Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, nor the song.

A/N: The story takes place on the day after the events of episode 'Mainstream'. Lance meets Kitty to talk about the day before.

The song in the fic is 'Denial, revisited', written by the Offspring (yeah) - the guys were surely watching X-men Evo while writing this song, lol, it is absolutely about Lance and Kitty.

Umi Pryde, thanks a lot for pointing out the mistakes:)

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Finally

So here we go
Having the same old fight again
So there she goes
Same old game that never ends

She was standing there, a few feet away from me, with all the hurt and weariness of our last night fight in her eyes, and I knew it might have been only a couple of steps to take to reach her, but, in fact, the distance was immeasurable. Our whole damn relationship seemed to be made up of distances we were trying to reduce but kept on failing as it was growing wider.

"Just give me a chance to explain. It's not that much I'm asking for."

She wrapped her arms around herself as if she wanted to shield herself from me. "Forget it, Lance. There are no questions and no answers between us anymore."

I didn't want to grow angry but I couldn't help it. I've heard plenty of 'no'-s in my life, some of them served me right, some of them were unfair but none of those rejections could hurt more than hers. "Would it be so hard to hear me out just for once? Or even trying to imagine yourself in my place?"

As she screwed up her face, I knew I had lost. "There is nothing that would make me accept what you did last night."

If I could say
All the right words
I know I could make you stay
If I could say all the right words
Things would work out alright

Betrayal is the most heinous sin on earth, she'd said once. My heart grew cold as I slowly began to understand that I committed the unforgivable.

I always played my games against myself, my doubts fought my pride, my sins fought my hopes, and no explanations remained, nothing rational - I was chaos without the laws and regularity of the world. There was no meaning of 'why' in my world.

There were a lot of things I could have said but in that very minute all seemed ridiculous, and deep inside, I felt she was right. There were no answers, only the fact that I needed her - so light, so little to make up for all my faults. I didn't know the words I needed; they had slipped away long before I had a chance to catch them, maybe even before I was born to this asshole world.

Replay last night
Talking it out don't make it right

I muttered something but it was difficult to recall the events in their true light. I'd lost my ability to judge things truly.

I remember that evening clearly in a certain point of view. From another point of view everything is dizzy. There are events that you can't recollect in the normal way since their gravity and incredibly hard trace in your life twisted your mind. Your brain stores the moments in pieces and they don't match each other, leaving gaps between. I remember funny things. The color of the evening sky, the click-clack of a broken parking meter, the heavy smell of the dug-up soil. The black, tiny buttons on her red blouse. The glimmering of her necklace. Her voice.

I can't recall the words we spoke, I can't say them out, nor repeat them, but I am aware of what it was about. I don't know but feel them. I know they caused pure pain. Everything happened too slowly, and simultaneously unintelligibly fast. The minutes and voices were stretched out in time and in my mind. Words became incomprehensible, and when they could finally congeal, the fore-parts dissolved like light smoke, impossible to be grabbed.

I know she's tried, my whole world
is her and all we've got now

I realize now, along with the concrete I shattered my possible future and fragile chances with her. I shattered something quintessential.

Have you ever crashed a toy you always had been yearning for into small pieces with your own fists? Have you ever cast away from yourself something you so wished to have, on your own will? I have. And I guess… I'm afraid… I was aware of it. There was only one thing in this whole fucking life that I really-really wanted and it was her. She was my motive power, all the reasons and essential behind my acts, all answers for any of my questions, she was the reason for my faults, betrayals, words and anger, and the reason for my joy and success, my rare moments of being good. My reason for falling.

She looked at me for long, sadness on her face.

"You're such a child sometimes. Such a child."

I was staring at her, damn hope in my heart, but there was no forgiveness in her eyes, no compassion, only that killing distance.

"Now I'm leaving," she said, turning away from me.

"Please, stay...", I was begging. "Just stay for a little."

And if you go
I won't believe
That it's forever
I won't let go
Even if she says that it's over
I know it'll be
Different this time
If you'd just stay

She looked at me. There was something definitive in those blue eyes. "I'm sorry. We couldn't beat the odds. There are things in you that I could never accept, and I know I have things you don't like. We can't make it go on forever."

"But we can try."

"All we did till now was trying, Lance."

"It's not our fault, Kitty. It's so hard to love and be faithful when all you can see is hatred and war."

"We should have known it wouldn't be easy. But somehow we fooled ourselves."

And I said the thing I had said so many times. The thing that I'd gone back on and failed just as many times. "Give us another chance. We may surprise you."

She covered her face in her palms, and I'd never hated our sweet little lies and fights more than that minute when my dreams were at stake, and every slip-up seemed to become hundred times more grievous than ever before. "I've had enough of this chase," she sighed.

And when we wrote this story
How did it end?
It was you and me for all our lives
Come on don't say it
We'll try again
And if I'd just hold you
We could last

There had been times when we were bold enough to dream and life seemed to be a piece of cake. We'd never dreamt about lies, however, never dreamt about betrayals, hurts and sins. When had we cheated and abandoned those wishes? Everything should have happened so painfully otherwise. With every single breath, every single step all we did was crushing our story that hadn't even been written.

I stepped closer to her, my arm stretching toward hers but never reaching it; maybe because I didn't dare or maybe I just wanted to cling on to something I actually couldn't name. In that minute, little did I know that it was conviction that I was lacking. "There are so many things we haven't done together, yet. You remember them? So many plans we haven't fulfilled."

But she stands softly
Tears down her face
Hitting me, oh God
This is the end
And I'm waiting for you
But there's nothing more now I can do

She didn't say a word, her small hands slowly uncovering her face, and I could see all our plans and hopes in her eyes, all our dreams, one by one, dying out, one after the other.

And in that very moment I finally understood that it was over, but not in that minute, not even the night before, but maybe at the very beginning.

How did you know…

… that we weren't meant to be; that it really was a big lie of ours; that everyone else was right and we were wrong.

How did you know…

… that we got far beyond reality; that it became a dream or a nightmare to cease long time ago or always had been; that there was no going on any more.

How did you know…

… that our time had come and gone; that we would always hurt each other and it would never change; that we had to wake up, had to face life, oh God, had to split up finally.

Finally.