“Ju...Julia?” Dan stammered as he stared up at the enormous woman.

It wasn't until then as he gazed up at his enormous ex-wife that he was reminded of Kat's actual height. The young woman, while thin and athletic, was only perhaps 5'5'' tall at the most. Certainly not small but far from the dominating height she appeared to Dan. Julia however was 5'8'' and loved to wear heels, causing her to rise what seemed dozens of feet above the intimidating Kat. In many ways one of the few things that Dan had had going for him when they had first started dating was the fact that he was over six feet tall. The massive reduction in height only made him feel so much smaller as Julia filled the sky, towering over not just him but Kat as well.

Her plump red lips curled into a smile and she covered her mouth with a delicate hand, stifling a giggle that escaped her lips. Dan watched as her whole body seemed to shake with mirth before she finally released a powerful belly laugh. “I'm sorry. Oh my God, I really am,” Julia said amidst the dying fits of laughter, “But if you could hear how you sound right now. I mean, you sound just like Alvin and the Chipmunks.” She laughed once more before calming herself as best as she could.

“Julia, please...” Dan pleaded.

His enormous ex-wife merely held up her hand to silence him, shaking her head. “I'm sorry, Dan, but for right now just stay quiet or else I will be unable to control myself,” Julia giggled once more, her blue eyes lingering on him with a touch of sadness before she turned her head to face Kat, “Maybe you should just tell me what happened... Kate, right?”

“Kat...” the young girl corrected Julia sheepishly, her eyes locked on her feet while her fingers tugged at her loose fitting top once again. “... And... and I don't really know. I found him like this yesterday and just...”

“You found him like this yesterday?” Julia thundered, her eyes going wide as she stared back at Kat.

“He told me not to call a doctor and I didn't know what else to do,” Kat pleaded, her voice becoming a whine as she craned her neck to look Julia in the eye.

Julia sighed, and gently placed a hand on the younger woman's shoulder. “It's ok, I think I understand,” Julia's cold blue eyes turned to Dan and the shrunken man couldn't help but flinch under his ex-wife's gaze. He knew that look all too well, it was the look she would give him when she had decided he was being an idiot. It was the same look she would give him whenever he refused to admit he was sick or was being too much of a coward at work or really any situation where she had decided that she knew what was best. “You didn't know what to do and so you called me?” Julia asked, in that leading but not obvious way she had mastered in nearly a decade of trials.

Kat sniffled and brushed her fingers against her eyes before nodding, giving a childish, “Uh huh,” as her answer.

“Aw, sweetheart,” Julia instantly stretched her hand across the girl's shoulders and pulled Kat into a hug, patting her on the back and running her free hand over her curly red hair as she did. Kat instantly started to cry as she pressed her face in Julia's shoulder. “It's ok, shhh, shhh. Julia's here now and she's going to take care of everything, alright?” She held the girl close and kissed her on the top of her head. “Ok?”

“O... ok,” Kat answered between a few shuddering breaths. The giant redhead carefully pulled back from the embrace, though their bodies were still intertwined as she gazed up and gave Julia a weak smile.

“I'm going to have to take Dan, though. Are you ok with that?” Julia asked, her voice was so sweet and caring, yet still filled with the strength of authority.

Kat simply nodded again.

Julia bent down over Dan, her whole body plunging him into shadow. With her face turned to him it turned cold and judgmental. Dan swallowed hard as her long slender fingers came down, poised like a crab claw before they pinched down onto his torso. Dan yelped in pain as her gigantic nails dug into his skin but Julia merely gave him a reprimanding look in response, as if daring him to scream more as she lifted him and gently placed him into her cupped palm.

As always her skin smelled of flowers and cocoa butter. The shrunken man could feel himself wiggling into her soft palm almost contently. Even as it mostly closed over him, it didn't feel scary and claustrophobic like when Steph had grabbed him but gentle and warm. Like home.

“Wha...what should I do about rent this month?” Kat stammered as Julia returned, very slowly, to her full height.

“Oh don't worry about that right now, sweetie,” Julia hugged her once more before finally breaking apart the embrace, “I'll cover the mortgage for this month and we'll figure it out from there.”

“Th-tha-thank you,” Kat muttered.

“You stay safe, and call me if you find something or if anything happens. You have my number, right?”

“I... I copied it from Dan's phone.”

“Good, good.” From within her palm Dan heard Julia lean in and give Kat one of her over-emphasized wet kisses on the cheek. That kind of friendly kiss that seemed so kitschy even though some people could pull it off perfectly.

Dan then listened to the loud click-boom of Julia's high heeled shoes clacking against the hardwood. She kept the hand holding Dan perfectly level as she moved, providing him with a near seamless ride. Beyond the safety of her hand, he heard the door to his apartment open and close behind them and then the elevator doors open and shut.

Light flooded Dan's eyes and Julia's enormous face filled his vision. Her cold blue eyes were locked on him and her red lips were set in a distinctive line. “Julia... look... I really don't know what happ... ened...” Dan trailed, her face remaining completely impassive.

Her eyes narrowed and her voice took on a distinctive growl as she spoke, “Your little girlfriend in there called me sobbing this morning, Dan. She was begging me to come down here because something had happened to you. She couldn't even say what it was, just that she was worried and she had no idea what to do. I assumed it wasn't serious because after all, if it was serious, you'd be in the hospital and then I'd know because last I checked, I'm still your emergency contact.” She took a deep angry breath before she continued, “And now I find you literally small enough to fit in my fucking hand, Dan. You're in my fucking hand and all you can say is that you don't know what happened?”

“Uh...uhm.” Dan squirmed beneath her gaze.

“Did you ever even think that something might have happened to that pretty little thing you let live with you? Did you even think about that?!”

“Well, yes, I did... just...”

“Christ,” Julia's voice was full of exasperation. She released a horrible derisive snort of laughter as she shook her head and looked up at the ceiling. “You still haven't changed.”

“Julia! Please!” Dan finally shouted.

The enormous woman merely rolled her eyes before saying, “Don't worry, Dan. I'm going to help you. Do you really think that I'm just going to have you locked up in some lab or something?”

Dan remained silent as he stared up at her, uncertain of how to answer.

Julia sighed and the elevator dinged as it reached the lobby. She said nothing as she grabbed her posh handbag from her shoulder and opened it wide. She carefully deposited Dan within it, atop her soft calfskin wallet, between a tampon and a package of gum. He looked up at her but she didn't look down at him, instead her eyes locked on to something on the other side of her purse. Dan watched as her fingers grabbed a package of cigarettes and a lighter, whisking them out of her purse as she walked through the lobby of Dan's apartment building.

Once outside he watched as she lit up a cigarette and inhaled deeply, looking like a beautiful model to Dan far below. She dropped the pack and lighter back in nonchalantly, before reaching in and grabbing a pair of sunglasses. As she slipped the fashionable shades on to her beautiful face, she snapped her purse shut and slid it back onto her shoulder. From the outside, Dan heard her gigantic hand pat the firm leather case, causing the whole thing to shudder.

What to her was a reassuring gesture was to him mildly terrifying.

It all instantly became worse though as she started moving down the street at her normal brisk pace. Julia was the type of person that people imagined lived in New York City; beautiful, fashionable, high-stress job, and moving at life through a breakneck speed. Beyond that she was intelligent, funny, and caring, though not necessarily warm or affectionate. She could be as aloof, arrogant, and condescending as she was sweet though Dan had never really minded. He had always been happy to take the faults that came with her. It wasn't her faults or his that had driven them apart. Nothing had driven them apart. They had merely drifted apart.

Still the speed at which she walked wasn't helpful to the small man she had placed within her purse. Dan knew that in Julia's mind, he had been neatly placed amidst items and there was no immediate danger. She had put him in there presumably to keep him protected from anything she might encounter on the street. However, it didn't matter how neatly placed all the items were in her purse because none of them were secure. Including himself.

Each step caused him to bounce up and down on the ever shifting platform of her wallet. Everything else in the purse bounced and shook with every step though too. Sometimes when she shifted her weight an item might suddenly go flying through the air causing Dan to plaster himself against Julia's high-end calfskin wallet while fearing a tube of mascara might brutally crush him as it sailed through the air. His eyes kept darting up to the barely illuminated tampon above him. The thing kept shifting and shaking with each step and Dan kept imagining it falling down on him like a falling tree.

The thought of dying or worse being found alive beneath a tampon too heavy for him to push it off made Dan feel completely pathetic. Which came as a surprise, because he didn't think he could imagine a more pathetic situation than being carried around in his ex-wife's purse.

The leather walls of his prison did barely anything to shield him from the sounds of the gigantic city around him. He heard people and dogs on the sidewalk, the sound of cars going by, and random music drifting out of open cafes and stores as Julia passed them by. The sounds of the subway station seemed to ring in his ears as she descended underground.

Dan quickly lost track of what was happening as she hopped aboard a Manhattan-bound train. They were most likely going to her apartment on the Upper East Side, which meant she'd get off at Union Station to change trains but between people talking on the train and Julia's own shifting causing the purse to become a dangerous place, Dan lost track of where they got off. It seemed far too early for her to have actually traveled all the way uptown when he heard the sound of the street once more. Granted, he had no actual way of telling the time but he would have expected more walking.

Things slowed down, Dan heard a door being open, a doorman wishing her a good afternoon, and the ding of an elevator. Maybe she had gotten on an express train?

More walking, a few doors being opened. He could hear the muffled sound of people speaking softly but Julia didn't have any roommates or anything like that. Dan knew that for a fact. Maybe it was the television?

A door shut behind her, and silence reigned.

Julia set the bag down somewhere and suddenly light filled the purse once more. Dan squinted before Julia's face appeared, shading him from the harsh light of wherever the hell they were. She smiled down at him and her hand once more entered the purse. Very carefully she scooped him up into her hand and lifted him out of the purse.

As soon as he entered the light, Dan immediately shuddered in fear. He recognized the room instantly, and it certainly wasn't Julia's apartment. This was one of her sister's examination rooms in Chelsea!

“No!” He shouted as she set him down on the crinkly white paper that covered every examination table in every doctor's office Dan had been to in his entire life.

“Yes, Dan. Good lord, I'm not going to let you turn into a lab rat but that doesn't mean that we can just be in the dark over whatever happened to you.” Julia shook her head as she stared down at her miniscule ex-husband, “Just cooperate and everything will be fine.”

Dan looked for somewhere to run but before he could decide on a direction, the door opened and in strode Julia's sister. Despite the minor age difference between them, Julia and Leslie looked like twins. The same tall lean build, striking features, pale skin, and dark hair. The difference that separated them was that Leslie had far less interest in looking good. She kept fit, yes, but she wasn't decked out from head to toe in designer clothes and expensive jewelry.

Leslie's long dark hair was pulled back into a pony tail, and she wore a simple pair of wire-frame glasses while Julia always wore contacts. Beneath her open white coat she was wearing a t-shirt from Columbia (her alma mater), and a pair of jeans. Dan couldn't see but he was certain that Leslie would either be wearing ballet flats or sneakers. Never anything dressy or with a heel for her.

Her eyes were locked on a file as she walked in, “You know, Julia, since you and him are divorced, Dan really needs to learn how to make appointments for himself and come here without you...” She looked up from the chart to see Julia standing in the examination room with Dan seemingly nowhere in sight. “Oh this is just ridiculous.”

“Hold on,” Julia said with a raised hand to stop her sister from walking directly out of the room. Julia carefully nodded toward Dan who stood frozen staring at his enormous doctor, held in place by a mixture of futility and fear.

“Well that is... different.”