DISCLAIMER: Kitty Pryde, Meggan, Lockheed, Shan and the twins, and just about everyone else in this story belong to Marvel. Kitty's present and classmate are about the only people that don't. I'm borrowing them without permission, but returning them intact; no money is being made. The quoted poetry is from T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men." The doggerel is mostly traditional. This story is rated G.
SHARING BLAME: Vesper Antagonist is responsible for identifying the Eliot connection for me (one of those times when the characters are better educated than the writer). She's also responsible for the idea in the first place; this story is a prelude to her answer to Amanda Sichter's bad kung-fu movie lines challenge (which will hopefully get written eventually). This story was also written - and, of course, finished late - in answer Luba Kmetyk's call for holiday fic. At least it made it in at all; I'm still working on the one I started for Fonts of Wisdom's fifth anniversary last summer...
ARCHIVING: If anyone wants it, go ahead; I do request to be notified (infinitepryde@lycos.com). My net access is likely to go down without warning for an indeterminate period, so please don't be surprised (or insulted) if there's no response.

"Meggan," Kitty Pryde said slowly, testing the name like an unfamiliar thing after the last year and more, "I know your work in Otherworld is very important."

"Terribly," the elemental agreed, her eyes wide as summer and every bit as green.

"And," Kitty continued, "I know you can't really leave and come visit unless it's really, really important."

Meggan nodded. Impossibly long and full blonde hair rippled in perfect waves of sunshine. "Brian couldn't get along without me," she said simply. "It needs us both."

"But this ..." Kitty gestured, helpless, at the guest Meggan had brought with her. "This has to be a joke."

The tiny piece of black-and-white fluff, no bigger than one of Kitty's hands, blinked enormous blue eyes up at Kitty and attempted to mew imploringly. It squeaked instead.

"Of course it's not a joke, Kitty," Meggan said, radiating innocence and sincerity. "It's a baby."

"Look, I can't keep a cat." Kitty tried the path of reason once more. "Aside from the name thing, which I would never live down -"

"Oh, his name isn't Kitty," Meggan interrupted.

"- I'm in college, and I'm working, and I don't have time to take care of a pet, and Lockheed would probably try and eat it anyway, and -" Something in Meggan's tone finally penetrated Kitty's consciousness. She straightened slowly to look into the shapeshifter's beautiful face. The kitten's squeak punctuated her feeling of oncoming doom. "What is its name?" She considered the kitten's black-and-white coat, and decided that if her friend tried to insist the thing's name was Shadow, even with more than three years of teamwork behind them, she might not forgive -

Meggan said one word, in a tone of guileless pride.

"Repeat."

Several moments passed in silence as Kitty first stared at her, then looked down at the kitten. The black-furred kitten, with white paws and collar and chest, and eyes that hadn't yet faded from their first blue. He squeaked up at her once more before finally making the last of the staggering climb from Meggan's lap to hers. Apparently the trip had tired him out: he flopped over onto his side and fell promptly asleep.

World, Kitty said silently, this is no longer funny. Stop right now; I want off.

"Isn't he darling?" Meggan asked in a hushed voice, and Kitty wondered for just a moment how many rules of diplomacy, courtesy, etiquette, and just plain friendship it would break for her to scream in the Queen of Otherworld's face.

"Yeah," she managed weakly. "Darling."

Later that evening, after Meggan had gone, Kitty held up the kitten between her hands as she leaned back in a chair. Lockheed had ensconced himself on the chair's back, from where he peered intently over her shoulder. Under the bigger predator's gaze, the fluffball squirmed intently to get loose and - presumably - run away.

"What am I going to do with you?" Kitty asked resignedly. "It's not like I want you around. You probably shed. And have fleas or something. And chew on power cords. And eat things you shouldn't, and need vet visits, and shots or something, and with my luck you probably aren't even housebroken yet."

Repeat hung in her fingers, paws dangling, and squeaked piteously.

"Maybe I could give you to Shan," Kitty mused. "I mean, the twins could probably use another playmate. But I guess I'd have to make sure you're socially acceptable first."

Lockheed made a vaguely discontent little grumble and leaned his head forward, resting his snout on her shoulder. She set the kitten in her lap and reached up to fondle the dragon's nose affectionately.

"So here's what we'll do," Kitty said firmly. "I'll get out the biggest box I can find, and you'll go in there so you don't choke or electrocute yourself or anything, and I'll get you food and water and a litterbox and a couple of toys, and you'll stay there and stay out of trouble, and Lockheed and I will go look up how to take care of you, and as soon as you're old enough, we'll take you over to Shan's place and see if they want a kitten. Okay? We have a deal?"

She waited for a squeak, but the kitten had burrowed its way in between her right thigh and the chair arm, and in the resultant warm pocket, had fallen asleep again.

Kitty looked aside at Lockheed. "Somehow," she sighed, "I don't think this is a good omen."

The dragon gave a mournful coo.

"Shan, d'you think there's any chance I could borrow the twins for a couple of hours?"

"Borrow the twins? What do you mean?"

"Well - I've got classes tomorrow -"

"Like every other day."

"Funny girl. But, uh - I've also got this ... kitten."

"Kitten?"

"Yeah."

"You say it like it's some kind of contagious disease, Kitty."

"I'm not sure it isn't. Anyway - I just got it today, and the apartment isn't exactly kitten-proofed yet..."

"And you want somebody to make sure the kitten doesn't get into anything?"

"Actually, the kitten's in a computer box. I want somebody to make sure Lockheed doesn't try to eat it."

"Kitty?"

"Yeah?"

"You have the weirdest problems. The twins have school, but if you bring the kitten - and the box - over here before I have to leave for work, we can at least give it sanctuary..."

One secret of which Kitty Pryde was not in the least proud: she still, old and putatively grown-up as she was, slept with a teddy bear. Two, in fact. One was physical and literal, a brown plush critter with big dark eyes and dangly limbs and a squishy resilience that didn't mind getting flung at walls or wrung with hands or occasionally cried on more than a little. The other ... Lockheed certainly served some of the same emotional purposes, despite his status as an independent sapient - well, Kitty was sure he was intelligent, anyway - and his perch being above her bed rather than in it. She'd modified a set of shelves for his convenience. It wasn't as good as hugging him, but there was a lot of reassurance in opening her eyes and seeing the occasional glint of reflective gold.

She loved her dragon. He stood by her. She'd nearly lost him more than once, but never quite; of all the people she'd loved, he'd stayed with her.

Tonight, burrowing down into the bedclothes to sleep, she hesitated before turning out the light. Then she sat up and looked back over at the pictures of the rest of them. Doug Ramsey. Rachel Summers. Illyana Rasputin. Piotr Rasputin, and she ached as much as ever. Her father - that loss was still sharp. One photograph that she deliberately, as if to spite Meggan, didn't look at.

"G'night, everybody," she said to them all. "Hope you don't mind the fur. I promise, it's temporary."

Then she clicked off the light and settled down determinedly, despite the faint thumpings and pathetic sounds from the boxed-in kitten.

Forty-five minutes later, she clicked the light back on, raising an incoherent protest from her dragon. "All right, already," she snapped at the box. Crawling out of bed, she dug through her small collection of dirty laundry, extricating the plain T-shirt she'd worn that day. She dropped it over the side of the computer box, next to where the kitten was sitting and squeaking its distress.

The noises stopped.

"There," Kitty grumbled. "Go to sleep now, willya?"

A moment later, she blinked in surprise as the fluffball did just that - curled up on her T-shirt and struggling to purr. He didn't quite have the knack down yet; every couple of seconds he made a little hiccuping sound instead.

The imploring gaze Lockheed directed at her was unmistakable. "No," Kitty apologized, "sorry, you can't eat it. Meggan would probably get upset." Warning delivered, she crawled back into bed. This time, once the light went out, she was asleep herself within seconds.

The place was dark and empty - open, boundless, but it still echoed. Kitty wandered among the shattered pillars and tried to remember what had seemed wrong about it.

It was black, for one thing. Broken black columns in the darkness. A black floor that would've been glossy if there'd been any light to reflect off of it. Black -

Wasn't there supposed to be something else?

As dreams go, Kitty decided, it hadn't been a bad one. She was used to nightmares - everyone who did time at Xavier's got that way sooner or later - and all in all, she'd take a lack of resolution anytime over blood and gore or unreasoning panic. The morning hadn't gone too badly, either - she'd managed not to gather too many stares with her improvised cat-haven, and only one lecture on getting a proper carrier. In fact, the only thing that'd caused problems was the kitten's insistence on being more interested in Kitty's hand and clothing than in the food it was supposed to be eating.

Well, that and that somehow, she and Shan had managed to be nearly late. It wasn't as if they'd even been doing much - just coaxing the cat into having breakfast, and having some coffee themselves, and talking, and watching the kitten try to crawl up onto Shan's shoulder ... but somehow, it'd taken three times as long as the fifteen minutes they'd been expecting. She'd had to run flat out the whole way, and if the last bus hadn't been on time, she wouldn't've been able to slide into her seat just as class started. Given the program she was in, that would've been a fate worse than death.

Halfway to irony: even though she was on probation, even missing the class altogether probably wouldn't've affected her status. It wasn't, after all, academic probation. But it would've gotten her glanced at sidelong, and asked what she'd been doing, and there'd've been a little check around campus to make sure there were no unexplained injuries, and it'd've been brought up by the counselor at those deeply unwelcome regularly scheduled visits.

A pencil tapped on her arm lightly, and Kitty started. The girl in the next seat (what was her name - Andrea?) was giving her a concerned look. "You okay?" she whispered. "You looked like you'd just been mortally offended by your notebook."

"Yeah," Kitty muttered. "Yeah, fine." She sharpened her attention on what their teacher was saying about eigenvalues. Not that she didn't have a good handle on diagonal matrices, but with Meggan's visit and the sudden arrival of the kitten, she hadn't put in the study time the night before she'd planned to.

"Nah, really," the girl persisted, sotto voce. "You're frowning like an old lady. Somebody stand you up last night or something?"

Kitty gritted her teeth. "No." Not even in the dream. There hadn't been anybody in the dream to stand her up. "Just trying to hear," she added by way of a weakly ad-libbed excuse. "I've always got trouble with the Dutch accent."

Unexpected bonus: invoking trying to understand the lecture actually hushed the girl up. Kitty grinned to herself internally, rubbed absently at the tiny scratch-marks on her hand from when the kitten had objected to being disentangled from Shan's sweater, and busied herself taking notes.

Unexpected disadvantage: when class ended, so did the excuse. Andrea didn't quite try to corner Kitty on the way out, the reputation for fighting had bought that much personal space, but the other girl did scramble to catch her in the hall and keep up alongside. "Hey! Hey - honest. You having trouble?"

Kitty counted back from ten in her head. Too easy; she did it again in Japanese before answering. "No. No, I'm not having any trouble, and if I were it wouldn't be any business of yours anyway." And will you get off my back already!

"Really?" Andrea's hand rested on Kitty's arm for a second or two. "You looked like you were about to -" The girl hesitated and changed her sentence hastily. "You know. Issue city."

"About to rip somebody's head off?" Kitty asked, giving the words a faint edge. "I might be, if somebody doesn't stop asking questions..."

"Guy troubles, huh." No trepidation there; the other girl sounded self-assured, certain.

"No troubles. Guys aren't even an issue." Go away. "The only issues in my life right now are work and vector spaces. And I have class to get to."

Andrea didn't take the hint. Instead, she jogged a couple of steps to get a little in front of Kitty, half-turning to look back at her as they walked. Her expression was pleased, oddly triumphant. "I thought so. Look, you really do seem like you need somebody to talk to. You free tomorrow night, maybe?"

"No," Kitty nearly growled. "I'm working."

The other girl was still undeterred. "Tonight, maybe? Around seven? We could get in some studying..."

"What part of 'no' don't you understand?" Kitty snapped, shoving the outside door open and letting it fall back behind her. As Andrea caught it, half startled, Kitty broke into a run. She hated it; it felt like running away - okay, that was because it was running away. But it got her away from helpfulness. She didn't want to be helped. She didn't have any problems, not anymore, aside from the probation and counseling and the so-called Citizens for Humanity group on campus. Even paying rent wasn't really a problem.

After a moment, she remembered to tack the kitten onto the list of things bothering her. But somehow, it took a minute.

"Look," Kitty explained to her less-than-welcome new housemate, "just because I left the box at Shan's instead of carrying it all the way back here does not mean you get to have the run of the place. Particularly not in December. You'll run out the door or something when I'm not looking, and you'll freeze to death."

Blue eyes blinked out at her from the lowest shelf of the open cabinet. There was a tiny, almost inquisitive sound from in among the folded towels.

"Seriously. You didn't notice how cold out it was earlier, but that was because you were inside my coat. Your coat isn't even all the way grown in yet. Now come on out here and behave."

The eyes disappeared, and there was a rustling sound in the recesses. Lockheed, sprawled on a nearby table, gave a disgusted little "hmph."

"I think," Kitty sighed, "we need to find another box to coop him up in." She pushed herself up from her knees and stretched. "Otherwise we're gonna have fur all over the place, and sooner or later, one electrocuted kitten. Unless you've got any better ideas?"

The dragon gave her a pleading look and snapped its jaws once, then sighed a tiny lick of flame as she shook her head sternly. "No, you still can't eat him. Come on, though, I bet there's still some pizza left from last night. I'll reheat you a couple of slices if you'll keep me company looking."

The place was dark and empty - open, boundless, but it still echoed. Kitty stood with one hand on one of the broken columns, her fingertips tracing over the worn and cracked stone. It was cold to the touch. She didn't know why that should surprise her.

Something moved in the distance, and her breath caught. How she could tell it was moving, she didn't know; black on black, she shouldn't have been able to see anything. She wanted to go and look - but that would mean letting go of the pillar. Almost, she tried. Her fingers wouldn't obey her enough to uncurl. The cold of the stone settled in her stomach, tied itself in a knot.

A spark flickered for an instant where the movement had been, and for a moment she could see clearly -

- and claws dug into her face and she came awake with a jerk and a muffled shriek. Muffled, because there was a warm bundle of fur settled neatly over her nose and mouth. The kneading and purring cut off sharply as the kitten streaked for the foot of the bed, alarmed by its resting-place's sudden movement.

Not half as alarmed as Kitty was, though. She sagged back for a moment, catching her breath, then reached over to turn on the lamp on the bedside table and glance at the alarm clock. Cool green numbers informed her that it was three forty-three in the morning. She sagged back onto the pillow with a groan. "That's it, you little monster. As soon as a vet clears you for being around small children, you're out of here." Cautiously, she reached up and felt at her cheek where the claws had gone in. It didn't seem to be bleeding, but one of the scratches felt impressive. "... and I've got to work tonight. Dylan is so going to laugh at me."

There was no sound from the foot of the bed. For that matter, there was - pointedly - no sound from Lockheed's perch, either. Kitty filled in the snickering mentally. She rubbed at the side of her face again, then finally pushed herself up to her elbows and squinted down along the length of the mattress. The kitten had made itself into a tiny black bundle about six inches from her right foot. At this range, she couldn't make out any features at all.

"Oh, don't you try to guilt me." She twisted a little, squinting toward the air-conditioner box she'd finally begged from one of her neighbors. It looked undisturbed. At least, it hadn't been knocked over on its side or anything. "How'd you get out of there anyway? A little feline jailbreaking? Or should Meggan have named you Pixel? That's supposed to be your bed. Not to mention playpen, or whatever the heck you call it."

Not surprisingly, Repeat didn't answer. Kitty eyed it for a moment longer, then sat the rest of the way up and flung up her hands. "Fine. Fine. I give in. It's probably too cold for you to be out anyway, or something." She leaned down and gathered up the cat-bundle in her hands, then settled back down in bed and tucked the kitten in under the blankets by her side. Opposite the teddy bear. "But don't think that you're going to get away with this on a regular basis. Because you're not."

Lockheed snorted.

"Shut up, you."

"Shan, it's me again. Listen, I hate to be bothering you this much, but -"

"Yes, the twins would love the chance to see the kitten again. I'm not sure the kitten would love it; there was some tail-pulling going on yesterday, but that's why he's got claws, isn't it?"

"Am I really getting that predictable?"

"Well, this is the third day in a row you've left him here during classes, Kitty."

"You're laughing at me, aren't you."

"Would I do something like that?"

"Yes. You would. Particularly if I deserved it. I - ow! Kitten!"

"Now, you know better than to go pulling the tail."

"I didn't! I - ow! Cat! Out of my pant leg!"

"Kitty? That just sounded ... bad."

"Look, I can't help it if he's small enough to decide my clothes make for adventures in climbing, can I? Shan, make him listen!"

"You could try calling him something other than 'cat', maybe. Names are polite. Or you could just pick him up. You may not have noticed, but you're bigger than he is."

"You're not helping. Repeat! Cut that out! There. That's better."

"See? Politeness opens doors. Bring him over whenever. If we're not home, go ahead and let yourself in."

"Thanks, Shan."

"Don't be so hasty to be grateful. I intend to take payment in baby-sitting later."

Wonderful, Kitty thought to herself as she reread the poem for the fourth time. She'd copied it by hand off a website - somehow she hadn't wanted to print it out, and given that for all she knew the counselor was keeping an eye on what she had out of the library, borrowing it wasn't exactly in the cards, either. I'm dreaming in T.S. Eliot. And it's still four more months till April.

Her eyes strayed over the page just once more. She probably shouldn't be sitting there staring at it, but it didn't much matter. It wasn't like she needed this class for anything much more than a math review. Academics had always been, would probably always be, easy. And the class hadn't even started yet. People were still filing in.

"Hey." The voice was accompanied by a tapping of a pencil on the arm of Kitty's chair. It was a close call as to which contributed more to the sudden gritting of her teeth. Undeterred, Andrea leaned in closer. "Whatcha reading? Must be fascinating - you were dead to the world for a minute."

Kitty tugged her notebook away as the other girl reached for it. "None of your business." Her voice was sharper than she'd intended. Well - maybe she'd intended some of it.

Rather than backing off, Andrea leaned to get a look over Kitty's shoulder. "'Waking alone,'" she read aloud, "'at the hour when we are trembling with tenderness -'" her voice dropped, taking on a huskier, more intimate tone - "'lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone.' Damn, Pryde. That's not the kind of thing we'd've expected from you."

Kitty flipped the notebook closed. It made an unsatisfying little smack. "Is 'business' too many syllables for you?" she asked, wishing the girl would back off a little. More than a little, actually. "And who exactly is 'us'?"

"Everybody, you know?" Andrea answered blithely. She lifted a hand to pull red-dyed bangs back out of her eyes, letting her peer twice as intently at Kitty. "They all see you and think, complete gearhead. And, yeah, maybe a little bit psycho." She paused just for an instant. "I think you're pretty cute."

Kitty almost choked. She did not just say that. Did she? I bet she - oh, thank God, that's the teacher. She couldn't remember ever being quite so grateful for a class starting. Not that her mind was on it for a second, but it bought her time - without anyone hanging on her - to think.

This time, after class, she didn't make a break for it. Instead, books gathered, Kitty waited purposefully to catch her classmate - despite her internal wince at the smugly pleased expression on Andrea's face. "Look," Kitty started anyway. "Got a minute? We need to talk." After a brief internal debate, and before the other girl could answer, she added, "We really need to talk."

Andrea's chin lifted as she gave Kitty a grin. "See? Told you you needed somebody to talk to. Yeah, I've got a break before next class. Walk you to yours, maybe?"

She knows my schedule? How long have I not been noticing? - oh, wait. Probably she put it together after I took off like that last time. Okay, that I can deal with. Kitty managed a smile back at her, though it felt almost as forced as some of her conversation with Meggan had, and started for the door. She didn't much want to talk in the hall. Outside would be better, even if it would be freezing.

It was a pity she hadn't thought to give the other girl a heads-up on that. Andrea stayed close by Kitty - to be fair, Kitty had to admit that the distance wouldn't have bothered most people, but she liked keeping a little more personal space these days - and had precisely zero qualms about chattering. "So, you working tonight? Want to get together? Maybe some studying, maybe some coffee, maybe - hey, there're friends of mine doing a sort of play rehearsal, we could hang out and watch -"

And there was the door, thank goodness. Kitty took a deep breath of cold air, then opted to hang back by the building: the overhang over the door kept off the even colder drizzle. Still, it was outside. Someday she'd ponder the psychological aspects of that: why it felt more comfortable that way, even with the rain. Maybe especially with the rain. "Okay," she started, "before we get any farther -"

Andrea glanced up at her, and the impish grin she wore for a moment made her actually pretty. "Oh, I'm not trying to rush you into anything. Much."

Despite herself, Kitty almost smiled back. "No, seriously. I think you kinda need to know. When I said guys weren't an issue? I didn't mean I was gay, I meant I was celibate. No relationships for me right now, period - juggling school and work and that stupid counseling is enough - and if I were dating, I'm pretty much straight, anyway."

That solved the personal space issue, anyhow. Andrea drew back a step, and Kitty could see the animation draining out of her face as her eyes darted down and away. "Oh. Sorry." Duller words, hollow. More or less meaningless stalling for time as she sought for a graceful way out of the conversation.

Kitty hesitated just an instant, then reached out and put her hand on Andrea's arm - mirroring the girl's gesture a couple of days earlier. "But if you're serious about studying ... I'm busy the next couple nights, but maybe sometime next week? Finals are coming up. And there's somebody I know who might like to meet you."

Andrea narrowed her eyes, studying Kitty: far more guarded than the confidence she'd displayed before. No - she must've been faking it before, Kitty decided. Either that, or she's not exactly the emotional stability poster child. Not that I can throw stones around there myself...

"Do you mean that?" the other girl asked finally. "Or is it just 'mock the freak' day and nobody told me?"

The bitterness unsuccessfully hidden in that last sentence sealed Kitty's decision - she'd heard it once too often from herself. "Hey, I don't want to flunk the final, I don't know about you. And besides. Nobody told you what I got in trouble fighting for, did they? Lemme tell you a story..." Hand still on Andrea's arm, she guided them out into the chill rain, still talking.

She'd halfway forgotten, even with Shan and Dylan around, just what it felt like to talk about something you cared about with somebody who wanted to listen. Even if she had to guard her phrasing - well, unlike Lockheed, Andrea could answer back. And it was good - better than she remembered - to be the one doing the reassuring for a change.

The one problem with Kitty's master plan: she hadn't counted on Shan not only not being home (and the twins not being home, either) when she stopped by to pick up the cat. It was only a delay, really, not a major snag; she'd catch Shan the next day, or over the weekend. Or...

She directed a mental frown at herself and focused on lighting the fifth candle, then the sixth, deliberate and patient. The flames glittered off the window's glass, steady and bright. Reassuring tradition, on the one hand. On the other, she could never look at them without remembering a certain other December, the last time she'd seen her parents together.

The reminder of her father's death in Genosha took her abruptly by the throat; her hand shook just a little as she set the shammas back in its holder. Her voice wasn't any too steady, either. "We light these lights for the miracles and the wonders, for the redemption and the battles..."

Lockheed made a worried chirring sound accompanied by a flutter of wings, and Kitty had to stop and hastily swallow a laugh. "... that you made," and the words were stronger now, "for our forefathers in those days at this season, through your holy priests. During all eight days of Chanukah, these lights are sacred, and we are not permitted to make ordinary use of -"

She had exactly the warning of warm fur brushing against her ankle; then there was a small feline body suddenly landing on the table, intent on investigating the menorah and the burning candles up close and personal. And headfirst. Kitty yelped and snatched at the intruder - her first grab missed, and Repeat's attempt at escape rocked both table and flames perilously. Spurred by the mental image of a yowling, fleeing kitten with fur aflame, Kitty found her aim improving tremendously; she snatched the wriggling creature up into her arms, taking several steps back for good measure.

"How did you get out?" she hissed at the cat, who promptly settled down with a faint squeak and a meek little twitch of its tail. Blue eyes blinked up at her disarmingly even as sharp claws kneaded experimentally at her forearms. She glared right back. "You're supposed to be nice and safe in your box, not running around and causing trouble - how did you manage to -"

Kitty stopped, and glanced at the table by the window where the menorah was set. Mentally, she compared its height to the height of the box's sides, and sighed. "You jumped."

Repeat gave another, hopeful little squeak.

With an exasperated sigh, Kitty took the kitten in both hands and turned to shove him at Lockheed. "Here. You watch him." Dropping the furball on the seat of the chair that the dragon was using for a perch, she turned and stormed for the telephone. Maybe talking to Shan would calm her down. If Shan was even home yet.

Apparently she was home. It didn't help: the phone bleeped the annoying repetitive tone of the busy signal back at Kitty. Irrationally, she redialed, twice. No improvement.

Faintly, from the general direction of the kitchen, she could hear a piteous wailing sound. It echoed a little strangely. She slammed the phone back down and eyed the open doorway. "Lockheed, I thought I told you to -"

Then she thought about what she was saying. And where she was looking. And that echo. Her eyes widened, and she started hastily for the kitchen, sure she could feel her hair turning gray as she went. "Dragon! You take the cat out of the oven!"

"You're home. Thank you. I think I'm losing my mind over here."

"I hate to tell you, Kitty, but you're a little late. The twins were pestering me all day, you know - Nga wanted to know why the kitten wasn't here and when he would be again."

"Well, you can tell her that he was visiting someone very special to him. Namely, the vet. And I can tell you that the twins are a whole lot less childish than some people I know."

"I don't even want to ask, do I?"

"I think the single thing I've said most often in the last two days was 'Lockheed, put the cat down.' What were you up to, yesterday, anyway? I was trying to get hold of you."

"You still have the weirdest problems. Nothing unusual - work, and there was a school assembly for the twins that I wanted to be there for, and then up late chatting with a friend. I hope it wasn't anything urgent?"

"Nah. Just begging more kitten-sitting for tomorrow -"

"I knew it."

"- and wondering if you were up to anything Sunday night? Somehow I got myself volunteered to be a practice audience for some kind of a play rehearsal, and I'm looking for some moral support. Not to mention another target for the would-be comedians."

"You're on your own for that one."

"Aw, come on. It's short. I've been promised. And there's somebody I'd kind of like you to meet. She's in one of my classes - and pretty decent. A little pushy, maybe, but okay."

"Mm. Well. Maybe. But if you're there, who am I going to call on for baby-sitting?"

"No idea, but we've got to be able to find somebody. I'll even pay. C'mon - please?"

"I'll think about it. No promises."

"Good enough."

"When you said 'a play rehearsal,'" Kitty commented to the girl on Shan's other side, "somehow I was thinking, you know, a play. Not weird bits of escaped British folklore."

Andrea gave Kitty one of those obnoxiously cocky smiles - her smugness had reasserted itself with a vengeance the moment that Shan had arrived. (Kitty had hoped that was a good sign, and in the mean time put Shan between the two of them; if she minded Andrea's tendency to disregard personal space, Kitty had no doubt the Vietnamese girl would make her displeasure known promptly. In the mean time, using somebody else as a physical buffer might not have been the most generous thing Kitty'd ever done, but it kept her from being slowly driven insane.) "It's still a play," she reasoned. "And it's a lot more fun than watching people recite memorized lines. Badly."

Kitty shook her head. "You've never seen Off-Off Campus, have you." Her attempt at reproving gloom was at least somewhat transparent; Andrea rolled her eyes, grinning.

Shan's retort was more direct. "Oh, ease up, Kitty. It'll be fun." She directed a swipe a couple of inches away from Kitty's shoulder - Kitty cracked a grin and slid down further in the battered, sagging couch. Apparently, 'rehearsal' in this case had also meant 'in the performers' joint living room,' which was decorated in Standard College Cheap. But not, at least, cluttered - which meant there might actually be room for the audience and all four of the actors, as long as arms and legs were kept on the couch at all times till the ride had come to a complete stop.

A couple more minutes of banter - and beer, which had been provided by one of the four resident guys; Kitty couldn't for the life of her remember his name, just his quick grin and unkempt dark hair - and the actors were, apparently, ready: the first of them swept in from the cramped confines of the kitchen, having traded his shirt and jeans for bright and tattered motley in scarlet and purple. Bells jingled from his hat, his shoes, and the little wand - tipped with a miniature of that same hat - that he shook gleefully in Andrea's face, grinning broadly enough to hurt. "I open the door, I enter in," he cried, gesturing in broad strokes as he danced his way around the room in manic curves, clearing back imaginary bodies to make room. "Whether I lose or whether I win - if ever I rise, I'll stand or fall, and do my duty to please you all!"

It was ridiculous. It didn't try to be anything but ridiculous. Half the lines were flubbed and ad-libbed on the spot; the other half were utter doggerel. The jester clowned outrageously, flirting with Andrea - then with Shan and Kitty, making up bad couplets in their praise on the spot - and when even Kitty gave in and laughed, he waved in the next pair with his wand.

The dark-haired boy, dressed in a white tunic with a red cross painted on the chest, pronounced himself St. George in a speech full of wild boasts: "I fought the fiery dragon and brought him to the slaughter, and by that means I won the King of Egypt's -" He broke off before he could finish the rhyme; Shan, with a downright evil grin at Kitty, had started in on catcalls. "Look," he protested indignantly, "you're not supposed to boo the hero!", setting off another round of giggles.

Starting with the beer, Kitty admitted privately to herself, had probably been a good move.

The villain of the piece proved to be a blond and bearded young man in dark clothing, handicapped by an oversized helmet that kept sliding down over his eyes. His introduction was shorter than St. George's, but no more serious. "In come I, the Turkish Knight, come to call St. George to fight. For I've been ragged, and I've been jagged, from house to house and door to door; and if I get out of this, I'll never get in anymore..."

And then the two proceeded to fight.

It was, of course, nowhere near dangerous - though Kitty had somehow managed to miss noticing that Nerf had ever actually made a fencing set. It was also, equally of course, nowhere near real; moves that had been bad in the movies were exaggerated out of any hope of recognition now. At one point the Turkish Knight fended off St. George by putting his own helmet on the other knight's head; it promptly fell over his eyes. The situation was finally resolved by the beleaguered English champion pulling the thing off and shoving it over the jester's hat - where it finally made a decent fit - before returning to the fray... his dark hair now even more wild than before.

If it had been any more serious, Kitty would've hated it. It wasn't. And so she was cheering along with the other two girls when St. George finally brought his opponent to one knee and took his surrender.

The dragonslayer turned to his audience, grinning and tugging his tunic back into order, full of exaggerated, pompous self-importance, and quite missed the florid brandishing of the Turkish Knight's dagger. Fortunately for Kitty's reflexes, the blade was made of a vivid orange plastic, and wobbled. Thus neither she nor Shan made any move to interfere when the blond youth stabbed up toward St. George's back with it - just gasped appropriately when the English knight collapsed.

The jester leapt forward in wide-eyed shock, one hand on the helmet, the other pointing his wand at the laughing Turkish Knight. "Five pounds for the best doctor in town!" he yelped over the fallen. "Ten, if he's a good one."

"Won't come!" was yelled out of the kitchen.

The jester made a despondent face at the girls. "... five pounds, then," he said dryly.

The repetition of "Won't come!" was, this time, slightly drowned by snickering.

"Twenty dollars in three-dollar bills?" the jester offered, in faint hope.

"I'll come, and glad of the money." And the last of the actors stepped forth, done up as Doctor Watson - bowler hat, mustache, black bag, and all. Over the renewed mirth of the girls, he drew himself up self-importantly and inquired, "What's the matter here?"

The jester looked at the doctor - then at St. George - then the girls, the body again, and the doctor, and finally pointed his wand frustratedly at the knight. Certain tones of voice can only be used when stating the blindingly obvious. "A man, dead!"

"How long's he been dead?" asked the doctor.

"Seven minutes. Can you cure him?"

Watson - though, Kitty was sure, any assistant to Sherlock Holmes would've been a little more perceptive - strode forward disdainfully. "If he'd been dead seven years I could cure him!" - and launched into his own monologue, smooth as snake oil. "I can cure the itch, the stitch, the palsy and the gout; if there's ninety-nine diseases in, I'll fetch a hundred out. I heal the sick, I cure the lame - I fetch the dead to life again! I have a bottle by my side, the fame of it spreads far and wide; let one drop of it reach his heart, and he'll soon stand up to play his part. Here, take a little of this bottle, and let it flow right down your ... throttle."

Andrea and Shan were giggling again, and so was Kitty, right up till the doctor knelt down mid-speech beside St. George and fished a bottle of cheap Scotch whisky out of his bag. Then she was still grinning, but - it was a little more fixed than she'd've liked to admit, as she watched the 'medicine' being administered to the dark-haired young man, and bringing him promptly back to life again.

Meggan, she thought absently, next time I see you, I'm going to strangle you. And then, purposefully, she put out of her mind both the thought and what had made her think it.

There wasn't much left of the foolery, for which she was grateful; the jester was found out short on funds, he appealed to the audience to donate (for the sake of paying the doctor's bill, of course), and then the whole crew wished them a happy new year. She borrowed cues from Shan as to what she was supposed to find funny. Nobody, she thought, noticed but Shan. Well, and the blond guy playing the Turkish Knight, who was giving her appealingly concerned looks.

Shan definitely noticed, though. Kitty knew she had, because Shan covered for her quite nicely when, a half-hour or so later, she'd finally had had enough of chitchat and beer and socialization and the blond guy's flirting. And fled.

The place was dark and empty - open, boundless, but it still echoed. Kitty stood with one hand on one of the broken columns, her fingertips tracing over the worn and cracked stone. It was still cold to the touch.

Something moved in the distance, and her breath caught. How she could tell it was moving, she didn't know; black on black, she shouldn't have been able to see anything. She wanted to go and look - but that would mean letting go of the pillar. The cold of the stone settled in her stomach, tied itself in a knot. Resolutely, she forced herself to let go, and took unsteady steps in the direction of that movement.

A spark flickered for an instant ahead of her, and for that moment she could see clearly. A figure dressed in black; unkempt dark hair; eyes, blue eyes, vivid and alive and angry. Closed off. Accusing. Precisely the way she'd seen them last.

It was their light she could see the details of the blackness in, plain as sunlight. Not the light that reflected from them now, as he cupped a flame in his hand, lit a cigarette, turned away. Their own light: a different thing altogether.

She drew breath to try to call out to him, but the words wouldn't pass her throat - and then air wouldn't, either; she couldn't breathe, she had nothing to breathe with, nothing inside her, no heart, no lungs, nothing -

- no, she couldn't breathe because she was crying, that was why. Stupid girl. Stupid. She heaved herself onto her side, shaking, and reached past her teddy bear to turn on the bedside lamp. Twenty past four, this time. Still too early to hyperventilate, she thought, and made a sound that was half laugh and half sob.

Something a little ways behind her squeaked. Reflexively, she looked over her shoulder to where the kitten had been curled up in his usual place beside her. Golden eyes glimmered, half-open and sleepy, from Lockheed's perch above. Down on the bed itself, though, blue eyes stared back at her, wide, open, full of confusion.

Blue eyes, and black fur, and a white collar and chest. Blue eyes in that photograph she'd been pointedly not looking at all week, and black hair, and a white shirt to go with the black suit and tie. "Dammit, Meggan," Kitty whispered. "Dammit, he's dead, why did you have to -"

Repeat squeaked again, increasingly piteous in his plea for the big human to come back and be warm for him. Kitty managed one full breath before choking up again. She flung herself back on the pillows and reached to wrap both arms around the kitten, cradling him to her chest as she cried. "Dammit, I miss him, I miss him, I want him back..."

She wanted all of them back. All of the people she'd loved, who loved her; all of the people she'd counted as friends. Doug and Rachel and Illyana and her father and even Erik. But in this moment, if she'd been made to name one she wanted most, there would've been no question which.

It'd been a long time since she'd let herself admit she'd loved him. She'd lost him a long time before his funeral; she'd done her grieving, she'd told herself she was done with it; she'd lied. One thing Kitty had never been good at was falling out of love once she was in it. Not with Peter Rasputin; not with Peter Wisdom, either. And God, I lost Piotr so many times - when he was dead the first time, it wasn't real, why can't Pete have that kind of chance just this once ... no, face facts, Pryde. Pete's life was never that weird. He's gone. You're never gonna get the chance to say any of the things you wanted to. You're never gonna be able to set things straight. There isn't any magic healing whisky in the real world.

A rush of air and a fluttering sound heralded Lockheed's arrival on the bed. The kitten made, for the first time, an actual mewing sound. He probably figures he's gonna get eaten for upsetting me or something, Kitty decided. Tough. She wrapped one arm around the dragon, bent her head to lay her cheek against Repeat's fur, and cried some more.

"You see?" the Queen of Otherworld said to her husband, leaning her head contentedly against his shoulder. "I was right."

"So you were," Brian Braddock admitted. His arm came around her, warm, protective. "Do you think it'll be enough? Seems rather ... small."

"The trick," Meggan said with thorough confidence, "is to use small things. As small as you can. Little tiny twists to the patterns, until the patterns can take care of themselves the rest of the way. Like that story you told me about the butterfly and the hurricane. All we need to do is find the right butterflies."

Brian's tone betrayed his continuing doubt - not that there was any point in trying to hide that from an empath. "Or, in this case, kittens. Will the rest of it take care of itself?"

"Oh, yes. Well - when Alistaire calls her, she won't delay. She'll get there in time. After that, it'll be up to them, really." Meggan yawned sleepily and cuddled in against her husband's side, blithely certain. "We can't stop them from making the same mistakes. Or from making all new mistakes, either. Just give them the chance to make mistakes at all."

The chuckle was as good as a surrender. "You have a talent for turns of phrase, love. It still seems like ... cheating, somehow. Couldn't you just have told her -"

"That Pete was alive?" Meggan asked, smiling. "I did tell her."

"That's not what you said before."

The elemental tipped her head back; sunlight-gold hair rippled down her back in its perfect, radiant waves. "I told her," she said smugly, "that it wasn't a joke. And that it was important. If she didn't understand that I meant it - that's hardly my fault, is it?"

Brian took her hand and drew her, his other arm still around her, toward their bed. "My darling," and his tone was affectionate, "you never cease to amaze me. Most people have to lie to be devious."

Meggan widened her summer-green eyes as she looked up at him. "Does that mean we can get a kitten?" she asked.

Her husband laughed, and answered her, "No."