A/N: Written for buckytasha in exchange for a donation during Fandom Loves Puerto Rico.

This story contains: death of an OC, complicated parental relationships.

Mama was late.

Mama was often late, but Yuri had never been here so long before, the last kid waiting to be picked up from his kindergarten. And Yuri wasn't good at reading clocks yet, but the teacher was getting increasingly agitated, so it must have been as late as it felt to him. The teacher had tried to call Mama several times, and also his grandparents (who, Yuri could have told her, wouldn't be home right now anyway). Then she'd come over and asked Yuri if anyone else helped to take care of him, the irritation clear under the sweet expression she pasted over it.

No, Yuri didn't have a Papa, or another Mama. No, he didn't have any aunts or uncles she could call. No older siblings. No neighbors he usually stayed with (he only knew one other person in the whole building, a retired old lady with three cats who had let him pet one of them a couple of times).

The teacher's face went pinched. She stood up and went back to the phone, started to dial again. Just as she did so, Mama finally burst in.

She kept apologizing to the teacher as she helped Yuri into his coat and hat ("I'm really very sorry, it won't happen again—"). Yuri, mad because his teacher was angry at him when it wasn't his fault, and mad because Mama had made him wait forever and ever, and mad because he was hungry, made Mama practically drag him down the sidewalk. He didn't want the long walk home. He wanted to be at home already.

"Yura," Mama snapped, several times, trying to pull him along faster. Eventually, she gave up and bent over to scoop him up onto her hip, and hey, this was better. Yuri liked being high up. And now he didn't even have to walk! "You're getting too big to be carried like this," Mama grumbled, but then her voice softened. "I'm sorry for being so late," she said, this time to him. "Work kept me, and then the metro was – and then – oh, nevermind. Come on, stop pouting. I'll make you something good for dinner. What do you want to have?"

"Pirozhki!"

"You don't want my pirozhki," she said, and that was true; he wanted Grandpa's pirozhki, golden and warm and perfect. "We're not going to Grandma and Grandpa's today."

"You asked what I wanted."

She laughed, and then she put him down as they reached the metro and made him walk again, holding tightly to his hand. A while later, they were finally home in their little apartment – little, but it was big enough for just the two of them. Mama immediately started making dinner. Yuri liked to help, but today she didn't let him, although she did ask him about his day and listened while he told her about what they'd learned in class.

Sometimes, if Mama wasn't too tired, she would read to him. She had a nice voice; Mama said that she had been a singer, once, and if he was really lucky, he got to hear her singing along to a favorite song on the radio while she cooked or cleaned, or singing lullabies to him when she wanted him to go to bed.

But tonight, she was too drained to read to him, and she didn't sing, either. Yuri helped clean up, taking the dishes to her, sweeping the floor, until she started to get snappish, and he retreated to go play on his own for a while. Ms. Lion, a soft plushie he'd had for longer than he could remember, and Mr. Tiger, who Grandma had given to him on his birthday, went on an adventure in the jungle together, marching around the floor and up onto the couch, discovering cool new places and deciding cool new names for them.

Mama was a lot more relaxed when she came out to put him to bed. "Come on, let's get the three of you to bed," she said with a little laugh, her words coming out a bit oddly. She tucked him in and stroked his hair, and she didn't sing, but she did tell him that she was going to make sure she was never late picking him up again before turning off the light and going back to the kitchen.

The next day was Saturday, which meant that Yuri was going to stay with his grandparents. Mama sleepily heated some frozen syrniki on the stove and let Yuri put big heaps of jam on his, and then she bundled him up and made him pack his backpack for the weekend.

Mama worked on weekends. She said that she wished she could stay and play with him instead, but that she needed the money it gave her and money was what let them stay in their apartment and have food and clothes and everything else they needed. Sometimes it seemed like Mama did everything for work; they'd even moved to this apartment instead of continuing to live with his grandparents because of work.

But while Yuri loved Mama, he also loved his grandparents, so he didn't mind this part too much. Mama took him all the way to their apartment, which was also small, but also warmer and better, somehow, and talked to Grandpa for a few moments, before she hugged him good-bye.

"Will you come see me skate tomorrow?" he asked.

"If I can," she said, and then she was leaving. Yuri felt sad, even though she'd said that she would try. Mama often failed to show up at his lessons when she'd said she would. But it probably wasn't her fault. She was going to try.

The first thing Yuri did was pull out Mr. Tiger and hop up beside Grandma on the couch. Grandma was tiny and slim, but not frail. She'd been a ballet dancer, long ago, she said, when she was a young girl. Yuri couldn't imagine her as a young girl – it seemed to him that she'd been grandma-like forever – but there were pictures of her on the wall in soft tutus, hair done up in perfect buns. She couldn't dance like that anymore, but sometimes she showed him a little and helped him copy her.

Grandma and Grandpa always had time to read to him. They took him to the library once in a while, and more often to the park, where Yuri ran around while they watched from a bench, or played ball with Grandpa. In the evenings, whenever Yuri stayed with them, Grandpa always let Yuri watch him make his delicious pirozhki if they didn't have any left.

And most importantly: Grandpa always made sure to take him to his skating lessons, even on weekdays when Mama couldn't, and a lot of the time he would stay and watch, too. Yuri loved skating, but he liked showing off how well he could skate almost as much. His instructor said he was really talented, that if he kept improving like he was, maybe he could start skating with the older kids soon. Yuri didn't need to hear that to know that he was good – he didn't fall as much as the other kids, and he went faster, and he was better at moving around the ice – but he was glad to know that she recognized it.

"Why don't we go to the park today?" Grandma suggested when he'd finished telling her all the awesome things he'd done at school that week. "And then we can come play at home and make sure you're full of pirozhki so you're ready for your lesson tomorrow."

Yuri already knew what he wanted to play. He beamed at her, holding Mr. Tiger tightly, and nodded. She ruffled his short hair with a smile. "I'll get Grandpa," he chirped, and jumped up to go do so, ready for a long, fun weekend with the two of them.

~!~

When he was in first grade, Yuri started to spend more time with his grandparents. Mama couldn't pick him up after school because she had work, and she said it was far too dangerous for him to walk even the ten minutes from his school to their apartment by himself. So depending on what day it was, either Grandma or Grandpa would come pick him up and take him home or to their place instead.

They always made him do his homework while they made him a hot lunch, which wasn't fun, but at least Yuri could usually get through it quickly. Both of them said that he was smart. He was already really good at reading, and putting numbers together wasn't that hard, either.

And then he got good food as a reward, and then he got to do something more interesting. His favorite days were the ones with skating lessons, of course, and even when he didn't have them, sometimes he liked to pretend. Some day he was going to be like the skaters he saw on TV: he was going to zoom around in cool costumes and do really fast spins and big jumps, and he would have a signature move and everything. Maybe one of the ones that looked like a ballet position because then Grandma would look at it and be happy and everyone else would think it made him look more beautiful than all the skaters who didn't do them.

Mama didn't usually say much when he talked about it, only gave him a tired smile. But Grandma and Grandpa believed him. They said that if he worked really really hard and went to all his lessons, he could do it. (Grandma also said that he should do ballet so he could do all the pretty positions, but Mama had said no. Yuri bet he just had to bug her some more.)

Then there was the day when Grandma was supposed to come get him from school, and she got sick. Mama did come pick him up – Yuri knew he could have walked by himself, but he stopped whining about it when she snapped at him to shut up. She looked really angry. It couldn't be his fault, could it?

"I'll be home from work a bit late," she said, trying to rush through getting the key in their lock. She swore under her breath when she missed. "But I promise I'll get back in time to make you dinner, okay? You can have leftovers from last night for lunch. Good-bye, be good."

"I will," he chimed – he was always good – and he got a brief hug, and then the door was shut, and he was alone.

Yuri couldn't remember being alone for a whole afternoon before. It meant he couldn't go to the park, because he didn't have a key, or anyone to take him, and he didn't have skating tonight, but maybe it would be fun. Nobody telling him what to do. He perked up. Yeah, that sounded great.

For once, he didn't have to do his homework right away!

Yuri had his lunch first, and though the leftovers weren't as good as a freshly-made meal, they were okay. Then he wandered past his schoolbag with his homework still inside, waiting for him to complete it, to sit in front of the TV instead.

He watched for a while, then eventually got up to at least bring his homework over so he could pretend to have been working on it when Mama came home. It was already dark outside when some mindless scrolling through channels brought him on skating. Yuri sat back on his heels; he'd come in halfway through some girl's program as she came out of a spin and started to prance across the ice like it was a dance floor, her costume glittering. And then she got her score, and then the announcer said that the men would be up next, making Yuri sit up straighter.

He grabbed Ms. Lion and Mr. Tiger so they could watch together and curled up with a blanket and his homework. Whenever they cut away from the skaters, or whoever was skating was boring, he did another problem. There wasn't that much homework today, so he was done halfway through the break between the groups.

When the best skater came on, he picked up both his plushies to squeeze them and move closer to the TV. Victor Nikiforov, age 18, representing Russia. Yuri had seen him skate a few times before. Victor didn't skate like anyone else did, not quite, and he stood out visually, too: with his long hair and slim build and pretty costumes, he looked like a fairy. He reminded Yuri, a very little bit, of an old picture of his grandma, her hair down, in a dancer pose but wearing an ordinary dress.

Victor wasn't in first place – the announcers kept saying he'd fallen before – but Yuri told his plushies, "He's gonna win."

Victor smiled and settled into his opening pose. The text that flashed on the screen said that his music was from Swan Lake. Yuri knew Swan Lake because Grandma had danced in it. It was a ballet. He'd never heard the music from it, but it sounded nice when it started to play.

Victor certainly moved like he had ballet training, everything smooth and graceful, and then he would hit his jumps and go high. Yuri was enchanted. He wanted to move like that, like the ice was just something he was floating on top of, like gravity didn't hold him back.

He jumped up as soon as the program was done, suddenly too full of energy to sit still. He flitted back and forth across the floor, pretending he was on the ice, making up a routine and faking everything he couldn't do on the rug, like spins. The kitchen floor was nice and slippery, though – oh, they were cutting to an interview with Victor, so he plopped back down for a few moments. Yuri had barely noticed the last person to go. (Victor had won, just as Yuri had known he would.)

As he practiced spinning as well as he could in the kitchen, Yuri daydreamed that when he was old enough to skate at competitions like that, he'd get to meet Victor. No, no. Victor was a lot older than him. Maybe he'd be retired by then. He'd see how talented Yuri was and coach him. Or if he wasn't retired, he'd tell his coach to teach him, the one who was older than Grandpa, and they'd skate together all the time, and Victor would help him and see how great he was.

A little dizzy, Yuri came to a stop and looked at the clock. It was an hour and a half past when they usually had dinner. He was hungry. But Mama wasn't home yet.

But he was hungry.

He wasn't allowed to use the stove, and he didn't know if she would be able to tell somehow, so he stuck to rooting around in the fridge. There was enough bread and sliced cheese to make a sandwich. He liked sandwiches. The one he made was cold and not as good as the ones Mama made, but it filled his stomach.

Mama still wasn't home.

Be good, she'd said. So Yuri washed his plate and cup, and put away the dry dishes. There was a bottle in one of the cupboards where it shouldn't be; it was the stuff Mama drank at night that he wasn't allowed to have. But she wasn't here. Curious, Yuri poured himself a little bit and tried a sip.

It tasted like the alcohol in cough spray and nothing else. It was awful. Yuri spit it out into the sink, rinsed his mouth, and made a face as he put the bottle back where it was supposed to be. How did she drink that it? Grown-ups were weird.

Mama still wasn't home.

Yuri had noticed that when Mama said, "I promise", it was different from when other people said it. When Grandpa said, "I promise we can have pirozhki later," they made pirozhki. When Grandma said, "I promise you can have dessert if you finish everything on your plate," she gave him dessert when he at least tried to eat all of his dinner. When his friend said, "I promise you can go next," then Yuri got to go next (and if he didn't, then at least he was on the right side in the resulting fight).

When Mama said, "I promise I'll come watch you skate today," she didn't ever come. When she said, "I promise I'll make whatever you want for dinner," sometimes she did, but sometimes she would say she was too tired to cook when they got home, and would get mad at him if he was upset over what she gave him instead. When she said, "I promise we'll go to the zoo some day," well, it might still happen, but she never set a date when he asked her about it.

He knew it wasn't always her fault, but it still hurt when she was never there to see him skate. At least Grandpa stayed to watch him and didn't wander off during his lessons like some of the parents.

And she still wasn't home.

Yuri went to get his favorite picture book and took it into the living room. He placed his homework on the little table next to the couch so he could show Mama right away when she got back, then climbed up next to it and started to go through the book. It was about a tigress going on an adventure to find her friend, and meeting all kinds of other cats along the way – Yuri had never known there were so many before seeing them in the book for the first time. He liked to stare at the pictures of the leopards and the panthers and the funny-looking caracals, all of them different but not that different.

He'd learned to read the book to himself after three nights in a row that Mama wouldn't. He knew the story by heart, page by page, and somehow, saying it to himself, looking at the words, knowing how the letters should be pronounced, everything just clicked, and then it was like he could read for real. That was why he was good at reading. The kids in his class who couldn't read that well probably just didn't have a cool book like his that they had picked it up from, or they weren't smart enough to figure it out.

He hadn't even realized that he'd fallen asleep when he was being shaken awake. "Oh, honey, were you waiting up for me?" Mama asked. She looked very tired. "Did you get something to eat?"

Yuri yawned, and then he nodded. "And I washed the dishes." He showed her his homework, too, and she smiled and ran her fingers through his hair.

"I'm sorry I made you wait so long." She scooped him up. "Let's get you into bed proper, hm? Good rest for good little boys."

He kept a hold on his book. "Read to me first."

There was a long pause, but then she said, "Okay."

She tucked him in, and Yuri fell asleep to the sound of her pretty voice telling him about the tigress asking cat after cat if they had seen her friend.

~!~

By the time Yuri started second grade, he had his ballet lessons. It was a lot harder than skating, and not as fun, and he always felt like he was catching up to the kids who had started younger than him, and he didn't really like his teacher. But it would help him skate better, and it made Grandma happy when he showed off for her. Sometimes she would help correct his positions, too.

Second grade was also when he had his first fight with Mom.

Mom was already in a bad mood when she came home that day. She was short with Grandpa, who didn't deserve being snipped at, which already had Yuri's hackles up, and then she went straight for the kitchen. Yuri winced to hear the sound of glass slamming on the counter, even though she'd only just come back. Usually, she waited to drink until after dinner.

Yuri stayed in the living room while she called one of her friends and proceeded to complain for what felt like forever about work and her boss. If he got close to the TV and turned the volume up a bit, he couldn't hear her that clearly, and if he held Mr. Tiger and stroked his fake fur, her loud voice set him less on edge.

When she finally hung up, Yuri waited a minute before turning off the TV and going over. She was sitting at the table, an empty glass in front of her, holding her head in her hands so her fine blonde hair hung over her face. "Mom?" he prompted when she didn't look up. "I'm hungry."

"Make yourself something, Yura," she said, not looking at him. "I'm not up for it tonight."

But he wanted something hot, and he still wasn't allowed to use the stove, and she'd promised— "Mom," he whined, coming closer and grabbing her arm.

"I said make yourself something," she snapped, suddenly sitting up enough to refill her glass. "I had a terrible day at work and you're old enough to—"

Yuri felt something flare up inside of him, anger that he wasn't getting what he wanted and anger that she was talking like that to him and anger that he'd been waiting for ages and she wouldn't even consider making dinner, which was the thing parents were supposed to do.

He couldn't help himself. He didn't even think about it. He grabbed the glass out of her hand, turned, and hurled it at the wall. The sound it made was extremely satisfying, a kind of slow-motion clink and the smaller sound of the pieces bouncing everywhere as the alcohol splashed to the floor in a big, clear puddle.

It felt really, really good.

Mom gaped at him.

"I'm hungry and it's late and you promised that you were going to make something good tonight!" he screamed at her. The screaming felt good, too, the way it scratched his throat, the way it sounded in their tiny kitchen. "You promised."

"Do not," she breathed, and then she was standing up, so much taller than him. "Do not do that Yura. Do you understand me? That is – that is a very bad thing. You don't ever do that again."

He glared up at her, not saying anything. He still felt enraged, so mad that his hands were shaking when he formed them into fists.

Mom growled at him and grabbed his shoulder. "Do you understand me?" she yelled, and then she started to pull him from the room.

He dug his heels in, protesting, but she was stronger. She took him to the bedroom and told him that he was not to leave it or else, and then slammed the door and left before he could even ask anything. Like or else what, or if he was going to get something to eat, or if she was going to yell at him if he needed to use the bathroom.

Trembling, he curled up at the head of the bed. Mr. Tiger was still in the living room, but at least Ms. Lion was here, and he had his books. And after a while, Mom brought him some dinner, although she didn't come to tuck him in that night, and she was still extremely grumpy the next day.

When Grandma took him to the park that Saturday, she didn't let him run off like she normally did. Instead, she steered him towards her favorite bench and made him sit down with her. "Yurochka," she said, and Yuri internally winced; he didn't hear it often, but her scolding tone wasn't hard to miss. "We heard from your mother that you threw a glass this week."

"It wasn't at her," he grumbled, not quite looking at her.

She waited. Yuri was stubborn enough to out-wait her, even if he felt kind of bad about it. "You shouldn't do things like that," she finally said, disappointment dripping from her voice, and Yuri bit his lip.

"I just wanted her to make dinner!" he exploded. "I was hungry, and she was on the phone, and then she was drinking, and she told me to – but I didn't know how – and then she yelled at me – and, and—" His throat closed up. He didn't know how to explain what had happened well enough.

Grandma sighed and put an arm around his shoulders, let him push into her warmth. "That sounds upsetting," she said, and something in him relaxed, to know that she thought it was unfair, too. "But you can't break things just because someone made you mad. Hm? What else could you have done, Yurochka? You could have called Grandpa. Don't you think he would have brought you dinner if you were hungry? Do you think we would ever, ever let you starve?"

Yuri hadn't thought of that. "But it was late," he mumbled. "What if you were sleeping?"

"I promise we would come anyway." She kissed his hair. "Okay? We love you very much. Now let's see, maybe you also could have told your mother..."

He didn't think talking to Mom would have helped anything. Not when she was in a mood like that. But he let Grandma talk and focused on how warm she was instead. Eventually, she let him go and he went off to play, and when they went home he heard her murmuring with Grandpa, but that seemed to be the end of that.

Not even a month later, Mom got a new job, and they moved back in with his grandparents. Yuri hated having to pack – it was so boring and it took forever and there were boxes everywhere in their little apartment that Mom and Grandpa had to stack into Grandpa's even littler car. But he liked living with Grandma and Grandpa again.

Mom seemed to like her new job better, too. She didn't get angry as often, and she was home more. She still couldn't come to his skating lessons, but she did smile when she saw Yuri practicing ballet moves with Grandma. "You're already so much better than I ever was," she told him.

"You did ballet, too?" She'd never said.

"Only for a little while. I begged and begged Grandma to quit at some point. You're much more talented at it than I am. I put all my effort into singing, instead."

She sang to him more often at night now, too. Yuri beamed at her and did the biggest grand jeté he could in the space of the living room.

~!~

Over the next couple of years, Mom seemed less and less happy, and she was around less and less often. She started disappearing for days at time, and sometimes she would mention that she was auditioning for a singing job of some kind and sometimes Yuri would wake up and she would just be gone.

He never had to ask if it went well. Usually, it didn't, and when Mom showed up again, and if it hadn't, she would be up all night drinking. Not like Grandpa with his one beer after a hard day of work, or Grandma with the glass of wine on special occasions that she would let him take a sip from (it didn't taste that good, but it made him feel grown-up).

On those nights, Yuri would shut himself in their shared bedroom and do homework or ballet stretches. Mom got really unhappy when she drank. Yuri didn't like it, not a bit, but his grandparents got sad and disappointed in him if he argued with her or started a shouting match because she'd forgotten something important.

She drank on the odd occasion when her auditions or networking or whatever worked out, too. Not as much, at least, and not as early. She would get in a few questions to Yuri about how his week had been, first. Still, the only good thing about those days was that she would sing for him for a bit if he asked.

Yuri slowly stopped being so upset when she left. He didn't need her. His grandparents were always there, and he was busy. Skating took up more of his time as he got better at it; Grandpa couldn't have stayed for all of his practices if he wanted to. His coach said he had a real talent, that he could train with a top coach, that the state would give him money to live on if he turned out to be good enough. Yuri just needed to get in, and so he went to the rink even on days that he didn't want to, even when it felt like he had to drag his whole body in, even when it meant not being able to make plans with his few friends at school.

One warm early-fall evening, when Yuri was nine, he came home to find that Mom had come back after nearly three weeks away at whatever it had been this time. (He didn't see why she couldn't just get a job like a normal person if this singing thing was going to take so much time and effort, no matter how nice her voice was.) She was chattering away with his grandparents in the kitchen, sounding excited. He hung back, listening from behind the doorway.

"I think this might finally be it!" Her voice was giggly in a way that it rarely was. "Getting back into the business is so hard. Ah, sometimes I wish I hadn't had Yura."

Yuri froze. "Really," he heard Grandma chide.

"Not like – not that I don't love him, of course I do, but it would have been so much easier for both of us if I'd waited a few years—"

Yuri wanted to scream. But his grandparents were right there. They wouldn't stand for it. And he wanted to break something. But this was their apartment. He couldn't – he couldn't.

But he couldn't keep standing here, thinking about what she had said on repeat, I wish I hadn't had him like she didn't want him, like all he'd ever done was cost her money and take away from her precious singing career and—

There was one thing in the world that it was absolutely impossible to be angry around, even moreso than his grandparents. Yuri turned around, left the apartment as quietly as he could, and went down the stairs and out the back of the building.

Oh, good. There she was. He didn't even have to say her name; the little cat, which according to his book on cat breeds, was a colorpoint ragdoll, was sitting right there, licking her paw. As soon as she saw Yuri, though, she abandoned her grooming to come over and say hello.

"Hi," he said softly, crouching down to hold his hand out. "Hi, Potya."

She butted her head against his fingers. He sat down on the cleanest piece of concrete he could see and scooped her up into his lap. She settled down and soon started to purr. Listening to the steady rumble, feeling her warm body, stroking her soft fur, all of it drained his anger until it was like it had never been there. He scratched her on her neck where she liked it best and settled down himself with a sigh.

Yuri had first seen the kitten wandering around the apartment building a few months ago. He couldn't bear to leave her as a stray, even though she'd been scared at first, and wouldn't let him anywhere near. He'd started to steal bits of fish and other meat from the fridge to leave out for her, and waited patiently for her to eat closer and closer to him, with less and less fear evident in her body language.

At some point she'd seemed to recognize that he provided the food. Yuri thought she was pretty smart. And then she'd learned that he would give her affection, too, and now she would crawl into his lap. He'd read on the internet that he could teach her to fetch; he hadn't tried it yet, but he bet she would pick it up fast.

His grandparents and Mom didn't know about her yet. Yuri wanted so badly to bring her inside and show them. She would be a good cat. They would fall in love with her just as Yuri had. But he had wanted to wait until she wasn't scared, first, to make sure they would agree to let him keep her. To show he was being responsible and everything.

She turned around in his lap. Yuri ran his fingers down her side, marveling at how soft she could keep her long fur. He brushed it when he got the chance. He didn't want it becoming matted. Potya liked combing almost as much as petting, probably because he was gentle and went slowly so it wouldn't hurt if the comb caught on a tangle.

Yuri liked taking care of her. He liked having this secret, too, this kitten that only seemed to exist for him, almost as much as he wanted to take her inside and make her safe and warm.

Maybe now was a good time. Winter was coming up quickly, and Mom was in a good mood, and Potya wasn't scared of humans anymore.

But of course, that would have to wait until she was no longer cuddled in his lap, purring loudly, so warm and content that he couldn't bear to move her.

A long time passed. Yuri stroked Potya's fur and marveled at her, and thought about skating. He ran through the new jump he was having trouble with in his head, over and over, like he was actually doing it. He'd read somewhere that it helped, that it was nearly as good in some ways as actual practice, and he only had so much time on the ice.

He was so engrossed in Potya and his own thoughts that he didn't notice it getting darker outside until the nearby door slammed open. "Yura," Mom called, and when she saw him, her lip curled. "Put down that filthy cat and come inside, it's time for dinner."

Huh. It turned out he could get kind of angry even when he was holding Potya. Not as much as he usually might have, but it was still there.

He stood slowly, carefully, trying not to dislodge Potya too much from his arms. She didn't seem to mind, although her purr tapered off. "She's not dirty," he said. "She's my friend."

"Either way. Drop it and get inside. Don't make me repeat myself again." When he didn't move – he was trying to control his breathing, trying to think of what he should say – she snapped, "Yura!" and started to advance on him in long strides.

He backed away. Potya suddenly stiffened and buried her head against him. "You're scaring her," he hissed, not wanting to raise his voice and make it worse. "Mom, come on, she's a nice cat—"

"It's a stray, let go of it, what's into you tonight – just because it's a cat—"

"What's going on?" Grandma asked from the doorway, peering at them over her glasses. "Yurochka, whose cat is that?"

"It's just a stray," Mom started to say, but Yuri held Potya close and talked over her.

"She's mine!" When both of them stared at him – Mom in clear disbelief, Grandma in confusion – he swallowed and kept going. "I – she doesn't have a home, so I've been taking care of her. Since June. I fed her and combed her – she'd not dirty – and she likes me and I want to keep her."

Mom put her hand to her forehead, mumbled something that sounded a lot like can't afford or maybe a couple of curse words. Grandma didn't look too enthused, either.

Yuri ducked his head. Were they going to say no? He'd had all these arguments planned out, but he couldn't remember any of them right now. He could feel a burning in his eyes, moisture collecting, but he wasn't going to cry. He squeezed Potya until she let out a pitiful little squeak and he had to let go for fear that she was hurting her, though she didn't jump down.

Mom and Grandma muttered together for a moment, words Yuri couldn't hear over the beating of his heart, and then there was a hand in his hair. "Yurochka," Grandma said, and he looked up at her. Not so far up as it had been, once. "May I see her?"

He was afraid that Potya would be scared, but now that Mom wasn't advancing on them looking all scary, she seemed more curious than anything. She sniffed at Grandma's hand for a while, and turned into her hand when she scratched her neck. "She's a good cat," he said. "She used to be terrified, but I – I showed her that humans aren't scary, and now she likes them."

"Since June? You've been hiding her for – three months? Goodness, we had no idea."

That didn't sound like a no. "She's really smart, too. I know she is. And she's just a little cat. Please, Grandma."

"Well," she said. Behind her, Mom huffed impatiently. "Why don't we go show her to your Grandpa and ask him, hm? But as you said, she's a little cat, and I can tell you love her very much already. I don't see why we can't keep her."

"Really?" He grinned so much his face hurt. "Thank you, thank you!" He would have jumped to hug her, but, well, Potya.

"Does she have a name?"

He'd spent so long deciding on a good name, even before she'd let him very near her. "Puma Tiger Scorpion," he announced proudly. "But Potya for short."

Mom tipped her face heavenward. Grandma covered her smile for a moment. "Alright," she said, and she put a hand on his upper back to encourage him in. "Let's go show him before dinner gets cold."

Potya stayed calm in his arms the whole way up to the apartment. Yuri almost couldn't believe it, that she was finally coming to stay with him – surely Grandpa wouldn't say no, and even Mom seemed less unhappy about it than she'd been a minute ago. She tentatively reached out to scratch Potya's head as they waited by the door while Grandma fetched Grandpa. "I thought she was dirty, but it's just the color of her fur, isn't it? It seems that she's actually a pretty cat."

Yuri didn't forgive her for insulting Potya yet, but he did let her run her long nails down Potya's head a couple of times. And then Grandpa was there, and Yuri had to explain the whole thing again and promise that yes, he could take care of a cat, he'd already been – and then Potya jumped out of his arms, apparently fed up with all the attention, and wandered off to go look out the windows. She looked exactly like she belonged there.

Mom and Grandma went to go eat, but Yuri lingered to watch Potya and make sure she looked like she was doing okay.

"You keep saying she," Grandpa said. "Isn't Potya more like a boy's name?"

"I thought she was a boy at first," Yuri admitted. "But when I figured it out, I didn't want her to get confused about her name." And also he was already used to it. Hesitantly, he added, "Should I change it?"

"You can call her whatever you wish." Grandpa smiled at him. "She's your cat, isn't she?"

"Yeah." Yuri grinned back. She was, she was, she was. Officially, now. "I like her name the way it is."

After, dinner, Grandpa helped him find an old box and line it with rags, and Yuri wrote her full name on the side, and now she had a bed. When Yuri went to bed, though, Potya followed him and hopped up to sleep next to him. Yuri already knew that she was the best cat in the world, but that only confirmed it.

"Really, Yura," Mom murmured. "Well, you like cats so much, I suppose it was inevitable that you would end up with one." She smoothed the covers down over his shoulders. "Make sure you take good care of her. I don't want to hear that your grandparents are having to pick up after her."

"I will," he promised. He thought it was pretty obvious that he could – he'd done so much to earn Potya's trust already, done what he could for her outside. It hurt that Mom was talking like he was some irresponsible little kid.

Potya adapted well to an indoor life – she didn't seem interested in going out again even when she had the chance – and Yuri did everything just like he'd read about. He combed her every day so she wouldn't shed quite as much (though it seemed like his black shirts were a lost cause), and cleaned out her litter box every night, and fed her before he ran off to skating practice in the mornings. He taught her how to play fetch, and soon she was coming up to him whenever she wanted to play, with the little toys that Grandma made her from scraps of fabric held in her mouth. She hardly seemed to tire of it; sometimes Grandpa, or Mom when she was around, would take over the game in order to make him go do his homework instead of playing with Potya half the night.

Just as he had known they would, his grandparents fell in love with her, too. Potya would come running when he arrived home, and followed him around the apartment, but he saw her curling up next to Grandma when she worked on darning and on mending the ripped seams on Yuri's clothes, and Grandpa slipping her tiny scraps of meat on occasion. (They did have to teach her not to climb on the counters when they were making dinner, lest she start trying to eat their food or clamber onto the stove. Yuri might have felt bad for yelling at her, but she never actually seemed to mind.)

In short, she was a very good companion and a very good cat, and the next time Mom vanished for weeks on end, Yuri found that between skating and his grandparents and Potya, he hardly missed her at all.