Ê Chapter 1 – Temptation. Ê Ê Tuesday 29th April Ê “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Every high priest is selected from among men and is appointed to represent them in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for his own sins. He is able to deal gentle with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins as well as for the sins of the people. No-one takes this honour upon himself; he must be called by God, just as Aaron was. So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, “You are my Son; today I have become your father” And he says in another place, “You are a priest for ever, in the order of Melchizedek.” During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him…” Ê Hebrew 4:14-5:10 (NIV) Ê I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I’d just stayed out in Germany with mum and dad. It would have been a lot simpler. No X-men, no Brotherhood, no Mystique, No Magneto, No more mutants and perhaps best of all at this point in time, no Kitty. I love Kitty with every fibre. I’ve never felt anything like this before. At first, sure I just saw her and was blown away. She’s just so beautiful. The way she smiles, so bright and hopefully and full of promise, just the way she is. And her eyes that way they glint when she’s happy, it just makes me melt. That cute little pout when she doesn’t get her way and the scent of her hair. I just know that at first I was only interested because I’d never seen anything like her before. I mean don’t get me wrong, for a little while I couldn’t stop admiring Jean. She saved me in the danger room remember, but Kitty, she was just amazing. Jean had grace and elegance, I suppose she’s like Ororo that way, but Kitty, I can’t begin to explain her. There’s something irresistible about her. Sure she’s moody and she can be very selfish at times, but look at what she is. She’s a normal girl, normal! She woke up one day and fell through the floor! I’ve always looked and behaved like this. This IS me. I’ve had sixteen years to get to grips with it. Kitty has had around nine months to get used to being a mutant. Kitty has always been a valley high girl, as they say here in the states. She was popular with the girls as well as *very* popular with the guys, all she ever had to worry about was how her hair looked and when the next freshman party was. But now it’s totally different. Now she’s the outcast. Maybe that’s why she comes to me with her problems. When she needs to talk and cry and just have someone to pat her back and buck her up. But I know I can’t go to Kitty with my problems. I can’t go to her because most of my problems have been caused by her. Her and her danger-is-as-danger-does boyfriend, Lance. Ê My problem is when Kitty comes to see me in the dead of night, when she crawls into my bed and lies besides me whimpering over something Lance said on the phone or his neglect at their date, or whatever. When she does these things, it makes me angry. It makes me damn angry! I just want to split his head open, I want to maul him with my teeth and claws, I want to drop him from a very high place…and it scares me. I used to think I was indestructible that way. I’ve had so many people make fun of me, scream, call me a freak and try to harm me, and I forgiven each and every one of them, because Jesus asks me to. No he tells me to! Love thy enemy! But when Kitty cries into my fur and shudders with tears until she is carried off into sleep, because of HIM I don’t want to love my enemy. I can’t carry this hatred for Lance any longer. It’s not good for me it’s not good for my soul and believe it or not, but my soul is the only I’ve got. Maybe if Kitty just left me alone, stopped flirting with me, stopped teasing me, stopped arguing with me, stopped coming to me for comfort, maybe, just maybe I could let this hot hellfire go and maybe I could be content, because I wouldn’t hate Lance. Ê I close over my textbook because this maths homework is going nowhere. I’m not really bothered either. I have a maths final in two weeks, but I don’t care. I have two thirds of the course to learn and I haven’t even started, but I don’t care. It feels good too. I’m a mutant. Sure it’s good to be educated but what do I need trigonometry, differentiation, and addition formula for? My body is more about maths than anything else. I don’t need to work out the angel of trajectory I’m going to land at or anything. I just know. But it feels good to be defiant about something so trivial. Now if I could only get it to work for the rest of my problems. Ê “Kurt,time for dinner” I hear Jean’s voice in my head. Oh! I wish she wouldn’t do that. I know its nifty way to get in contact with everyone quickly, but it scares the bubblegum out of me! To be thinking something very private and sometimes thinking things you really shouldn’t be about certain members of the extended family you live with, and then suddenly to hear someone else’s voice cut through it all, is very invading. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was like rape, but I suppose it’s like being caught with your hands down your pants. Not that I ever put my hands down there! Anyway, dinner time! Ê In a flurry of the usual colour and smoke and light I find myself in my usual chair at the dinner table. Kitty’s face is pushed into mine. Ê “Ku-rt! I told you not to do that! It like totally makes the food stink. Everything now tastes like egg!” Ê “Ah Katzchen, zat vill be the sulphur! Besides I happen to like the smell of eggs, Danke sehr! Ê “That’s enough you two, some of us are sick of hearin’ the pair of you bicker” Logan’s voice low and powerful as it is penetrated our argument. I can hear Kitty’s “hmph!” beside me and it makes me smile. It’s so much fun to rile her up, and it’s too easy at that. It’s nice to know I mean something to her. So dinner passes as usual until Kitty gets up to leave quicker than usual. Ê “Hey where are you going Half Pint?” Logan asks casually, passing his plate to Rogue whose job it is tonight to wash the dishes. Ê “I’ve got a date with Lance tonight” She says brushing her loose hair over her shoulder. I can feel my blood beginning to bubble and spit even as I try to clam it down. Just the mention of his name sets me off these days. Scott pounds his fist down on the table, making the remaining cutlery jump and silences everyone. Ê “Kitty you can’t keep seeing Lance, he’s with the Brotherhood!” We’ve had this argument so many times I think everyone’s lost count. I’m even getting sick of it. Ê “So? You don’t know him like I do! You’re just upset because you’ve got that stupid rivalry going!” Kitty yells back at him, making her way towards the door. Jean places a hand on Scott’s shoulder firmly, doing her best to calm him. Ê “That’s not what this is about Kitty and you know it! He works for Magneto have you forgotten that?” But she isn’t listening and simply phases through the door holding her hand out, you know, like, talk-to-the-hand? Another Americanism I’ve grown to hate. I can feel Scott fizzing next to me, he sighs in frustration and hangs his head. The table’s grown quiet. I can feel Evan’s eyes on me and I turn to him. Ê “What is it Evan?” I ask quietly. He *always* knows when I’m upset. Ê He looks at me now with a slight kink in his brow but before he can say anything I hear Wolverine next to me and the whole table looks at him. With a slight growl he stalks out of the room. We all look at Ororo, she just frowns slightly. It’s the same rigmarole. Kitty goes out with Lance, Scott gets angry, Jean tries to calm him, Ororo keeps Logan in check until he can stand it no more and he marches out to keep an eye on the “Half Pint”. Maybe it’s because she’s the smallest of us, or maybe it’s because she’s the one Logan loves. It can’t be denied, kitty helps open Logan up and sometimes I think he sees her as the daughter he never had. On the other hand, I *know* he doesn’t see Jean that way. I don’t think about this much, because Jean can probe and she already knows that I know her big secret. I don’t think she would appreciate me thinking about her love life frequently, but it still weirds me out. I accidentally BAMFED into the hallway outside the library one day while Jean and Logan were inside. I, being the completely ignorant idiot that I am, hadn’t deciphered the messages I had seen being passed between the two of them. Training together in the danger room, scouting missions, studying! Yeah right. I walked in and witnessed Logan’s mouth over hers, an instant later I was being swore at for everything in hell! I knew Logan was a pretty hard guy, but most of the profanities that sprouted from his mouth were ones I hadn’t even heard before! Boy! Was *that* an education! And now I’m getting a scary death glare from Jean and I can feel my face burning hot beneath my fur. I’ll stop thinking about this. Ê Evan slaps me on the back roughly “Hey man, wanna go kick some ball?” I smile. Ê “Oh yeah, and zis time I’m gonna beat your ass!” I leap from my chair. I’m sick of thinking about this stuff, time to run and have fun and forget about all the ills of living in this house. Ê In five minutes Evan and I are darting about tackling each other. It’s a “no-powers” match. I scoff. That’s only because my powers totally outweigh his in games of this nature. Score one for the fuzzy dude! The only problem is that Evan is faster than me on four legs. I suppose competing with Pietro for all these years has conditioned him. Well sufficed to say after a short while of being at the disadvantage I don’t wanna play anymore. I flop down on the grass and sigh. Evan jumps on me and tries one of those stupid wrestling manoeuvres on me. I yell for mercy when I find I can see buttocks much closer than is healthy. He let’s me go and we lie staring up at the purple evening sky breathless. I remember what happened at dinner and I prop myself up on an elbow and look at him. He rests his head on folded arms at his neck. His gaze moves to me. Ê “Evan why were you looking at me like zat at dinner?” I ask. He knows something about Kitty and Lance that I don’t. Ê He looks away guiltily. “Kurt, man…” He trails off. Ê “Evan.” My voice has command in it, and he rolls over and sits up when he hears it, preferring to turn his back on me than face my demanding. “Look Evan is this about Kitty?” I see the back of Evan’s head bob. It’s about her. “What is it?” I’m more worried than curious now. I BAMF around and face him. He looks up into my eyes and I know he knows something that’s dangerous. Ê Evan sighs in defeat and struggles to come out with it. “Look, man Kitty…she…well Jean told me I’d better tell you, cause she knows how you feel about Kitty.” Ê “What is it?” I’m really freaked out now. I’d go to hell and back to help Kitty. Ê “Well Jean said she over heard Kitty’s thoughts when she passed the toilet one day. She was really upset and she like nearly deafened Jean man. Something about skipping her period” My ears perk to a new height. I’m not an idiot, I know what skipping a period can mean for a girl. “So anyway…” Evan sees my shock and tries to soften the blow. “Look dude, Jean doesn’t know for sure, she’s just speculating, she doesn’t want to say anything to the Professor and she doesn’t want to probe Kitty’s mind. She was hoping you could help Kitty and find out what’s actually happening.” Ê I can feel my heart beating erratically. If she’s pregnant, then it’s Lance’s baby! Lance, he had her. He took her! I can’t believe Lance would take her innocence! But Kitty let him. All these nights she’s been coming into my bed for solace, just for a teddy bear to wipe away her tears and she’s been sleeping with him. How could she do that, she’s only 15! Maybe Scott knows, maybe that’s why he’s so angry about her going out with lance. I can feel my heart shattering. If he’d taken her unwillingly she wouldn’t go back to him. My head’s spinning, everything I believed Kitty was has been washed away in a torrent of disbelief and pain. God why is this happening? Ê Evan puts his hand on my shoulder and looks at me. “Hey Dude are going to be alright?” I push him away and BAMF to my room. I know I shouldn’t have done that but all I can think about this searing pain in my chest and the sudden urge to cry. I all but dissolved onto my bed in wracks of sobs. I’ve lost her. I have no chance, and I don’t even hate Lance anymore, I don’t know why, but he doesn’t matter even although he took away all I ever wanted. I’m too angry to be upset about anything other than everything that stops me from being lance and everything that changed Kitty Pryde into a stranger. Heck maybe I didn’t know Kitty as well as I thought I had. If…if she’s pregnant, she wont be able to stay at the institute anymore, she’ll have to go home and look after …THEIR baby. The Brotherhood won’t take her in. I bet she thinks they will, but they won’t. I know my mother. She wouldn’t take her in. The professor will be left with no choice. Lance will abandon her! Who will she have then? No one! She’ll only have her parents. I feel so betrayed but at the same time, I compose myself and realise that this isn’t supposed to be my pain. Poor Kitty! Not only will she have to deal with being a mutant, but she’ll also have to bear the pain and insecurity of being a single mother with a mutant for a child. With a mix of blood like hers and Lance’s; who knows what could come of that? I’m so angry, but I don’t know where to lay my anger. I slide off the bed with tears still matting my fur and clasp my hands together. I pray, what else can I do Ê Oh God give me the strength and give Kitty strength and please let this be all a misunderstanding, don’t make Kitty pregnant, don’t make her ruin her life, don’t make her have a baby, she’s too young. Let her leave Lance and just be a normal 15 year old. Please God, Please Jesus, save her from this.” I feel hot tears burning and stinging my eyes and I can’t deal with anymore of this. God, I’ll never eavesdrop again, just please don’t let this be real! Ê AN: Oooooh punchy opening chapter! I haven’t really decided what I want to do with this fic yet, I wanna know what you think should happen. Should Kitty be pregnant or should it be a fluke? R&R and let me know. I need your input!!! Until then it’ll be a surprise. Heheh until next chappie!!!
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