This Is Stella's Reality

March 21, 2015

I tiptoed through hallways of glass rooms, pulling Bucky behind me as we silently peeked inside each of them.

He was nervous. I squeezed his hand tightly and turned back to smile at him. He grimaced back at me, trying to seem normal. A quiet laugh shook my shoulders as I looked back to peer into another glass room.

Pale blue eyes stared back at me. A fluffy white cat was perched on a post on the other side of the glass. Her nose was cutely pink, and long whiskers stretched off of her mouth.

I got Bucky's attention, and he inspected the cat that stared back at him. It was a miracle I had convinced him to come to the humane society. Even more a feat was me getting him to agree to possibly adopt something.

He smiled down at the fluffball. She was cute and playful, wiggling on her back and enticing us to step inside the room. I looked up at Bucky. His eyes held a sort of boyish delight, and I dragged him in.

Anxiety returned to his thoughts. I touched them, wanting to know why. My heart ached a bit as I did. He didn't want to hurt her. The cat was so small compared to him; even his hands dwarfed her slender frame. It was another life he needed to care for.

I smiled at him and stroked his arm. "Are you sure about this, ducky?" My voice was quiet in the room which was littered with toys and sleeping cats.

He looked down at her again, wiggling his gloved fingers. She batted at him, and her pupils grew so large they nearly swallowed the aquamarine of her eyes. That smile tugged again at his lips, and light filled his eyes. "Yeah," he said softly. "I'm sure."

We filled out the adoption papers, sitting in the lobby and arguing over the questionnaire. Are there any children in your household?

Does Sam count?

Bucky, be serious.

I am being serious.

He laughed when I hit his arm and took the pen and clipboard from his hands. His eyes peered over my shoulder as I checked some boxes and wrote our information down.

Will you be changing your cat's name?

I looked back up at Bucky. He was thinking, "What's her name now?"

"Princess Marshmallow," I laughed. Shelters usually named their cats extravagant things in order to make them stand out to potential adoptees.

Bucky rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Yeah, I'm not calling her that." He took the pen and application back from my hands and tapped the cap against his lips. He twirled the pen between his thumb and pointer finger, humming with thought.

He looked at me with narrowed eyes, "Don't laugh. Can we call her Alpine?" I smiled at him. He's so cute.

"Why Alpine?" I asked. It was a cute name, and I loved the shy smile he wore.

Blush crept up his cheeks, and he mumbled something I couldn't hear. I hummed at him, raising my eyebrow in his direction. He huffed, "Because she's fluffy like snow on mountain tops." His voice was a low grumble in his chest, and embarrassment strangled his thought.

I grinned and leaned onto his shoulder. "I love it, ducky," I said. He huffed again and wrote Alpine in his shockingly beautiful handwriting.

She was not so beautiful on the car ride home. Alpine screamed at the top of her tiny lungs as she scratched at the inside of her carrier.

Bucky glanced at me with wide eyes as he sped towards the compound. He laughed wildly, disbelieving our decision to adopt a seemingly angelic cat that was now demonic in the backseat of our car.

When we arrived, the team stared at us as we hurried up the staircase, lugging the trembling and hissing box to our room. They did not question us; worse had been seen in the compound.

Carefully, Bucky undid the locks of her container and stepped away to cower against the door with me.

Whiskers floated through the door, followed by that sweet pink nose and the tufts of hair that adorned her ears. Alpine stepped out of her carrier and admired her new kingdom.

She was suddenly unbothered by anything in the world. It was as if nothing had changed in her life at all. Her glass blue eyes turned to us expectantly, blinking and waiting for us.

Bucky huffed a laugh. "Great," he mumbled, "another brat." He knelt to the floor beside her and extended his hand. She rubbed her face against his fingers, and a wide smile spread over Bucky's lips.

I joined them on the floor, leaning against Bucky and letting Alpine glide between our hands. Her white paws stepped onto Bucky's knee to get closer to us. His thoughts were nothing but happy.

He had worried he would hurt her or she would not like him. That did not seem to be the case. She wanted nothing but his attention, and he was head-over-heels in love with her.

Such was the start of our new budding family. Me, Bucky, and our sweet girl, Alpine.