Hey everyone, sorry this has taken so long to get out, troubles with boyfriends, you know how that goes, but I hope this chapter is good. And since nobody wanted Kitty to go back to the X-men, which surprised me, I kind of made the X-men kind of OOC, so don't get mad at me, it's AU, so I can do what I want. Thanks to all those who reviewed and gave me good ideas!
Kitty was nervous about going to school with the Brotherhood. It was bad enough going when everyone found out they were mutants, and her friends abandoned her, but now she was going to be going with the only four people hated more then the X-men. What would her old friends think?
She knew what the X-men thought. She could feel Jean reading her mind, Kitty had learned to tell when someone was in her mind, and she knew the X-men were disappointed in her.
The jeep was crowded; there was hardly any room for them to move. Kitty tried to get comfortable in the seat between Pietro and Todd, but it was difficult.
"Can't you just run to school?" Kitty asked Pietro.
"He's too lazy," Lance called from the driver's seat.
"No I'm not," Pietro snapped at him. "I can't run to school because it looks like I just appeared out of nowhere. It's about as weird as when Kurt pops in. And besides," he said, leaning back in his seat, "I like riding in the car, but it is kind of slow."
Kitty frowned at the mention of Kurt's name, but she let it slide. She didn't want to think about the X-men yet. She wasn't sure what she'd say if they confronted her.
Lance got to the parking lot at the school, and parked in his special spot. Kitty did her best to ignore the questioning looks she was getting, but it was hard to forget that half the people who were glaring at her used to be her friends.
"Your friends still are being jerks?" Lance asked her, noticing the looks she was getting.
"Yes," Kitty responded, not looking at him, "and I guess showing up with you guys, like, doesn't boost up their opinions of me."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Lance asked.
"They probably think I'm going to act like you guys, you know, like, knocking down school's, crashing lockers, sliming people, you know, you don't have the best reputations in the school."
"Yeah, I guess," Lance said, gave her a quick kiss, and started to walk off.
"Kitty!" She heard Kurt, as he and the rest of the X-men and new recruits walked toward her.
"Didn't you guys graduate?" Kitty asked Scott and Jean coldly, before turning away.
"Kitty, stop," Jean said, grabbing onto her shoulder. Kitty glared at her, and phased through her hand, even though she could get expelled if she was caught.
"We came back to see why you left," Jean said, grabbing Kitty's shoulder again, turning her around to face them.
"Well, gosh Jean, why don't you guys read my diary, or my email, or even read my mind?" Kitty asked. "By the way, when you try to read peoples minds when you're upset, the person who's mind you're in can feel it." She turned around again.
"Look, Kitty, we're sorry about all the stuff we've done," Scott said, though he didn't sound sorry. "Now could you get your stuff and come home?"
"I have school to go to Scott," she said, "and I'm already planning on going home."
"You are?" Kurt asked excitedly.
"Yeah Kurt," Kitty said, "My new home, you know, the one where they respect people's privacy. The one where people don't try to kiss me when I already have a boyfriend. The one where I can depend on people to not invade my personal life."
"Kitty, you live with us, we are part of your personal life," Kurt said.
"Come on Kitty, you are coming home," Scott said, grabbing Kitty's arm and trying to push her towards his car.
Lance had walked away at first, thinking that Kitty could handle the others, but he turned around once he heard Scott.
"I don't have to do anything I don't want to Scott," Kitty said, trying to get his hand off her without phasing again.
"Kitty, you don't have a choice, you have to come home," Scott said, pulling her arm.
"That sounds an awful lot like a threat to me, Summers," he said, grabbing Scott's hand and yanking it off Kitty.
"No one asked you, Alvers," Scott snarled, trying to grab Kitty's hand. "Kitty belongs with us; her parents wouldn't want her living with a bunch of delinquents."
"Scott, stop calling them that!" Kitty shouted. "In case you've forgotten, both Rogue and Tabitha were part of the Brotherhood, look how they turned out."
Unfortunately for Kitty, Tabitha had gotten bored with the conversation, and was getting into a fight with a guy three times as big as she was.
"Yeah," Scott said sarcastically, "Tabitha turned out just fine."
"Hey, Scott, I'm okay, and I lived with them," Rogue said.
"You've been living with us for a long time," Scott argued, "all the bad habits you picked up from them went away after a while."
"Bad habits?" Lance asked. "Like what, reading people's private stuff? Funny, I think they all learned that from you. Admit it Summers; you're just mad that instead of somebody leaving us, they're leaving you." He grabbed Kitty's hand and stormed off.
"Thanks for covering me back there Lance," Kitty said, once they got out of earshot of the X-men.
"I couldn't let them insult you Kitty," Lance said, giving her a slight hug. "Now, if any of them bother you today, just come and get one of us. The thing about the Brotherhood is that we always help each other."
"Even if I'm an old enemy?" Kitty asked.
"Tabitha was too," Lance pointed out, "and we got along with her just fine. Well, except this one time, she was acting really weird; it was like she was going all out to show us we couldn't stop her or something. She stole my jeep, shaved Freddy's head, and walked in on Todd in the bathroom...twice. And then, one night, it all stopped, and none of us were ever able to figure out what she was up to." Lance looked thoughtful, trying to think about why Tabitha acted so odd.
"Um..." Kitty started, "maybe she had joined a sort of 'girl power' group, and she was trying to show that she was better than guys, and they were forced to suddenly stop?"
Lance looked at her for a second. "Yeah....I guess," he said.
"Okay, I've got to get to class," Kitty said, hurrying off to first period.
"See ya later than Kitty," Lance said, and walked to his class.
Classes went pretty smoothly, until third period, which was the only class that she had one of the X-men in. It wasn't that hard to switch lab partners to Pietro instead of Kurt, but she did feel kind of guilty about leaving Kurt without a partner.
After class, during lunch, Kitty had to go her locker to get a book she forgot. She was pretty much alone in the hallway; most of the people were in the cafeteria.
"Kitty," she heard behind her. She turned around, it was Kurt.
"Yes Kurt?" She asked, turning back around towards her locker.
"I just wanted to know why you can't come back," Kurt said, trying to turn her around to face him.
"Kurt..." she started, but stopped when she looked at him. He looked so sad to see his best friend leaving him. "I just need some time off, okay?"
Kurt looked disappointed. "Are you sure? I know Scott and Jean won't do anything bad anymore."
"But how would I know, Kurt?" She asked him. "How could I know if they weren't lying to me? I can't live in a place where I can't trust the people I live with, Kurt."
Kurt looked defeated, and walked off without saying anything else. Kitty felt bad for him, but she felt what she was doing was right, so she didn't call after him.
After school, Kitty was waiting for the Brotherhood to get out of detention, which they only had for 15 minutes that day. She had just put her books in her locker, when someone slammed her head on the door.
"Hey Kitty," a nasty voice said. It was Brett, who was pretty much the Duncan of that year. He was a football player, cruel, and hated mutants. He was there with two of his football buddies, all looking for a fight.
"What do you want Brett?" Kitty asked, trying to stop the tears that were starting to leak out from hitting her head on the locker.
"Well, we heard you joined the Brotherhood, and so we figured we'd come by to ask you if it's true," Brett said.
"What does it matter to you, Brett? What do you care what group I'm in, I'm just a mutie, remember?"
"It matters to me because the X-men don't cause any trouble. We know that all those guys in the Brotherhood should be expelled. Last year, they were. So we're hoping that if we give them enough encouragement, they'll leave Bayville," Brett said.
"Just because I switched teams doesn't mean I'm bad Brett," Kitty tried to explain, doing her best to keep her voice calm. She didn't need a fight.
"But how would we know? It just seems easier to make sure you know that you're not welcome here when you're with the Brotherhood."
Eric, one of Brett's football buddies, proceeded to grab Kitty's hair, and slam her into the locker again. Kitty started to scream, but Eric put his hand over her mouth.
"We don't want mutant scum like you at Bayville," Brett said, as Kitty started to cry, "especially ones who are in the Brotherhood."
By now, they had gathered a crowd, and Kitty could see some of the new recruit and Kurt in the faces of the audience. Some were cheering Brett and his friends on, some looked like they didn't care, and some looked worried. But Bobby watched for a minute, with what looked to Kitty like almost satisfaction on his face, but she couldn't really see, and steered Amara and Jubilee out of the crowd. Ray and Roberto left soon after.
Kurt hesitated when Bobby called him. He looked like he wanted to stop Brett, but he quickly walked off, not looking back at poor Kitty.
By now, Brett and his friends had beaten Kitty up pretty badly. She had a black eye, and a split lip, and the boys looked like they were just getting started.
Before they could though, she heard a voice telling them to stop. She was hoping it was a teacher who could punish them, but it turned out to be even better.
"Hey, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Lance asked angrily, punching Brett in the face.
Fred, Pietro and Todd had quickly stepped in, looking for a good fight more than helping Kitty. Lance was able to give Brett one last punch before he helped Kitty. He placed her on the floor, and kneeled next to her.
"Are you okay Kitty?" Lance asked.
"Is this how it feels?" Kitty asked him.
"What do you mean?"
"Is this what you go through every day? Getting beat up by people you don't even really know? Did all of you get betrayed by your friends? How do you put up with this every day?" Kitty had a thousand questions for Lance about what had just happened to her, and if it had happened to all of them as well, though she already thought she knew the answer.
Lance stared at her for a second, not quite sure how to respond. Finally, he sat down on the floor next to Kitty, and placed her on his lap, gently stroking her hair.
"Yeah, I guess we do put up with this every day. We don't know a lot of the people we have fights with, and we don't even start most of them. But at the end of the fight, we're the ones who get blamed for starting it. And Todd and Fred didn't really have any friends, but Pietro's and my friends pretty much ditched us. That's why we're so close, we don't have anybody else, and we're all going through the same crap," Lance said.
"You've all had to put up with this...every day?" Kitty asked, not really being able to understand how they could handle it.
"Yeah," Lance said. "That's why we always got so pissed with Jean and Scott and their way of looking down on us. We have to deal with thugs like this every day, and they give us lectures on how we should try to get along with them, not fight them.
Kitty was beginning to understand why the Brotherhood boys found it so hard to believe Xavier's ideas of humans and mutants living peacefully together. They were treated like scum before the world knew they were mutants, and things only got worse when their powers were revealed.
Fred, Pietro, and Todd had left Brett and his friends a bloody mess on the floor. They quietly walked with Lance and Kitty back to the car, not knowing how Kitty was going to react to the fight that just happened.
The ride back to the house was totally silent. The guys were afraid Kitty was going to leave them, and Kitty wasn't sure what to say. She felt sorry for the guys for having to have this kind of life, but she also wasn't sure she wanted to share it with them. On the other hand, she didn't think she would be able to go back to the X-men. After she watched them leave her to fight, walking out on her when she needed their help, she didn't think she could ever talk to them again.
Once they got to the house, they all sat around the living room. Lance had gone to get an ice pack for Kitty's black eye, while everyone found a seat, mostly facing each other so they could talk.
"So what's going to happen now?" Fred asked when Lance got back.
"Yeah, Kitty, do you think you can handle being a Brotherhood girl anymore?" Pietro asked. "None of the other girls could handle it, so if you want to leave..." he gestured out the door, but he didn't look like he wanted her to leave.
"Yeah, no one's stopping you if you don't want to stay," Todd said.
"Guys, I don't have anywhere else to go," Kitty said.
"What about the X-men?" Fred asked.
"They don't want me back," Kitty said, looking at the floor. Lance could tell something happened.
"What do you mean? They practically tried to drag you to the car this morning," Lance said.
"That was this morning. After school, they saw the fight," Kitty said. "And Lance, they...they just left me there, they could have stopped Brett right there, but they just left," Kitty was in tears now, and had run to Lance to sit on his lap and cry on his shoulder.
"It's okay, Kitty," Lance soothed, stroking her hair and comforting her for the second time that day. "Remember when I joined the X-men? Tabitha told me that you guys would never accept me, and that I wasn't good enough for you. Fred slammed me into a locker, but look at us now. They were just hurt that I left them, the way the X-men are now, just give them some time, they'll take you back."
"I don't want to go back, how could I live with them, not knowing whether they would leave me if they got angry?" Kitty asked between sobs. "Could I just stay here with you guys? I know I can't fight that well without my powers, but I could learn. And I could try to be more like Tabitha..."
"No!" The boys jumped up, the thought of having two Tabitha's at school was bad enough, one of them talking like a valley girl was just too weird for words.
"Well, I guess I could try and be a little tougher, you know, like, stand up for myself?" Kitty suggested.
"And maybe you could, like, totally stop talking like a valley girl!" Pietro mimicked in a high voice. Kitty thought he was insulting her for a second, but she realized that that was the way of the Brotherhood, they didn't mean any harm, they were just having fun.
"This could be interesting," Todd said, looking Kitty up and down. "A new Kitty, one who doesn't wear pink, doesn't talk like a valley girl, and who fights her own battles. I say we go to the store and get her a new outfit guys."
"Yeah!" Pietro exclaimed, something black, kind of tight, very revealing...." Pietro was soon talking to fast to understand, and before she knew what was happening, she was carried into the jeep, on her way to a new way of life, wondering just what she had gotten herself into.
The End
Nah, I'm just kidding, but that would be an easy way to end of the story. And for those of you who don't know, when Lance is talking about Tabitha acting strange, it's all from "Walk on the Wild Side." And Lance's friends who left him, that's just from one of my other stories, "Headed towards home" so that's just my version. K, don't forget the review please!