Wow. I find that I'm kind of still resisting the thought of being codependent and this is the thread that is bringing that to light.... So much work to do....
We actually took in a stray by accident once. At the time we had a black cat. One day we saw "her" sitting out on our back deck and tried to figure out how she'd gotten out, so we opened the door and let "her" in. This black cat walked in and sat down, right next to our cat, and refused to leave, so we let him stay "while we found his owners." Since no one claimed him, he stayed "for just a few more days." Not wanting to get attached, we simply called him "Two."
He stayed and became part of the family and the name stuck. In the first few weeks that we had him, he grew
a lot and there was soon no way to confuse him with our dainty little gal.