Queen of Air and Darkness survivor here. The ending of that damn book traumatized me in a very unique way, but what unsettled me most was Cassandra SEPARATING Kit and Ty. Like, do what you will with the rest of the characters, but by the last couple chapters Kit & Ty were the only ship I was still really rooting for. I know I don't have what it takes to actually write A True Kitty Fic, but I couldn't resist putting the two of them back on the same road.

Kit realized, quite suddenly, that it had been incredibly beyond stupid to think he could go back for one last glimpse of Ty without Ty seeing him. That had been something he'd always appreciated about Ty: he saw everything (everyone) and left nothing unnoticed.

And even from a distance, of course, Ty recognized him. He abandoned Drusilla on the shoreline, jogging toward Kit, Tessa, and Jem with the urgency that seemed to be in everything he did.

Kit panicked, tugging on Tessa's sleeve. "We have to go! I can't- I can't talk to him."

She shook her head softly, giving him a look of pure sympathy. Tessa was much older than she looked, but her appearance and expression gave way to her wisdom. She had seen so many things in her hundred-some years. "It does no good to run from a problem, child. Besides. When you asked to look in on the Blackthorns once more, you didn't really mean look, did you?"

That was an issue of discernment and looking inside himself that Kit was not prepared to deal with right now. He'd do it later, maybe. Or never. Never would also work.

Ty reached them, showing no evidence that he'd just sprinted a quarter mile across the beach. Shadowhunters were just like that. "Kit!" he said, silver-gray eyes flashing back and forth. "I thought you were-"

Kit wasn't sure how he would've finished the sentence. Gone? Afraid of me? Dead? Kit chose to finish it with, "Just leaving!" as he tugged on Tessa's arm like a child.

Tessa had been blessed with what some considered an excessive amount of grace under fire, and she showed no notice of the petulant fifteen-year-old pulling her arm towards their Portal. "Nice to see you, Tiberius," she said, though Ty really hadn't acknowledged her and Jem at all. "Kit wanted to stop by and say goodbye."

"Goodbye!" Kit said hurriedly. He pulled on Tessa's arm one more time and fell to the ground with an ungraceful thump. Good thing they hadn't been just a few feet back- he would've landed in the ocean, and there was no coming back from that embarrassment.

Goodbye? Ty mouthed the word to himself before his lips set in a straight, determined line. "You should stay," he said.

Unspoken words hung in the air. To talk to me. To apologize. But Ty had never been the kind of person who wasted words. If something could be left unsaid, with him, it most often would be.

"We would be delighted to stay," said Tessa, who Kit had quickly realized wore the pants in her and Jem's relationship. "I think Alec and Magnus would be very upset if we left their wedding without even saying hello."

Kit will be very upset if we don't leave this situation immediately! Kit thought, but he didn't say it. He knew Ty would overhear, and it would probably hurt his feelings. Kit had done enough damage to Ty's feelings already, he was pretty sure.

So he, Jem, and Tessa left the outskirts and joined the party, with Ty staying a decent distance ahead of them. He kept looking back, though, as if Kit wouldn't notice that. There was a pang in his heart every time. He'd thought a lot about Ty since they'd parted ways, but he never thought he'd have to see him so soon. The possibility of that had been carefully blocked out of Kit's mind, just like several other things about Ty, neatly filed away.

Beside him, Tessa grabbed Jem's hand briefly and looked into his eyes. The first time they'd done this, Kit had thought they were just being mushy and couple-y, but that was not the case. Tessa and Jem could somehow communicate that way, no words involved. Kit wasn't sure if it was magic or just how much they loved each other. He wasn't sure which would be weirder.

Tessa straightened and dropped Jem's hand. "I need to go talk to Emma about womanly things," she declared, making very sure that Kit would not try to follow her.

Jem couldn't use that excuse, but the man was clever. "Oh, look," he said. "Cake!"

And he ran off too. Kit's eyes widened, and the Rook in him immediately looked for an escape route. Nothing came to mind, though; they were on a beach. If Kit decided to run, he'd be extremely visible and probably look like an idiot. It's not like there was a demon chasing him. Just Ty. Just…other stuff.

"Why didn't you come back sooner?" Ty asked plainly.

Kit scuffed the ground with his foot. He didn't even know if he could make his reasons make sense to Ty. At this point, they hardly even made sense to him. "I…" He paused. "I wasn't sure you'd want me to come back."

"Well, why would you think that?" Ty sounded a little irritated, as if it had been obvious that he'd wanted Kit to stay the whole time. If that was the case, it certainly had not been obvious to Kit.

"You know," Kit stated. "The night before the battle. Livvy. I lied to you. I said-"

During the time he'd been away, it had been much easier to remember that night than it had been to remember the little nuances about Ty that Kit was forced to remember now. How was it fair that I wish I'd never met you came to Kit's mind so much more easily than the way Ty's long fingers played with the cord of his headphones, or the delight he felt in things that everyone else would've glossed over?

It wasn't true! Kit thought to the heavens, as he had many times over the past few days. I didn't mean it!

Not that informing the heavens of this would do any good for his relationship with Ty.

…no, no, his friendship with Ty. Kit and Ty were friends.

"Julian says," Ty began. "That when people are angry, they'll say things they don't mean. Like-"

Oh, please don't say it, Kit prayed.

A useless prayer. "I wish I'd never met you," Ty finished solemnly, almost reverently in a way. He'd surely had those words beating through his head just as often as Kit had. Maybe more.

Kit winced. "…yeah," he said softly. "Like that. I didn't mean that."

"I know." Ty looked down, brow furrowed with worry and perhaps something else. "…it was my fault, anyway."

Kit was surprised- he was sure he looked it, too, but hopefully Ty wouldn't notice. Ty, wonderful in so many ways, was not always the best at admitting his own shortcomings. He'd been so focused on raising his twin from the dead that everything else (Kit included) had kind of fallen aside.

"You lied to me with words," said Ty. He sounded like he was explaining it to himself, not Kit. "But not with everything else. I should've known you wanted me to stop."

In Kit's mind, that still made it his fault. He knew that Ty's mind didn't work that way; he needed things to be said explicitly. His motives for lying to Ty, playing along with the necromancy adventure, had been purely selfish: he didn't want to lose the best friend he'd ever had.

"I still shouldn't have lied to you," Kit said nobly.

"No," Ty conceded. "You shouldn't have. But I shouldn't have tried raising the dead."

Only Shadowhunters. A small smile played on Kit's lips.

"Are you going to stay this time?" Ty asked.

He was so blunt. Kit liked that about him. With Ty, there was no beating around the bush. Ty had always been clear about what he wanted or what he felt, at least, as clear as one possibly.

Kit's answer, though, was not so clear. Instead of replying, he found himself looking around- they'd walked pretty far down the beach, but not so far that he couldn't see Tessa and Jem craning their necks to see what happened. Those bastards. This had probably been exactly what they'd wanted to happen.

(Yes, Tessa and Jem had invited Kit to live with them, but that was possibly before they realized how sulky he was when he wasn't with the Blackthorns. Not every idea is a good one.)

Tessa gave him an encouraging little wave. A blessing. Kit rolled his eyes and turned away, acting like it didn't matter. But it did.

"Kit?"

"Am I even welcome?" he asked with a shuddery breath. "Aren't Emma and Julian leaving for their travel year? Didn't Cristina and Mark go to Mexico?"

Ty shot him a look. "Emma and Julian and Cristina and Mark didn't ask you to stay."

I did.

He didn't say it out loud, but Kit heard it as clearly as if he had. His throat tightened, even though he knew that when he said "stay with the Blackthorns" or "stay at the LA Institute" he meant "stay with Ty". It had been that way since nearly the beginning.

He just hadn't admitted it. Not until now, after he'd made the huge mistake of leaving. He hadn't expected to the get the chance to come back.

So he took a deep breath. "Yeah, Ty," he said. "I'll stay."