A Place Called Home
Part Four
She stared straight ahead as Peter went through the launch sequence of the Blackbird. Ordinarily, she would be the one piloting the aircraft but they both knew that she was in no condition to do that right now. She had been in a state of shock since her fight with Pyro.
"Don't worry." Peter smiled at her reassuringly. "We'll be home soon."
"Kitty! Kitty!"
In the runway lights they could make out a figure running towards them. They knew who it was even before he stopped right in front of the jet, waving his arms to get their attention.
"I'll have us out of here in a minute," Peter promised as the engines roared to life.
"Wait." She placed a soft restraining hand on his arm. "Let me talk to him."
"Kitty, are you -?" He was astounded. "Why would you still want to talk to him after everything?"
"Because I've never really talked to him about what happened between us." She said this sadly. "There are things I need to say, then it will all really be over."
Before he could convince her otherwise, she phased until she was standing on the airstrip facing Pyro.
"Kitty, forgive me," he began, moving towards her.
"Please don't apologize," she told him. "You don't have to. I know."
"I wish –" he choked, "I wish I could go back and make it all happen differently."
She came nearer until she stood right before him. "I used to hate you," she admitted in a whisper. "When we were kids, I thought you were the most awful boy in school. Then I hated you when you became the enemy after you ran off with Magneto. But later, when you came back, I stopped hating you. I started to care instead. However, we all know how that turned out." She gave him a little smile. "Now, I don't know. You hurt me more than anyone else. And you also touched me like no one else. I do know that I will never forget you, and I will always miss you. But now it's time to let you go."
He nodded and smiled at her, then he blinked back the tears that had sprung unbidden to his eyes. "Kitty, please be happy. Wherever you go, whatever happens to you, I want you to be happy. I know I've hurt you badly, and I can never be sorry enough for that, and I hope to God that there was some way I could make up for it, some way that I could make you happy instead. But – I'm not the one."
She touched his face gently and kissed him. "Okay," she said. "I'll be happy. I promise."
"Goodbye, Kitty." He started to walk away but then she called out his name.
"John?"
He turned to look back at her.
"What if we had kept on driving, where do you think we would have ended up?" she asked. His answer seemed important to her.
He thought about it for a minute. "Probably a beach, somewhere," he told her with a smile. "Drinking gin."
She laughed. She watched him until he disappeared from view. Then she went back to the jet and took the seat beside Peter.
"Let's go home," she told him.
The End
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(This was driving me crazier every day, so I finally wrote it down just to get it out of my head. Ugh.)
