Title: "Cats & Dogs: The Saving of Kitty Galore"
Author: Pirate Turner
Dedicated To: My beloved, wondrous, and always inspirational and amazing Jack, and our darling babies - Merry Christmas and Happy Solstice, my loves! This is the third story in my 12 Days of Solstice/Christmas for my beloved Jack and our darling babies of the year 2011.
Rating: PG
Summary: It's Christmas. Kitty Galore's being released, but Catherine still has her caged as she waits to free her soul.
Warnings: Het
Date Written: 13 November, 2011
Word Count (excluding heading): 1,912
Disclaimer: Catherine, Kitty Galore, Diggs, all other recognizable characters, and Cats & Dogs are ﾩ & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Kathleen "Kat" O'Hara and everything else is ﾩ & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

"I'm still not sure this is such a sharp idea, kitty kat," the former officer yipped. "Kitty Galore is a hardened criminal, but she's earned her time off away from bars until she messes up again."

"Who said she's going to mess up again?" the cat meowed.

"Come on, Catherine. This is Galore we're talking about here!" the German Shepard yipped, his bushy tail wagging with his determination. "It's only a matter of time before she tries to take over the world again!"

"Unless some one does something to break the cycle," his partner interjected.

"Like what?" he barked. "Like you keeping her behind bars?"

"Oh, hush up," Catherine remarked, her own slender and gray tail swishing with her growing agitation with him. She unsheathed her claws and quietly kneaded the snow beneath her gray paws. "I'm saving her. You'll see."

"Saving her?" he barked again, his fur rising. "You must be insane," he declared, "'cause what I'm seeing is the criminal who's supposed to be free is still behind bars!"

"She wouldn't stay any other way," Catherine argued. "This is going to save her life!"

"We already saved her life," Diggs yipped. "This is just tormenting her!"

"Hush! She's coming!" Catherine commanded, whirling around and placing a paw over his mouth.

He shook against her hold, but she clung to him determinedly. His brown eyes widened. "Who's coming?" he questioned, his voice muffled beneath the cover of her paw.

"The human," Catherine told him. "The one I told you about, remember?" He tried to talk, but her paw kept him quiet. He whimpered, pleading for her to let go of him, and at last with another stern reminder, she released him. "Now be quiet. Don't make another sound or we might scare her off."

"I still think it's a bad idea," he told her. "Any one takes one look at Kitty Galore's ugly mug, they're gonna - "

Catherine turned around again just as the door of the house they'd been watching opened and covered her youthful partner's mouth once more with her paw. "I said be quiet!" she hissed, her emerald eyes narrowed up at him. "And Kat O'Hara's not like that! You'll see! She's going to give Kitty what she needs: a real chance to start over!"

A crooning voice with an Irish lilt broke through their conversation. "Ach, me Goddess! What have we here, me darlin'?" Both animals stuck their heads around the corner of the far building and watched as the redheaded woman hurried down her snow-covered steps. "What bloody bastard left me a poor, wee soul out in this freezin' cold on Christmas Eve?"

Diggs laughed. "You did," he whispered, and Catherine held his jaw more tightly closed in her paws.

Kat picked up the carrier they'd set onto her bottom step and gazed into the crate. Diggs bristled against Catherine's hold, yearning to tell her, "Here it comes," and being unable to get so much as a single word out from the way she clenched his mouth shut.

"Ah, 'tis okay, sweetheart," Kat crooned into the carrier's door, and Diggs' brown eyes grew wide.

What? he thought, aching to yip with his surprise and flapping his body about like a fish out of water as Catherine persisted in keeping his mouth trapped shut in her paws. Can't she see her? And then, before his startled eyes, the woman took the cat out of the cage. Kitty slapped at her, her claws bared, but Kat dodged her claws, held her close, and hugged her, every last hairless inch of her. Tears welled into Diggs' eyes, and he finally stopped fighting Catherine and just watched the miracle of rare human kindness unfold before his amazed eyes.

"'Tis okay, darlin'," Kat's gentle and soothing voice assured Kitty, and though she whispered, the officers could still hear her Irish voice clearly in their pointed ears. "Ye're safe now. There's nae more need fer ye tae be fightin'. Yer'll have yer every need met from here on out an' all th' luvin' ye can hold. Come inside, an' we'll get ye a nice saucer o' milk."

"Milk?" Kitty mewed weakly. Her naked tail swished in the icy air. It had been so long since she'd had milk! Her green eyes glared up at Kat. "Are you going to make me dress up?"

"Nae," Kat assured her, gazing down into her eyes with unlimited love. "Nae unless ye want tae."

Both Kitty's and Diggs' mouths fell open so shocked were they at the realization that Kat understood what Kitty was meowing; Catherine just smiled a grin of joy and knowledge. "You can understand me?" Kitty asked in surprise.

"Aye, every word, darlin', an' ye need tae understand this," Kat told her, gently stroking her pink skin, "ye're beautiful jest th' way ye are, an' nae one's e'er gonna change tha' or hold it against ye again. I won't let 'em."

Diggs' surprise grew as he heard Kitty begin to purr, and then the human woman and the ex-convict were gone, disappeared into the warmth of both heat and love inside Kat O'Hara's home. "See?" Catherine questioned, finally releasing him and looking up at him with a huge grin. Her green eyes sparkled. "I told you Kat O'Hara's different! We'll never have to arrest Kitty again! She won't want to take over the world now that she's happy and loved!"

Diggs slowly walked up to the house, his mouth still hanging open. "Wow!" he breathed, his tail wagging. "I never thought some one could actually look at that cat and not be disgusted!" He barked. "She's so gross, what with being naked and all!"

"Diggs," Catherine scolded, her furry lips twitching with her humor, "that's not very nice - "

"Not nice, maybe," Diggs said, wagging his tail, "but true!" He barked again, then picked up the carrier and gave it to another approaching agent. The wind shifted, and he turned back to the small house with surprise. "Whoa!"

"What is it?" Catherine queried, watching him from her green eyes rounded with puzzlement.

His tail wagged again. "I've never smelled so many different scents in one place! There's cats, dogs, fish, birds, raccoons, tigers, panthers, lions, monkeys - " He yipped. "It's like a zoo in there!" His tail wagged even harder. "And there's even animals I haven't smelled before!"

"She's coming!" Catherine spoke with sudden urgency and, grabbing her partner by his collar, dashed around the side of the house. She leaned against the wall just as the front door opened again.

Diggs' ears perked up as he listened to Catherine's heart pounding inside her furry chest. He cocked his head to one side, heard the woman muttering in Gaelic about whoever had been heartless enough to abandon Kitty in the cold and had even waited around to reclaim their carrier and promising a fate worse than ten thousand deaths upon their heads if ever she found them, and watched the emotions flickering in Catherine's emerald orbs. His tail wagged cautiously as Kat went back inside and shut the door behind her. "You miss it, don't you?"

"What?"

"Having a family." Yet she had become a part of his family, even sharing his claim on his humans. "Having your own, I mean," he clarified, "like before." Like before she'd come into his life, before she'd become a secret agent, before her life been transformed by whatever hardship had made her so stoic and serious and furiously adamant against companionship when they'd first met.

Catherine started preening herself, but he'd long ago realized that she'd resort to bathing when faced with a conversation in which she would rather not partake. "It's okay," he said and licked her gray, furry cheek before she could stop him. His tail wagged so hard that his entire behind shook with the motion. "You do have a family," he reminded her gently, "even if you have to share it."

"Diggs, I - "

"Catherine, what are you standing under?"

"What?" she questioned. Her green eyes narrowed again, and he could tell she was trying to determine rather she should be suspicious or just curious.

"Look above you," he yipped.

She did, and her eyes grew as round as saucers as she found that he'd used an extension from his collar to hang mistletoe over her furry head. "Diggs, I - "

"You do have a family, Catherine, right here," he told her quickly again and then pressed his nose to hers before she could stop him. His nose slipped slightly, and he pressed his furry lips forward to touch hers. They both shivered inside not from the cold but rather from the delicious tingles that raced through them both from their simple, shared kiss. Then Diggs' tongue slipped from his mouth, and Catherine jumped away from him before his slobbering, pink tongue could lick her smooth fur again.

"Diggs!" she exclaimed, her eyes wide and slightly wild. "Cats and dogs - "

"Are wonderful together," he finished before she could say what she was really thinking. He knew there were a thousand reasons why they shouldn't be together, but they were marvelous together. They had proven that first as reluctant partners and then as friends, and he knew they'd be purrfect lovers too.

He wagged his tail at her. Stretching out his front legs, he leaned down onto the snowy ground and looked directly into her face. "You know we are," he told her. "Besides," he yipped, "I already saw our Christmas miracle. Now I'm just trying to get a little Christmas fun."

She laughed. His eyes gazed adoringly up into hers, and finally Catherine's green orbs began to sparkle in return. "Fine," she said, walking forward and closing the distance between them. She rubbed herself against his face and purred. "Just don't blame me if you wake up the morning after Christmas to find your face slandered all over the newspaper. You'll be famous if you date me."

"I'm already famous," he yipped, "but there's nowhere else I'd rather spend Christmas or any other day or night of the year than right beside you!"

She rubbed her body down half the length of his side, then slapped him gently in his handsome, furry face with her slender, beautiful tail. Her tail ran across his face and underneath his nose before twitching at him in a come-hither gesture. Yet she was off flying before he could go after her. He laughed and took off after her with his own jet pack. Soon, they were playing tag in the starry, Christmas sky far above the city and all the beings, human and animal, cat and dog, cruel and kind, beneath them. There were only the two of them in the sky until a red sleigh zipped by them so fast that they almost didn't see it.

"Catherine," Diggs yipped, "was that who I think it was?"

"Yes, Diggs," Catherine purred. "Yes, it was."

"That means there'll be treats waiting at home!" He barked excitedly. "Come on, I'll race you home!"

Her happy laughter followed him as he flew through the night sky, and his smile grew even wider. "Diggs?" she called to him.

"Yes, kitty cat?"

"Merry Christmas!"

"And merry Christmas to you too!" he barked back, and as he led the way to their home and their waiting family, he schemed over how he would get her back underneath the mistletoe again. This was definitely going to be the happiest Christmas ever, and he would prove to his beloved Catherine that cats and dogs really were meant to be together after all!

The End