Author's Note:

This story is set in a fictional season 5 or 6, after a long, grueling ordeal with Latnok, Kyle has decided to break off ties with his family, his friends, and romance in general. This will be a 5 chapter story.

Although I wish I did, I own nothing whatsoever when it concerns the Kyle XY franchise.

I thank everyone who reads this or any of my stories. All I ask is that you read to the end.

***

Kyle knew he was dreaming the moment it started. It was the only time or place he allowed himself the use of his "abilities", and therefore his dreams were full of them. Pictures flashed that he knew would astound but also scare the populace: jumping twenty feet in the air, scoring a basket from anywhere on the court, walking through a burning building without getting burned. He watched his dream totally disinterested, letting the time pass until…

His eyes opened, wide awake, one second before the alarm would have rung had he set it. Another day had begun, a day of challenges, of enlightenment. Letting his thoughts wander for the requisite five seconds each morning, he added out loud, "Another day of being normal."

Wandering around the sparsely furnished apartment, he got ready for the day's lectures. No pictures adorned the walls; his clothes were prim and proper but amazingly contemporary. Nothing in his closet screamed retro or even passé. Everything in his apartment had been acquired within the last six months.

He pictured a cold stone in his mind when he felt regret trying to creep up on him. His heart hardened, regret's tendrils slipping and slapping and withering at its touch. As he closed and locked the door behind him, a slender briefcase in his fist, he plastered a small smile on his face, one that showed interest but that would also keep others at bay, especially when he avoided looking directly at nearly everyone.

Every minute of the day was planned. He took the same route through apartment buildings on the outskirts of the college, then went first to Advanced Sociology, followed by the Rise and Fall of Ancient Civilizations, then Trauma and the Psyche, and on and on until 6:30 pm when he'd gleefully sneak into a graduate level math or engineering class, marveling at how easily these topics seeped into his skin.

Mathematically, much of the western civilization seemed on the verge of total collapse, despite the comfort in the lives of the common individual. People would probably not even notice it until only 20 years were left, and then what could they do? The Rise and Fall professor seemed to notice the signs but refused to acknowledge it.

Comfort and complacency was the bane of a civilization. He'd written at length about it in his thesis for a degree he might never pursue. Unless he actually went through with the doctorate degree, he would never submit the 365 and a quarter page paper. If he did, he'd have to submit the others too, which would then mean he might have over two dozen PhD's or they might instead label him a total freak.

He was normal and determined to remain that way.

His foot froze mid way down a step in a staircase at the base of another apartment building. After a second the foot returned to its place beside the other and his knees bent. He tried to take the step – he certainly hadn't heard or seen anything – and stretched out his arms and reflexively caught someone plummeting to their intended death.

Looking up, he knew exactly how far she'd fallen and that she'd jumped directly for the steps head first, and had planned to land well behind him. Gasps and shrieks reached his ears as he turned the person around and put her feet to the ground. His smile had vanished, replaced by a frown.

She readjusted her sweater and forced some of the fabric underneath into their proper place. Although he wasn't looking at her directly, he knew she stared at him. Countless details would once have been his to unravel, but he refused them all. He was normal.

A guy ran up to them, "Woah! How did you do that?" Kyle's lips pursed tightly, as he walked around the suicidal girl and took the remaining three steps to the bottom. "Are you okay?" and "What's with him?" were filtered out so that he didn't even hear them.

He'd taken another 32 steps when his feet stopped again. This wasn't good, he realized. He turned to the small crowd surrounding the girl, smothering her, and knew somewhere deep inside him that he hadn't saved her. She was untouched by gratitude, in fact seemed hurt by far more than he'd ever thought possible. He didn't discover this consciously; the facts seemed to appear out of nowhere. Feeling his subconscious would make normal life a little difficult if he forced himself to walk away, he took a step toward her. It was followed by another, less conscious one.

Taking her arm he led her to her apartment, everything else forgotten. No one refused him.

Maybe this should have surprised him, he thought later that week, but at the time he'd simply attributed the lack of refusal as acknowledgement that he was abnormal.

***

She allowed him to sit beside her on the sofa in front of a small flat screen television. They'd sat like this for – fifteen minutes he forced himself to approximate – they'd not said a word. He barely looked at her and she barely looked at him.

"Why," was all he said. Once he'd decided to help her, his subconscious had relented with the details, only briefly showing an elevated heart beat, a bad headache, and extreme fatigue. He knew the answer to his question, and when she turned to him without a word for several minutes, he supplied the answer to her, "You're tired of living."

That seemed to push her over the edge. Tears streamed down her cheeks, her dark straight hair tangled and unkempt as sob after heavy sob racked her frame. He waited for the tears to stop, but they continued for hours. He routinely helped her to drink some water, and supplied tissues when it was necessary, but let her cry it out.

When he sensed lunch was fast approaching, he looked in her small fridge and found little but alcohol there. Realization struck him that she'd been drinking for days, staying alive only thanks to the alcohol. He promptly started opening the remaining bottles and dumping them into the sink. She didn't even notice. It was then he actually smelled the room he was in and nearly gagged. He was thankful that he only smelled it for a moment.

He called for pizza using her phone and his credit card. He'd heard from someone – he changed the memory – that pizza was great for soaking up booze. Thoughts of polarity changes floated at the forefront of his mind only briefly, but he pushed them away. He was normal, and wouldn't resort to something abnormal to clean up her system.

She'd have to sober up the old fashioned way. Thinking of which, she rushed to the bathroom, and missed the toilet.

Knowing it wasn't the first time she'd missed, he sighed, took a piece of paper and wrote a note for the pizza delivery guy who'd be coming shortly. "Leave it outside please, don't knock. For a 50, go to the convenience store downstairs and buy me these cleaning products." He left a little list.

When the pizza was delivered and he saw the note gone, he worried briefly that the police would be called in. If they came, he'd be ready to deflect attention from him to this poor girl. She sorely needed help.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard her bolt toward her bedroom and the balcony beyond. The door slammed in front of her, and he caught her as she fell back, holding her head. He knew that her head would be hurting very badly, but not from personal experience. He couldn't believe that she'd tried to do something so rash, so final, as ending her life with him in her apartment. He thanked his subconscious for closing the door but then promptly forgot about the whole thing.

Yesterday he'd never had any issues with his sanity and today his subconscious had essentially forced him to save a girl who didn't want to be saved and who lived in absolute squalor. He was determined to get her cleaned up, off the drink, and talking about the why.

When he heard the cleaning supplies being dropped at the door, he carried her with one arm and fished out the 50 he had in his pocket. He put her down but didn't let go of her, opened the door, and gave the 50 to an old lady.

She looked directly into his eyes while he focused on the gray bun at the top of her head. "It's so good of you to help the girl out sweetie, it's my treat." He pushed the bill into her hand, muttered something nice and normal, flashed a bright smile, and closed the door.

The poor pizza's smell couldn't compete with the waft emanating for several regions in the apartment, but he saw her finally notice it. It was hard to miss, he admitted, sitting on the couch. She lunged at it like a feral beast, stuffing an entire slice into her mouth.

She attempted to swallow it without chewing, gagging, and he realized with dread what she was trying to do. Kyle, not generally prone to anger or vulgarity unless absolutely driven to it, said, "Oh no you don't!" He drove his fingers into her mouth and pulled out the wet mess. She tried biting him but missed. Planting the dry hand on her shoulder – which he absently realized wasn't dry – he kept her in place as he yelled, "What the hell's wrong with you? Must I cut it into tiny little pieces and spoon feed you?"

Her first words to him were, "Am I in hell? Why are you even here?"

His mouth opened of its own accord, hanging limply. Why was he here? He certainly hadn't directly wanted to intervene in her life. He waited for his subconscious to answer, which it not surprisingly didn't. Softer, he said, compassion shining in his eyes for the first time in well over a year, "If I'm your hell, you could do worse." He refused to remember the images that tried to appear in his memory.

"I want to die dammit," she yelled and tried to slap him, but he dodged it without thinking. Her eyes opened as she tried to punch him in the head from close range but missed again. She brought her knee up and found the hand he'd had in her mouth holding her knee one inch from his groin, the wet pizza slice crushed, soaking her knee.

She growled as her shoulders slumped.

Very softly, he said, "Thou shall not kill. That includes yourself you know."

"Great, my own crazy ass angel," she muttered under her breath.

He instantly replied, "Better than a devil in my Book." His breath caught. Those weren't the words he'd meant to say. Glancing around the room, he discovered a cross beside the clock, and a smaller one above the door. The briefest image of a girl flashed in his mind's eye, but consciously ignored.

"Fine!" She sat defeated on the couch beside the pizza and started eating. No longer hungry, he washed his hands and retrieved the dozen cleaning bottles, and a large bucket and two packs of sponges sitting outside the door. There were even a couple pairs of large rubber gloves.

"Thanks lady," he said to no one before closing the door.