Chapter 6: The Truth Challenge

In an extremely rare example of true loafing, Kitty and Rachel's late afternoon card playing had dissolved into early evening TV watching. They didn't watch anything in particular; both of them so seldom had a chance to watch TV of any kind that they were almost completely out of touch with any and all programs. Almost.

"Ah!" squealed Rachel. "Dancing with the Stars!"

"Oh my God—is that… Joey McIntyre?"

"Who?"

"Why are you even excited about this show if you don't know who Joey McIntyre is?"

Rachel shrugged. "I like watching lowly humans trying to be graceful?"

"God… Kurt should be on this show. He's a celebrity, right?"

"I'm never clear on that. Does the public actually know who we are?"

"I don't think Kurt's washed up enough, regardless."

"He wouldn't do it, anyway. I think he's even more nervous about public exposure since you told him about 'furries.'"

Kitty squealed with laughter. "You know what was great about that? You could tell he already knew. I mean, not about that actual group, but… He knew."

"Poor Kurt…"

"Oh, he knows we love him—fur and all. Seriously, though, what do you think was going on with him and Logan this afternoon?"

"Maybe it was just the mission. You know how it goes sometimes. People died."

"Bad people. Very bad people. No, but I mean generally. Those two usually get on like a house on fire. It's not unlike someone else to be fighting with Logan but it's not like Kurt. Which is kind of weird now that I think about it."

"Why?"

"Oh I don't know… When I first joined the X-Men, Kurt and Logan were really joined at the hip—they were like a couple of frat boys goofing off behind the stiff back of Old Man Cyclops, aka 'crusty dean.' But even then, I mean, even just between the way they look and their accents, they were also like a classic odd couple. I didn't really think anything of it back then. To be honest, they both sort of scared me for different reasons so I kind of left well enough alone. But as I got to know them better over the years… They really are kind of completely opposite people."

Rachel frowned thoughtfully. "In some ways. But they're really alike, too, in other ways. Important ways. Logan might call himself a hardcase but he's more like Kurt than he'd want people to know."

"Agreed. But what about Kurt? Don't you ever wonder what he sees in Logan? I mean, he's someone who's sworn never to kill anyone and Logan, well… Logan kills lots of people."

"But Kurt loves him."

"What?"

Rachel tapped her skull. "Telepath."

"But what do you mean he…?"

"As a friend, Kitty! Jesus! Do you really think Kurt would… and with Logan?"

"No but… I don't know! Crap, now I'm going to be thinking about why my brain went that way."

"Trust me, Kurt is very straight."

"Trust you? Why? Oh my God what happened?"

Rachel kept her eyes on the TV, smiling mischievously. "Oh, nothing."

"Not nothing! Something! C'mon, what happened? Did you and Kurt…?"

"It was just a kiss," Rachel said, attempting to forestall any further wild speculations. "We were playing pirates in the danger room and—"

"—oh my God—"

"—and anyway, we both got a bit carried away, and… well… We kissed. It was… nice."

"Nice? Oh my God. Who made the first move? No, wait. You were playing pirates. It was definitely Kurt. The nerve!"

"But I wasn't complaining." Rachel's eyes turned almost wistful. "Do you know what his fur actually feels like up close? It's like—"

"Like velvet," Kitty supplied. "Yes, me and the internet have heard. But God Rach, is anything going to… I mean, do you think it's going anywhere? Sounds like you enjoyed it!"

"Dunno. Kurt seems kind of all over the place right now."

"Wasn't he seeing that nurse with the big…"

"Christine. I think that's over. She moved back home to be with her folks."

"Oh. Too bad. She, uh… seemed nice."

"Uh huh. But I think the real problem is him and Storm."

"Ororo? What the—? Why did I have to leave just when things started getting interesting? Kurt and Ororo?"

"Where have you been? Practically everyone has heard about their little sky waltzing date from a few weeks ago."

"What?"

"Doesn't matter. He's kind of hung up on her, anyway. And she's maybe hung up on him, too, but who can really tell with her. And I mean, that's coming from a telepath. But she's also gone out with Logan a few times recently so—Oh."

"Do you think it could really be that simple?" asked Kitty, arriving at the same obvious thought. "They've all been friends for so long."

"Has something like that ever come between them before?"

"Not that I know of… Although I remember a pretty forceful reaction from Logan when Kurt swooped down to kiss Mariko under the mistletoe one Christmas Eve… But that was just jokes… I think… But then there's that whole weirdness with Mystique…" Kitty trailed off as she caught Rachel's eyes look up and past her at someone entering the room.

"Speak of the devil," Rachel turned on a high wattage smile as Kurt sauntered toward them.

Kitty glanced at her quickly, a wave of annoyed recognition sweeping over her. What was that smile? God, was she going to be wondering about Rachel's every gesture around Kurt now? How could she, anyway? He was like their big brother or uncle or something. Jeesh.

"Ladies."

Kurt was dressed casually in black pants and a soft grey Henley, buttons disregarded. Kitty frowned at the unwelcome combination of Rachel's glittering eyes and Kurt's clothing choice, which, she reflected, couldn't help but remind Rachel that his "velvet" fur went all the way down. "So damn German," Kitty complained inwardly, still eying Rachel. "You never see Scott Summers treat buttons on a shirt as optional." Kurt's right eye was slightly pinched by a large bruise on his cheek that appeared as an almost-black splotch beneath his indigo fur; there were two small strips of white tape at the crest of his cheekbone where his skin had been broken.

Despite herself, Kitty performed a quick thought experiment in which she tried to imagine Kurt through a lover's eyes. While Kurt's appearance frightened and disgusted certain inescapable bigots, the truth was that, beneath his litany of mutations, Kurt was an attractive man, with graceful cheekbones, well-formed lips, and a warm, disarming smile—not to mention his super-humanly toned body. Kitty had had Kurt's fundamental attractiveness confirmed to her many years ago when he and the other X-Men had been temporarily transformed into 'normal' humans by the High Evolutionary. In large part, the incident had been so confusing that Kitty had since done her best to forget it. However, she remembered distinctly what Kurt had looked like because seeing him that way had been so traumatic. Her dominant memory from the whole experience was the overwhelming anxiety she'd felt hearing Kurt's voice emerge from a pink, Caucasian face; she remembered trying desperately to gauge the authenticity of her dear friend's altered appearance with an unsettled probing of black pupil-ed, brown irises that were so unsettlingly unfamiliar, so clearly not Kurt's.

Kitty suddenly wondered why it had never before struck her as strange that when Kurt used an image inducer, he rarely appeared as a 'normal' version of himself, usually opting for a different face altogether. But then, just as suddenly, she realized that it wasn't strange at all. Kurt was Kurt and not that man with the brown eyes and five-fingered hands that the High Evolutionary's magic-outer-space-science had once conjured. And his sexiness really stemmed from that, from the bodily exoticness that he virtually took for granted, to the point where he considered a 'normal' version of his real face as alien as a stranger's.

Also, he was very soft… Still, though: he was like her uncle and no matter how hard she tried she couldn't share Rachel's interest in liplocking with him. Bleh.

"Nice shiner," Kitty observed.

"Isn't it, though? It feels as good as it looks, believe me."

Kurt cracked open a beer as he came toward them before collapsing sideways into the large adjacent armchair, one large blue foot dangling over the arm closest to them.

"You weren't really talking about me, surely."

"Sort of," Kitty fibbed. "You know. Reminiscing."

"Ah, yes, the good old days. When we lived in a cold damp lighthouse whenever we weren't lost in a parallel dimension. Which, as I recall, was most of the time. I honestly remember seeing virtually nothing of England the whole time we were in Excalibur."

"Agreed," said Kitty. "And living in that lighthouse really was too intimate."

"Ha!" Kurt flashed a glimpse of his fang-y but—Kitty once again had to admit—charming grin, though the effect was somewhat marred by the current shiner-induced asymmetrical slant of his face. "Things certainly became that way after a while. Though some of us suffered worse than others."

"I remember cutting off your cast," said Kitty, smiling back at him. "I've never seen you act like such a baby."

"Ach! You don't know what it's like to have your fur encased in plaster for six weeks! I thought I'd go mad!"

"Baby."

Kurt put down his beer long enough to raise his body with his arms so he could take a playful swipe at Kitty with his dangling foot.

"Didn't even have to phase to avoid that!"

Kurt sipped his beer as he settled back into his chair. "Ja, well, I must be getting old."

Kitty sighed dramatically. "Aren't we all…"

"Don't make me come over there, Katzchen. So is this really how the two of you are spending your Saturday night? What are you even watching?"

"Is this how you're spending your Saturday night?" Kitty retorted. "Drinking beer and teasing young girls?"

If either Kurt or the suspiciously silent Rachel picked up on her innuendo they made no sign.

"Would it even things out if I fetched the two of you something to drink?" Kurt offered.

"Oh yes please!"

Finally, Rachel pipes up, thought Kitty.

"And you, Katzchen?"

"So now you're spending your Saturday night feeding alcohol to minors?" With her second reference to their ages Kitty felt Rachel's glare hot on her cheek.

"Well, the drinking age in Germany is 18, and besides, my rule is if you're old enough to save the world you're old enough to enjoy a cold beer."

"Works for me," Rachel agreed, eyes still locked on Kitty's cheek.

Kurt disappeared in a puff of smoke and Kitty immediately whipped her head around to meet Rachel's glare with her own.

"What is going on with you?" Rachel demanded. "You can't seriously be mad about… It was just a silly little thing!"

"But it's Kurt. And he should know better."

"Since when has that been true? We were just talking about the time Brian Braddock snapped Kurt's femur for having lustful dreams about his fiancé!"

"They weren't engaged at the time!"

"Does it matter?"

"Doesn't it?"

"Just… drop it, okay? Nothing's going on. Nothing will go on. Trust me."

Kitty knew she was out of time to respond even before Kurt reappeared in front of them, holding three beers between his four fingers.

"Forgive me, Katzchen," he said, as he handed a beer to Rachel and then Kitty, keeping the third as a backup for himself. "But I anticipated your surrender to peer pressure. I hope that doesn't make me a bad authority figure."

"It does, but thanks anyway, fuzzy," Kitty took the beer and a deep breath, determined to file her concerns away in the back of her mind for another time. Rachel was probably right, anyway. Nothing would happen. It was just a kiss. Just Kurt playing pirates and getting carried away (which was certainly nothing new). But even the possibility that it might be something more still threw her for a loop, making her question a thousand past situations and conversations. Did either Kurt or Rachel have real feelings for each other? And if so, did they have those feelings back in their Excalibur days? It was so weird to think about, thought Kitty; like finding out your parents aren't your real parents or something, so that everything you thought was real about your past suddenly seems skewed and alien. With a start Kitty realized: That's what it must be like for Rachel all the time. And she suddenly felt very guilty.

"So what are you watching?" Kurt asked again as he settled back into his former position in the armchair.

"Dancing with the Stars," Rachel declared boldly.

"Oh my… Things really are dire."

"Yeah," agreed Kitty. "Sometimes I wonder what I'm missing out on jetting across the world to punch bad guys, but then I have a Saturday off and I realize: nothing."

They laughed and joked their way through the rest of Dancing with the Stars and then onto The Amazing Race, disappearing several beers along the way. Things really were starting to seem like old times (if they'd ever had a day off back then) by the time they started watching a rerun of Lost.

"Mien Gott," groaned Kurt. "This show makes less sense than our actual lives. Why would anyone want to torture themselves so?"

It took one more beer for Kitty to finally gather the courage to ask what she'd been wanting to ask for the past two hours. "So… What happened between you and Logan? You guys have some kind of falling out or something?"

"What makes you say that?" Kurt asked, hesitating slightly. By that time he had flipped himself around in his chair, head hanging down over the front of the seat so that he was looking at the TV upside down, legs and tail sprawled across and over the chair's arm and back, two fingered hands steadying the beer that he rested against his ribs.

"C'mon, you guys were barely speaking when you got back today. And your tail was all 'in the doghouse.'"

"You cannot seriously believe you're able to reliably map all of my emotions onto my tail."

"No," Kitty agreed. "But my best friend's also a telepath."

Kurt sighed, knowing he'd been beaten. "Ja. We had an argument. But it was nothing. I'm sure time will return things to their normal bent."

"Are you sure that's all it was?" Rachel pried tentatively. "Logan seemed really… hurt."

"Hurt?" Kurt repeated, raising his head slightly to get a better look at Rachel's face. "I'm sure you're mistaken."

"I don't usually make mistakes like that, Kurt."

"Well I don't know… I said something to him about… About him and the other X-Men not respecting my authority. Something that I remembered feeling back with Excalibur, when I was seized with this fear that the X-Men thought of me as their mascot… Stupid, I shouldn't have said anything. But I… I was angry. Yet I was angry with myself as well. It's not fair to blame Wolverine for my own inadequacies as a leader."

"Oh fuzzy," Kitty felt the remains of her anger melt away in a moment. "Oh! I mean, not fuzzy like something diminutively cute, like a toy or anything, just—"

"Kitty." Rachel hissed. "Stop talking."

"Not to worry, Katzchen," Kurt smiled tightly in a brave effort to regain a lighthearted attitude. "I'm well aware that my cuteness is a curse as well as a blessing."

"But you're a great leader!" Kitty insisted. "Don't let Scott get to you—he's like that with everyone."

"Ja, I know. But it's not Scott. It's something else. I'm not sure quite yet whether I really understand it myself."

"Does it have anything to do with you and Ororo?"

"Oh dear…" seeing that the conversation was getting serious, Kurt shifted himself back into a normal sitting position. "Who told you about that?"

"Rachel."

"So I suppose Rachel also told you about…"

"You and I in the Danger Room? Yes, I told her," Rachel admitted, adding quickly after a brief pause, "But I also told her it was nothing. Just us getting carried away." She wished she hadn't added the second part when she saw a vaguely pained look pass over Kurt's face.

"So what is going on with you and Ororo?" Kitty asked again quickly to forestall a different conversation that she knew should take place in private between Kurt and Rachel.

"Well that's an easy question," said Kurt, leaning back in his chair. "Nothing is happening between me and Ororo."

"And between her and Logan…?"

"You will have to ask Wolverine and Storm," said Kurt. There was only a hint of bitterness in his tone but his use of codenames to refer to his friends was a dead giveaway, as was his syntax; Kitty knew that Kurt's accent didn't necessarily get thicker when he was upset but he did tend to stop using contractions, as though suddenly feeling the need to take his time and speak carefully.

"Besides, I…"

Kurt astutely trailed off at the sound of doors opening and closing in the main hallway. After a rather long pause, one set of footsteps departed up the stairs, the second heading in their direction. A moment later, Logan opened the door into the lounge.

"Evenin' folks," he drawled. He was wearing his customary jeans but had compromised on a plain white (rather than plaid) button-down shirt. He had a blazer draped over his arm.

"My, my, my, don't you clean up nice," said Kitty, giving Logan an exaggerated, head-to-toe once over.

"Don't I, though," Logan agreed. He tossed his jacket down on the arm of the chair at Rachel's side of the room and took a seat, separated from Kurt by the length of the couch. "I see you're taking good care of the girls, here, elf," he said, eying the string of discarded beer cans littering the coffee table.

"Ja, well, I knew I must be good for something." Kurt's words were joking but, intentionally or not, his tone bore an edge no one missed.

Oh dear, thought Kitty. This is bad.

She heard Rachel's voice inside her mind, asking, How bad is it?

Kitty thought back to the 'old days,' her first days as an X-Man. She thought about Logan coining Kurt's nickname "elf." About Kurt being the first of them to learn, or be trusted with, Wolverine's civilian name. About Kurt and Logan playing "tag" across the mansion's grounds long after everyone else had dispersed or gone to bed. About too many bedsides hovered over and distraught reactions to false alarms of death and grave injury. Mostly, though, her mind was indefinite images, smiles that reflected in each other, caring hands laid on shoulders, and even hugs—Kurt was almost certainly the only man Logan ever hugged.

Rachel saw it all as Kitty remembered it, some of it familiar, much of it new. And, having seen everything that Kitty saw, she suddenly understood how bad it was. We need to do something, she thought to Kitty. With the speed of thought, Kitty communicated her plan, and Rachel agreed. Kitty's next words put the plan into motion.

"How about a game?" she proposed.

"What kind of game, Katzchen?"

"A truth challenge," said Kitty. "Like truth or dare, but you don't get a choice. We just take turns and we get to ask each other questions about stuff we've always wanted to know."

"And if we don't want to answer?" Logan was looking at Kurt while Kurt went out of his way pretending not to notice.

"You get one veto," Rachel proposed. "But just one."

There was a pause as the men considered Kitty's proposition.

"Well, boys, what's it going to be?" asked Kitty. "You going to man up?"

"I'm in," Kurt agreed. "But no funny business."

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Wagner," goaded Kitty, deliberately pronouncing his name the North American way. "What about you, Logan? It only works if we're all in."

"This is a real death pact, huh? Sure, kid, I'm in, why not."

"Who gets to go first?" asked Rachel.

"I made it up," said Kitty, "So I get starter's privilege. And it's coming to you, Kurt."

"Oh joy."

"Did you have feelings for Rachel back in our Excalibur days?"

"Kitty!" Rachel protested, suddenly concerned that "the plan" might have been a deception.

"You're not wasting any time, Katzchen," Kurt frowned. "Though I thought I said no funny business."

"You agreed to the game, elf," Logan reminded him. "You owe us an answer."

Kurt's golden eyes burned at Logan, but then softened as he began to speak. "I have always loved Rachel—loved you both, Katzchen—as friends, family. But, keeping in mind that we were all much younger at that time than we are now, no, I did not, in those days, have any romantic intentions—toward either of you."

"Well, gee, thanks, fuzzy," Kitty intoned. "Glad you felt the need to clear that up so thoroughly."

"My pleasure."

"That makes it your turn, though."

"Ah… let's see…" Kurt rearranged himself in his chair as he feigned deep thought, finally resuming a modified version of his earlier upside down position, staring up at the ceiling, beer resting on his ribs. "Why were you so afraid of me, Katzchen, when you first joined the X-Men?"

"I…" surprised, Kitty trailed off helplessly.

"No, it's okay," Kurt offered quickly, genuinely embarrassed by her reaction. "It was a stupid question. I should not have asked. It was a very long time ago."

"No, Kurt, it's okay," Kitty said, collecting herself. "It's just… It's just hard for me to remember, actually. My life before I joined and X-Men and my life after… It's like too separate people. When I first met you, I'd only heard about the existence of mutants a week before. Then I entered this whirlwind of the mansion and the Danger Room and all of you—you all seemed so… incredible, you had these amazing powers and lifestyle and… It was like a dream, fantastic and completely terrifying. But I guess none of that is really an answer. I guess what it really was, Kurt, was that I was just this gawky teenage nerd struggling with growing up and the emergence of my own powers at the same time… I was afraid of what was going on with me, with my body and my powers and my life, and I think… How incredibly different you seemed reminded me of the changes I was going though, and it scared me. So I was scared of you."

"I think I understand," mused Kurt, staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. "It must have been hard for you, trying to assimilate so much at such a trying time. Things were so different for me. While my teleportation ability didn't emerge until puberty, I have always looked the way I do, and besides that, I certainly didn't grow up in a 'normal' environment…"

"Since it's my turn," said Kitty. "Can I ask you—have you ever wanted to be different? Have you ever wanted to be 'normal'?"

"Yes… and no. Not seriously. I dream of my appearance ceasing to be an obstacle in my life, but never at the price of my abilities. What about you? Have you ever wished you weren't a mutant?"

"Yes," Kitty admitted. "But not now. Not for a long time."

Kurt turned his head to look at her, golden eyes burning darkly. "I am glad," he said.

Kitty cleared her throat against a sudden rush of emotion. "Your turn, Logan. What's going on between you and Ororo?"

"'Going on'?" Logan repeated. "Ask me like a grownup and maybe I'll answer you like one."

"Are you two seeing each other?" Rachel provided. "Are you a couple?"

"We're friends," said Logan, with just a tinge of insistence. "We enjoy each other's company."

"Fair enough," said Kitty. "That makes it your turn, Logan."

"My lucky day," Logan smirked.

Things continued for a while in a somewhat lighter vein. Among many largely inconsequential tidbits, they learned that Kitty was fourteen when she first kissed Peter, that despite his fur Kurt still had to shave his face, that Logan's shoes were a measly size eight, and that Rachel's favourite food was spaghetti.

We need to kickstart things, thought Rachel.

And I know just how to do it, Kitty thought back.

"… that makes it your turn, Katzchen."

Kitty cleared her throat. "As I recall…" she began, examining her fingernails very seriously. "There was something about you, Kurt, that Rachel and I, dirty minded teenagers that we were, once fell into fits of giggles about, and this might be the perfect time to get it straight."

"Oh Kitty!" Rachel admonished, realizing where she was headed. "You wouldn't!"

"Hey, we're all family here," Kitty replied, lips beginning to twitch in an irrepressible reminder of her teenaged giggle fit. "And I think the viewers at home would appreciate the issue getting settled once and for all."

"Kitty…" Rachel pleaded again, though not very convincingly; her own lips were twitching almost uncontrollably.

"What is it? You'd better ask before you suffocate."

"Well, we've all seen you do some pretty amazing things with that tail of yours, and Rachel and I were just wondering… ahem… We were just wondering whether…" Rachel elbowed her as Kitty rallied the courage to finish. "We were just wondering whether you ever, you know… um… used your tail to masturbate."

Once Kitty finally said the words both she and Rachel succumbed to fits of laughter, clutching each other and gasping for breath in their efforts to restrain themselves.

Logan smiled and uttered a lot whistle. "Oh boy…"

Kurt just looked frozen—especially his tail, which had been swinging rhythmically back and forth near the tip.

"How can you… Why would you even…" Words failed him as he recalled Kitty's earlier complaint about Excalibur's lighthouse being "too intimate."

"Why won't you answer?" Kitty managed to sputter between laughs. "Have you got something to hide?"

"I am not going to discuss it. Veto! I use my veto for that question."

"Fine," said Kitty, finally corralling her laughter as she wiped away a streak of tears. "Then I get to give you a fill in, and it's got to be a bigger one."

"Fine. Anything."

"Your new challenge is that you have to be completely truthful with that interviewer tomorrow."

Kurt narrowed his eyes, detecting trickery. "What do you mean? Why would I be anything but truthful in any case?"

"No," asserted Kitty. "I mean really truthful. I want you to pour your heart out to that woman. When she's done with you, I want her to understand you better than anyone's ever understood you before. Capice?"

Kurt stared at her, blinking slowly. "If this is just some complicated ploy to get me to answer the previous question… which I have no idea why you would want to know anyway…"

"No, no no. This is unrelated. (And c'mon! Who would be sick enough to ask you that?) No, I just mean that you're not allowed to give those pat, scripted answers that I know Scott feeds you for this stuff. You have to actually answer truthfully. With the real truth."

"Okay," Kurt said slowly, still suspicious. "But if it is something that would be dangerous or harm our cause—"

"That goes without saying," Kitty agreed. "You get a veto for that kind of stuff, but I do expect you to use good judgement about which things really are dangerous to admit on camera."

"Okay," Kurt said again, more confidently. "You've got yourself a deal. Shall we shake on it?"

They did, and then it was Kurt's turn.

"This one is for you, Rachel."

"Shoot."

"If I asked you to have dinner with me tomorrow, would you say yes?"

Kitty's jaw literally dropped, and Rachel took in a sharp breath.

"I may be wrong," intoned Logan, smiling his drooping, lazy smile. "But I think the stakes have just been raised, girls."

"Dinner?" Rachel appeared to be virtually in anguish but it was difficult for any of them to tell whether that was a good or bad sign for Kurt's suit. "You mean… Like a date?"

"Yes," Kurt smiled gently as he met her troubled gaze. "Like a date. But look at it this way: we're honour-bound by the game, so if we try it and things go horribly wrong, we both have a good excuse. What do you say?"

Rachel smiled, nervous but happy. "Yes. I would say yes."

"Seven o'clock? I think all the filming should be well over by then."

"It's, well… It's a date!"

"It's um… your turn, Rach," said Kitty shaking herself out of her virtual stupor of astonishment.

"Ah ha! So many options! But I'm going to turn to you, Logan."

Picking up on Rachel's mischievous smile, Logan warned, "If it's something I can't remember then it doesn't count."

"Fair enough. But I think this is something you should be able to answer. Does Kurt ever use his tail to—"

"Veto!" Logan interrupted her quickly.

"Thank you, mein freund."

"Anytime, elf."

It's working already, thought Kitty with satisfaction, hearing Rachel agree within her mind.

"Okay," said Rachel. "Then you get a repeat of Kitty's make up challenge to Kurt. You have to be totally truthful tomorrow in your interview. I want to see those emotional fireworks that you've got smouldering inside! (But, um… not the… you know… violent ones.)"

"Fine. It's a deal," Logan shook her hand firmly to secure it. "Just remember, elf, I'm doing this for you."

Kurt grinned. "But you know I'll make it up to you."

"We'll see," Logan smirked back. "And now I know that makes it my turn, but it's about time for me to get some shut eye. I guess I can just go first the next time."

Logan collected his hat from the table, nodding goodnight to everyone before he left.

"I should go, too," said Kurt, maintaining that day's pattern of he and Logan exiting rooms a minute apart. "It's been wonderful catching up, Katzchen. And I will see you tomorrow evening, Rachel."

"I look forward to it," smiled Rachel, Kitty noticing that touch of wistfulness returning to her eyes.

When they were once again left to themselves, Kitty and Rachel were wordless for several minutes, staring blankly at the muted but still flashing television.

"Do you think it will work?" Kitty asked finally.

"It's just one date, Kitty."

"You know what I mean!"

Rachel shrugged. "Time will tell on all fronts. But oh my God. What am I going to wear?"

Kitty hit her with a pillow.