Re: [The Cat: Nishka & Cat & Jack]
It was funny. Minutes, not that many, previously and Jack had wondered about the wisdom of strolling up to the bar and encountering Cat in the flesh. She'd circumnavigated the bar and he had no doubt she'd heard half a dozen stories like Nishka's, men and women both. Loss, raw and sour as warm beer coated the interior of the little place dedicated to Johnny Cash and Jack had clenched around his own years ago, silted with guilt. He wasn't maudlin and he didn't slide into empathy. That came far too close to letting go. So he greeted Cat's return with a smile that was warmer and relieved.
"Cat's never guilty," he said, and his mouth was still but his voice held laughter. "Chaos, perhaps but not guilty." It wasn't true. Jack knew she felt it but he very much doubted she'd admit to it outside of specific circumstances and that wasn't the same as having the world thrust it upon her. But he looked abruptly startled when Nishka slid from Steve, to Jack.
"Haven't got the slightest one," he said, flatly of ideas. Nishka, with her grief as thick as salt was not remotely Jack's type. "If you defend all kinds, no doubt you caught one or two guilty ones in the mix that you thought were innocent as well. You should team up," he looked at Cat, "Yes please," for the whiskey. "Perhaps get shirts."
He hadn't actually meant a word about karmic or cosmic balance. It had been brief and light in order to deter the swirl toward the bottom. "I don't know how diligent nuns can be. Serene? Perhaps serene." That to Cat, and then to Nishka, "Just because you haven't felt it, it doesn't mean it isn't happening. Why would you feel it, you're nothing more than cosmic weight on a set of enormous scales to the universe." But he made it sound warm and humorous.