Disclaimer: Thanks for the reviews, guys. I appreciate it. But, let me tell
you: I won't let this story go the way of "Lost Souls." I already have it
all planned out, and it won't get all mixed up in the middle, and me having
to end it short. Anyways, read on!!!
* * * * *
"Okay, good, Kitty." Doctor Hank McCoy said as he used his stethoscope to see Kitty's breathing. "Breathe in, breathe out. Now, can you cough for me? Good girl."
Kitty looked up at Hank, resentful that he was treating her like a child. She was far from it.
She sat on the examining table, half naked, and feeling extremely vulnerable and jumpy.
Hank noticed, and wasn't only a little bit hurt.
// I would never do anything to hurt you Kitty. I hope you know that. // Hank thought to himself. He understood that she must have gone through some sort of trauma, to cause this much damage to her psyche. He only wished she would confide in him, or any of them.
Hank suddenly scolded himself. Kitty had arrived not an hour ago, and already he was hoping for progress. He inwardly kicked himself.
"Kitty, you breathing seems a bit unusually. It's raspy, and quite uneven. I don't like it. This concerns me." He said, removing the instrument.
Kitty looked at him without a mark of emotion on her face, and it broke his heart. What had happened to this poor, poor child? She seemed to have lost her will to live. She didn't even care!
He sighed, and went over to the large metallic desk that held the clipboard with his notes on it. He scrawled some notes down, and re-checked the previous results. He didn't like them at all. He looked from the blood tests to her height and weight, to her reflexes. Everything that made a being healthy, he looked over. He didn't like what he saw.
With sickening suspicion, he turned to Kitty.
"I think I know what they did to you, my dear." He said sadly, his head hung low.
* * * * *
Kurt wandered down the hall. The professor had announced a team meeting ten minutes before, and he was going to be late. He teleported from the room in a puff of maroon smoke and the scent of brimstone, hanging in the air.
Once in the office, the professor gestured for him to sit down. Everyone else was already there.
The furniture was positioned in a sort of semi- circle around the professor's chair, and the currently empty chair next to him. Everyone was here... everyone, except for Kitty.
Just then, she walked in, and quietly closed the door behind her. Kurt noticed that she hadn't used her phasing power to enter, but didn't mention anything.
Xavier motioned for her to sit in the empty chair next to him, and he cleared his throat.
"X-Men," He started, his somber voice sending chills to all. This was serious. "As you all know, a mission was assigned last night to rescue Shadowcat from a mutant testing facility. We don't know much about it." He smiled reassuringly to Kitty.
"However, after Kitty's check-up, we have made a startling and horrifying discovery."
At this, Wolverine piped up. "What's wrong with Kit-Kat???" He asked desperately.
Charles quieted him with one look, and continued. "Kitty?" He asked.
Kurt's heart dropped at the mention of Kitty's physical. Something definitely was not right.
Kitty hung her head in what seemed like shame. With a deep breath, she started in a hoarse voice.
"I was there for *cough* a long time." She started slowly, as if speaking was difficult for her.
"What they did there, I can't even *cough* speak of." Kitty shuddered.
They all expected for her to break down, to cry, and to show any emotion at all. They wanted her to. They wanted for her to sob into eternity for the cruel things that had happened to her. They wanted to comfort her, like a family should. They wanted a sign. One sign, to show she was still human. One sign, to show she still had spirit left. They wanted Kitty.
But she didn't break down. She didn't cry into eternity, and she didn't show any emotion.
"They tested my immune system. They wanted to know if mutants were born with a stronger immune system than humans. They wanted to benefit from it." Kitty said quietly.
"But they were wrong. I don't have an advanced immune system." Kitty said.
She seemed unable to talk anymore, as she was thrown into another fit of coughing.
Hank and Charles looked on sadly as Kitty fought off the coughs. When she was done, she wiped her mouth. The X-Men were horrified to see a long smear of blood around her mouth, and now staining her sleeves.
That was all it took. They knew.
Logan, once more, was the first to break the silence. "Isn't there anything you can do? With all of our technology, there must be something!"
Hank shook his head. "No," he said sadly. "There's nothing. We've caught it too late in the stages. There were just so many diseases, so many horrible things that they-." He stopped, and looked at Kitty shamefully.
"I'm so sorry, Kitten."
She acknowledged his sincerity, and gave a weak smile. "It's alright. There's nothing you can do. I understand that."
Kurt shook his head. This couldn't be happening! They had finally, after so long, brought Kitty home, and now she was going to be torn away form them again?
He stood up, tears streaming down his face, hands balled into fists. "You aren't even going to TRY????" He asked loudly. "YOU'RE JUST GOING TO STAND THERE, AND LET HER DIE???" He screamed.
The word "die," seemed to echo through the room for a still moment. Everyone had their heads hung low.
Kurt let out an animalistic howl of anguish, and teleported away.
The room was left in silence. Everyone hung their heads somberly, afraid to move, to speak.
Kitty softly got up, and padded from the room.
* * * * *
The mansion was quiet for days afterward. The atmosphere was somber and awkward. Classes went by slowly, and the halls were silent.
Kitty spent her last days on the Earth in her room. She had few visitors, mostly the original X-Men. Kurt and Logan would visit her often. Soon, she couldn't handle more than one person at a time, and not for very long.
Late at night, a light would shine from underneath her bedroom door. If you were to enter, you'd find her up, sitting in her bed, a laptop balanced on the min desk that had been arranged for her. No one knew what she was typing, but they knew not to pry.
With each passing day, Kitty grew weaker and sicker. She lost weight at an exponential rate, and her face became pale and gaunt.
After two weeks, Kitty no longer became able to move from her bed. She had no energy to be carried to the bathroom, so she used a bed-pan.
A week after that, she completely deteriorated. Barely capable of coherent speech, she was no longer able to type. She didn't seem too upset, though. She seemed to have finished her project.
Finally, a few days before the end, she only was allowed one visitor per day. Xavier began coming a few times, and once a lawyer came.
* * * * *
Kurt took a deep breath, preparing himself to enter the morbid room.
Today was the day. They had allowed as many visitors as they wanted, but only one visit per customer. They all knew why.
Kurt smoothed out the wrinkles in the somber tuxedo the professor had had made, especially for him.
He knocked on the door to Kitty's room, and heard a low, coarse, "Come in." as a reply.
He entered the room, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness.
Kitty had never looked worse.
Her short hair was tangled, greasy, and limp.
Her once vibrant eyes were now dull, and broken.
Her skin was pale, gaunt. It was an ugly grayish tone, which seemed to stretch to its full extent across her high cheekbones.
She looked up and her face glistened with the clammy sweat it had acquired from her recent and cruel illnesses.
"Kurt," she croaked. "I was wondering when you'd visit."
"Yes, Kitty. I finally came." He gave a weak smile. It was a knife through his heart to see her like this.
"I-." Kurt began.
"No." Kitty interrupted. "Please, *cough* no speaking. Just. Stay here, please."
She closed her eyes. "You'll know soon enough. Please. *cough* Just stay with me for a while."
Kurt nodded solemnly and sat there, his fuzzy hand holding her ill and sickly one tightly.
The room became silent, sans the bleeping sound of the heart monitor. Kurt watched its peaks rise and fall.
Kurt calmed down, and understood what Kitty wanted. He understood what was happening, and respected her wishes. Kitty didn't want to die alone.
"It's almost time," she whispered, her eyes closed.
"I know," Kurt replied, just as quietly.
"I love you, Kurt." Kitty said. Was that a tear streaking down her cheek?
"Oh, Kitty." He croaked, frightened. "I love you, too."
"You were the best friend a gal could have. *cough* I couldn't have ordered a better one."
Kurt tried to smile, but only cried harder.
"Kurt. Take care of them. Especially Logan." Kitty said quietly, tears now streaming down her face.
It was just quiet for the rest of the time.
Kitty's breathing changed.
Sometimes she wouldn't take a breath for ten or twenty seconds, and her eyes became glassy.
Kurt watched her chest gently move up and down.
And then... Kurt didn't know how to describe it, but a change came over her. It was as if he could see the fight leave her.
She began to look peaceful. More and more peaceful.
Her chest barely moved.
Then it was still. For a long, long time.
Kurt started to cry, and barely noticed when the professor and Hank rushed in. He heard in the background, the harsh whine of the heart monitor. There were no more peaks.
"She's gone."
* * * * *
The sun slowly crept above the horizon, casting a beautiful glow on Kurt's ceiling, from black to purple to red to orange to yellow. Kurt watched this extravaganza from his bed.
He grumbled and turned over onto his side, forcing his eyes shut. He didn't want to wake up. He didn't want to go downstairs, to see the sympathetic faces.
He sighed. But he had to go. He pulled himself out of bed and changed into the outfit Jean had set out for him the night before.
He brushed out the kinks in his fur and went downstairs, sneaked past the kitchen, and went for a stroll in the garden. He didn't know how long he was out there, until Rogue came up behind him and put her hand gently on his shoulder.
"Come on. It's time."
* * * * *
Kurt held onto his sister's gloved hands during the entire service. It was quite beautiful. A Rabbi came to perform the service. Kitty's parents would have been proud, had they not been killed in the Genosha massacre a few months back.
The white casket gleamed neatly in the sun. She had died too young, and it stung at the hearts of many attending.
There weren't many guests. Only the current X-Men and the manor were there to pay their respects.
The scent of lilac filled the air, and Kurt inhaled deeply. He missed Kitty so much.
* * * * *
Kurt was quietly talking to Jean after the service, complementing her on how beautiful it was. "You did a wonderful job, Jean." He offered.
"It was the least I could do," she said softly. "I had to do something."
"I understand." Kurt nodded. Suddenly, he received a mental beckoning from the professor.
"I'd better go," he said to Jean, who nodded.
He headed back to the professor's office, where he recognized the lawyer from a few days earlier.
"Kurt," the man said, turning to him. "I'm Isaac Goldstein, Attorney at Law. Professor Xavier called me a few weeks ago for the case of your friend, Katherine Pryde. I'm so sorry for your loss. But, there was something she wanted you to see after her passing."
Kurt looked on in curiosity as the lawyer shuffled through his papers and pulled out an extremely thick packet of typed papers.
"She wrote it. It was her wish that after reading it, you decided whether it should be published or not."
Kurt accepted the offered packet and looked at the title.
"My Folly: The Story of a Mutant."
* * * * *
Disclaimer: Whoo. I'm sorry, but it took me time to write this. I began crying. It was extremely difficult for me to kill off my favorite character. But it had to be done. I'm not going to bring her back; she's dead, gone, finito. I hope you're pleased with the length; I worked hard on this chapter. Review!
Next Time: Judging a book by its cover.
* * * * *
"Okay, good, Kitty." Doctor Hank McCoy said as he used his stethoscope to see Kitty's breathing. "Breathe in, breathe out. Now, can you cough for me? Good girl."
Kitty looked up at Hank, resentful that he was treating her like a child. She was far from it.
She sat on the examining table, half naked, and feeling extremely vulnerable and jumpy.
Hank noticed, and wasn't only a little bit hurt.
// I would never do anything to hurt you Kitty. I hope you know that. // Hank thought to himself. He understood that she must have gone through some sort of trauma, to cause this much damage to her psyche. He only wished she would confide in him, or any of them.
Hank suddenly scolded himself. Kitty had arrived not an hour ago, and already he was hoping for progress. He inwardly kicked himself.
"Kitty, you breathing seems a bit unusually. It's raspy, and quite uneven. I don't like it. This concerns me." He said, removing the instrument.
Kitty looked at him without a mark of emotion on her face, and it broke his heart. What had happened to this poor, poor child? She seemed to have lost her will to live. She didn't even care!
He sighed, and went over to the large metallic desk that held the clipboard with his notes on it. He scrawled some notes down, and re-checked the previous results. He didn't like them at all. He looked from the blood tests to her height and weight, to her reflexes. Everything that made a being healthy, he looked over. He didn't like what he saw.
With sickening suspicion, he turned to Kitty.
"I think I know what they did to you, my dear." He said sadly, his head hung low.
* * * * *
Kurt wandered down the hall. The professor had announced a team meeting ten minutes before, and he was going to be late. He teleported from the room in a puff of maroon smoke and the scent of brimstone, hanging in the air.
Once in the office, the professor gestured for him to sit down. Everyone else was already there.
The furniture was positioned in a sort of semi- circle around the professor's chair, and the currently empty chair next to him. Everyone was here... everyone, except for Kitty.
Just then, she walked in, and quietly closed the door behind her. Kurt noticed that she hadn't used her phasing power to enter, but didn't mention anything.
Xavier motioned for her to sit in the empty chair next to him, and he cleared his throat.
"X-Men," He started, his somber voice sending chills to all. This was serious. "As you all know, a mission was assigned last night to rescue Shadowcat from a mutant testing facility. We don't know much about it." He smiled reassuringly to Kitty.
"However, after Kitty's check-up, we have made a startling and horrifying discovery."
At this, Wolverine piped up. "What's wrong with Kit-Kat???" He asked desperately.
Charles quieted him with one look, and continued. "Kitty?" He asked.
Kurt's heart dropped at the mention of Kitty's physical. Something definitely was not right.
Kitty hung her head in what seemed like shame. With a deep breath, she started in a hoarse voice.
"I was there for *cough* a long time." She started slowly, as if speaking was difficult for her.
"What they did there, I can't even *cough* speak of." Kitty shuddered.
They all expected for her to break down, to cry, and to show any emotion at all. They wanted her to. They wanted for her to sob into eternity for the cruel things that had happened to her. They wanted to comfort her, like a family should. They wanted a sign. One sign, to show she was still human. One sign, to show she still had spirit left. They wanted Kitty.
But she didn't break down. She didn't cry into eternity, and she didn't show any emotion.
"They tested my immune system. They wanted to know if mutants were born with a stronger immune system than humans. They wanted to benefit from it." Kitty said quietly.
"But they were wrong. I don't have an advanced immune system." Kitty said.
She seemed unable to talk anymore, as she was thrown into another fit of coughing.
Hank and Charles looked on sadly as Kitty fought off the coughs. When she was done, she wiped her mouth. The X-Men were horrified to see a long smear of blood around her mouth, and now staining her sleeves.
That was all it took. They knew.
Logan, once more, was the first to break the silence. "Isn't there anything you can do? With all of our technology, there must be something!"
Hank shook his head. "No," he said sadly. "There's nothing. We've caught it too late in the stages. There were just so many diseases, so many horrible things that they-." He stopped, and looked at Kitty shamefully.
"I'm so sorry, Kitten."
She acknowledged his sincerity, and gave a weak smile. "It's alright. There's nothing you can do. I understand that."
Kurt shook his head. This couldn't be happening! They had finally, after so long, brought Kitty home, and now she was going to be torn away form them again?
He stood up, tears streaming down his face, hands balled into fists. "You aren't even going to TRY????" He asked loudly. "YOU'RE JUST GOING TO STAND THERE, AND LET HER DIE???" He screamed.
The word "die," seemed to echo through the room for a still moment. Everyone had their heads hung low.
Kurt let out an animalistic howl of anguish, and teleported away.
The room was left in silence. Everyone hung their heads somberly, afraid to move, to speak.
Kitty softly got up, and padded from the room.
* * * * *
The mansion was quiet for days afterward. The atmosphere was somber and awkward. Classes went by slowly, and the halls were silent.
Kitty spent her last days on the Earth in her room. She had few visitors, mostly the original X-Men. Kurt and Logan would visit her often. Soon, she couldn't handle more than one person at a time, and not for very long.
Late at night, a light would shine from underneath her bedroom door. If you were to enter, you'd find her up, sitting in her bed, a laptop balanced on the min desk that had been arranged for her. No one knew what she was typing, but they knew not to pry.
With each passing day, Kitty grew weaker and sicker. She lost weight at an exponential rate, and her face became pale and gaunt.
After two weeks, Kitty no longer became able to move from her bed. She had no energy to be carried to the bathroom, so she used a bed-pan.
A week after that, she completely deteriorated. Barely capable of coherent speech, she was no longer able to type. She didn't seem too upset, though. She seemed to have finished her project.
Finally, a few days before the end, she only was allowed one visitor per day. Xavier began coming a few times, and once a lawyer came.
* * * * *
Kurt took a deep breath, preparing himself to enter the morbid room.
Today was the day. They had allowed as many visitors as they wanted, but only one visit per customer. They all knew why.
Kurt smoothed out the wrinkles in the somber tuxedo the professor had had made, especially for him.
He knocked on the door to Kitty's room, and heard a low, coarse, "Come in." as a reply.
He entered the room, and it took his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness.
Kitty had never looked worse.
Her short hair was tangled, greasy, and limp.
Her once vibrant eyes were now dull, and broken.
Her skin was pale, gaunt. It was an ugly grayish tone, which seemed to stretch to its full extent across her high cheekbones.
She looked up and her face glistened with the clammy sweat it had acquired from her recent and cruel illnesses.
"Kurt," she croaked. "I was wondering when you'd visit."
"Yes, Kitty. I finally came." He gave a weak smile. It was a knife through his heart to see her like this.
"I-." Kurt began.
"No." Kitty interrupted. "Please, *cough* no speaking. Just. Stay here, please."
She closed her eyes. "You'll know soon enough. Please. *cough* Just stay with me for a while."
Kurt nodded solemnly and sat there, his fuzzy hand holding her ill and sickly one tightly.
The room became silent, sans the bleeping sound of the heart monitor. Kurt watched its peaks rise and fall.
Kurt calmed down, and understood what Kitty wanted. He understood what was happening, and respected her wishes. Kitty didn't want to die alone.
"It's almost time," she whispered, her eyes closed.
"I know," Kurt replied, just as quietly.
"I love you, Kurt." Kitty said. Was that a tear streaking down her cheek?
"Oh, Kitty." He croaked, frightened. "I love you, too."
"You were the best friend a gal could have. *cough* I couldn't have ordered a better one."
Kurt tried to smile, but only cried harder.
"Kurt. Take care of them. Especially Logan." Kitty said quietly, tears now streaming down her face.
It was just quiet for the rest of the time.
Kitty's breathing changed.
Sometimes she wouldn't take a breath for ten or twenty seconds, and her eyes became glassy.
Kurt watched her chest gently move up and down.
And then... Kurt didn't know how to describe it, but a change came over her. It was as if he could see the fight leave her.
She began to look peaceful. More and more peaceful.
Her chest barely moved.
Then it was still. For a long, long time.
Kurt started to cry, and barely noticed when the professor and Hank rushed in. He heard in the background, the harsh whine of the heart monitor. There were no more peaks.
"She's gone."
* * * * *
The sun slowly crept above the horizon, casting a beautiful glow on Kurt's ceiling, from black to purple to red to orange to yellow. Kurt watched this extravaganza from his bed.
He grumbled and turned over onto his side, forcing his eyes shut. He didn't want to wake up. He didn't want to go downstairs, to see the sympathetic faces.
He sighed. But he had to go. He pulled himself out of bed and changed into the outfit Jean had set out for him the night before.
He brushed out the kinks in his fur and went downstairs, sneaked past the kitchen, and went for a stroll in the garden. He didn't know how long he was out there, until Rogue came up behind him and put her hand gently on his shoulder.
"Come on. It's time."
* * * * *
Kurt held onto his sister's gloved hands during the entire service. It was quite beautiful. A Rabbi came to perform the service. Kitty's parents would have been proud, had they not been killed in the Genosha massacre a few months back.
The white casket gleamed neatly in the sun. She had died too young, and it stung at the hearts of many attending.
There weren't many guests. Only the current X-Men and the manor were there to pay their respects.
The scent of lilac filled the air, and Kurt inhaled deeply. He missed Kitty so much.
* * * * *
Kurt was quietly talking to Jean after the service, complementing her on how beautiful it was. "You did a wonderful job, Jean." He offered.
"It was the least I could do," she said softly. "I had to do something."
"I understand." Kurt nodded. Suddenly, he received a mental beckoning from the professor.
"I'd better go," he said to Jean, who nodded.
He headed back to the professor's office, where he recognized the lawyer from a few days earlier.
"Kurt," the man said, turning to him. "I'm Isaac Goldstein, Attorney at Law. Professor Xavier called me a few weeks ago for the case of your friend, Katherine Pryde. I'm so sorry for your loss. But, there was something she wanted you to see after her passing."
Kurt looked on in curiosity as the lawyer shuffled through his papers and pulled out an extremely thick packet of typed papers.
"She wrote it. It was her wish that after reading it, you decided whether it should be published or not."
Kurt accepted the offered packet and looked at the title.
"My Folly: The Story of a Mutant."
* * * * *
Disclaimer: Whoo. I'm sorry, but it took me time to write this. I began crying. It was extremely difficult for me to kill off my favorite character. But it had to be done. I'm not going to bring her back; she's dead, gone, finito. I hope you're pleased with the length; I worked hard on this chapter. Review!
Next Time: Judging a book by its cover.