"Hey, guys! Come on, like, wait up!" Kitty yelled at Rogue and Evan.
"Do ya thank she'll get the point?" Rogue muttered. "Ah mean, we've bin ignorin' her fer the whole day, an' she's still trying ta talk ta us!"
Evan shrugged. "Don't ask me," he said. "She's got no idea why we're doing it, you noticed that?"
"Yeah, an' ah doan' thank it's a good thang. How cahn she not know that Kurt – that Kurt –" Rogue stopped, eyes prickling. Evan nodded, his face grim.
"She's an idiot," he muttered. Rogue nodded, and they both walked away from Kitty – again.
"Oooh!" she groaned in frustration. "Why are they, like, ignoring me?"
"Good question," came Lance's voice. "And where's the furball?"
"He's in the mansion," Kitty said, turning to face him. "He's, like, got a fever or something, and he can't come to school."
"Awww. Poor ickle Kurtie," he said mockingly.
"Well, you don't need to, like, rub it in!" she snapped. "That elf has been sick for the past two days, but it's nothing serious…" she trailed off. "It can't be serious. The elf can't be…" she stopped again.
"The elf can't be what?" Lance was not impressed by her newfound habit of breaking off in the middle of a sentence.
"Uh, it's nothing. I'll, like, see you later, 'kay?" Kitty said hurriedly, and ran after Rogue and Evan. 'They've been acting weird about the elf all day,' she thought. 'But that doesn't mean – what I was thinking of,' she reassured herself. Deep in her mind, an almost entirely suppressed thought, 'What if Kurt's dying?' made her even more anxious to catch up with the other teenagers. She checked the hall quickly, then slid through the walls to catch up with them. But they walked into an area with more people in it, and she was left fuming in the hallway.
School ended before she had a chance to talk to them about Kurt, and she was left wandering around the Institute, trying to decide whether she should ask one of the adults how Kurt was. She had almost decided that she was making too much fuss over nothing, when she heard Scott talking to someone.
"You'll have to take my sessions with him! He's getting worse – he doesn't understand when I tell him to stay still, and he's already knocked my glasses off once! If I hadn't been looking down at the time –"
"Alright, Shades, I'll take your watch," came Logan's grumble. "Does anyone know what's up with the elf?"
"Nothing new," Scott said regretfully. "Just that his body is somehow being poisoned by itself."
"How long will he last?"
Scott's voice was bleak. "Maybe another week."