(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 10/?
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!
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Part X: "Up On All the Gory Details?"
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Looking up information on Charles Francis Xavier, or his school, was like looking up God, or Hitler of Gandhi. Especially to a computer hacker. At the tips of your fingertips were a thousands sources that pointed this was good and another thousand that pointed to the fact it was bad. She kept trying to dig deeper, to find out more about him, decide if she could hope for anything in this search and each time she hit a wall.
So far all she had found out, between all the good and bad, about the world- renowned mutant-activist Charles Xavier was that he was a reclusive philosopher and scientist. He had an undergraduate at two places, Harvard and Oxford University, in England, no less. That he served a bit in the army. Then he opened a school and became the world-renowned mutant activist.
He was claimed by many, a man of reason, a champion for mutant rights, who proclaimed to have a program that would integrate mutants into society
He had huge names next to him of people who'd worked with him, or he with them, and with his school, this elusive Xavier's Institute for Gifted Children. Renamed Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning when the first name was passed to a school in Massachusetts, earlier called the Massachusetts Academy, also now closed.
It was confusing, because everything pointed to him being good and then there we're long things about how old, rich and dumb he was, too. That he'd been seduced by the devil to the side of evil and someone like him should be brought back or looked on with pity till he realized his mistake. She over looked most of this, taking a grain of salt with it.
But, if Charles Xavier was hard to research, his school was even harder. It only registered as a highly private school, with an even more strongly guarded enrollment list. She hadn't seen a place once where it said you could request enrollment. She was doing her best to find out some instructors' names, those same big names, and some of the classes and degrees the place had handed out.
It was all this huge mystery.
And then.....there was the X-Men connection. The implication that their 'might' be one. The possibility was enough to drive her nuts because it was that whisper you just couldn't hear, that feeling right before someone touched you, right on the edge away for the trained thought away. It was going to drive her crazy, she decided as she closed the programs up.
Taking the sticky note off the corner, with it's single telephone number on it, she placed it on top of the laptop once it was closed. The number was for the Institute. If he ran the place, hopefully someone there would know where he was, could set up an appointment for them to meet. But this was a faint hope since no one had seen hide nor hair of Xavier in at least a month.
But -- Kylie decided as she rose from the dinner room chair -- she had so many thin hopes going, one more couldn't hurt at all. As she walked, Skittles, the once alley cat, wound his way through her legs, begging to be fed. So she did and then she started gathering up her things to leave.
~*~*~
"So they sent you back on a cruise that got attacked by a rogue team calling themselves X-Men, but who were X-Men none of you'd ever met or heard of? Who kidnapped you and brought you Xavier, except baldy wasn't the real baldy, and the real X-Men came back and got you, since," and he paused to take a bite of the burger in front of him that was dripping white-yellow oil that was supposed to be mustard and mayonnaise.
"Then you found out that he was the computer that have all the X-Men's files on it, except it aborted itself? Then you chased Juggernaut around with the weather witch and the charmer, who earlier been disbanded from your team? Then you pulled kids from a burning building that this guy set on fire due to his contraction of the Legacy Virus and figured out Xavier was two people?"
"Yup," Kitty replied eating a bite of her salad, glad that even if it was repetitive, she'd been able to stop talking for a while. He'd stared in awe as she reiterated everything the X-Men gone through. "Which led the other half the team way far up north to Tajikinistan, where they ran into Renee and Nina, a manite, who was watching over what was left of The Cerebro Xavier. It was interesting enough she was involved. A new species created on earth. But while we were in Holland-"
"Tracking down the other Xavier coordinate," Pete nodded, "which was the actual baldy and your newest near death experience."
"What can I say?" Kitty smirked teasingly, as she pushed her salad around a second with her fork. "I'm popular."
Pete smiled in response and shook his head. "Have you ever thought about taking a break?"
"What? And miss all the fun?" She laughed, even though some thoughts began to surface in the back of her mind. She was joking about something she shouldn't be -- now. "I wouldn't dream of it. Besides, you haven't even heard the half of it. We had a peaceful Christmas, then we had to deal with Magneto, again, and that cost us Joseph. He sacrificed himself to save the planet."
"Gave him a grand going away party, too, didn't they?"
Kitty was silent a moment, remembering that day. She didn't remember the funeral mostly, but the way Logan was that day. The way he'd spoken so forcefully when hiding on the roof. The funeral was nice, but her mind was on Logan's words when he'd left -- about how they could mourn Joseph, but he was too busy planning and killing Magneto.
"Next was a weird trip between Juggernaut and another alien, named Ejulp, before we landed on another weird place with people who we knew were dead," she steamrolled on, rather than to keep on that thought at the moment. "Where I met an actress who played me."
"You?" Pete responded with a smile half curled. He couldn't think that anyone could pull off all that was Kitty. The idea alone was preposterous.
"And she was a terrible rendition. A Skrull, too." And I kicked her ass for insulting my hair, Kitty thought wryly. "Turned out they all were and it led us into a battle with Galactus, and by the work of my genius on an alien craft, we've came back home, but get this -- we came back right before the sacrifice of Joseph. Except then the ship put us into stasis and was adrift for a week. Talk about how the world doesn't watch it's friendly skies."
"That's just leavin' you off at about the same time, then," he said as he crumpled the wrapper the sandwich had been in.
"Oh!" Kitty pointed suddenly. "You'll get a bit out of this one, since it's . We found Douglock. He was being held captive by the Red Skull and everything's fine now, too. But it was terrific to see him, again. He made me realize how much I missed Excalibur. And, just so you know, Mister-I- Never-Have-Any-Fun, then I went on a road trip with Rogue and Kurt."
"Your trip was simply for fun? What brought you back?" Pete laughed, loud and short, a cover on the fact he was wondering if her earlier comment had meant she hadn't missed his at all, before forcing up a smirk. "Something come up on your trip?"
Kitty had narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn't help herself from still sounding amused as she spoke. "Well, the partying was fun. I bought this gorgeous dress and, yes, I do wish it had lasted longer, but we ended up running into Mystique -- Rogue's adopted mother and a prior member of X- Factor, with the powers of shape shifting to be anyone she wants -- and she needed our help. We also found out she had been posing as Ronnie Lake."
He simply stared at her, her expression implying he should know what she was talking about. He knew Mystique by reputation, but Ronnie Lake didn't ring any bells. It sounded vaguely familiar, but not important at all. Had he met her sometime during Excalibur? It seemed doubtful. It was something small that just barely made sense.
"The model of the millenium?" Kitty added, waiting to see if he'd ever get it.
"There's a woman with her head on her shoulders," Pete mused, finally remembering where he'd seen the name. It'd been on those catalogues and magazines in the waiting room of the hospital. Kitty's half shocked expression almost made him smile as he tapped a finger on the table. "Smart and sensible. Takes her powers and makes herself a nice comfortable life with them."
"Well, not too comfortable. Attacks by ninjas and then while Rogue was there an impromptu visit of sorts from SunFire. While she was doing that, though, I was exploring 'Ronnie's' huge penthouse. I'd been taken by curiosity of Destiny's things. I moved a picture and found a message left for me. It told me to reach inside the photo."
"A message?"
"Destiny was Irene Adler, a blind woman who could see into the future, and she had a penchant for doing things like that." Kitty smiled briefly, her mind dwelling on that day. "It's was still creepy, but I reached in and to my surprise found I had retrieved her diary. But that was of course, only the beginning."
"Of course," Pete said, his tone sounding as if he'd expected it. He was trying to deter a urge stirring in him for a cigarette, because she was actually smiling. And the thought that she was smiling just made him think about the fact she had been less than an hour ago. "It's always only beginning."
"Which leads to the last and largest thing that happe-"
"You two ready for the bill?" A large woman with a broad, bored face and oddly small eyes, dressed in a maroon dress with a white smock, stared at them.
Kitty looked to Pete, who looked back to her, both with about the exact expression of wondering if the other was in a mind set to stay. She relaxed before he did, pushing her plate of salad toward the center of the table and he shrugged to the woman. Kitty didn't defer to people usually and she hadn't spoken up at all and had looked away.
"Why don't you give us a few more minutes and a coffee," He said, just hoping to make her leave a touch faster. "Black."
"Sure," the woman with a nametag that read 'Gladys' -- upside down -- said with a slow, thick tone, before turning around and walking back toward the kitchen of the small diner.
Pete looked back to Kitty and then to where she was staring out the window their booth was against. Outside was a busy street of cars whirring back and forth and back and forth. The sun was still high up in the sky and the sky was still blue. She was probably thinking it didn't look as nice as it did in the park. The park. The place he'd had to track down from something she'd said a while back.
"And this larger than life newest catastrophe in your life?"
Kitty had turned from the window and her thoughts to look at him when he spoke. She had decided to not go on, because she had been rattling on and on, more her nerves due to being around him than anything else, so it surprised him when he'd asked for it. She turned to look at him straight on, as he followed suit to looking forward.
"It wasn't really that big," she said and if it weren't for the fact she'd downplayed that sentence, she might have laughed. The Twelve was one of the serious things they'd gone through lately. Lately being a week and half a go or so. He seemed to get that, because he didn't say anything, even when the woman brought his coffee and left again. He was just staring at her -- waiting.
"It'd started between the Manites new changes, the end of Bastion, and the appearance of Death, the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse showing up to fight us," she started slowly, pulling her keys out of her pockets and playing with them under the table. "It all started really though with the death of Death, who we thought was Logan, but turned out to be a Skrull. We recovered a Skrull at the same time who came for 'the Xavier' with a message."
"Next came a briefing and the collecting of The Twelve. The Twelve were the Professor, Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, Iceman, SunFire, Polaris, Colossus, Cable, Bishop, Mikhail Rasputin, The Monolith and Magneto. We all went up against Death, who was really Logan this time, and lost Mikhail, only to later learn Apocalypse had him, along with X-Man, Cable, Iceman, and SunFire, already."
"So they all went and faced him and the outcome was something we would only hear about after it had all happened." Watching him sip his coffee, while she wondered if she was babbling, if he even cared about what she talked about, she looked at the clock on the wall over the register, checking it once again as she spoke.
"When it was all over and done and we found out about it, they failed in that battle and were all captured. They were captured, they broke free of their containment but not before a large skirmish ensued while Apocalypse tried to merge with X-Man, but not before Scott could sacrifice himself for the lives of his friends."
"I had wondered where the Boy Scout you spoke of, was since I never saw him around there," Pete said setting down his coffee cup.
"Mmhmm." Kitty said with an slightly off tone and a nod. She was doing her best to be good at this moment and not just tell him he hadn't been around to see anyone or anything. "But it didn't end there, it was only the beginning of Apocalypse's plan. He only needed Summers DNA, so it didn't matter which of them he took. Everything in time was getting mixed up, things that never happened started to be as if they'd had always been that way. Supposedly Jean was the first one to figure it out, with the help of Scott, who was by Xavier's call completely missing in soul after the merging."
"And, now, everyone's come home, at least most everyone. Some people have already left again. Some stay quiet and try to enjoy what they could have lost. Some barely come home at all even though they aren't staying anywhere else," she mused, thinking about the fact they'd be saying goodbye to another person tomorrow morning. It was one she didn't like to think on a lot, and the more she thought about it the more she didn't like the idea.
"Sounds like you had it all." The cup had been empty two minutes now and he was debating tip already on one shadowy corner of his mind "What will you do during all those long months of your pregnancy if this is the excitement of three months?"
"You mean am I going to rush out and be the man on the front line?" She asked, her voice laced with laughter, even though she felt annoyance rising at his jibe. Did he think she hadn't given all this thought before now? "No, I've been giving it a lot of serious thought. I'm going to focus on dance a little more and even maybe take a few college courses at a local University--"
"Kitty Pryde attempts real school?" Pete said with a laugh, feigning an aghast expression. "With all the other normal-lived girls and boys?"
Sticking her tongue out at him and smiling, she replied, "It'll be ungodly torture, I know, but I think I can manage to survive it. And, as for the X- Men, I'll help in the ways I can, when I can, without putting too much risk on the baby."
Gladys returned once again and Pete replied this time that they were ready for the bill, while Kitty snuck a glance at the clock and dug into her bag for her wallet. Starting to pull her money out, to cover her food, in her lap, she looked over at him.
"So what'd you end up doing during all that time?"
"I've got it," Pete said as he pulled out two twenties and shook his head. He didn't exactly want to remember the last few months. Somewhere inside his chest was the knowledge he'd rather sit right here and listen her talk about her happy life without him, than think about his life without her. At least right now, she was with him.
"A little of this and a little of that."
Kitty looked curios and unconvinced, as she closed her wallet and slipped it back into her backpack. Pulling it into her lap, backwards, her hand in the opposite strap side than her hand, so when she stood up she could slip it over one shoulder.
"Nothing nearly as exciting as saving the world every day," Pete said slipping out of the booth, with a few dollar bills in his hand after leaving a minor tip. He looked at her a moment, and she thought he might say more, except it wasn't what she thought he'd say that came out. "This will only take a moment."
For right now, she was somewhere near by, he reminded himself.....even if that hurt more this way, it was like a bitter sweet pain.
She stared after him, not moving yet, just watching him walk away and decided she was sure about anything where Pete Wisdom was concerned. She had thought he was enthralled, then thought he was bored, then thought he was entertained and involved, just in time to hit a wall again. He would listen to her talk, but he wasn't willing to get involved.
Grand. Kitty blew at a few of her bangs and got up. She couldn't remember why she'd been laughing so freely a few minutes ago, or why she'd thought watching him smile was the most perfect way to spend an afternoon. Now all she wanted was to go home.
Pete came back to table, change in his pockets by now. "Ready?"
"We should go back." Kitty pretended not to notice when this threw him for a loop. She knew that he knew they had another hour before they had to head back, but she blew through it. Leaving her backpack on one shoulder and starting to walk by him she commented, with an irritable tone. "I have dance practice. If we leave now I could be back in time to practice for an extra half hour to hour before class."
He stared at her in total amazement. What had happened in that minute when he'd been paying the tab with Gladys? She'd seemed fine no less than three minutes ago. Had someone said something to her in that small break? Looking right to left, no one was near them. Had he said something wrong and not realized it? He'd only.....said nothing.
Stupid, he thought as he walked after her, in time to push a door open before she passed through it, but it didn't gather a response of any kind.
Was this about him not talking about his past three months? It wasn't like it had been much. They'd been talking and then she closed up suddenly, like a light switch. Was it over something as small as that? What'd she want to hear?
That he was in a job, getting a great life and moving on into that brave, New World and so she need have no fears about him?
Because she certainly didn't need to hear that he'd spent each night chasing a bottle to escape her memory, and each day to sleep away thinking of her. Of which, neither worked, since he always thought of her, and when he slept he dreamt of her and when he tried to put it all behind him and get on with life, all he wanted to do was remember there had been better.
He hadn't found life without her. Only hell.
to be continued
Disclaimer: Main ones are Marvel characters, some will be mine, too, so don't sue because *looking around her room* I am just a happy, but poor college student. I don't have the money for those prosecuting and if i do *smirk* you can't have it because i need it for more comics.
Feedback: Very much welcome. I'll welcome any kind of feedback good or bad, but flamers don't make me tie anyone down. I've over and done with that but I'm sure i can find something to stake you down with and some creatures to leave to play with you.
Adoration's, Praise and Acknowledgments: To Tangles, Luba, and Winter, who all were ecstatic that there was finally more to this story.
To Luba, my present beta, cause her praise is enough to keep me writing more. To Winter, cause he loves her and sometime makes me think of things Pete would do. And Tangle Toy who is my push behind me getting to finish this story, because she loved it so much way back when I started it. Love to you all, you're the BEST!
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Part X: "Up On All the Gory Details?"
--------------
Looking up information on Charles Francis Xavier, or his school, was like looking up God, or Hitler of Gandhi. Especially to a computer hacker. At the tips of your fingertips were a thousands sources that pointed this was good and another thousand that pointed to the fact it was bad. She kept trying to dig deeper, to find out more about him, decide if she could hope for anything in this search and each time she hit a wall.
So far all she had found out, between all the good and bad, about the world- renowned mutant-activist Charles Xavier was that he was a reclusive philosopher and scientist. He had an undergraduate at two places, Harvard and Oxford University, in England, no less. That he served a bit in the army. Then he opened a school and became the world-renowned mutant activist.
He was claimed by many, a man of reason, a champion for mutant rights, who proclaimed to have a program that would integrate mutants into society
He had huge names next to him of people who'd worked with him, or he with them, and with his school, this elusive Xavier's Institute for Gifted Children. Renamed Xavier's Institute for Higher Learning when the first name was passed to a school in Massachusetts, earlier called the Massachusetts Academy, also now closed.
It was confusing, because everything pointed to him being good and then there we're long things about how old, rich and dumb he was, too. That he'd been seduced by the devil to the side of evil and someone like him should be brought back or looked on with pity till he realized his mistake. She over looked most of this, taking a grain of salt with it.
But, if Charles Xavier was hard to research, his school was even harder. It only registered as a highly private school, with an even more strongly guarded enrollment list. She hadn't seen a place once where it said you could request enrollment. She was doing her best to find out some instructors' names, those same big names, and some of the classes and degrees the place had handed out.
It was all this huge mystery.
And then.....there was the X-Men connection. The implication that their 'might' be one. The possibility was enough to drive her nuts because it was that whisper you just couldn't hear, that feeling right before someone touched you, right on the edge away for the trained thought away. It was going to drive her crazy, she decided as she closed the programs up.
Taking the sticky note off the corner, with it's single telephone number on it, she placed it on top of the laptop once it was closed. The number was for the Institute. If he ran the place, hopefully someone there would know where he was, could set up an appointment for them to meet. But this was a faint hope since no one had seen hide nor hair of Xavier in at least a month.
But -- Kylie decided as she rose from the dinner room chair -- she had so many thin hopes going, one more couldn't hurt at all. As she walked, Skittles, the once alley cat, wound his way through her legs, begging to be fed. So she did and then she started gathering up her things to leave.
~*~*~
"So they sent you back on a cruise that got attacked by a rogue team calling themselves X-Men, but who were X-Men none of you'd ever met or heard of? Who kidnapped you and brought you Xavier, except baldy wasn't the real baldy, and the real X-Men came back and got you, since," and he paused to take a bite of the burger in front of him that was dripping white-yellow oil that was supposed to be mustard and mayonnaise.
"Then you found out that he was the computer that have all the X-Men's files on it, except it aborted itself? Then you chased Juggernaut around with the weather witch and the charmer, who earlier been disbanded from your team? Then you pulled kids from a burning building that this guy set on fire due to his contraction of the Legacy Virus and figured out Xavier was two people?"
"Yup," Kitty replied eating a bite of her salad, glad that even if it was repetitive, she'd been able to stop talking for a while. He'd stared in awe as she reiterated everything the X-Men gone through. "Which led the other half the team way far up north to Tajikinistan, where they ran into Renee and Nina, a manite, who was watching over what was left of The Cerebro Xavier. It was interesting enough she was involved. A new species created on earth. But while we were in Holland-"
"Tracking down the other Xavier coordinate," Pete nodded, "which was the actual baldy and your newest near death experience."
"What can I say?" Kitty smirked teasingly, as she pushed her salad around a second with her fork. "I'm popular."
Pete smiled in response and shook his head. "Have you ever thought about taking a break?"
"What? And miss all the fun?" She laughed, even though some thoughts began to surface in the back of her mind. She was joking about something she shouldn't be -- now. "I wouldn't dream of it. Besides, you haven't even heard the half of it. We had a peaceful Christmas, then we had to deal with Magneto, again, and that cost us Joseph. He sacrificed himself to save the planet."
"Gave him a grand going away party, too, didn't they?"
Kitty was silent a moment, remembering that day. She didn't remember the funeral mostly, but the way Logan was that day. The way he'd spoken so forcefully when hiding on the roof. The funeral was nice, but her mind was on Logan's words when he'd left -- about how they could mourn Joseph, but he was too busy planning and killing Magneto.
"Next was a weird trip between Juggernaut and another alien, named Ejulp, before we landed on another weird place with people who we knew were dead," she steamrolled on, rather than to keep on that thought at the moment. "Where I met an actress who played me."
"You?" Pete responded with a smile half curled. He couldn't think that anyone could pull off all that was Kitty. The idea alone was preposterous.
"And she was a terrible rendition. A Skrull, too." And I kicked her ass for insulting my hair, Kitty thought wryly. "Turned out they all were and it led us into a battle with Galactus, and by the work of my genius on an alien craft, we've came back home, but get this -- we came back right before the sacrifice of Joseph. Except then the ship put us into stasis and was adrift for a week. Talk about how the world doesn't watch it's friendly skies."
"That's just leavin' you off at about the same time, then," he said as he crumpled the wrapper the sandwich had been in.
"Oh!" Kitty pointed suddenly. "You'll get a bit out of this one, since it's . We found Douglock. He was being held captive by the Red Skull and everything's fine now, too. But it was terrific to see him, again. He made me realize how much I missed Excalibur. And, just so you know, Mister-I- Never-Have-Any-Fun, then I went on a road trip with Rogue and Kurt."
"Your trip was simply for fun? What brought you back?" Pete laughed, loud and short, a cover on the fact he was wondering if her earlier comment had meant she hadn't missed his at all, before forcing up a smirk. "Something come up on your trip?"
Kitty had narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn't help herself from still sounding amused as she spoke. "Well, the partying was fun. I bought this gorgeous dress and, yes, I do wish it had lasted longer, but we ended up running into Mystique -- Rogue's adopted mother and a prior member of X- Factor, with the powers of shape shifting to be anyone she wants -- and she needed our help. We also found out she had been posing as Ronnie Lake."
He simply stared at her, her expression implying he should know what she was talking about. He knew Mystique by reputation, but Ronnie Lake didn't ring any bells. It sounded vaguely familiar, but not important at all. Had he met her sometime during Excalibur? It seemed doubtful. It was something small that just barely made sense.
"The model of the millenium?" Kitty added, waiting to see if he'd ever get it.
"There's a woman with her head on her shoulders," Pete mused, finally remembering where he'd seen the name. It'd been on those catalogues and magazines in the waiting room of the hospital. Kitty's half shocked expression almost made him smile as he tapped a finger on the table. "Smart and sensible. Takes her powers and makes herself a nice comfortable life with them."
"Well, not too comfortable. Attacks by ninjas and then while Rogue was there an impromptu visit of sorts from SunFire. While she was doing that, though, I was exploring 'Ronnie's' huge penthouse. I'd been taken by curiosity of Destiny's things. I moved a picture and found a message left for me. It told me to reach inside the photo."
"A message?"
"Destiny was Irene Adler, a blind woman who could see into the future, and she had a penchant for doing things like that." Kitty smiled briefly, her mind dwelling on that day. "It's was still creepy, but I reached in and to my surprise found I had retrieved her diary. But that was of course, only the beginning."
"Of course," Pete said, his tone sounding as if he'd expected it. He was trying to deter a urge stirring in him for a cigarette, because she was actually smiling. And the thought that she was smiling just made him think about the fact she had been less than an hour ago. "It's always only beginning."
"Which leads to the last and largest thing that happe-"
"You two ready for the bill?" A large woman with a broad, bored face and oddly small eyes, dressed in a maroon dress with a white smock, stared at them.
Kitty looked to Pete, who looked back to her, both with about the exact expression of wondering if the other was in a mind set to stay. She relaxed before he did, pushing her plate of salad toward the center of the table and he shrugged to the woman. Kitty didn't defer to people usually and she hadn't spoken up at all and had looked away.
"Why don't you give us a few more minutes and a coffee," He said, just hoping to make her leave a touch faster. "Black."
"Sure," the woman with a nametag that read 'Gladys' -- upside down -- said with a slow, thick tone, before turning around and walking back toward the kitchen of the small diner.
Pete looked back to Kitty and then to where she was staring out the window their booth was against. Outside was a busy street of cars whirring back and forth and back and forth. The sun was still high up in the sky and the sky was still blue. She was probably thinking it didn't look as nice as it did in the park. The park. The place he'd had to track down from something she'd said a while back.
"And this larger than life newest catastrophe in your life?"
Kitty had turned from the window and her thoughts to look at him when he spoke. She had decided to not go on, because she had been rattling on and on, more her nerves due to being around him than anything else, so it surprised him when he'd asked for it. She turned to look at him straight on, as he followed suit to looking forward.
"It wasn't really that big," she said and if it weren't for the fact she'd downplayed that sentence, she might have laughed. The Twelve was one of the serious things they'd gone through lately. Lately being a week and half a go or so. He seemed to get that, because he didn't say anything, even when the woman brought his coffee and left again. He was just staring at her -- waiting.
"It'd started between the Manites new changes, the end of Bastion, and the appearance of Death, the fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse showing up to fight us," she started slowly, pulling her keys out of her pockets and playing with them under the table. "It all started really though with the death of Death, who we thought was Logan, but turned out to be a Skrull. We recovered a Skrull at the same time who came for 'the Xavier' with a message."
"Next came a briefing and the collecting of The Twelve. The Twelve were the Professor, Cyclops, Phoenix, Storm, Iceman, SunFire, Polaris, Colossus, Cable, Bishop, Mikhail Rasputin, The Monolith and Magneto. We all went up against Death, who was really Logan this time, and lost Mikhail, only to later learn Apocalypse had him, along with X-Man, Cable, Iceman, and SunFire, already."
"So they all went and faced him and the outcome was something we would only hear about after it had all happened." Watching him sip his coffee, while she wondered if she was babbling, if he even cared about what she talked about, she looked at the clock on the wall over the register, checking it once again as she spoke.
"When it was all over and done and we found out about it, they failed in that battle and were all captured. They were captured, they broke free of their containment but not before a large skirmish ensued while Apocalypse tried to merge with X-Man, but not before Scott could sacrifice himself for the lives of his friends."
"I had wondered where the Boy Scout you spoke of, was since I never saw him around there," Pete said setting down his coffee cup.
"Mmhmm." Kitty said with an slightly off tone and a nod. She was doing her best to be good at this moment and not just tell him he hadn't been around to see anyone or anything. "But it didn't end there, it was only the beginning of Apocalypse's plan. He only needed Summers DNA, so it didn't matter which of them he took. Everything in time was getting mixed up, things that never happened started to be as if they'd had always been that way. Supposedly Jean was the first one to figure it out, with the help of Scott, who was by Xavier's call completely missing in soul after the merging."
"And, now, everyone's come home, at least most everyone. Some people have already left again. Some stay quiet and try to enjoy what they could have lost. Some barely come home at all even though they aren't staying anywhere else," she mused, thinking about the fact they'd be saying goodbye to another person tomorrow morning. It was one she didn't like to think on a lot, and the more she thought about it the more she didn't like the idea.
"Sounds like you had it all." The cup had been empty two minutes now and he was debating tip already on one shadowy corner of his mind "What will you do during all those long months of your pregnancy if this is the excitement of three months?"
"You mean am I going to rush out and be the man on the front line?" She asked, her voice laced with laughter, even though she felt annoyance rising at his jibe. Did he think she hadn't given all this thought before now? "No, I've been giving it a lot of serious thought. I'm going to focus on dance a little more and even maybe take a few college courses at a local University--"
"Kitty Pryde attempts real school?" Pete said with a laugh, feigning an aghast expression. "With all the other normal-lived girls and boys?"
Sticking her tongue out at him and smiling, she replied, "It'll be ungodly torture, I know, but I think I can manage to survive it. And, as for the X- Men, I'll help in the ways I can, when I can, without putting too much risk on the baby."
Gladys returned once again and Pete replied this time that they were ready for the bill, while Kitty snuck a glance at the clock and dug into her bag for her wallet. Starting to pull her money out, to cover her food, in her lap, she looked over at him.
"So what'd you end up doing during all that time?"
"I've got it," Pete said as he pulled out two twenties and shook his head. He didn't exactly want to remember the last few months. Somewhere inside his chest was the knowledge he'd rather sit right here and listen her talk about her happy life without him, than think about his life without her. At least right now, she was with him.
"A little of this and a little of that."
Kitty looked curios and unconvinced, as she closed her wallet and slipped it back into her backpack. Pulling it into her lap, backwards, her hand in the opposite strap side than her hand, so when she stood up she could slip it over one shoulder.
"Nothing nearly as exciting as saving the world every day," Pete said slipping out of the booth, with a few dollar bills in his hand after leaving a minor tip. He looked at her a moment, and she thought he might say more, except it wasn't what she thought he'd say that came out. "This will only take a moment."
For right now, she was somewhere near by, he reminded himself.....even if that hurt more this way, it was like a bitter sweet pain.
She stared after him, not moving yet, just watching him walk away and decided she was sure about anything where Pete Wisdom was concerned. She had thought he was enthralled, then thought he was bored, then thought he was entertained and involved, just in time to hit a wall again. He would listen to her talk, but he wasn't willing to get involved.
Grand. Kitty blew at a few of her bangs and got up. She couldn't remember why she'd been laughing so freely a few minutes ago, or why she'd thought watching him smile was the most perfect way to spend an afternoon. Now all she wanted was to go home.
Pete came back to table, change in his pockets by now. "Ready?"
"We should go back." Kitty pretended not to notice when this threw him for a loop. She knew that he knew they had another hour before they had to head back, but she blew through it. Leaving her backpack on one shoulder and starting to walk by him she commented, with an irritable tone. "I have dance practice. If we leave now I could be back in time to practice for an extra half hour to hour before class."
He stared at her in total amazement. What had happened in that minute when he'd been paying the tab with Gladys? She'd seemed fine no less than three minutes ago. Had someone said something to her in that small break? Looking right to left, no one was near them. Had he said something wrong and not realized it? He'd only.....said nothing.
Stupid, he thought as he walked after her, in time to push a door open before she passed through it, but it didn't gather a response of any kind.
Was this about him not talking about his past three months? It wasn't like it had been much. They'd been talking and then she closed up suddenly, like a light switch. Was it over something as small as that? What'd she want to hear?
That he was in a job, getting a great life and moving on into that brave, New World and so she need have no fears about him?
Because she certainly didn't need to hear that he'd spent each night chasing a bottle to escape her memory, and each day to sleep away thinking of her. Of which, neither worked, since he always thought of her, and when he slept he dreamt of her and when he tried to put it all behind him and get on with life, all he wanted to do was remember there had been better.
He hadn't found life without her. Only hell.
to be continued