Lemme check... Nope, don't own X-Men Evolution or its characters. But one can dream, right?

--sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me--

Words can hurt me

"You're nothing but a hood!"

Long after everyone in Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters was fast asleep, one single soul stared up at the ceiling, tears leaking from her blood-shot brown eyes. It had been like this every night for Kitty since she dared utter the words that shattered Lance's world. She replayed the scene over and over in her head for countless hours during the night, willing the images to be a false memory. Her attempts were all in vain, she knew, because truth was, it HAD happened. No amount of hoping or wishing would ever erase the image of pure broken-hearted pain that consumed Lance's face. In one brief instant, Kitty witnessed his spirit-- the very core of the man she loved--break in two. The eyes that had sparkled with genuine compassion when he looked at her, fell instantly into emptiness. His eyes were windows to his soul and she had caused his soul to wither and die.

Her.

Night after night she relived the agony. Night after night, it weighed heavily on her conscious. Night after night, Kitty dropped the happy-act she preformed in front of her teammates and the Professor and came to grips with reality.

She had turned into the very thing she loathed.

She had become the rude, egotistical, self-absorbed jerk.

They told her back in elementary school, when you point a finger in blame, there's always three pointing right back at you.

Now she understood what that simple childhood lesson meant.

SHE was nothing but a hood.

Kitty stifled a sob with her pillow and cried the tears she knew she deserved to cry.

.............................................................................................................................................................

"You're nothing but a hood!"

Those words cut deep, deeper than any physical wound he ever received.

Upon hearing those tormenting words spew from his beloved's mouth, Lance the rock had crumbled. The disappointment and accusation Kitty threw into the words hurt beyond all comparison. Never in Lance's life had he ever felt so abandoned and betrayed.

Something snapped inside of him that day.

He had endured years of loneliness and a countless number of letdowns, but he managed to get through it all somehow. He wouldn't say with optimism, but more so with acceptance. For if one could accept the negativity fed to him for breakfast, lunch and dinner, one couldn't truly be affected by words anymore. They held no power or importance. He would let the negative pass him by like it was a stranger on a busy street, never giving it any thought. That's how he adapted, that's what worked for him, that's what helped him survive. He took the power away from the words and squashed it.

But Kitty, beautiful, carefree Kitty... she crumbled the defenses even his own earth-shaking powers could not touch. She found a way into his heart and into his soul. He cherished her, worshipped her, adored her.

And because she was so close to him, he submitted by his own choice. Blinded by the emotion he felt for her, he let her words have power, power that ended up breaking him.

Lance stared at the cracked ceiling in his desolate room and let the images of that fateful day play again in his mind. He was sure he could have avoided the whole thing but what's done was done. There was no taking back what he did and there definitely was no taking back what Kitty had yelled.

In her eyes, he was nothing but a hood.

Drained of everything that gave him strength, Lance closed his eyes to sleep; not caring if he woke in the morning.