To Live To Suffer

Disappeared

The wooden floor creaked under Kitty's foot as she stepped onto the floorboards of the joke shop. Rogue entered after her, glancing apprehensively at the various objects on the many shelves as though there would be a screen showing everything that happened to Kurt.

It was a small building, and from the inside looked like a shack even though it was relatively new. But it was built from brick and cement just like the rest of the town. Situated on the edge of Bayville next to a large area of woods, it was a surprise it hadn't closed down from lack of customer. But perhaps it was popular, after all, both Kitty and Rogue had heard of this little place once or twice around school.

"Ah can't believe he almost told you instead of me," Rogue grumbled as she and Kitty walked slowly among the isles, glancing at the odd interesting object.

Kitty half rolled her eyes at her friend and let out a sigh. "Probably because we're best friends," she said, emphasizing the words. She hadn't wanted to tell anyone, but a part of her knew she should of, and who else but her roommate? Sometimes they argued, but Rogue was Kitty's closest friend after Kurt, and although they were completely different, they had grown to understand each other.

"Ah'm his sister!" Rogue exclaimed lightly.

Kitty did roll her eyes all the way. "Oh, so now you wanna be his sister – when you first learned that, only he wanted to accept it." Kitty continued to walk with Rogue at her heels; each looking at different shelves, making their way to what they hoped was the front of the shop.

"Hey, ah had a hard time trying ta accept it," Rogue replied, glancing at the swaying ponytail in front of her, remembering the confusing memories she had stolen from Mystique.

"He had a hard time finding out his mother was Mystique," Kitty said, turning her head slightly in Rogue's direction. "But he still wanted to believe it, and now he doesn't let it bother him… too much . . ." Kitty picked up an ornament, but seeing the rudeness up close, put it down quickly.

"Ah believed it, ah just didn't want ta think about it," Rogue said a little quieter. She pressed her lips together and looked pensively at a long ledge on the shelf case, as Kitty glimpsed the paying counter through the many bookcases.

As Kitty picked up her pace a little, she said to her shoulder, "Kurt did, that's all he talked to me about – y' know, having a sister. He was really excited. He just wished he could have grown up with you."

Rogue let a one-sided smile twist her purple lips and a small huff of a laugh through her nose. She followed Kitty to the counter, where a man around his late forties was leant, watching a TV sat next to him. The screen was turned away from Kitty and Rogue, so they couldn't see what was playing, and the sound was very quiet. A blue New York baseball cap was sat fittingly on his head. He looked up as they approached.

"Well hi there," he said in an accent similar to Rogue's, but not as strong. "What can I do fer you two ladies?"

Kitty slid a hand into her jeans back pocket and pulled out a photograph. She held it up with her thumb and forefinger for the man to see.

"Do you recognize this boy?" She asked politely. In her hand was a photograph she had managed to snap of Kurt with his inducer on. It had been an effort to find a decent picture of him, and an even greater problem finding one with his holowatch active at the time. She doubted the man would recognize a blue demon, or even believe it was a photo if she presented one of Kurt's real form. "He was in here last week." She was tempted to say Kurt was missing to make it sound important, but couldn't find the heart to lie.

The man squinted at the picture and nodded. "Yep, sure as hell remember the blue hair, don't take much notice of the faces though, but I've seen him two or three times here."

A hopeful flutter tingled her chest and Kitty said more eagerly, "Do you remember where he went? Anything happen to him in here or outside?"

The man frowned slightly in thought. "Um, I know nothing happened to him – not what I saw –" he glanced at them, assuming something probably had happened to this boy " – but . . . I remember him turning left out of this building," he added in a pitch slightly higher, almost a question, as though hoping it was the right answer for them.

Kitty, having lowered the picture, put it back into her pocket and smiled at the man. "Thanks a lot," she said, and she and Rogue left quickly, turning left outside. They were facing the woods.

They both looked at the tall, looming trees for a second, before Kitty broke the silence.

"Aren't these the woods Jean found Kurt in?" She asked quietly, her blue eyes staring at the treetops.

"Yeah," Rogue answered, a small breeze lifted a few strands of her white bangs.

Kitty let a few seconds pass before she said, "it can't hurt to look – Scott and Evan have probably been here, but . . . you never know . . ."

Rogue understood she was implying they might find something. After all, the two girls were following the path Kurt had taken, whereas Scott and Evan hadn't known Kurt had been at the joke shop just before his attack.

Without another word, Rogue started to walk towards the trees, and a second later Kitty caught up with her pace. They entered the woods and followed a dirt trail that had been walked into the floor. However, after about a hundred yards in it took a long bend to the right, and Kitty stopped.

Rogue glanced back a few feet ahead and halted as well. She turned to her friend.

"I don't see why Kurt would have come into the woods," Kitty said before Rogue could ask her why she stopped.

"You know how he is," Rogue told her, as though reminding Kitty she knew all about her best friend. "He likes forests . . . ah guess he decided to take a walk through here."

Kitty looked away from the invisible path straight ahead of them to Rogue. "Yeah but it was dark last week, and Kurt wouldn't just decide to take a walk after school . . . not all the way out here . . ." It was a good five miles or more from the Institute to the woods.

Rogue crossed her arms impatiently as Kitty's eyes clouded over and her thinking face was adopted.

"Maybe he heard something," Kitty suggested to herself. "Or saw something." She looked back at the direction directly in front, which the path went around, and started walking, leaving the dirt course and stepping into the wild growth of the woods. Rogue sighed, unfolded her arms and followed.

"He should have told ya sooner," Rogue said a little grouchily, again because of the fact he chose to tell Kitty. "Then we might've had a trail ta follow."

They walked in silence after that, following a relatively tame direction. Kitty glanced at a thin, broken branch, bend to the side as though it had been forced. Maybe it had, Kitty told herself, wondering if Kurt had caught it when he was walking this way . . . if he was walking this way.

Rogue glanced about every now and then as they walked, hoping they weren't going to get lost.

"He heard something," Kitty said quite suddenly. Kurt's unfinished explanation earlier had been replaying in her mind, and she remembered what he had told her.

"What?" Rogue asked, pushing a low grouping of twigs and leaves out of her way and frowning questioningly at her.

"Kurt said he heard something," Kitty repeated.

"What?" Rogue said again, watching her and listening intently.

"I don't know, you interrupted him before he could explain further," Kitty answered a little dryly. "But maybe that explains why he came in here so late – he must've heard something and gone to see what." She thought for a second. "You think his attackers could have lured him in here . . . ?"

Rogue shook her head slightly, stepping over a fallen log covered with moss on one side. "No," she said, "why would they? Nobody knows Kurt except us, why would anyone have an excuse ta beat him up? They wouldn't know he looks . . . like he looks."

Kitty titled her head slightly in consideration and bent under a low branch. The sky was turning dark and a breeze had managed to wind its way through the trees to reach them. Both very much wanted to go home, but neither said anything.

Rogue spotted a few broken branches now, much like what Kitty had seen. They appeared to have been broken by something pushing past them. The detective in Rogue noticed how they were hanging by a just few threads of wood, indicating some force was put into them. Was Kurt running?

Hey . . ." Kitty's voice floated from ahead, and Rogue glanced up, bending low under a branch and straightening back up. She stopped next to her friend in a small clearing.

"Looks like . . ." Kitty continued as she stepped forward, glancing at the floor. "Something fell outta the trees." She raised her head to look up at the large tree in front of them.

"How can ya tell?" Rogue asked a little skeptically, stepping beside her again. She looked at the ground and noticed a few big, wrecked branches.

"Because those branches up there are broken," Kitty pointed out, and Rogue looked up. In an uneven but noticeable path, one side of the tree now had hanging and broken branches, from far up.

"That doesn't exactly give us any answers," Rogue said after a few seconds. "Maybe he decided ta 'port inta the tree and fall out," she added sarcastically.

Kitty wasn't listening. She had moved closer to the thick trunk of the tree and was examining it. Any other time she would have felt foolish, but she was here for a purpose. She looked up and noticed something.

"The branches aren't broken at the bottom," she told Rogue, still looking up.

The Goth gave a small sigh and stepped over the fallen tree limbs to look up at the trunk properly. "So maybe they caught themselves in time," she replied softly, seeing the 'path' of broken twigs and branches end about five meters from the ground. She looked back down at the ground, her eyes lingering on the broken tree limbs. Looking closer, she thought perhaps Kitty was right; something had happened here. She hadn't really been expecting to find anything, and to tell the truth, she didn't think this was a major clue.

"C'mon, let's look further," Kitty suddenly suggested, already stepping over the dead branches and moving off, dragging Rogue by a gloved hand.

"Why? Th' action – whatever action – happened here," Rogue said, allowing herself to be led away from the big tree and deeper into the forest.

"Yeah but something led or . . ." Kitty paused. " . . . dragged Kurt into that clearing, which means there could be something else to see."

Rogue's shoulder's slumped. "Kitty, we could walk right past something if it was there, this forest is huge."

"Yeah, but we could walk into something if it's there," Kitty answered with a smile. A leaf floated from above and entangled itself in her ponytail as it swayed about. Rogue noticed but said nothing.

It was almost ten minutes, after winding through the trees and stepping over overgrown plant life, that they came upon a roughly edged clearing, large enough for a camping party of twenty – and probably was used for such things. They knew immediately where they were. Their eyes fell on the darkened blades of burnt grass dotted in patches in front, only a few yards away. There was a large dirt area in the center of the burnt grasses, where unnatural forest colors lay.

The two teenagers moved forward slowly, pushing aside the leafy walls of the clearing and stepping onto a crispy circle of blackened grass blades. Kitty glanced about uneasily at a line of dead grass, and a fairly big tree branch, burnt at one end. Rogue's eyes were on the dirt patch, and she moved away from Kitty towards it, stopping just before the green ended.

"A week's passed an' it's been raining,'" Rogue said softly, ". . . an' there's still blood on th' ground . . ."

Kitty looked up at her and walked to where she stood. She cast her eyes down at the beaten floor, which looked as though it had been kicked up. The leaves that had been trampled into the mud, and stuck there by the rain, had the faint color of a dull red – almost brown – stained onto their skin

Rogue glanced at her friend as Kitty turned away, the leaf falling from her hair, and said hopefully, "Look around, maybe something was dropped."

Rogue complied by sighing through her nostrils and began to search the floor.

"Where is everyone?" Jean asked, entering the kitchen with her brilliant red hair bouncing down her back. Her green eyes circled the room as she entered, seeing no one but Ororo, who was stood in front of the sink, rinsing her hands under mild-warm water. She had left the infirmary a few minutes ago to relieve herself in the bathroom, and had felt hunger rumble her stomach. Knowing Kurt wasn't going to miss her for another few minutes, she had headed to the kitchen, expanding her mind to find where the other occupants of the institute were, out of curiosity. She was surprised to find Kitty and Rogue were missing.

Ororo glanced at her from across the room. She was perched on the bay window's sill with a mug of tea cupped in her hands, having been watching the birds peck at the seed she had thrown onto the grass not long ago. Her long white hair was pulled back over her shoulder as her head turned.

"Seems empty without Scott or Evan, doesn't it?" She asked rhetorically, a question to answer Jean's.

Jean walked past the breakfast table to stand at the bay window. "I mean, Kitty and Rogue aren't here. Have they told you they were going anywhere?" It would probably have seemed a little nosey of her under the normal circumstances, but the two younger girls would not have disappeared while their best friend and brother was still bed ridden.

Ororo looked surprised at this news. "No," she answered. "I haven't seen them since this morning's Danger Room session."

A corner of Jean's lips tugged in a grim, thoughtful smile. "I saw Rogue only half an hour or so ago in the infirmary." She looked out the window. "I don't know where they could have gone."

Ororo watched her, reflecting her frown. Jean sat down on the window sil and held the adult's eyes with her own.

"Where has Logan gone?" She asked. "He's found something linked to Kurt's attack, hasn't he?"

Ororo held her gaze and said simply and softly, "yes."

A blue hand fell onto the corner of the wall and Kurt's body followed it, pressed against the surface so he could keep himself upright. His labored breathing was loud, considering he didn't want to be caught out of bed a second time. Stumbling down the institute's corridors was taking a hard effort out of his weak body, but he couldn't sit back in the infirmary any longer. It was driving him crazy. The pleasure of being able to walk again was dampened somewhat by the pain on his injuries, but it wasn't going it stop him. He knew his friends weren't telling him something, and he wanted to know what. His forehead was pounding where the wound lay beneath its dressing, and his chest was on fire, causing his breathing to become difficult. But he would endure it a little more.

He looked up from his position, leaning on the wall, and found himself in the corridor with the door to the dining room. Swallowing to moist his dry throat, he commanded his legs to walk forward, using one hand to push against the wall so he wouldn't keep falling into it. He stopped outside the door, finding it an inch or two open. He held his breath and listened, straining his ears to pick up the sounds of anyone in the room. He could only hear a muffled ring and his own heartbeat throbbing in overtime. Pushing the door opened he grasped the doorframe on either side of him and glanced around the room, making a second check with his eyes. It was empty, and he wasn't going to do any eavesdropping here. He was about to turn away and stumble out when his eyes fell on an object sat on the table. He limped towards it, leaning one hand on the table and reaching for the newspaper with the other. He glanced over the titles of the articles and his eyes stopped dead on one them. His heart pounded even more as his hovering hand grabbed the paper and pulled it nearer. He read it again:

SICK BOY CLAIMES HE WAS ATTACKED BY A DEMON

His lips had parted as his pale eyes widened. This paper was sat on the table his friends had eaten at, meaning someone had read it. Who always read the paper at the table? Logan.

"Yeah," Jean chuckled lightly, "I remember when he ate those special veggie burgers for Kitty, and she'd only just bought them. She replaced his original shampoo with that fleatreatment – I remember when he had to use that a while before– everyone thought he had fleas again because of that antiseptic smell." Jean laughed. "I personally thought he had used it again."

Ororo laughed into her mug and took a sip. The pair had been sat in the kitchen for fifteen minutes remembering the times Kurt had made them laugh. There was a light drizzle of rain now, having been promised by the blanket of gray clouds. It did nothing to their moods, and it certainly wasn't caused by Storm's current mind.

Jean sighed, a smile on her lips as she watched the water run down the window. "Kurt'll be making us laugh again, soon . . . I'm sure."

Nodding, Ororo said, "He's a good healer. His old personality will return."

Both girls looked up as Hank entered, glancing carelesslyaround, letting a second pass before doing a doubletake when herealized they were there.

"Oh, hello ladies," he said, helping himself to a glass of water. "Is Rogue still in the infirmary with Kurt?" He asked Jean, taking a chance she might know.

"No, she left almost an hour ago," Jean answered. "Now she and Kitty have disappeared somewhere. I was with Kurt fifteen minutes ago, he was almost asleep when I left so he's fine."

Hank nodded. "He could do with being fed. Would you mind doing that, Jean?"

"No, not at all," Jean answered as she stood up. "What soup is it?" She asked, opening the cupboard that held the tinned food.

"Vegetable," Hank answered, bending down to the large drawn under the cooker and bringing out a cooking pan. "The one that's filtered of chunks."

Jean was just reaching into the cupboard when the mechanical hum of Professor Xavier's wheelchair brought him into the kitchen's door. Ororo, Jean and Hank glanced at him.

"Where's Kurt?" The Professor asked.

Jean frowned as she lowered her arms, a tin of soup in her hand. "In the infirmary, why?"

Professor X's lips curled down. "Because his holowatch is gone. I'd just finished repairing it earlier."

AN: I could apologize a thousand times for this chapter being 6 months late, but instead I'll say the old cliché, it won't happen again. Actually, it can't, I've finished my exams, college is almost over, I have lots of free time and my writers block is miles away. Thanks for hanging on this long… hey, is that my echo…?

Thanks go out to these good people:

Anc7

The DudeLordOfFantasy

Amused4ever

El Diablo

Elfofdeath

Kriszty

Tailfeather

Overlord

Amasaki Reyoko