After a little break in the Middle-East, I'm back with the story. Here you go.

A/N: Kitty's POV.

Chapter 10: The most painful thing

Another year was gone. Winter holidays always were fun in Bayville. At least for us. For Wolverine it was another occasion for considering the needs of private tanks. I had two weeks for staying in Bayville before mostly everyone left to spend Christmas with their respective family. This year the mansion was expected to be a bit more crowded as Jean decided to stay with Scott instead of going home and Hanukah fell on late December too so I wasn't going home either. Not to mention that we had a new recruit in the person of Gambit which made not only Rogue but also Piotr more than glad since the two men for some reasons always got along well, and the Cajun's presence made him feel less lonely. It's not like Piotr wasn't in good terms with the others; it's just he sometimes couldn't shake off his reserve so easily. Of course, not when I was concerned. I think we understood each other quite well, especially after I had visited his family in Russia. Being beside him was like tying up in a safe haven and I was thankful for it. I felt a bit downhearted when he travelled back home for the holidays and I was left behind with my books and essays to write. I was already sophomore and it wasn't a piece of cake. It was either a good and a bad thing that my friends did everything to make me forget the university and my duties there. It was exactly like in the old times, fierce snowball fights and reconstructions.

One day I accompanied Jean on her regular errand in the downtown. Everything was peaceful and calm when we crossed the park to catch the X-Van on the other side. Only the snow was crunching softly under our feet. Apart from a few people loafing around, the park was almost deserted. A lonely snowman was standing beside the path, eying us with glimmering pebble eyes. Suddenly I stopped dead, barely noticing Jean proceeding on her way. On a bench under the snow-covered branches of an oak, wrapped up in a thin jacket, there was no one else than Lance Alvers, Avalanche, former leader of the Brotherhood of Bayville.

I closed my eyes shut, fighting the shock wave coming over me, trying to process a thought amid the mad pulsation of my heart. I wished it was only a strange projection of my mind, I wished I was wrong and it wasn't him but deep inside I knew I'd recognize him even in the dark.

There are kinds of pain that can't be set free by a yell or tears. Pain that eats itself deep into the soul and body and heart. Pain that is too inconceivable to get shattered. Pain that moulds your face into stone and turns itself to be undetected from outside.

And pain that makes you so alone.

Moments went by, seconds or hours maybe, no wind was blowing, no sound was made by the horns and grating car-wheels, the park was mute, the world was mute and collapsed on me with all its weight noiselessly, with all the years gone by since our parting, with all the lost and squandered chances for happiness, everything that we could have been but never managed to and all the sins we committed against each other. Suddenly I could recall everything so clearly like it was a day before. Oh God, how desperately I wished there was no one on that bench when I opened my eyes. But there was.

I walked up to him in a kind of painful trance, every step made me bleed inside. He was watching me, his gaze intense and unreadable. I halted a few steps away from him, not daring go closer as if he'd disappear and I couldn't decide whether I still wanted him to do so. We didn't speak for a minute, my mouth was dry and my throat so tight that was almost choking. He was just staring at me from behind a curtain of dark locks, elbows resting on his knees, fingers bound together, long and cracked exactly how I remembered them, every small line in place, rough and beautiful.

"You're back…" I whispered finally. I didn't even realize how lame it sounded, noting the obvious. He didn't answer for a bit, only a wince around his eyes, a blinking of his eyelids. A hazel glint.

Then he remarked flatly, "Shit stuff always returns."

I was taken aback for a second. Suddenly I wanted him to yell, to snicker, to lose his temper, anything but this cold sarcasm. I wanted him to smile as if nothing had happened. As if we hadn't met only for a few days. His face was bitter and deadly ironic.

I stopped sensing the outer world. Something started to dawn on me, something huge and fearsome and unbearable that I still had no name for and what I had to fight before it swallowed me, but it was a losing game. I could only wonder how steady my own voice was, how automatically I questioned and answered, while sinking deeper and deeper with every word uttered by him, with the sound of his voice, glance of his eyes. Our gaze, our words intertwined into something beautiful, something right that shut out everything else and made them seem so senseless. I couldn't help but notice he appeared a way older, though his features didn't change too much. Something in his eyes made him distant and so lonely that I felt my heart ache. It was the same dead expression I'd seen in his eyes on that old rainy day when everything had begun. Or ended.

Later I couldn't remember how we finished talking, let alone how many seconds or minutes it took. I wished him a merry Christmas and left. I paced after Jean obediently, feeling no legs, no arms, nothing at all, only a throbbing sensation somewhere so deep inside that it was just impossible to be my own part though all my being was shaking with it. The world came to life again, interruptedly, loudly that hurt my ears, and I just didn't understand how the snow, the trees, the black-and-white faces on the castaway newspaper front pages could be so indifferent when I saw the walls bleeding, the earth crying under my feet upon leaving someone behind alone on a remote bench, someone who had crushed my little cute, promising life with soft kisses and husky whispers long, long before. I knew how he was staring at my back all along without looking back. I knew it because he would stare at me the same way after our meetings in those times when I would still look back at him. I was clearly aware that something came to an end and nothing would be the same ever again.

I was standing beside Jean at the curb, waiting for Scott, my head reeling, and all I wanted to do was running away until I fell on the ground so exhausted that I wouldn't be able to think. I wouldn't be able to remember.

"Don't tell them. There's no need for Scott complaining about it during the whole holiday as if it meant anything", I remarked, my voice brilliantly nonchalant but every syllable, every sound and word made me ache inside. She said I was right. I couldn't return her gaze, I stood there dumbly, looking around as if seeing the place for the first time.

The whole ride back home passed in a constant buzz for me. Jean asked me quietly if I was okay. I blinked at her as if not understanding what she was talking about. She commented I was so silent. I didn't want her to know what desperate a struggle was unfolding in me.

"I'm just tired. And my head is already full of this upcoming Computer science exam."

"It can't be so difficult", Rogue turned towards me. "I bet ya ace that class all right."

I was blathering something about the professor being strict and demanding but didn't pay much attention. I had to gather all my strength to hold a simple conversation, and I felt like screaming in agony if I had to continue it for long. "I don't feel like learning. I might just call Piotr when we get back."

I hated myself because I didn't mean it. I only wanted to say Piotr's name out loud. It was my last hope of getting pulled back to the ground, slapped out of the haze but his name echoed in me emptily and strangely. Two years with him shriveled up like paper in the fire. I glared out the window. The city had changed in a heartbeat as if it'd undressed. I didn't see the people walking there. I saw myself and I saw Lance lurking in the shadows like sinners. Memories kept flashing through my mind. All buildings, all streets were conveying our scenes from the past, the trace we'd left behind, facades and parks came to life again like a screen in the movies, filling my head with the pictures of our ill-fated relationship. I was wondering where they'd been all along. Were they always here, I was just too blind to see them? Too persistent to pretend blindness? Why was the whole world reflecting, reminding me of the love I never really had?

I couldn't take it any longer. At the gates I phased out of the car insisting that I needed fresh air. I let the X-Van proceed on its way and I stumbled across the courtyard blindly, not watching where I was going and not even caring about it. I felt numb inside to process a single rational thought. I lay down in the snow, wishing to turn into ice so nothing would hurt and wouldn't have to name the feeling overflowing me that I still didn't want to name. Because so I had to admit how wrong my cold and reasonable calculations were. How fake my new life was.

"Kitty, what's wrong?" Jean came after me, obviously worried. Rogue was behind her, confusion on her face. I couldn't stand either, I didn't deserve it.

It burst out of me desperately. "I failed, Jean, I failed." I wanted to cry, God knows how I was yearning for a little bit of fake sense of relief but couldn't. What I wanted to release wasn't something I couldn't endure, wasn't something I hated. It made me hot inside, and every second of the past years, every advantage of my new life, every tender moment with Piotr, every weak resistance and reasoning melted away achingly in its flood.

Jean said encouragingly that I still hadn't even written the exam. I glared at her, completely lost and dazed.

"Who cares about that damn test? I… I thought I-" I couldn't continue, couldn't say it out loud because everything would have collapsed on me. I thought I'd got over him but I hadn't.

I glanced at Rogue resigned and defeated. "You were right. All along." She stared at me, trying hard to find out what I was talking about, and I stammered, "He's back, he's here."

For a minute she didn't even react. In the same second both of them seemed to understand finally. Rogue's face turned into bitter sympathy as she stepped closer, and I clung onto her desperately. "I'm so sorry, Kitty, so sorry…"

I could tell from her voice that Jean was utterly stunned when she told me if I was confused and upset because of Lance's return it was quite natural. I let her think that and just shook my head and buried my face into Rogue's scarf, hoping I could bury that feeling deep enough to carry on. The feeling that already had a name. And it made me speechless.

Loving him was the most painful thing on earth.

Thanks for the reviews.