"Are you the dreamer or merely part of the dream?" The Mad Hatter

Two weeks later Katya was glancing over at a very bitter young Brit with half of his face missing and holding the file folder with other names in it close to the one light in the jeep they were trying to drive over the Kentucky hills. "Son of a bitch! Doesn't anyone in this blasted state know how to make a decent map?" Kurt sat crammed in the back seat next to Harvey, one of Vic's more infamous backups that tended to be sorta psychotic given the chance. Next to him were crammed some guns. Katya was sitting on Jono's lap for the most part, half on and half off the seat and sitting mainly on thin air. It wasn't fun, it wasn't comfortable, but it would work. They might just need the guns so her comfort came second to survival. Vic swerved the jeep around another pothole and looked in the half twilight of dawn at the desolate scene surrounding him. "Geez. You gotta give Sinister credit. When he demolishes something he demolishes something. I think he even salted the fields." Katya looked off to the side for a minute and, seeing the surrounding countryside. had to mentally agree with him. If ever there was a dead hell this was it. There wasn't anything left in this place alive, it seemed. Katya looked over Jono's head, trying to ignore his psyonic field lest she get blinded and muttered, "What girl could be in the middle of this mess that you thought was worth something, Pete?" She almost heard his cigarette laden voice saying, "Just drive, Pryde" and had to smile slightly at the thought, even with the pain it caused to think about him.

She saw the sign and shouted, "THERE!" right before Vic would have flown right by it. He turned the wheel hard, slamming Kurt and Harvey against one another and into the side of the jeep hard. Katya hung onto Jono's jacket as he slid toward the center stick, having to solidify lest she go flying through the side of the jeep. She felt her side connect with something hard, but ignored it as Jono grabbed onto the door to keep them both in the seat as much as possible. After they had straightened off their two wheel turn, Katya moved into a more comfortable position and felt the bruise in her side. "Alright now by this thing we go five miles up this road and we should be in the general area." Vic looked over at her from the corner of his eye, "And exactly where are we, pray tell?" Katya motioned to back the way they had come. "This is the Guthrie plantation by the map. We'll see what we can find, huh?" Vic nodded and continued to fight the jeep over the very very chewed up land. As they pulled into the long circular drive Katya got one look at the house and muttered, "Impressive."

What must once have been a pretty big farmhouse at one time just by the size of the driveway's flat stretch was now a crater, pretty much. A little bit of wood and stone here and there showed where it had used to be, "So this is where the Guthrie standoff took place weeks ago. Not much left to show for defending their homes, huh?" Kurt's voice cut through the silence like a knife. Katya motioned Jono to get out of the jeep and then looked over her shoulder at him, "Well...all but two of them, far as we know, died for a cause to protect their family and their home. You can't do more then die for a cause, right?" Kurt couldn't argue with that and pushed Harvey toward the other side of the jeep, "Get off of me, you freak." Harvey looked at Nightcrawler as he waited for Katya and Jono to get out of the jeep, "I like to hunt animals. I didn't realize you had fur." Kurt saw the madness shining in his eyes and got out of the car with a smell of sulfur. He ended up standing right beside Vic and, grabbing his collar, Kurt brought him down to his level. "You brought him here. What kind of psycho is he this time?" Vic carefully removed Nightcrawler's hands from near his neck and stepped back, looking somewhat hostile. "He'll do his job as backup, Kurt. That's all that matters. You're not going to kill him without reason, right? Or you'll owe me a backup." Kurt snarled something that didn't sound polite to anyone's ears, but Katya knew that he wasn't going to kill Harvey without reason. No one liked owing Vic backup. She'd killed one of his backups that had tried to rape her and the payback had almost gotten her killed. But, she reflected, it had been worth it to see him die.

They started toward the farmhouse and, seeing something slightly behind it, peaking out of the wreckage, Katya tracked off to the right while the others tracked off in different directions to provide good cover for all involved. What she found had her calling the others over quickly. They all looked at the numerous headstones with simply the name of "Guthrie" carved into them and were silent as if in respect.

Kurt was the first to speak. "Dear God. How many of them were there for God's sake? I see about ten graves here." Katya shrugged, "They have large families around these parts it seems. Did you see that one woman in that town like fifty miles back? She had at least seven small kids, orphans or no. That's impressive." She looked at the graves and muttered, "I wonder who buried them and why they didn't put names on the graves." Vic shrugged as he looked around and sniffed the air for a clue while Wildchild did the same from some distance away. "Probably due to the fact that the person that buried them couldn't identify the bodies by the time all was said and done." Katya could have smacked herself for that lapse of logical thinking and just muttered instead, "Good point."

Suddenly, Wildchild seemed to take a mind to go exploring, hunting or something, and letting out a slight bark took off toward the Northwest like something was hot on his tail. Katya looked to where Vic was quickly following the small symbiote and shrugged as she too took off for the uknown of the Kentucky hills like they might not be running toward their deaths.

Vic dodged around trees, she simply phased through them so she could go quicker. Kurt jumped from tree to tree like it was no big deal and Harvey was God only knew where. She fleetingly wondered at the logistics of leaving him at their back with his obviously lacking mental facilities, but decided that it would get taken care of one way or the other.

Vic suddenly stopped and she was lucky she had been paying attention or she would have gone through him. Instead she ended up about an inch from his back and, when he suddenly got down and motioned for Wildchild, whom she couldn't see through the giant mutant, to get down as well, she didn't argue. She simply crouched down and moved beside him. "What's up?" The whisper wasn't loud by any standards, but she knew it would reach Vic's ears no problem. Vic leaned toward her and spoke close to her left ear. "There's a cave up there. I can smell something alive in it. And whatever it is has a gun 'cause I can smell the oil. Plasma or regular I can't tell." Katya nodded and motioned behind her to Nightcrawler, whom she knew was there somewhere, to flank her as she stood up and walked toward where the cave was. Wildchild, taking this for a sign of encouragement, quickly shot to her side and walked toward the cave, despite Vic's command to come in a harsh whisper. Katya barely managed to reach down and phase the small creature before a shot zoomed out of the darkness of the cave and hit the rock behind Wildchild's now phased form. The shattering of the rockface was punctured by Wildchild suddenly realizing how much danger there was and he growled at where the shot had come from. Katya and Vic had their answer. Not only was the person inside the cave a pretty good shot with the rifle, but they were firing bullets, and they were willing to kill to assure they were left alone. Katya kept ahold of Wildchild, and looking back at Vic shrugged and took a lucky guess. She shouted, "GUTHRIE! WE KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE! COME OUT! WE'RE NOT HERE TO HURT YOU!!!"

A resounding bullet striking off the rock face after the bullet had passed through her was her answer to the inquiry. She was about to try again when a resounding shout echoed through the small clearing. "I ain't coming out! You killed my family, you son of a bitches! I'll see ya'll in hell before I'll join you!" Another shot resounded off the rock face to punctuate that remark. Katya made an "ahhh" sound as she finally realized, quite logically, what the girl must be thinking. She held Wildchild as he sniffed the rock face behind him where the bullet had hit, looking a bit bewildered that the projectiles were going through them. "Guthrie! We're not here to harm you and we're not with Apocalypse. We've come on behalf of Magneto. Come out of there and we'll give you some food." The last part seemed logical as she half shouted the commentary to her. If the land around them was any indication, the kid had to be starving...,especially after dragging what was left of her family members and burying them and all. A pause in gunfire was her answer and then, "Alright. I'm coming out to hear ya out, but I have a gun and I'm willing to use it."

Katya shook her head as the small form emerged from the cave and she got a good look at what had to be the mutant that Pete had been going to save. She was a small blonde haired thing underneath all of the filth, if Katya wasn't mistaken, and unlike her she was pretty damn sure that blonde had been the girl's natural hair color. She stepped forward slowly and Katya saw how thin the form was beneath the cloth that hung on her in a resemblance of clothing. She took out her ration pack, and let Wildchild go for Vic to take care of. He'd made sure he was in front of the symbiote before she let him go, lest the girl decide to start shooting again. His form would stop and heal a bullet wound before it ever got a chance to reach Kyle. Katya reached the girl and saw the distrust shining in her eyes, with good reason, and so she took a bite of the protein bar before she handed it to her. The girl made sure she swallowed, and then bit into the bar with a zeal that only the hungry can accomplish. After she had devored most of the bar she looked up at Katya, the rifle forgotten in her left arm. "Who are ya again?" The question meant that the girl could have given a damn who they were as soon as she found out they had food, and judging by her form Katya could see why. The girl then looked like she had been somehow reminded to use good manners that wouldn't do her any good later on and muttered, "Mah name is Paige."

"I'm Katya Rasputin, aka Shadowcat, this is Victor Creed..." she motioned to Vic with one arm. Vic motioned his head in acknowledgement and said, "Call me Vic, or if you really hate me call me Sabertooth. Don't matter which. This is Wildchild, my partner." The girl looked down at Kyle somewhat confused, but Katya decided that the explanations about him could last a while. "And behind you there is our comrade in arms Nightcrawler." She twirled around, not having heard anything come up behind her, Katya could tell, and when she got a look at Nightcrawler she held the scream in. Katya gave her a few points for that. Kurt smiled at her slowly, always liking the effect he had on people, it seemed. "Hello. Fraulein. I'm Kurt. Don't let the looks fool you, I'm a cuddly little teddy bear." Vic and Katya snorted at the same time, which had him glaring at them in good humor. Vic looked behind and around him and then straight at Kurt, "Where is Harvey?" The resignation in his voice pretty much clued Katya in that he figured what Harvey's fate had been.

Kurt looked him straight in the eye. "I killed him. He was going to shoot the girl when she came out of the cave and since that was our objective...to take the girl alive, in conjunction with the fact that the sick little psycho was going to kill me I planted a dagger through his head. So, I owe you a backup. I could care." Vic flung his ponytail over his shoulder and sighed deeply. "Fine, fine, so I lost another one. Damn, between you and Katya, I won't have any backups left. He was one of the best shots I'd ever seen, dammit. I could have used him to take out a couple of people later. You owe me big." Kurt just shrugged as he went into the cave to see if Paige had anything to bring with them when they left. Paige studied Katya for a moment, and then Jono, who finally caught up to all of them and stood by her. "So, I'm an objective am I? What's going on here?" Katya motioned toward the cave. "You can't stay here, Paige. You would be dead in no time. I'd like to take you with us and train you to survive in this world. And get back at the people who killed your family." Paige finally looked really interested in Katya's eyes instead of the various weapons that might be on her. "Alright that's something I'd be interested in. You're..." She made the sound a question as she looked at Jono. "I am Jonothan Strathsmore, aka Chamber." Katya raised an eyebrow at the self-proclaimed codename, but she had to admit it fit him. The British accent seemed to impress the young woman but she still asked, "Do you trust these people?" Jono didn't even hesitate. "Katya broke me out of a high security Black Air installation where they were using me as not only a weapon but as an energy source. I trust her wholeheartedly. She lugged me butt out of there herself. So, I trust her if no one else." Paige studied Katya for a moment, Katya giving nothing away, and said, "Good enough for me. Here." She handed Jono the gun she'd been holding as she walked after Wildchild, "Let's get out of here eh?"

Katya watched the retreating figure and had to chuckle to herself. The girl had grit, she'd give her that. She heard a low male chuckle and turned to study Jono. "What's up?" Jono showed her the empty chamber of the gun. "Good show for someone who was holding us off with an empty gun." Vic laughed as he clapped Jono on the back and started back toward the jeep, Nightcrawler already going ahead of them bitching about how the air was going to damage his coat.

****************

Katya watched as Kyle sunk his little teeth into a rare t-bone steak and almost smiled at his pleasure. Vic sunk his teeth into his t-bone without use of a fork, not really giving a damn, and Kurt seemed to be giving his fine meal equal attention. "I just wanted to thank you guys for pulling me off of Muir. And then to also welcome back Pietro to the world of the living." Pietro smiled a little as he dug into his meal, more observing than eating as he looked around the private booth they were in. "Nice that we are able to eat here tonight. How did you manage to convince Warren not only to give us a private room to avoid trouble but also to give us such a fine meal?" Katya shrugged and ate a couple of bites of her side salad. "I have my connections. As for the tab don't worry about it, I'll take care of it." They all took her at her word and dug into their meals with zeal, knowing that she was good on her word and made pretty good money doing what she did. If only they knew, she thought to herself silently, exactly what types of jobs she took sometimes. She shrugged and dug into her meal with a little more gusto to give at least the impression she was hungry.

She studied the young white haired man across from her and asked, "How are you feeling Pietro? Truly?" Pietro chewed and swallowed before he spoke, "I'm doing much better, thanks for asking, Katya. Surprisingly Cyclops was a congenial host, and didn't torture me or anything, and had only his people touch me. He even had Lorna, whom I finally found in the pens, bandage my wounds. She thought I was my father, you know, and was just estatic to meet her 'father' in person. She had drawings all over the room outside my cell where only she and Cyclops were allowed while I was there. She seems deficient in mental facilities since Rogue absorbed her, I am afraid to say. She drew a lot of crystals, and told me how the world was wrong wrong wrong, and so forth. It was rather disturbing and interesting at the same time. The Bedlam brothers seemed nice." The way the conversation jumped around most people would have been somewhat shocked, but all three people at the table other then Pietro were used to it. That and how fast he talked. Kurt studied the man before him carefully and said, "We had this little dinner here because your father thinks we could be a bad influence on you. You know when we're together, least us three," he motioned toward Katya, Vic and himself in a wide arc, "a lot of things tend to die." He studied Pietro and said, "But one thing we have tried to learn more than anything is to not let this get personal. Don't do that, Pietro, or you'll find too many shades of grey and your life will become much harder in the future."

Vic nodded in agreement, "I agree with Kurt on this one. By the way, speaking of not getting personal..." The smirk should have clued Pietro in on where the man's mind was going, "I'm going to tell you this once again. When you were down, Whitey was all over you and was making sure your machines were beeping properly. Just boff the woman. An uncomplicated screw is just what the two of you need." Pietro almost spit his wine out his nose at that commentary while Kurt just laughed, "EXACTLY Victor. I'll agree with that one. You might be able to get the stick out of her..." Katya motioned to both of them and said, "Enough" in a mild tone of voice. They both chuckled as they looked at Katya, and Kurt must have seen something that she had hidden to the best of her ability because he said, "Mein Gott. You DID it!!! I can see it in your face. You finally went out and got laid! Excellent! And about time too." Katya shook her head, amused despite herself, and said, "Drop it, Kurt." Vic narrowed his eyes at her and looked over at Kurt. "One small problem, blue. She made it personal. Just look at her." Kurt looked at her and smacked himself in the forehead. "Oh for the love of... Katya, you know better by now!" Katya mixed her salad around her plate, the rare vegetables with their different tastes not holding her attention like they normally would. "Yeah but when have I not made things much more complicated then they needed to be? It's part of who I am." Vic just nodded as he dug back into his meal. "Good point there kid. It's part of what makes you so good at killing...it's the one thing that you do well that you usually don't take personally and if you do...well you just do it colder and better then before."

Katya had had enough of the conversation and was about to change it when a blond haired gentlemen stepped into the room. Katya looked up at Warren Worthington and said, "I have money, Worthington, and took a private room. You can't kick us out -- it's part of the policy." All at the table looked up, ready to do battle to finish the meal they had come here to eat, but Warren just shrugged, "That's fine by me so long as you stay here so that the bad guys don't see you in my place. I just have a message for you, actually." He handed her a piece of paper, Katya accepting it with a frown, wondering who it could be from, and then he said simply, "The tab from here on out, including tonight's meal, is on the house, compliments of our mutual benefactor. Have a nice meal, folks." With that he walked out of the room, many dropped jaws in his wake.

Katya blinked a couple of times and muttered, "Well I'll be damned. Some perks is right." Vic studied her for a moment, and asked quite calmly and clearly, "Who in the hell did you sell out for this type of treatment? Or who did you off, or who did you boff?" It was a fair question so Katya turned and smiled at him brightly, "Why, I sold out Logan, of course. I would have done it for free, but hey... you gotta love the amount of attention you'll get if you do someone that nice a favor." All of them howled, with the exception of Pietro, at the lovely cleverness that went into a plan like that, and Kurt and Vic attacked their meals, and their rare beer with more gusto. Katya just shrugged at Pietro, not really caring if he judged her or not anymore, and opened the note. It read...

I appreciate the tip on Logan's whereabouts. I did not decide to kill him. Not yet. The video feed of him getting his arm recapped at an undisclosed location was a nice enough reward for me. Thank you very much for the opportunity to watch him suffer. Remember the deal we made. The scotch and cigarettes are ready for your pick up whenever you please.

It was not signed, but simply had a picture of a crystal on it, as if, if Katya would need to know who had sent it, that would clue her in. She lit the note off the candle in the center of the table and watched it burn slowly. She then, after it was little more then ash, put it down in the candle dish and, locking eyes with Pietro, asked, "Do you have a copy of "Alice in Wonderland" that I could borrow?" Pietro was confused by the question, she could tell, but he answered, "Yes I believe I do. Why?" Katya ate another bite of her salad and said, "I would like to borrow it." Pietro nodded as he dug into his meal again as if that topic of conversation would just be too weird to open up. Katya thought of Pete and how they should have remained together, how he was not meant to die, she was sure of it, how her marriage had been such a farce, and how her life had turned out. I'll keep them alive, Pete, she swore silently as she thought of the other kids she still had to rescue, no matter what the cost, and just wait for this damn nightmare world to end its twisted cycle. Then, maybe, we'll unravel and come back together in the proper way and we can be together again. She thought of Pete and heard Cyclop's voice echoing almost in her head...

"It's all wrong...you've seen it haven't you???...You, me and a madwoman."

Fin