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Chapter Twenty-Six: Dialectic Reasoning
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Shivering slightly, Nat pulled her nightshirt over her head and stuffed her legs into a pair of blue cotton pajama bottoms. She wiggled her toes inside her thick woolen socks, burying them quickly beneath the quilts to hide them from the cold, and drew a blanket around her body. Crickets chirped outside the tent, playing a peaceful lullaby that left her sleepy.
For some reason, she was thinking about her father. Nat remembered him rather well, although it seemed that each passing year made the photograph in her head grow dimmer, the edges becoming more dog-eared and frayed. One of the last times she had seen him was at her tenth birthday party, and she remembered the colors of the wrapping paper better than the color of his hair. It may have been graying at the time, or it may have still been dark. It was several months after her powers had first begun to assert themselves. She was younger than most were when this happened, and more frightened. Before most girls even had their first training bra, she was learning how to hide her powers, how to pretend she wasn't what she was. She remembered that he wore a worn plaid shirt, as if he'd been working outside, and he smelled like warm tobacco. It was a smell she used to hate, one that had grown on her like moss, slowly and without her even noticing.
Inside the packages, she got most of what she had asked for. Hardcover copies of her three favorite books from her grandparents, a porcelain doll in violet lace from her aunt, a pogo stick from her cousins and a plastic charm bracelet from her friend Neah. She wore that bracelet for the next five years, long after she and Neah had lost touch and the artificial gems had started to fall off, until the tiny hook broke and it disappeared into a sewer drain.
She opened the package from her father last. It was small, flat, and quite heavy, like another book. It was wrapped in metallic paper, decked with a tassel of blue and green ribbon that had been curled on the blade of a scissor. When she opened it, she found a picture frame, made of some dark, shiny wood, reddish and gleaming. Behind the glass sat a handsome young couple, a dark-haired man and a woman with wide green eyes like Nat's own. The woman wore a yellow dress and a circlet of withered daisies in her hair, and the man's hand rested lightly on her slender shoulder. Between them sat a small, pudgy figure that looked a lot like them, only smaller and rounder, with their features combined almost exactly. It was Nat as a baby, she had realized with a startled jolt, and a little sniffle. So it was her mother that wore the daisies in her hair.
Back in reality and modern time, her head hurt. Whether it was from the cold or her own thoughts, she didn't know. All day, she'd been fighting the urge to disappear into her tent and sleep the rest of the weekend away, out of the suspicious sights of Logan and Jean, away from their guarded, troubled expressions. They worried about her, and about what was going on within her. Worry leads to inspection, and inspection, more often than not, leads to knowledge. And knowledge of her past could be the last thing about her that they'd ever want to know. What she couldn't seem to remember was that, quite often, knowledge can also lead to understanding if it is given the proper guidance and time for growth.
She didn't know where she stood with those two, although she supposed that they were only concerned about her, and she felt reasonably comfortable with the rest. This left the problem of Kurt: part of her wanted him there alongside her, warm and gently loving, but the rest of her was ashamed by his forgiveness, his unwarranted trust, and wanted to distance herself from him in a sort of self-punishment.
Her lips burned, the taste of her own skin not quite letting go of the trace of that kiss.
Why had she kissed Pietro?
It was easy enough to pass it off as pure physical attraction, an idea that both comforted her in its simplicity and disgusted her with its shallowness. She wasn't the kind of person to kiss someone, especially not someone like Pietro, just because she thought that he was good-looking. The other alternative was that she was actually interested in him, and this idea was more fantasy than reality, she knew and hoped. In between the two realms was the one in which she feared Pietro, distrusted him, but was absorbed by his words, and the ideas that he presented. He was a rebel to the rest of the world, relishing an ideology that demonized the normal human majority in an attempt to make sense of their cruel treatment of mutants.
It was an ideology that made sense, more and more, when Nat gave it closer thought.
Nat didn't care about Pietro Maximoff, at least not in the way that she cared about Kurt, who she not only cared for but trusted deeply as a friend as well. This was clear, and was perhaps the only thing that was clear anymore. She loved Kurt, quite likely more than anyone she had ever known. She didn't love Pietro, only the suggestion of Pietro. He made sense out of the violence directed at Kurt, at herself, and at every other person on the planet that had been born different. Outwardly, the young mutant seemed to understand the minds of men like the F.O.H. better than Xavier did. He claimed to know, as Nat had long suspected, that these people were the ones with the sickness, the disease. It wasn't them, the mutants, as people thought. Pietro was the embodiment of her anger, her sick desire for vengeance on the world. He was her dark side.
Kurt, on the other hand, was her angel. He was beautiful and sweet, and her heart swelled with pride at the notion that he had chosen her. He showed her more patience, more understanding, than any other being she had ever met, and took her faults and foibles and loved her for them, so she could do nothing else but love him in return. This was why she had a dark side: if she didn't, then she would have to accept, have to acknowledge, that her angel had been hurt. She would have to allow the world to abuse him, and protect the world in return. This, her dark side would not permit, or at least didn't want to.
Is this what being an X-Man was? Letting yourself and those you love fall under the dull blade of hatred, again and again, and doing nothing to slow the executioner's swinging axe except to ask it nicely to stop? Was it walking away from an unconscious F.O.H. member on the sidewalk so he could remember the evening that he lynched another mutant? Was it sitting passively, waiting for acceptance, when children with a quirk in their genome were crying themselves to sleep and slitting their wrists? Of course not, of course not, of course not, she whispered in her mind. It's more than that. Or maybe less. No. Definitely more.
Without the darkness there can be no light, and without the light, no darkness. One is wholly dependant upon the other for its very subsistence. Pure, clean, dialectic reasoning. It is thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The reason for Satan in all its forms, the reason for God in all of His. Everything cannot exist on a plane, that smooth, flat, emotionless surface of the middle ground, of the gray, the lackluster, the tepid.
There must be the darkness.
There must be the light.
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Through the zippered flap of the tent that he was sharing with Evan, Kurt could see Nat readying herself for bed a few meters away. She sat on her sleeping bag in her own tent, unaware that he was watching, brushing her hair in slow, deliberate strokes, her face screwed up slightly in contemplation. Beside her, Kitty's empty sleeping bag indicated that the younger girl was still out by the campfire with Rogue, Jean and Scott. Logan had long since disappeared into the forest again, either to retire to his own tent not far away or, as Kurt suspected, wandering in the dark for the sheer pleasure of it. Yellow eyes glowing, he stared, drinking in the sight of Natalie. Her arms were bare to just above the elbow, goose pimpled in the cool night air, and her thick plait of hair was twined into a dark, glossy rope that fell down the center of her back.
He pulled a sweater around his shoulders, and slipped into the night, careful not to disturb Evan, who fast asleep next to him, cocoon-like among his various coverings. He walked slowly, quietly, until he was just outside Nat's tent, and stuck his head inside. He waited a moment, savoring the sight of her profile.
"Nat?"
With a little yelp, she whirled around and flung her hairbrush in his general direction. It whizzed past his head, and he grinned at her as she started to blush. She laughed, and smiled warmly, awkwardly as Kurt dropped to the ground with the blankets pooled at his knees, hugging her around the waist.
Delighted, somewhat distant, she whispered, "What are you doing here so late?"
"Visiting you." He kissed her just below her lips, on the chin, and she pressed back affectionately, giggling softly. Her body molded against him, comforting and familiar now in the chilly dark of the mountain air.
"Good answer."
"Vy are you still avake? I thought you said you vere tired."
"I am." She yawned widely, as if to prove her point, and smiled. "Just…thinking."
Kurt flopped down next to her, pulling one of the quilts over himself and propping his head up on his hand. He drew her in close to him beneath the covers, so her back was against his chest, and his breath played with the curl beside her ear. She sighed and nuzzled closer, her eyes drifting shut. "Was?"
She twined her fingers through his. "Not much…my family."
"Anything in particular?"
"Yeah. My dad. When I was ten, he gave me a picture in a frame, of me and my parents when I was only a few months old. It was the only picture I ever had of my mum." He leaned his cheek against the top of her head, almost cradling her. She swallowed hard. "Do you ever miss your parents? Not Ms. Darkholme, but your adopted parents?"
There was a long silence. "All the time. I write to them sometimes, but mostly I just…don't know vat to say to them."
Nat's brow furrowed, and she pulled away a bit, watching his face closely. "Why? I thought you got along with them."
He shrugged. "I do. They vere good parents to me, despite the secrets they kept. But sometimes…I don't know, it's like they live in a different vorld now. Not just a different country, that vould be easy to deal vith. Ever since I got here, I've seen in a whole new light the vay that people see us; mutants, I mean. My parents…sometimes, I think they don't even know that I'm different."
Her eyes slipped shut again, her head pillowed against his chest. "What's so bad about that? I'd give anything to have a family that didn't care about me being a mutant."
Against her, Kurt seemed to squirm, as if she'd touched on a raw nerve. "Most people vould feel like that, I think." His voice was soft. "They know I'm not normal. They'd have to be blind and stupid not to know. It's just…vell, they tried so hard to make me grow up like other kids. Ve did all the normal things that families do, only I could never see other children, outside of a select few, or go to the normal schools. I think they forgot that pretending that something doesn't exist doesn't make it easier to understand, or to deal vith ven the time comes."
What is this, Ironic-Comments-to-Make-Natalie-Uncomfortable Day? Nat thought. She felt a lump forming in the back of her throat, and her voice quavered slightly. "I know how that goes."
He paused. "Does it bother you to talk about this?"
"I…I don't think so. I'm just sort of sad, thinking back on things. I guess I'm feeling kind of emotional. Maybe I'm hormonal or something, I don't know." She shrugged, blushed apologetically, and he wrapped her in a firm hug.
Kurt's eyes sparkled. "Now that's not the kind of thing you're supposed to tell a guy. I might get scared and run avay."
She laughed quietly, trying not to sniffle. Her eyes felt itchy. "Yeah, like you'd ever run away from me."
"Ach, you're right! Nie, nie. I vould never run from you." He leaned downward, catching her lips in a kiss. His hands roved gently over her back, against the tensed muscles there, easing her, coaxing her. His tongue was soft, his hands almost imperceptible, until the kisses became more urgent, his mouth grinding into hers. She felt him pushing closer, so their bodies touched beneath the covers, and she shivered. She kissed back, pressing him on, her hands suddenly under his shirt, not knowing how they got there. Now, as his lips touched hers, she began to tremble, remembering her earlier indiscretion with Pietro, how she had responded to him. Did she have any right to react the same way to Kurt, even if, in her heart, only this kiss meant something real, something substantially good?
He broke off suddenly, panting. His eyes were wide, bright with surprise, and something else. His voice came out in a husky jumble of sounds, words she couldn't make out. Something in German, including the word for "crazy", and her own name. "Ich bin verrückt nach dir, Natalie..."
It had begun so sweetly, so wonderfully. Too fast, she thought, but that vicious, tearing voice returned with more fodder than ever to be used against her. No. That's not it at all. He knows. He felt something strange when he kissed you, something different, and now he knows all about what you did, you little slut, you lying whore.
Nat's body began to quake, to wrench with a force from deep inside, making her feel as if she were crinkling, melting into the blankets. Kurt pulled away, taken aback, and watched her, stunned and slightly afraid. Her skin was white, even in the almost blackness of the tent, contrasting against her dark hair and making her look as if she'd been cut from paper. She seemed to radiate, to effervesce and dissipate.
"Natalie! Was? Was ist das? Are you alright?"
Her hand went out, braced against his chest, and she stood, stumbling out of the tent into the dark night. Her head seemed to be spinning, so she picked a direction that looked vaguely familiar, and took it, lurching into the darkness. Brambles snagged in her socks and cut her feet, but she paid no attention. It was like that night on the cliffs at Muir Island, a blind, reeling stagger into nowhere, with Kurt at her heels.
Would he save her this time? Would he stop her before she went tumbling over the edge? She wanted him to, and prayed that he would, but felt that she didn't deserve it. From behind her, she thought that perhaps her wish was coming true, and she heard him calling her name. He could see in the dark better than she could, but the forest at night is a bewildering, disorienting place, and he couldn't 'port to her if he didn't know exactly where she was.
When it felt as if she'd been walking for hours, but really only a minute or two, she burst into an expansive space, and was momentarily stunned by the brightness of two moons. The lake reflected a second, a glowing white sister to the twin in the sky. She kept walking, out onto the edge of the swaying dock, and sat down, letting her socks dip into the muddy chill of the water.
Now that she was in the open, Kurt could see her, and as soon as he reached the forest's edge and caught sight of her, he 'ported to a spot about two meters behind her on the dock. She smelled the sulfuric smoke of his arrival, but didn't turn around. He came forward slowly, sitting down beside her. He let his own bare feet slide into the frigid water, barely wincing.
"I'm so sorry, Natalie," he whispered. "I vasn't going to force myself on you, I promise."
She didn't answer for a long, eternal moment. "I was afraid you wouldn't want to follow me." Her voice was hushed.
He blinked, and almost laughed. "Warem? Vat makes you think I vouldn't?"
A long pause. "Aren't you mad at me?"
"For was? For acting like I tried to feed you to vun of those mountain lions I varned you about?" Kurt chuckled. "Really I should thank you for reacting that vay. Ve probably shouldn't have been doing that." He smiled, eyes glinting. "Not in the tent you share vith Kitty, at least."
"I'm…oh, God, I'm so sorry."
"I don't understand, Nat." His tone was gentle, cajoling.
Nat's mind spun. Of course he didn't understand. He couldn't possibly know. Her stomach felt like ice. She shrugged. "I'm just sorry. Can you accept that, and pretend that it makes sense, even if it really doesn't?"
"Ja, I…I think I can handle that."
Tears began to pool in her eyes, guilty, tired tears, but tears also of relief. She hadn't confessed, but she had apologized, and taken the first step to honesty: admitting she was wrong. He put his arm over her shoulder, and she realized that she was shivering.
"Kurt?"
"Hmm?" His voice was quiet, his cheek warm against her hair.
"Ich…bin verrückt…nach dir, Kurt," she whispered hesitantly, the unfamiliar words feeling thick on her tongue.
He smiled widely, his golden eyes gleaming in the darkness. "Ja, Nat. I'm crazy for you too."
It was just as she thought.
She had found her light.