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

Part 2 Brian and Meggan

After a short time, with only the beeping of the monitors, the gurgling of the fluids and Wisdom's shallow breaths to listen to, Kitty saw the door swinging open. Meggan held it as Brian came into the room, carrying a japanned tray with a large stoneware mug, fragrant steam rising from it. Meggan let the door close gently, and followed him inside.

Taking the mug off the tray, Meggan held it out to Kitty, saying quietly, "Moira wanted to bring you some hot tea, since you insist on staying with Pete. I said we'd bring it, and I told her to go get some rest herself. She needs it, and she deserves it, too."

Kitty reached up with one hand to take the mug, but her hand was trembling enough she decided two hands would be safer. But, when she tried to let go of Wisdom's hand, she found his fingers clamped down on hers tightly, even as he remained unconscious.

Seeing the problem, Meggan handed the mug to Brian and then reached down to the lovers' clasped hands. At her gentle touch, Pete's fingers relaxed and Kitty was able to withdraw her trapped hand.

"Thank you, Meggan. Are you sure you don't mind?" Kitty looked down doubtfully at where Meggan now held Pete's hand lightly.

"I don't mind a bit, I told you before, he's not as bad as he seems." Meggan smiled at the younger girl reassuringly. "I like him, he makes me feel good when I'm around him..." Kitty suddenly remembered Meggan's less obvious but equally impressive empathic powers, and felt her judgement of Wisdom justified by Meggan's evident liking and acceptance of the man.

After Brian had handed her the mug of hot tea, Kitty took a grateful swallow, and then gagged at the taste, exclaiming "Meggan, this is just terrible! It's even worse than Moira's coffee, what on earth is in this?"

"Moira said to put in lots of extra sugar, it's good for shock," Meggan began explaining, but then Brian continued, "and I poured a shot of whiskey into it, Kitty, for purely therapeutic purposes, of course. Don't worry, it's not Moira's medicinal alcohol, it's a quite decent scotch she keeps hidden away from the rest of us."

Meggan gave him a suspicious look. "And I'd like to know just how you know so much about Moira's liquor supplies..."

Brian shrugged, sidling away from Meggan's not very subtle efforts to smell his breath with the injured-innocent look of an unjustly-accused, long-suffering reformed alcoholic who'd not yet slipped back. "Moira told me where it was, when she told me to give Kitty some... And I'm surprised you're complaining, Kitty, I'd think you'd quite like the whiskey. That drunken lout Wisdom has obviously been busy teaching you to drink, also." Braddock's tone was disapproving.

Kitty split hot tea on herself in shock at that unexpected attack, while Meggan protested, "Brian, that's a terrible thing to say."

"Well, but it's true, love. Just look at Kitty tonight, a young girl drinking in the pub, and I'm sure Wisdom took her out drinking in London also, didn't he, Kitty?" Braddock loomed over Kitty, arms crossed on his chest just adding to his usual bulk. The retired Captain Britain was now preaching his anti-alcohol campaign with the rabid fervor of any reformed convert. He'd forgotten how aggravating it could be, sitting in a pub in the middle of temptation watching others indulge where he couldn't, and his cheerful earlier mood had been progressively deteriorating. "It's legal, yes, but it's not a very good idea, and it just makes it that much easier for Wisdom to manipulate her."

"Pete bought me a drink right after we'd been shot at, yes... He said the pub would be a safe place for us to be, with everybody else there, Black Air had to consider it neutral ground. I don't think that constitutes getting me drunk, Brian." Kitty was infuriated, shaking at Brian's comments as she brushed ineffectually at hot tea stains on her shirt and jeans. She thought fleetingly about throwing the rest of her tea at him, then tried to calm down, telling herself she was overreacting.

"No, of course not, Kitty," Meggan said soothingly. "Brian is just tired and cranky. He doesn't really mean it, he knows he's being unfair to Pete. Having a few drinks is fine, if you can handle the liquor." She frowned unhappily at Brian over Kitty's head.

Kitty was still trembling in anger. "You really hate him, don't you, Brian? You just want him to die, everybody in Excalibur just wants him to die and go away..." The accusations came spilling out wildly, driven by fear and shock and exhaustion, then her voice trailed off uncertainly, as Meggan came over to slip a comforting arm around her shaking shoulders. "I don't understand why you all want to get rid of him..."

Braddock snorted inelegantly. "This from the girl who couldn't stand the man herself, and suddenly you're with him, and you really really like him and you want him to join us so you can be together..." His sarcastic voice parodied her innocent, enthusiastic announcement earlier in the pub. "I can't imagine why I'd be suspicious of this whole situation."

"Brian, stop it!" Meggan was trying to play peacemaker, not very successfully. "Of course we don't want to be rid of Pete, Kitty, he's one of us now, even Brian agreed to that..."

"Well, I didn't have much of a choice now, did I, love?" Brian's reply was sardonic. "But I don't understand what a smart young girl like Kitty could possibly see in this rude, crude boor. He's just a low-class drunken tatterdemalion, and at least ten years older than her to boot. It's pretty hard to imagine a filthy ragamuffin like him sweet-talking his way into her bed. He certainly doesn't much look the part of a smarmy lothario, but I guess all those years of disreputable experience have paid off richly for him, he's managed himself a nice cushy berth after turning on his own people. And I still think Wisdom must have gotten Kitty drunk or something in London, once he got her alone and away from all of us, and taken advantage of her. Why else would she be with him?"

Meggan was taking a breath to argue with Brian again, when Kitty pulled away from Meggan's light embrace and jumped in ahead of her. "It's all right, Meggan, I can answer for myself. And don't you talk about me like I'm not even here, Brian bloody Captain Britain. I'm not an innocent child, and Pete didn't take advantage of me, that's ridiculous." Kitty stopped to take a deep, calming breath after her vehement retort, then continued in a softer tone as she looked down at the unconscious man whose hand she still clutched fiercely, "I'm grown up enough I know appearances don't matter, it's only what's inside that really counts. And absolutely all that happened between the two of us in London is I learned that Pete has a good heart and cares about people even if he does try too hard to hide it, and that means a lot to me..." As she reached out to lay her other hand gently on Wisdom's bare chest just above the bandaging, Kitty reassured herself that that disingenuous reply wasn't really a lie, almost everything between them had happened after they left London to go on to Dream Nails.

"And how do you know all that, all of a sudden? What lies did he fill you with?" Meggan was shaking her head at Braddock in exasperation as he continued to challenge Kitty, who was too tired and shocked and upset to realize that Brian did truly care about her and her welfare, even if his concern was being applied with a distinctly heavy hand. "He'd say anything, promise anything. I know, because I always did..."

Even if Kitty remained oblivious to Brian's good intentions as she only heard his harsh words, a harshness actually directed more at his past self than at her or Wisdom, Meggan could recognize that he was sincerely trying to save the younger girl from entering a potentially painful future relationship with an older man of dubious background, history and habits. However, Meggan could also understand Kitty resenting his preaching, so reminiscent of born-again religion, especially with no evidence to support any of Braddock's snap judgement and condemnation of Wisdom.

"You just resent the fact Pete can enjoy himself drinking while you can't, that he can drink and not turn into a monster like you used to." Kitty was in no mood to give Brian any credit for good intentions. She was furious, mostly at Colossus, but Braddock was handy at the moment as someone whom she could fight, and she glared up at him combatively.

"No, I don't resent his drinking, I worry about it, because I worry about you, you stubborn little chit..." Brian couldn't understand why Kitty wasn't listening to him when he was baring his soul, his own past mistakes, in his desire to save her heartache. Meggan was frowning at him in unvoiced disapproval and tugging on his arm in her attempt to make him stop his lecture at this worst possible time, as he continued, warning Kitty, "You'll have to deal with his problems, his filthy habits someday, sooner or later, you must know that, Kitty. Wisdom may hurt you as badly as I hurt Meggan, when you do try to help him. I was horrible to Meggan, I blamed her for my own problems, and made her feel ugly and worthless and unloved, and I can never make up for that."

Meggan herself winced as she remembered that time. Brian had never actually hit her when he was drunk, but he'd hit and break things while arguing viciously with her, and she'd often been terrified of him and what he might do. Kitty and the others had seen some incidents, but only Meggan knew how bad Brian had been, Braddock himself having only partial memories of many of those incidents. But she wasn't worried about any similar situation ever arising between Wisdom and Kitty, the personalities involved, their strengths and weaknesses, were too different.

Attempting once again to stop Brian and Kitty arguing, Meggan said, "Do you mean I should have listened to everybody, Brian love, and left you when you were drinking?"

That question did stun Brian into stopping his tirade. Sputtering in indignation, he exclaimed, "No, of course not!" But, as he thought about her question and remembered his typical behavior back then, Braddock went on more hesitantly, "I still loved you then, even if it didn't always seem like it, and I never really meant to hurt you or drive you away..." Brian reached out a hand to stroke Meggan's hair as he continued slowly, "Maybe you should have. Maybe you would have suffered less without me... Hell, I don't know. Can't you see that's what I'm trying to tell Kitty?"

"Well, it'll be much better for Pete to have Kitty caring for him and helping him than to be on his own." Meggan was ever optimistic.

Meggan's simple statement finally got through to Brian, who looked abashed as he admitted "I do rely on you to help me not drink, love. And I know it would be much harder, maybe even impossible, without your help, and I don't tell you that enough. But I still think this is a bad idea for Kitty, that between his drinking and his smoking, his mindgames and his enemies, and God knows what else she'll just end up getting hurt..."

The declared object of Brian's sudden concern had stopped paying attention to the other two's conversation, as she stared wide-eyed at the medical monitors, where the signals appeared to be becoming more erratic. Kitty jumped up, to run out and call Moira, but Meggan saw her panic and patted her reassuringly. "It's all right, Kitty. Pete's just reacting to the tension, the bad atmosphere, in this room. He'll be fine as soon as Brian stops arguing about imaginary problems, and you calm down too..."

Continued in Part 3... Kurt and Amanda