A/N: This chapter contains a fair bit of drama and angst and a healthy dose of a rather somber Kurt. Some may also consider it the point where the story begins getting a tab whimsical. Still, if you've come this far, read on and hopefully enjoy.
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Confrontations
With a snarl Logan jerked from his restless sleep to look quickly around himself.
He was alone in his bed in his room at the institute.
Rogue – Marie, he corrected as he had been given the privilege of knowing her identity – was no where to be seen.
But he'd heard her.
As clearly as if she'd whispered the words into his ear, he'd heard her.
"Logan Ah need you."
Furiously he rolled from the bed, unleashed his claws and went around the room destroying every piece of furniture in it except the large bed.
Panting from the outburst, he looked at the ruined antiques he'd told Chuck not to bother putting in his room and retracted his adamantium blades.
Growling softly in his throat he sank down on the corner of his mattress and dropped his dark head into his hands.
He wanted to tell himself he'd only been dreaming, but the Wolverine within him knew that somehow it's mate had called out to them for help.
And they were both powerless to provide that help yet.
~*~*~
From his perch atop the refrigerator Kurt's pale yellow eyes watched Logan stalk into the kitchen.
"You cannot zleep eizher?" the boy asked quietly in the darkness.
Lost in his thoughts the man had failed to detect anyone in the room he entered and so with a snarl he automatically unsheathed his claws and prepared to attack.
Knowing he was safe where he was, the Nightcrawler did not react to the show of aggression.
After a moment the Wolverine identified Kurt in the darkness, sheathed his claws and flicked on the kitchen light.
"Ya got a death wish now, bub?"
"Not quite. Contrary to vhat everyvone here thinks I still find life quite vorth living," the boy stated quietly.
Nodding distractedly, Logan opened the fridge and scrounged around until he found one of his beers hidden in the back of the vegetable crisper.
With an angry growl, he noted that it was the last one and wondered who'd dared get into his stash.
"How vas she vhen you saw her?"
The question startled the man more than Kurt's jumping down to stand in front of him. For a moment he simply stared at the elf with his brow arched in surprise.
"D'ya really care?"
"She is mein sizter. Nozhing zhat happens since zhe moment I accepted her as zhat vill ever stop her from being mein sizter," yellow eyes lifted to meet dark brown ones. "I care very much how she vas vhen you saw her."
"I don't really know what ta tell ya, Kurt," the man sighed and took a gulp of his beer. "She was sorry. Above all else, she was sorry she'd done it."
Having already guessed that much the boy smiled weakly and looked at the floor.
"Vhen are ve going to find her?"
"The Prof.'s put me on a pretty short leash in that department," Logan finished his beer and dropped the bottle into the trash. "Orders are to sit on our hands till the brainiacs think up some master plan."
"Vhenever you go, I go vith you."
"Ya sure you're up for it, kid?"
Kurt's yellow eyes again lifted to meet the older man's.
"Vhenever you go, I go vith you," he repeated before leaving the room quietly on his three toed feet.
Ducking quickly back into the shadows of the hallway, Amanda tried to hide so he would pass by without knowing she'd been eavesdropping.
With a flick of his tail, the Nightcrawler came to a stop no more than two feet in front of her.
"Vhy are you still here?"
His back remained to her and Amanda sighed at the coldness of the question.
"I can't leave. Mother and I - "
"Are mutants, just like me," he interrupted while looking over his shoulder at her. "Funny zhat I only learn zhat razher important fact today and not at any ozher point during all zhe months ve dated."
"I," she sighed and hesitantly approached him, "I don't blame you for being angry, Kurt. I should have told you. I just … I just never found the words."
"Vell now you can stop looking for zhem, Daytripper," he deliberately used the alias he had learned to be hers, "I know longer vant to hear anyzhing you might say."
Gasping with complete shock at the words she tried to grab his shoulder and turn him to say that to her face, but he teleported away and her hand fell uselessly though the sulfuric vapor left by his actions.
Moving that hand to her mouth to stifle the sob she felt ready to escape she fled up the stairs to the room she and her mother had been given for the night.
~*~*~
"I did not zhink sleep vould be too easy for you eizher tonight," Kurt said to announce his presence to the girl he'd just teleported behind.
Shrieking in fright, Wanda turned around and sent the boy slamming back into a tree in the yard she'd been pacing restlessly for the past hour.
"This is becoming a nasty habit, boy," she snarled as she approached him, hands blazing with blue energy. "I believe I'll break you of it once and for all."
"I did not mean to startle you, Vanda. I had every intention of knocking on zhe vindow to get your attention in a relatively normal fashion, but you vere alvready out here vhen I arrived."
"Why would you want my attention, X-Man?"
"I find I cannot be alone tonight. I am too hyper … too confused. You are zhe only vone who could possibly understand vhat I vreally feel," he straightened from the tree and approached her with a yellow glove encased hand. "And I zhink only I can understand you."
Again something in the creature's passionate yellow gaze spoke to and calmed Wanda, whose hands returned to normal and dropped down to her sides.
"Agatha told me what happened with Mystique. I'm sorry."
"Zhank you. I don't believe I've yet told you I am zorry about vhat happened to your fazher," Kurt smiled weakly at the girl. "I am sorry for your loss."
"There is no loss involved. He got what he deserved," Wanda said while turning to walk away from the elf.
"Zhe same can be said of mein mozher," her movements were stopped by his hand upon her shoulder, "but still somezhing inside me ist mourning vright now and I know it must be zhe same for you. Ve are alike in zhis, Vanda, ve do not have to lie to each ozher here."
Her first instinct was to say she wasn't lying, but that something inside her that he spoke of refused to let her. That tiny little something opened up and spread grief through her angry body, weakening the limbs that had been tensed with fury.
Amazingly a tear rolled from her blue eyes before she clenched then shut and tried to force these weak emotions back into their little hiding place.
"Let it out, Vanda. Ve only hurt ourselves by denying our pain and keeping it in."
Swiping away the moisture on her cheek, movement inside the house reminded her that the hoods she lived with would be pretty darn curious about her seeming to have a late night meeting with one of the X-Men.
Before she could say something along those lines, said X-Man gripped her hand and the world went black and blurry for a moment before steadying again around her.
Only now she was in a cemetery of all places.
"Zhis is a sacred place. I alvays find peace in zhese places," Kurt explained as he sat on a stone bench set before a grave with a large guardian angel statue above its tombstone.
"You're kinda creepy, ya know that?" Wanda said as she looked at him suspiciously and moved to put some distance between them.
"Its zhe zhree fingers. Zhey veird everyvone out at first," he joked as he turned on his image inducer.
"Now, it's the coming to my house at whatever hour of the night this is and bringing me to a graveyard."
"I see your point zhere, but let me show you vhy zhis is not a place to fear," he took her hand and pulled her around the grave until they stood next to the tombstone.
"Here lies Annabelle Morgan, beloved daughter. May Angels see her home." Wanda read the inscription aloud as that seemed to be what Kurt wanted.
When she looked at him puzzedly, he walked her over to another stone to read more touching words to and about the departed engraved upon the marble.
"Everyvone associates zhese places vith death, but zhey never think to connect zhe death back to life. Zhat ist vhy I come here. It ist vhere life and death, love and loss meet. Vhere ve, who go on living, say goodbye to those ve have lost and must let go of."
"I never thought of it that way," she whispered as she looked at an old photo of a husband and wife who laid side by side in the grave they currently stood by. "It still doesn't explain why you brought me here."
"Because ve could not talk at zhe Brozherhood House and I needed avay from zhe institute," his seemingly glowing eyes met hers in the night, "and ve both are living who must say goodbye to zhose ve have lost zhen let go of them."
Shaking her head at the effect that gaze continued to have on her she broke eye contact to wrap her arms around her waist and gaze briefly up at the sky.
"I can't believe he's really gone," Wanda sighed and found a bench to sit down on. "I wanted him dead or I thought I did and now he is and I … I don't know anything anymore."
"I know. Zhey have left us vith such questions zhat ve may now never know zhe answer to. Ve vere tied to zhem by blood, but zhat seemed to mean nozhing to zhem," he sat next to her. "As alvays, zhey have left us to suffer through zhere mess on our own."
"Not completely on our own, this time," the girl whispered with a sideways glance at the strange young man.
"No, not completely," he whispered back before they lapsed into an odd silence that was both awkward and comfortable at the same time.
Following her instincts, she cautiously gave in to the urge to rest her now weary head upon Kurt's shoulder.
"I still feel like he's alive," the Scarlet Witch said into the darkness a few minutes later.
"I know," the Nightcrawler took her hand in his again for a friendly squeeze, "part of me cannot accept zhat Mystique is gone."
But she is, he thought with resignation as he looked up at the stars.
~*~*~
Jumping up from the floor she'd been knocked to for what she silently vowed would be the last time, Rogue blocked the kick Mystique had aimed for her and shoved the other mutant away.
"Enough!" she screamed.
"You get a few bruises and think that's enough?!" the blue skinned woman demanded furiously. "I laid in tiny little pieces after having every inch of my body broken up upon crashing against the cliff you shoved me over!"
Unexpectedly her adoptive mother swept her legs out from under her and Marie again fell to the ground.
"It'll be enough when I say enough!"
"Or when I've had enough," Apocalypse said calmly as he floated into the room the women occupied. "You have had some measure of justice, Mystique, but you are done now."
Forgetting for a moment how powerful a foe she faced, the shapeshifter turned on the man disrupting this fight and lashed out at him with a tightly clenched fist.
He slowly raised his left hand and with a mere flick of the wrist sent the woman flying back against a wall with enough force to dislodge some of the stones.
"What have you brought me here for?" she demanded after regaining the breath his actions had knocked out of her.
"Only what I have done. To restore your life for freeing me. You are now free to go."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"It matters very little what you believe. My debt to you has been repaid," he moved to help Marie to her feet while still talking to the older woman. "Mesmero will lead you out."
Mystique's yellow eyes flew to the entrance where the cloaked figure of Apocalypse's henchman stood.
The man turned to the side and waved his arm to indicate that she was to pass by him through the doorway, but she ignored him to turn her attention to Rogue who was determinedly rising to her feet with no help from the ancient mutant who offered it.
"What are you going to do with her?" she demanded as her fury was forgotten and her maternal instincts kicked in.
"That is none of your concern," Apocalypse stated.
"But it is mahne and Ah'd lahke ta know what yer plannin' mahself," Rogue said with a groan as she rubbed her aching ribs.
"You have nothing to fear from me. I have no evil plots that involve bringing harm to you," he informed the girl.
"Do you expect us to believe that after being entrapped for all these centuries you've no plans for vengeance?"
Apocalypse's dark eyes turned angrily toward Mystique for daring ask such a question, but still feeling some lingering debt to her for her willing assistance in freeing him, he answered.
"I care not what you believe, Mystique. Know only that my plans for the world will not impact Rogue."
"If yer gonna hurt mah friends yer gonna be hurtin' me," the girl spoke up.
"They will only be harmed if they are foolish enough to try stopping me. Every effort will be made to spare you harm, Rogue," the man assured her. "When this world is as it should be for us, you will be my queen."
Over En Sabah Nuhr's shoulder stunned green eyes meet equally disbelieving yellow ones as those words sank in.
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A/N: I'll be the first to admit that this chapter was a bit weird. Kurt rejecting Amanda in favor of Wanda? And finding comfort in a cemetery? I honestly could not tell ya where that all came from, but …. Somehow, I think it fits. At least it does with my still to be revealed plans for this the future in this series. *Muahahahaha*
Could Kurt actually end up with Wanda who'd shown the Nightcrawler some rather uncharacteristic kindness in Impact? What about the chemistry I created previously between her and St. John? What madness is brewing in my mind?
All very good and valid questions to which I've not yet written the answers so it's really anyone's guess yet. :-P
This is one of the first situations where readers & reviewers can have their say in the direction of the story. Which pairing do you prefer?
The next chapter will focus mostly on Rogue/Marie dealing with that last revelation from the big bad. Hopefully I'll have it whipped into shape shortly. Feedback, criticisms and suggestions always welcome!
Peace out. :-P