(Pryde/Wisdom) the Greatest Miracle of All 11/?
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!
Inspired by the entire beginning and a small panel on pg. 24 of Uncanny X- Men #379.
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Part XI: "Nightmares Are -- What Dreams May Come"
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Standing there staring at him, she was so very torn by the situation. It was completely wrong in her eyes after all that had happened, and yet to a small part of her it made perfect sense. At the moment she hated that small part and at present it lay squashed while she concentrated on many thoughts and her concentration. He had made his decision, after coming and going for a few days, and he had a right to it. She didn't have a right to change his mind.
She kept repeating that part the most.
He hadn't said a word, and neither of them seemed to have made a sound since she'd handed it to him. Even though she'd known him almost a full decade now, she found herself trying to memorize parts of him. The way he sat, the look in his eyes, the way he moved. Anything so long as it kept her from thinking she was counting down to the moment when he wouldn't be there any longer.
Hadn't they lost enough?
Why was it they had to lose more?
"Something for you to remember us by, Professor...." Trying very hard not to let her thoughts show in her expression or her words, she reached up a hand toward her face, speaking from behind him. "...no matter how far from home you stray."
What she was talking about was the object she had just handed him about two minutes ago -- A Shi'ar Holempathic Matrix Crystal. It was beautiful, though it seemed sad to her, too, even just sitting in his hand as he held it. He was staring at it solemnly, making her wonder what he was thinking about.
They'd only used one other before. For the Shi'ar Pan Galactic Empire, these tokens, crystal orbs, were rare and an honor. A singular honor, for those who were imprinted in them would never truly died.
The last one had been for Jean Grey after her sacrifice on the Blue Side of the moon. Bound in that one was not only a physical representation of that child, but the essence of her person, too. Her personality and the feeling you got when standing close to her. Holding it always made people think that she was actually alive and near them.
It had been given to the Grey's, but it was most likely in Jean's possession now. Especially since she wasn't dead. This one, otherwise identical though not of Jean Grey, was placed in the hands of the Professor for safekeeping for him not forget them, she'd said. It was the nagging thought in the back of her head -- thought that whispered about how long he'd been gone last time.
He had been gone so long that time.
"It is a gift I shall treasure, Katherine," Xavier replied to her softly, as he took his eyes away from the orb. It made him feel sad to stare at it. He had failed a student and in so doing, failed them all. It wasn't hard to admit it now. The same feeling he'd had when any passed away. They'd lost too many.
Calvin Rankin. The Changeling. John Proudstar. Jean Grey. Doug Ramsey. Illyana Rasputin. Jamie Maddrox. Yes, some there were special circumstances, excuses and complications, but each of those names was a dagger still stuck in his heart. Each name was a catch in his throat as he fought to say the words that came, the ones he wasn't sure would come out. "Thank you."
"I still don't understand, Professor," Piotr started, and being the closer one to the Professor, an arm on the back of the hover chair, Kitty reached out a hand to touch the large Russian's shoulder. She wasn't sure if it was to strengthen his resolve to ask a question she couldn't voice or if it was to stop him. Her touch didn't affect his words, none the less. "Why you have to leave?"
"Fate has entrusted this mutant branch of the Skrull race into our hands, Colossus. Given their numbers and the desperation of their forebears, they can not truly make a place for themselves on Earth," the Professor responded to the large very open man to his right, as he began manipulating one of the arms of his hover chair. The left arm front opened and he placed the Shi'ar Holempathic Crystal in there gently.
The ship was ready and the Skrulls were headed for them. He moved forward toward the open door still finishing his words to Piotr. "They are hardly more than children, Peter. They need a place to call their own, and someone to shepherd them. I know this sounds harsh but their need is greater."
And then he was gone. Then the door was closed and the two X-Men were left standing there, feeling a degree of abandonment not to be rivaled at the moment. Kitty had seen the grimace that had taken Piotr's face, before she turned to one side trying not to feel as if someone who'd been her father figure hadn't just walked of her in this point in her life.
It was a minute before she pushed it away. It was then she realized that they were holding each other's arm in part, not looking at each other, just using the other for support for a moment when their main one for many years, who had pushed them, loved them and taught them was suddenly gone. She opened her eyes first, working hard not to let her eyes tear up.
"Well, that's that. It's over," she said, soft in volume, and tense with emotion, among many, relief and anger prevalent. Her eyes went beyond him on the craft that had risen off the ground, and he was turning to watch it too when he responded.
"You make it sound like Professor Xavier is abandoning us, Katya."
"Whatever. The only thing that really matters, Piotr Nikolievitch, is that he's gone," was her hard response. It was his choice, wasn't it? Who he helped and who he didn't? Where he lived and where he left behind him? This time it wasn't even for the "love of his life". Well, it was his choice, wasn't it?
So, why did she feel like punching something till it fell apart?
"Have faith, ShadowCat. He will be back," Piotr said, squeezing her arm lightly as the ship began to get smaller in the sky. He felt a familiar waft of sadness inside his heart watching the Professor vanish from their lives, but it was worse to hear the stirrings of resentment starting to infiltrate her voice.
"Whenever. He made his choice," Kitty said, disentangling her arm from holding his and his hold on hers. She ran her hands down the stomach of her yellow and blue costume, absently, watching the Skrull ship almost till it became a dot. She felt abandoned completely, but she couldn't take her eyes off that dot and found it hard to swallow that he hadn't turned back and changed his mind at any step.
He was gone. They would all be left to deal with an even greater loss than that of one death.
"What do you mean?"
"I have dreams of my own that have nothing to do with this uniform," she said, indicating with her hands to the long body suit in blue and yellow. One part of the collar around her neck was against her cheek where her face was tilted, seeming cold even though it was her normal body temperature. "- or the life it represents. Maybe it's time to see where they lead."
Those words ran a slight edge of wonder under his skin, as if she'd just announced she'd be the next person leaving now. They all knew she was backing off and that made perfect sense, but she'd never announced thinking about leaving. "What will you-"
But those were all the words he got to before both of their bodies were suddenly flooded with agony. She heard him cry out, fighting the urge to scream was trying to figure out what was wrong, when found herself falling toward the floor, her arms over her stomach. She was going down fast on her knees and she phased to save herself from slamming her knees and legs.
And then a harsher pain came, like a rod slammed straight into her center, another wave, as her legs slammed into the ground. That she couldn't phase was a shock that she was just registering, the pain wasn't stopping. Tears crept from her eyes, and she clenched her teeth, feeling like they all might shatter if the waves of pain didn't stop. There was a blackness coming, she saw as she fell to one side Piotr was near her staring at his hands until he shifted to her.
More tears fell from her eyes as she clutched her arms over her stomach and cried out no longer able to be silent. He looked shocked but recovered, and she barely noticed it due to the darkness over coming her, her words only just making it out before her eyes closed. "Piotr? Piotr...help."
~*~*~
At that very same second others panicked as well.
Her scream had brought her next door neighbor running, but what he saw wasn't what he expected. There was one of his neighbors, the young girl of the twins, in a pair of silky blue sleep pants and a loose white tank top, looking as shaken as if someone had raised a gun to her, tears flowing down her cheeks. Her eyes had widened on seeing him and seemed filled with an even larger fear suddenly.
"Woah! It's okay! Really! I'm here to help," Riley tried to comfort her as he realized she was shaking like a leaf, too. It was only obvious when you came closer to her. "What happened?"
She could barely make word from syllables. She couldn't read him. She could accept that. That could be a momentary problem, or a gift from Kyle, or some odd alignment of the moon and stars. No she was terrified and what she was terrified of drove her as close to sudden insanity as she'd even gone. She couldn't feel Kyle. In the back of her head, like a breath away from her being. It was empty. It was dark.
She was alone.
"T-t-there wa-s-s-s a b-b-ig-g r-a-a-at," Kylie got out slowly between sobs, standing there feeling like she was rooted to the spot, but at the same time like a gust of wind could have knocked her over. An obvious lie, but it was the only thing she could come up with, thinking her world was over.
"Where is it? Where's your broom?" He asked, feeling a little odd racing into an apartment with a girl who'd been as nice as one of those old tv shows to him since he'd met her, in her sleep clothes crying.
"K-kitchen-n. B-b-bathroom," she stuttered out, unable to think at all. She didn't want to be rational. She didn't want to think. Didn't want to be. Without him she'd rather die. She didn't want to live without him.
"Got it." And he went running and she fell perfectly to the floor.
She'd done too much yoga and it came too naturally. She ended up Indian style on the floor staring at the plush carpet, unable to banish this aloneness from her mind. She was completely alone. All alone. The world was only her. Her and only her. She was alone. All Alone.
That was the repetitive circle of her thoughts. Nothing disturbed it. When Skittles came and curled up in her lap, she didn't look up. When Riley found no rat in bathroom and came to tell her such, she didn't look up. He gathered what he thought was a nod from her. But she just sat there, her hair falling all around her face, her body shaking, racked with harder shuddering due to the fact she was crying harder now.
It was like this for about ten more minutes -- nonstop -- till suddenly the front door Riley had quietly closed flung open and slammed into the wall creating a hole where the door handle slammed through the wall. She held a choke and her head shot up as something slammed through her. There was a simultaneous yell of two nearly identical names.
Kylie had jumped up and flung herself into Kyle's arms, which fell into the same moment that had he grabbed for her. What Riley saw after opening his door across there's for another time at a yell was the two twins holding each other tight. How odd.....how very odd. And as nothing happened and neither moved in that next thirty seconds he figured everything was okay and went back into his apartment.
When one of them finally moved it was him, and she was surprised to see he was crying now. He hadn't been. He was running his hands over her face and he'd stooped a moment with his hands on both sides of her face against her cheeks. His face was so close to hers that there wasn't half an inch between their faces and he whispered softly. "I was so afraid that something had happened to you. That I'd lost you."
"Love you, Ky." Kylie nodded, trying to swallow the sobs that were still rising after crying so long. Her eyes were releasing tears slowly down her cheeks, which ran into the crevices of her nose as his fingers got in the way of their fall. "I'd never -never- leave you."
Kyle put his arms back around his twin and let her curl into his arms, holding him around his middle with a strength that might surprise people could come out of something as small as her, and he placed kisses in her hair. She started to cry again, except this time it was more confused. She had Kyle, without having him in her mind. She had life without powers, which evaporated problems.
He had the same things going on in his mind, except now he was trying to make it all stay away. He was trying to be strong for her. To let her lean on him, since he couldn't get into her mind and simply calm her and reassure her with love and thoughts and words and feelings. All he could do was hug her and tell her he loved her. That he'd never leave her.
And suddenly that all seemed very hollow.
~*~*~
Usually it would come in small ways. A noise, like a ringing phone, a buzzing alarm clock, a voice talking with another one as it walked by outside. All subtle small things that brought about a rise to consciousness so that it was gradual and slow, that were normal. But nothing about this day was normal, so she woke up with a jarring start, gasping for air.
A hand landed on her shoulder, gentle it seemed, but firm as it pushed her back down on to the bed. Then came glaring color of bright white light above her flooding like needles into the back of her eyes, making her wince. The next time she opened her eyes, it was very slowly, to look at the person who was still standing next to her. They were moving around and then waiting it seemed.
Blinking, the face came in slowly into focus for Kitty, and she tried to offer a feeble smile, even though she wasn't sure why she did it. Her mind started racing as she noticed the Med Lab around them and the concern in the person's eyes. She remembered the waves of pain and something being wrong with her powers.
Why was she here?
She must have passed out, she decided, finally relaxing into the bed and looking at the glaring light again for a moment, before glancing over at Ororo standing at her bedside, still not saying anything. A fear was starting to creep slowly down her spine as her hands found their way, under the blanket over her, to rest over her stomach.
"Did something happen to the baby?"
Ororo's troubled expression found amusement that the first words Katherine had said went for her child. Nothing for her safety, nor about her powers, but then she'd had all the time in the world to sit here waiting and think about it. She'd been the one to offer to wait and watch until Katherine woke up. She'd had time to sit and contemplate feeling like everything had suddenly gone much worse than they were ever prepared for.
"Your child is fine, Kitten," the ex-weather which said wistfully, reaching out to brush Kitty's bangs from her forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"Good. I think," she said, confused, raising to a sitting position letting the blanket pile in her lap. "Maybe a little fuzzy."
"That's probably the medicine," Ororo said, looking at the chart on the wall above Kitty. "We had to give you a heavy pain killer. It seems your body didn't react as well to the change as everyone else did."
"Everyone? Changes?" Kitty twisted under the blanket to see Ororo's eyes drop for a moment, and suddenly she remembered Piotr staring at his hands in disbelief. Her voice started slowly, completely made of disbelief. "There was a moment, when I was falling -- because of the pain -- and I tried to phase but nothing happened?"
"Yes, Kitten. Everyone has been stripped of their powers," she said, taking a step back from the bed and sitting on a chair that was just behind where she had been standing. A place she'd been sitting for quite some time waiting for her young friend to awaken. "-by the High Evolutionary. He has decided that mutants threaten the existence of humans and that without the existence of mutants, people like Magneto couldn't have come into power."
"It wasn't a fluke," she whispered softly, her hand going to the hexagram at her breastbone, her beautiful silver Star of David. She found herself thinking that her entire being seemed bleak for a moment. Dear God, they'd all been robbed of the things given to them at birth. Their birth right. The thing life's subtle changing through generations had given them.
All of it raped from them in a single swipe.
"I understand your shock, Kitty," Ororo nodded, from where she sat with her hands on her knees, a woman who could usually feel the weather all around and manipulate it feeling herself remarkably....human. She rose slowly wishing that she could be positive everyone was fine....all of the X-Man in different places now.
Bobby and Hank in Genosha, Jean had left suddenly, as had Nathan, perhaps they went together. No one knew though. All of them in different parts of the globe, suddenly very human.
"I'll leave you time to change, take a shower if you wish, and dress." She pointed at the empty bed next to them where a pair of jeans and a shirt sat folded neatly. "There are many people waiting to see how you're doing, especially one enthusiastic Mr. Wisdom who had to be removed for the room at one point."
And thought she didn't say it out loud yet, she amended her thought with, 'and someone who's affections and fears over you we've misjudged.'
Kitty nodded, feeling a touch numb, as she listened. Pete came, the baby was okay, and she was.....human? Normal? Why did she feel so singled out and strange then? She now matched every other expectant mother in the world and it hurt inside her chest.
"We also will need to talk at some point when you're feeling better."
She raised her head slightly, looking over at her friend and the woman who'd been as much a mothering influence on her all her years at the school. They'd each gone through so much getting to this day, and each seemed to know tomorrow was only going to be harder than today was.
"About?"
"Perhaps it should wait until-"
"I'm drugged," Kitty pleaded softly, kneading her blanket in her hands, knowing this was about to be the thing that could obliterate her world. It would have to --wouldn't it? -- if Ororo was willing discuss loosing their powers and this needed to wait. "But the rest of it won't change. If there's something else I have to hear I'd rather get it all at once."
Ororo felt her heart go out for Katherine staring at her. They'd all had a few hours. Perhaps that was why she let go of the fight to make this wait. They all needed a small bit of good news if they were willing to take, if they were going to survive this newest fight to live free of persecution.
"During your medical scans to make sure you and your child were fine," Ororo said, watching Kitty's face for the signs of what she'd be saying. "The sex of your child came up as part of the scan information on the second person being scanned."
"You mean you could tell me-" Kitty for a moment let everything else crowd the back of her mind, as her sentence stopped, and she stared in down toned amazement.
"Yes, I could tell you whether your child will be a boy or a girl." Folding her hands together, she stared only at this girl, who was becoming a mother where as most of the X-Men had to work their hardest just to get and keep a relationship. She was going to have a child to laugh and cry over.
"I'm the only person who knows, and I can have it erased from the records on your word, but this must be your choice, Kitten. I won't let anyone take it from you."
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!
Inspired by the entire beginning and a small panel on pg. 24 of Uncanny X- Men #379.
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Part XI: "Nightmares Are -- What Dreams May Come"
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Standing there staring at him, she was so very torn by the situation. It was completely wrong in her eyes after all that had happened, and yet to a small part of her it made perfect sense. At the moment she hated that small part and at present it lay squashed while she concentrated on many thoughts and her concentration. He had made his decision, after coming and going for a few days, and he had a right to it. She didn't have a right to change his mind.
She kept repeating that part the most.
He hadn't said a word, and neither of them seemed to have made a sound since she'd handed it to him. Even though she'd known him almost a full decade now, she found herself trying to memorize parts of him. The way he sat, the look in his eyes, the way he moved. Anything so long as it kept her from thinking she was counting down to the moment when he wouldn't be there any longer.
Hadn't they lost enough?
Why was it they had to lose more?
"Something for you to remember us by, Professor...." Trying very hard not to let her thoughts show in her expression or her words, she reached up a hand toward her face, speaking from behind him. "...no matter how far from home you stray."
What she was talking about was the object she had just handed him about two minutes ago -- A Shi'ar Holempathic Matrix Crystal. It was beautiful, though it seemed sad to her, too, even just sitting in his hand as he held it. He was staring at it solemnly, making her wonder what he was thinking about.
They'd only used one other before. For the Shi'ar Pan Galactic Empire, these tokens, crystal orbs, were rare and an honor. A singular honor, for those who were imprinted in them would never truly died.
The last one had been for Jean Grey after her sacrifice on the Blue Side of the moon. Bound in that one was not only a physical representation of that child, but the essence of her person, too. Her personality and the feeling you got when standing close to her. Holding it always made people think that she was actually alive and near them.
It had been given to the Grey's, but it was most likely in Jean's possession now. Especially since she wasn't dead. This one, otherwise identical though not of Jean Grey, was placed in the hands of the Professor for safekeeping for him not forget them, she'd said. It was the nagging thought in the back of her head -- thought that whispered about how long he'd been gone last time.
He had been gone so long that time.
"It is a gift I shall treasure, Katherine," Xavier replied to her softly, as he took his eyes away from the orb. It made him feel sad to stare at it. He had failed a student and in so doing, failed them all. It wasn't hard to admit it now. The same feeling he'd had when any passed away. They'd lost too many.
Calvin Rankin. The Changeling. John Proudstar. Jean Grey. Doug Ramsey. Illyana Rasputin. Jamie Maddrox. Yes, some there were special circumstances, excuses and complications, but each of those names was a dagger still stuck in his heart. Each name was a catch in his throat as he fought to say the words that came, the ones he wasn't sure would come out. "Thank you."
"I still don't understand, Professor," Piotr started, and being the closer one to the Professor, an arm on the back of the hover chair, Kitty reached out a hand to touch the large Russian's shoulder. She wasn't sure if it was to strengthen his resolve to ask a question she couldn't voice or if it was to stop him. Her touch didn't affect his words, none the less. "Why you have to leave?"
"Fate has entrusted this mutant branch of the Skrull race into our hands, Colossus. Given their numbers and the desperation of their forebears, they can not truly make a place for themselves on Earth," the Professor responded to the large very open man to his right, as he began manipulating one of the arms of his hover chair. The left arm front opened and he placed the Shi'ar Holempathic Crystal in there gently.
The ship was ready and the Skrulls were headed for them. He moved forward toward the open door still finishing his words to Piotr. "They are hardly more than children, Peter. They need a place to call their own, and someone to shepherd them. I know this sounds harsh but their need is greater."
And then he was gone. Then the door was closed and the two X-Men were left standing there, feeling a degree of abandonment not to be rivaled at the moment. Kitty had seen the grimace that had taken Piotr's face, before she turned to one side trying not to feel as if someone who'd been her father figure hadn't just walked of her in this point in her life.
It was a minute before she pushed it away. It was then she realized that they were holding each other's arm in part, not looking at each other, just using the other for support for a moment when their main one for many years, who had pushed them, loved them and taught them was suddenly gone. She opened her eyes first, working hard not to let her eyes tear up.
"Well, that's that. It's over," she said, soft in volume, and tense with emotion, among many, relief and anger prevalent. Her eyes went beyond him on the craft that had risen off the ground, and he was turning to watch it too when he responded.
"You make it sound like Professor Xavier is abandoning us, Katya."
"Whatever. The only thing that really matters, Piotr Nikolievitch, is that he's gone," was her hard response. It was his choice, wasn't it? Who he helped and who he didn't? Where he lived and where he left behind him? This time it wasn't even for the "love of his life". Well, it was his choice, wasn't it?
So, why did she feel like punching something till it fell apart?
"Have faith, ShadowCat. He will be back," Piotr said, squeezing her arm lightly as the ship began to get smaller in the sky. He felt a familiar waft of sadness inside his heart watching the Professor vanish from their lives, but it was worse to hear the stirrings of resentment starting to infiltrate her voice.
"Whenever. He made his choice," Kitty said, disentangling her arm from holding his and his hold on hers. She ran her hands down the stomach of her yellow and blue costume, absently, watching the Skrull ship almost till it became a dot. She felt abandoned completely, but she couldn't take her eyes off that dot and found it hard to swallow that he hadn't turned back and changed his mind at any step.
He was gone. They would all be left to deal with an even greater loss than that of one death.
"What do you mean?"
"I have dreams of my own that have nothing to do with this uniform," she said, indicating with her hands to the long body suit in blue and yellow. One part of the collar around her neck was against her cheek where her face was tilted, seeming cold even though it was her normal body temperature. "- or the life it represents. Maybe it's time to see where they lead."
Those words ran a slight edge of wonder under his skin, as if she'd just announced she'd be the next person leaving now. They all knew she was backing off and that made perfect sense, but she'd never announced thinking about leaving. "What will you-"
But those were all the words he got to before both of their bodies were suddenly flooded with agony. She heard him cry out, fighting the urge to scream was trying to figure out what was wrong, when found herself falling toward the floor, her arms over her stomach. She was going down fast on her knees and she phased to save herself from slamming her knees and legs.
And then a harsher pain came, like a rod slammed straight into her center, another wave, as her legs slammed into the ground. That she couldn't phase was a shock that she was just registering, the pain wasn't stopping. Tears crept from her eyes, and she clenched her teeth, feeling like they all might shatter if the waves of pain didn't stop. There was a blackness coming, she saw as she fell to one side Piotr was near her staring at his hands until he shifted to her.
More tears fell from her eyes as she clutched her arms over her stomach and cried out no longer able to be silent. He looked shocked but recovered, and she barely noticed it due to the darkness over coming her, her words only just making it out before her eyes closed. "Piotr? Piotr...help."
~*~*~
At that very same second others panicked as well.
Her scream had brought her next door neighbor running, but what he saw wasn't what he expected. There was one of his neighbors, the young girl of the twins, in a pair of silky blue sleep pants and a loose white tank top, looking as shaken as if someone had raised a gun to her, tears flowing down her cheeks. Her eyes had widened on seeing him and seemed filled with an even larger fear suddenly.
"Woah! It's okay! Really! I'm here to help," Riley tried to comfort her as he realized she was shaking like a leaf, too. It was only obvious when you came closer to her. "What happened?"
She could barely make word from syllables. She couldn't read him. She could accept that. That could be a momentary problem, or a gift from Kyle, or some odd alignment of the moon and stars. No she was terrified and what she was terrified of drove her as close to sudden insanity as she'd even gone. She couldn't feel Kyle. In the back of her head, like a breath away from her being. It was empty. It was dark.
She was alone.
"T-t-there wa-s-s-s a b-b-ig-g r-a-a-at," Kylie got out slowly between sobs, standing there feeling like she was rooted to the spot, but at the same time like a gust of wind could have knocked her over. An obvious lie, but it was the only thing she could come up with, thinking her world was over.
"Where is it? Where's your broom?" He asked, feeling a little odd racing into an apartment with a girl who'd been as nice as one of those old tv shows to him since he'd met her, in her sleep clothes crying.
"K-kitchen-n. B-b-bathroom," she stuttered out, unable to think at all. She didn't want to be rational. She didn't want to think. Didn't want to be. Without him she'd rather die. She didn't want to live without him.
"Got it." And he went running and she fell perfectly to the floor.
She'd done too much yoga and it came too naturally. She ended up Indian style on the floor staring at the plush carpet, unable to banish this aloneness from her mind. She was completely alone. All alone. The world was only her. Her and only her. She was alone. All Alone.
That was the repetitive circle of her thoughts. Nothing disturbed it. When Skittles came and curled up in her lap, she didn't look up. When Riley found no rat in bathroom and came to tell her such, she didn't look up. He gathered what he thought was a nod from her. But she just sat there, her hair falling all around her face, her body shaking, racked with harder shuddering due to the fact she was crying harder now.
It was like this for about ten more minutes -- nonstop -- till suddenly the front door Riley had quietly closed flung open and slammed into the wall creating a hole where the door handle slammed through the wall. She held a choke and her head shot up as something slammed through her. There was a simultaneous yell of two nearly identical names.
Kylie had jumped up and flung herself into Kyle's arms, which fell into the same moment that had he grabbed for her. What Riley saw after opening his door across there's for another time at a yell was the two twins holding each other tight. How odd.....how very odd. And as nothing happened and neither moved in that next thirty seconds he figured everything was okay and went back into his apartment.
When one of them finally moved it was him, and she was surprised to see he was crying now. He hadn't been. He was running his hands over her face and he'd stooped a moment with his hands on both sides of her face against her cheeks. His face was so close to hers that there wasn't half an inch between their faces and he whispered softly. "I was so afraid that something had happened to you. That I'd lost you."
"Love you, Ky." Kylie nodded, trying to swallow the sobs that were still rising after crying so long. Her eyes were releasing tears slowly down her cheeks, which ran into the crevices of her nose as his fingers got in the way of their fall. "I'd never -never- leave you."
Kyle put his arms back around his twin and let her curl into his arms, holding him around his middle with a strength that might surprise people could come out of something as small as her, and he placed kisses in her hair. She started to cry again, except this time it was more confused. She had Kyle, without having him in her mind. She had life without powers, which evaporated problems.
He had the same things going on in his mind, except now he was trying to make it all stay away. He was trying to be strong for her. To let her lean on him, since he couldn't get into her mind and simply calm her and reassure her with love and thoughts and words and feelings. All he could do was hug her and tell her he loved her. That he'd never leave her.
And suddenly that all seemed very hollow.
~*~*~
Usually it would come in small ways. A noise, like a ringing phone, a buzzing alarm clock, a voice talking with another one as it walked by outside. All subtle small things that brought about a rise to consciousness so that it was gradual and slow, that were normal. But nothing about this day was normal, so she woke up with a jarring start, gasping for air.
A hand landed on her shoulder, gentle it seemed, but firm as it pushed her back down on to the bed. Then came glaring color of bright white light above her flooding like needles into the back of her eyes, making her wince. The next time she opened her eyes, it was very slowly, to look at the person who was still standing next to her. They were moving around and then waiting it seemed.
Blinking, the face came in slowly into focus for Kitty, and she tried to offer a feeble smile, even though she wasn't sure why she did it. Her mind started racing as she noticed the Med Lab around them and the concern in the person's eyes. She remembered the waves of pain and something being wrong with her powers.
Why was she here?
She must have passed out, she decided, finally relaxing into the bed and looking at the glaring light again for a moment, before glancing over at Ororo standing at her bedside, still not saying anything. A fear was starting to creep slowly down her spine as her hands found their way, under the blanket over her, to rest over her stomach.
"Did something happen to the baby?"
Ororo's troubled expression found amusement that the first words Katherine had said went for her child. Nothing for her safety, nor about her powers, but then she'd had all the time in the world to sit here waiting and think about it. She'd been the one to offer to wait and watch until Katherine woke up. She'd had time to sit and contemplate feeling like everything had suddenly gone much worse than they were ever prepared for.
"Your child is fine, Kitten," the ex-weather which said wistfully, reaching out to brush Kitty's bangs from her forehead. "How are you feeling?"
"Good. I think," she said, confused, raising to a sitting position letting the blanket pile in her lap. "Maybe a little fuzzy."
"That's probably the medicine," Ororo said, looking at the chart on the wall above Kitty. "We had to give you a heavy pain killer. It seems your body didn't react as well to the change as everyone else did."
"Everyone? Changes?" Kitty twisted under the blanket to see Ororo's eyes drop for a moment, and suddenly she remembered Piotr staring at his hands in disbelief. Her voice started slowly, completely made of disbelief. "There was a moment, when I was falling -- because of the pain -- and I tried to phase but nothing happened?"
"Yes, Kitten. Everyone has been stripped of their powers," she said, taking a step back from the bed and sitting on a chair that was just behind where she had been standing. A place she'd been sitting for quite some time waiting for her young friend to awaken. "-by the High Evolutionary. He has decided that mutants threaten the existence of humans and that without the existence of mutants, people like Magneto couldn't have come into power."
"It wasn't a fluke," she whispered softly, her hand going to the hexagram at her breastbone, her beautiful silver Star of David. She found herself thinking that her entire being seemed bleak for a moment. Dear God, they'd all been robbed of the things given to them at birth. Their birth right. The thing life's subtle changing through generations had given them.
All of it raped from them in a single swipe.
"I understand your shock, Kitty," Ororo nodded, from where she sat with her hands on her knees, a woman who could usually feel the weather all around and manipulate it feeling herself remarkably....human. She rose slowly wishing that she could be positive everyone was fine....all of the X-Man in different places now.
Bobby and Hank in Genosha, Jean had left suddenly, as had Nathan, perhaps they went together. No one knew though. All of them in different parts of the globe, suddenly very human.
"I'll leave you time to change, take a shower if you wish, and dress." She pointed at the empty bed next to them where a pair of jeans and a shirt sat folded neatly. "There are many people waiting to see how you're doing, especially one enthusiastic Mr. Wisdom who had to be removed for the room at one point."
And thought she didn't say it out loud yet, she amended her thought with, 'and someone who's affections and fears over you we've misjudged.'
Kitty nodded, feeling a touch numb, as she listened. Pete came, the baby was okay, and she was.....human? Normal? Why did she feel so singled out and strange then? She now matched every other expectant mother in the world and it hurt inside her chest.
"We also will need to talk at some point when you're feeling better."
She raised her head slightly, looking over at her friend and the woman who'd been as much a mothering influence on her all her years at the school. They'd each gone through so much getting to this day, and each seemed to know tomorrow was only going to be harder than today was.
"About?"
"Perhaps it should wait until-"
"I'm drugged," Kitty pleaded softly, kneading her blanket in her hands, knowing this was about to be the thing that could obliterate her world. It would have to --wouldn't it? -- if Ororo was willing discuss loosing their powers and this needed to wait. "But the rest of it won't change. If there's something else I have to hear I'd rather get it all at once."
Ororo felt her heart go out for Katherine staring at her. They'd all had a few hours. Perhaps that was why she let go of the fight to make this wait. They all needed a small bit of good news if they were willing to take, if they were going to survive this newest fight to live free of persecution.
"During your medical scans to make sure you and your child were fine," Ororo said, watching Kitty's face for the signs of what she'd be saying. "The sex of your child came up as part of the scan information on the second person being scanned."
"You mean you could tell me-" Kitty for a moment let everything else crowd the back of her mind, as her sentence stopped, and she stared in down toned amazement.
"Yes, I could tell you whether your child will be a boy or a girl." Folding her hands together, she stared only at this girl, who was becoming a mother where as most of the X-Men had to work their hardest just to get and keep a relationship. She was going to have a child to laugh and cry over.
"I'm the only person who knows, and I can have it erased from the records on your word, but this must be your choice, Kitten. I won't let anyone take it from you."
to be continued