Disclaimer: Me no own X-men. Or any title related to X-men that I might borrow characters from. In fact, I own very little beyond my computer and my comic books so NO SUING.

Chance & Circumstance

Kurt had a lovely room as far as rooms went at Muir. He wasn't in the 'patient' building, though even he admitted he probably should have been. No, instead he was in the family building, a smaller, cozier place. His room was just down the hall from Rahne's, and across from the room belonging to the mysteriously absent team of workers. He hadn't seen much of his current abode when he came in, exhausted as he was he hadn't even bothered with lights, just stumbled in and collapsed onto the bed the moment his knees located that blessed piece of furniture. If there was anything to say about the room, well, the bed was wonderful.

And far better than a medical cot would have been.

Of course he still managed to nearly tie himself in a knot fighting with the blankets later, and his tail wormed it's way under the edge of the mattress so that it was pinched uncomfortably several times in the night...but that was just how he slept these days, it wasn't the bed's fault at all. When he'd managed to wake himself entirely, screaming from some fragmented nightmare or another, Rahne had been there. She had taken one look at the clock, a pointed look that made him want to squirm and apologize for his noise, then swept forward to inject him with something. He hadn't even managed to ask what it was by the time he was falling back on the bed and into the first decent sleep he'd had in a long time.

It was voices that woke him later. A lot later. Judging by the numb patches in his tail where the mattress had cut off circulation, he'd been out for hours, if not a full day. He hated his tail going numb, so it was a grumpy Kurt, with the spade of his tail carefully cradled in his hands, that shuffled out of his bedroom. The voices were from down the hall, one of them Rahne's for sure, but the bathroom was of far more interest than mysterious people...

…at least until he could get his poor tail into working condition and his own needs seen to.

The computer chime woke her. As much as she would have loved to just ignore it and go back to sleep, well, the chime was making Lockheed whimper. If she could be said to have a soft spot for anyone in this world it was her dragon. It helped that he truly was pathetic when he was hung over, pathetic enough to tear her away from the comfy nest her bed in the hotel had become in order to save him some pain. "Hello?" She muttered to the screen as she hit the button, desperately trying to scrub sleep from her eyes.

"An guid morn te ye." Rahne chuckled from her end of the view screen. "Sleepin in?"

Kitty paused rather inelegantly, one finger still poking at her eye as she squinted at the time. Somehow 10 am had snuck up on her and that meant..."Wisdom is going to give me hell." Not that he'd actually be in until far later in the day, but he had contracted her and he wouldn't let a chance to rag on her slide. Especially given that she'd left him at the third bar when some of his spook friends had wanted him to brood with them.

Where by brood they really meant 'talk to Wisdom about secret stuff without a non-team member listening in'. She probably could have sat with them considering she still knew most of Wisdom's intelligence crowd and talked with them often, but it seemed impolite. And, frankly, she didn't need to know now. She wasn't out saving the world anymore, or at least not without being asked in as a support to the London team.

"I'm jes callin te let ye know that our new guest arrived safe an soun."

Kitty wracked her brain, trying to remember who exactly was suppose to be coming in. A new patient? Probably, but she could think of who. Hopefully not someone too troubling because Rahne had been tired recently. And hopefully not a child, children were incredibly sad to see in Muir. They never came because they wanted to visit. They came because their mutations were killing them and it got bad. Very bad. "Right. I should be home to help in a few days? Week at the most depending on how bad things have gotten with the computer system here in my absence."

"They do seem te mess them up more than a bit." Rahne sighed, suspecting, no doubt, that Wisdom put them to it so they had an excuse to call Kitty in more often. "He best be payin well te keep ye there."

"Oh, more than well enough." She assured with a grin. "I think a good chunk of their budget goes to Muir now."

"Guid. If he starts spendin too much he'll get reigned in."

Kitty laughed and fumbled for a hair tie. "Someone reign in Wisdom? You're joking." Really, the guy was a lot of things, but easy to control wasn't one of them. "Alright, how do I look? Professional enough to scream at London mutants for breaking my computers?"

Rahne blinked and looked Kitty over before smirking a little. "Where's yer pants gone?"

She felt herself going beat red at the question, having utterly forgotten her state of undress when climbing out of bed. "Let's just pretend I didn't ask anything about appearance yet." she muttered, glancing over her shoulder. "They...might be in the bathroom? I may have lost them."

"Lost. In yer hotel room? How much sleep did ye actually get?"

"Maybe an hour." She admitted sheepishly.

"Gel, take a shower. Yer already late, may as well make it later."

"I will, I will." Kitty was still blushing when she closed her computer, ending the 'phonecall'. Forget Wisdom, Rahne was going to give her hell. She glanced over at the body still cocooned in blankets on her bed. Where had she picked him up again? One pub or another, after Lockheed had gotten his claws on the bourbon. He had a name, she knew that much, but she'd be damned if she could recall it.

In the light of day he wasn't much to look at. Burly rather than fit, and a bit too fond of his hearty meals if appearances were anything to go by. His single redeeming quality was he'd been reaming one of his friends for deriding mutants. Anyone willing to stand up for mutants in a crowded, jeering pub was worth getting to know. He'd probably just been drunk off his ass but at least it was a friendly, open minded kind of drunk.

And hell, she'd been lonely. That happened sometimes.

Her quick shower didn't wake him in the least, though Lockheed stumbled in to get rinsed. The warm water sometimes helped his hangovers, though by the look of his drooping wings and squinched eyes, that was wishful thinking today. "You can stay here you know." She pointed out gently when she scooped him up in a towel. She probably deserved the annoyed snort, after all, he didn't care for being left behind in the best of times, and he seemed to think anytime Wisdom was around Kitty needed a draconic chaperone.

Or maybe he was just inordinately fond of pranking the man. She couldn't blame him, Wisdom was a hell of a lot of fun to mess with.

The man in her bed still hadn't stirred when she was dressed and ready to go out the door, Lockheed stretched contentedly along her shoulders and lifted his head to stare at the sleeping lump. What to do with him? She didn't actually want to talk to him, one night stands weren't suppose to end in friends or even in phone numbers exchanged. Hell, she didn't even want to be reminded of his name. She grabbed her tools and fidgeted a moment before shrugging. Housekeeping would be around to tidy the hotel room in a bit, they could wake him.

Rahne sighed and stared at the blank screen for a moment before letting a smirk onto her face. Kitty didn't have any idea who had come to stay with them, which was good because Rahne hadn't told her any names when she mentioned it a week ago. It had been five years since she dragged Kitty to Muir island, and they'd been good years all told, but Kitty needed to stop they 'random men while in London' thing. It wasn't healthy. Hopefully seeing Kurt would shock her out of that rut and get her to choose a man to settle down with. Closure was suppose to help people move on in life right?

Not that either Kitty or Kurt would forgive her if they found out her motives but...well, it was for their own good really.

She smoothed her hair a moment then turned to Kurt with a smile when he came out of the bathroom. "Ach, it'll be a few more days yet afor my team coumes home. It's jes you an me for a bit. Let's get food in ye."