Her feet lurch her forward, toward the cot, toward Bobby, as a familiar hand on her shoulder attempts to yank her back; keep her shielded. She phases, bullets rippling through her stomach and embedding into the computer, shattering the mug, and stumbles once, twice as Ororo's fingers slide through her. The room shifts hues with each step; false memory and reality clashing, merging, ripping. Tools fade and reappear on the walls while bodies fill the seat Kaley once occupied; Ororo, face contorted in a silent scream, Jubilee, unconscious, caked in blood and sweat, others she has never met.

Someone calls her name; a faint echo mixing with muted scrapes and scuffles on the edge of her consciousness, another gunshot, as her vision narrows to Bobby, slumped over, the bundle slipping from his arms, chest blossoming red. She blinks and he shatters, blinks again and he burns.

'Wake up wake up wake up-'

…

The searing burn of the bullet threads across his chest, creeps up his neck and down into his stomach, ignites every nerve in his right arm to his fingertips, and he cannot will his grip to stop from going lax, feels the boy start to slip.

John is yelling at him, at Kurt, the words mixing with the ringing in his ears into a warped melody that lulls him toward unconsciousness. Bobby sees Kurt shake his head, try to yell back, but John is shoving his own sleeping cargo into the German's already full arms, and then he and Remy are dropping to the ground; withering.

His vision blurs and he feels more than hears Kurt's distinct pop next to him, smells sulfur, feels the boy shifting away from his chest as his head droops. Another pop and then blue hands wrap around the bundle that seeps red. He tries to process, but his thoughts are weighted, distant, and it hurts to breathe.

"Kitty!" More gunshots.

His head snaps up, neck screaming in protest, and suddenly, finally he feels the familiar adrenaline lacing through his veins, clearing his mind.

Bobby's eyes focus on John spasming at his feet, dart across the room, glancing at Remy twitching uncontrollably, rubber soles scuffing the tile, then to Ororo scuffling with a guard, his discarded pistol at their feet. He takes in a second guard in the doorway, left hand on the trigger of his taser and right hand tracking Kitty with his pistol.

Ice shoots across the floor and wraps up the guard's legs, around his torso, down his arms, up his neck, skin turning blue and brittle, and the taser and side arm clatter against the tile.

John and Remy slowly still as Ororo delivers a final blow; an elbow to the guard's temple, and suddenly Kitty is in front of him; her palms on his cheeks, his shoulders, his neck. He watches her fingers as they keep phasing through him, grasping desperately at his solid form, takes in her glazed eyes, her moving lips.

"Wake up wake up wake up-"

"Kitty," he sluggishly lifts his left hand until it hovers between them, gritting against the pain, "Focus. Breathe."

She glances at his hand, his shoulder, his face, fingers desperately seeking touch, "wake up, please."

"Katherine." Her eyes snap to his and he manages a shallow inhale, a slow exhale. "Touch my hand." Her fingers ghost his palm, half solid, "breathe."

She exhales with him, her eyes finding their hands, and the glaze disappears.

…

Kitty yanks a medical bag down from one of the metal cabinets, lets it flop onto an empty seat, fingers trembling as she unzips it, and finds a child's blood pressure cuff. She looks around the cabin, reorienting herself, while she waits for her hands to stop shaking.

Ororo sits in the pilot's seat, talking into her headset, and rubs at a forming bruise on her arm, features cast in sharp shadow from the glow of the controls, while Kurt tests Remy's mental status a few seats away, the two stumbling over medical terminology and thick accents.

"What is the date?" Kurt shines a light into one eye, then the other.

Remy bats the flashlight away, "Remy ne sait pas, Remy was in prison until a few hours ago, oui?"

Bobby lets out a huff of a laugh immediately followed by a groan, but gives her a small smirk when their eyes meet. She tries to return it, swallows against the lump in her throat. Hank is methodically stitching the still dribbling bullet hole just below his right clavicle, large hands steady and precise, glasses perched at the tip of his scrunched nose, while Bobby bites back grunts. His uniform top has been cut open, pooling around his stomach, and she has to look away from the fresh trail of red cutting through the dried blood that coats his chest.

An image of her kneeling in front of Bobby, hand gently swiping his bloody chest and stomach with a frayed cloth as he cards cool fingers through her hair, flashes across her mind and she tries to shake it away. John moans, unconscious, near the sleeping children, pulling her attention, and she steps around him to take their vitals.

"So what the hell happened?" Hank asks, loud enough for everyone to hear as he threads another stitch, but no one answers.

Kitty scratches numbers onto a sheet, counts a pulse with fingers pressing lightly on a boy's neck, watches his chest rise and fall, rise and fall. Tries to remember. She remembers touching Bobby's hand, finding John before that, hallucinating the man from her dreams in the rain. But how they got out, when they took off? She has no idea.

She will have to write a full report when she gets back, will be medically evaluated and debriefed, and will have to admit, out loud, to people that she has admired for almost a decade, that something is very wrong with her. That she failed on the mission. That if they cannot fix it, fix her, then she will have to resign from the x-men. Her stomach knots.

…

Bobby bites his lip as Kurt helps him slip his right arm into a plaid flannel button down he had found tucked in a cabinet, forgotten, manages to get his left arm through without pulling his stitches, although some of the words that rush out of his mouth make Kurt's eyes widen. It is one of Logan's, because of course it is, simultaneously too large and too small, but soft from years of washes and warm against his skin.

Kurt waits until he is done swearing before he helps him button the shirt up to his sturnum, stopping at the bandages, and steps away to let Hank drape a sling over his shoulder. His vision flashes red as Hank slips his arm in and adjusts it, but he bites back another round of cursing, "ooh that's tender."

"Local's probably wearing off," Hank shuffles around in his medical kit, pulling out a few medicine bottles and holding them in front of his nose to read the labels, "need some more painkillers? Scott will want you fully cognizant for your debriefing but," he tilts his head and looks over his glasses at Bobby, eyebrow raised, "you're the one who got shot."

He waves the bottle off and stands, eyes finding Kitty sitting on the floor of the cargo area, back leaning against the cool hull, eyes closed, "I know you need the story yourself but…"

Hank follows his gaze, sighs, "something is wrong with Kitty."

He nods, "yeah."

Hank removes his glasses and starts to gather up the used equipment, "do you want me to come with?" But Bobby has already crossed the cabin.

…

He carefully slides down next to her and leans back. His neck and shoulders bunch in protest and he hisses as he settles, rethinking those painkillers. She opens her eyes and watches him, concerned, and he reaches out into the space between them, searching for her hand. He knows before he touches her that his fingers will phase through her palm, knows that she will come back to herself when she is ready, "hey."

After a few beats she threads her fingers with his, mostly solid, finds comfort in the familiar ritual. It takes her a long time to find her voice. "You deserve an explanation."

He lets his hand cool against hers; she told him once, when they were both younger and their abilities untamed, that the contrasting sensation helped her gain control. He hopes that it helps again now, "you don't owe me anything."

"You're in them." She pauses, swallows, tries again, "they're about you."

"Your dreams."

"Hmm."

He brushes his thumb over her knuckles, "you said that you remember the endings." She hums agreement again. He licks his lips, "how do they end?"

She closes her eyes, her hand fading in and out of his, "you die."

The answer, the rawness in her voice as she says it, the hairs that stand up on the back of his neck, all catch him off guard. She slowly reaches her other hand across them to touch his right thumb tentatively and he flexes the fingers of his right arm against hers, feels the fresh ache even in his fingertips, "and then I got shot." He shifts his side toward her until their arms are millimetres apart, giving her the option to close the distance, and after a heartbeat she leans against him. "…But you were shaken before that."

She sighs, shoulders slouching in exhaustion, "I… I don't know what's wrong. The dreams are more like memories. They're so real. I haven't slept."

The muscles in his jaw jump; he should have talked to Jean or Ororo about switching her out, should have insisted that she go to the professor. He had been distracted with Rogue and the briefings and his classes, had noticed the circles under her eyes days after they first appeared. He had fought down his overprotective streak when he should have at the very least made sure that she got some sleep. "And the camp… I knew it. I knew that building, but it was different, like…" She rests her head on his shoulder and purses her lips in frustration when the words do not come to her, "I can't explain any of it because I don't know what it is."

Bobby closes his own eyes, disquieted, "Charles will help. We'll figure this out." He is fatigued to the point of collapse, could not force his muscles to get him up from this spot if the plane caught on fire, and she must be worse. He gently rests his head against hers. "We're still a few hours away, you should try to get some sleep."

Kitty tries to pull away, the idea settling like a weight on her chest, but he squeezes her hand, solid in his, and she squeezes back as she tries to breathe. "I don't want to dream."

He nods, chin brushing the tip of her ear, and swallows down empty promises that she won't, says only "okay."

The plane hums around them as he syncs their breaths, draws cool circles with his thumb over her knuckles. He feels her relax into his side, a little more with each exhale, hears her breathing even out, and lets himself follow her into sleep.