A/N: I've had half of this scribbled in my notebook for ages. I'm on a spree of cleaning up and getting things finished to post. Whisper edits and updates coming soon.

Remix : : Shadows

Kitty stared in horror as Rogue exacted her revenge. She gave him touch—kisses, hugs, hands held, those little, intimate brushes against cheeks and hair—with soft smiles that only meant something when there wasn't pain and anger behind emerald eyes. Then, she took it away.

Coldly. Ruthlessly.

"Ah'm more than mah mutation, Bobby," she snapped. And the shadow in the corner cried to hear her own words flung back. "Ya were mah friend."

There was another spectator to all the drama, and he always looked in the corner at the quiet, half-phased shadow before he spoke to Rogue. She wondered sometimes why he never sent her away.

"Kid..."

The classic Rogue eyebrow raise. She wasn't a kid, and every one of the three of them knew it.

"This isn't you," he said.

Rogue cocked her head and Kitty prayed her friend would listen. This was Logan; the man was practically her father.

But, "Y'all ain't 'round enough to know," she drawled back almost lazily.

Even the mighty Wolverine had to flinch at that.

Both of them took extra training—for different reasons. Rogue was turning deadlier than her skin had ever been, drawing the grudging admiration of her clawed mentor and the concern of just about everyone else. Shadowcat became a shadow, less and less visible, more and more agile. Every part of who they had ever been together was bending.

Shadowcat often wondered how much more they could take before it broke.