Author's Note: I'd like to dedicate this little story to the writing talents of Magik3, AllNewKatyana, KittyViolet and all the other Kitty/Illyana writers out there on AO3 and FFNet. There are some fantastic works out there dedicated to those two and their love, but we need more tales of these two amazing women, so here's my contribution to the Katyana world.
Much of this chapter is written from Kitty's perspective; I plan on the second chapter being more from Illyana's perspective, but we'll see. The story dictates how things flow, and that's always subject to change like the tides. Please note that I'm not trying to be down on Kitty, because she's plenty hard enough on herself. Sometimes she just needs to stop overthinking details and step back and look at the big picture.
I do not own the X-Men comics/movies and I make no claims upon it or its characters. All these characters are used under the concept of Fair Use, and I make no profit or income from using any of them.
How Kitty Pryde Saved Illyana Rasputin's Soul (or Was It the Other Way Around?)
by Jo K.
Chapter 1: What Is Love?
You built up a world of magic
'Cause your real life was tragic
You built up a world of magic
If it's not real you can't hold it in your hand
You can't feel it in your heart
And I won't believe it
But if it's true you can see it with your eyes
Oh, even in the dark
And that's where I want to be
-Paramore, "Brick by Boring Brick"
—O—
—O—
It was only three o'clock in the afternoon, and Kitty Pryde, X-Man, Guardian of the Galaxy and now Headmaster of the Xavier School, could feel the beginnings of a headache throb at the base of her skull.
Meetings with the Environmental Protection Agency to discuss the sewage and waste disposal system of the school complex (a one-way conduit to Limbo, where human waste is... utilized). Forms filled out attesting to the one-way nature of said portal (why does any government have a Permanent or Semi-Permanent Passageway to Dimension of Infernal or Otherwise Dangerous Nature form anyway?), security and safety measures in place regarding said portal and the proper placement of fire extinguishers, alarm sirens and flashing security lights in all nearby areas. Curriculum review for a half-dozen proposed new classes. Shortages of skim milk, fresh strawberries and O-positive blood for the cafeteria. Resumes for applicants for teaching positions. Applications and writing samples from prospective students. A handful of Sex Education essays that Paige Guthrie, the class's teacher, felt were concerning enough that they deserved review by the Headmaster herself. The repair bill for the Chemistry classroom (again). The repair bill for the Art classroom (really?). An upcoming accreditation visit from the New York State Department of Education.
Kitty sighed and leaned back in her chair. She swiveled in a clockwise position, spinning slowly until her head was positioned to where she could look out over the front lawn of the school. The view of Central Park was spectacular, but it was the sight of the children and teenagers playing and lounging on the lawn that made her smile.
This was why she put up with the headaches and the paperwork. This was why all of the school's diverse faculty were here. To teach these children and teenagers, to nurture them, both in the use of their powers and through the confusion of life as a mutant. It was worth the sacrifice all of the school's faculty were making.
So why did it feel like something important was missing?
Kitty chewed on the end of her pen for a minute longer before a flash of blue-white light on the lawn got her attention. She looked back out the window to see her best friend, Illyana Rasputin, appearing on the front lawn. She was holding something mauve in her hand, something that was wriggling, holding it up in front of a small gathering of older children.
The sight made Kitty smile despite the pounding at the back of her head. Watching Illyana interact with children, teaching children, did something that made Kitty's heart turn flops inside her chest.
It had been far too long since the two of them had gone out for shopping, or dinner, or...
Well, for anything, really. It had been weeks. Or maybe even months?
Kitty sighed, tossing her red pen down onto her desktop. She stood from her chair, phasing through the wall of her office and airwalking down to the ground. She left her heels back in her office, and when her bare feet turned solid, the soft feel of the grass between her toes made her smile.
"Hi, Miss Pryde!"
"Hello, Miss Pryde!"
"Hey, Miss Pryde!"
The happy greetings of the students as she walked by them eased the aching in her head as she made her way toward Illyana and her class, and she politely nodded, waved and spoke to each group as she met them. She kept walking until she neared the half-dozen students seated in front of Illyana, each of them on the precipice marking the transition from childhood to adolescence. There she quietly stopped, far enough behind them to not draw any attention away from her friend while she was talking.
"...And minor demons like this, while not always dangerous on their own, still need to be contained until they can be returned to their place of origin. So what do we do with entities like these?" the beautiful Russian spoke, her long, straight blonde hair shining in the sun, just a hint of an accent in her speech now.
The students answered as one, voices quickly matching in tone and speed as they recited, "Call a teacher, keep others safe, contain if possible."
The blonde smiled, a thin-lipped smile that Kitty knew indicated slight amusement. "Without..."
There was a brief sigh because the group recited, "Without risk to ourselves or others."
Now Illyana smiled more. "Very good." A smaller blue-white circle appeared beneath the small purple demon, rising up around it until both the demon and circle vanished. "Class dismissed for today."
As the children happily sprang to their feet and ran back toward the main school building, Kitty picked her way through the small wave of running bodies until she was standing next to her friend. "Adding some practical demonstrations to Parazoology?" she asked the blonde.
"Children learn better with practical demonstration and hands-on learning than with pure lectures," Illyana replied, the thin smile crossing her lips again. "Or at least I did, anyway."
"Didn't see much hands-on there, though."
"I wanted my students to keep all their fingers," replied the Russian. "That particular type of imp has rather sharp teeth."
"I appreciate your concern for your students' well-being, Professor Rasputin," Kitty said, teasingly.
"Of course, Headmaster," Illyana replied; however, though the tone of her voice and expression on her face indicated she was playing along, there was something in her blue eyes that didn't seem to match the spirit of her words.
"What are you doing tonight?" Kitty asked.
Illyana looked surprised for just a moment, before the smooth (and slightly unnatural) composure returned to her face. "I... have no plans," she replied.
"It's been too long since we had some time together, don't you think?" asked Kitty, smiling. "For best friends, life has had a tendency to keep us apart too much."
There was a flicker of emotion across the blonde's face, something that registered in the back of Kitty's mind but wasn't entirely familiar at this point. Then Illyana nodded, followed by her smiling slightly. "I would like that, Kitty," she said. "What time would you like to leave?"
Kitty checked her slim watch. "How about... maybe seven?"
Illyana gently, almost hesitantly, reached up and lightly grasped Kitty's left shoulder. "I'll pick you up at seven, then."
"Okay," Kitty replied. "Maybe dinner and a movie? And maybe some ice cream?"
Illyana's smile broadened slightly. "I.. would like that very much," she said softly, before she lowered her arm and walked past Kitty.
Kitty stood where she was, staring at the trees across the large lawn. While Illyana was still friendly with her, there was something that had felt stilted in their conversation. Something that just didn't mesh properly, not with her memories of the two of them together.
When did you stop calling me Katya? Kitty thought, and without warning she felt her eyes sting with threatened tears.
—O—
Night had fallen as the two of them walked through the High Line park, a grassy space built over unused sections of an old elevated railway line. They watched the bay stretch out to their left as they walked slowly, each of them finishing a simple vanilla ice cream cone.
The soft crunching of cones being devoured was the only noise they made, until Kitty, her right hand newly empty, took Illyana's left hand, grasping it tenderly as they continued to stroll down the path. The slightest breath of air escaped from Illyana's mouth, a reflexive gasp that she hoped was too quiet for Kitty to hear amidst the noise of the bay and the city. She held onto her friend's hand, threading her fingers through Kitty's and holding firmly. A long-subdued spark buried deep in the Russian girl's heart began to pulse, a sensation she had been without for so long that it surprised her to feel it again.
"I've had a really good time, Yana," Kitty said, smiling at her friend.
Illyana looked back, admiring the beauty of the brunette she had been in love with for as long as she could remember. The lights of the park reflected off Kitty's mahogany hair, burnishing it in gold and silver, and the happy smile on Kitty's face nearly made Illyana forget how dirty and dark she herself truly was inside. Kitty's brown eyes were rich and endlessly deep, and once again Illyana wished that things had been different, that they could have been together, that they could have had the chance to make each other happy.
But that would never be. Not more than this here, this friendship that meant the entire world to Illyana just by itself, a connection so precious that it could never be risked, could never be tested. Nothing, not even the dim hopes that Illyana had relinquished years ago, was worth risking her friendship with Ka—with Kitty.
"I've had a really good time, too," Illyana said, smiling widely and openly for the first time in years, and she meant every word of it.
—O—
Later that night, as Kitty brushed her hair and finished getting ready for bed, she replayed the events of her evening with her friend.
Somewhere between dinner and the movie, it had felt like Yana—her Yana—was with her again. Gone was the mask of sharp focus, the look between confidence and disdain that shielded Illyana's emotions from the world, replaced by the eager, attentive face of the young girl and later young woman that had held a special place in Kitty's heart since they were thirteen. The smiles were no longer forced or polite but honest and genuine, the laughs not simple but spontaneous and full.
It was the first time Kitty had seen Illyana smile, truly smile, in years.
What kind of best friend did that make Kitty?
Wiping off her eyeshadow helped Kitty pretend that she wasn't crying.
—O—
The next day, when Kitty stopped by Illyana's class on Basic Sorcery, the mask was firmly in place once more.
Kitty waited while Illyana walked through the class, inspecting each student's protective circle. The variety of designs scattered across the floor amazed Kitty, ranging from simple pentacles, the most common design, to a lotus design to runes that looked Nordic. There was even a Star of David (although in the back of her head she could hear Illyana telling her it was properly called a Seal of Solomon) glowing beneath one boy.
Kitty was familiar with Illyana's own pentacle of silvery flame. Intimate with it, in fact, in both senses of the word, going back to the time when she and Illyana were both thirteen and had willingly crossed the line between friendship and something altogether more.
She was glad her first kiss, her first real kiss, had been with Illyana. They had been each other's first in other ways as well, including the most important and most intimate, and those memories remained some of the sweetest in Kitty's mind. Piotr had been a schoolgirl crush, and their kisses were awkward, rushed pecks or chaste presses of the lips that always felt like she was trying too hard and he was too afraid. But those moments with Illyana, the closeness and kisses and touches and embraces, those had always felt exactly right.
Neither of them had known what they were doing when they started, but that ultimately made their hard-earned knowledge of each other, both physically and emotionally, so much more wonderful.
"What... what is it, Katya?" Illyana asked.
Her best friend had been staring at her face for nearly a minute. They were both sitting on Illyana's bed in the room they shared, the thirteen-year-old Russian with her legs crossed lotus-style in front of Kitty, two months away from fourteen, with her legs straight and hanging partly off the side of the bed.
"Yana..." Kitty finally said, her voice a mere whisper.
"Yes?" Illyana replied, remembering to use the English this time instead of the Russian that still came unbidden to her lips when she was nervous or excited (like now). She leaned in closer to her best friend.
"C-can I..." Kitty asked, her eyes wet with unshed tears. "Can I... kiss you?"
Illyana blinked. "D-da," she replied, quickly adding, "I m-mean, yes, you can."
So she did.
And Illyana kissed back.
The sound of nine and ten-year-olds gathering their backpacks brought Kitty out of her reverie. As the kids filed out of the windowless classroom (to minimize distractions), she looked at her friend, who was demonstrating the proper positioning of fingers for a protective incantation to a young girl with strawberry-blonde hair.
Kitty watched contently as Illyana spent several minutes with the girl, patiently correcting the girl's finger positions until a bright green glow came from the girl's hands.
The girl grinned as Illyana smiled; another honest smile, wide and unafraid. She patted the girl on the shoulder and spoke to her; the green glow faded as the girl's hands returned to her sides. She bent and picked up her backpack, a simple but well-kept black leather bag, and ran out of the room, smile firmly affixed to her young face.
"You're so good with them at this age," Kitty said honestly.
Illyana's smile was gone when Kitty's eyes returned to her friend, the friendly expression replaced by her mask of neutrality. Illyana nodded. "I try to give them extra time... at this age," she said, words thickening at the end, and the lack of further comment hit Kitty harder than most anything the Russian woman could have said.
"God, Yana," Kitty said, hurrying across the room, heels clicking before she threw her arms around Illyana. The blonde stood there stoically, not returning the hug but not trying to pull away either. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking giving you this age group for some of your classes."
"You were thinking that I would be a good teacher for them," Illyana replied. "And you were right, as you frequently are." But there was none of the warmth in her words, in her body language, that was present last night. She remained stiff in Kitty's embrace until Kitty awkwardly stepped back.
It hurt to feel awkward around Illyana. Around Yana, when the two of them had been so close, had shared so much.
Kitty sighed. She was getting tired of feeling like she was about to cry.
"What happened to us, Yana?" she asked, eager and afraid of the answer at the same time.
Illyana looked at her. Her light blue eyes danced jitteringly as they focused and defocused. "You died, I went crazy. I died, you left." Her voice was flat as she spoke, void of emotion, but as she paused Kitty caught the slight swallow, the briefest hesitation before she spoke again, the waver in her voice when she did. "Then you died again. And I—"
She stopped abruptly. "I have to go," she said quickly, and before Kitty could blink, the blue-white glow of a teleportation disc had swallowed Illyana up, leaving Kitty alone in the empty classroom.
—O—
Illyana didn't return to the Xavier School the rest of the day. A note had been placed on the door of her only remaining class of the day, Russian Literature, politely informing students that today's class had been postponed and assigning another reading to be discussed at the next class.
Kitty stared at the note for several minutes before something odd about the paper caught her eye. She carefully pulled the white Post-it note off the door's window, then lifted it up to her eyes to examine it more closely.
A tiny spot of irregularity marring the otherwise smooth paper. It wasn't affecting the neat script that Kitty still recognized, from countless notes both mundane and romantic. After they had become intimate with each other, a feeling so new and delicate that neither girl had had the courage to put a name to it, Yana had loved to write love poems to Kitty in Russian, requiring the brunette to read them back to her in the privacy of their shared room before she would translate them. This usually occurred while they were in bed, with Illyana's arms around Kitty as they nestled together, looking over Kitty's shoulder and head as her best friend (and so much more) stutteringly read the note in the warmth and comfort of Illyana's embrace, the strength in those limbs hidden beneath the soft skin but readily palpable to Kitty.
This close, Kitty could see the roughly oval crinkle in the paper, just at the edge of the note. Slight puckering around the spot gave it away.
A tear had fallen here.
Kitty put the note back before any more tears could join that one.
—O—
Standing in the hallway of the modest apartment building in Brooklyn, Kitty nervously shifted her weight back and forth, from foot to foot, after knocking at the plain door.
She had politely sent a text to the apartment's lessee earlier, waiting for acknowledgment and invitation before she had taken the subway from Manhattan.
(Really, so many misunderstandings could be prevented with better communication, she thought, and the irony of her thought when applied to her current situation with Illyana made her chest tighten and her throat ache.)
The clicking of locks being turned went on for a few seconds, followed by the door opening to reveal a face somewhat unfamiliar.
"Can I help you?" asked the young woman, who appeared to be at least half-Japanese, maybe full, to Kitty's experienced eye. Long, straight dark hair had been partially piled atop her head and pinned into place with black lacquered chopsticks, while the rest of her hair trailed down her back. Multiple silver necklaces fell over her chest, topped by a studded black leather choker around her neck. Ankh earrings hung from each ear, and dark purple lipstick completed the woman's gothic look.
"I'm, um, Kitty. Laura... said I could come over?"
"Hi Kitty, I'm Nico, Laura's girlfriend," said the young woman, who looked like she was just out of her teen years, as she wiped her hands on a yellow dishtowel. "Come on in. Dinner's almost ready."
As the girl turned, revealing the back of a short black jacket, a striped shirt poking out beneath and a long, frilled black skirt, Kitty placed the face and the name: Nico Minoru, one of the Runaways. A sorceress with parents who practiced very black magic indeed, now both deceased at the hands of their daughter and her friends.
"Gabby's finishing her homework," Nico called over her shoulder. "So— NO, Johnathon!" Nico shouted, running toward the small kitchen to shoo the shaggy wolverine off the counter next to the stove. "You've already gotten your treats, so you can wait with the rest of us!"
Kitty watched as the rather large wolverine shambled away from Nico, burbling and huffing as it crossed the apartment. "Can you... talk to him?" Kitty asked, genuinely unsure of the answer.
Nico turned to look at her, bright teeth shining through the near-ebony outline of her lips. "Can I talk to him? Sure! Does he listen? Hell no."
"Language!" came a young voice from the next room. "I'm trying to finish my math."
Kitty stepped farther into the apartment, until she could see the dark-haired girl seated on the floor, paper and a textbook on the low table in front of her. "Hey Gabby!" Kitty said, pleased when the girl's eyes got big and she scrambled to her feet fast enough to send her paper sailing through the air behind her.
"Aunt Kitty!" Gabby shouted, not stopping until she had slammed herself into Kitty's body, nearly knocking the petite brunette over.
"Easy there, squirt," Kitty said, bending over to hug Gabby. "You're almost as big as me!"
Laughing, Gabby said, "That's because you're a little shit!"
Kitty's eyes got big, then she sputtered, futilely trying to cover her mouth as she started laughing.
"What?!" Gabby asked. "That's what Laura calls you all the time!"
"I do not!" came a shout from the other end of the apartment, following by the slapping of bare feet on hardwood. Laura Kinney came to a stop inside the living room, and by the look on her face, she was having a hard time deciding whether to be irritated or amused.
"To be fair," Nico said as she set a wooden spoon down and walked over to Laura, putting her arms around the other brunette's shoulders, "that phrase might have slipped across your lips a time or two." She punctuated her admission by kissing Laura softly on those very same lips.
The display of affection sent a pang through Kitty's heart, while at the same time comforting her. After the way she had been raised, Laura deserved the happiness of love, affection and a home more than anyone Kitty knew.
Except one.
—O—
Dinner was fabulous. Simple but sumptuous, with fluffy rice omelets, a vast choice of sauces for dipping and karaage, a fried chicken that had a savory, delicate spice to it.
Kitty folded and placed her napkin on the table in front her, sighing as she leaned back in her chair. "If Nico is this good a cook, Laura, I hope you're proposing soon."
Nico smiled, practically preening as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her chest. "Traded my recipes for miso and onigiri to Doctor Doom for lessons on time magic," she said confidently.
Kitty's mouth opened involuntarily. "Seriously?"
Nico nodded. "Yeah, cooked him dinner too. He's really nice if you're polite to him."
"We're still making the long-distance thing work," Laura said, taking Nico's left hand and bringing it to her lips, where she kissed the knuckles gently.
"I still live in L.A.," Nico said. "I'm trying to get Sexy and Gabby to move out there."
"And we're trying to get her to move here," Laura replied. "But we'll work it out eventually."
Seeing the question forming on Kitty's face, Nico said, "Teleportation spell. Dr. Strange and Illyana have been teaching me sorcery, so I don't have to rely on the Staff of One all the time. Seriously cuts down on commuting."
"I bet," Kitty said, thoughts drifting back to the blonde that always seemed to be on her mind lately.
—O—
"So what's going on, Kitty?" Laura asked, bringing a cup of hot chocolate to the lounge chairs set up on the roof of the apartment building. Night had fallen across the borough, bringing with it a faint chill in the air.
Kitty carefully took the mug from her friend, quietly saying, "Thanks," as Laura settled in next to her.
"Nico'll be up in a bit once she gets Gabby to sleep. Gab likes her stories better than mine, because she can actually provide visual and sound effects with a little spell or two."
Kitty looked at Laura, taking in the unusual look of ease on the face of the wiry dark-haired girl. "You look..." Kitty offered, trailing off as she tried to find what the perfect descriptor would be.
"Tired?" Laura suggested with a smirk.
"No," Kitty said, grimacing playfully.
"Lazy? Ugly?"
Kitty sighed. "No."
"Then how do I look?"
After a few more seconds on consideration, Kitty finally said, "Happy." The word surprised her as much as it did Laura. "You look happy."
Laura smiled. She placed her cup of hot tea down beside her. "That's because I am," she said quietly.
"Having a family..." Laura began, her voice tapering off. "It wasn't something I would ever be able to do. Not safely. Not with the metaphorical sword of that fucking trigger scent hanging over my head the rest of my life."
Kitty nodded. She had heard about the eradication of the remaining trigger scent and the formula to make it, along with the death of the last person who knew how to synthesize it. "I can't imagine how big a weight that is off your shoulders," she said softly.
Laura nodded. "It's enormous. And now, it's gone." She picked her cup back up and took a sip of the tea, with lemon and a spoonful of honey. "I can actually be around people I care about without always listening, always watching, for something to turn me into a mindless killing machine."
"You can be a big sister to Gabby."
"Absolutely," Laura replied. "Kid deserves the world, after what she went through. Something I understand too well."
Kitty took a sip of her own drink before licking her lips and speaking again. "Nico seems to be good with her."
"God, she is," Laura said. "She was terrified of Gabby to start with, although she'll probably lie if you ask her. But she knows what it's like to deal with kids, with teenagers, thanks to Molly."
Kitty nodded. She knew very well who Molly Hayes was, and what she could do.
"She knows how to talk to them, how to deal with them without coming across as condescending or tyrannical."
"Yeah, I bet," Kitty said, her voice trailing off as her thoughts revved up. Thinking about Nico and the rest of the Runaways raising themselves and each other after the deaths of their parents, she realized how much their situation was like the New Mutants, back when the Professor was so hands-off. Young, desperately in need of guidance and advice but bitterly opposed to receiving either of them.
They drank more of their drinks in silence, surrounded by the quiet urban noises drifting up from the streets and buildings below.
"Gabby's probably asleep by now, if you're worried about her hearing whatever it is you came here to talk about."
"What?" Kitty said, jerking her head around quickly. "Oh, no, it's nothing that I wouldn't want her hearing. Not really."
Laura placed her cup down again, then she turned so that she was only partially sitting in the chair, her knees now pointing toward Kitty. "Then what is it, Kitty? Your face and your scent have been all over the place tonight."
Kitty sighed. She put down her mug of hot chocolate as well. "I think I made a terrible mistake," she finally said, nervously wringing her hands. "Years ago. And I don't know if it can be fixed now."
Laura smiled. "Does it involve someone who's dead?"
Kitty laughed. "Not currently."
Laura grinned. "Then it can be fixed."
"I..." I hope. I pray. "I don't know, Laura."
Laura closed her eyes. Her nose analyzed the pheromones and smells coming from her friend, catching hints of sorrow, of love, of fear, of anxiety and stress. And there was another scent, more subtle and harder to place due to time elapsed since Kitty had been exposed to it, but the exposure had been strong enough to leave traces still detectable on Kitty's hair and skin. She nodded. "Illyana?" she asked softly.
Now it was Kitty's turn to clench her eyes tightly shut. She nodded, more forcefully than she had intended.
"She still loves you," spoke a soft voice from the direction of the stairwell door. Laura didn't have to turn; she had already smelled Nico's personal scent, like jasmine and dried ink and determination all mixed together in a combination that had become her favorite of all.
Nico's boots clomped softly across the rough surface of the roof as she approached her girlfriend and Kitty. "She's never stopped loving you, Kitty," Nico said, sadness in her voice as she came to a stop beside Laura's chair. "And she never will. She'll never tell you, though. Whether it's pride or fear or something else, she'll never put you in that position. She loves you too much, ironically, to do that to you."
Kitty turned to look at the raven-haired woman, who was currently staring up at the few stars bright enough to be visible through the haze and light bleeding upward into the heavens. "How..." she croaked out, her voice breaking in a way that took her all the way back to puberty again. "How do you know?"
Nico turned to look at Kitty, a gleam in her dark eyes as she sat down beside Laura. Laura moved her lover's hair to the side, exposing a strip of her pale neck beneath the black choker so she could softly place kisses on it. "You mean you don't know that we semi-dark sorceresses have regular meetings?"
The look on Kitty's face, a mixture of disbelief, frustration and heartbreak, would have been funny, had the situation not been so serious.
"Would you believe a book club?"
"Nico," Laura said gently. "This is serious."
"No shit," Nico replied, turning to look into Laura's green eyes.
A muffled sob broke the playful staring contest between girlfriends. They turned to see Kitty trying to keep herself together (possibly literally, given her powers). "If..." she said, sniffling, "If she l-loved me that much, why didn't she rescue me from that... that fucking deathtrap, that... space slug I was trapped in, flying through the galaxy for... God knows how long?"
Nico's face immediately went from jovial to stunned. "She didn't tell you?!" the Japanese woman said, her voice slightly higher in pitch than usual. "No, of course she didn't," she muttered, more to herself than to Kitty.
"Tell me what?" Kitty asked. When there was no answer, she practically shouted, "Tell me WHAT?!"
Nico's dark eyes were full of sadness as she looked squarely at Kitty. "She did try, Kitty. She tried and tried and kept trying until it nearly killed her, and she kept trying after that."
Nico sighed, knowing the talking wasn't over yet. "Whatever it was about that thing that kept you from phasing through it, it kept her from teleporting into it, or even teleporting it at all. She tried that too. She used her stepping discs, she used her sorcery, she used them both together. Nothing worked. She called me, desperate and terrified. She had tried to contact Dr. Strange, but he was tied up doing something and couldn't help.
"Kitty, I had never seen her so frantic in my life. Remember, I'm a dark sorceress. A blood witch. And some of the shit she tried, some of things she became, they scared ME." Nico took in a deep breath. "I tried to use the Staff of One to breach that thing you were trapped in too, but it was obviously warded against magic like it was mutant powers. I burned I don't know how many unique incantations trying to break through it, then trying to boost Illyana's power to where she could either get inside it or get you out. It was like it just... wasn't there, when we tried to affect it." Nico sighed, then looked down at the silver buckles on her black leather boots.
"Then when I thought Illyana had finally given up, she... started a ritual to consume Limbo."
"What?" asked Kitty.
"What?!" echoed Laura. This was the first she had of this part.
Nico nodded. "I wasn't planning on ever telling anyone this, and she'll probably be pissed at me for mentioning it now, but Illyana was starting to use the Fiery Pyre of Phlegethon, a super-dark sacrificial ritual designed to boost magical power, using all of Limbo—and everything in it—to make one last-ditch attempt to save you."
Kitty sat there, stunned.
"It would've cost what was left of her soul, if there was anything left—shit, sorry, didn't mean that personally—but she was doing it, no hesitation."
"I wouldn't have wanted her to do it," Kitty said, her voice a hoarse whisper. "Not at that cost."
"Well, she wasn't asking permission," Nico said. "She had just about reached the point of no return when something went wrong, because she was exhausted, not thinking straight and getting too sloppy with her somatic gestures. The magical backlash was nasty, but we contained it. Barely. She had this look of total, complete defeat on her face, and then she teleported. Shocked me, because I didn't think she had enough left to even get to her feet, but there was that flash of light and she was gone.
"Luckily, I had put a tracking spell on her a few minutes earlier, when I wasn't sure what she was going to do. I was worried about her blacking out in space because she was so exhausted that she forgot to use an oxygenation spell or something, you know?" She paused and swallowed. "Good thing I had. Because she had teleported to the surface of that big bullet thing you were trapped in. No oxygen spell. No protection spell. Just a little charm to keep her there forever... so she could be with you."
The wail that came from the back of Kitty's throat was gut-wrenching as she broke down and cried. She didn't know when Laura and Nico got up and moved to kneel beside her, putting their arms around her while she sobbed. She only vaguely registered Laura's strong arms picking her up and carrying her back downstairs to the apartment some time later. Nico cast a silence spell over Gabby's room to keep the girl from waking up, then she and Laura sat on the couch with Kitty, who had curled up into a tiny human lump next to the armrest.
It was over an hour before Kitty's sobs and gasping gave way to the quiet whimpering of restless sleep. Nico took a spare blanket from the linen closet and handed it to Laura, who gently laid it across her friend's weary body.
The two of them stood there, looking over the lost woman passed out on the worn blue couch before them, holding each other with equal amounts of love and worry.
"Do you think she'll be okay?" Nico asked, unable to take her eyes off the wet spot Kitty's tears had made on the couch cushion beneath her head.
Laura thought for several seconds before she answered. "I don't know."
—O—
The shaking of the apartment building and rattling of the windows jarred Kitty mostly out of sleep. Gabby shaking her and yelling finished the job.
"Wha..." Kitty mumbled before Gabby shook her again.
"Kitty! KITTY! You've got to wake up!"
"Okay, okay..." Kitty said, phasing through Gabby and sitting up on the couch before she turned solid again. "What's goin—"
"All hell's breaking loose at your school," Nico said forcefully as she stomped into the room, sliding her dark jacket over her arms. "Need you at the top of your game, Pryde."
"Oh God, my back..." Kitty moaned as she stood up despite the protest of tight muscles and popping vertebrae, shifting her balance reflexively as the building shook and reverberated with another loud BOOM.
"No time for sleeping on the job," Nico said, snapping her fingers in front of Kitty; a golden flash of light sparked from the Japanese woman's hand, and instantly the knots in Kitty's back stopped hurting. "Your girlfriend's in the middle of some serious shit in Central Park, and you need to be there, not here."
Kitty's eyes squinted slightly. "Yana's not my—"
"Tell it to someone who believes it," Nico snapped, leaving Kitty blinking her eyes in surprise. "I'm needed over at Times Square, where Dr. Strange is fighting some big-ass blobby... something, but I've got enough time to port you over to Central Park."
"Gabby and I will focus on crowd control," said Laura, her Wolverine costume and mask already on. She stopped beside Kitty, Gabby directly behind her with her own mask on.
Nico stepped forward, kissing Laura on the lips passionately. "Stay alive, lover," she said.
"Count on it," Laura replied, smiling confidently.
Nico looked down at Gabby and ran her fingers through the girl's dark hair. She smiled at the girl she had grown to love. "Protect others, and keep yourself safe, kid, okay?"
Gabby nodded.
Nico looked at Kitty, staring at her for a few long and oddly uncomfortable seconds. "Don't fuck this up, Pryde," she finally said.
"I—"
But Kitty's words were cut off by the blue haze of a teleportation spell.
—O—
To say Central Park, or at least the area around the Xavier School, was chaotic would have been an understatement. To say it was Pandemonium would have been close to the literal truth.
The screams, roars and explosions were audible even before they finished materializing. Immediately Laura and Gabby were gone, moving at speeds too fast for Kitty to follow. But then her attention was already focused on the hissing, crackling fountain of crimson energy spraying into the air ahead of her.
Illyana stood firm, legs spread and braced beneath her, as she poured a current of pulsing red magic against an opposing stream of sickly green energy being directed at her by a trio of figures that Kitty would have been happy to never see again: the demon N'Astirh, the half-demon sorceress Witchfire... and Belasco.
Belasco.
"Fuck!" Kitty swore, immediately running toward Illyana as fast as she could.
Phasing out of the way of demons swooping in after her, the occasional energy blast deflecting in her direction, falling rubble and tumbling bodies, Kitty stormed across the cracked ground toward her best friend.
"YANA!" she screamed as she ran, trying to be heard over the loud hissing and popping of clashing magic.
She watched as Illyana started to falter under the three-pronged assault. The blonde's legs began to sag as she leaned forward, eyes clenched tightly shut as she dug deep within herself for strength.
Then Kitty was there. Without hesitation Kitty ran up behind Illyana, wrapping her arms around Illyana's chest from behind and softly saying, "I'm here, Yana, I'm here. I've got you."
Despite the ringing in her ears and pounding in her throat, Illyana heard those words, felt the small but firm arms supporting her, trying to hold her up. She swallowed the burning in her stomach that had been threatening to spew up and tightened her grip on her magic.
Kitty was here, and there was no way Illyana was letting her get hurt.
Kitty felt the muscles in the blonde's chest, shoulders and neck tighten as Illyana powered her way back up to a standing position. She smiled against the black fabric of Illyana's short top as she watched the stream of crimson turn scarlet, glowing intensely before it started to push back the three streams of green trying to scour the two of them from existence.
"They're not... real..." Illyana hissed out, mouth tight with exertion. "Nightmare..."
"This is one of your nightmares?" Kitty asked, confused.
Illyana shook her head. "No," she said before adding, "Well, yes... but..." She ignored the sweat dripping off her forehead, running cold down her back as she maintained the furious flow of power erupting from her body. "The entity... Nightmare..."
Kitty nodded against Illyana's shoulder. "Visions. Of your nightmares."
Illyana nodded. "Strange... took him... but these..."
"I'm here, Yana," Kitty breathed against her shoulder, the warmth of her breath, the press of her body against Illyana's feeling like the life-saving heat of a fire staving off the cold of a Siberian winter. "I'm here."
The streams of green-yellow magic surged, as the figures of Witchfire, N'Astirh and Belasco all began to push their way forward, toward Kitty and Illyana.
"You can do this, Yana," Kitty said. "I... I believe in you."
Illyana tried her best to not let the joy she felt rise in her heart at those words overwhelm her. She really, really did. But she couldn't stop the tears of happiness that ran down her cheeks. She focused on the unfamiliar warmth in her heart, felt it, savored it, then pushed back harder with her magic.
Kitty watched as the stream of Illyana's magic glowed so brightly that it was hurting her eyes, but still the trio of demonic figures advanced. Illyana's head was bent down with the force of her efforts, but as Kitty watched, the figures of Witchfire and N'Astirh stopped and flickered briefly. But the figure of Belasco did not. Instead it continued to inch forward, step after step, now so close that Kitty swore she could smell the sulfur and char from him.
"Yana, there's something about Belasco," she said as he drew nearly with reach. The other two had fallen to their knees under Illyana's mystic assault, shimmering as they began to fade. "He's..."
He's real.
Belasco suddenly stopped the mystic assault, shifting to the side of Illyana's scarlet stream of energy that had been directed toward him. His left arm swooped forward at the same time Kitty noticed the golden amulet hanging from his neck, four glowing blood-red gems filling four of the five spots on the pentacle etched on its surface.
Immediately Kitty phased her arm through Illyana, catching Belasco's arm at the wrist just inches away from Illyana's chest, using every bit of her strength and desperation to keep the demon lord's hand at bay.
Despite the flashes of magic, Illyana looked up as she felt Kitty pass through her—directly into the burning red eyes of Belasco, his too-familiar sulfurous stench gagging her. As she realized that Belasco was real, that he was right here nexttoherohgodohgod—
"YOU CAN'T HAVE HER!"
Kitty's scream ringing in her right ear shocked Illyana back to reality, snapping the hold of Nightmare's illusion. Witchfire and N'Astirh were gone, as was the pyrotechnic clash of magical energy. But Belasco was still right in front of her, clawed fingers pointed at her chest, with only Kitty's thin arm somehow holding the muscular demon at bay.
And around his neck, the bloodstone amulet, four of its five slots filled with marble sized pieces of her soul.
"Kitty, you have to get back!" Illyana shouted. "He's already got most of my soul, you can't win!"
Kitty ignored Illyana's cry. She could win, and she would win. For her best friend.
"Listen to her, foolish girl," rumbled the powerful demon, his fangs exposed in a snarling grin. "The Darkchylde belongs to me. She was never yours."
You're wrong, Illyana thought feebly. But her terror kept her speechless, unable to move at the moment while her best friend and her worst tormentor battled for her soul.
Illyana's body seemed to turn slightly transparent, letting Kitty see a brightly glowing red sphere in the center of Illyana's chest, a match for the four gems already attached to the amulet other than the fact that those gems were a dull crimson, while the one in Illyana's chest glowed a bright cherry-red.
As Kitty watched, the gem began to slowly drift forward, toward Belasco's grasping hand. As it did so, she felt a nauseating pull deep inside her own chest, a tug that felt like part of herself was being slowly yanked out.
"The last piece of her soul feels the pull of the others!" he boasted. "Soon she will be mine, entirely!"
"NO!" Kitty screamed. She knew, in the back of her mind, that she was shouting in Illyana's ear, but right now she wasn't consciously registering anything other than terror at losing her best friend, her confidant, her...
Her best friend. Whom she had run away from. Twice. The woman who had shared her room, her secrets, her thoughts, her heart, her love, her...
Kitty gasped.
Her soul.
Feeling some innate connection between the soulstone in Illyana's chest and something deep within her own heart draw taut, Kitty's lips pulled away from her teeth, revealing them clenched tightly in a snarl that rivaled that of Belasco himself. "Fuck off, Belasco!" she shouted. "You can't have her soul, because it doesn't belong to you! It belongs with ME!"
Releasing the demon's arm, Kitty jerked her arm back, closing her hand around the piece of Illyana's soul, warm and pulsing and alive in her gentle grasp, and memories flooded over all three of them, trapped in a swirl of multicolored mystic haze.
Late one night in Westchester, as snow silently fell outside a stately mansion far away from the main road, two young girls lay sweaty in a bed that was far too small for both of them together, one with straight but disheveled blonde hair, the other's hair a wild mess of brown curls. Their chests rose and fell together, faster than they should have been had they been resting, but very natural for coming down from the ecstasy they had just shared together, as they had done many times over the last year.
Kitty turned her head to stare into Illyana's pale blue eyes, pupils still widely dilated to the point of nearly eclipsing the rim of color around the blackness. "I love you, Yana," she whispered, tightening her grip around the young Russian's waist and pulling her even more snugly against her. The heat from Yana's bare skin against hers from head to toe was so intense that it left Kitty doubting reality. How could anything feel this good, BE this good?
"I love you too, Katya," Illyana spoke, her accent much improved but still noticeable. It was adorable, and Kitty loved it, just as she loved all of the troubled, damaged, precious, loving young woman holding Kitty just as Kitty was holding her.
"Forgive me if I saw this wrong," Illyana said softly. "Say this wrong," she corrected, coaxing a giggle from Kitty, both girls still high from their lovemaking. Illyana smiled, then her face grew serious.
"I love you, Katherine Pryde," the blonde spoke slowly, carefully. "I will always love you. Everything I am, I give to you. Everything I have, I give to you. My love..." Here she paused to kiss Kitty on the lips. "My life..." she said, adding another kiss. "My clothes..." getting another giggle from Kitty, which Illyana ignored to kiss her again. "My heart..." she whispered with another kiss. "And my soul..." she finished, with a kiss that she held for several seconds, relishing the taste of Kitty, the feel of Kitty, the comfort that she could only find in Kitty's arms.
"I give you everything, my Katya," Illyana said, tears brimming her eyes. "For you have given me love, in ways I never could have imagined. In ways I do not deserve."
"No," Kitty said, shaking her head as she leaned forward and kissed the tears from Illyana's fair cheeks. "You do deserve love. You do, Yana, you hear me? Even after everything you've been through. You deserve to love, to be loved, and I swear that I'll love you forever. I give you my heart, my love, my soul too."
Illyana shook her head, trying not to bump Kitty's face. "No, Katya, you don't know what you—"
"YES," Kitty hissed, staring into those intense blue eyes she loved. "Yes, I do. I do know what I'm saying. I'm in bed with a sorceress who's been tested by demons, tortured by demons, and she's survived all that. She's beaten all that. And you are still capable of love, of compassion, because I can feel it, Yana! I can feel it every time you kiss me, every time you touch me, every time you're inside me, every time you hold me or wipe away my tears or call my name or hug me closer to you while we're in bed, because you want to protect me from everything out there in that scary world and all the worlds beyond it."
She smiled at her Yana, ignoring her own tears sliding down her face and spilling themselves onto the pillow they shared. "I accept your heart and your soul, Illyana Rasputin, but you have to accept mine in return," she said, smiling happily despite the tears wetting her cheek. Some part of her knew they were too young to be making promises, pledges like that, but Kitty didn't care. She was in love.
Illyana smiled back. "Da," she said softly. "I accept."
Belasco howled as pain lanced through his arm. He jerked it back, but not before a gleaming flash of pure white light sliced through his wrist, severing his only hand.
He shrieked as he saw the clawed hand tumble through the hazy air, weakly spinning until it struck the ground. He looked up, ignoring the green ichor oozing from the stump of his forearm.
A slim silver sword stood upright, vastly different than the broad, imposing soulsword that Illyana had wielded for the last few years. This silvery-white blade was long, narrow, elegantly lined, with a wide, straight crossguard and slightly shorter handle. That silver handle was held by two hands, Illyana's closest to the metal and Kitty's hand closed over hers. The soulsword glowed with a brilliant white that made Belasco's eyes burn and blur as he stared at it. The smoke from his eyes beginning to combust made his vision uncertain as he took in the sight of Illyana clad in her full suit of mystic armor, hooves for feet, legs twisted and bent forward, eyes glowing red, horns protruding from her face as she glared at him. But her fangs were bared in a smile, of all things, as Kitty's right arm pulled away from the soulsword and returned to grasp Illyana's chest, her arms crossing over the Russian's breasts like an entirely different type of armor as her hands held Illyana's shoulders protectively.
The last thing Belasco saw before he retreated to another dimension was the amulet floating upward, hovering between him and the two women as three of the soulstones held atop its golden surface popped like grapes, allowing the shimmering scarlet light trapped within them to streak back toward the two women, shooting through Illyana's mystic armor and burying themselves in her chest once more before the amulet and remaining stone faded away.
As the wisps of smoke lingering from Belasco's exit wafted away, Illyana's new soulsword (which looked very much like the soulsword she had manifested as a young teenager, Kitty noted) vanished in a flare of white light. Illyana turned, still in Kitty's embrace, to face her best friend.
"How can you still love me?" Illyana asked, glancing down at her body, now fully revealed as the silver armor disappeared with the magical blade. Her furred legs, bending forward like an animal, her red eyes, her demonic tail, her horns and fangs. "When I look like this?"
Kitty just smiled peacefully at her. "Because I love YOU. I love all of you, the good, the bad and the demonic. But more importantly, how can you still love me when I've acted like I have?" she asked. "When I've been a really shitty best friend for a long time, and I've had my head stuck up my ass for so long that I've forgotten what's really important to me?" She ran her fingers through Illyana's blonde bangs and gently ran her fingers across each of Illyana's horns, caressing them lovingly. "When I forgot who's really important to me?"
Kitty closed her eyes and leaned her head forward, resting it on Illyana's left shoulder. "I'm sorry," she breathed out, ignoring the burning in her eyes and the tears that she knew were soaking through Illyana's top. "I'm the one who doesn't deserve you."
"No," Illyana said. "You deserve better than to be with someone corrupt, someone tainted with evil. You deserve—"
Illyana's words were cut off by Kitty kissing her on the lips. The feel of fangs in their kiss was different, but when Illyana opened her lips to let Kitty in, Kitty carefully ran the tip of her tongue over each fang, making sure to give each one her attention before she returned to kissing Illyana.
When they pulled apart after the kiss, Kitty suddenly looked shocked. "Oh nuts, Yana, I should have asked you first, I'm so sor—"
Her protest was cut off by Illyana returning the kiss, the fangs shrinking away while they kissed as her Darkchylde form returned to her regular human appearance. When Illyana pulled away just enough that Kitty's tongue flicked out against her lips, seeking more, Illyana whispered, "You never have to ask me, Katherine Anne Pryde, because I'm already yours."
Kitty grinned as she looked into her best friend's eyes. "And that's why I always should ask, Illyana Nikolievna Rasputin," she replied. "Because I care about you, and I respect you... and I love you."
"You have my permission to kiss me whenever you want, Katya," Illyana said, her voice shaky. "I love you too."
They both pulled closer, each resting her head on the other's shoulder.
Kitty whispered, "I'm sorry for forgetting what we had, and for dating—"
"No need to speak of it again," Illyana said quickly. Maybe a bit too quickly.
Kitty laughed softly, breathing in the smell of Illyana, her Yana once more. "I'm yours, and you're mine," Kitty whispered. "If you'll have me," she added softly.
"Always," Illyana whispered back in Russian, one of the words Kitty had learned many years ago. Her eyes fluttered closed briefly before opening again to look into Kitty's deep brown gaze. "Please don't die on me again," she said softly, and the anguish in her voice went directly to Kitty's heart.
"I'll do my best not to," Kitty replied. "I swear. But you have to do the same."
The smile that stretched across Illyana's face was so happy that it was like all the horrors the girl had suffered had never happened at all. "I accept," she said, somehow with the exact same reverent tone of voice she had used over a decade ago, when it was just two teenage girls lying together in the afterglow of their love.
They kissed again, ignoring the slowly approaching crowd of students and X-Men who were hesitantly moving toward them now.
As their lips parted from each other, Kitty and Illyana tipped their heads together until their foreheads were touching, staring deeply into each other's eyes as both of them smiled like fools.
"Thank you for saving my soul, Katya," Illyana said tenderly.
A tiny smirk crossed Kitty's lips. "Funny," she said. "Because I think it was really you who saved mine."
—O—
THREE WEEKS LATER
It should have been a terrible day.
Narrowly phasing to allow what looked like a flying eyeball with tentacles to pass through her, Kitty made her way down one of the halls of the Xavier School's main building. She then had to phase again to keep from being trampled by the half-dozen teenagers frantically chasing the flying... thing.
They were going to need another building for classrooms. Which itself was not necessarily a bad thing, as this need was driven by the fact that school applications had quadrupled after the magical conflagration on the main lawn last week. Between cell phone footage, the zoom power of cameras and the bravery bordering on recklessness of news crews, enough clear footage of Illyana and Kitty fending off Nightmare's visions and Belasco's assault had made it to the news, both local and national.
But perhaps more importantly, footage of the Xavier School's teachers efficiently and effectively protecting all the students was even more wide-spread. The sight of mutants protecting their own students as well as human by-standers drew near-universal acclaim from those reporting and commenting on the scene. There were always some eager to cast blame at the nearest mutant, but the surprising groundswell of support had taken Kitty and the rest of the school's faculty by surprise.
The inspector from the Environmental Protection Agency had arrived a day early, blaming the mix-up on a mistake on her secretary's part, but Kitty had gamely filled in as staff liaison. She knew more about Illyana's portals and sorcery than anyone else on campus, so in fairness she really was the person best suited to discuss the sewage and waste disposal system, particularly the portals and the back-up anchored enchantments involved. The inspector had been pleased to hear that the system added no new burden to the city's already prodigious waste disposal and water treatment systems and was not just carbon-neutral, but carbon-negative. Her request to examine the on-site processing of waste would have to wait until tomorrow when Illyana was present, but she had bravely agreed to return the next day.
Kitty grinned. The inspector had been nice. It'd probably be a good gesture to accompany her and Illyana, in case the woman passed out. No need for Kitty's girlfriend to have to carry the woman out of Limbo by herself.
The sound of running footsteps on hardwood made Kitty's eyebrows go up again. A student who looked like he was maybe eleven or twelve was running toward her, not paying attention to what was in front of him as he struggled with a backpack that didn't want to go onto his shoulders properly. What got Kitty's attention, however, was the large knife that he was carrying unsheathed in his right hand, the silver metal of the blade reflecting the lights in the hallway.
Kitty smoothly scooped him up, lifting him by his backpack straps with her right arm and grabbing his right wrist with her left hand to immobilize the knife.
"Hey, lemme go!" he shouted, kicking his legs ineffectively. "I sai—Miss Pryde!"
Kitty smiled at him, injecting just enough menace into the expression to make his face pale slightly. "We have a rule about running in the halls with sharp objects, venomous creatures or magical artifacts," she said calmly. "What does that rule say, Nicholas?"
The boy swallowed once. "D-D-Don't do it?" he stammered.
Kitty softened her smile a bit. "That's correct. And were you following that rule?"
A chastised look bloomed across his face. "No, ma'am, I wasn't."
"No, you weren't," she repeated calmly. "That's a danger not only to other students but also to yourself. Do you know how many times I've seen people being treated because they cut or stabbed themselves while they were running?"
"Probably a lot," the boy said quietly.
Kitty lowered the boy to the floor and knelt down in front of him. "Your parents are trusting us not just with your education but with your safety, too. But I need you to help with that, by using your head for something more than just hanging a cap on it, okay?" She tugged on his Rangers cap; the boy's mutation had caused him to lose all his body hair, something he was very self-conscious about, so Kitty had relaxed the rule about no hats or caps worn inside the school for him.
The boy nodded, still a bit sheepish about his behavior.
"Nice job on the Basic Russian test, by the way," Kitty said. "Ninety-two's a pretty good score for a hard language."
The boy's eyes widened as he looked at his headmaster. "You know my grade?"
Kitty nodded. "Yup," she said pleasantly.
The boy glanced around; his body language indicated he was nervous about something, so Kitty had a pretty good idea about what his next question was going to be. "Is... Is Professor Rasputin really your girlfriend?" he asked hesitantly.
Kitty smiled even more broadly. "Yes, she is," she answered proudly. "Isn't she smart?"
The boy nodded and smiled. "Yeah," he said, a bit dreamily. "How do her shorts pass dress code?.
Kitty smirked. "They don't. I let her get by with it."
The boy nodded thoughtfully. "No complaints from any of us," he remarked quietly.
"Or from me," Kitty said. "Don't let me catch you running with a knife out again, or it'll be a week of detention for you and I'll tell Professor Rasputin that you like her shorts. Understand?"
Nicholas swallowed and nodded quickly. "Yes, Miss Pryde." He put his knife back in the sheath he had stuffed in his back pocket, then he put them both in his backpack.
"Good. Now scoot."
As she watched the boy run down the hall and turn toward the main doors, she resumed her daily walk through the school, taking the stairs up (as she usually did) toward the living quarters in the main building.
She was going to have to reschedule the faculty meeting next week—again—due to a meeting with the city's attorney regarding fire protection. She appreciated the fire department being willing to help in the event of an emergency, but the truth of the matter was, by the time a fire engine could make its way through the park to the school, over a dozen of her faculty and students could have even a large fire extinguished. But she had to convince the fire department of that politely, because it was their city and it was their livelihood.
Well, she'd stop by and talk to them after the meeting next week. Now it was time to check on Fatima, a fifteen-year-old mutant with the powers of locating and controlling water. Her powers were currently extremely weak, but should her powers increase, her potential—both for good and for evil—was enormous. The girl's family was from Egypt; they moved to Boston ten years ago, and Fatima had been one of Kitty's first students to enroll in the Xavier School.
When the teenager had started seeing one of the school counselors for issues relating to her religion (Islam, which she was questioning) and her sexuality (which she was questioning even more), Kitty made a point to get to know Fatima a bit better. She found a sweet, kind, thoughtful girl who was full of questions and desperately seeking answers, even when there were none to be found.
Her parents loved and supported her, even when they realized she was a mutant. That was a good sign. Their home had been full of love when Kitty had done the home visit months ago, and she was hoping that they would continue to support their daughter as she wrestled with who she was and what she believed. And if things turned out otherwise, then Fatima had a home here.
She chatted with the girl for fifteen minutes in her dorm room, laughing several times at Fatima's wit and personality. There was no doubt the young woman was improving, something which made Kitty's heart soar. All of them at Xavier School had seen too much suffering, too much anguish, much of it self-inflicted.
Or inflicted by those who were supposed to love them.
The vibration of her cellphone in her back pocket drew Kitty's attention as well as Fatima's. The girl's dark eyes danced with amusement as Kitty sighed and checked the text message.
just got back. getting in shower. will wait for you five minutes, so move your cute ass
"Wow, one guess who that is," Fatima said teasingly. Kitty knew there was no denying the blush coloring her cheeks, so she simply grinned and slid the phone back into her rear pocket.
"I'm good, Miss Pryde," Fatima said. "Seriously." She smiled. "Go see your girlfriend."
Kitty stood, with Fatima rising as well. "Study for your Basic Powers Application practical, okay?" she asked. "Don't just cram. These are skills that'll help you in the real world, in everyday life. Don't cut corners."
Fatima gave Kitty an off-kilter salute. "Yes, Headmaster Pryde," she said jokingly.
As Kitty left the girl's room and closed the door behind her, she was already calculating the fastest direct route to her and Illyana's room without phasing through anything important.
—O—
The rush of the shower was just barely audible as Kitty stepped into the foyer that served as the entrance to the rooms she and Illyana now shared.
The first three nights following the incident with Belasco, they had done nothing more intimate than kiss, hug and hold each other while they lay in bed together, talking and trying to catch up on the last few years until they both fell asleep.
The fourth night, there wasn't much in the way of prolonged conversation. When Illyana had removed her robe to reveal the incredibly immodest black lingerie top and bottom, Kitty had felt her heart skip ten or twenty beats. Once she could think coherently again, it had taken her less than a second to phase out of her own nightie and another two to grab Illyana's hips and pull her squealing—squealing—onto the bed, where they spent most of the night making love and whispering both pleas for forgiveness and expressions of love.
It had amazed Kitty at how, despite so many years since they had last done this, Illyana still knew exactly how to touch her, exactly where to touch her to make her come apart. It had taken just over a minute for Kitty to be swept up in her first orgasm of the night, something that had never happened to her before. And when she flipped Yana onto her back and took in the beautiful sight of the smiling blonde naked in her bed, she saw her future, her home, laid out before her in a way that had never been clearer.
That entire night had been a dance, a piece of performance art brought to sensual life by two women who had known and still knew each other's bodies better than they had known their own. Kitty marveled at how Illyana, so strong, so composed, so proud, shivered and cried beneath her as her Katya touched and kissed her, entirely unafraid of revealing her emotions or appearing vulnerable in a way that no else had ever seen, that no one else would ever see.
Only her.
The smack of semi-wet fabric against her face shocked Kitty out of her thoughts. She swiped her arms at the dark article of clothing, managing to awkwardly grab it somehow before it fell. She could smell Illyana's sweat in it already, could feel it in the damp cloth of the cut-off t-shirt, and despite it being dirty, it put a smile on her face as she wadded it up into a ball in her hands.
"You made the five-minute cutoff," Illyana said, smiling as she leaned against the doorway leading from the office, where Kitty currently stood, into the kitchen marking the boundary between the more public rooms in the headmaster's suite and the private rooms deeper inside. She was wearing a dark gray sports bra and dark red boyshort underwear, both of which were also wet with sweat. Her feet were bare, and a light sheen of sweat could be seen on her legs, her abdomen and her neck.
"You don't match," Kitty said teasingly.
Illyana shrugged her shoulders. "Nobody gets to see this but you," she replied smoothly. "And you love me no matter what I wear."
"That's true. Have a good workout?" Kitty asked, walking slowly across the spacious office, lightly passing the balled-up shirt back and forth between her hands.
"Not bad," Illyana said, holding her nonchalant position and keeping eye contact with Kitty.
Kitty waited until she was just a few steps away from Illyana to throw the shirt at her girlfriend's face. A blue-white circle appeared around it as it flew, teleporting the makeshift missile directly behind Kitty's head.
Having expected that tactic, Kitty phased.
The shirt flew through Kitty's insubstantial head and struck Illyana squarely in the face, causing the blonde to immediately cackle with laughter as she threw the sweaty shirt to the floor.
"Katya!" she said, mouth open with delight, but before she could move forward, Kitty had already grabbed the blonde's wrists, briefly holding her in place as she kissed her lover.
"Come here," Kitty said, her voice just above a whisper as she led Illyana through the kitchen into the sitting room, then into their bedroom. She carefully positioned the compliant blonde, who was smirking the entire way, in front of their bed and gently pushed her backward, causing her to sit down on the side of the bed.
"I'm dirty," Illyana said in an innocent voice that made Kitty's mouth dry and other parts of her wet.
"Yeah, you are," Kitty replied, "You don't fool me at all, Illyana Rasputin."
The blonde's pale blue eyes were smoldering as she looked up at the woman she loved, body, mind and soul. "You're the only person I'd never try to fool," she said slowly, her voice raw with emotion.
Kitty watched as Illyana patiently, slowly rose to her feet. As the blonde did so, careful to not bump or push Kitty back so that they stood face to face, chest to chest, Kitty could see the blonde was trembling, was actually shaking.
"Yana, what—"
When Illyana's mouth opened, Kitty was genuinely unsure of what was going to come out. The bright white-blue glow of a tiny stepping circle at Illyana's hand registered in Kitty's peripheral vision, but she couldn't pull her eyes away from Illyana's bright blue gaze.
"Behold," Illyana spoke in Hebrew, enunciating slowly and carefully, while never looking away from Kitty's brown eyes, their pupils widening as she realized the significance of what Illyana was saying with perfect recitation. "You are betrothed to me with this ring, in accordance with the laws of Moses and Israel."
Kitty shivered powerfully; she felt her body phase uncontrollably, but she held her position and returned to a substantial state just a moment later. She tried to speak, but there was no air in her lungs, and all she could do was look slightly upward into Illyana's piercing blue eyes. "H-how..." she finally managed to breathe out. "How... d-did you know t-to... H-How did you say... th-that?" she gasped, stumbling over her words like a toddler.
The smile that slowly drew across Illyana's mouth was genuine, even though there was just a touch of sadness buried in the happy expression, something that she didn't attempt to hide, not from Kitty. Illyana slowly spoke, her voice just above a whisper, "I've practiced saying that since I was fourteen years old."
Kitty's chest convulsed once with a muffled sob as her hand flew up to cover her mouth, just in time for her tears to hit her index finger and slither over the rest of her digits. She blinked tears out of her eyes, finally allowing her head to tilt down to look at the metal ring held carefully in the fingers of Illyana's right hand.
It was lovely, an unusual color reminiscent of honey or amber, with incredibly intricate tracings and etchings running over it. Kitty felt frozen in place as her eyes roamed over the ring, taking in the design, including a prominent Star of David and another relatively large symbol that she didn't recognize.
Then she realized Illyana was still waiting for an answer, standing there patiently before her.
Kitty leaned forward, her right hand coming up for her fingers to lightly rest on Illyana's left cheek. She nodded, staring intently into Illyana's eyes and ignoring the tears running down the front of her throat at this point. "Yes," she said, first in English, then, "Yes," in Hebrew, then, smiling even more, "Da." She brushed her lips against Illyana's, which parted ever so slightly in anticipation of the kiss deepening, as they both knew it would. "I accept, Illyana Nikolievna Rasputin," she said against her lover's lips before she kissed her newly betrothed, straightening the fingers of her left hand to let Illyana slide the ring onto her finger.
She felt a heat surge through the ring as they kissed; it felt like the ring somehow shifted to better fit her finger, and when their lips parted several seconds later, Kitty lifted the ring to where she could see it more closely while Illyana loosely but carefully held her.
The etchings and markings on the ring seemed to shimmer with a red-gold light as Kitty turned the ring back and forth, the glow pulsing and flowing along the etchings as if it were an electrical circuit, or perhaps a circulatory system.
"It's enchanted," Illyana said. "I forged it myself, in Limbo. It's an alloy of the seven mystic metals—but don't worry, I only put a tiny bit of lead in it, and the protective enchantments on the ring will keep it from harming you or anyone else, unless it's someone trying to hurt you. It also has some of our blood, both yours and mine, mixed in with the metal, to tie it to us."
Kitty looked back up, meeting Illyana's gaze and lifting her right eyebrow in a Do I really want to know expression.
Illyana smirked in that confident way that made Kitty's knees weak, wrinkling her nose in her Probably not expression.
"What's this symbol?" Kitty said, pointing at the prominent design that appeared to be just slightly larger than the Star of David, positioned on the opposite side of the ring from the more recognizable symbol. It felt vaguely familiar, somehow.
"Sigil, to be more precise," Illyana said, pausing for a moment. "It's our sigil."
Kitty's mouth opened slightly as memories broke over her like an onrushing wave.
"It's my sigil," Illyana said, as Kitty looked over her shoulder at the intricate design the younger girl was drawing on a piece of posterboard. "It symbolizes me, like a magical signature."
"How did you choose it?" Kitty asked, both fascinated and slightly uneasy at how the red ink seemed to squirm in some places, as if it was only barely being contained by the boundaries of the lines making up the design.
"I didn't," Illyana said. "Not exactly. It's more like a... " She sighed. "What's the word...? For working together?"
Kitty blinked. "Cooperation?"
"Nyet. No."
"Collaboration?"
"Yes! Collaboration," she spoke, carefully enunciating each syllable. "It's more of a collaborative effort, between the person, the magic and the sigil."
Kitty grinned. "Can you do one for me?"
Illyana looked up, over her shoulder at Kitty's sweet face, her dark brown curls, her eager eyes. "It would be difficult, but I could."
Kitty's grin grew wider as she looked down at her best friend, the girl who held her heart and, for six months and going, secretly shared her bed. "Can you do one... for us?"
Kitty blinked her way back to the present. "You... you kept it?" she whispered.
Now Illyana's tears were trickling down to her lips. She smiled, savoring the salty taste, knowing it came from the best, truest part of her—the part that loved her Katya. "Da," she said tenderly.
Kitty threw her arms around Illyana, hugging her fiercely. "I was such a worthless bitch, letting all we had go!" she gasped out, holding onto Illyana like a life preserver keeping her head above the waters of a hungry sea. "I'm—"
"Don't apologize any more, Katya, please, love," Illyana said gently, rubbing Kitty's back. "You're not worthless or a bitch. You never could be, not to me. I could forever apologize to you as well, for being so cold to you, for not seeking you out, for suffering alone instead of talking to you, for letting you go into space not once but twice. I have not been a best friend to you for some time, so you do not owe me any more apologies, EVER." She sighed. "The past is behind us. Now we live. Now we move forward and make a life, a home, together."
Kitty nodded against Illyana's bare shoulder, closing her eyes and soaking in the warmth of her lover's skin, still sticky with sweat, but Kitty didn't care.
"Should we invite my mother to the wedding?" she asked, smiling against Illyana's fair skin.
"Of course," replied the blonde. "She's the only parent either of us have left."
"She probably won't come."
"Probably not. But it is the polite thing to do."
"What if she comes and is a total raging bitch?"
There was a brief pause.
"Then I'll teleport her to Limbo."
"Yana!"
Illyana grinned as she slowly turned around, spinning Kitty with her. "Let's get in the shower, my Katya," she said. "I need to wash off. You can help me with that."
"Oh, I can, can I?" replied the brunette, a knowing smile on her face and gleam in her brown eyes.
"Mmm hmm," hummed the Russian, gently tugging on their clasped hands to lead Kitty into the large bathroom, already mostly filled with steam.
"Yana?"
"Yes, Katya?"
"Would you really teleport my mother to Limbo?"
Illyana left the question hanging in the steamy air as she kissed and started to undress the woman who was going to be her wife.
Kitty decided she really didn't care what the answer would have been, anyway.
—O—
Author's Afterword: I think there's going to be one more chapter to this, covering the next few years, including the wedding and a look into their lives several years later.
I hope you've enjoyed this little story. We need more Kitty/Illyana love stories, so if you feel passionately about them being together, give writing about them a shot! I know they'll appreciate it.
Thanks for reading!
