A Perfect Circle
"When are you going to talk to her?" Mystique wanted to know, her yellow eyes glowing brighter than usual with her annoyance.
"What are you talking about?" he asked, though he knew well enough what she was talking about.
"Our little X-Man guest. You know, the one that's been haunting this place for months now. If she walks through me one more time, I swear I will not be responsible for whatever physical damage I cause."
He snorted. "I'd like to see that. She fights as well as you do."
She looked like she was about to throw a fit then but, being Mystique, she remained controlled. "Pyro, for heaven's sake, talk to her. Get her out of this depression or mood that she's in. Everyone else is working hard to rebuild but she just mopes around. It's bad for morale. She's infecting everyone."
"Why do I have to talk to her?" he demanded. "Can't you get one of the telepaths to help her?"
She sighed and glared at him. "You're the only one who knows her well enough to talk to her about this. And please don't even try to pretend that you're not worried about her state. Ever since she came back to the island, she's been like a ghost."
"All right." He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. "Fine. I'll go talk to her. Where is she, by the way?"
"In the memorial. Where she is every day."
Still grumbling against Mystique's interference, he made his way to the part of the garden where the people of New Hope Island had set up a memorial for all those who had died during the attack of the Sentinels. It had happened less than six months ago. The Friends of Humanity, growing ever more rabidly and violently anti-mutant, had unleashed the deadly robotic Sentinels against the citizens of the island. The casualties had been enormous but, with the X-Men and the Brotherhood working together, they had successfully defeated the threat.
Kitty Pryde, of course, had been one of the soldiers who had fought off the Sentinels. Except that when she came back to the island, a year after she had left it so suddenly, she wasn't Kitty Pryde anymore. She was Katherine 'Kitty' Rasputin, married woman. And if anyone noticed that Pyro was fighting even more recklessly and dangerously than ever, no one ever said anything to him about it. No one dared.
He found her exactly where Mystique had said she would be. She was alone. She stood against the wind with her head bent down and he just knew, even though he couldn't see her face, that she was crying. He stopped for a moment and just watched her, his thoughts and feeling in turmoil.
What do you say to the girl who had broken your heart? Especially now when she had a broken heart, too?
Pyro silently approached the still figure standing before the gravestone. He didn't want to sneak up on her like this. He didn't want to startle her from her solitude. But he also wasn't sure if he should be doing this, going up to her to talk, so if he stayed very quiet and then lost his nerve at the last minute, he could always back off and she wouldn't even know that he had been there. So he walked up to her, careful not to make any noise, and thought about what he was going to say.
But he couldn't think of the right words. His hand reached out, wanting to touch her, but it fell back. Finally, he just decided to settle on saying, "Hey."
Kitty gave a little gasp and turned in surprise. She hurriedly wiped the tears from her eyes and greeted him with a weak smile. "Hey. Didn't know you were there."
"Sorry," he said. "I came to see you. See how you were doing. I heard you're here every day."
"Yeah," she nodded. As if there was a sudden chill in the wind, she wrapped her arms around herself. "I like to be near him," she confessed, looking down at the ground. "I still talk to him."
He suddenly felt cold, too. "I never told you – I never said how sorry I am. About what happened."
She looked at him then. "It's all right." She gave a bitter little laugh. "It's just how life is. It sucks. I think you told me that once before."
His eyes were sad as he met her gaze. "Kitty – you know if I could have done something, I would have done it differently. I would have stopped him. I would have died instead of him. You know that, right?"
"Yes," she said quietly. "I know. But he wouldn't have let you."
He was silent for a long while. "He was a good man, Kitty," he finally said.
She turned away from him and looked back at the grave. Peter's grave. Then she spoke so softly that the wind almost carried away her words. "You're a good man, too, John."
A strange feeling washed over him. He was almost overwhelmed by it for a moment.
It felt like forgiveness.
"Thank you, Kitty," he whispered.
She smiled at him, a bit uncertainly at first, and then with the familiar warmth that he had almost forgotten. He held out his hand and she placed hers in it trustingly.
"Let's go for a walk," he suggested.
The End
(Absolutely the last thing I write that has its roots in 'Moment'. I know I should be better organized and compile all the related stories, but I feel each one has a different mood and if I turn it into one continuous whole piece, it feels disjointed and messy. At least I think so. Or maybe I'm just lazy. Oh, blah.)