A Fluff Fic
"And how sure are you Atlantis is there?" The pompous man sat back, leaning his weight on a fat elbow on the chair's arm.
"Well, uh, this is just a theory, Mr. Harcourt. You can't be completely sure in this case…" Milo fidgeted in front of the projection screen. "But I'll back it even if I have to swim out there myself!"
Harcourt looked to the other members of the board sitting around the table. Milo noticed a few sighed or rolled their eyes, but his spine tingled with excitement as one by one they nodded.
"Fine, Milo. We'll send a small expedition there."
"Y-y-you will?!" He stuttered with enthusiasm. "Wow!" the linguist started to himself. "This is it! I'm finally leading an expedition! Just like--"
"I didn't say you'd be leading it."
"Then who--" Milo was shocked.
"Someone with greater leadership expertise, nautical skills… Experience."
"But sir, I--"
"We'll fund it, Milo, but you're not going. Make copies of your notes."
"But Mr. Harcourt, I…" He clenched his fists in determination. "What if I don't unless you let me come?"
"Then there'll be no funding at all for this foolishness."
"But--!" Crestfallen and defeated, he sighed. "Okay. When do you need them by?"
"First thing tomorrow morning."
"Tomorrow morning?! I… okay…" The scholar hesitated, running a hand over his gold-brown hair.
"You're dismissed, Milo."
"Oh! Right. Uh, good day, gentlemen…" The erudite man clumsily gathered up his maps and diagrams and headed out the door with coat in hand. Fumbling with his documents Milo attempted and finally succeeded in putting his coat on. When he finally passed the great ruins of beasts long passed away and exited the Smithsonian entirely, he had to pull his coat close to his body as armor to protect himself from the piercing cold of early spring.
"They can't do this!" he furiously exclaimed to himself. "Why would they do this?! I could lead it if I was given a chance! I could at least do some miscellaneous job. I… I could clean the mess hall. The bathrooms. Anything!"
The scholar continued pacing home but his mind lingered. "No one understands. Atlantis must be out there! Am I the only one alive who believes?" He kicked at an old cola bottle on the sidewalk, the glass delicately ringing as it rolled into the street. A bus happened to be at the bus stop, and, head down, he handed the driver the money and boarded.
"Oh, Grandpa… I really miss you. It's been about a year now, hasn't it? I'm trying to make them see… I will someday! If only you were still here..." A wave of loneliness and sadness smothered him. Milo remembered the phone call he received on that day in 1911. His grandfather had said he was going on with an expedition only weeks before. Then linguist had ecstatically looked forward to the tales he would have heard upon Thaddeus Thatch's return. Nothing had beaten him before, whether it was climate, terrain, or animal. The old explorer always returned with barely a scratch and with inspiring stories of teamwork and adventure. Milo could not believe his grandfather had begun his return trip with pneumonia, as he discovered with the phone call. Even worse was the discovery that the next time he would see his grandfather he would return without something: his life. Milo felt as if his power was gone. Thaddeus was always there, like a parent would be. The linguist felt so alone after that.
The bookish man did not even realize he had already reached his residential area in Twinbrook. He paused at a large, sloppily painted sign next to a tall tree when he exited the bus. "Free kittens…" he mumbled, unconsciously reading aloud.
"Lotsa newspapers ya got there, sir. Ya read 'bout the Titanic?"
"YAAAH!" Milo jumped when it seemed a voice came from the sign. A little shaken he noticed a small tube peering from the side of the white washed boards of the sign. "…You surprised me a bit."
"A bit, mister?"
"Yeah. Nice periscope," he chuckled.
"So did ya read 'bout it in your newspapers? Dad won't stop talkin' 'bout it. Says it won't sink!"
"Well, I read about it, yeah, but these aren't newspapers."
"What are they?" A little carrot-topped head finally peered around the sign. "They aren't from work, are they? That's boring."
"Sorry, they are. As for being boring, I don't think so…" he sighed heavily. "…But that seems to just be me."
"Wanna cat, mister? Come 'round an' look."
"Well, I actually have things I need to do…"
"C'mon. Just a peek?"
"Well… Okay." Milo walked around the large painted planks to see the boy sitting at a small table on which was a box that shook and quietly mewed.
"Hey! Get back in there, girl! The red-haired child took hold of a kitten that had been trying to climb out. Milo gazed inside to see a litter of rambunctious Persian kittens playing in the blankets. Their shining coats varied in length and color from the shaggy piebald one to the shorthaired white kitten that the boy replaced among the blankets. "So ya wanna kitty?"
"Uh, sorry. Not today. I need to go home. Thanks, but you know. Work."
"Oh. Well, see ya mister!"
"Bye!" he called back as he resumed the walk.
The word made him wince when he said it. Milo recalled by way of his loneliness one of the best and worst experiences in his life, an experience that was Lisa McGrath. Despite being seven years ago, it still left a painfully empty niche inside his heart. There had in his mind been something special about the girl. She had been reared in New York, just as he had in his early childhood before his parents died, and had gone into the field of archeology. He had first met Lisa in the Smithsonian itself. The archeologist stood perhaps, 5' 3," he had speculated, and her glistening black hair was always kept away from her emerald eyes. He had thought her a pretty girl and it was their interests in ancient cultures that had brought them together. Atlantis had torn them apart. Milo was unable, he recollected, to convince her the sunken city existed, and though Lisa acknowledged many cultures referenced it, she simply believed it was a shared fable to teach the evils of greed and power-mongering, much in the same way every culture had a creation myth. While his pace was on course, Milo's mind wandered off to the day they parted.
"Milo, honey, this isn't working out."
"What? If the dinner's bad we can just send it back."
"No, no. I mean… us. Our beliefs. Job interests."
"How? If you mean Atlantis, they work hand in hand. We've talked about this."
"No, you talked all excited and wouldn't let me get a word in. Look. Neither of our jobs pay well, especially yours. I need someone to support me better. If you wouldn't chase those tall tales you'd have landed a better job by now--"
"Tall tales?! But Lisa, when I find Atlantis--"
"If you ever find Atlantis."
"I will find it, Lisa. I promise you that."
"You shouldn't make promises you can't keep."
"But I know I'll find it."
"There you go again. And when would you find it? How long would we be in a financial mess?"
"But we'll be well-known. We'll be funded then. Together we could stand beside Grandpa as great explorers!"
The scholar grimaced in remembrance of her expression. "Milo! He was a great explorer, but he was ridiculed for looking for the place! Anyone who's worked at the Smithsonian knows that!"
"Lisa…"
"I'm sorry, Milo. I'm not saying our friendship should end… But I think it'll be best for both of us if we end the relationship now."
"No… Lisa…"
"Here… this is more than enough money to cover my part of the meal."
"Lisa… please. I know I'll get funding soon--"
"How soon?" He recalled her frustrated tone. "Seriously. Stop tilting at windmills."
"But I don't-- No no no! Come back! Lisa, please! Sit down!"
As he climbed the stairs to his apartment the linguist sighed in weary recollection. When Lisa walked away, he had heard her angrily mumble, "Chances are he'll find true love when he finds Atlantis." He frowned, realizing that she was probably right, and even if the expedition set off without him and was successful, he would not be credited with its discovery, most likely, the recognition going to the leader.
Milo unlocked the door to his apartment and entered, closing the door with a gentle kick. He dumped the maps and scrolls on the table and clicked the light on, revealing the peeling wallpaper and chipped corners of the room's wooden chairs.
He began to search his coat pockets. "Okay where's… Oh! Gosh, I must have left it in the boiler room…" The man thought for a moment, considering whether or not he needed that document. Sighing he said, "Well, might as well get it, just in case."
He left the apartment and jogging down the street. However, Milo halted in front of the "Free Kittens" sign, seeing the carrot-topped boy just standing by and looking up into the tall oak by the sign. "Um, what are you doing?"
The child pointed to a particular branch. "She got out." Upon the bough was the white cat that had almost escaped the box earlier.
"Oh boy…" The scholar began to turn to leave for the museum, but he could not just leave the poor animal in the cold or the carrot-top worrying it. He rubbed his hands together and approached the tree. "Let's see what we have here…"
"Careful, mister!"
"Hey, don't worry. I was one of the better tree climbers at Camp Runamuk!" As he began to scale the oak he quietly added, "though I was one of the slowest and that was years ago…"
Finally Milo made it to the first thick branch, the one the little kitten sat mewing on. "Okay little thing… Stay there…" he said maneuvering the branch on hands and knees. As he neared the little cat leapt onto his head, nearly sending the scholar's glasses to the ground, and from this new vantage point jumped to an even higher branch system. "Oh, great." Carefully he backed up so that the base of that system was directly above his head. With awkward caution he stood upon the limb, holding out his arms like a scarecrow for balance. Steadying himself he dared to jump for the higher branch. Amazingly, he caught hold, and when with some effort pulled himself up. Milo looked over to the kitten on the end of the branch. Crawling forward, he coaxed, "Here, kitty. Come here…" The Persian cat stayed still in a sense to his relief. The linguist crawled a bit further.
A loud snap and a jolt of the limb froze the cartographer.
"Jiminy Christmas!" he breathed. Milo didn't dare move from the fear of falling out of the tree. He glanced downward to see the ground only partly obscured by the lower branch.
When he looked back up, the kitten was heading his way, and the bough popped behind him.
"No! Stay, kitty! Stay!" His words didn't deter the cat, which came within the scholar's reach. Gingerly he picked up the cat and hugged it to his body. The poor animal was cold to the touch. However the movement caused the branch to break further, but not completely. "Holy smokes!" Both he and the cat stayed still. Despite this, Milo still heard popping and creaking behind him for a few seconds more.
Suddenly the branch gave way beneath them.
As Milo fell he pressed the furry creature to his chest to protect it. The world suddenly stopped in pain and a timeless darkness.
"Sir! Sir!" Milo awoke with a jolt as if from a dream. He found a small jar open under his nose, obviously full of smelling salts. "Are you all right?" A large-bodied man loomed over the cartographer. There was a strange, slightly disconcerting pressure on his chest and he shot a glance toward it, finding the kitten curled up on his torso, purring slightly.
Milo rubbed the back of his head. "Yeah, I think so… A little sore, but okay. Um, I don't mean to be rude, but who are you?"
"Oh, I'm Jim Lee, little Brian's dad. He got me when you fell out of the tree." The man pointed to the redhead. "So you're okay? You sure?"
"Uh-huh." The linguist shakily got to his feet, aching as he did so. He looked down at the little bundle, asleep in his arms. It continued to purr slightly in its sleep, tiny paws twitching. Somehow holding the creature was comforting. He didn't feel quite as lost, as if he were wearing sunglasses against the harsh sun of loneliness. It was still too bright to look directly at, but it was in some unknown way bearable. "You know, I think I'm pretty good." He looked over to Brian. "Think I could have her?"
"Sure! But… weren't ya headin' somewhere? Sorry to say, but ya missed the last bus."
"My gosh! Well… It really isn't that important," he decided, looking down at the kitten. "I guess they don't need to know the little details." Milo stroked the cat's head, its whiskers quivering delightedly as he did so.
"Whatcha gonna name'r?"
"Gosh… I don't know." He couldn't believe how soft the little thing was. "How about 'Fluffy?' How do you like that, girl?" He turned toward his apartment once again. "Here kitty. Let's go copy those notes. You'll help me find Atlantis, won't you?" Milo was a little amazed at himself that the infamous fashion of babying a pet was coming over him so fast. He looked down at the ball of fluff before thanking the Lees and heading home, feeling more at peace than he had for about a year.
Atlantis: the Lost Empire, and the characters, storyline details (such as the 22-day relationship with Lisa McGrath) and original concepts are property of he Walt Disney Company. "Fluffy backstory" storyline is my property.
Disclaimer: Atlantis: the Lost Empire, and the characters, language, symbols, storylines and titles are property of he Walt Disney Company. This site has been created for entertainment, non-profit purposes only. See sources.
Permission must be granted by the fan authors/artists before their material is to be used. Credit must also be given to the respective author/artist in question. Do so via their e-mail. Questions? Comments? E-mail me at Like_A_Star8800@yahoo.com.
