Chapter 37

Confusion of the Wounded Heart

Kurt sighed wearily as a cool breeze stirred his blue fur. He hung listlessly from the top of an evergreen tree by his tail, gazing sightlessly over the tree-thick landscape. Three completely, utterly miserable days had passed and still he was left waiting. Kitty still had not said or word to him or anyone else. And since she hadn't said anything no one did anything to him, well anything physical. Instead of beating him within an inch of his life they shunned him. They refused to look at him or acknowledge him in any way. If he were to approach one of them, they would leave and go elsewhere. The only exception to this was when they needed him to lead them; they looked at him then, but only then. Beyond the occasional visit from little Lockheed and the company of his horse Schwarzi he was totally alone.

Oh why didn't Vati just drown me when I was an infant and save me and everyone else the trouble of experiencing my miserable little life? Kurt wondered dejectedly as he hung upside-down. If I hadn't lived beyond my first few hours of life Vati and all the rest of my family wouldn't have to have spent so much time worrying about me and my dark secret. And then I wouldn't have been drawn into the arranged marriage with Kitty and she would've been free to marry that boy Lance that she likes so much. She wouldn't have to suffer through my lies, secrets, and truths. She would be free to love whom she wished and untroubled by me. Kurt sighed again and closed his now clouded golden eyes. If only I'd never have been born…

Somewhere out of sight of the others, Kitty stood in a rigid stance holding her unsheathed sword. After many minutes of standing perfectly still she launched into a series of practice sets that started off simple and slow and evolved into something faster and more complex. Each thrust, slash, and parry became swifter until her motions were nothing but a silvery blur. She launched attack after attack at shadows and imaginary enemies that only she could see. And finally when she was almost completely exhausted she simply stopped and dropped the tip of her blade down to touch the leaf and pine needle covered ground. She was panting and her skin was covered with a fine sheen of sweat as she turned to scan the trees that surrounded her.

He's not there. No glowing yellow eyes or shadowy inhuman form appeared to her vision and it hurt her. She never though she'd miss the near constant presence of the creature she had known as Nightcrawler, but now she did. He didn't follow her around anyone, he didn't speak to her, he didn't even try. She never saw him except when he played the part of native guide and even then he seemed to be miles away. She spent years wondering and waiting and now that he was within her sight he was more distant than ever. Numbly she sank to her knees and released her grip on her sword. He's not there.

Wordlessly Kitty rubbed her wedding band with her index finger and wondered. Why was she not angry? After all that had happened and all that had been said she had more than enough reason to be raging out of her mind. Kurt had kept some very serious and important things from her the entire time she knew him. Her parents had thrown him out and had kept her in the dark about how and why for years. And then Kurt reappeared, but kept himself hidden under her very nose and pretended to be someone else. Yes, she was well within her rights to be enraged, but she wasn't.

All she wanted, she realized, was to be back in the past and start over completely. She wanted to be a little girl again back at home with her family and un-Cursed. And then, when the time came for her to meet her future husband it would be different. She wouldn't avoid or mistreat as she did then and she would miss him properly when he went away. When he returned she would be more than happy to see him again and she would not involve herself with the slime known as Lance. She would enjoy the time she had with him and treat him far better than she had. And when he finally made his disappearance she would not lose hope and work much harder to find him again instead of trying to forget and move on.

It was a nice little fantasy, but there was no way to go back and change the past. She couldn't undo what she did then and the guilt surged forward to swallow her whole. She had treated him horribly both in their youth and when he went by the name of Nightcrawler. In the past she always put him down and never gave him a second thought. The only time she ever felt anything resembling respect for him then was when they danced at parties or during sword lessons. Beyond that, she'd seen him as nothing more than an over-bred noble boy who's in-breeding resulted in less than desirable behavioral and personality traits. And as Nightcrawler, she saw him as a half-sane Cursed creature with the mysterious ability to push all her buttons and own objects that he shouldn't. Either way, she saw him as nothing more than an annoyance and treated him as such.

And the worst part was, he took it. Never once did he complain about anything she did to him. Even when she ditched sword practice that one time to 'visit' with Lance he never said anything to her. He never asked her where she went or what she was doing instead of receiving her lesson. All he did was nod and smile at her nervous excuse that she'd forgotten about the lesson completely. There was no way that he couldn't have known that she was seeing Lance behind his back, but he never stopped her and never said a word. If he had reacted like a normal boy perhaps things would've turned out different. But he took it all with a smile and that made her feel infinitely guiltier about things. He took it all and he still was loyal and devoted to her.

A concerned chirping noise reached her ears and she turned to see a blurry purple splotch on her shoulder. She blinked in dazed confusion as the cheeping splotch that sounded like Lockheed moved closer and began licking her cheek with a rough warm forked tongue. It was then she realized that it wasn't a splotch but Lockheed himself and that her whole vision was blurry. She'd been crying almost the whole time she'd been out here. And as soon as she realized that she was crying her grief overwhelmed her and she collapsed into a sobbing heap. She couldn't deal with things anymore, not alone. This was bad, if not worse, than when she'd lost it when her Curse emerged. She'd needed help then and she needed it now. Where are you?

The tension in the camp was palpable. All the older members were silently circled around the smoldering remains of their fire. The youngest member, Bobby, was pacing around in circles nearby. Within the circle only Remy seemed the least bit relaxed. Jean, Piotr, and Logan all were in some way visibly tense. The feral man was slowly carving patterns into a piece of firewood with one of his star-metal claws. The Russian was drawing Cyrillic characters into the dirt with a stick. And Jean was mending some torn clothing with jerky motions of a needle and thread.

"I can't take this waiting anymore!" Bobby finally exploded.

"None of us can, but we don't have much of a choice in the matter." Jean replied with a cold edge to her voice, which Bobby either didn't hear or he ignored.

"I'm going to go find that blue fur-ball and turn him into an ice cube!" Bobby declared and stalked off to find his quarry, only to walk straight into an invisible wall.

"Robert Drake you will do no such thing." Jean snapped back.

"Jean take down this wall and let me at him!" Bobby cried.

"No I will not. You have no right to do anything to him yet. He is Kitty's husband and it is her decision as to what sort of punishment he deserves." Jean growled.

"It's been three days! I'm sick of waiting!" Bobby whined.

"Well so are we, but that doesn't mean that you or any of us can go off and do whatever we feel like." Logan replied in a tone that ended all argument.

Bobby looked like he really wanted to keep whining about it, but he wasn't quite stupid enough to do that. So with an angry, frustrated sigh he trudged over to sit with the rest of them and keep on waiting. Jean massaged her temples before returning to her sewing repairs. She raised her mental shields, closing her mind almost entirely to ward off being overwhelmed by the nervous energy that swirled around her companions. If things got any worse she would have to close down her telepathic powers entirely to avoid losing herself in the swirling chaos that they were all unconsciously projecting. Already she had to close off all contact to both Kitty and Kurt. She had no idea what either was thinking or doing and she didn't want to know either. It was bad enough picking up on all these males' desires to dismember slowly and painfully one blue furry demon.

Kurt was about ready to slink around the camp to see if the others were ready to leave yet when something purple and scaly attached itself to his face. With a muffled yelp he tried to peel the creature off his face with little success. With a growl of frustration his tail let go of the branch he'd been hanging from for the past few hours and plummeted head first towards the ground. Barely two seconds after he began falling, he triggered his most useful and secret Cursed ability. There was a flash of light, a sound, and a puff of sulfuric smoke and he was gone. A fraction of a second later there was another flash of light, another sound, and a puff of smoke, and he reappeared on the ground, right-side up. This sudden shift disoriented the creature and he was able to remove it from his face. It was Lockheed.

"Oh hello, what brings you out here to visit with pitiful little me?" He asked quietly.

The little dragon squealed and shook his head to clear the fog from it before he seemed to remember what he was doing. He leapt free of Kurt's grip and fluttered around frantically making all sorts of panicky noises. Kurt stared at the purple thing uncomprehendingly, devoutly wishing that he could more directly communicate with the pygmy dragon. The winged purple lizard quickly grew desperate and started dive-bombing the blue-furred German's head and pulling at his clothes with teeth and claws. Kurt yelped and tried to squirm away from the unexpectedly assault.

"What is the matter little one? What do you want?" Kurt squeaked. The dragon took a firm grip on Kurt's sleeve and began to try and drag him off without any success. "You wish me to go with you?" The blue demon asked. The tiny dragon seemed to make sounds to the affirmative. "Alright then, just let go of me and lead the way." Kurt replied.

Lockheed gave a high thin cry and wheeled away, rapidly winging his way through the woods. Kurt actually found himself had pressed to keep up with the tiny dragon at first. But with a little teleporting here and there he was able to keep the flying purple blur in his sight. In only a few short minutes they had passed by the camp without actually passing through it or without being seen by anyone. And a few minutes after that they had reached another clearing well enough away from camp so that no one there would know what was going on. And huddled in the middle of this clearing was a collapsed Kitty.

For a minute Kurt was frozen, crouched just at the edge of the clearing. When he heard her sobs, however, he was jolted into action. Soundlessly he slipped down out of the tree and onto the ground. Wordlessly he padded over to her side and crouched down to hesitantly pat her back. Her sobs grew softer and quieter after several minutes and Kurt almost thought it was safe enough to try and sneak off. He really shouldn't be here after all, she needed time away from him to come to her own decisions about him. Then she looked up at him with the most heart-breaking tear-stained face he'd ever seen and there was no way that he could convince himself to leave her side. But did she want him to stay?

Kitty answered that unuttered question barely a few moments later. She let out a choked whimper and raised her trembling arms to his shoulders. Her arms slipped around his neck and the rest of her slid into his lap. She buried her tear-soaked face into his neck and began to sob once more. Kurt sat paralyzed for a minute, utterly shocked that she would want to touch him at all after what had happened. But when he recovered some of his wits, he wrapped his own arms around her and held her closer, rubbing her back and petting her hair. Hush Liebe. It will be alright now. It'll be alright… Somehow…