Strangers in Paradise, Katchoo/Francine, Luisa, G, 200 words
Note: Set during that alternate universe, you know the one I mean, from 'Sanctuary'. Written for the LJ community femslash100.

If You Love

Sometimes, perhaps every other year or so, Katchoo takes a bird for a pet. It could be a cockatoo, dove, or common pigeon, whatever she finds in the pet store, wounded by the road, or pecking for food on her yard. There seems to be no pattern to the sort of bird she chooses, but she brings it home to her large empty house, feeds it and complains about it and lets it poop on the carpet. Luisa's almost used to it now; it's no worse than the paint she gets on the sofa sometimes when the living room light is "just perfect".

Katchoo keeps the bird for about a year, never giving it any name aside from "you" or "Mr Chirpy McPoopants". She grows to love it, and often Luisa does too, though she knows better. It's at this point that Katchoo takes the bird in its cage and travels, near or far, to wherever cockatoos or doves or pigeons thrive, and let's the bird go.

'You know they probably won't do that well in the wild, pet birds like that,' Luisa tells her sometimes. 'It would be better off sticking with you.'

And Katchoo says nothing at all.