Author: Niteshayde
Rating: PG-13 (violence, language)
Summery: Kitty is badly hurt after being attacked- but she wasn't attacked because she's a mutant! The result of this attack is that a promising day gets a lot worse real fast... but maybe it will turn out to be even better than it initially promised! If only she can live through it...
So you've decided to read my story. You ignorant fool.
No! Wait! I'm kidding! But beware: it's really, really dark. I was in a kinda darkish when I wrote this, and the characters pay the price. But it's not all dark: I tried to make it a little humerous, too. And it has a really sweet scene near the end. ^_^
Disclaimer: None of the characters are mine, although I'm still kicking and screaming over that one. My writing for Wolverine isn't great, so sue me. Waitasec: no, don't sue me, I have no money. Just deal with it. And try to deal with the angst and character torture, too, okay? Allright, a quick summary of the disclaimer, then: I own nothing used or even mentioned in this story, except for the story itself. But, hey, if Marvel wants to offer me a writing job... ~_^
I am evil, read my fic. Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Kitty Pryde lay in the X-Mansion's MedLab, staring straight at the ceiling. Tears pricked her eyes, but she wouldn't cry. She'd promised herself she wouldn't cry, no matter what. No matter how much it hurt. No matter how stupid, how unfair her situation was. No matter how hopeless she felt.
She. Would. Not. Cry.
Screw that. She began to cry.
Outside the MedLab, two people sat quietly, waiting for news on their downed teammate. After a while, Bobby Drake said abruptly, effectively breaking the silence, "This sucks, y'know? It's so unfair. And so- so stupid!" Kurt Wagner glanced over at him but didn't respond, so Bobby continued, "I mean, you'd think it would be enough, having jerks like the FoH after us, but this? Kitty's in critical condition because of-" "WHAT?"
Wincing, both men turned to face Ororo Munroe, who had just walked in the room and managed to catch the tail-end of the conversation. Ororo stood in the doorway, her face a mask. "I have been out shopping with the others, so pray enlighten me: what happened?"
At that moment, Cecelia stepped out of the MedLab. "She's alive, and conscious, but in great pain. Those bullets went straight through one of the major arteries in her right shoulder, plus all down the small of her back. I've managed to stop most of the bleeding, but there's internal bleeding, too. An operation is needed, and soon."
This news hit everyone hard. The two men- who had started to stand up, either to approach the windrider or to run away very very fast, it was uncertain which- sat back down again, abruptly. Ororo, on the other hand, went rigid, and hissed, "I'll ask again. What happened?" Cecelia, noticing her for the first time, replied, "Well, we were all there. I'll tell you in detail, starting from when we left..."
"All right! Let's go to Harry's!" Kitty yelled exhuberantly, bouncing in her seat. Grinning, Kurt put a three-fingered hand on her shoulder, as if to keep her from bouncing through the car roof. "Easy, Katzchen." "Yeah," Cecelia piped up from the driver's seat, "don't distract me. Unless you'd all like to walk back to the mansion?" This option was considered for all of two milliseconds. Kitty calmed down.
Bobby made a face at the docter from the seat beside her. "Aw, lighten up, Cece! It's Christmastime! 'Tis the season to be jolly, to give and recieve presents, and to get sloshed off your-" "BOBBY!" "Sorry, Cece. Y'know," he said, quickly changing subjects, "maybe we shouldn't go to Harry's. I mean, it got trashed by Sentinals just a while ago; maybe we should go to a regular bar, and go incogneto."
Cecelia considered the logic in this, and nodded. "Maybe we should. Besides, we wouldn't want to inadvertantly lead more mutant hunters there." Kitty rolled her eyes. "Yeah. So we lure 'em to a new place. Smooth."
Cecelia added, "We had no way of knowing that the bar we were going to was in the territory of a small Neo-Nazi gang." Kurt winced at the word 'Nazi': to him, it seemed like the Holocaust might repeat itself soon. Bobby laughed humorlessly.
"We shoulda gone to Harry's after all. The place was disgusting..."
"Those people are dead-drunk!" Kitty exclaimed, wrinkling her nose. Bobby shuddered, replying, "I hope so! Kareoke singing on a pool table is one thing when you're drunk, but when you're sober..." "And singing what seems to be twelve different songs at a time, and switching back and forth, should be a capital offence, drunk or not, expecially if you're that off-key," Cecelia pointed out. Kurt closed his eyes and said calmly, "I am not even going to ask what's on the walls." Kitty started edging back towards the door. "Maybe we'd better go somewhere else..." She was looking at a man near the back of the bar. He was staring at her with an unreadable expression on his face.
The others agreed, not noticing the man at all. Cecelia had to pull Bobby out the door, though, and threaten to gouge out his eyes if he didn't stop staring at the female singer that was now on the pool table. Laughing slightly and shaking his head, Kurt followed quickly. Kitty backed away from the man, not turning her back to him until she reached the door.
"She shouldn't have turned her back on him at all," Bobby groaned, his head in his hands. Shaking his head like before, but not anywhere near laughter this time, Kurt said, "We didn't know what was going on until it was too late..."
Bobby was trying to convince Cecelia that he had not been staring at the woman on the pool table while Kurt listened, amused. They had gone about a foot before they heard automatic weapon fire, and aloud, piercing scream of pain. "Shit! Kitty!" Bobby cursed, swinging around. Kurt teleported, and Cecelia put up a shield so that no bullets could hit them. He teleported back with Kitty in his arms, his face ashen. "Is she-?" "Open the door, now!"" Kurt demanded. Bobby sprung to open the backdoor of the car, and Kurt teleported inside, laying Kitty as carefully as he could on the smallish backseat. She was breathing hard and fast, her face even more ashen than his. She was bleeding from numerous wounds in her back, and at least one bullet had apparently gone straight through her right shoulder. He turned to ask if Cecelia had anything that could slow the bleeding, but both she and Bobby were gone.
He muttered a curse under his breath, then turned to face Kitty again. "Katzchen? Can you hear me?" Kitty nodded slightly, her eyes shut tightly. "... yeah..." "Does it hurt much?" Another nod. "Bad..." She sounded like she was getting a little strength back. "Am I bleeding on you?" Kurt smiled a little. "Ja. But don't worry about it, liebchen. I'm a bit more concerned about you. Better to be bled on that to be the one bleeding." As an afterthought, he added, "Don't try to talk. The others will be back soon, and we'll get you back to the Mansion."
He was beginning to wonder where Bobby and Cecelia were, and was trying to decide if he should leave Kitty for a minute to try and find them, when they showed up, panting and carrying the guy who had the gun. He was definately unconsious, and bleeding slightly from a head wound. Cecelia stuffed him in the trunk, leaving it open slightly so the man wouldn't suffocate, and got in the driver's seat. Bobby slid in next to her, and they started back toward the Mansion in silence.
"The man woke up as we were carrying him in," Cecelia continued. "He started screaming and thrashing, and we had to drop him. Bobby froze his feet to the ground so he couldn't move. We questioned him..."
"Who do you work for? Are you with the FoH?" Cecelia asked. "Why did you attack our friend?" Bobby interjected. Kurt had teleported Kitty to the MedLab, and ported back just in time to hear the man shout, "She's a fucking JEW! The bitch doesn't DESERVE to live!" The three X-Men reeled back as if slapped. They had been expecting racism, not religious persicution. "How did you-?" "That fucking Star of David around her neck! She FLAUNTED the fact that she's a dirty little Jew, and she paid the price!"
At this point, Logan inturrupted. "'Scuse me, I've been listenin' outside the door, doin' a bit o' eavesdroppin'. What'd you do with the Neo-Nazi?" "I froze him and put him in the basement. Didn't know what else to do with him," Bobby answered, slightly apologetic. "Good. Come with me and unfreeze him. I'm gonna..." SNIKT "talk to him." Logan grabbed Bobby by the arm and left the room.
Nobody moved to stop him.
Kitty had stopped crying when the door opened again. Cece had said she could recieve visitors before the operation, but only one at a time. "Kitten?" Kitty sighed. "Hi, 'Roro. So they told you what happened?" "Logan and I know, yes. At the moment, I believe Logan is finished with the Nazi and is telling everyone else."
Kitty sat up straight, then made a strangled groaning sound and slumped back. "Kitten!" "Don't worry, 'Roro. Shouldn'ta moved so fast, is all. But, lemme get this straight: you let Logen get at the guy?" The windrider regarded her seriously. "Should I have told him not to?"
"Yes!- I mean, no- I don't know!" Kitty exclaimed. She buried her head in her hands. Ororo put her arms around her comfortingly, and Kitty suddenly discovered that she still had tears left.
Ororo left the room a few minutes later, visibly shaken. Kitty had looked horrible, though she acted strong: her face was a greyish-white, and her eyes were red. "She okay?" Logan asked. "See for yourself: it's your turn."
Logan went in... and came bak out a split-second later. "She yelled at me for killin' the guy, and threw her pillow at me," he explained, a bit embarrased. Kurt sighed. "I'll go talk to her," he volunteered.
"Lose something, Katzchen?" Kitty opened her eyes. Kurt was standing beside the bed, holding the pillow she'd thrown at Logan. He had a forced grin on his face; he, too, had noticed how awful Kitty looked. She smiled shakily. "Yeah. Thanks, fuzzy."
There was an awkward pause. Kitty looked worse than before: her skin was a greyish-white color, and her eyes were red from crying. Tear tracks crisscrossed her cheeks, and she'd somehow managed to get blood on her face. Somehow, Kurt knew that this was a very bad thing. "How do you feel?" Kitty's smile faded. "It hurts- bad- just to breath. And i-it's hot." She closed her eyes and coughed, and blood trickled from her mouth.
This was a very bad thing. "Sheiss! Kitty, don't talk, don't move! I'm going to get Cecelia!" He ported out, and Kitty had to stifle another cough. She knew that he was right. Coughing up blood was a bad sign in any medical book. She knew that talking would make it worse.
Fear cut through her like a knife. She hadn't even been this scared when she had felt the bullets first enter her skin: she hadn't been alone then. Squinching her eyes shut again, she sent up a quick prayer to no one in particular:
*Please, please hurry!*
"Will she be okay?" Rogue asked, concerned. Cecelia nodded. "Probably. She has internal bleeding, though, so she'll need an operation-" BAMF!
Before Cecelia could turn around, Kurt started talking. "Cecelia, you need to come quickly. Kitty's coughing up blood." He wasn't panicing, but his voice was urgent and, when the docter spun around, she saw that his yellow eyes were wide.
"Damn," she cursed. "A bullet must have gone through one of her lungs! Kurt-" she started, but she didn't need to tell him. He grabbed her by the arm and ported, leaving the other X-Men to exchange worried glances.
Kitty sighed in relief when she heard Kurt port back in, but the sigh quickly turned into a coughing fit, and she had to turn her head. A fine spray of blood hit the pillow. "Damn," Cecelia cursed again, softly. "The internal bleeding found its way into her lungs." "Will she drown?" Kurt asked, alarmed. "I don't know. This means I've gotta speed up the operation to now."
The docter grabbed the container of nitrus oxide that she kept to knock out any patients in case of an emergancy. She put the mask over Kitty's nose and mouth. "Breathe deep," she instructed gently. Kitty did as she was told, and her head swam. She felt slightly giddy, almost like laughing, but she knew that if she did her blood would get all over the mask, so she refrained.
The last things she saw were Cecelia and Kurt's worried faces, and then darkness came up to swallow her, and she welcomed it.
"She's out cold. Good. This would really hurt, and it's gonna be a bit messy." Cecelia glanced over at the German demon, who didn't move. "Which means," she translated, "get your fuzzy blue tail outta here. Go tell the others than none of them are to come in, understand?" Kurt thought about arguing, but decided against it. He had learned through experience that docters could be downright violent when they disapproved of something- the thought of Moira MacTaggart chasing after Pete Wisdom with a syringe came to mind- and he didn't want to delay the operation.
So he glanced down at Kitty one more time, whispered a prayer under his breath, and ported out.
An hour was spent pacing in the the Rec Room. After a while, though, Rogue yelled for Kurt to quit walking back and forth on the ceiling, and he teleported to his room to pray.
"Lieber Gott, please let the operation go smoothly. Let Kitty be all right." *She might not be perfect, but neither am I, or anyone else on Earth for that matter. And she trys hard to do the right things, even when doing the right thing means putting her life on the line. We all do that- every day- but she's been doing this since she was thirteen. She had to grow up much more quickly than she deserved, more quickly than any child would deserve. Since she was a teenager, she's been risking her life to save people who would much rather have her dead, because she happens to be a mutant, and now she might die because a Nazi- a verdammt Nazi!- found out she's Jewish?! Herr Drake was right: this does "suck."*
Calming down a bit and regaining his composure- he had begun pacing again, and was halfway up the wall- he went to resume his prayer. But in a horrible flash of truth, he realized that he had absolutely nothing more to say to his God, and he wouldn't until Kitty woke up.
If she ever did wake up.
Kitty Pryde was dead. At least, thats what she thought at first.
*Ugnnnhh... I didn't think the afterlife would be so painful... am I in purgatory?* Kitty opened her eyes blearily. She was, in fact, in the MedLab. By the bandaging over her back and chast, she assumed that the operation had been completed. And by the large amount of pain, she knew what Cecelai was going to say even before the docter's face came into focus.
"The operation went... well. There was only one part where I had a bit of trouble, but everything turned out fine. It'll be about three weeks before you can be in any Danger Room activities or battles, though." Cecelia face softened, and she then addressed Kitty friend-to-friend, instead of docter-to-patient. "Thank Dios you're ok," she said softly.
"Kurt!" Rogue's foster brother jumped almost a foot in the air; she had yelled about five inches away from his ear. He hadn't even been aware of her coming in. "What is it, liebchen?" "Kurt- the operation's ovah- Cece came out an' gave us the news-!"
This grabbed Kurt's attention completely. "Is Kitty...?" he asked, not able to finish the question. He feared the worst; Rogue was crying. "She's alive! She's all right, and she's awake!" He grinned, and relaxed visibly. "An' Cece says it's ok if people visit her- one at a time. Ah thought that maybe ya'd stop pacin' if ya'll got ta see her."
Kurt didn't hesitate. There was the sound of imploding air, and the oder of fire and brimstone, and Rogue was left alone in the room, grinning.
"Rogue's going to get Kurt- she said he's been pacing since I told him to get outta the MedLab." Kitty grinned shakily. "Great. Hey, lemme guess: if he ports in, you're gonna give him hell, right?" Cecelia grinned back. "Yup."
As if on cue, Kurt ported in. True to her word, Cecelia started immediately in on her lecture. "Kurt! Are you insane, stupid, or just inconsiderate?! This girl is recovering from a touch-and-go operation, and you teleport in here?! That's as bad as smoking in the MedLab!" Kurt grinned. "Hello, Cecelia."
Kitty held up a hand as if to ward off an attack. "Stop it, you two!" she managed to say, laughing. "Cece, you're as bad as him- I'm gonna die laughing!" She turned to Kurt, grinning. "Heya, fuzzy elf." He grinned back. "Feeling better, Katzchen?"
Cecelia smiled. "I'm gonna go alert the others of her status, just in case Rogue hasn't yet. I know: that's doubtful. But, hey, she doesn't know exactly what's going on, so..." The docter exited.
Kitty ignored the opening and shutting of the door. "I'm doing better, I guess. It's just, it hurts more than before the operation. I didn't think things were supposed to work out that way." She rolled her eyes. "Though Pete did always say that he felt a lot better before Moira got her hands on him..." Still grinning, Kurt sat down on the chair beside the bed. "He didn't say it so politely, though?" he asked mischeviously. Kitty laughed. "Not really. He called her 'that bloody Scottish witch Mactaggart' and used a lot of really bad words."
Most of the X-Men, sans Kitty and Kurt, were assembled in the Rec Room, talking about what had happened. Hank McCoy, also known as the Beast, asked Cecelia a lot of technical questions while Bobby told everyone exactly what had happened. When Bobby got to the part about the drunks doing kareoke on the pool tables, though, Cecelia broke off in the middle of a sentance to glare at him. This started a long, heated arguement between the two of them about him staring at one of the girls in the bar, and it was hard to remember what had happened to Kitty in the first place: everyone got so distracted, they practically forgot anything had happened at all.
"The only real trouble Cece said she had was getting that bullet out of my lung," Kitty said, grimacing. "It turned out okay, I guess, but I might have asthmatic reactions to smoke from now on. That's probably why Cece yelled at you for porting in here." Kurt looked concerned. "I apologise, Katzchen, I didn't know-" "Hey, forget it!" Kitty interrupted, waving a hand dismissively. "I didn't have an asthma attack, so your bamfs apparently don't bother me." She grinned mischeviously. "Y'know, Logan's gonna have a fit when he finds out he can't smoke inside anymore."
They both laughed. *At least she can joke, and can laugh. That means she must be doing a lot better. Danké Gott.* Kurt also noted that she looked a lot better, too: her skin was a more natural color, and the blood had been cleaned off her face. Her eyes weren't nearly as red, either, and she looked a lot healthier overall.
Kitty suddenly stifled a yawn. "Oops- Cece isn't here, so it looks like I'm gonna have to tell you to get out myself! I'm gonna get some sleep while I can, before the others swarm in here." She smiled and closed her eyes, and almost immidiately her breathing became deep and regular. Kurt smiled in slight amusement and stood up; he didn't want to port and wake Kitty up. He turned to leave, then paused. He looked over at her and his smile changed. It was without amusement this time, but more like the small smile of a good friend.
*Danké Gott... Danké Gott she's alright,* he thought. Then he leaned over and brushed her bangs off her forehead, hesitated for a split-second, and gently kissed her forehead. He whispered something in German under his breath, then turned again and left the room.
A few seconds after he left, Kitty reopened her eyes and sat up, having never been asleep in the first place. *What...?* she thought, blushing slightly. Then she smiled, her eyes lighting up, as she decyphered what Kurt had said:
You are beautiful, Katzchen. I love you. Sleep well.
Her blush deepened. "Yeah, well, I will. I love you, too, Kurt Wagner," she whispered, laying back down and closing her eyes once again. *I love you, too. I'll let you know... later.*
Still smiling, Kitty Pryde fell asleep, for real this time. It had been a long, eventful day.
So, didja like it? Hate it? Want to see a sequal, or just want to see my head on a stick? Email me with any comments, questions, concerns, requests, or flames! All are welcome, except for the last one. And all will be responded to- including the last one. So be careful what you write! Heh.
I know, I know: Marvel owns all of these characters, and in the comics there's nothing romantic going on between Kitty 'n' Kurt. But a girl can dream, can't she? And, hey, there's always X-Men: Evolution!
Another thing. Remember how I said I was in a dark mood when I started this? Well, you probably noticed the swift mood change; that's because I finished writing this the day after Christmas! Listening to Kids In America by LEN, no less! So I was in a happy mood.
I love you all, readers! Each and every one of you, including those of you who want my head on a stick! It matters not! You're giving me feedback, so I love you!
...You are giving me feedback, right?