A/N: Oh, thank god. My mom is taking my sister to school and my dad is taking my brother to school, so yay, I'm alone and can finally write without someone over my shoulder. I need a computer for my room.

A/N 2: I start school tomorrow, so I might be a little slow with the upcoming chapters. I'll do the best I can, though.

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men, Marvel does. If I did, I'd be too busy watching them save the world and writing fan fics to go to school.

Chapter Five: Goodbye Love

Germany, 1984

Raven Wagner lay in her bed, tossing fitfully. Another damn night where she wouldn't get any sleep. She sighed and glared at the alarm clock by the side of her bed, which was flashing 12:00 AM continuosly.

Raven swore. The stupid thing was broken again. It had to be at least 2:00 in the morning. Well, she wasn't going to lie here pointlessly all night. She switched on the small lamp next to her bed and picked up her dog-eared copy of Brigdet Jones' Diary. She didn't let anyone at work know how much she loved this book, not wanting to be dubbed shallow, but it was her favorite to read at the late hours.

Tonight, though, she couldn't focus on the words in front of her. All she could think about was what had happened that afternoon.

It had been a horrible day at work. Her computer had shut down while she was in the middle of an important report, and she'd been forced to write all of her papers by hand. Raven unconciously flexed her wrist at that point, it still felt cramped. When she and Rolanda arrived home, she sank into the chair in the den, so happy to be home she couldn't describe it. That, of course, didn't help the fact that she was in a completely awful mood.

After sitting and watching the news for a while, she shut the television off and went upstairs to her room. She stopped on the way to listen at Caroline's door, and noted briefly that she heard muffled sobs. Poor girl was probably going through one of her crying jags of homesickness again. She was eighteen, and had been going to college for two months now, but it didn't seem to change her feelings about Germany.

Raven sighed and almost knocked on the door to see if she could do anything, but paused before actually doing so. Caroline would most likely want to be alone right now, as was usually the case. She repressed a groan and walked over to her room.

In there, she set her briefcase down on her small desk, and sank into her bed. She didn't know how long she lay there before she noticed Kurt Wagner's head - or, at the time, forehead and just barely his eyes - floating above the foot of her bed where he slept at night. She sat up, trying to see if his yellow-amber eyes were slightly red. Had he been crying?

He saw her looking at him and ducked down. Raven suppressed a smile and moved down to the end of her mattress, where, upon looking down, she saw Kurt curled up into a ball, head tucked between his knees and tail wrapped around his midsection protectively. She paused a moment to marvel at his flexibility, before realizing that her own son was scared of her. That made her feel sad and angry, not at Kurt, but at herself.

"Kurt?"

Kurt glanced up, momentarily untucking his head from his legs, before shrinking up into a ball again.Raven noted that his eyes did have a bloodshot tinge to them. He had been crying.

"Kurt." She poked the ball gently.

"Yesh?" He didn't uncurl at all, making his answer sound muffled. His slightly large, pointed teeth didn't help him at all.

"Have you been crying?"

"I'm sorry. I'll stop, I promise."

Raven heard a hint of a plea in his voice. It made her heart twang-twang in her chest. Had she really been that horrible to him, that he thought she'd hurt him? She knew she had never hugged him or held him when he cried, she had only told him to go away. She hated herself for doing that, but it was the only way she knew how to deal with Kurt. She'd never been shown any sign of affection in her household as a child, her parents were too uptight for that, so she had no idea how to do it. It made Raven ache to see him hurt when she did that, but it always happened too fast for her to prevent it. She was forcing her own childhood on her son, something she'd sworn she'd never do to her kids.

"Come sit with me?" She leaned up and patted the bed space next to her.

Kurt finally extracted himself from his blue ball and sat on his knees. He looked wary.

Raven beckoned to him. "Come on." (A/N: I'm writing this while listening to Smells like Teen Spirit. Kurt Cobain is a genius who died too young).

He stood up, still looking nervous. "Really?"

"Yes."

He paused for a moment, thinking it over, before finally climbing up the mattress to the spot next to Raven, making sure not to touch her.

Raven was sobbing on the inside, her own son thought she didn't want to touch him, but on the outside she put on a smile.

"Hello, Kurt."

"'lo, Raven," he mumbled incoherently, folding his hands in his lap and looking forlorn. Raven touched a black curl on his head, noticing that it was the same color's as her late husband's had been, before it turned grey. Kurt glanced up at her, looking confused, then trained his focus very carefully on the bedspread he was sitting on. He brushed his big finger across the material, following the pattern. Raven suddenly acknowledged a large bandage on the back of his hand.

"What happened?" she said, grabbing his hand. He winced and pulled it back.

"It - I, um, I - burned myself on the stove today." Tears filled his eyes again, and his eyelashes fluttered helplessy in his effort to prevent them from falling.

Raven gently pulled his hand back towards herself, and peeled off the bandage. Underneath it lay a burn, shiny and bright red against his dark skin. There were big ridges in it, and she realized that he must have hurt himself on one of the burners in the kitchen. She bet if she lined up his hand and the forge of the stove they'd line up perfectly.

She shuddered; it must be painful for Kurt; and placed the bandage back on.

"You did a nice job cleaning it up and dressing it," she told him.

"T'ank you."

The tears in his eyes finally spilled over, and he jumped in horror.

"Sorry," he sobbed, and began to push himself off the foot of the bed to go sit in his corner. Raven managed to catch him by the collar of his shirt and pulled him back into place. He rubbed his sleeves vigorously against his eyes, and inhaled through in his nose to stop the sobs. "I'm sorry. I'll stop crying."

"It's okay," she said, running her fingers through his hair. He glanced up at her, still looking confused, as well as miserable.

"Did I do something?" he asked, hugging his knees to his chest.

Raven shook her head, feeling a little sick. "No. I just had a bad day at work. Have you ever had to write three business reports by hand?"

Kurt smiled waterily and shook his head. "Nuh-uh."

She began to tell him about her day, and soon wondered why she hadn't ever talked to him before. He was a good listener.

Half an hour later, Kurt was lying down comfortably on the bed in front of Raven, falling asleep. She noticed that the tip of his thumb was in his mouth, and he was sucking it gently. He had just turned six, how long had he been doing that for? Her stomach flipped over, he was her son, and she knew nothing about him.

In a small act of retribution, she gently wriggled her arms underneath his tiny body and lifted him onto her lap. He glanced up at her sleepily, then snuggled against her body, wrapping his thin arms around her neck and letting his head rest on her shoulder. It took Raven a moment to realize that he was hugging her.

It felt like someone had ripped her heart from her chest and thrown it against the wall. There was this tiny, helpless creature in her arms, who depended on her even more because of what he looked like, and she didn't know how to take care of him at all.

Raven decided to ignore all of that for a few minutes. She could deal with her motherly incompotence later. Right now, she was going to spend some time with her son.

"Love you, Kurt," she murmured so softly into his hair, she wasn't even sure if she said it out loud.

Her suspicions were proven wrong, though.

"Love you too, Raven," he muttered quietly, before falling totally asleep.

Raven felt tears boiling in her eyes as she set him down gently on her bed and walked downstairs to help Rolanda make dinner.

Now she lay in her bed with the lamp casting a yellow glow across the room. She could hear Kurt breathing at the foot of her bed, totally dead to the world. She moved the blankets surrounding her legs to get a good look at him.

He lay on his small rug, sucking his thumb in his sleep and smiling slightly. He didn't need her to be happy. She sighed and tucked his tiny blanket around his small frame.

Finished, Raven settled her back against her headboard, wincing at the cold November air that seemed to creep into the house unnoticed until nighttime. She pulled the blanket up around her hips and wriggled her toes, trying to warm them up.

"Damn it," she said out loud. She knew what she needed to do. She'd been stupid to marry Eric when she was so young, stupid to bring a child into a world that would surely hate him, stupid to think she was actually capable of taking care of him, stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Stupid!" she yelled suddenly, to give vent to her feelings, then jumped, hoping she hadn't woken Rolanda or Caroline or Kurt up.

Raven pulled the blankets off of her legs angrily, getting caught in them once. She stomped over to her closet, empty except for a few good dresses and a suitcase, which she grabbed. The dresses she pulled off of the hangers and stuffed in her pack, along with her shirts and a few pairs of pants from her dresser.

When all of her belongings were shoved in her suitcase, she tossed Bridget Jones' Diary onto the large pile of clothes and shut the lid, save for a thick jacket, which she donned grumpily.

Now came the hardest part. She set the heavy case on her bed and kneeled down to the small rug where Kurt slept.

"Kurt," she whispered quietly, and kissed his small, pointed ear. "I love you." She patted his cheek once, trying to memorize exactly how it fit into the palm of her hand, its fuzziness, its warmth, before standing up to turn off the light and grab the suitcase.

She stood in the doorway for a moment and looked back at her son one last time, then walked down the stairs as quietly as possible. In the kitchen, she turned the light on and scribbled a note to Rolanda on a scrap of paper:

Dear Rolanda,

Have to leave. Can't say why, takes too long to explain. Thanks for letting me live with you. Please make sure Kurt doesn't get hurt. Tell Caroline she'll find her place in Germany someday. You've been my best friend. I owe you so much.

Thanks again, Raven Wagner

Raven slammed the pen down next to the paper and switched off the light, feeling her way over to the door with one hand. She felt light headed and dizzy with emotion. This was the last time she'd ever leave again.

Outside, on the street, she glanced back at the house gratefully, then focused on her window under which she knew Kurt would be sleeping.

"Goodbye," she said out loud, and walked down the road. About a mile away, she knew, there would be the station where Caroline waited to get to school every morning. She'd stay there all night, and catch the earliest bus to get to Berlin. Raven didn't know what she would do once she got there, but she'd figure that out later. Right now, she had to get away to save Kurt.

Kurt. Her son. If only she had had more time with him.

Raven glanced up the road to where the house was now hidden by trees, where Kurt was, and burst into tears.

A/N: This is my fave chapter so far. I didn't want Raven to be the bad guy, so I wrote this one from her point of view. What do you think? Review!

This was so depressing to write. Or maybe I just have PMS? Ugh, anyways. I'm going to have to go read some parodies right now to get my mind off of it.

A/N 2: School. Ennh.