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A LEOPARD'S TAIL

1. Part Four

"Are you okay Karen?" Lauren asked for the second time in as many days the next morning, as Karen walked in, looking a bit disheveled.

"Huh? Oh, I'm fine Lauren, thanks. Just had an unusual day yesterday, that's all."

"Unusual?" Lauren grinned. "How so?"

"Well, you remember that man who pointed out the sick leopard, and I bumped into at the supermarket? Peter?"

Lauren nodded. "So, did he come to the zoo last night?" Lauren asked curiously.

Karen nodded. "Yeah. I met him here and gave him back his watch."

"And...?" Lauren prompted. "He didn't run off again, did he?" She frowned slightly. Karen quickly shook her head.

"No. Well, not really..." She scratched her head slightly.

"So, what was he like?" Lauren asked, becoming more and more interested by the minute.

"Well, he was... Interesting."

"Interesting?" Lauren raised a questioning eyebrow and grinned. "How so?"

Karen felt a sudden urge to let Lauren in on what had happened last night. Lauren was a pretty good friend as well as her secretary, and always covered for Karen when she was down feeding or checking up on the animals instead of attending meetings or events. But, Karen had to admit, Lauren could be a bit of a gossipmonger. And besides, she'd given her word that she wouldn't tell anyone.

"Just... Interesting." Karen said finally. Lauren raised an eyebrow in her direction, but accepted the fact that she wasn't going to say anymore.

"Well, you'll have to explain exactly what that means to me sometime. But it will have to wait." Lauren grinned. "Cause you're due in a meeting with the president of the zoo in fifteen minutes..." Karen's eyes opened wide for a moment, and she rushed into her office as Lauren shook her head and laughed slightly to herself.

"Are you feeling okay Peter? You don't look that well..." Ted Murphy asked, concern on his face, as Peter walked in. Peter waved his hand negligibly.

"I'm okay Ted. Really. I'll be fine." Truth be told, Peter DID feel pretty good. Better than he had since this whole mess began, or rather, he at least felt a bit saner. Getting all his worries and fears out last night had helped clear his mind a bit. Physically though, he looked pretty bad. His eyes looked a bit baggy and his face was slack and tired. He hadn't gotten all that much sleep last night, and the day before had drained him severely. On top of the mental drain and fear from the past day, most of Peter's muscles STILL ached from the strain of lifting that dumpster.

"Hey guys..." Peter said, waving listlessly as he approached his work area, papers in hand. His coworkers looked at him for a moment, then looked at each other.

"Say Peter, are you feeling okay?" Paul asked, looking up from his computer terminal. "We've all been noticing that you've been acting a little... well, odd lately, and you don't look that great this morning."

Peter chuckled slightly and shook his head "I appreciate all of your concern, but believe me when I say I'm not doing half as bad as I look."

Dan snorted in amusement. "Well, you look pretty bad. But then again, I've always thought you looked pretty bad..." Everyone, Peter included, chuckled."That's funny, I was going to say the same about you Dan..." Brooke said with a grin. The laughter increased a few notches as Dan nodded his head in acknowledgement of the verbal jab. Brooke nodded her head back. "Well, if you boys will excuse me, I think I'll go get some work done and leave you to play with yourselves..." The grouped males let out a collective groan as Brooke walked off.

"Speaking of work, and people who never seem to do any of it..." Said Jake, taking a sip from the can of JOLT in his hand. "Let's get an update from our news service.." Jake started to make cheesy helicopter sounds as he walked over to Frank, who was, as usual, sitting in his cubicle, feet up, reading the paper.

"Well, what have you got for us Mr. Chang?" Dan asked. Frank lowered the paper just enough for his eyes to be visible.

"Well, here's an interesting story... "Little girl claims 'Cat-Man' as her savior..." Peter paled slightly as Frank continued to read the paper.

"Little Melanie Janet had wandered away from her parents while they walked down Center Street, and decided it would be a good time to play hide and seek. The game almost turned deadly when little Melanie decided to hide in a deserted alley, and had a dumpster full of garbage tip over onto her. A call to 911 sent paramedics rushing to the scene, but when they arrived, they found little Melanie sitting, unhurt, next to the dumpster that almost claimed her life. Except for a few bruises and scratches, Melanie was miraculously uninjured. When asked who had helped her, she claimed that a 'furry cat man with a tail' pulled the dumpster off of her, and saved her life. Her parents don't know who helped her since this good Samaritan has yet to step forward, but whoever he is, they owe him their daughters life."

"Well, what do you think of that?" Jake asked. "Guy saves a little girl, then run off without even waiting for a reward or publicity..."

Frank shrugged and went back to reading his paper. "Maybe he was just shy..."

Dan chuckled. "Anyone able to lift one of those dumpsters by themselves doesn't strike me as the 'shy' type. You know how much those things weigh when they're full?"

"Well, maybe it really was a 'cat-man'" Jake said with a laugh.

Paul snorted from his work area, typing away on his computer. "Oxygen deprivation. That little girl was probably just delirious. Someone helped her get out from under the dumpster and ran off before she could get a good look at him. In her delirious state, all she saw was a fantasy."

"You never know Paul.. Maybe there ARE 'cat-men' running around the city, hiding in the sewers." Jake said, grinning and making as if to pounce on Paul. Peter twitched.

Of all the articles in the paper, of all possible topics of conversation, they had to choose THIS one?? Peter thought to himself.

"You're getting confused with the alligators and lawyers that live in the sewers again Jake." Dan said with a chuckle. He turned to Peter. "What about you Peter? What do you think?" When Peter just stared at him for a moment, he continued speaking. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" The rest of the guys laughed at the bad pun, except for Peter who just blinked.

After a moment Peter smiled slightly and spoke. "I believe anything is possible..." The other's booed at his cop-out, and he grinned as he turned back to his computer and got to work. Once his back was turned to his coworkers, his smile dropped and he rolled his eyes.

It looked like it was going to be a long day.

Peter groaned as he dodged the suitcases from yesterday he'd never put away and flopped onto his couch. It had indeed been a long day, and he was completely bombed out. He'd had more work today than any other day in the past two weeks. Combined with his previous condition, he was just about ready to drop into bed. Rubbing his face, he reached over to phone and replayed his answering machine. The first message immediately got his attention.

"Hello Peter. This is Karen. I just wanted to remind you that I'm coming over tonight around seven. I'll be brining some stuff to examine your... Situation. I guess I'll see you then. Bye!" Peter groaned and smacked his forehead. How could he have forgotten that?? He looked down at the floor, still a mess with his suitcases and clothes strewn around from yesterday. He'd been so tired that morning he had only picked up what he had needed...

Peter looked at his watch. Six fifteen. Just enough time to clean up this mess, if he hurried. Peter sighed once again, picked himself up off the sofa, and went to work.

Peter grunted as he finished pushing the last suitcase back into its position in the far corner of his closet. He looked down at his watch to check the time. He still had about ten minutes before Karen arrived. With a large exhalation of breath, he flopped down on the sofa, picked up the TV remote, and started flicking through the channels.

He blinked suddenly as something caught his eye, and flicked the channel back a few times. It was a picture of a little girl, clinging to her mother's leg, smiling at the camera. Peter groaned and raised the volume.

"Little Melanie Janet's parents are glad to have her back safe and sound today, after she was nearly crushed to death in a dark alley yesterday evening." The image changed from a little girl to the alley Peter and Karen had been in last night. "In this alley, far from the noisy main street, Melanie, age 3, decided to run off and play hide and go seek. While her parents frantically searched for her, Melanie became pinned under a dumpster when it tipped over. An anonymous call to 911 had paramedics on the way over in minutes, but by the time thy go here, Melanie was ready to go out and play again." The image changed back to the little girl. "When asked what had happened and who had saved her, Melanie had this to say."

"A big box fell down on me where I was hiding." She said seriously. "It squished me down and I couldn't breath good." Then she grinned. "But then a nice furry cat man with a long tail came over and picked the box up." She paused a moment to think. "Then I fell asleep for a little while. When I woke back up, mommy and daddy were there!"

"So a cat man saved you?" The new caster asked.

"Yep!" Melanie nodded enthusiastically. "Wanna see a picture I drew of him?" She asked shyly.

"Sure I would."

Melanie slowly took a piece of paper out of her pocket, and showed it to the camera. It was a crude crayon drawing of a man with yellow skin with black dots, a little muzzle, and a tail. "See. This is his tail, and he had fur..."

While Melanie discussed her work of art, the newscaster did a voiceover. "Melanie's savior has not stepped forward, but the Janet's say they owe him a debt of gratitude they can never pay. And while it's unlikely that Melanie was rescued by a 'cat-man', no one feels like telling her that. She seems quite happy with her beliefs.

"See?" Melanie asked, grinning and pointing to the picture. The camera zoomed in on it as the clip ended.

"This is Mark Bradely signing off."

Peter rubbed his face vigorously as the clip ended, and he quickly shut off the TV. Just as he did so, the doorbell rang. Peter rubbed his eyes a few more times and took a deep calming breath before going to answer the door. When he opened it, he found Karen standing there wearing the same sort of light brown shirt and pants she'd been wearing at the zoo, her long red hair hanging down her back. She was carrying a large black case by the handle in her right hand as she rung the doorbell with her left.

"Hi Peter." She looked closely at him. "Are you okay?"

"Hi Karen. Um, come on in." Peter replied a bit awkwardly, stepping back away from the door. "I'm okay, really. Just a bit tired, that's all." He closed the door behind her, and then turned towards her, not looking directly at her. "Listen, I'm sorry about ranting and rambling last night... Thanks for, well, for keeping this whole thing to yourself."

Karen smiled. "Gee, we do seem to spend an awful lot of time apologizing to each other, don't we?" They both laughed a little. "But don't worry about it. You must have been under a whole lot of stress after all that's been going on. And I doubt I helped any by digging at you when it was obvious you were nervous..."

Paul rubbed the back of his neck and looked down. "Yeah, I guess I have been under just a tiny amount of stress lately..." He said with a small smile.

"I was wondering... Exactly how many people HAVE you told about this, if you don't mind me asking?" Karen asked curiously.

Peter pointed at her. "You." He grinned a bit sheepishly. "And I didn't exactly tell you if you want to be technical about it..."

"Me?" She asked, somewhat surprised. "That's it? No one else?"

Peter nodded. "Who else was I going to tell? Family? Friends? A doctor? Well, we've already gone over doctors.. There's nothing my family would be able to do about this anyway, so there's no need to worry them. And friends... Well, I don't really know anyone I would trust with this..." He turned away from her. "If people found out, well..."

Karen shook her head. "Well, no wonder you've been under so much stress! Without anyone to talk too..." She shook her head again, set her case down on the floor, and opened it

"What's that?" Peter asked, looking inside the case. There were several syringes inside, a pad and pencil, a tape measurer, and various other devices, some of which Peter recognized, and some which he didn't, all sitting in their own little slots in a plastic backing.

"Oh, this is a kit we use to test animals.. You can bring it out on a safari or use it in the zoo. It has all the necessary equipment for some basic work." She started to point out various things. "I'll take some small blood samples with that.." Peter made a slight face. "Don't worry, it shouldn't hurt, and I'll need some blood to runs tests." She continued pointing out various devices. "And this is a radio transmitter collar..."

"I hope you're not planning on putting one of those on ME!" Peter laughed. Karen grinned and shook her head.

"Well, times wasting, so we might as well get started. First off, I want you to stay as human as you possibly can, and stick out your arm so I can take a blood sample. And before you ask, yes it IS necessary for me to learn anything."

Peter sighed and rolled up his sleeve, sticking out his arm. He concentrated on remaining human as Karen used a short needle to draw a small amount of blood from his arm.

"There we go.." She said, placing a label on the small vial of blood and placing it in the case. "Okay now, bear with me here. It's been a while since I've done anything involving human patients."

Peter chuckled. "Gee doctor, you sure know how to instill your patients with confidence."

Karen laughed. "Just sit still wise guy." Karen quickly began poking him in various places to determine his reactions, testing his reflexes with a small rubber mallet she drew out of her pocket. She took an over sized stethoscope out of the case and made him remove his shirt so she could listen to his heart and lungs. Peter did his best to keep a straight face and retain his dignity as he was poked and prodded.

"You know, you're in the newspaper and..." Karen started, trying to make conversation while she tested him. Peter cut her off halfway through.

"And on TV?" He groaned. "Don't remind me. Of all the possible stories they could run..."

"Well, It's a human interest story. And you know how papers are with human-interest stories. Besides, people like to hear about unnamed heroes doing good deeds. I guess it's getting rarer and rarer these days to find someone who will perform a good deed without expecting to get on Geraldo to brag about it." Peter snorted slightly and Karen looked at him. "Why did you save her anyway? I mean, by changing and all? If you were so worried about people finding out...." She shrugged.

"Well, I just couldn't leave her there." Peter replied in a slightly confused voice, never having considered the option of leaving the little girl there without doing everything possible to help.

Karen nodded and thought for a moment before taking a step back from him, and looking down at her writing.

"Well then..." She said, checking off a few things on her pad with a pencil. "While this was by no means a thorough examination, you seem to be a relatively normal human being from what I can see, and from what I remember from my med classes... Your reflexes seem to be a bit above average, and I don't have anything to check your vision with, but that seems to be it." Peter nodded in understanding. "Well, now that that's over, let's move on."

Peter blinked as he went to put his shirt back on. "Move on? Move on to what?"

"Why, you're next form of course! I'm going to need a few blood samples to compare... I figure one as a human, one as a hybrid, and one as a leopard should be enough." Peter groaned and stopped putting his shirt back on. Karen chuckled. "Now, be a good little boy and change for me. Peter chuckled and shook his head before closing his eyes and concentrating.

A few minutes later, Peter was in his morphed bipedal form, with another small vial of blood in Karen's case. Karen continued to poke and prod him, testing his reflexes.

"Does it hurt if I press.. Here?" Peter shook his head no. "How about here?" She asked, switching spots. Once again Peter shook his head. After trying a few more spots, Karen began to part the fur on his head to try to get a better look at his scalp and skull.

"Don't.. Do that." Peter said slowly.

"Do what?" Karen continues to move his fur around.

"Do.. That." Peter said, interrupting himself for a large yawn. He blinked hard. "Scratching my head. It's making me feel even more tired..." He yawned a second time.

"Hmmm. Interesting.." Karen scribbled something down on her pad, and stopped playing with his head. "Well, I don't know what to tell you about this.. Your reflexes are quite a bit above normal when you're like this.. You seem to have more muscle mass and a slightly altered skeletal structure too..." She scratched her head. "I've just never seen anything like it..."

Peter snorted. "Is that so surprising? I mean, I don't exactly see half man/half cat people walking down the street every afternoon..." He quickly concentrated and changed himself back to normal, breathing a small sigh of relief.

Karen nodded. "True. Well, anyway, I'm going to need you to shift into a leopard so I can finish these tests up.

Peter rubbed his eyes. "Is that really necessary?"

"Yes." Karen said, nodding slowly. "What's the matter? I thought you changed fully into a leopard every night..."

"Yeah, but not on purpose!" He took a deep breath to calm his nerves, stood up, and started walking over to his bedroom.

"Where are you going?" Karen asked as he got up.

"To go change in my bedroom. I can't change here. These clothes don't exactly fit on a leopard."

"So you have to sleep in the..." Karen said, trying to contain a giggle.

Peter cleared his throat and blushed slightly. "Er.. I'll be out in a minute..." He said, entering his bedroom and closing the door behind him. As soon as the door closed Karen couldn't suppress her laughter, and a low giggle escaped her lips.

A few minutes later the door to Peter's bedroom was slowly pushed open by a yellow furred paw. A second later, Peter reluctantly walked into the living room. He walked slowly, moving his head back and forth as if to check to make sure no one else was around.

"Oh, come over here." Karen said with a smile. "It's not like I'm going to bite. And I certainly hope that you're not planning to either!" Karen laughed and Peter made a low growling sound she presumed was the equivalent of laughter as he walked over towards her. Karen took his seat on the couch and watched as he walked over. This was the first time she'd seen him as a leopard. To be honest, she felt it was a bit disconcerting watching a big cat walking towards her in this environment. Normally the only times she got close to the animals was through the iron bars of a cage, of while running medical tests when they were sedated.

Peter slowly walked over to her and sat down on his hind legs in front of her, his head lowered to face the ground. Karen moved her head from side to side to get a better look at him. She grinned a bit.

"Well, at least now you look a bit more like my usual patients..." Karen said with a reassuring smile. Peter didn't look up, just kept staring down at the floor. "Can't talk, huh?" Peter nodded his head, still looking down. "You ever change into this form on purpose, or stay like this during the day before?" Peter shook his head from side to side. Karen sighed. Well, this is going to make two way conversation a bit difficult... Oh well..

"Okay then, let's get started. First of all let me take a blood sample..." Peter sat still as Karen took her sample and placed it in the case, still looking down at the floor.

Karen reached into the case and took out a tape measurer. "Okay, now that that's done, I'm going to need to measure you. Your body length, leg length, the width of your chest... All that stuff. So I'm going to need you to just lay down on your side okay?"

Peter nodded his head and slowly got up, walked a few feet from the couch, and laid down on the floor. Karen got up from the sofa and kneeled down next to him with the tape measurer. Every time she put the tape up against the side of his leg, he twitched slightly, moving the tape.

"Oh, would you quit moving around?" She scolded lightly. She absently put one hand on his head and scratched him between the ears while she tried get an accurate measurement. To her surprise Peter quickly stopped fidgeting, and began producing a low rumbling sound that sounded distinctly like purring.

Karen laughed as she measured the length of his body, still scratching with one hand as she did so. "You sound like a giant house cat..." She shook her head and grinned. No wild cat she knew of would ever let someone scratch them like this while they were even remotely conscious.

Karen quickly finished her measurements without Peter moving around, and slowly got up from her kneeling position. "Okay Peter, all done. You can change back now. Peter?" Peter didn't so much as move a whisker, although his tail did sway back and forth slightly. Karen moved over to face him and noted that his eyes were closed. He fell asleep! She thought, and laughed to herself.

Well, what am I going to do now? Karen absently sat back down next to Peter, and continued scratching his head. The low purring sound returned, and his tail reflexively began to move back and forth. I should probably just wake him up and leave... She looked down at the sleeping leopard. Nah. He definitely looked like he needed his sleep...

"But I can't just leave him here like this..." She said out loud, looking around the room as she thought, still scratching Peter's head. Her eyes suddenly fell upon the couch. Well, I can't run any tests on those blood samples until tomorrow night after everyone leaves anyway, and my shift doesn't start till late tomorrow morning...