AN: Heys guys! Clodagh here with a brand new full length fully blown full o' feels story for you guys!
Okay, part of that may be a lie. I've been working on this story since May 2014 since I first saw X-Men: Days of Future Past. This story is basically me being indignant that Kitty didn't have the role she deserved and trying to meld together comic book canon and the events of the movie.
Plus I adore Kitty and Peter in the comics- oh the pain- and there was maybe two seconds in the movie where they're teaching together and it sparked all this off!
Plus we needed a bit of Bobby action because we all know I love Shawn Ashmore.
So basically this story is a mixture of Days of Future Past- The Movie, elements of the comic, relationships and characterisation from Astonishing X-Men (primarily Whedon and Cassaday's run in 2005) and some fighting styles and characterisation and friendships from X-Men: Evolution, just for kicks.
Flashback scenes are generally set between X-Men 2 and X-Men: The Last Stand, and just after.
To go along with the nature of the storyline- there are lots of snippets throughout, to go along with Kitty's scrambled mind-set and lack of stability in her future. So basically there's quite a bit of jumping back and forth, time wise.
If you have any questions throughout please feel free to leave them in a review, I'll try and answer them as best I can!
The story will be updated twice a week- I'm going to say a Sunday and a Wednesday? There's fifteen chapters in total, so we have a few weeks for goodness! Then I'll posting the playlist of songs that influenced this story and got me through writing it.
Right I'll stop bombarding you with information now. The first chapter is a long one, please feel free to stop reading and go make yourself a cup of tea. RIGHT NOW.
Okay. You're back.
So I'll leave you with a quick summary, and I hope you enjoy!
SUMMARY:
Peter loves Kitty who loves Peter and Bobby and Bobby loves Rogue but he kind of loved Kitty too.
Confused yet?
So is Kitty.
She's starting to remember her feelings and memories from the future that never happened, and forgetting her new future- which means forgetting she loves Peter. He has to make her fall in love with him every time she forgets- but he can't make her love him. And after everything that happened in other future- is she even the same girl?
CHAPTER ONE: Days Of Future Past
"Kitty?" he calls, and that voice is familiar, but not the same. Hands that once held yours hold hers, and the voice that once spoke your name like a prayer
'Kitty,'
Now speaks hers
'Rogue.'
People that you know and love are here-Scott, Jean-and they shouldn't be, because they're dead.
And you should be too. All of you, every last person living in the mansion should be dead.
You're living in a mansion full of ghosts.
No one else knows what it was like. No one else remembers but Logan. But he's different from you, Logan. Adaptable. He remembered everything at once but you? You're remembering in bits and pieces. Fragments. You were fine at first, waking up every day, teaching your class, like everything was fine.
Until it wasn't.
You wake up one day stretching, it's cold, but not as cold as it should be. It's light, too light in this room and it's natural, not the artificial light your group have been used to for years. You frown, your eyes starting to open but arms wrap themselves around you, and you sigh, snuggling back into them.
You realise too late that the arms holding you are bigger than they should be. "What the-" You turn your head to catch a glimpse, and you freeze so much that you disappear, phasing down through the bed and the floor underneath, to behind a sofa in the games room. You're wide awake now, and distinctly aware that you are very, very naked. "Shit!" you whisper, and grab the blanket from the back of the sofa, ignoring the alarmed look from one of the kids who is watching the really late night-or early morning-TV. Sprinting up the stairs, heart pounding, you pray that no one will find you.
Your heart stops when you realise where you are.
"No," you whisper, shaking your head. "This place…it's gone. It was burnt to the ground, ripped apart!" you splutter to yourself, spinning around, taking in the vast halls and pictures, and the students and teachers behind the doors.
Alive.
Breathing.
You squeeze your eyes shut against all the voices in your head-but that's never been your power, has it?-and takes the last few steps to the door that is your room.
How do you know it's your room?
The door opens, and he's on the other side. At least he had the decency to put some bottoms on. "Are you alright?" he asks, concern laced through his voice. He reaches for you, and you stumble back. "What are you doing here? What are you doing in my room?"
"Kitty-"
"Did you-did you crash here last night? Get drunk and pass out?" you ask desperately, and he shakes his head, confusion evident. "Did you hit your head when you phased?" he asks, once again reaching for you.
"Stop!" you demand, heart pounding. "Where is he?"
"Where is who? Kitty, are you ok-"
"Where's Bobby?" you interrupt, eyes wild, flitting everywhere but refusing to meet his, refusing to acknowledge who he is, and that you were in the same bed. Oh God, Bobby….this will break his heart. Finally you build up the courage, and straighten to your full height. It's nowhere near his, not by a long shot, he has over a foot on you, but he seems to tell by your expression that you're being serious, and he flinches. "Peter. Where is Bobby?" He meets your eyes, searching for something. Recognition, maybe, but Peter doesn't find what he's looking for. He swallows and answers evenly. "With Rogue."
Your head is spinning and you want to tell him that Rogue is dead but that would be too cruel. "What is going on," you murmur, and Peter advances again, slowly this time, his hands up in surrender in front of him. He's approaching you like you're a wild animal, or one he had to herd like he did on his father's farm in Russia.
How do you know that?
He never told you about a farm.
"A farm?" he repeats, confused, and you realise that you were speaking out loud. "Kitty," Peter says slowly, "You're freezing. Come inside, get dressed, and then we'll talk, okay?" You're backed up against a wall, but you realise he's right. You straighten, and don't even bother with the door, instead phasing through the wall, all too aware of Peter's eyes on you. You look around the room, some things look familiar, but it's more like déjà vu as you walk around the room, scanning the pictures, running your hands over the faces in them. "Jean?" you breathe softly, and Peter hesitantly fully enters the room, pointedly leaving the door open. "Yeah, Jean. What's wrong with you, Kitty? You look like you've seen a ghost."
That's because you have.
You're surrounded by them.
Without another word, you turn on your heel and start rummaging through the drawers, slamming them in frustration when you don't find what you're looking for. Silently, Peter reaches past you to another set of drawers and pulls out clothes that look closer to your size and hands them over. It's only when you put them on-after he directs you to your underwear drawer, and you're not sure who's more red in the face and embarrassed-that you realise that they're yours. "These-these are mine?" you croak, and Peter's face crumples.
"Do you-do you really not remember?"
Helplessly, you shake your head. "Remember what, Colossus?"
He draws in a sharp breath. "You never call me that."
Well you wouldn't know, would you.
"There has to be a logical explanation for this," you murmur, and he furrows his brows.
"Logical explanation to what?" he asks, and you hesitate.
"Why most of the people in this mansion should be dead, but they aren't."
Peter looks at you, and you know he wonders if you're crazy.
You're wondering if you're crazy too.
"Please, Peter. Help me," you plead desperately. He cocks his head to the side and nods.
"Alright," he says finally, "we'll go to the Professor."
X.x.X.
"Peter, Kitty," the Professor greets from behind his large desk, and you look around the room intently, looking for signs of change since you last saw it so many years ago. There are more pictures, with more people and students that you don't recognise and shouldn't be here. "Don't you have a class to teach?" he asks dryly. You look at him in surprise, and out of the corner of your eye Peter looks sheepish. "Teach?" you laugh, "I don't teach. I'm barely out of here as a student." The Professor starts to laugh along with the joke until he sees your face and frowns. "Kitty?"
You shrug your shoulders helplessly, feeling simultaneously like your head is so full it'll explode and that you've been in the dark for years and know nothing. You can feel The Professor poking around your head like a smooth embrace-you trust him. He'll know what to do- when his eyes widen and he stares at you. "Oh you poor girl….sit down."
It's then you know it's going to be complicated.
He sends a message to Storm to get her to either find someone to take over their class, or cancel it, because you all know this could take a while.
"Professor, what is happening?" you ask, unable to take it anymore. He stays silent, staring at you, his head occasionally moving back and forth-
You've done the impossible.
You've stumped Professor.
"From what I can gleam, it wouldn't appear that you are remembering everything."
"Remembering everything from what?" you demand, and Peter puts a hand on your arm and you flinch away. "What is happening to me?"
The Professor smiles at you sadly. "The Days of Future Past."
You sit there for what feels like hours, bouncing ideas and theories, guesses and facts-not that there are many of those, nothing feels solid anymore- between you, until you come up with what seems like the most likely idea.
"Okay," you say slowly, your head spinning from all the information new and old-it seems like you have a whole new history to learn- dancing around your head. "So we can only think that because I was the link and the bridge passing people from past to the future I….retained some of the knowledge of the future that never happened?"
"That's only an assumption Kitty, but yes."
"What I don't understand," Peter piped up, something that rarely happened just this meeting. When he did, he always had something interesting or useful to consider. "Is why these memories are only coming back now? From the sound of it, you've been transported back here for a while now. And how come Logan isn't back yet?"
You frown and look out the window, to see flecks of white snow floating through the sky. "Snow," you say softly, the cogs whirring. "It was snowing the day it happened. We'd just moved location."
"As for Logan….we shall see in time," The Professor said eventually.
"I did this every time we came under attack from the Sentinels with Bishop," you ignore the pang when you realise they don't know who Bishop is, "and I never had this problem."
"Have you ever stretched someone back years, decades?" he asked gently, and you shake your head.
"The person you send back may have their mind stretched, but you have your power stretched. These…memories," it kills Peter to call them that, you can see it in his eyes, "are like the aftershock of your powers being stretched so far."
"Like a rubber band," you muse.
"Exactly," he smiles at you, and you can see how he's a teacher.
It doesn't change the fact that you have no recollection of the memories you apparently share.
Your brow furrows and you feel a migraine coming on. "The question is…while I'm living in this future, which memories will I have? Will I have these memories and then remember flashes of my own? Or vice versa?"
"These are your memories," Peter said suddenly. "This is your life."
"No it isn't," you snap at him, "I don't have these memories. I don't know this future. I don't know you." Peter recoils like you've hit him, and The Professor says
"Kitty," so sharply that you know you've went too far. You slump back in your chair, and not for the first time today do you think that the Sentinels would be a kinder fate.
"I'm sorry," you whisper, suddenly feeling very tired.
Peter smiles weakly at you. "It's all right. You don't…you don't know."
You feel bad and a small part of you wants to reach out to him, but for the most part-while you've known him the entire time you've been at Xavier's- you don't know him. Not really. He's just always been there- a comrade, a team mate, a fellow apocalypse survivor. A steady rock for people to rely on, quiet, calm, the gentle giant. But to him you're something more- something you can't be.
You don't know him.
You don't know this life.
You don't know him.
A part of you wish you did though.
A small part of you that you don't recognise.
You can see the Professor watching you intently, and you're embarrassed, all of a sudden, and he is too. He looks away to some papers on his desk, but you can practically see the thoughts travelling around his head at a million miles a minute.
You know how he feels.
"What…" you start hesitantly, and both the Professor and Peter look up at you, "what do I teach?"
Peter grimaced. "Physics."
You laugh. "Don't sound so excited about that. You sound like you hate it."
"It's not my favourite subject," he says slowly, "but I found something about it that interested me."
Suddenly it doesn't seem so funny anymore. "I always wanted to be a teacher," you say softly, rising from your seat. "I always wanted to go home," you throw them both a pointed look before leaving the room, feeling a lot less sure of yourself than you did going in-and that is saying something.