dani-ellie03:

“Oh, Mittens,” Emma sighs as she slips the plush cat from under her napping daughter’s arm, “you have certainly seen better days.”

The cat is gray with white paws (hence her name). She was a gift from Henry for Hope’s second birthday and she has been Hope’s constant companion in the year and a half since. She’s been misted with salt spray on the Jolly Roger. She’s been dropped in the muddy sheep pen and pecked by chickens at the farm. She’s even been run over by the Bug, though how she was left in the middle of driveway, Emma still isn’t sure. And no one likes to discuss the messiness that ensued during Hope’s bout with the 24-hour stomach bug. Mittens stayed by her side and practically needed to be decontaminated when it was over.

Even now, there are suspicious pink stains around the cat’s plush mouth. Emma brings the cat to her nose and sniffs. Strawberry.

Heaving another sigh, Emma slips from Hope’s room, eases the door closed, and holds the cat up to her husband. “Your daughter tried to share her Gogurt with Mittens.”

Killian swallows a chuckle. “At least she’s learning to share. I take it Mittens needs another delicate cycle?”

“That she does.” Emma reaches into the linen closet for a pillowcase and drops Mitten into it. She’s learned this trick from her mother, who used to wash Neal’s stuffed animals the same way. “Let’s hope we can get her washed and dried before our little pirate princess wakes up from her nap.”

—–

No such luck. Hope wakes with twenty minutes still left on the dryer. “Where’s Mittens, Mama?” she asks, still blinking away sleep.

“Mittens is having a bath,” Emma tells her gently while preparing herself for the waterworks to start.

To her surprise, Hope doesn’t cry. She simply frowns up at her mother. “Cats don’t like water.”

“Mittens seems to like sailing the Jolly Roger well enough,” Emma reminds her. Not wanting to linger over the missing cat and give Hope a chance to cry, Emma picks her still sleepy daughter up and carries her over to the sofa.

“But she’s not in the water when we go sailing, Mama,” Hope argues.

Sensing that his wife needs a hand, Killian smiles at his pirate princess. “Even though she doesn’t like water, Mittens knew her bath was important. She was very brave and now she’s having a lie-down in the sauna.”

Again, Hope frowns. “What’s a sauna?”

“It’s a room that’s very hot.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun. I don’t like being hot.”

“Cats like being hot, though,” Emma reminds her. “They sit right in the sun, remember?”

“Oh yeah! Can I have Mittens when she comes back from the hot room?”

“Of course, little love,” Killian assures.

And when the dryer cycle finishes, Emma hands a warm, toasty, and clean Mittens back to her daughter. “She smells like the towels,” Hope says, smiling as she hugs the cat to her chest.

Which is apparently a much better scent than hours-old strawberry yogurt.