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"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain."

-Frank Herbert

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Chapter Eight: Fate Can be a Bitch, Sometimes

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He approached Nat's dark figure cautiously from behind, watching her closely. Her hair had been pulled down from its ponytail and sailed free like snakes, and her shoulders were slumped. More than anything, she looked like an outcropping of stone on the cliff-face, motionless and hard. Her white neck and hands gleamed slightly violet in the moonlight, and a sheen of tears was visible on her cold-blushed cheeks. He walked silently toward her, melting into the shadows around him. About three meters away, Kurt's toe slipped on a bit of loose stone, sending the fine shower of pebbles clattering away into the sea.

Nat wiped her face hastily with the sleeve of her green sweater and blinked hard, trying to suck back the flow of tears, but didn't turn around. She wrapped her arms tightly around herself, rubbing her hands together. "How'd you know I'd be here?"

"I guessed." He came forward and sat cross-legged next to her, silent for a time with his face turned out to the shadowy ocean. It looked like a sea of mercury, black and shimmering slightly in the faint glow from the night sky. Thick gray clouds were building overhead, blotting out the moon and stars.

It didn't take long before Kurt's silence, his stillness and lack of action, began to rile Nat's blood. How dare he sit there looking at the water so peacefully, like nothing had happened!

She got to her feet, arms crossed to display her irritation and, perhaps, in a weak little show of defense. "Well?"

He didn't move, just blinked a few times before answering. "Vell was?"

"Aren't you going to yell at me for nearly torching you and your friends?"

"Nein, I vasn't planning on it."

She gaped and stared at him, stunned, one narrow brown eyebrow raised. "I…I…" Nat trailed off, tripping over her own words.

He was still for a moment longer, than stood, turned to her and gave a little smile. "I thought the room vas getting a little cold, didn't you?"

With an exasperated little sputter, she threw her hands into the air, the tears springing forth anew, streaming down her cheeks in little rivers. "You don't get it, do you? Even you don't get it!"

She turned and fled, leaving Kurt alone on the edge of the cliff. Stumbling a bit on rocks and clumps of moss as she ran with tears blurring her vision, racing along the stones and flinging pebbles down the cliff-face on the way.

"Warte, Nat!"

Kurt watched her run for a moment, her hair streaming out behind and her sweater billowing in a cool wind that picked up off the ocean. He started to follow, then thought better of it and vanished in a little puff of pink smoke, reappearing beside her and grabbing her arm. She wrenched it away with a desperate little sob and turned to him, green eyes wide and haunted.

"Stop, Nat! Vere are you going?"

He grasped her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake, feeling her body tremble with the intensity of her sobs. "I don't know, Kurt! I don't know anymore! I don't know where I'm going, or coming from, or anything! So just go away and leave me alone!"

Nat twisted herself out of his grip and continued to run, so he 'ported again, this time directly into her path, causing her to bounce off of his chest and spill onto the ground, surprised. Kurt reached down for her hand, but she glared at him and pushed him away, pulling herself to her feet and standing shakily. Her knee was bleeding slightly through a shredded hole in her skirt. The shock had stopped her tears, but replaced them with anger. She shivered in the dark, and her voice was low.

"Don't you even understand 'alone'?"

"Ja, of course I do. Do you?"

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"I just don't think you understand vat you might be throwing avay by not coming back vith me…I mean us."

"What, Kurt? What am I throwing away? The chance to make another damn screw-up and ruin my life again? If that's it, then thanks but no thanks. I think I'll have to turn you down."

"Ja, a chance, but not das!"

Her voice was high and loud by now, trying to shout over the growing winds. "A chance for what, then?"

"To learn to control vat you can do vith your fire! I've seen it now, and it's incredible. I've seen other mutants vith fire gifts, but yours are different, somehow. You could be so much to our team, but you aren't even thinking about it."
Nat scowled. "You don't know how much I have been thinking about it! Well, sorry, Kurt, but my life isn't dictated by what will be beneficial to your little 'team'."

"You don't think it vould help you, too? Vy vould I be telling you to come if I thought it vould not be a good thing?"

"I don't know, but the important thing is that neither do you! You think you're asking some helpless little freak to come home with you so you can give her a better life, but have no idea who you're asking!"

"Bitte, Nat, listen to me—"

"No! You listen to me! I don't give a damn what you've been told about me, or about yourself, or about that institute, but the universe doesn't care about a bunch of freaks who think they can save the world! Get it through your head: we aren't wanted." She jabbed his chest with her finger, but her voice dropped down again. "So if you think that you can make a difference by bitching and moaning until I decide to run off with you, go right ahead. But don't come crying to me when you're disappointed with the way things turn out and the world just kicks us out on our asses again. I'm not making the same mistake over and over."

She spun around and started walking back toward the building, gulping in great breaths of air and trying to stop the sob that waited in her throat. She barely heard Kurt over the wind when he spoke again, still standing, immobile, in the spot where she had shouted at him.
"Vat vas it?"

Nat paused and looked at him, suppressing a sniffle at the sight of his dark, narrow body, looking both defeated and strengthened at the same time. "What was what?"

"Vat mistake did you make that vas so bad?"

He saw her eyes cloud over with despair, quickly masked and pushed away. "Something I'm not going to do again."

"Did you trust somevun?"

Her chin quivered. "No. I don't think I've ever really done that."

Kurt watched her intently, and she could see a sad little flicker in his yellow eyes. "You can trust me."

A wind howled past, ruffling their hair and kicking up the sand a little. The moon was exposed as a cloud inched past its face, bathing the beach and the cliffs in a soft white light. Nat twisted her hands together, looking distressed.

"I know."

"Than vat vas it? Vat did you do, or see?"

She choked back the lump in her throat. "I…I let myself think with my heart instead of my head, and…people got hurt."

"Das is the vay of the world, nein?"

"Maybe. But if I can stop it, I really rather would."

"Are you sure?"

"I…think so."

He came forward slowly, putting an arm over her shoulder. "You know, your head and heart can think together, if you give them the chance."

"Why do you speak so much of chances? What about fate? Destiny?"

"Vat destiny? The vun you believe in? The vun vere you und I are only freaks, und nothing can be helped, und the vorld isn't vorth helping anymore?"

She lowered her eyes, staring over his shoulder at the sea beyond. "No….The destiny where…good things and bad things happen, sometimes. When they're supposed to. And nobody can really do anything to stop it, but that's okay because it's…fate."

"I don't know. Do you?"

Her voice was barely a whisper. "Yeah. I think I do."

"Then vat is so bad vith a little bit of heart in your thinking, if both the good and bad can come together?"

She dropped her head onto his shoulder. "Nothing. And everything. Have you ever hurt someone? Physically, I mean. Have you ever hurt someone really, really badly?"

He blinked, a little taken aback. "Ja, I guess I probably have."

"And do you know what its like to have something inside you that could, at any second, be ignited by your heart and rip out across the world? Something that could hurt someone, or kill them, if you don't keep it down?"

He was silent for a moment. "I think ve all have that thing, if you look deep enough down."

"But we don't all let it free the way I do."

"Nein, I suppose not. But das is not your fault. All of us have something ve can't help about ourselves, but it can't be helped or most of us vould probably change it."

"You're right. I know you are."

"Then vy not learn to control the fire, vithout having to press it down so hard?"

"At your institute, you mean."

He put his other arm around her, hugging her firmly against him. "Ja. Das's vat I mean."

She blinked back a tear and pressed her cheek against his shoulder, feeling the battling emotions raging inside her, forcing herself to answer before fear could overtake her again.

"I think…I think I'd like to try."