DISCLAIMER:
Pryde and Wisdom, the X-men and Excalibur all are trademarks of Marvel Comics. This story is an unauthorized work done purely for my personal enjoyment, and is not intended to infringe on any of their rights in or profits from these characters. But this story is copyright to me.

WARNING:
THERE WILL BE EXPLICIT SEX IN THIS STORY. I will mark those sections clearly in the individual section headers. If reading sex scenes would offend you, please don't read this story.

If you want to comment, send email to <luba@lubakmetyk.net>

Part 4 Confrontations

Pete was awakened next morning by the feeling of Kitty getting up from bed. He looked over at the clock and groaned in disgust at the early hour indicated. He turned over and tried burying his head under the pillow to go back to sleep, to drown out the sound of Kitty in the shower. It was a sign of how exhausted he was by the previous day's encounters that he couldn't even rustle up the energy to get up and join her there.

He was still burrowed under the covers when she came back into the room. "Come on, get up, sleepyhead," she called out cheerfully, sensing he was awake.

Hearing her moving around, Wisdom lifted himself up enough to be able to watch her get dressed, a view he always enjoyed. "So why the big rush this morning?" he growled at her.

"I want to go talk to the Professor again." Seeing Pete shake his head unbelievingly at that, Kitty elaborated further. "We decided last night, remember? I want to see if we can get this visit back on track, or if it's really hopeless... And I don't believe it is hopeless, I think he'll listen to me, to my side. I was tired last evening when I talked to him, and surprised by his attitude. I'm a lot more rested this morning, and a lot more prepared, too. And talking to you last night helped, it always does..."

Kitty looked over at him where he half-lay, half-sat in the rumpled bed, propped up on one elbow to watch her, bleary-eyed, unshaven, hair even more out of control than usual, squinting at the bright daylight in morning-after pain, one hand already out groping for his cigarettes, and her heart turned over. She tried to imagine going back to waking up alone every morning, without him, getting through the day without him, going to bed alone every night, without him.

"So, if you're so grateful, why are you rushin' off? Stay here an' take care o' me. I could use some coffee, an' the aspirin, too..." Pete had no idea of the sentimental thoughts running through her head, he was solidly, if uncomfortably, centered in the real world.

Grinning at him, she threw a small bottle at the bed, hitting him squarely in the chest with it. "I figured you'd need the aspirin, I had it ready... But you'll have to go get your own coffee. I really want to try to get things cleared up with the Professor, and you can't hide out in here forever, you have to go out and face everybody again anyway, so you may as well start now... Come on, Pete, please?" Kitty was wheedling him now, shamelessly. "Please don't give up, please give it another shot, please keep trying to get along with my friends, please, for me, ok?"

Wisdom shook his head in surrender. Kitty knew that he'd do anything she asked, especially when she pleaded her case so wholeheartedly. "Oh, God, alright, anythin' for some bloody peace and quiet right now..."

She smiled at him in gratified relief, and came over to the bed to throw her arms around him and kiss him. Pete tried to grab her and pull her there with him, but she twisted out of his grasp with a laugh, tossing him directions to the kitchen over her shoulder as she walked to the door.

Kitty knocked at the door of Xavier's study. As she had expected, he was already there, despite the early hour.

He was seated behind his desk again, in a slightly more casual suit than what he'd worn the previous evening, but otherwise he, the room, the situation was the same. Only her attitude was different.

Xavier raised an eyebrow at her entrance. "Good morning, Katherine. I'm a little surprised to see you here again so soon. Does this mean you've already had a chance to think about our conversation last night, about my offer for you to return here, and made a decision?"

He gestured for her to be seated, in that formal, straight-backed, uncomfortable chair in front of his desk ready for visitors, but she shook her head and remained standing. Sitting there would have been too great a reminder of the previous evening's interview, and standing allowed her a wider range of motion, of action and reaction.

"Of course I thought about our session last night," Kitty responded, not being willing to dignify that encounter with the term conversation, which to her implied two-way communication. "I didn't need any time to think about your offer, about my decision. I don't know if Kurt or Peter would be interested in coming back here, that's their business. I decided a long time ago, my place is with Excalibur now, that's where my life is, and I have no intention of leaving."

The Professor frowned at her in disapproval and disappointment at her statement, although she couldn't tell if he'd ever seriously expected her to agree. "No intention of leaving Excalibur, or no intention of leaving that jumped-up London street thug you've taken up with?"

"There's no difference, really, Pete isn't trying to force me to choose between him and Excalibur, he's perfectly willing to stay with the team if that's what I want." Kitty paused to take a deep breath, then continued, "And I'd really appreciate it if you would stop belittling him and calling him names and making vague unsupported accusations about his actions and motives, if you would just give him the same chance you've been willing to give others in the past." Kitty'd had all night to work herself up to giving that rebuke, and she still had trouble getting it out.

She could have saved her effort. Xavier ignored her challenge, as he'd ignored most of her responses at their previous meeting. He chose instead to continue with his selected topic. "Would Mr. Wisdom..." with a subtly sarcastic emphasis on the title, "stay with Excalibur if you were not there?"

She thought about demanding the Professor answer her criticism of his behavior, but didn't quite have the nerve to press him on it, and decided instead to wait for another opening to try to make her point again. She was sure she'd have several more opportunities, the way the discussion was going. "Oh, I think he'd stay. Pete believes it's a job needs doing, and he does like being part of the team, even if he doesn't always show it."

"So he might indeed be there to spy on Excalibur, or on Moira's research, and using you as a convenient excuse for his presence?" Xavier twisted her answer around to support a view he'd first expressed to Kitty the night before. "You know, Katherine, Moira and I once discussed that possibility, when you all first returned from Genosha, bringing Wisdom with you to Muir, when we discovered data on the Legacy virus had leaked out..."

Kitty snorted in derision. "Maybe that was a reasonable concern back then, before we knew him. But who'd he be spying for, now? Black Air is gone, out of business, so is the London Hellfire Club, Pete helped to take them out. And he wouldn't be working for any of the mutant-hating groups, they wouldn't want a mutant working for them. I don't understand why you can't simply accept that Pete's just what he seems to be?"

"And just what is that, exactly, Katherine? Besides obviously being a mutant... and your lover?" Xavier made a moue of distaste.

She flushed at his uncharacteristic crudeness, but answered steadily, "Yes, a mutant, a 'good' mutant and a good man, who certainly shares our dream, your dream, of humans and mutants peacefully living and working together, and who's willing to work, to fight, to risk himself and me, to help make that happen. And, yes, he's my lover. Why does that bother you so much?"

"Because it is totally inappropriate behavior." It was Xavier's turn to be uncomfortable in the conversation, at her demand that he articulate his objections. "Because you are too young to make such a decision, such a commitment. Because he is too old for you."

Kitty also felt awkward and embarassed talking about this topic with the Professor, but she was determined to get things out in the open, still hoping to convince him to accept her new relationship by getting him to admit his objections were irrelevant and unreasonable. "We all know that Warren and Betsy are rooming together here. You don't question Brian and Meggan sharing a room, or Alex and Lorna when they come here to visit. Would you have objected to Kurt and Amanda wanting to be together, if she had come with us? Have you ever questioned Ororo about her sleeping arrangements when Forge comes here? Or Banshee and Moira?"

Xavier was not yet ready to back down. "Just because I have not made an issue of such arrangements in the past between others should not be taken as a sign of approval, rather as a reluctant bow to the inevitable. And you are younger by far that any of the individuals you have mentioned, and as I attempted to explain to you yesterday evening, I do not want you following those others' bad examples."

"Well, Sam and Tabitha certainly aren't older," Kitty snapped back, irritated as always whenever the issue of her age seemed to come up over and over again. Not giving him a chance to interrupt, to try to come up with reasons why that situation was different, she rushed on. "Whether you approve or not, you wouldn't embarrass any of them by questioning them in public about their sleeping arrangements. So why did you feel you could do that to me? Did you think that I would agree to your scheme to get us apart just because I wouldn't want to start a fight in public?"

"But you did, you created a most mortifying scene in public. I did not embarrass you, you embarassed yourself." Xavier had in fact expected her to agree to his suggestion without demurral, he had been quite pleased with himself at thinking of such a delicate way of separating Pete and Kitty at least temporarily, and he had been quite surprised that Kitty had had the temerity to oppose him, especially in public.

"Because you were treating me like a child again! I told you, when you came to Muir wanting me to lure Peter down from Avalon, if you have a request of me, make it as an adult, one-on-one, not as the stern but benevolent patriarch talking down to the minor living under his care." As she spoke, Kitty remembered how much she had resented his assumption that he could use her, her feelings for Peter and his feelings for her, for his own ends, without explanation or discussion, just on his order.

The Professor did not apologize to her this time, as he had then, but frowned at her instead. "I will treat you as an adult when I feel you deserve it, which you do not given your childish behavior both on arrival, and last night, and now. It would have been a true sign of your claimed maturity to have agreed to go along with my wishes in this matter for the few days of your visit here, out of courtesy, as a sign of respect."

"And then what? Do you really think that would keep Pete and me apart, having to creep through the halls at night to be with each other? That I would resent him for it, instead of laying the blame where it belonged, on you?" The more Kitty was used to both Wisdom and Excalibur treating her as an adult equal, the more frustrating she found it to be with Xavier and the X-men, who always insisted on treating her like a fourteen-year-old child.

She paused to take a deep breath, trying to regain control of her temper, and then continued, more calmly. "If I'm old enough to risk my life repeatedly in battle, first with the X-men, and now with Excalibur, against the Brood, Magneto, Dracula, Arcade, against the Hellfire Club and the Hellions, Freedom Force, the Marauders, the Beyonder, the Sentinels and Nimrod, or Mojo or the Phalanx, I think I'm old enough to run my love life by myself, also."

This was an old argument the Professor had heard before, many times. "If the world were a different, a better place, I would not permit you risking your life in combat either. But while your battle skills are enough for you to fight and survive, that does not mean you know enough to judge what is best for you, to rush into adult matters..."

"I'm not fourteen anymore, Professor, and even if I were, kids today even younger than fourteen are in relationships, are having sex." Kitty interrupted him. "I'm not, nobody is, going to wait until you declare we're grown up enough and ready. You think the kids at Emma's school aren't experimenting, just because you've got the dormitories separated?" Kitty occasionally got letters and long calls from Jubilee, filling her in on the school gossip and activities, whenever her classmates got tired of listening before Jubilee herself was tired of talking, and whenever her pal 'Wolvie' was temporarily unavailable to listen to his former sidekick, and Banshee called Moira frequently to bemoan the vagaries of a bunch of adolescents gathered together, which horror stories Moira promptly passed on for the entertainment and edification of everyone in Excalibur.

Xavier flushed. He always preferred to ignore the existence of such human behavior as much as possible, especially among his students, and was usually successful. "That is quite enough, Katherine. This is not about the new students, although, as I said, I am grateful they are not here to see you set such a bad example. I have let you have your say, although that seems to have been a mistake, since your arguments all seem to end in the gutter. You are simply confirming my initial opinion that this Wisdom person is a bad influence on you. And Kurt and Moira obviously cannot control your behavior..."

Kitty was regretting that she'd rushed off to talk to Professor Xavier again, instead of staying with Pete as he'd wanted, either together in bed or even getting breakfast together. Her early morning optimism about getting the Professor to see her side of things was fading rapidly. She wondered briefly how Pete was doing on his own, whether he'd got up yet to face the dubious welcome of her old friends.

Wisdom lay in bed for a few moments, realizing how neatly Kitty had trapped him into getting up. She'd given him the aspirin, but he had nothing to drink it down with. He could try to choke the pills down dry, an awful idea given the way his mouth and throat were feeling, or he could get up to get a glass of water. And once he was up, he might as well get ready and face the new day, an equally awful idea in his opinion.

After showering and shaving, and slugging down several aspirin, he started getting dressed. The only difference between the shirt and suit and tie he'd worn the day before and the ones he was putting on now was that yesterday's outfit still lay in a discarded jumble on the floor next to the bed, where Lockheed had made a nest for the night in it. Pete just shrugged at that. At least Lockheed didn't shed, and it wasn't as bad as the time Lockheed had dragged all his clothes out to the highest satellite communications antenna on Muir.

He reached down to pull out his belt from the pile on the floor, narrowly avoiding a swipe from Lockheed's clawed forepaw in the process. "Aw, sod off, you flyin' purple people eater..." he abjured the small dragon, in no mood for Lockheed's idea of fun and games. In reply, a small jet of flame shot perilously close to his hand as Lockheed growled "I still 'ate yoo..."

Checking the bedside table to be sure that Lockheed hadn't made off with his cigarettes again, Pete stuffed a few packs and his lighter into his pockets, and headed out to find some coffee, trying to follow Kitty's directions on finding the kitchen.

Wisdom made it to the kitchen with no difficulty. Kitty's directions had been clear and detailed, and both a good memory and a good sense of direction had been major advantages in his previous line of work.

The kitchen was crowded, even more full than dinner had been the night before since some of X-Force were in the room also. Most of those present were dressed much more casually this morning, almost all in jeans and tees or sweats, except those unfortunate few who were in uniform because they had an early training session coming. The more comfortable, customary attire seemed to be generating a correspondingly more warm and friendly atmosphere.

Pete could hear the laughter as he paused in the doorway. Inside, Bobby Drake was playing pranks on everyone, as usual, icing up Scott's coffee here, icing up Hank's pancakes there, icing up the chair seat just before Gambit sat down, and anything else his fertile imagination could come up with. And frequent repetition didn't seem to bother or bore Iceman.

Turning around to say something to Jean, Rogue saw Wisdom standing in the doorway and waved a wooden spoon at him in welcome. "C'mon in, sugah. What would ya like for breakfast?"

Taking a deep breath and steeling himself for more confrontations, Pete came into the kitchen. "Just coffee, for starters..." he growled.

Kurt pointed over to the appropriate counter, where Jean was holding a coffee pot in her hand. "Would you like any milk, cream or sugar with this, Mr. Wisdom?" At his negative headshake, she poured some of the coffee into a mug which she handed to him.

Holding the coffee, Pete looked around and spotted Logan seated at the table, pulling out the chair next to him invitingly. Taking a sip as he sat down, Pete gagged and spat the coffee out. "Wot the bloody 'ell!" It tasted just like Moira's awful coffee.

Everybody in the kitchen was in stitches, especially Brian and Kurt.

"Is there something wrong with the coffee, Mr. Wisdom? Hank made it especially for you, to make you feel welcome, help you feel at home here." Scott had been selected to deliver that line, chosen for his guaranteed ability to deliver it with a perfectly straight face, while the others tried unsuccessfully to hold down their gales of laughter. Bobby Drake was laughing so hard he slid down the counter he was leaning on to sit on the floor, holding his stomach and howling his mirth.

Pete glared around the room, then down at the coffee mug still clutched in his hand. "Did that Scots sadist put you up to this?"

Kurt snickered at that, and explained, "It was all Drake's idea, mein freund, he got Hank to analyze and duplicate Moira's rather unique coffee to surprise us visitors. They got Brian and me with it first, this morning, before you came in, and they've been waiting to catch you and Kitty as well. Meggan and Rahne and Douglock are just lucky they don't touch coffee, and we haven't seen Peter yet this morning..." Kurt suddenly decided to drop that particular line of conversation.

Pete didn't react to that brief mention of Colossus, he was still concentrating on coughing out coffee that had gone up his nose. Slowly, a reluctant grin tugged at his mouth. "I'm impressed..." He looked over at McCoy, whose white canines were shining against blue fur as he smiled at Wisdom's halfhearted efforts to mop up the coffee he'd spewed over himself and the table. "I dunno anybody except that witch could make coffee this friggin' 'orrible. But I'll bow an' scrape even more if you can copy Rory's good stuff, too..."

Feeling the tension dissolve as the audience laughed again, Wisdom realized that the practical joke was a test, a way for the group to judge his reactions, his personality under sudden stress. It was a much more subtle and revealing test than the training and evaluation tests Xavier had proposed the night before. He wondered if they were actually aware of what they were doing, and why. Glancing around, he saw several knowing, approving nods, from Scott and Jean, Rogue and Kurt, and realized most of them knew exactly what was going on.

Meggan brought another cup of coffee to him, where he sat at the kitchen table. Nodding his thanks to her, Pete peered at it suspiciously, taking a cautious sip only after Jean assured him with a smile, "No, no, it's good coffee, we wouldn't do that to anyone twice in one morning."

He pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket but, before he could light up, Meggan touched his hand lightly. When he looked up at her, she shook her head with a murmured "Please don't," and he put the pack away without any argument. There were several raised eyebrows at that little exchange, but no other, more explicit comment.

"So, where is you' p'tite dis mornin'?" Gambit asked, surprised that Pete had shown up in the kitchen by himself.

"She's in with th' gaffer again," Wisdom responded curtly, frowning again. Receiving several looks of blank incomprehension, he elaborated, "She's 'avin' another audience with your grand high panjandrum."

There were some scattered nods across the room as they slowly figured out he meant she was with the Professor. Everyone in the kitchen was consumed with curiosity about what was going on, with Kitty having two sessions in a row with Xavier right after arrival, but no one had the nerve to ask Pete outright, especially given the sour look on his face.

He took another sip of his coffee, scowling down at it as if it were still Moira's special. Seeing that, Logan looked at him enquiringly, and Wisdom nodded silently. Logan got up from the table and left the room, coming back in a few minutes with a bottle of scotch from which he poured a large slug into Pete's coffee.

"That's disgusting, Wisdom." Braddock observed, firmly resisting the sudden temptation to doctor his own coffee in the same way. Brian had successfully avoided alcohol for a long time now, but the craving never quite went away completely, and watching someone else indulging usually made the craving worse.

"Nah, it's good this way." Pete drawled. "You get the caffeine and the hair o' the dog wot bit you, all together nice an' convenient."

Rogue brought him some breakfast, now that it wasn't in any danger of being baptized with Moira's ersatz coffee. She'd been making several southern specialties that morning, and the plate she handed him held a large serving of chitlins and white bread covered with red-eye gravy, with a generous helping of grits covered with runny yellow eggs on the side. He looked down at the heaping piles of unidentifiable mush dubiously, then, shrugging in bafflement, started to gobble it all down, while Remy and Logan and Rogue laughed at his expression.

Cable and Domino came in together, running a little late after their babysitting stint the previous evening with the partying younger crowd. "Hey, look, Nate, they're letting in all kinds of riff-raff these days," Domino joked, seeing Wisdom at the table. "They let you in, Dom, proves they got no standards to brag on," Pete riposted.

When Pete got up to get himself a refill of his coffee, Cable drew him to one side of the kitchen to say quietly, "I didn't get a chance to tell you yesterday, Wisdom, but I'm going to be keeping an eye on you... I don't want Kitty hurt by any of the baggage you carry around."

Pete gave him an unbelieving stare. "What the hell are you doin', tryin' to play big brother? I can understand Logan, sure, and Kurt and Braddock too, mebbe, but you?"

Cable loomed over Wisdom, menacingly. "Because she was, she is, my sister's best friend. And I've learned to take my family obligations seriously, here. Rachel would want me to look out for her friend, just like Rachel used to look out for me, even if I didn't know it... And Kitty is important to Storm, too..."

Before Pete could respond, Roberto daCosta came up to them just then, seizing on the fact that Wisdom obviously knew Cable and Domino to ask a number of probing questions about Cable's and Domino's pasts, followed by Shatterstar and Warpath listening in. It was obvious their ideas of spies and mercenaries came from Hollywood rather than reality, and Pete threw Cable and Domino a dirty look as he tried to say as little as possible about their joint activities, having no idea what Cable or Domino might have chosen to reveal or hide.

Siryn joined them a few moments later and changed the subject, asking Wisdom a provocative question about recent British government statements concerning the political situation in northern Ireland regarding warring Catholic and Protestant factions. The conversation gradually got more and more general around the kitchen, as more and more people got involved.

Pete was surprised to find himself actually enjoying breakfast. The food Rogue served him may have looked and tasted strange, but it was satisfyingly full of grease, fat and cholesterol, the aspirin, caffeine and alcohol had cooperated together to get his system jump-started, and there was a genial hubbub of conversation in the room, most of it highly entertaining to overhear.

Since Wisdom hadn't shown any inclination to debate English actions in Ireland with her, cheerfully agreeing that the government was full of "stupid gits" and "useless toerags" whose every action and decision made things worse rather than better, Siryn had changed her aim to a more cooperative victim and now had Brian trying to defend British policies in northern Ireland from her spirited attacks, while Hank gave Meggan a crash course in details of Irish history not usually included in short newspaper reports, Warpath kept insisting that the Irish troubles were nothing compared to what his people, the Apache, had suffered at the hands of the American government, and Rogue threw in occasional comparisons from the civil rights movement in the South.

Pete could also hear Roberto daCosta busily assuring Douglock and Rahne that TV shows like Magnum PI and movies like True Lies were an accurate representation of how spies and private detectives lived. He grinned as Domino kept telling them Roberto was pulling their leg and there was no resemblance whatsoever between glittery fantasy and gritty reality. Iceman and Gambit amused themselves taking first one side and then the other in this discussion, but always remaining opposite to each other's most recent position.

Wisdom had deliberately expressed voluble surprise at Cable's comment about family, and then sat back to watch Cable and Cyclops both struggle to explain their convoluted family relationship to each other, as well as to Jean and Rachel. Pete didn't let on to them that Kitty had already explained their history to him several times, he just entertained himself listening to Cable and Cyclops go on and on, being careful to drop frequent interjections of disbelief at appropriate moments in their story every time they showed signs of giving up.

Jean had initially also participated in that conversation, but had left the three men to it to make up breakfast for Sam Guthrie. Cannonball had come wandering in late, with a strange look on his face. He was so distracted thinking about some things Tabitha had said the night before that he just picked at his food, while Jean sat with him trying to draw him out to find out what his problem was.

Logan had stayed long enough to see that everything was going fine between Pete and the others, and then had left, to get ready for a scheduled morning workout in the danger room.

Pete sat there, listening to the conversations, drinking his coffee and eating more of Rogue's offerings, watching the door waiting for Kitty to show up, wondering how she was doing with Xavier, if she were doing as well as things seemed to be going for him with at least some of her friends.

Kitty was pacing around the Professor's study like a leashed tigress. "Kurt and Moira don't try to control me, they treat me as a person, they let me decide for myself, learn for myself..." Her mind drifted away for a moment, thinking about how the Professor had always been notoriously bad at letting any of his students go, or grow. She remembered a few times in the past when he'd had trouble treating even the senior X-men as adults, challenging Cyclops' decisions as team field leader when they'd come back after escaping the Brood, and doing the same with Storm as team leader after they'd come back from the Secret Wars.

"And you've decided that Wisdom is trustworthy? And what if you later learn that he isn't, and you get hurt in the process?" Xavier had lived through many of his students having to learn life's lessons the hard way, he considered it part of his function as teacher, as mentor, to help them avoid as many such mistakes as possible, knowing that there would be more than enough inescapable problems to drive the needed morals home.

"Well, that's part of life, isn't it, taking chances?" The Professor sighed at Kitty's glib answer, recognizing the smug invulnerability of inexperienced youth.

"Taking chances with your own wellbeing is bad enough, perhaps I would allow that, just so you'd learn from the experience, but do you realize you are also risking all of Excalibur, and Moira's Legacy virus research?" Xavier gave Kitty a considering look. "But you realize, there is a simple way to resolve this question. Would your Mr. Wisdom allow me into his mind to determine his intentions? If you asked him to, as a favor? Since Excalibur does not have a resident telepath?"

Kitty shook her head, amazed that he would even make the suggestion. "I'm sure he wouldn't, and I would never ask that of him, especially not after the way Pete's been treated since we came here. But that's not because we'd be afraid of what you might find out. Pete went along with all of us letting Nate Grey read our minds, he offered just like the rest of us when Moira and Peter suggested he do that to convince himself of our true intentions. And I really don't believe that Moira is worried about trusting Pete anymore, she's accepted him, even if they do fight a lot..."

Since he did not want to admit that that was exactly what Moira had said to him in more recent conversations, Xavier shifted ground slightly. "This isn't about Mr. Wisdom per se, this is about you, and being afraid that he will hurt you..."

Kitty felt like the discussion was running in circles, and she was making no progress whatever in getting the Professor to see her viewpoint. "Right now, you and the others are hurting me a lot more than Pete ever has, Pete has never hurt me, he's the one who's been hurt so far...

"By our not welcoming him with open arms, you mean?" Xavier had hoped that Wisdom's boorish behavior would disillusion Kitty with him. "You must admit that he has not made any great effort to fit in to our society."

"Yes, that also, and I admit Pete's been on his worst behavior since arriving here, but I meant he was hurt by Peter, hurt badly, when Peter first came to Muir. And you said last night that Pete deserved that beating, that it wasn't Peter's fault, that it was my fault, and Pete's."

"I never said such a thing, Katherine, of course no innocent person deserves a beating..." The Professor flushed at her blunt accusation.

"Well, then, you implied it strongly," she interrupted, refusing to back down. "Peter had just arrived on the island. The only thing he saw, the only thing he could have seen, was Pete coming home with all of us in a group, and then us kissing before going in. He didn't catch us in bed together, he didn't find Pete attacking me, we weren't flaunting our affair, as you put it. And it should have been obvious to anybody around that Pete was part of the group, that he wasn't an intruder or an outsider. There is no excuse, no justification for what Peter did, however much we understand or sympathize with him. You didn't see him standing over Pete's body, refusing to stop, refusing to listen. We did."

"So you do understand and sympathize with Peter?" Xavier jumped on that hint of an opening. "Because you still care about him, obviously."

Kitty was getting almost as tired as Pete was about hearing of her supposed commitment to Rasputin. "Of course I do, but as an old friend, as Illyana's brother. He ended us, remember? And it hurt, and it took a while, and I survived, I left him behind and moved on."

"How can you claim that when there has never been anyone else, until this English adventurer showed up?" Xavier let his skepticism show. "And now Peter wants to reconcile, and you are not giving him the chance?"

He'd made the same point before, the previous evening. Kitty hadn't felt like responding then, but now she decided to bring the Professor up to date on some personal matters he had forgotten, or not heard about yet. "I'm not quite as inexperienced as you seem to think, I've been interested in others. You remember Doug, don't you, that started just before you left us, but you didn't know Larry Bodine, I really screwed up that time, it was Magneto who was there for me then, and I'm sure Moira or Kurt have told you all about my hopeless crush on Alistaire in England, but maybe they didn't get around to mentioning Mikhail, Mischa, one of the Russian defectors Meggan and I rescued, who got killed soon afterward."

She rushed on, not giving the Professor a chance to respond. "And I did have time to get back together with Peter while we were still in the X-men if that had been so inevitable, but we just grew apart as we grew up. If we met today, with no previous history between us, we'd have nothing in common, no one would expect us to end up together."

"But it is exactly because of that previous history that you and Peter belong together, will always belong together." The Professor was nothing if not persistent.

"Why? Because I had a crush on him when I was fourteen? Does that determine my destiny forever after? Sam was crazy about Lila Cheney when he was younger, and Tabitha had a crush on Rictor, but now Sam and Tabitha are together. Lorna Dane used to go with Bobby Drake, now she loves Alex. Angel was interested in Jean, until Jean got together with Scott, and he loved Candy until she died, and now he's with Betsy. And I don't see you telling Gambit to forget about Rogue and go back to BellaDonna..."

Kitty was pacing again, the Professor's eyes following her progress around the room, noticing her freedom of motion this morning translating into a corresponding freedom of speech. "I care about Peter, I always will, and I feel sorry for him, but I love Pete now, I want to be with him. You keep telling me I'm inexperienced, but I've learned enough not to judge by appearances. Pete may not look like much at first glance, but inside he's good, good all the way through. He's the opposite of Peter, in many ways. The exterior isn't as shiny, as attractive, but there's a core of inner strength underneath. And I'm adult enough to recognize that, and value it, and love him for it, even if other people aren't."

"And your equally insightful analysis of Peter, Katherine?" The sarcastic note had crept back into Xavier's voice.

Kitty ignored his sarcasm, and accepted his challenge at face value. "When I was young I fell for Peter's looks, his exotic foreigness, the soulful sensitivity of the artistic spirit. But I didn't know enough then to recognize that the interior was flawed, that Peter might have the sensitivity of an artist but he didn't have the inner strength of the true artist, to face and accept the world as it is, beauty and harshness alike."

She could see the Professor wince at her response, but he persevered. "And, granted that, you still choose not to share your strength with him? So that Peter can be whole, can be an artist again, can be an X-man again? Because I will admit, Katherine, that your strength is much greater than Peter's. You truly prefer wasting yourself on this English lout instead?"

Kitty sighed. She wondered to herself if Professor X was hearing his own words, that he wanted her with Colossus for his sake, not hers. "Pete is everything I want. He's a perfect mix of romance, partnership and security. He's just a little exotic, a little mysterious, and he's willing to fight for what he believes in, to help people. He treats me as an adult and an equal, and he's never tried to keep me out of battle, his or mine. Most of all, he makes me, my needs, the center of his life. He's stayed at Muir in the middle of nowhere because of me, he's put up with Excalibur's and the X-men's distrust to be with me, he even puts up with Lockheed's attempts to drive him away from me. Peter always put his own needs and problems, his family's needs and problems, the X-men's needs and problems, all ahead of me and mine."

Xavier had seen nothing in Wisdom since meeting him to justify any of Kitty's paean of praise for him. "The only problem you have is this Wisdom man poisoning your mind against Peter, against us. It's only his influence that's keeping you from agreeing to return here to us, where you belong..."

As he continued with the well-worn argument, Kitty's attention began wandering again as she recalled life at the mansion, the endless training and honing of battle skills, with and without their powers, the occasional token gesture toward life in general, such as her intermittent dance lessons with Stevie Hunter, that remained some of her most cherished memories. Kitty'd done better than most at learning to control and live with her powers, helped by the fact her power was relatively unobtrusive. Rogue still couldn't touch anyone safely, and it was the Siege Perilous that had gotten rid of her Carol Danvers persona for her, not any of the Professor's training. Emma Frost had done more with Iceman's powers in a few days than Xavier had in years. Cyclops still couldn't control his optic blasts and had to live behind his visor and goggles, and Moira had heard from Forge that Havok was having control trouble again, also. Beast had tried to be both scientist and X-man, and the split attention together with his very visible mutation had kept him from the scientific laurels he so richly deserved. She came out of her musing abruptly, to answer the Professor.

"So you want me to come back here, to be an X-man again. And what does that really mean? Fighting all the time, saving the world over and over and getting kicked in the teeth for it. And don't get me wrong, I love a good fight as much as anyone, maybe more than most, but all the bloody time? Even dying doesn't get anyone a break, everyone always seems to come back eventually, just to fight again. Everyone, except the ones that really matter..." Kitty paused briefly in her diatribe, thinking of Illyana's death, and Doug's. "Maybe you get to rest up for a few moments, if you're lucky, before you have to go do it all over again. But when do you get to live? Being X-men is what we are, saving the world is what we do, but without any time off for ourselves it loses all its meaning."

"Well, now I want more than that. I've given a lot to the X-men, I almost gave my life for the X-men, for your dream, before I'd had much of a chance to live my life." She winced as she cast her mind back to fighting the Marauders that night in the Morlock tunnels, and remembered all the time she'd spent trapped in her phased state after that, how it had seemed for a time that she would dissolve completely as a result, why she'd wanted to kill herself to get it over with, to keep the X-men from having to betray their principles dealing with Dr. Doom to save her.

Xavier, of course, had reviewed all the records of that debacle, as well as hearing a number of first-hand accounts. "I would never have permitted things to come to that state if I had been here."

Kitty shrugged off that facile exculpation. "How could you have changed anything? Besides, you weren't here, you were off with Lilandra and the Starjammers, it was Magneto who was there for me, who dealt with both the Fantastic Four and Dr. Doom to try to save me..."

"Do you blame me, then, for not being there for you?" There was a pained note in the Professor's voice. It wasn't the first time that he'd heard that accusation from one of the X-men, or the New Mutants. And he'd actually had the perfect opportunity to return to earth immediately after the Morlock massacre, when he and the Starjammers had found a weakened, innocent Illyana and the other New Mutants out in space. He'd been told about the battle with the Marauders, the severe injuries the X-men had sustained, but had elected to remain with Lilandra while he forced Illyana to reclaim her powers in order to teleport the New Mutants back to earth. "Is that what this is all about, your trying to punish me in some way for that?"

Kitty paused at that, and then reluctantly answered, "Maybe I do blame you, at least a little bit. You could have come back with Illyana and the other kids, but you didn't. But, no, I'm not trying to make you pay for not being here for me then, that's not what this is all about. I always tried to live your dream, even when I wasn't with you, I'm still trying to live your dream. And I was willing to try to live Peter's dreams, too, once upon a time." Her voice softened as she remembered all her vague adolescent fantasies of marrying Peter, of going back to live on the collective farm with him, of attending gallery showings of his artwork with him. "But now I just want to live my own dream."

"And your dream is being with one Peter Wisdom?" Kitty was too wrapped up in her own thoughts, still trying to marshall the words to explain her position, that she missed the change in the Professor's tone when he referred to Wisdom, from the biting sarcasm in his voice at the start of their conversation to a more considering note in his latest response.

"Yes, it's being with Pete, but it's also understanding and sharing his need to be part of the bigger, outside world, just as he accepts my need to remain part of Excalibur and the X-men. We plan to compromise, to try to live half in his world and half in mine, and I really hope the X-men will accept that just as Excalibur does." Kitty walked over to the door, turning to face the Professor one last time as she reached it. "If we make it, fine. If not, we tried. And it's no one's decision except Pete's and mine."

She left the room without waiting for a response, and went looking for Wisdom, wondering if he'd had as unsuccessful an encounter with the others at breakfast as she'd just had with the Professor.

Storm and Colossus could hear the cheerful buzz of conversation as they approached the kitchen. They were both in uniform already, on their way to a workout in the danger room. After dinner the previous evening, Storm had persuaded Colossus to accept Cyclops' open invitation for any of Excalibur to train with the X-men during this visit. She wanted to use such encounters as an additional opportunity for Peter to renew and rebuild ties with his old friends and team-mates, and she felt he would benefit from being permitted to work off some of the everpresent tension and frustration that she could sense lurking beneath his usual stolid demeanor. Bishop followed close behind them, also in uniform, prepared for the training session.

When they came into the kitchen, the atmosphere changed subtly, as the various people already present registered the new arrivals and the sundry conversations gradually died away. Noticing Wisdom at the table deep in apparently amicable discussion with Cable and Cyclops, Storm frowned at Nate and Scott. Both men looked back at her squarely, refusing to concede they were doing anything for her to disapprove of.

Bishop went to collect Iceman and Gambit and Beast, all of whom were scheduled for the danger room and were already late for their training session. Rogue insisted that Peter needed to have some breakfast before joining the others, and began cooking again. Somehow, nobody felt in the mood to try the coffee gag on Peter, something in his face made him seem more distant than usual.

When Bishop stopped by Storm's side on his way out, Ororo looked at him and said "Please go on, Bishop, and tell the others I will be delayed. Do not wait for me, I will join you later, when I am able."

As Bishop left, she came up to Pete, still sitting at the table. "I would appreciate it if you would spare me a few minutes, Mr. Wisdom." He looked up at the tall and imposing figure standing over him, implacable as any other force of nature, and gestured at the empty chair recently vacated by Logan, but she shook her head. "I would prefer a more private setting, if you will be so kind as to oblige me..." Storm turned and moved away without looking back, obviously expecting Pete to follow her.

"Sure, whatever," he shrugged at her back. Pete scraped at the remnants on his plate a few more times, then stood up to refill his coffee and pick up the scotch bottle before following her out the kitchen and down the hallway into a nearby empty room. He took one of the chairs without waiting to see what Storm would do, setting his coffee and liquor on a table near to hand.

She looked at his unpressed suit and shirt and his uncombed hair, his overall unkempt appearance, the stubble that remained despite the fact he'd just shaved recently, and she shuddered as she saw him pour more scotch into his coffee refill. "Are you an unadmitted alcoholic, Mr. Wisdom, that you cannot start the day without a drink? Or is pouring whiskey into your coffee some quaint English custom with which I am not familiar?"

Pete was slouched down in one of the chairs, watching Ororo pace around him and unpleasantly reminded of a lioness stalking her kill. "Nah, 'm just not a mornin' person... so, whadya want?" He thought about all of Kitty's strictures on trying to get along with her friends, and decided that Kitty must think he was truly a miracle worker.

Storm came to a temporary halt at his side, where he had to crane his neck around uncomfortably to see her. "I wanted to spend some time with you, to get to know you better, to see just what kind of a person could be so immoral as to take such unfair advantage of an innocent young girl."

"Not so innocent anymore," he leered. His black humor was not something the self-righteous Storm would be likely to appreciate at the best of times, however, and in this particular situation Pete knew it was a disastrous response as soon as the words were out of his mouth. "Look 'ere, I didn't force 'er, if that's what you think, she wanted it as much as I did, just ask 'er..."

Storm's face was eloquent of her disgust at what she perceived as his stereotypical male defense. "It should be self-evident to any credible observer that Kitty is too young to know what she wants, or to recognize what it is good for her to have. It would have been a more legitimate sign of your claimed regard for her to have respected her youth and innocence."

Wisdom was starting to get a first-hand understanding of why Kitty got so upset whenever she thought the X-men were treating her like a child again. "I must respect her more than you do, then, I think she's smart enough to know exactly what she wants, an to decide for 'erself..."

Storm resented his clear implication that he knew Kitty better than she did, that he had Kitty's best interests more at heart than she did. "Because you think that what she needs most is you? I do not accept that, I believe what she needs most is to be back here, with us, with the X-men, with Peter. You are not what she needs. Indeed, you are standing in the way of what she needs..."

Pete knew that he salivated at any mention of Kitty with Rasputin the same way that Kitty reacted to any mention of her youth, but he couldn't help getting angry anyway. "Mebbe you should worry more about what Kitty needs for 'erself, and forget about Comrade Rustbucket, an' let 'im take care of himself."

Ororo drew herself up haughtily. "I do worry about what Kitty needs, I always have, and one thing I am quite sure of is that what she does not need is you."

Wisdom suddenly remembered what Kitty had told him of Storm's background, realizing that somewhere inside herself Storm did still think of herself as a goddess to be worshipped and to be obeyed. It was quite different from Kitty's frequent references to being a goddess of computing and to wanting to be worshipped, Kitty's comments being joking requests reflecting a craving for attention and affection and respect.

Unaware of his train of thought, Storm continued imperiously. "You are obviously attempting to keep your tenuous hold on Kitty by encouraging her sudden abnormal obsession with sex. How can you do such a thing, and still claim you have her best interests at heart?" Normally, Ororo would have cringed at the mere thought of discussing such issues even with her trusted friends, much less with a strange man she had just met and whom she intensely disliked, but she was being swept away in the heat of the moment to say things she would not otherwise have put into words.

"Hey, wait a min, now, Kitty ain't abnormal, it's perfectly healthy an' normal to want all you can get," Pete attempted to lighten the mood, with a marked lack of success.

Storm did not find anything about Pete Wisdom even mildly amusing. "It is perfectly normal, as you put it, to retain a sense of priority and proportion, to not let individual animal passions interfere with more important societal concerns, in our case, working for the Professor's dream of mutants and humans eventually coexisting peacefully..."

Pete in turn had no sympathy for self-righteous crusaders who felt the whole world must adopt their own particular philosophy and goals. "That's one difference between us, then, I think there ain't anything more important in the long run, and I think Kitty an' me can have it all. We can work anything out so long as we're together. An' you just want us apart 'cause it'll make it easier for a certain someone to move in..."

Storm was furious. Although Pete had only meant exactly what he said, referring to himself with Kitty, to Ororo's guilty conscience it sounded like a deliberate indictment of her dilatory relationship with Forge, which was gradually collapsing due to both physical separation and verbal miscommunication, as she always seemed to find the X-men's business more important than simply being with Forge, responding to his needs and her own, a role Raven seemed more and more happy to fill in her place.

As Storm turned on her heel and left the room in icy silence, Wisdom stood there muttering, "Bugger all..."

Slamming out of the room, planning to go outside to wait for Kitty because he felt he couldn't take yet another encounter with any of the X-men right now, Pete ran into Betsy in the corridor, on her way to that morning's training session. His eyes bulged at his first sight of her costume, a high-cut skimpy leotard that left absolutely nothing to the imagination, with what looked like bondage-style gloves and boots. He wasn't sure quite where it was safe to look.

Seeing him in the hallway, Betsy stopped, saying "I'm glad to find you without the others, Mr. Wisdom. I've been wanting to speak to you."

He started to bluster, "If it's about last night..."

She interrupted him, "No, it's about Kitty. I am concerned about her, about her not getting hurt. I would like to ask what your intentions are towards her." The accents of the prim and proper upper-class English Victorian gentlewoman contrasted oddly with her exotic Asian flamboyance.

Wisdom groaned loudly. "Bloody hell, it wasn't bad enough the Big Brother brigade wants to rip me into friggin' pieces, now I've got you and Rogue an' the weather witch startin' up the Sob Sisters sodality? Or did that tosser Braddock put you up to this?"

Betsy frowned at his characterization of her brother. "I may not have known Kitty long, since I joined the X-men just exactly when she and Nightcrawler and Peter were injured in battle with the Marauders and were sent to Muir, to Moira, but I spent days, no, weeks, holding her mind together while she was trapped in her phased state, discorporating slowly, before Reed Richards and Dr. Doom were able to help her, to cure her. That time created a bond between us, I had to touch every facet of her mind, her spirit, trying to ensure that nothing that was Kitty was lost. I know her soul, I know her deep need to be loved, and I don't want you taking advantage of it, of her..."

While she was giving that little prepared speech, Betsy was probing delicately into Pete's mind. She didn't share Xavier's and Jean Grey's avowed scruples about invading another's privacy, her ethics were more pragmatic. She was careful in her mental touch, assuming that Wisdom had probably been trained in at least the rudiments of shielding his mind while working for Black Air. She had guessed correctly, in fact. Pete had been forced to develop quite effective mental shields as a necessary survival skill. But Wisdom was being so paranoid about Xavier, about the possibility that Xavier would interfere with his mind, that he tended to forget there were other psis in the X-men. And he made the same mistake most non-psis made, assuming that he could relax his shields when he wasn't near Xavier (forgetting that physical separation is relatively meaningless to a high-level telepath). The result was that Betsy could scan his mind, at least the easily accessible surface thoughts.

Unaware of her mental examination, Pete responded to her spoken words. "Kitty ain't told me about any o' that..."

"Oh, I don't think she's trying to keep it a secret," Betsy assured him. "Kitty probably hasn't gotten around to telling you about it yet, perhaps because she doesn't like remembering that time, or talking about it. It was very traumatic for her, she's normally such a positive, optimistic person, she must have been feeling incredibly depressed and hopeless to try to kill herself..." Betsy could feel Pete's shock, his surprise and concern, at that, "but that's why I care what happens to her, why I don't want you to hurt her." She was quite pleased with what she could sense in his thoughts as they discussed Kitty.

Betsy turned and started walking away, toward the danger room, but Pete reached out to stop her. "Uh, listen, Psylocke, Miss Braddock... look, I'm sorry for that stupid joke last night, ok?" He shuffled his feet and looked at the floor as he offered that awkward apology.

"I'll forgive you... this once" Betsy started walking away again, then paused to look back at him and give him a brilliant smile, saying, "If you will do me a favor... and tell Kitty I approve of her taste."

Continued in Part 5 Envy
Tabitha spies on Kitty and Pete in some creative loving, and tattles.