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Chapters
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
 
 
 

The Companion Picture - REVIEW THIS STORY

Written by Dandelion
Last updated: 12/03/2009 06:26:08 PM

Chapter 10

Kitty Pryde was a woman of confidence. She had spent most of her short life dealing with one crisis or another. Her parents divorced while she was still young. She learned she was a mutant. She joined the X-men. She switched places with herself in the future. She became dear friends with a demon sorceress and a celestial avatar and she lost them both before she was ready. She would feel justified in saying that she was pretty well prepared to handle the things that life threw at her.

Except those normal things, like love.

One thing Kitty had quickly gained an appreciation for on Muir Isle was the thick fog that rolled in like clockwork every evening. It was a blanket she liked to wrap herself in from time to time.

She was sufficiently wrapped that night, having wandered out after an attack of insomnia, thinking about the curve ball she had just been handed, courtesy of fate.

Two men, one name, and herself. <'Yana must be laughing her butt off up there.> Kitty looked skyward. The fog had completely enveloped her. She smiled quietly. <She was the one everyone wanted. Gorgeous Illyana. Mad, bad and dangerous to know.> She laughed out loud at the memory of her best friend. <Then there was me, quiet Kitty, too-smart-for-her-own-good Kitty, thirteen-years-and-on-the-X-men Kitty.> She sighed. <And now, I've got two men on the ropes.>

She sat on the ground with a damp thud. "The thing is," she said aloud. "Is that I really care about both of them. I don't think I can forgive Peter for slapping Pete around the way he did. And that boorish 'my Katya' nonsense!" She rolled her eyes. "I still care about him though. I always will." She grabbed two fistfuls of hair with an exasperated groan. "This is NOT good." She paused and let the fog kiss her cheeks in that cool, frosty way it has. "I really like Pete, though. He's rude, crude and insensitive, and a real louse at times. But I like him anyway. A lot. An awful lot."

"Sounds as if you like him, Katzchen." A Germanic accent coming from a dark silhouette drifted through the fog.

"Kurt!!" Kitty sprang up to her feet and hugged him ecstatically. "It's great to have you back, fuzzy elf."

"What are you doing out here, Kitty?" Kurt looked around him and dropped his bag on the ground.

"Thinking."

"About those demons of yours, hmmm?"

Kitty sat back down on the ground. "I'm not very good at this romantic stuff, you know?"

Kurt sat with her. "I defy you to find someone who is."

Kitty cast a sidelong look at him. "Let me see. Umm, Scott and Jean?"

"Death, resurrection, death, clones, death, children from alternate futures, death, more clones, more death...oh yes, and death." He leaned against her. "You were saying?"

"You know what I mean."

"Scott and Jean have had their problems just like anyone else. Big ones. Madelyne Pryor was a prime example of it."

"I suppose. Alex and Lorna."

"More problems. Not the least of which was Lorna being possessed by Malice." Kurt shook his head.

"Brian and Meggan?"

Kurt nodded. "They had their rough patches but seem to have come through it. As have Scott and Jean and Alex and Lorna."

"Moira and Sean."

"Hmm. That is a bomb waiting to go off."

Kitty nodded. "Moira having the Legacy Virus complicates matters."

"So does Sean living with Emma Frost." Kurt twirled his fingers in the fog, letting the thick cloudy tendrils twist in the night air. "I don't care which side of the fence she's been on, she is a very desirable woman. I know I'd be tempted."

Kitty snorted. "Men!" She scoffed.

Kurt laughed.

"I don't know. Ray and 'Yana were so good at handling the guys. And the others. Storm's the queen of confidence. Meggan takes everything in stride and Amanda!" Kitty threw her hands up in dispair. "She eats men for breakfast!!"

"Does she?" Kurt's voice held a hint of amusement.

"The only one on this rock I *might* *possibly* be more capable than in the romance field is Rahne and, don't get me wrong I really like her, that isn't saying much!!"

"You're young yet, Katzchen, you'll get the hang of it."

There was a stony silence. "I hate that. I really hate that."

Kurt looked at Kitty who was glaring at him in the dark.

"I hate that superior tone you always get when you talk about how young I am." Kitty told him darkly. "I may learn. But that hardly helps me now, does it?"

"I'm sorry." Kurt was very apologetic.

"Look, let me give you some advice. You are not going to be able to concentrate on the now, if you don't confront the then. You have got to talk to Peter."

Kitty buried her face in her hands and let out a muffled wail.

Kurt smiled slightly at her and put an arm around her shoulders.

She straightened. "I do. I know I need to talk to him."

"No rush, Katzchen. You'll handle it in all due time. There is one thing you should always remember."

"Hmm?"

"No one ever forgets their first love. Scott never forgot Jean, Warren'll never forget Candy, I never forgot Amanda, Brian will never forget Courtney. The thing is, you shouldn't be worried if you find yourself thinking of Peter, even if you are over him. He was an important part of your life. Perhaps he still is in his way. Keep that in mind, hmm?"

"Thanks fuzzy," Kitty hugged her old friend again. "Now, don't think you're getting out of telling me everything about the trip you and Rogue made."

"Me? Think that?" Kurt looked vaguely insulted. "How could you think that I would think that?"

She smiled as she stood up and pulled him with her. "It's late. I'll see you in the morning. And don't think I won't." Kitty smiled and began drifting upwards as she phased into the night air and towards her room.

Kurt looked after her fondly and picked up his bag. Tomorrow, he would be grilled by just about everyone on Muir Isle, but for tonight, he had only to look forward to sleep.

"Kurt Wagner, how did you sneak past me in the night?" A silky smooth voice wafted into Kurt's morning grogginess. Opening his eyes he beheld Amanda Sefton lounging in the doorway to his room, swathed in silk and lace.

"Mmmm, you are a deliciously welcome sight, my beauty." He growled at her.

"Sweet talker." She smiled and came into the room, shutting the door behind her. "How was your trip?"

"Eventful."

She sat on the edge of his bed and ruffled his hair affectionately. "Should I be jealous that you went running off with Rogue?"

Kurt grinned. "A beautiful young woman she is most definitely, but, even if my heart were not already completely in your hands, she has her sights set on another."

Amanda rolled her eyes coquettishly skyward, then back to Kurt. "In that case, you're forgiven for running out on me." She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply.

Kurt gladly accepted Amanda's embrace, wrapping his arms around her in an encouraging fashion. Amanda kept pressing and they fell back on the mattress. "Is this my welcome home?" "Call it what you like," Amanda replied with a grin on her face, as she pulled the covers over them.

"So Rogue's in love?" Amanda looked thrilled. Most of the Excalibur team was gathered around the dining table enjoying a leisurely breakfast.

"Yeah, I've seen Gambit," Kitty nodded. "He's pretty fine."

Moira shrugged. "I suppose. If ye like that sort of tall, roguish, mysterious, bedroom eyes, tae-die-for sort of men."

All eyes turned to her briefly. She smiled coyly, "Kind of reminds me of my Sean."

Kurt laughed at that one. "Well, anyway, she's actually gone and succeeded in starting to control her powers."

"Really?!" Kitty's voice went up an octave in her excitement. Moira looked intrigued.

"It was Forge's doing."

"I'm surprised nobody thought of going to him before." Amanda said thoughtfully.

Kurt shrugged, since that very thought had crossed his mind a number of times during his stay in Washington.

"So what was it he did?" Moira asked.

"He's got a vault full of gadgets and the like, he's been working on something for Alex and figured Rogue was a better risk."

Moira raised an eyebrow.

Kurt tapped his knife against the butter dish. "I really don't know the details, though, except that it worked and last I heard she was flying off to Westchester to show everyone her reversal of fortune."

"Well, I'm glad someone's decided tae do something for the puir girl."

Kitty left the others to discuss Rogue and returned to the cliffs where the fog stubbornly refused to lift. She scowled at the heavy clouds,

<You and my mood.>

What was it that was really bothering her so much? It couldn't possibly be the news about Rogue. Kitty was ecstatic for her old teammate. That couldn't even be questioned.

<The fact is,> she thought, <that Rogue has done something about her situation. Sure, it may have taken forever for her to finally do it, but she did it. She went and bit the bullet and all I can seem to be able to manage is a quaky feeling at the thought of confronting my ghosts.>

She swung her arms out, letting the fog envelope her hands. She phased in and out letting the fog touch her and pass through her. <The problem is that Peter isn't a ghost. He isn't a memory, and he isn't an Acolyte. He's here, he's real and I'm hiding from him.> She unphased and kicked a stone off the cliff.

"This bites," she said aloud and phased again. She stalked off the cliff and air-walked down to the rocky shore below. The sea was a stormy gray color, and the waves seemed to leap out of the fog that clung to the cliffs. Kitty stood on the shore and unphased, taking in deep lungfuls of the damp air.

"Kurt's right," she said sulkily. "I won't be able to really enjoy my time with Pete until I talk to Peter. I can't enjoy the now until I put the then to rest." She phased as a wave crashed against the rocks sending a cascade of water over the place she stood.

"I guess I just wish there was someone I could talk to about it all. And the thing is, there really isn't!" She picked up a rock and hurled it into the fog. "Everybody I know has either had miserable luck with members of the opposite sex or they found 'the one' right away." She hurled another rock into the ocean, feeling better for the exertion.

"Where does that leave me?" Kitty sat back on her heels. Whenever a wave threatened to soak her she phased through the water. <One thing remains,> she thought. <It's time I talk to Peter, about everything. About all the time we should have had and didn't. About all the rotten things he's done to me. About all the rotten things that have been done to him. It's time. I can't put it off anymore.> She looked up the cliff, phased, and let herself drift skyward, into the clouds.

 

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