well, um, yeah," McGee responded, shifting in his chair a little. His eyes were blinking rapidly, and he raised his hand to scratch his nose. "He really did want to come and see you himself, but he couldn't, so he…um…sent Mikey. And me, of course."

"I'm glad you came. But I'd like to see DiNozzo someday too."

Both were quiet for a minute; Jody spoke first: "I've often wondered how Mikey knew to come to my house, that I was in trouble that day. Not that he could have done anything, like knock out the guys who were abusing me."

"Cats are pretty sensitive," McGee said.

Jody was caressing Mikey's head with her cheek at that moment and consequently didn't see him drop one eyelid in an exaggerated wink at McGee.

Both fell silent again. Jody looked at Tim as if she wanted to ask him another question but wasn't quite sure whether she should. Finally, she seemed to make up her mind.

"Uh, Tim, I don't suppose you'd be willing to sell Mikey to me. I mean, he's just such a great cat, and I know it would help me a lot if I could have him around."

Mikey meowed loudly.

"Oh, no," Tim replied quickly. "I can't sell him. Um, he isn't really mine to sell. But I'm sure, if you looked around, maybe at some animal shelters, you could find a cat just as nice that you could adopt. Of course, Mikey is unique; I can honestly say there's no other cat quite like him."

Jody laughed. "I'm sure of that. But if you ever change your mind, let me know, okay?"

"Sure," Tim said. "Now we really need to go. Like I said, we just wanted to stop by and say thank you and see how you're doing."

He stood up. "Come on, Mikey, let's go."

Mikey jumped off Jody's lap, and the two of them headed for the door.

Before leaving, Tim turned to Jody to shake her hand. "If you ever do find a cat, let me know, okay?" he told her. "I'll bring Mikey over."

"To pass judgment?" she said with a smile.

"To make sure your cat's going to take good care of you," Tim answered firmly.

#####

Six Months Later

A couple of times over the next few months, NCIS Special Agents Tony DiNozzo and Tim McGee commented to each other that they wondered how Jody was doing.

"We really should just go over there and see her," Tim said one day.

"Yeah, we should," Tony replied.

But they were involved in a never-ending stream of cases that demanded more than their full-time attention, and the visit to Jody never happened.

One afternoon the phone on McGee's desk rang, and when he answered it, he found himself talking to Jody.

"Hi, Tim," she said. "I finally got him."

For a moment Tim was confused. "Got who?" he asked.

"My cat," said Jody. "Remember, you told me you wouldn't sell Mikey to me and I should look around and find another one?"

"And you did?"

"Yeah. And I wondere