A Time to Heal
Kurt and Kassandra strolled hand-in-hand down Graymalkin Lane after an outing that, as Kurt was glad to see, was ending up like an excellent date as well as an evening getting reacquainted with an old friend. Okay, so the night didn't go entirely without a hitch. A segregated restaurant here, some threats to their lives there. But a couple of mutants on the town could hardly expect better. Especially when one could go from delightful to devilish in an instant, and the other only looked like a stereotypical demon.
"Kurt," said Kassandra, in her richly Namibian-accented German, "Ich hat ein wunderbar Abend. Ich enttäusche dich nicht gern, aber-"
"Liebchen, how could you disappoint me?" said Kurt, as they walked up to Xavier Mansion.
"It's not what I could do, but what I've already done."
"You seem ready to face the consequences."
"Ja. But I don't think I can adequately prepare you for this."
"Was?" Kurt blinked, and then saw Kassandra standing en garde with her sabre ready. Of course it took her no time to retrieve her weapon. But why here and now?
"Logan! Don't!" one girl shouted from the foyer.
Kurt looked frantically to Kassandra. Nobody ever told his best friend "don't" expecting him to listen. And nobody ever tried unless he was about to do something dreadful.
"Kassandra, raus!" Kurt did not like the idea of her seeing his best friend in the throes of his feral rage.
"She damn near led you to your death!" a man roared.
"Kurt, gehst du raus!" Kassandra retorted. She didn't like the idea of such a gentle soul such as him seeing her duke it out with his best friend. Especially since such a battle would likely be quite fierce and bloody. "He won't settle down until he faces me."
"And I'M GONNA RIP THAT LYING HEART OUT!" Wolverine burst out the front doors, followed by a distraught Jubilee hobbling out the door. He bounded toward Kassandra with all adamantium-plated claws extended. And Kassandra dodged, parried, and retreated, but made no effort to stop the furious feral.
"Was ist los?" Kurt ported over to Jubilee, too upset to remember his English.
Jubilee was too horrified to recall that she didn't understand German. "I told him I took one of Zeitgeist's assignments before joining X-Corps, and he now blames her for- for what happened."
What happened. That fateful morning when the X-Men woke to find the consequences of not heeding warnings to improve their security. Jubilee, Magma, Skin, Bedlam, and two others, kidnapped by what Zeitgeist called "that cult" for various nefarious purposes, then crucified and left for dead on the front lawn of the Xavier Institute.
Kassandra could not keep up the fight in normal time. Wolverine fought with what amounted to three daggers on each fist, and though he wasn't much taller, he packed more than twice her weight in solid muscle and adamantium. And the ferocity of one betrayed by his Little Elf. As Kassandra stepped out of time and slowed it down, she did not need to see the timeline to know that there were only two ways to effectively stop the fight.
"Logan, you're right to be upset-"
"Save the psychobabble." Wolverine pounced upon her with his full weight and all the force he could muster in both fists. And just as Kurt decided to ignore what Kassandra had said and intervene, she parried with a strength that defied physics. Then screamed and fell over, dropping her sword as searing pain exploded in her right arm. Logan raised his fist to run his claws through her. Killing her would be easy, healing factor notwithstanding. Up through the solar plexus, and some shifting of gears could make mincemeat of her vital organs, ensuring she'd bleed to death before she'd have a chance. But he caught a look at the sudden sickly chalkiness of her face. When she was outside the normal flow of time, she could look quite ghostlike. But nothing like this. And then there were the tears. Wolverine had nothing against making blood flow. But tears were another matter. Dammit. He only meant to kill the kid, not hurt her.
And with that, she disappeared.
"WHERE'D SHE GO!"
"To the infirmary," came the well-modulated voice of Professor Xavier. "Dislocated shoulder, broken wrist, and compound humoral fracture. Hank and Annie are diagnosing it as we speak."
"Mein Gott!" Kurt teleported to the infirmary. It didn't take a medical degree to know what compound fractures could mean for someone whose bones were very quickly, in all probability, healing all wrong. And for someone who played the piano and organ to have something go wrong with her arm….
"You literally came down too hard on her, Logan," the Professor continued, "and you should count yourself lucky to still be in possession of your head and viscera."
Chuck had a point. This was a kid who had twice single-handedly KO'd Sabretooth, armed only with a couple of sticks rather than an adamantium sabre. She didn't fight full-out even then, and the first time, she couldn't even do her time warping thing without passing out.
"Now, I do believe she'll actually want to see you, after you've calmed down."
"Logan, please?" cried Jubilee.
Logan took a couple of shaky breaths. And retracted his claws. If there was one thing that he and Kassandra had in common, besides the healing factor, it was that for either one of them to be willing to extend any kind of olive branch was no small gesture.
He picked up the sword that Kassandra had left lying in the grass. "I'll see her now."