"I got this," she thought as she struggled with the key. "Halfway in, do a little jiggle to the left and..." Nothing. Annoyed, she pushed at the stupid key only to see it go through both lock and door.
"It's official. I'm a moron," with a sight she stepped through the closed door and into the darkened room. She left it like that. Her head was pounding as it was and her eyes stinging from a well placed punch.
"Kate Pryde, ladies and gentlemen, the occasionally intangible wonder," with a grimace, she took a swig from the bottle she was still holding.
She shrugged off her coat and reached for her boots, slowly pulling them off, feeling every muscle in her sore arms. She didn't have to, she could have just phased out of them, but there was something about the ritual. It meant home. Being done. Yet another day that was finished and that she could put behind her before moving on to the next.
The next fight, the next beating, the next bundle of mutants to be transported, the next shipment of drugs to be stolen, the next bottle. There was always a next. An endless succession of them that lately got more and more jumbled in her head.
She took another drink, hoping it would push the nexts away. It was easier this way. Numb. The less she cared, the more of them she could take. The less she remembered, the best she could pretend not to hate him. Him. The jerk who took her childhood away.
She pulled back her hair, only to find it matted. By texture, she would guess blood. Funny. She didn't remember getting hit in the head. But here were droplets all over her shirt and pants, mixed with the mud and oil. Carefully, she felt around her scalp for the tender tell of yet another concussion, but didn't find it.
"Not mine," she concluded. But the waft of armpit sweat definitely was. Scrunching her nose, she walked off the rest of her clothes and let the empty bottle thunk to the floor.
The water was warm and the heat softened some of the soreness. She scrubbed the grime away, trying not to take note of the collection of cuts and bruises that covered her, pretending to not be able to tell when she got them just by their color.
"Intangible my ass," she thought. She should have brought music. It was too silent. And silence always led to thinking and thinking just led to bitterness these days. And the only bitter she was in the mood for right now was some Campari.
She toweled off, wondering if she might be able to just phase out of the wet and re-materialize dry but shelved the thought as an experiment for another day. Right now she was exhausted and just wanted to lie down.
Padding to the drawer, she rooted among the clothes until she found the sort of soft, oversized t-shirt that would make Emma faint. Not that she cared for a moment what Emma thought. Besides, this was her room and her room was an Emma-free zone.
She grabbed a beer from the mini-fridge and toyed with her phone mindlessly. She could call Storm. But call Storm and tell what? "Hi 'Ro. Turns out being a hero has destroyed my hopes and dreams. Mind coming around to comfort me?" It felt stupid even in her head.
No, the days of running to Storm when she was feeling down were long past. What could Ororo have to tell her? "We sacrifice now, so that our children won't have to. We are building a better world". She knew that. She had always known that. She had sacrificed her own childhood for it.
Storm's presence, her words, had once been soothing. Hopeful. They would make her feel strong and brave and safe. But now they rang hollow. She knew what they were doing. It brought her no happiness.
"Hey, Dragon," she said to the sleepy purple snout that greeted her from the couch. She patted his head and sneaked her feet underneath him. Lockheed as warm. And he was faithful.
Piotr had been her last chance. Her last ditch attempt at being Kitty. Happy. Carefree. Lovable and loved. And she had wanted to love him. She had tried, until the very last minute, to be his Katja. To fell the way she used to – safe and hopeful and like the world was theirs for the taking. And she had failed.
She took a swig of the beer and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She had no desire to think of Piotr right now. Or of any other Peter. Of any of the of relationships that she had walked away from, after really, truly wanting to be in love and finding that she couldn't. Or that it faded soon enough.
Yet another consequence of her chosen "career", she thought. Everything was immediate. Heightened stakes and heightened emotions, the pressure of life and death decisions. And then, it stopped. Not for long. Never for long. But it was in the lulls, when the noise quietened and she had time to think that everything always fell apart.
And when it didn't...well, that was the worst of it all. Because it was when she hoped. When she thought she could get out, change her life, be normal. Right up until it all started back up again and whatever little space she carved out for herself just crashed around her ears.
Yet she had been dumb enough to try. Time and time again. Go to college. Have a real job. Dabble in politics, real politics. She could have have help make world, and she meant all of it, not just an island, better for mutants. But it hadn't lasted. It never did. The X-Men always came calling.
And now...now she was neither in nor out. And it pissed her off. It was irrational, but there it was. She couldn't go through the gate. The mutant paradise was finally achieved and, it seemed, for every single mutant but her. And all her friends, her mentors, were quite happy to stick her on a boat and send her off to do their dirty work.
She lifted a leg from where it rested, under her dragon, and started to count the bruises. One, two three...but some blurred into each other and she wasn't sure to count them as one or two. "Good," she thought, just focus on that. Don't think."
Still. Logan was happy to see her beer and Rachel was happy to be with her family and Cypher was off talking to plants, God knew what Illyana was doing these days and counting bruises wasn't enough to keep to the bitterness from rising.
It ate her that she knew that she should be happy. She was, really. She had them back. Alive. Wasn't that what she wanted?
"Yes," she thought, "but I also wanted them with me". Maybe she was being childish and selfish and stupid. But she couldn't not notice that she'd barely seen them at all. That when she docked they were always very busy with important Krakoan business she knew nothing about and when she wasn't docked, well...there never seemed to be any time.
But none of them were exactly hauling ass to get her to Krakoa. Her inability was little more than a curiosity. A perfunctory question as the months went by and she saw none of them- "Still stuck, Kate?"
And she thought of calling Rachel right there, make the time, but to say what? "Hi Rachel, I'm half drunk and my nose is broken again."
But she also thought of the reproaches and the "are you ok," and "you don't seem like yourself lately," as if Rachel had actually seen her lately. As if Rachel, sorry, Prestige, could be parted from her happy family to actually go see her. And Kate couldn't stand it.
She got up with such force that Lockheed took flight, but she was already halfway to fridge again. It took all that she had not to punch it, so she contented herself with slamming the door shut.
She knew it wasn't fair to Rachel, but she didn't care and she didn't want to hear all about her happy family.
Because she had begged him to. Xavier. She had pleaded and begged and to her horror, she couldn't even hold back the tears as she asked. To have The Five bring him back to her.
And he refused.
Lockheed landed softly on her shoulder, and nudged at her suddenly wet cheek. She felt slightly regretful for waking him and scratched his ear as she walked back to the couch, another bottle at her side that splashed as she wobbled. She didn't care.
Oh, he was very kind about it. She could tell he felt very sorry from inside his helmet, as he explained it to her as if she was three years old. The Five can only resurrect mutants. Because her father wasn't a mutant, his mind was never collected.
And besides, and she needed to understand that it hurt him too – he was very fond of Carmen – they couldn't open exceptions. A good man as he was, her father was only human. Krakoa and its wonders were not for him.
She wiped the tears from her face and finished the beer in three long gulps. Shaw, that unmitigated piece of crap, who spent most of his life trying to kill them all, got to have his son back. Shinobi of all people, got brought back. Shinobi, who was as bad as his father, if not worse. These two, Xavier could forgive and reward.
And her dad, who had died on Genosha saving mutants, was dead and rotting and rotting he would remain. Xavier wouldn't help him, not even for her. Who gave up on her childhood, who gave up on a life, who lost everyone she was close to bring his dream to reality. Xavier would do nothing for her. Because her dad was human. A good man, for sure, but of the wrong genes.
She closed her eyes and let the bottle roll away. Her head was spinning and her heart was racing, but if she breathed deep, she could do it, could get herself under control.
She wasn't doing it for him, the emotionless jerk. Not anymore. Maybe she hung around Storm too much, but she was doing it so that the other kids didn't have their parents die, didn't have to lose their friends.
And she hated every minute of it. So it was easier when she didn't have to think about it. Between one bottle and another, she didn't have to think of what came next. Between one fight and another, all that mattered was the now. The future had slipped away from her a long time ago. And between tears, between two bottles, between the couch and the dragon Kate Pryde went to sleep.