He’d been Outside for a long time.  He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d seen the inside of a human den.  Vaguely, he remembered what they were like — warm in winter, cool in summer, dry, enough food, a scratch behind the ear now and then.  But that had been a long time ago; his family now was the other cats of the neighborhood, especially those he had sired, and their mothers.  He was proud of the kittens.

He stopped outside a human den, where the humans fed his family off their back porch.  This was a safe place to eat and find shelter under the porch or the den; though different humans had come here recently, no one had chased cats out of this yard as far back as anyone could remember.

The queen-human, putting food out, saw him.  “Oh, you poor thing!”  He didn’t understand the words but the tone was enough like a cry that he understood from the direction she was looking.  Although he’d won the fight many days before, the other cat had gotten a lucky bite on his neck, and he hadn’t been able to clean it well.  The sharp pain of the bite had gone but a feeling of soreness, pressure, and heat reached up and down from it.  He had been hoping that after he ate the kittens’ mother might clean it for him, and then he could settle in near food and sleep the wound away.

He ate, and let the human stroke his back.  She moved to pick him up but he moved away.  No.  I am not afraid of you or I would run, but I do not wish to be picked up.  She followed, speaking softly and calmly; he kept walking.  He walked around the humans’ den and in front of a few others, before slipping through a cat-sized hole in a fence.

He walked the neighborhood a few days more, his neck feeling worse and worse, the soreness spreading and a new foul smell coming from it.  He wondered if perhaps the humans could help him as well as he had hoped the kittens’ mother might.  As he returned to the humans’ porch for another meal, he saw the queen-human putting food out again.

She fed his kittens.  She had spoken to him kindly and stroked his fur gently; once, those things had happened to him often, but more humans were likely to yell at him or chase him out of their yards for making too much noise with the queens or fighting or just for being a stray.  She was different, she wouldn’t harm or yell at him, and maybe she could help him, maybe she could make the pain go away.

He let her pick him up and take him inside.  He’d been a stray a long time, but maybe he could have his own particular humans again.