Subject: [OTL]: (Wave Arc; Kate Pryde/Pete Wisdom) Coffeegram (PG-15; dark humor) Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 20:42:40 -0800 (PST) From: Phil Hartman will1@earthling.net Wave Arc: Writing on the Mirror by Phil Hartman DISCLAIMER: They're all Marvel's, in this one. It's all fiction. Etc. NOTE: I just couldn't leave them apart forever ... ;) ------------------------------------------------------- 11/1/03: X-Mansion Women's Wing: 16:10 hrs EST: ------------------------------------------------------- Papers. Lots of papers. #'My motherboard met my fatherboard' - oh, good one, Tom. Very cute. Mess with the tech geek,# Kate Pryde thought, managing a wry smile as she examined the latest stack of Computer Elective papers from those of the second class of New Mutants who had signed up for her pet course. After returning to the X-Mansion several months earlier, Kate - nobody was allowed to call her Kitty anymore, not since the death of her last boyfriend, Pete Wisdom, five years ago - had found a niche she'd never really seen herself in: Teacher. No longer the student, she had become the master, she had joked. #'Only a master of grading, Darth,'# Kate snickered internally. #If only the prequels didn't suck donkey ass ... OK, Episode II wasn't so bad ... God, I miss the late-night triple-feature ...# When she'd been one of Charles Xavier's trainees - everyone was a student at the Institute, even the X-Men, Ororo had once quietly joked - Kate had enjoyed staying up ridiculously late with those of the first New Mutants she could stand (which had, mercifully for all concerned, grown to be everyone) and watch movies. Any movies would do, but there was one rule: Someone had to mercilessly taunt any bad acting. #MST3K before it existed. Doug would go on and on about the foreign films; Rahne was incredibly wicked with her anti-English screeds; Sam winced with the 'evil Southerners'; Dani winced with the 'evil Indians'; and Roberto was just wicked,# Kate thought, half-grinning. #I really should call X-Force. Doug might actually've asked Rahne to marry him ...# "Damnit," Kate growled, rubbing at her eyes. She reached out half-automatically, letting her small purple dragon, Lockheed, curl up on her shoulders and massage her tense muscles in that uniquely draconic way he had. "If you were only bipedal and human - nah. I have a rule: No dating teammates. You fall in love with someone who's seen you at 5 a.m. after kicking Brood ass, and it never goes well," Kate joked, scratching Lockheed's head. "Coooo," Lockheed replied, nuzzling Kate's cheek. She glanced at the half-built, but never finished, English/Draconic translator she'd toyed with for the better part of a decade, but then just laughed. "I suppose I really shouldn't want to know what you're saying. I think you're intelligent, though," Kate reflected, lifting Lockheed off of her shoulders and gazing into his golden eyes. She was rewarded with a lick to her nose, and she let the dragon find his place on her shoulders again. "I'll settle for the quiet, introspective type. Hell, I might even cruise Harry's. I should probably try to date again," Kate pondered. "KITTY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" #What the hell - ?# Kate thought, raising an eyebrow at the sound of her name being screamed. It sounded like Rachel - but it wasn't terror in the tone, more like - The door to Kate's room almost exploded open, and a disheveled, pale-as-a-ghost 14-year-old Caucasian girl stood there, her red hair flaring out all around her head. "He's alive. In the Professor's office. I thought it was some kind of sick, evil, perverse joke, but he's ALIVE, Kitty - Kate - just get downstairs, NOW !" Rachel Summers pleaded, pulling Kate from her seat and shoving the 29-year-old towards the stairs. "Who's alive ? Ray, what's this about ?" Kate asked, trying not to panic - Larry Bodine couldn't possibly be back, and Piotr had never really died (Dallas didn't count to Kate), and she hadn't dated any other guys who had died (Alistair didn't count; only his fashion sense was dead). "Pete," Rachel breathed, her green eyes wide. Lockheed gave what could only be described as the draconic version of a shriek of horror. Kate couldn't move. She just could not, for the life of her, move. And she'd been frozen in place by shocking news before, but this - this was something new. #My body is in denial,# Kate thought - some small, quiet, somehow-still-rational part of her mind thought. Her mouth said, "Tell him I'll be down in a minute." ------------------------------------------------------- "... of course it soddin' well bites. But I had two choices: 'Elp SHIELD find out what Nur was up t'r, or end up as Scicluna's toy du jour." The voice. That smart-assed, impossibly-confident, "shove-y'r-attitude-up-y'r-arse, guv'ner" voice. Kate pushed open the door to Xavier's office, and watched, still numb, as they stood. Xavier just smiled faintly, then limped out of the office with his cane, and closed the door behind him. The remaining person shifted uncomfortably in his suit - the tie was still, hopelessly, slightly undone - and he tilted his head slightly, as if to assess her. "Y've aged well, Pryde," Pete Wisdom said. "You've aged at all. That's a pleasant shock," was all Kate could manage. She sat in the chair across from Pete, who echoed her action and leaned back. "So. I 'ear you're a phys-ed teacher now. Plenty o' the little brats t' 'ekp with, Xavier told me," Pete began. "I teach physical science, too. And I'm technically the girls' headmistress, for all that counts for," Kate said - #This is good, catching up on old times, just avoid the real issues,# part of her whispered. "Oh, screw that," Kate whispered back, before reaching inside for what she wanted to say. "Five years," she breathed, loud enough for Pete to hear. "Five years, you were helping SHIELD." "Y'buried an LMD," Pete sighed, looking at the floor. When he looked up, he actually looked tearful. "A Life Model Decoy. You couldn't even be at your own funeral," Kate said, smirking mirthlessly. "You know me. 'Opelessly late f'r everythin'," Pete said, shrugging and half-smiling. "I thought you were actually dead. The stupid LMD had enough bullet holes," Kate continued, ignoring the tears - she had every right, didn't she ? "I let'cher think that," Pete replied. He reached across the empty space - - and found it filled, with a pouncing, business-suit-clad, sobbing form. "I should be so incredibly pissed off. I really should. You frigging LEFT me, you self-righteous, stupid - oh, to hell with that. Wisdom, there is only one way to even pray for forgiveness from me," Kate sob-snarled, dragging Pete to the floor with her. "Er - here an' now ?" Pete actually gulped. Kate rolled her eyes, then grabbed him by the collar and kissed him. "You didn't really think you were going to have your way with me and everything would be magically all right, did you ? That comes later. Payback first, you dumb sod," Kate said, grinning evilly as they got to their feet. "This's gonna hurt, won't it ?" Pete pondered, going ashen as Kate phased them both upstairs. ------------------------------------------------------- 11/2/03: Muir Island Genetic Research Center: 07:00 hrs local: ------------------------------------------------------- Moira answered the door, still in her bathrobe - Sean was going to tire her out, one of these days - and growled, "Wha' t'is it ?" She blinked, trying to make sure she wasn't having a hangover, and got her glasses out of her bathrobe. A very familiar - and very red-faced - man with badly-cut black hair was standing on her doorstep, holding what looked like a liter-cup of coffee in his right hand. And he was wearing a pink spandex bodysuit. "Moira. I ..." the man began, shuddering. "I like y'r coffee. A lot." With that, Pete Wisdom drank the entire cup. Without stopping. And keeled over, twitching, until Kate Pryde climbed out of the bushes, smiling innocently, and used a Shi'ar anti-gravity unit to pick him up. "Sorry about the early-morning call, Moira. Pete's doing penance for not telling me he was alive for the last five years. This is just the first step. I have about several hundred high school freshman science papers he can help grade," Kate said, far too cheerily, as she carted the groaning Pete away. "Y'got me outta bed t' bluidy well see Wisdom in a bluidy skinsuit !?" Moira yelled as Kate loaded Pete onto a waiting Blackbird. "Actually, that was kind o' fun ..." ------------------------------------------------------- not the end ... >) -------------------------------------------------------