Okay, so the ending didn't exactly come tomorrow.

*looks embarrassed*

I tried, I really did! 

Anyway, welcome to the last part of "Kül."  This is the totally shmoopy, Kurtty, romantic part of the story.  Actually, I don't know if shmoop is the right word, but it's awfully fun to type.  Shmoop, shmoop, shmoop.  See?  Fun!  Ladies and gents, I thank you all for reading and/or reviewing.  This has really been a kick to write.  And now, without further ado: the "thrilling conclusion."  :o)

PART FIVE: LYA

~ X ~

"Keety, I just vanted to tell you you vere right," Kurt said.  "Tomorrow is za choir concert, and ve ah sucking somesing awful.  I vill never do ziss again."

Kitty didn't answer.  She was still asleep in the Med Lab, and Kurt sitting at her bedside, holding her hand. 

Together, he, Hank, and the professor had pieced together what had happened.  Kitty had been starving herself, but she'd also been saving energy by not participating in the Danger Room sessions, or, as the attendance records showed, in P.E..  When the cheerleading tryouts came, the sudden physical activity, combined with the lack of food, was just too much for her, and that was that.

Of course, knowing what happened didn't make anyone feel better.  Hank had his hands full making sure Kitty's "levels" got back into balance, and there had been constant tests to make sure she hadn't seriously damaged herself internally.  (She hadn't.)  The professor was having a dilemma of his own.  Dealing with the girls at school was out of his hands, but he wasn't sure whether to call Kitty's parents or not.  Kurt argued against scaring them unnecessarily.  He figured she was bound to wake up soon.  The professor and Hank didn't give much credence to this --- Kurt's medical experience was limited, after all, to the receiving end --- but it was a game of "wait and see" anyway, and they were too tired to argue with him.  In the end, they left him with her for a few hours and went to do other things. 

Kurt had tried everything he could think of, and she still hadn't woken up.  She hadn't even woken up and laughed at his description of the sound of the Bayville High School Chorus.  He told her a ridiculous joke that, earlier in the week, made Jack Takahashi blow milk out his nose.  Nothing.  He even tickled her and blew on her tummy.  Nada.

He sat back in his chair.  At least, he thought, she would be too sick to attend tomorrow night's choir concert.  It would be slightly less humiliating that way.  He glanced at the clock on the wall; it was almost seven.  Above them, it was very quiet and still.  Most of the mansion was out having fun.  Kurt sighed, propped his furry feet on the bed, and took a look at his music for "Red Red Rose," humming the bass line and keeping time by tapping on his leg.   Then that got boring and he decided to take a nap.

~ X ~ 

"Mmmmm."

Kitty couldn't get any words out.  She was blinking at the ceiling and mmm-ing, a bit jarred.  The last thing she remembered was a coppery taste in her mouth, wet grass on her back, and Kurt yelling her name.  But the ceiling of this room was not the sky.  The bed was the not the grass.  And as far as she could tell, Kurt wasn't here.  Although, she was feeling a little better, for some reason --- not quite as tired as she'd been feeling for the past few weeks.  She lifted one arm and saw the IV.

"Ah," she said. 

Things started to come together.  She was at the Institute, although she had no idea how long she'd been there.  She lifted her head and smiled.  Kurt was sitting there, with his feet on her bed and his music over his face, his arms dangling, snoring loudly.  Kitty managed to reach out with one of her legs.  Her foot slinked along under the covers and made wobbly contact with his heel.  He started awake under the paper.

"Ah?  Wha---?  Keety?"

The music fell on the floor and he sat up, rubbing his eyes.  He got his feet off the bed with a grunt, and she saw him heft himself up and stumble closer and closer, until he was leaning down over her, smelling like fur and hotdogs, and grinning at her.  Her face was pale, with red blotches where her pink cheeks used to be, and her hair was a mess.  Kurt sat down next to her shoulder.  They looked at each other for a long moment.

"Hallo, beautiful," he murmured.

Kitty blinked at him.  Kurt always did know just what to say to make someone feel better.  Two fat tears slipped out of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks, leaving her vision blurry.  She heard a gasp, and felt a big furry thumb brushing against either side of her face.  Her chest hitched as she tried to stifle it, but it couldn't be helped.  Two firm, fuzzy arms came around behind her and she found her face tilted against a warm chest, humming with life, a strong heartbeat in her ear.  She managed to lift her arms and return the hug, even as the tears kept coming.

She could tell by the way he was holding her that she hadn't made the team.  There was warmth all around her, and a slight, gentle, moving pressure on the top of her head where he was stroking her hair.  There was no pity in it, no condescension.  But that didn't stop her from feeling like a pile of dog crap.  Her head ached, her limbs were stiff and numb, and her pride, mouth, and belly were locked in a three-way tie to see which could cause her the most pain.  The worst part, though, was that in the end, none of it mattered.  She had lost at least a day of class, and any chance of being a cheerleader.  All that hell had been for nothing. 

She fell apart.

"I … don't … f-fit," she mumbled.  Her throat was amazingly sore.

"Ah?  Vhat?" he asked, and leaned back.

"I … d-don't … f-f-fit!" she said again, more emphatically, and started to cry.

Kurt was bewildered by Kitty's behavior.  He held her closer and rocked her a little, but she was broken and battered, inside and out, and she couldn't stop sobbing. 

She didn't fit.  She'd always known it, on some level, but to be belted with it in a locker room, to faint on a football field just trying to be part of something…  It was useless to try anymore.  She was the perpetual valley girl in a snobby little East Coast town.  She was the secret genius who never talked about her grades, for fear of being ostracized.  And in her own opinion, she made a damn scrawny superhero.

Apparently, none of this mattered to Kurt.  He just held her and let her cry, alternately wondering what he would say to her when she stopped, and what he would do if she didn't.  Would he have to press the panic button on the bed?  Would Mr. McCoy have to sedate her?  That was what always happened on TV, when somebody got hysterical in the hospital.  He was so deep into these rather silly thoughts that he didn't even hear her cough to a stop, and trail off into a few hiccups.  There was just a sudden absence of noise. 

He cleared his throat and found the nerve to speak --- which was about the time he realized he hadn't thought of a single thing to say.  But the words came.  They started from somewhere deep inside him, unrehearsed and stuttered, and true. 

"You do fit.  And I'm so glad you're alive," he said, his voice somewhere above her.  "I don't care who makes fun of you.  I lo--- …" He paused, his jaw working as he dragged all his emotions back into himself.  "Don't you ever try to disappear on me again, Kätchen." 

Kitty, exhausted, nodded against him.  Her back teeth began to ache fiercely.

Perhaps it was the pain, or the stress, or all the vomiting, but Kitty had been pushed to the brink.  What happened next was completely Zen.  It suddenly dawned on her that a pretty amazing person had watched over her, dragged her off a football field, gotten her some help, and waited by her bed so she wouldn't wake up alone.  More importantly, it wasn't Lance.  She held on to Kurt a little tighter.

"I won't," she whispered into his shirt, too quietly for him to hear.  "You're too cool."

~ X ~

The next day, Kitty was still in the Med Lab, propped up with pillows and tucked under a few blankets.  Everyone stopped by and said hello.  She tried to reply, but her hellos came out, "Eh-woh," since her mouth had been stuffed with gauze to protect her molars until she could see the dentist on Monday.  The professor told her, as he promised, that Lance had called.  She made some airy, half-coherent promise to call him back. 

Kurt came in a few times, and talked to her a lot, although she couldn't really keep up her end of the conversation.  He understood.  The last time he came in he was in his tux, ready to go to the choir concert.  He hadn't turned on his inducer yet, and Kitty, while looking outwardly calm and on the mend, privately couldn't help noticing the way the black contrasted so dashingly with his fur.  Kurt was fiddling with one of his cufflinks, tongue stuck out in concentration.  Kitty smiled and beckoned him over.

He obeyed, sitting down on the bed and holding out his hand.  She maneuvered the little gold button into its hole on the wrist of his suit.  Kurt watched her silently, marveling at the way her nimble little fingers worked their magic with the disobedient accessory.  When she was done, she held onto his wrist and looked into his eyes.  They were both quiet.  It was a perfectly imperfect moment.  Each had something to say, but he wasn't brave enough to come out with it, and she couldn't talk.

"I am so dreadfully sorry you cannot attend," Kurt said, finally.  "Ziss is going to be za most singularly brilliant event in za history of music."

They both started laughing.  Kurt's giggle was deep and happy.  Kitty's was unbelievably hoarse.

She gave him a "good luck" hug and he left, unaware that as Scott drove him to the dress rehearsal, Kitty was pulling out her laptop from under the covers.  (Rogue had smuggled it in.)  She was determined to see the concert, even if she couldn't attend. 

~ X ~

Perhaps the planets had aligned, causing a cosmic wind that swept up everyone in the Bayville High School Chorus.  Perhaps the ghosts of dead high school singers momentarily invaded their bodies and spoke through them.  Perhaps it was divine intervention.  But whatever the reason, somehow, that night, the choir was in tune.  When they gave Miss Kally the opening chord during their warm-up, she staggered back like someone had shot her. 

"Who are you?" she asked. 

It got a laugh.  They finished the warm-up, with Miss Kally dumbfounded and shaking her head. 

Kurt and the guys were all in tuxes, their hair combed, looking presentable.  The girls were wearing deep red dresses that came to the floor.  Miss Kally shooed them onstage.  They walked out to some pretty weak applause, and took out their choir folders.  Their teacher came out last, took a bow, and faced the choir.

The piano intro started, and they began.  Miraculously, it didn't sound too bad.  This was fortunate, because most of the Institute had come out to see the choir perform.  Professor X, Logan and Ororo were sitting next to each other in the audience, and the students had gathered into small clumps around the auditorium.  Scott was sitting with Jean off to one side.  Tabitha was sitting with Amara and watching Lance intently.  Rogue was sitting with Evan, who'd plucked a prime seat in the middle.  She was watching the stage, actually a bit proud of her little brother.  He, meanwhile, was filming the event with a small video camera.

And Kitty, cuddled in bed at the mansion, was watching the concert with Evan's camera, too --- in real time, through the video hook-up on her laptop.  She was listening to the performance through her headphones.  The choir was actually sounding reasonably together as they rattled their way through a few Irish ballads.  And then came the final number, "Red Red Rose."

"Oh my love's like a red, red rose, that's newly sprung in June …" the choir began. 

Kitty sat up a little bit. 

"Oh my love's like a melody, that's sweetly played in tune.  As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in love am I … I will love you still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry."

"Wow, this is, like, actually good!" she thought.

"I will love thee still, my dear, while the sands of life shall run … Till the seas gang dry my dear, and rocks melt with the sun!

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in lo-ove am I!  I will come back again, my love …"

Kurt took the solo.  "Tho' it vere ten thousand mile!"

His voice, mellow and sweet, rang out all over the auditorium.  The piano finished up, and the song ended.  The audience went crazy.  Kitty, leaning back against the mattress, couldn't take her eyes off the computer, since Evan had kept the camera on Kurt.  He was looking directly at the lens with shining eyes, and then he said something.  It was drowned out completely by the noise.  She stared at her screen curiously.

~ X ~

Kurt was standing with the group, graciously receiving accolades, and closing his choir folder.  He saw Evan's video camera and spoke quietly, even though nobody could possibly hear him over the applause.  He had to make it clear, at least to himself, who he'd been singing to.

"Keety, I am LYA," he said, and smiled.

THE END!

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Well?  What did you think?  : ) ~ (That's my Kurt happy face.  He's got a little tail! XD)

Thanks for reading,

Kiki