Title: Maybe It's Time to Live
A/N: Loooong time coming on this one, and I apologize if it's too lengthy. However, that said, I'm *very* happy that I've finally managed to get it all out of me.
GoddessChild- Charles has a hard time learning from his mistakes, apparently. :P And thanks for your compliment, I'm glad that I got the sense of a mental breakdown across.
Lightspeed Suzuka- Hmm... in love? Maaaybe. But right now, it's a friendship thing, with Cloe being Rachel's anchor to reality. Okay, so maybe that's BS and its all love. You will have to wait and see. And I'm SO glad someone finally felt bad for Piotr.
Oldprydefan- It's a-okay to celebrate Xavier's death! I always thought that he was the most overdue for a death than anyone else. His character would probably mean so much more as a martyr than an old mentor. However, he isn't gonna be either in my story. BAWAHAHA.
Anythingbutordinary3- So yep, by now you know that Kitty knows the truth and she's still trying to figure it all out. I'm not guaranteeing anything about Kitty and Pete getting together again... at least, not automatically. Still plenty of unresolved issues there, don't ya think?
Harry- That's exactly where I'm going. Dammit, I swear you must read my mind. :)
Now on with the story!
******
"I was at a funeral the day I realised
I wanted to spend my life with you
sitting down on the steps at the old post office
the flag was flying at half mast
and I was thinkin' 'bout how everyone was dying
and maybe it is time to live" -P.S. You Rock My World by The Eels
******
Laila sat on the cornerstone of the church stairs and watched the sun come up over the Westchester treetops. Laying a hand on the cold stone, she closed her eyes. She knew she shouldn't stay much longer. Eventually, the neighborhood church would be full and she would be miles away. But now she had time.
She stood up and pulled herself up onto the stairway ledge. As she balanced along it, she sighed and shivered in the morning air. In a matter of hours it would all begin and then it would end something that had existed for years. And she had been a player in it, despite her promise to herself years ago that she wouldn't. But it was too late now to kick herself. She had helped set this in motion. She couldn't back out now.
It was too late for the future.
*******
"Lilly!" Kurt was quickly becoming tired of shouting and he felt more and more ridiculous as he stood in the middle of the living room holding onto a small girl's black patent shoes.
'What's wrong, hon?" came a soft, tired voice behind him. He looked over his blue furred shoulder to see his wife, her eyes slightly sunken in to her skull, her fight tight with exhaustion. Worry quickly pulsed through his body; Amanda had taken Xavier's death a lot harder than he would have thought. Kurt himself felt jaded against it. He had left Xavier behind years ago, and the parting had been less than friendly. Not the same for Amanda who had only experienced Charles's benevolence.
"Lilly has evaded me once again," Kurt sighed. "She refuses to put her shoes on."
"They hurt," a small voice whined and Kurt looked down and found his son Christian clinging to Lilly Pryde, the two small children ducking behind Amanda's legs.
Christian looked up proudly at his father, his yellow eyes twinkling. "I found her, Dad! An' I told her if she tries to run away, I'll teleport her to Limbo." Next to him, Lilly pouted at Kurt and glared daggers at Christian.
"I don't want to put those shoes on, Uncle Kurt," she said evenly, her voice amazingly mature for her five years of age. "They pinch my toes."
Smiling at his 'niece', Kurt threw the shoes into the air and his tail quickly lashed out to catch them by the straps and simultaneously scooped up Lilly and quickly bamfed them both into the front hallway, leaving his young son behind to make a big show of coughing at the smell of sulfur and brimstone.
When they arrived in the hall, Lilly was giggling and smiling, the teleportation ride in her uncle's fuzzy arms having cheered her up. However, a frown quickly re-appeared on her face when Kurt flipped her shoes in the air and caught them in his hands.
Smiling as an apology, Kurt said, "I'm sorry Lillster, but your mommy wants you to wear these."
Lilly's frown deepened even further. "I don't care what my mommy wants," she huffed.
He frowned. "Listen, honey, I know this past year has been tough for you. It's been tough for all of us. And I know you miss your daddy," Kurt's voice hitched slightly as he noticed a small amount of tears welling up in Lilly's blue eyes, "but it was extra hard on your mommy. She needed," he paused, thinking of the best way to phrase it, "some time off."
"Some time away from me," Lilly whispered, her small face twisting into a pout. Kurt quickly opened up his arms to the girl who he had partially raised over half of last year and she quickly darted into his embrace. Sniffling, she quickly settled against the comfortable and familiar feeling of his chest.
"Not at all, leibching," Kurt said soothingly, slightly rocking Lilly back and forth. "Not at all." And yet, he knew that that was part of the reason. Right after Piotr's death, Kitty was completely inconsolable, blaming the whole mess on herself. After several tearful and hysterical nights, Kitty couldn't survive underneath all the weight of that self- imposed guilt and slowly the guilt began being transferred to Lilly. Lilly who was of dubious paternity, Lilly who had Piotr's and Peter's eyes, Lilly who had set off the whole discovery and ensuing chaos. As Kitty became more and more unhinged, the more Kurt worried that her dissatisfaction and anger would turn into visible violence and rage. And so he had taken Lilly from her and sent Kitty away for a mental vacation. She had come back more together but as the anniversary of Piotr's death had approached, she began to act more erratic again.
But then Xavier had died, and that had changed everything, of course.
Kurt still found it hard to believe that Rachel was responsible for Xavier's bizarre death. Sure, the cause of death, the phoenix burned into the rug at his feet and Rachel's sudden reawakening at same time as his death was all very suspicious, but he had known Rachel when they were both in Excalibur together. And though she had been a haunted and traumatized girl, he had never known her to brutally murder anyone, lest of all someone that had meant so much to her, someone who she had watched die before.
But then again, if the rumor about Xavier's behavior was indeed true...
Kurt shook his head. Over the past few days, he had caught whispers of allegations about Charles manipulating people but he had been too focused on taking care of both Kitty and Lilly to devote proper time and contemplation to it. All he knew is that if the rumors were correct and it was indeed Rachel that had killed him, he couldn't blame her. In fact, even if the rumors were false, he could not find it in himself to hate Rachel. He laughed shortly to himself. Despite all his efforts to the contrary, he had become an even more devout Catholic than before it seemed.
Back in the moment, Kurt slid the shoes onto the grumbling Lilly's feet, tickling the sides of them to make her laugh. He heard a noise on the stair and he looked up to see Kitty slowly floating down the stairs.
Since Xavier's death, she had been different. Better. Lighter. She carried herself prouder and straighter now; it seemed as if a heavy burden had been lifted off of her shoulders. Kurt hated to admit it, but Charles Xavier dying had been good for her.
She smiled down at her daughter and ruffled her hair affectionately, and Lilly instantly forgot her grievances with her mother and giggled. "How you doing, Lil?" Kitty asked gently. "You look very pretty; have you thanked Kurt for helping you get ready?"
"Thanks Mommy," Lilly smiled, standing up and smoothing down her light gray dress. Ceremoniously, she turned to Kurt and seemed to bow slightly. "Thanks Uncle Kurt."
"Now get out of here and play with your cousins," Kitty said, smacking Lilly playfully on her back. Giggling, Lilly ran out of the room, her long black hair streaming behind her.
"She's just going to take those shoes off, you know," Kurt said, smiling gently at Kitty.
She grinned back and gave a quick shrug. "We'll just have to corner her later then. Besides, those shoes do look a little bit uncomfortable."
"How are you holding up?" he asked, quietly.
Another shrug. "Fine, I suppose. It seems odd, but I'm more in shock that Charles chose me to deliver his eulogy than the fact that he's dead." She shook her head, hugged herself and looked into space. "Piotr's death still hurts more than this, and I hate to say but Piotr doesn't hurt as much as it used it."
"It's been a year. It's bound to happen, I suppose."
"Still, I feel guilty." She bit her lip. "I feel... like I betrayed him."
"You didn't, Katzchen. Don't even think that you did."
She sighed. "But if only I hadn't-"
He cut her off. "Don't start with the 'if only's'—they won't come to any good."
Kitty smiled lopsidedly at him. "You know, for the co-leader of Limbo, you sound an awful lot like a Catholic priest."
Kurt gave a short bark of laughter. "That's the second time today I've realized that." He put his arm affectionately around her shoulders, leading her into her living room. "There's no way of running around for your roots, ja?"
"Yeah," she said quietly, looking down introspectively. "Is it true, Kurt?" she asked suddenly, her voice laden with worry and her eyes seemingly panicked. "Is it true that Pete is going to be here?"
Looking at her, Kurt wondered if she realized that she had winced when she had said Pete's name, or if it had been completely unconscious. She realized that hearing his name froze even his insides momentarily.
Pete was of a different era, a different lifetime. Excalibur seemed like centuries ago, despite the fact that it was merely a decade or so. They had been different people then, less complicated and less weighed down. Except for Pete. Kurt imagined that Pete Wisdom had emerged from his mother's womb weighed down with the pressures of the world and he couldn't conceive of the man changing. He remembered meeting with Meggan two days ago in Limbo when the Queen of the Otherworld came to visit to express her condolences. Kurt and Amanda had often seen her and Brian when their two realms met and planned together, but Kurt couldn't recall seeing Meggan in such an excitable state in a long time.
She had flitted around Kurt, nervously twisting her long blonde hair around her slim pale fingers, her blue eyes anxiously and excitedly darting back and forth.
"Did you hear, Kurt?" she had asked, her toes hovering several inches above the ground, "did you hear about MI-X?"
"MI-X?" Kurt had blinked, confused. The name seemed familiar, but with all the talk about Xavier and the controversy, he couldn't remember.
"MI-X, Pete's group!" It still wasn't connecting with him. Shaking her head, she circled in behind Kurt. "Pete Wisdom. Pete Wisdom is going to Charles' funeral."
Kurt was tempted to lie to Kitty suddenly, to tell her that he didn't know anything about Pete coming so that he wouldn't be the one to add more pressure to her. But he couldn't do it. It seemed like a cruel trick, to relieve her of her worries only to have her running into him later.
"Yes," he finally breathed. "Yes, Kitty, Pete is coming."
She was still for a moment, her brown eyes flickering across the floor. Slowly her head rose and she set her chin forward. There was a ghost of a smile on her face.
"Good," she said and walked off.
*******
Red wouldn't stop kicking the ground and it was beginning to get Hugh more than a little annoyed.
"Stop it," Hugh growled, peering out at Red from underneath his light brown hair. He rubbed his left leg, still cramped from the plane ride, and leaned forward towards Red. She was pacing up and down the gravel road before the Westchester chapel where the funeral was to be held as Hugh was sitting sideways in the passenger seat of the rental car, his body perched on the edge of the car seat, his legs resting out on the pavement out of the open car door.
Red paused for a moment, looking over her shoulder at Hugh and narrowing her eyes. "Drop. Dead."
"I'm enjoying this time with you as well, Redhead." He flipped his hair back and tucked it under his ear. He was overdue for a haircut, and he felt hugely uncomfortable in his stiff suit. He wondered what the hell he was doing here.
"If you call me that again," Red growled, "I will rip your balls out through your mouth."
"Promises, promises," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Why are you so worked up?"
She shrugged and continued pacing up and down. "Tried to do it Xavier's way years ago and needless to say, it didn't work out." She bit her lip and looked up and down the dirt road. "I didn't make too many friends either, believe it or not."
"Nooooo," Hugh responded with mock surprise. He could have sworn that he saw a sliver of a smile on her face. "But that's a load of shite, Red. You usually don't get so nervous about people who don't like you or you would nervous a whole lot more of the time."
She stopped and glared, not at him, but through him. "Three guesses."
Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, "Kitty Pryde."
"So you're not so stupid after all."
"Nawh, don't let the good looks fool you."
She snorted. "You know, maybe we can help each other out."
Hugh heard the last five words and automatically tuned Red out. Her schemes were bad enough to begin with; it was far worse to get yourself sucked into them. "Hey, is Cloe gonna be here?"
She frowned intensely at him. "You know she's staying behind with Rachel."
"Why isn't Rachel comin'?"
Now he had really gotten underneath Red's skin. "Maybe because she doesn't want to fall asleep at a funeral for some demented old cripple like the rest of us? Jeez, Hugh, what's-"
"Do you really think that's why?" He leaned back in the car seat, speaking as dramatically as he could. "They say that she's the one who killed him."
"Javla helvete! Hugh, will you stop trying to change the subject? Or at least stop being so transparent about it." She huffed and fumbled around in her coat pocket for a cigarette. "You know I don't care who killed him."
Hugh sighed, defeated. "What's the subject, Red?"
"Us helping each other. You want someone, I want someone, they might want each other...." She studied his face and Hugh did everything in his power to keep it completely blank. "Do I have to spell it out?!" she finally shouted, exasperated. "I want Pete and you want Kitty." She looked at his still blank expression. "I mean, don't lie. It's obvious you're after her."
"Look, Red," he said as he watched the younger woman lit her cigarette. "We all know that you've been after Wisdom for forever, for whatever your reasons are. But I very much doubt that he's going to get back with someone he dated a decade ago just because her husband died last year." He shook his head thoughtfully. "That's pretty tacky, even for him."
She was completely pissed at him now and she began to suck the life out of her cigarette. "Can't you just keep the little kat Kat busy? She'll make a nice addition to your collection."
"Have you ever stopped and thought about WHY you want Pete?" Hugh asked, completely ignoring Red's comments. "It's not like he's exactly a catch. You know what I think?"
Red rolled her eyes viciously, violently stomping out her cigarette underneath her boots. "Oh, are you going to go all Olivia on me now?"
He continued to ignore her. "You don't like men. You probably hate us. Can't blame you, the vast majority of us are relatively disgusting. Men utterly repulse you, but you're still a red blooded heterosexual woman with a plethora of insecurities 'bout being attractive and needed and all that. So you go for the man who will touch you with his ten foot pole, but he won't involve you enough so that you have to get closer than those ten feet."
"Far at helvete," Red spat out, turned on her heel and stomped off, leaving Hugh and the rental car behind. He shrugged, was surprised that he was close enough to right that he hit a nerve and waited for his boss to get there.
******
Kitty was more than lost in the small room that was off to the right of the chapel's altar. She had spoken at a funeral or two before, unfortunately, but not at one where her feelings had been so mixed, where she had been put so in charge of it all. She sat crumpled in a wooden chair in the corner and was vaguely aware that she was sitting on something that was probably a priest's vestments. She would have asked Kurt, but he had thankfully agreed to do the hard work of greeting and mingling all the other mourners.
Mourners. Was she mourning? She didn't feel particularly mournful. She was exhausted, beaten down, numb to it all. But she was having a hell of a hard time feeling mournful for the death of this man.
She had received the call on her cell from Olivia at MI-X about twenty minutes before she was supposed to meet with Xavier. Rachel is awake, the woman had said, and was blabbering something about Piotr and Xavier. What Rachel had said didn't matter to Kitty. What mattered was that she was awake. She had gotten her back again.
And so her step was a little too light, her face a little too excited when she threw open the door to Xavier's office and found his body. She remembered that she hadn't screamed, that she had been too shocked to. She had wandered through the rest of the mansion, making her way through swells of mutant school children, waving absent-mindedly at Rahne, not really seeing where she was walking until she had ended up at the small house attached to the mansion where the Summers lived. Scott came to the door breathless, speaking too hurriedly about Emma for Kitty to get a word in edge-wise. He kept pulling at Kitty's arm for her to enter their house, saying she had to see his wife Emma who had some sort of burning fever and was non-responsive and make sure she was okay. Finally, Kitty got him off her and, in a calm and cool voice that belied the emotions inside her, told him about the dead body of Xavier lying in his office.
Since then, she hadn't seen anyone from Xavier's, save Kurt and Amanda. She had been slightly aware of them coming to her house to talk with her, but Kurt had always sent them away on her behalf. She had received the phone call from Emma though, her slightly faltering voice telling her that in his will, Xavier had chosen Kitty to deliver his eulogy.
And then there was the second call from Cloe Olivia, her voice even worse than Emma's, hesitantly laying before Kitty a mass of evidence that Kitty had no idea what to do with. Olivia had told Kitty that she had discovered that Charles had been inside Rachel's mind, that he was the cause of Rachel's breakdown, that Charles seemed to have been inside other people's minds as well. She laid out a hesitant theory that for the past few years Xavier had penetrated the minds of many of those around him and had done some minor 'adjustments' so they would go along with what he deemed best for them. And then she unveiled her most painful statement.
Rachel had confessed to entering Xavier's mind, learning that it was not a stray bullet as he claimed that had felled her husband Piotr but instead an aneurysm caused by Xavier himself and had then cooked Xavier's brain from the inside out.
Kitty had trouble remembering if she had received Emma's phone call before or after Cloe's. She continued to assume that it was before Cloe's since she knew that if she had been told she was to be the one to deliver a eulogy for the man who had murdered her husband, she would have destroyed something. But then again, it was very possible that she had and simply could not remember.
Later had come all the other questions and accusations. Xavier must have known about Piotr not being Lilly's father. Why did he lie about it? To keep Kitty in the fold? Then why kill Piotr? What was the point of everything Xavier had done? When did Xavier become so heartless, so uncaring?
What had she done to deserve this nightmare?
Whatever it was, it wasn't anything that was about to end soon.
Kitty could hear the chapel growing louder with more urgent whispering. She closed her eyes and imagined everyone that was sitting out there. Would Jean be there? What about Jubilee? Would there be a visible divide in the crowd, between those hating Xavier and those hating Rachel?
Where would Pete be?
She hated that everything came back to him. But she had to see him, if only to apologize. She wasn't sure yet if she was going to tell him about Lilly, or even if she should. She thought that when this day had gotten here, she would have figured out what to do. But she was just as clueless now as she had ever been before.
There was a knock, and Kurt was at the door, peering in. "Kitty," his voice was hushed, "it's time."
It must have been hours since she had been sitting there, then. Not that it mattered. She thought she was probably going to feel like this for the rest of her life.
She stood up, grabbed her notes and walked out in front of Xavier and the mourners.
********
Hello everyone. Some of you know me, maybe most of you. For those of you who don't, my name is Katherine Pryde. I first met Charles over twenty years ago when I was thirteen. Now I'm twenty-nine and in those sixteen years, I have saved the world countless times, saved the actual universe once or twice, gone back and forth through time, have met the most amazing people, have loved with all my heart and lost too many of the ones I've loved. I've become a widow, an orphan and a mother. This, both the good and the bad, is because of Charles Xavier.
(A pause and an audible sigh.)
Look, I know that this feels odd to do. To try to celebrate the life of this man with so many murmurings going on about what he may have done to our minds and us. I have just as much cause as any to be angry: I've lost my husband and the love of my life because of Xavier. But you have to remember; there will be time for anger later. Now, we must mourn the passing of a man so many high ambitions. He sacrificed so much to give us his Dream, this hope of a life without bigotry. Over and over again, he put his students' needs before his own. We were all his children and he loved and accepted us accordingly- even those of us who would be loved and accepted by no one else. You know who you are.
(A short chuckle and a warm laugh throughout the audience.)
When I was young, I didn't always understand that. God knows that I thought he was crazy when he accepted Rogue. But he was right about her. He always did manage to see the very best in people, to comprehend their potentional. Even at the end, all he wanted was to help and protect us. But I guess he had lost the way. A lot of us have lost the way over the years. Except while Charles was always there for us to pull us back, there was no one to pull him back.
I would like to thank you all for coming.
******
She was so alone.
Will had been cornered by Hank. Kali had gone off to give her condolences. Kent was around somewhere, probably hanging after Kali. Hugh had wandered off to chat some women up a while ago. And she couldn't find Pete.
She couldn't find Kitty either. Logically, that meant that the two were together.
Red stopped pacing in the church hall and took a seat in the last row of pews. She didn't belong here and everyone knew it. She had done her best to smile pleasantly at the people she had briefly known with the New Mutants, but it had exhausted her. This whole thing exhausted her.
Better to just face it. She was tired.
She was exhausted, drained and beaten down. Five years of chasing after a guy, half-heartedly or not, will do that to a girl. And then there was the scorn she had to deal with, the animosity that practically flowed off of Kali, the fear that slowly seeped out of Kent. She remembered exactly every look they had given her, every chill in the room, every awkward silence. She was so damn tired of remembering everything.
She had tried the drinking to forget for a while. It didn't work. She would wake with a nasty headache and not only remember everything she wanted to forget in mind numbing detail but she also knew everything that had happened while she was drunk, something most people are spared from.
Her mutant power didn't suit her. She had the personality of a fire starter, like Pete, or some other sort of combat ability. Leave the filming and the storing to those blank enough to be written on.
Red wasn't stupid. She saw how much Kitty's daughter had looked like Pete the last time she saw her. She knew what was going on. And she knew that no matter how much Pete might still resent Kitty or fear her or want to stay away from her, he would be with her again one day. Lilly would see to that.
And so then Red's safety would be over. Pete would toss her, for real this time, out and onto the streets. There would be no man who understood to cling to, no one to help her make the memories go away, if only for a second.
Just thinking of them now in abstract made them start to flood back....
She stood up and held her stomach. She felt like she was going to be sick.
*******
Emma looked around at the throngs of people and felt like she was going to be sick.
She hadn't planned on coming. She had been suffering heavily from a physic backlash since Xavier had died. Other telepaths the world over had supposedly felt it, but she had been within a mile of it and it had been the worst feeling she had ever felt.
But Scott had pleaded with her. He needed her there, he said, he wouldn't be able to do it without her. So she had come. And she knew it was a mistake.
As soon as she heard the allegations about Xavier tampering with minds, she knew it was true. She almost told the others this. She almost told them that for the majority of the past ten years, parts of her face and head had turned to diamond randomly without her willing it. But she had kept it quiet for the last decade and there was no use in starting trouble now.
And then there was Jean to worry about. Everywhere, she was hearing whispers that she had come back.
Emma deduced that Jean's sudden breakdown, divorce from Scott and disappearance could very well be attributed to Xavier. Intellectually, she had no problem with that. It was when she continued to draw more deductions from these assumptions that she began to have problems.
If Xavier had intended Jean and Scott to divorce, was it such a leap to assume that he had made Emma and Scott marry?
She had never seen herself as the marrying type, and yet here she was, married to Scott Summers with a child on the way. She was the co- headmistress of the Academy, a respected teacher who often took her kids on field trips.
What part of this made any sense?
It didn't sound like her at all.
She had been married to Scott for six years now. They had been sharing a bed for seven. She was about to have his child.
And suddenly, Emma realized that she didn't know him at all.
******
He finally found her, sitting outside on the front lawn of the chapel. He watched her for a few moments. He wasn't aware that he was looking for her.
"Hello, Pete," she said. Her voice was just above a whisper. It hurt him to hear her so fragile.
"Kit," he responded, nodding in acknowledgement. He sat down next to her on the grass, not bothering to fix his pants underneath him. Screw the suit.
Looking over at her, he couldn't help but feel something for her. With her soft brown hair blowing about her face, her deep eyes watching her daughter run around Kurt and Amanda's son and Rogue and Remy's children, she was everything he wasn't, everything he didn't want. But why did he still feel something?
"I'm sorry," he said, his tongue tripping slightly over his words, "for your losses." She shrugged and he frowned. She wasn't going to make this easy for him. "And I'm sorry about what happened with us. Well, I'm not really sorry because you had to go and be a bitch and invite me to your wedding to-" "Shut up." Her voice was small but sharp and there were tears in her eyes. "Just shut up, Pete, and listen to me." He raised his head slowly, his mouth slightly open, flinching a bit to himself. She wouldn't look at him. Her eyes stared straight, flickering slightly.
"I didn't mean to have all this happen. Right after I left..... well, right after I left you, I found out that I was pregnant, Xavier told me that it was Piotr's so we got married and that was that. It was nothing I wanted. I wanted...."She trailed off. "Do you know why he left me that night, Pete?" He knew whom she was referring to. "He left because he realized something I should have known all along. But it was Charles and I never expected he would lie to me." Her eyes flashed angrily. "I can't believe he would take so much from me and still expect me to stand up there and say nice things about-"
"Kit," he interrupted her as gently as he could. "What did Piotr realize?" It felt odd, almost painful, saying his name without venom. He noticed Kitty wince and he sighed to himself; he hated how she still cared.
"He realized," her voice sounded shaky, "that Lilly wasn't his."
A few feet away, Lilly had slipped free from her blank shoes and her white tights were quickly becoming covered with grass stains. Pete watched her do a small somersault, evading Christian Wagner's clutches and she rolled out victorious, clutching his skin colored tail. He heard the sounds of a baby crying some yards away, maybe the Wagner's Helen or maybe the Braddock's Elisabeth. Everywhere around him, around this funeral, was life.
"Pete," she softly called him back and he remembered he was talking to Kitty about something very important.
"Pete," she said, "Lilly is yours."
His fingers twitched and he whispered desperately for a cigarette. He thought about Red pacing angrily in the hall of the chapel, Meggan beaming at him with a round body, Xavier's body lying in a fresh new box, Piotr's decomposing not so far away.
"Are you sure?" He was vaguely aware that his question might upset her, but he felt he was a million times away.
"Yes," she said. "After Piotr.... suspected, I got an independent paternity test done."
"Oh." What the hell did she want him to say? What could she expect him to do? All of a sudden he had a child, a daughter, who was completely foreign to him, a girl who had already loved a father. Lilly didn't need him; god knows his parents had been crap, how was he supposed to do any better?
"Listen," Kitty said finally, breaking the silence. "I'm not telling you this because I want anything from you. I just felt you should know." She shook her head. "I'm not even planning to tell her till she's older, anyway."
"Ashamed of me, are you?"
"Don't start." She shrugged, and looked desperately at him. "I don't know what to do." She paused. "What do you think?"
"Doesn't really matter, but I'd like to know her, I suppose."
"I'm thinking of joining MI-X, you know. I can't stay in the states. I'm so disenfranchised with this whole X-Men business. And I don't know myself anymore. For the past decade, I've had him in my head, and I'm not sure what's me and what's not me."
"They've been saying that will clear up soon. That his influence will fade."
She was slightly crying now. "It doesn't matter. It's too late. He's already taken so much from me. My husband," she breathed.
He stood up, shuffling his weight back and forth uncomfortably. "You really miss him, huh?' he finally managed. He sounded pathetic, even to him.
"What?" Kitty looked up at him, blinking. And then she sighed heavily. "Don't you get it, Pete? I'm not talking about Piotr." She looked away. "I'm talking about you."
Her crying wasn't silent now. It was loud and ragged, her breaths coming in broken sobs. Pete looked at her and had no idea what to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small arm reach out and place a hand on Kitty's shoulder. He raised his head and saw Lilly. He saw his daughter.
"Mommy," she breathed. Her face was slowly collapsing, her blue eyes shining. "Mommy, please don't cry."
Kitty reached out and violently brought Lilly to her chest in a ferocious hug. Pete could barely hear the muffled sniffles of mother and daughter over the shrieks of the nearby children. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Elisabeth had joined in with Christian and Adrienne, the two older toddlers circling around the infant Braddock who was reaching out for Christian's tail. Christian kept dangling the tail alluringly close to Elisabeth's face, only to pull it away every time she drew near. After several turns of this, Elisabeth began to cry hysterically. In one swift move, both Meggan and Kurt were there, Meggan scooping her baby up into her arms and Kurt grabbing his son by the ear. He lead Christian away, gently chastising him but doing so in a way that Christian didn't get upset or mad himself. And Meggan had successfully quieted her daughter and passed her over to Brian, who was tossing her into the air much to her delight. Pete had never had parents like that. How was he supposed to spontaneously learn to be like that?
Maybe Kitty could read still him, because she calmed at the moment, pulling Lilly away from her as the two both sniffled. Smiling teary at Pete, she turned her daughter- no, *their* daughter- around to face him.
"Lilly," she said, and her voice was a lot stronger than he would have thought, "I'd like to introduce you to someone. This is Pete Wisdom. He's one of my old good friends."
Lilly looked thoughtfully at him for a second, rubbing her nose with the back of her friend. "Hi, Pete Wisdom." She took the edges of her dress and did a slightly awkward curtsey. "My name is Lilith Pryde. But you can call me Lilly."
He gave her a lopsided smile. It felt like his heart was in his bowels. "It's very nice to meet you, Lilly. How old are you?"
"Five years old," she said, holding up five fingers proudly. She smiled, cocking her head as she looked at him. "You live in Brit-tan, right? With Auntie Rachie?"
Pete looked up briefly at Kitty, amused that Lilly knew something of her. "It's Brit-IN. And I don't live with your Aunt per se, but she lives very close by and one of my friends takes care of her." Cloe would be amused to hear herself referred to as a friend of his.
"Mommy?" Lilly turned towards her mother, looking up at her. "What does 'per se' mean?"
Kitty smiled and ruffled her daughter's hair up. "It's just a fancy grown up expression." She glanced at Pete. "Pete isn't used to talking to kids."
"You don't have any kids, Mr. Wisdom?" Lilly asked. Pete rationally knew it was just a normal curious kid question, but in the context it felt like fate was playing another cruel joke on him.
"I do," he said. Was that really him talking? It felt like an alien voice, not his. "She lives with her mom."
"I live with my mom too," Lilly chirped, looking up at Kitty and tugging on her mother's hand. Then she looked back at Pete and flashed him the biggest smile he had ever seen. "Maybe we can play together one day, yeah?"
"Yeah. Maybe." This was too surreal to be happening. In the distant, he heard the hum of a rental car and Red's voice calling for him. "So," he finally said, "when should we expect you in London?"
Kitty's head snapped up as she looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh....um, in a few weeks, I suppose." She was doing a very bad job of hiding her excitement. Lilly was doing even worse as she clamped a hand over her mouth and clung to her mother's leg, bouncing slightly. "We're mostly packed," she continued, "It's just a matter of settling some other things."
"Great," Pete said. He reached a hand out to Kitty, grasped hers tightly and shook. "Ms. Pryde, welcome to MI-X."
And he left then, back to the rental car where the rest of his teammates sat. Kali was driving again, and he began to wonder if she even had a driving license and if she did, how she got one. It was the kind of time where you worry about random things like that. He noticed Red huddled in the back seat out of the corner of his eye, but he was watching two girls on the lawn of a church.
Lilly was the only one who waved goodbye. Kitty just gazed at him with a look that scorched his soul.
****
Translations from the Swedish: Javla helvete- Devil's hell, a common curse in Swedish. More like the equivalent to 'f**king hell' in English Kat- Horny Far at helvete- Go to hell
A/N: Loooong time coming on this one, and I apologize if it's too lengthy. However, that said, I'm *very* happy that I've finally managed to get it all out of me.
GoddessChild- Charles has a hard time learning from his mistakes, apparently. :P And thanks for your compliment, I'm glad that I got the sense of a mental breakdown across.
Lightspeed Suzuka- Hmm... in love? Maaaybe. But right now, it's a friendship thing, with Cloe being Rachel's anchor to reality. Okay, so maybe that's BS and its all love. You will have to wait and see. And I'm SO glad someone finally felt bad for Piotr.
Oldprydefan- It's a-okay to celebrate Xavier's death! I always thought that he was the most overdue for a death than anyone else. His character would probably mean so much more as a martyr than an old mentor. However, he isn't gonna be either in my story. BAWAHAHA.
Anythingbutordinary3- So yep, by now you know that Kitty knows the truth and she's still trying to figure it all out. I'm not guaranteeing anything about Kitty and Pete getting together again... at least, not automatically. Still plenty of unresolved issues there, don't ya think?
Harry- That's exactly where I'm going. Dammit, I swear you must read my mind. :)
Now on with the story!
******
"I was at a funeral the day I realised
I wanted to spend my life with you
sitting down on the steps at the old post office
the flag was flying at half mast
and I was thinkin' 'bout how everyone was dying
and maybe it is time to live" -P.S. You Rock My World by The Eels
******
Laila sat on the cornerstone of the church stairs and watched the sun come up over the Westchester treetops. Laying a hand on the cold stone, she closed her eyes. She knew she shouldn't stay much longer. Eventually, the neighborhood church would be full and she would be miles away. But now she had time.
She stood up and pulled herself up onto the stairway ledge. As she balanced along it, she sighed and shivered in the morning air. In a matter of hours it would all begin and then it would end something that had existed for years. And she had been a player in it, despite her promise to herself years ago that she wouldn't. But it was too late now to kick herself. She had helped set this in motion. She couldn't back out now.
It was too late for the future.
*******
"Lilly!" Kurt was quickly becoming tired of shouting and he felt more and more ridiculous as he stood in the middle of the living room holding onto a small girl's black patent shoes.
'What's wrong, hon?" came a soft, tired voice behind him. He looked over his blue furred shoulder to see his wife, her eyes slightly sunken in to her skull, her fight tight with exhaustion. Worry quickly pulsed through his body; Amanda had taken Xavier's death a lot harder than he would have thought. Kurt himself felt jaded against it. He had left Xavier behind years ago, and the parting had been less than friendly. Not the same for Amanda who had only experienced Charles's benevolence.
"Lilly has evaded me once again," Kurt sighed. "She refuses to put her shoes on."
"They hurt," a small voice whined and Kurt looked down and found his son Christian clinging to Lilly Pryde, the two small children ducking behind Amanda's legs.
Christian looked up proudly at his father, his yellow eyes twinkling. "I found her, Dad! An' I told her if she tries to run away, I'll teleport her to Limbo." Next to him, Lilly pouted at Kurt and glared daggers at Christian.
"I don't want to put those shoes on, Uncle Kurt," she said evenly, her voice amazingly mature for her five years of age. "They pinch my toes."
Smiling at his 'niece', Kurt threw the shoes into the air and his tail quickly lashed out to catch them by the straps and simultaneously scooped up Lilly and quickly bamfed them both into the front hallway, leaving his young son behind to make a big show of coughing at the smell of sulfur and brimstone.
When they arrived in the hall, Lilly was giggling and smiling, the teleportation ride in her uncle's fuzzy arms having cheered her up. However, a frown quickly re-appeared on her face when Kurt flipped her shoes in the air and caught them in his hands.
Smiling as an apology, Kurt said, "I'm sorry Lillster, but your mommy wants you to wear these."
Lilly's frown deepened even further. "I don't care what my mommy wants," she huffed.
He frowned. "Listen, honey, I know this past year has been tough for you. It's been tough for all of us. And I know you miss your daddy," Kurt's voice hitched slightly as he noticed a small amount of tears welling up in Lilly's blue eyes, "but it was extra hard on your mommy. She needed," he paused, thinking of the best way to phrase it, "some time off."
"Some time away from me," Lilly whispered, her small face twisting into a pout. Kurt quickly opened up his arms to the girl who he had partially raised over half of last year and she quickly darted into his embrace. Sniffling, she quickly settled against the comfortable and familiar feeling of his chest.
"Not at all, leibching," Kurt said soothingly, slightly rocking Lilly back and forth. "Not at all." And yet, he knew that that was part of the reason. Right after Piotr's death, Kitty was completely inconsolable, blaming the whole mess on herself. After several tearful and hysterical nights, Kitty couldn't survive underneath all the weight of that self- imposed guilt and slowly the guilt began being transferred to Lilly. Lilly who was of dubious paternity, Lilly who had Piotr's and Peter's eyes, Lilly who had set off the whole discovery and ensuing chaos. As Kitty became more and more unhinged, the more Kurt worried that her dissatisfaction and anger would turn into visible violence and rage. And so he had taken Lilly from her and sent Kitty away for a mental vacation. She had come back more together but as the anniversary of Piotr's death had approached, she began to act more erratic again.
But then Xavier had died, and that had changed everything, of course.
Kurt still found it hard to believe that Rachel was responsible for Xavier's bizarre death. Sure, the cause of death, the phoenix burned into the rug at his feet and Rachel's sudden reawakening at same time as his death was all very suspicious, but he had known Rachel when they were both in Excalibur together. And though she had been a haunted and traumatized girl, he had never known her to brutally murder anyone, lest of all someone that had meant so much to her, someone who she had watched die before.
But then again, if the rumor about Xavier's behavior was indeed true...
Kurt shook his head. Over the past few days, he had caught whispers of allegations about Charles manipulating people but he had been too focused on taking care of both Kitty and Lilly to devote proper time and contemplation to it. All he knew is that if the rumors were correct and it was indeed Rachel that had killed him, he couldn't blame her. In fact, even if the rumors were false, he could not find it in himself to hate Rachel. He laughed shortly to himself. Despite all his efforts to the contrary, he had become an even more devout Catholic than before it seemed.
Back in the moment, Kurt slid the shoes onto the grumbling Lilly's feet, tickling the sides of them to make her laugh. He heard a noise on the stair and he looked up to see Kitty slowly floating down the stairs.
Since Xavier's death, she had been different. Better. Lighter. She carried herself prouder and straighter now; it seemed as if a heavy burden had been lifted off of her shoulders. Kurt hated to admit it, but Charles Xavier dying had been good for her.
She smiled down at her daughter and ruffled her hair affectionately, and Lilly instantly forgot her grievances with her mother and giggled. "How you doing, Lil?" Kitty asked gently. "You look very pretty; have you thanked Kurt for helping you get ready?"
"Thanks Mommy," Lilly smiled, standing up and smoothing down her light gray dress. Ceremoniously, she turned to Kurt and seemed to bow slightly. "Thanks Uncle Kurt."
"Now get out of here and play with your cousins," Kitty said, smacking Lilly playfully on her back. Giggling, Lilly ran out of the room, her long black hair streaming behind her.
"She's just going to take those shoes off, you know," Kurt said, smiling gently at Kitty.
She grinned back and gave a quick shrug. "We'll just have to corner her later then. Besides, those shoes do look a little bit uncomfortable."
"How are you holding up?" he asked, quietly.
Another shrug. "Fine, I suppose. It seems odd, but I'm more in shock that Charles chose me to deliver his eulogy than the fact that he's dead." She shook her head, hugged herself and looked into space. "Piotr's death still hurts more than this, and I hate to say but Piotr doesn't hurt as much as it used it."
"It's been a year. It's bound to happen, I suppose."
"Still, I feel guilty." She bit her lip. "I feel... like I betrayed him."
"You didn't, Katzchen. Don't even think that you did."
She sighed. "But if only I hadn't-"
He cut her off. "Don't start with the 'if only's'—they won't come to any good."
Kitty smiled lopsidedly at him. "You know, for the co-leader of Limbo, you sound an awful lot like a Catholic priest."
Kurt gave a short bark of laughter. "That's the second time today I've realized that." He put his arm affectionately around her shoulders, leading her into her living room. "There's no way of running around for your roots, ja?"
"Yeah," she said quietly, looking down introspectively. "Is it true, Kurt?" she asked suddenly, her voice laden with worry and her eyes seemingly panicked. "Is it true that Pete is going to be here?"
Looking at her, Kurt wondered if she realized that she had winced when she had said Pete's name, or if it had been completely unconscious. She realized that hearing his name froze even his insides momentarily.
Pete was of a different era, a different lifetime. Excalibur seemed like centuries ago, despite the fact that it was merely a decade or so. They had been different people then, less complicated and less weighed down. Except for Pete. Kurt imagined that Pete Wisdom had emerged from his mother's womb weighed down with the pressures of the world and he couldn't conceive of the man changing. He remembered meeting with Meggan two days ago in Limbo when the Queen of the Otherworld came to visit to express her condolences. Kurt and Amanda had often seen her and Brian when their two realms met and planned together, but Kurt couldn't recall seeing Meggan in such an excitable state in a long time.
She had flitted around Kurt, nervously twisting her long blonde hair around her slim pale fingers, her blue eyes anxiously and excitedly darting back and forth.
"Did you hear, Kurt?" she had asked, her toes hovering several inches above the ground, "did you hear about MI-X?"
"MI-X?" Kurt had blinked, confused. The name seemed familiar, but with all the talk about Xavier and the controversy, he couldn't remember.
"MI-X, Pete's group!" It still wasn't connecting with him. Shaking her head, she circled in behind Kurt. "Pete Wisdom. Pete Wisdom is going to Charles' funeral."
Kurt was tempted to lie to Kitty suddenly, to tell her that he didn't know anything about Pete coming so that he wouldn't be the one to add more pressure to her. But he couldn't do it. It seemed like a cruel trick, to relieve her of her worries only to have her running into him later.
"Yes," he finally breathed. "Yes, Kitty, Pete is coming."
She was still for a moment, her brown eyes flickering across the floor. Slowly her head rose and she set her chin forward. There was a ghost of a smile on her face.
"Good," she said and walked off.
*******
Red wouldn't stop kicking the ground and it was beginning to get Hugh more than a little annoyed.
"Stop it," Hugh growled, peering out at Red from underneath his light brown hair. He rubbed his left leg, still cramped from the plane ride, and leaned forward towards Red. She was pacing up and down the gravel road before the Westchester chapel where the funeral was to be held as Hugh was sitting sideways in the passenger seat of the rental car, his body perched on the edge of the car seat, his legs resting out on the pavement out of the open car door.
Red paused for a moment, looking over her shoulder at Hugh and narrowing her eyes. "Drop. Dead."
"I'm enjoying this time with you as well, Redhead." He flipped his hair back and tucked it under his ear. He was overdue for a haircut, and he felt hugely uncomfortable in his stiff suit. He wondered what the hell he was doing here.
"If you call me that again," Red growled, "I will rip your balls out through your mouth."
"Promises, promises," he chuckled, shaking his head. "Why are you so worked up?"
She shrugged and continued pacing up and down. "Tried to do it Xavier's way years ago and needless to say, it didn't work out." She bit her lip and looked up and down the dirt road. "I didn't make too many friends either, believe it or not."
"Nooooo," Hugh responded with mock surprise. He could have sworn that he saw a sliver of a smile on her face. "But that's a load of shite, Red. You usually don't get so nervous about people who don't like you or you would nervous a whole lot more of the time."
She stopped and glared, not at him, but through him. "Three guesses."
Rubbing the back of his neck, he said, "Kitty Pryde."
"So you're not so stupid after all."
"Nawh, don't let the good looks fool you."
She snorted. "You know, maybe we can help each other out."
Hugh heard the last five words and automatically tuned Red out. Her schemes were bad enough to begin with; it was far worse to get yourself sucked into them. "Hey, is Cloe gonna be here?"
She frowned intensely at him. "You know she's staying behind with Rachel."
"Why isn't Rachel comin'?"
Now he had really gotten underneath Red's skin. "Maybe because she doesn't want to fall asleep at a funeral for some demented old cripple like the rest of us? Jeez, Hugh, what's-"
"Do you really think that's why?" He leaned back in the car seat, speaking as dramatically as he could. "They say that she's the one who killed him."
"Javla helvete! Hugh, will you stop trying to change the subject? Or at least stop being so transparent about it." She huffed and fumbled around in her coat pocket for a cigarette. "You know I don't care who killed him."
Hugh sighed, defeated. "What's the subject, Red?"
"Us helping each other. You want someone, I want someone, they might want each other...." She studied his face and Hugh did everything in his power to keep it completely blank. "Do I have to spell it out?!" she finally shouted, exasperated. "I want Pete and you want Kitty." She looked at his still blank expression. "I mean, don't lie. It's obvious you're after her."
"Look, Red," he said as he watched the younger woman lit her cigarette. "We all know that you've been after Wisdom for forever, for whatever your reasons are. But I very much doubt that he's going to get back with someone he dated a decade ago just because her husband died last year." He shook his head thoughtfully. "That's pretty tacky, even for him."
She was completely pissed at him now and she began to suck the life out of her cigarette. "Can't you just keep the little kat Kat busy? She'll make a nice addition to your collection."
"Have you ever stopped and thought about WHY you want Pete?" Hugh asked, completely ignoring Red's comments. "It's not like he's exactly a catch. You know what I think?"
Red rolled her eyes viciously, violently stomping out her cigarette underneath her boots. "Oh, are you going to go all Olivia on me now?"
He continued to ignore her. "You don't like men. You probably hate us. Can't blame you, the vast majority of us are relatively disgusting. Men utterly repulse you, but you're still a red blooded heterosexual woman with a plethora of insecurities 'bout being attractive and needed and all that. So you go for the man who will touch you with his ten foot pole, but he won't involve you enough so that you have to get closer than those ten feet."
"Far at helvete," Red spat out, turned on her heel and stomped off, leaving Hugh and the rental car behind. He shrugged, was surprised that he was close enough to right that he hit a nerve and waited for his boss to get there.
******
Kitty was more than lost in the small room that was off to the right of the chapel's altar. She had spoken at a funeral or two before, unfortunately, but not at one where her feelings had been so mixed, where she had been put so in charge of it all. She sat crumpled in a wooden chair in the corner and was vaguely aware that she was sitting on something that was probably a priest's vestments. She would have asked Kurt, but he had thankfully agreed to do the hard work of greeting and mingling all the other mourners.
Mourners. Was she mourning? She didn't feel particularly mournful. She was exhausted, beaten down, numb to it all. But she was having a hell of a hard time feeling mournful for the death of this man.
She had received the call on her cell from Olivia at MI-X about twenty minutes before she was supposed to meet with Xavier. Rachel is awake, the woman had said, and was blabbering something about Piotr and Xavier. What Rachel had said didn't matter to Kitty. What mattered was that she was awake. She had gotten her back again.
And so her step was a little too light, her face a little too excited when she threw open the door to Xavier's office and found his body. She remembered that she hadn't screamed, that she had been too shocked to. She had wandered through the rest of the mansion, making her way through swells of mutant school children, waving absent-mindedly at Rahne, not really seeing where she was walking until she had ended up at the small house attached to the mansion where the Summers lived. Scott came to the door breathless, speaking too hurriedly about Emma for Kitty to get a word in edge-wise. He kept pulling at Kitty's arm for her to enter their house, saying she had to see his wife Emma who had some sort of burning fever and was non-responsive and make sure she was okay. Finally, Kitty got him off her and, in a calm and cool voice that belied the emotions inside her, told him about the dead body of Xavier lying in his office.
Since then, she hadn't seen anyone from Xavier's, save Kurt and Amanda. She had been slightly aware of them coming to her house to talk with her, but Kurt had always sent them away on her behalf. She had received the phone call from Emma though, her slightly faltering voice telling her that in his will, Xavier had chosen Kitty to deliver his eulogy.
And then there was the second call from Cloe Olivia, her voice even worse than Emma's, hesitantly laying before Kitty a mass of evidence that Kitty had no idea what to do with. Olivia had told Kitty that she had discovered that Charles had been inside Rachel's mind, that he was the cause of Rachel's breakdown, that Charles seemed to have been inside other people's minds as well. She laid out a hesitant theory that for the past few years Xavier had penetrated the minds of many of those around him and had done some minor 'adjustments' so they would go along with what he deemed best for them. And then she unveiled her most painful statement.
Rachel had confessed to entering Xavier's mind, learning that it was not a stray bullet as he claimed that had felled her husband Piotr but instead an aneurysm caused by Xavier himself and had then cooked Xavier's brain from the inside out.
Kitty had trouble remembering if she had received Emma's phone call before or after Cloe's. She continued to assume that it was before Cloe's since she knew that if she had been told she was to be the one to deliver a eulogy for the man who had murdered her husband, she would have destroyed something. But then again, it was very possible that she had and simply could not remember.
Later had come all the other questions and accusations. Xavier must have known about Piotr not being Lilly's father. Why did he lie about it? To keep Kitty in the fold? Then why kill Piotr? What was the point of everything Xavier had done? When did Xavier become so heartless, so uncaring?
What had she done to deserve this nightmare?
Whatever it was, it wasn't anything that was about to end soon.
Kitty could hear the chapel growing louder with more urgent whispering. She closed her eyes and imagined everyone that was sitting out there. Would Jean be there? What about Jubilee? Would there be a visible divide in the crowd, between those hating Xavier and those hating Rachel?
Where would Pete be?
She hated that everything came back to him. But she had to see him, if only to apologize. She wasn't sure yet if she was going to tell him about Lilly, or even if she should. She thought that when this day had gotten here, she would have figured out what to do. But she was just as clueless now as she had ever been before.
There was a knock, and Kurt was at the door, peering in. "Kitty," his voice was hushed, "it's time."
It must have been hours since she had been sitting there, then. Not that it mattered. She thought she was probably going to feel like this for the rest of her life.
She stood up, grabbed her notes and walked out in front of Xavier and the mourners.
********
Hello everyone. Some of you know me, maybe most of you. For those of you who don't, my name is Katherine Pryde. I first met Charles over twenty years ago when I was thirteen. Now I'm twenty-nine and in those sixteen years, I have saved the world countless times, saved the actual universe once or twice, gone back and forth through time, have met the most amazing people, have loved with all my heart and lost too many of the ones I've loved. I've become a widow, an orphan and a mother. This, both the good and the bad, is because of Charles Xavier.
(A pause and an audible sigh.)
Look, I know that this feels odd to do. To try to celebrate the life of this man with so many murmurings going on about what he may have done to our minds and us. I have just as much cause as any to be angry: I've lost my husband and the love of my life because of Xavier. But you have to remember; there will be time for anger later. Now, we must mourn the passing of a man so many high ambitions. He sacrificed so much to give us his Dream, this hope of a life without bigotry. Over and over again, he put his students' needs before his own. We were all his children and he loved and accepted us accordingly- even those of us who would be loved and accepted by no one else. You know who you are.
(A short chuckle and a warm laugh throughout the audience.)
When I was young, I didn't always understand that. God knows that I thought he was crazy when he accepted Rogue. But he was right about her. He always did manage to see the very best in people, to comprehend their potentional. Even at the end, all he wanted was to help and protect us. But I guess he had lost the way. A lot of us have lost the way over the years. Except while Charles was always there for us to pull us back, there was no one to pull him back.
I would like to thank you all for coming.
******
She was so alone.
Will had been cornered by Hank. Kali had gone off to give her condolences. Kent was around somewhere, probably hanging after Kali. Hugh had wandered off to chat some women up a while ago. And she couldn't find Pete.
She couldn't find Kitty either. Logically, that meant that the two were together.
Red stopped pacing in the church hall and took a seat in the last row of pews. She didn't belong here and everyone knew it. She had done her best to smile pleasantly at the people she had briefly known with the New Mutants, but it had exhausted her. This whole thing exhausted her.
Better to just face it. She was tired.
She was exhausted, drained and beaten down. Five years of chasing after a guy, half-heartedly or not, will do that to a girl. And then there was the scorn she had to deal with, the animosity that practically flowed off of Kali, the fear that slowly seeped out of Kent. She remembered exactly every look they had given her, every chill in the room, every awkward silence. She was so damn tired of remembering everything.
She had tried the drinking to forget for a while. It didn't work. She would wake with a nasty headache and not only remember everything she wanted to forget in mind numbing detail but she also knew everything that had happened while she was drunk, something most people are spared from.
Her mutant power didn't suit her. She had the personality of a fire starter, like Pete, or some other sort of combat ability. Leave the filming and the storing to those blank enough to be written on.
Red wasn't stupid. She saw how much Kitty's daughter had looked like Pete the last time she saw her. She knew what was going on. And she knew that no matter how much Pete might still resent Kitty or fear her or want to stay away from her, he would be with her again one day. Lilly would see to that.
And so then Red's safety would be over. Pete would toss her, for real this time, out and onto the streets. There would be no man who understood to cling to, no one to help her make the memories go away, if only for a second.
Just thinking of them now in abstract made them start to flood back....
She stood up and held her stomach. She felt like she was going to be sick.
*******
Emma looked around at the throngs of people and felt like she was going to be sick.
She hadn't planned on coming. She had been suffering heavily from a physic backlash since Xavier had died. Other telepaths the world over had supposedly felt it, but she had been within a mile of it and it had been the worst feeling she had ever felt.
But Scott had pleaded with her. He needed her there, he said, he wouldn't be able to do it without her. So she had come. And she knew it was a mistake.
As soon as she heard the allegations about Xavier tampering with minds, she knew it was true. She almost told the others this. She almost told them that for the majority of the past ten years, parts of her face and head had turned to diamond randomly without her willing it. But she had kept it quiet for the last decade and there was no use in starting trouble now.
And then there was Jean to worry about. Everywhere, she was hearing whispers that she had come back.
Emma deduced that Jean's sudden breakdown, divorce from Scott and disappearance could very well be attributed to Xavier. Intellectually, she had no problem with that. It was when she continued to draw more deductions from these assumptions that she began to have problems.
If Xavier had intended Jean and Scott to divorce, was it such a leap to assume that he had made Emma and Scott marry?
She had never seen herself as the marrying type, and yet here she was, married to Scott Summers with a child on the way. She was the co- headmistress of the Academy, a respected teacher who often took her kids on field trips.
What part of this made any sense?
It didn't sound like her at all.
She had been married to Scott for six years now. They had been sharing a bed for seven. She was about to have his child.
And suddenly, Emma realized that she didn't know him at all.
******
He finally found her, sitting outside on the front lawn of the chapel. He watched her for a few moments. He wasn't aware that he was looking for her.
"Hello, Pete," she said. Her voice was just above a whisper. It hurt him to hear her so fragile.
"Kit," he responded, nodding in acknowledgement. He sat down next to her on the grass, not bothering to fix his pants underneath him. Screw the suit.
Looking over at her, he couldn't help but feel something for her. With her soft brown hair blowing about her face, her deep eyes watching her daughter run around Kurt and Amanda's son and Rogue and Remy's children, she was everything he wasn't, everything he didn't want. But why did he still feel something?
"I'm sorry," he said, his tongue tripping slightly over his words, "for your losses." She shrugged and he frowned. She wasn't going to make this easy for him. "And I'm sorry about what happened with us. Well, I'm not really sorry because you had to go and be a bitch and invite me to your wedding to-" "Shut up." Her voice was small but sharp and there were tears in her eyes. "Just shut up, Pete, and listen to me." He raised his head slowly, his mouth slightly open, flinching a bit to himself. She wouldn't look at him. Her eyes stared straight, flickering slightly.
"I didn't mean to have all this happen. Right after I left..... well, right after I left you, I found out that I was pregnant, Xavier told me that it was Piotr's so we got married and that was that. It was nothing I wanted. I wanted...."She trailed off. "Do you know why he left me that night, Pete?" He knew whom she was referring to. "He left because he realized something I should have known all along. But it was Charles and I never expected he would lie to me." Her eyes flashed angrily. "I can't believe he would take so much from me and still expect me to stand up there and say nice things about-"
"Kit," he interrupted her as gently as he could. "What did Piotr realize?" It felt odd, almost painful, saying his name without venom. He noticed Kitty wince and he sighed to himself; he hated how she still cared.
"He realized," her voice sounded shaky, "that Lilly wasn't his."
A few feet away, Lilly had slipped free from her blank shoes and her white tights were quickly becoming covered with grass stains. Pete watched her do a small somersault, evading Christian Wagner's clutches and she rolled out victorious, clutching his skin colored tail. He heard the sounds of a baby crying some yards away, maybe the Wagner's Helen or maybe the Braddock's Elisabeth. Everywhere around him, around this funeral, was life.
"Pete," she softly called him back and he remembered he was talking to Kitty about something very important.
"Pete," she said, "Lilly is yours."
His fingers twitched and he whispered desperately for a cigarette. He thought about Red pacing angrily in the hall of the chapel, Meggan beaming at him with a round body, Xavier's body lying in a fresh new box, Piotr's decomposing not so far away.
"Are you sure?" He was vaguely aware that his question might upset her, but he felt he was a million times away.
"Yes," she said. "After Piotr.... suspected, I got an independent paternity test done."
"Oh." What the hell did she want him to say? What could she expect him to do? All of a sudden he had a child, a daughter, who was completely foreign to him, a girl who had already loved a father. Lilly didn't need him; god knows his parents had been crap, how was he supposed to do any better?
"Listen," Kitty said finally, breaking the silence. "I'm not telling you this because I want anything from you. I just felt you should know." She shook her head. "I'm not even planning to tell her till she's older, anyway."
"Ashamed of me, are you?"
"Don't start." She shrugged, and looked desperately at him. "I don't know what to do." She paused. "What do you think?"
"Doesn't really matter, but I'd like to know her, I suppose."
"I'm thinking of joining MI-X, you know. I can't stay in the states. I'm so disenfranchised with this whole X-Men business. And I don't know myself anymore. For the past decade, I've had him in my head, and I'm not sure what's me and what's not me."
"They've been saying that will clear up soon. That his influence will fade."
She was slightly crying now. "It doesn't matter. It's too late. He's already taken so much from me. My husband," she breathed.
He stood up, shuffling his weight back and forth uncomfortably. "You really miss him, huh?' he finally managed. He sounded pathetic, even to him.
"What?" Kitty looked up at him, blinking. And then she sighed heavily. "Don't you get it, Pete? I'm not talking about Piotr." She looked away. "I'm talking about you."
Her crying wasn't silent now. It was loud and ragged, her breaths coming in broken sobs. Pete looked at her and had no idea what to do. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a small arm reach out and place a hand on Kitty's shoulder. He raised his head and saw Lilly. He saw his daughter.
"Mommy," she breathed. Her face was slowly collapsing, her blue eyes shining. "Mommy, please don't cry."
Kitty reached out and violently brought Lilly to her chest in a ferocious hug. Pete could barely hear the muffled sniffles of mother and daughter over the shrieks of the nearby children. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Elisabeth had joined in with Christian and Adrienne, the two older toddlers circling around the infant Braddock who was reaching out for Christian's tail. Christian kept dangling the tail alluringly close to Elisabeth's face, only to pull it away every time she drew near. After several turns of this, Elisabeth began to cry hysterically. In one swift move, both Meggan and Kurt were there, Meggan scooping her baby up into her arms and Kurt grabbing his son by the ear. He lead Christian away, gently chastising him but doing so in a way that Christian didn't get upset or mad himself. And Meggan had successfully quieted her daughter and passed her over to Brian, who was tossing her into the air much to her delight. Pete had never had parents like that. How was he supposed to spontaneously learn to be like that?
Maybe Kitty could read still him, because she calmed at the moment, pulling Lilly away from her as the two both sniffled. Smiling teary at Pete, she turned her daughter- no, *their* daughter- around to face him.
"Lilly," she said, and her voice was a lot stronger than he would have thought, "I'd like to introduce you to someone. This is Pete Wisdom. He's one of my old good friends."
Lilly looked thoughtfully at him for a second, rubbing her nose with the back of her friend. "Hi, Pete Wisdom." She took the edges of her dress and did a slightly awkward curtsey. "My name is Lilith Pryde. But you can call me Lilly."
He gave her a lopsided smile. It felt like his heart was in his bowels. "It's very nice to meet you, Lilly. How old are you?"
"Five years old," she said, holding up five fingers proudly. She smiled, cocking her head as she looked at him. "You live in Brit-tan, right? With Auntie Rachie?"
Pete looked up briefly at Kitty, amused that Lilly knew something of her. "It's Brit-IN. And I don't live with your Aunt per se, but she lives very close by and one of my friends takes care of her." Cloe would be amused to hear herself referred to as a friend of his.
"Mommy?" Lilly turned towards her mother, looking up at her. "What does 'per se' mean?"
Kitty smiled and ruffled her daughter's hair up. "It's just a fancy grown up expression." She glanced at Pete. "Pete isn't used to talking to kids."
"You don't have any kids, Mr. Wisdom?" Lilly asked. Pete rationally knew it was just a normal curious kid question, but in the context it felt like fate was playing another cruel joke on him.
"I do," he said. Was that really him talking? It felt like an alien voice, not his. "She lives with her mom."
"I live with my mom too," Lilly chirped, looking up at Kitty and tugging on her mother's hand. Then she looked back at Pete and flashed him the biggest smile he had ever seen. "Maybe we can play together one day, yeah?"
"Yeah. Maybe." This was too surreal to be happening. In the distant, he heard the hum of a rental car and Red's voice calling for him. "So," he finally said, "when should we expect you in London?"
Kitty's head snapped up as she looked at him with wide eyes. "Oh....um, in a few weeks, I suppose." She was doing a very bad job of hiding her excitement. Lilly was doing even worse as she clamped a hand over her mouth and clung to her mother's leg, bouncing slightly. "We're mostly packed," she continued, "It's just a matter of settling some other things."
"Great," Pete said. He reached a hand out to Kitty, grasped hers tightly and shook. "Ms. Pryde, welcome to MI-X."
And he left then, back to the rental car where the rest of his teammates sat. Kali was driving again, and he began to wonder if she even had a driving license and if she did, how she got one. It was the kind of time where you worry about random things like that. He noticed Red huddled in the back seat out of the corner of his eye, but he was watching two girls on the lawn of a church.
Lilly was the only one who waved goodbye. Kitty just gazed at him with a look that scorched his soul.
****
Translations from the Swedish: Javla helvete- Devil's hell, a common curse in Swedish. More like the equivalent to 'f**king hell' in English Kat- Horny Far at helvete- Go to hell