KURT

He sat in a windowless room and waited for his punishment.

After Magneto had found Kurt, he'd called for guards to come detain him, and Kurt had let them. He could have teleported away, but he didn't like the idea of being hunted down by the master of magnetism. It was better to just accept whatever punishment was coming to him. Would it be a hundred years in the dungeons? Did this palace even have dungeons? He really didn't want to find out.

He wasn't alone in the room. He had two guards, both women, one with pink skin and a scar, the other with blue skin and straight red hair. They mostly pretended he wasn't there, leaning against the wall by the door and talking softly, but he'd caught them both glancing over at him a couple times. Taking bets on how Magneto would kill him?

Then the door swung open and for a moment Kurt couldn't breathe.

Professor Xavier rolled in with Ororo pushing his wheelchair. Both appeared perfectly calm and composed, but their expressions flickered with relief when they saw him.

Kurt let out the breath he'd been holding.

Of course it was the Professor. Xavier was always there for his students. But in the morning's turmoil, and his panic, he'd just...assumed that they had left him. Which didn't make sense at all. Of course they would look for him. Professor Xavier wouldn't just abandon him.

"Professor-" he leaped off the couch, driven by relief and guilt. He'd been in a bit of trouble at the institute, but never anything like this. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have left and then I should have gone to find you but-"

It's alright, Kurt, you don't have to apologize. Xavier's voice in his head did a lot to quell his panic. I know everything. We're just here to bring you home.

"But we can't just leave Wanda here! Magneto's drugging her-"

With the slightest glance towards the guards, Xavier switched to talking like a normal person. "I know, Kurt. I was just with Wanda and Erik, clearing up this...kerfuffle...and he agreed to let me try to help Wanda work through her issues telepathically. Instead of dampening her powers I will help her learn to control them. It's what I should have done all along."

Kurt brightened. "So she's coming back to school?"

Xavier folded his hands together. "Not at present, no. I will be visiting Wanda here on Genosha. It is what's best for everyone."

"And Magneto is just...going to let me go?" He didn't know if he was feeling hopeful or not.

"Yes, Kurt, he's going to let you go. It's not like he has a dungeon to throw you into." Xavier winked. "Though don't think you've gotten off easy. You can't just run off like this. We'll have to find a fitting punishment for you."

Kurt looked at the ground, feeling guilty again. "Okay..."

"You're alive!" Kitty threw her arms around Kurt's neck as he stepped off the blackbird back at the institute. The other students had gone back the night before, after it had been discovered that Kurt was missing and no one could find him, leaving only Ororo and the Professor on Genosha. Logan had come back for them all that morning.

"Not for long if you keep squeezing me like that," squeaked Kurt, and Kitty let him go.

"We thought you'd been abducted! Or worse!" Kitty scowled. "But you just ran away."

"I didn't run away-" argued Kurt, just as the rest of his friends appeared. They must have heard the blackbird arrive; Kitty had been waiting.

"You're right," piped up Bobby, "you didn't run away, you left to see your girlfriend, and you didn't even tell anybody."

"I did not-I don't-" stammered Kurt, "she's not my girlfriend."

"Then why were you out all night?"

Five sets of eyebrows raised. Kurt blushed so furiously he was sure they could see it through his fur.

"It's not like that-I was just worried when she didn't come back to school-"

"I did hear Pietro saying she was crazy," said Kitty, "is she crazy?"

"You need to stop using your powers to eavesdrop," chided Scott, but he turned to Kurt. "Is she crazy?"

Kurt's mouth hung open. He didn't know what to say. He didn't like his friends gossiping about Wanda, though he knew it was mostly just misplaced curiosity.

"She's not crazy," he said defensively, "it's just-"

"Her powers," finished Jean, who then looked apologetic, "sorry, sometimes I can't help it. But we all know how difficult it can be to deal with our powers sometimes, myself more than anyone."

WANDA

"I don't want anyone inside my head," Wanda told her father just as Professor Xavier rolled in, unaccompanied. It was two days after Kurt had come to see her and time for Xavier to start helping her regain her sanity or whatever. She was pretty sure Blink had, well, blinked him here. Which meant that no one else had come, which was probably for the best...her father had been vexed ever since he found a boy spending the night in her bed, even though she told him it wasn't like that. They were just friends. She was just lonely...

None of it made any difference to her father, of course.

"We talked about this before, Wanda," her father said with surprising patience, "and we decided that this was a better alternative to your medicine."

"I know..." she didn't have any argument for him, though she barely remembered that morning, it was so foggy. Her father's guards had arrived, taking Kurt away. He hadn't resisted them, but he had looked back at her...that was the last time she saw him. Maybe she would never see him again; she couldn't imagine that her father would let her out of the palace, much less allow her to go to the mainland.

Xavier glanced between father and daughter. "Erik, may I have a moment alone with Wanda?"

"Of course, Charles," Magneto cast one last look at Wanda before disappearing through the door.

Xavier steepled his fingers. "How are you feeling, Wanda?"

She crossed her arms and sank a little further into her seat. "I don't know, why don't you tell me? You are a telepath."

"I'm not going to go inside your head without your permission, Wanda, so for now you'll have to tell me what you're feeling."

"I don't know," she repeated, turning her face up to the ceiling. "I really...don't know."

"I was informed that you're still taking your medication, just a lower dose." His voice drifted soothingly over her, and she only half paid attention. She couldn't focus on his words or think straight, and a wisp of nausea turned in the pit of her stomach. "The symptoms seems to include brain fog and a lack of appetite, and they have made you sick on a few occasions, is that correct?"

Wanda nodded listlessly.

"If you want to continue taking power-dampeners then I can leave right now," said Xavier, not unkindly, "but I think you want to find a way to control your powers instead of burying them. They aren't something to be afraid of, Wanda, they're a gift. Your gift."

Wanda closed her eyes. She was always tired, but she could almost never sleep. She sucked in a breath of air before replying. "I just...I don't think I want someone inside my head."

"I work with another one of my students, helping her to control her powers. We've had great success; it's not perfect, because we're only human," he smiled like this was a little joke between them, "but she is now able to control her powers more fully. I believe we will have the same results with your powers."

Wanda opened her eyes. She knew she should at least consider this, but it scared her. "You won't...tell anyone about this, right? I mean...like what I think about or anything?"

"Of course not." He smiled gently. "All of our sessions will be strictly confidential, though if you would like someone else to be present then I would be happy to arrange it."

"Oh." Wanda looked at her hands clasped in her lap. She could ask her father, but he was always busy and anyways, she didn't really want her father to know what she thought about. There really wasn't anyone else. "No. That's alright. I guess..." She knew she should do it. What did she have to lose, at this point? But it still felt like an invasion, and she still hated having to need help. She'd never been the problem child before...but could she prove to her father that she wasn't broken? Make him proud of her again?

"Alright," she said with more courage than she felt, "let's do this."

KURT

Weeks passed, and winter seemed longer than it ever had before. Every day was gray with clouds, the institute grounds slushy and gray with dirty snow. It reminded him of winters in the circus, which always dragged longer because it was the off-season, except that now he couldn't even look forward to spring.

His friends noticed his drastic change in mood, and were always trying to cheer him up. Bobby roped him into pranks. Scott and Warren dragged him out of the institute on weekends. Jean offered to talk to him, but he never took her up on it. Kitty arranged a pirate movie marathon with a load of snacks.

It was Saturday and they were halfway through Captain Blood when a flash of movement outside the windows caught Kurt's attention. It was notable because pretty much everyone was bundled up inside watching the movie, excluding Xavier and a few of the other professors (Logan was sitting in the prime couch spot in front of the TV, and if someone tried to take his spot when he got up to get a drink he growled from the kitchen).

"Are we expecting someone?" Kurt asked, leaning closer to Kitty.

"Uhh..." The light of the television flickered in her eyes. "No? Do you want more popcorn or something?"

Kurt turned back to the TV but that same movement caught his eye again. A flash of red in the snow. There was someone out there, alone, a girl...

BAMF

In a heartbeat he was outside and running, snow crunching under foot. He couldn't breathe. It wasn't her. It couldn't be her. But it was.

Wanda.

She stood under their oak tree in a smart red duffle coat that looked too big on her slender frame, a thick knit scarf pulled up to her chin and a red winter hat over her waves of chestnut hair. As he approached he saw that her nose was pink from the cold and her crystalline blue eyes had a distant look in them.

"I didn't know you were back," said Kurt, stopping beside her, breathless from more than running. "Are you...staying?"

"I don't know." She didn't look at him, instead turning her face up to the bare branches of the oak. "My father is speaking with Xavier. They're working things out."

"Do you want to stay?"

She closed her eyes, her shoulders moving with a heavy sigh.

"Vonda?"

She opened her eyes and this time she looked at him, really looked at him with such keen intensity he almost took a step back. She reached out a gloved hand to touch his cheek. "I don't know. I'm not even sure if this is real. I-" her breath hitched, and she looked away again. "I'm not on the suppressors anymore but nothing feels the same. The world...doesn't seem right."

"It will fade."

"I hope so. I'm afraid that I'm damaged, Kurt, I don't know how I'll ever be the same."

"You're not damaged. You'll be okay, and if you stay here the Professor can help you, I promise."

"I want to stay. I thought Genosha was my home...but I suppose I don't have a home anymore."

He walked with her back to the mansion, trudging through the deep bluish drifts of snow, breath clouding the air. The institute stood like a glowing lighthouse on its hill, and inside it was warm and inviting, the common room full of students drinking hot chocolate and laughing.

Kurt didn't feel much like laughing. Wanda was here-he realized that he hadn't been sure if he'd ever see her again-but she was different. Not broken-he refused to believe that-but tired, worn down. Still a little lost.

When the beginning of the next week arrived Kurt found that Wanda was in every one of his classes, the seating arrangements altered to fit her in somewhere near him or Pietro if her twin was also in the class. Professor Xavier was looking out for her in the particularly intuitive way of his.

Wanda didn't need any help with the coursework (if anything, Kurt thought it was too easy for her, especially their French class) but she was quiet and reserved in class unless pressed by their teachers. Kurt and Pietro were always passing notes to her (Pietro never got caught) trying to get her to smile, and it worked. She slowly seemed to come back to herself, warming to the other students as she did. She ate lunch with Kurt and his friends, or her brother and sister, and everyone pretended that she'd always been there, and no one ever so much as muttered the word crazy in her presence.

In a week, she'd lost the distant look in her eyes.

In a month, she was schooling their language teacher.

To Kurt it seemed that spring might be something to look forward to after all.

I like to imagine that when Kurt leaves the movie everyone realizes and there's like, 20 students and Logan with their faces pressed to the window.