( OOC Note: This scene picks up in the middle of a conversation.  For
background: After Celliers and Constantine left, Kitty started glancing
over the papers Pete had left in the kitchen. They proved to be a list of
addresses of potential wedding invitees. Most of them were expected; a few
of them were amusing ... and then Kitty found the address of her native
counterparts' parents on the list.

( The yell of "Goddammit, Wisdom!" was plainly enough audible upstairs
that Pete attempted an escape, but didn't quite make it out in time before
Kitty caught him. Once she'd managed to convince him she wasn't actually
going to do him bodily harm, the two of them actually sat down and talked
about the subject of weddings and parent-counterparts. Given that it'd
been ten years since Kitty spoke even to her /actual/ parents back home, 
and that her father had done work for organized crime in both their
worlds (including an incident that led to Kitty's possession by a
demon in Pete's), Kitty was ... less than enthusiastic.

( Then Pete summed up what had happened to her native counterpart by
telling her that the first time her native counterpart had phased had
/not/ been safely in her bedroom at home. "You know how you feel about   
cars...?" Kitty put that together with her parents' native counterparts   
not being divorced, and suddenly "less than enthusiastic" was an
overstatement. They agreed to leave her parents off the list for now, and
Pete dodged talking about his.

( Kitty went back to reading, which went fine till she tripped over
Piotr's name. That led to severe discomfort on Pete's part - "He's your 
friend" - and rather more than discomfort when Kitty admitted to Pete that
she hadn't explicitly told Piotr about the upcoming wedding. Hadn't hidden
it from him, but hadn't told him, either. Oops... )

Cold, he's cold. He'd been warm, likely making it rather too warm for
Kitty in the checkered room; now he's cold, even though she's leaned up
against him with her arm around, list of addresses in her lap, holding his
head to her shoulder. "Even if it's good. Even if it's a good reaction. I
want to see it, I don't - I know I'm paranoid. I know it's hardly fair.
And so many we've known to be on our side haven't been. He's a grey area
in and of himself, if only in my mind..."

Kitty nods, just the slight motion of her head against his hair. Given
that up here the temperature tends to be kept to his liking anyhow, yes,
it's too hot, but she's not inclined to pull away to fix that. "If it's
good, you need to see it, or you'll never be able to believe it. If it's
bad - you know I wouldn't /let/ anything go wrong, but you wouldn't be
able to forgive yourself for not being there anyway." The paper gets
creased as she wriggles a little, trying to find a more comfortable angle.
"It's not paranoia. You've got /reason/ to worry. /I'll/ even say that,
and he /is/ my friend. You need to be there."

"Same reason to worry," returns Pete's muffled voice; they've switched
around, he's the one leaning in now, "as you've got over your da and
safety. Fucking parallels." There's a pause and he briefly addresses the
ceiling. "I didn't /mean/ that!"

Kitty's about to say something, and then Pete speaks to the ceiling and
she has to pause herself - there's a moment that goes by before she makes
a sudden small choking noise, and her free hand makes a fist and impacts
very lightly with his shoulder. "Ahem. Yeah. Except that we don't yet have
a counterexample to my dad, and we do to Piotr. And Piotr's been
demonstrating relative calm - yes, I'm not arguing that that's a reason to
take chances if we can avoid it, I remember what you said about yours..."
Her voice has gone serious again, and the next sentence is very close to
coldly practical. "/And/ he would be, quite frankly, a threat we could
deal with if we have to. I don't want to have to. But we could, either one
of us. What it comes down to is, more or less, he's a known quantity. My
dad, right now, isn't, and we don't have time to fix that." She pauses.
"In theory, you know, we don't /have/ to tell him at all. I mean. He
hasn't noticed /yet/, has he?"

"Not exactly making the news though, is it," mumbles Pete, slouching
again, exhaling firmly, fishing his pencil out of his shirt pocket and
chewing on it idly. "Don't know. People've got a tendency to talk about
weddings the way they don't talk about engagements. You'd think that a
fairy and a girl with pointed ears, living on an island with a small
community about them, wouldn't get talked about from New York to Genosha
when they were married, eh? But we've got the same sort of thing here, I'd
think - only thing travels faster than light is gossip. Useful to /me/.
Not that we're as flash as those two, but we know enough people someone's
bound to mention it in front of him, is all. And I'd rather - well. Like I
said. Rather see his reaction than hear about it too late." Lot of
talking. Suddenly the pencil's not good enough, and Pete straightens a
little, reanimate, kisses Kitty briefly and stands to go over and crack
open the window before lighting a cigarette.

"Meggan was the fairy," Kitty says resignedly, letting Pete go - and
putting the list aside and climbing to her feet to head window-ward
alongside him. Not touching, but not out of arm's reach, either. "And
besides. We already settled that one. Meggan and Brian, Kate and Jack, you
choking on your breakfast cereal." She winds a curl around a fingertip.
"Yeah, though. He talks about not knowing anybody, but ... he works at the
art gallery, and we're probably only a couple handshakes away from art
students. Yeah. You're right."

"Jack is far more masculine than Brian could ever have hoped to be,"
retorts Pete, getting the cigarette lit and looking out the window, even
as he's exhaling. And then he's reaching out and leaning a little, sliding
an arm around Kitty's waist and pulling her closer, trying to keep as much
of the smoke away as possible. "And look, if I were in his position, I'd
talk a lot about not knowing anyone. But consider where he lives, who he
obviously does know. He knew Summers. Summers ran with Kess. Kess is
making your dress." Pause of about two heartbeats and Pete looks oddly
pleased and then amusedly annoyed; shakes his head. "Big city. Right. But
the metahuman community is ludicrously small, as usual. I used to know
better..."

Keeping the smoke away is easy, relatively: stay out from between Pete and
the window, and duck her head. Which conveniently puts her head against
his shoulder. "Mm. He works, he goes home, he sleeps, maybe he paints, and
he goes back to work. A lot of double shifts..." Absent words, quiet.
Can't control when you run into someone unless you know what their
schedule is right. There's a quick little grin from her during that
two-heartbeat pause, too. And then she lifts her head, and there's more
focus in her words, more fire. "I'm /sick/ of secrets."

The answer to that's a moment in coming, and when it does it's just as
lacking in fire as Kitty's statement was full. "You think you're the only
one?" Pete's not looking at her at all; she's leaning against his
shoulder, but his head's against the window frame. "Don't know how to keep
from keeping them and not get smashed. Wish I hadn't any at all,
sometimes."

She relents a little, reining the almost-flash of temper back in
carefully. Tugging it back under control. "It's not so bad," she says more
quietly, "when there's somebody you don't have to keep them from." Her
hand lifts, brushes fingertips along his cheek, is let drop.

"Not /so/ bad doesn't stop it from being bad in the first place, does it."
Pete glances back and down at Kitty, looking about ten years older than he
is. "Use your judgement on it. Mine's biased." Funny, coming from him to
her, here. Started off backward, didn't it?

Kitty pauses for an instant, taken aback. Then glances up to Pete. "You
want my judgment on it?" she says, serious. "If you really do, here it is.
Ask his blessing." A pause. "And if you do it when I'm not in reach of
you, I'll kick your skinny /ass/, Wisdom, I swear."

"What do you take me for," asks Pete, lips pursed, brow furrowed in mock
consternation, "Doyle's schizophrenic sheep-worrier? Not /that/ out of
touch with reality, love. We've both got to be there." And he leans over
and kisses her forehead, "I'll do that, then. Though it makes me feel a
bit like Worf."

Kitty quirks eyebrows up at him. "It /better/ not. You realize how often
that poor Klingon got beat up?" Her arm tightens around him. "I don't know
how to handle it when the last time he saw you you had him literally in
your sights. But that one turned out all right. Here's hoping this will,
too."

The cigarette gets put out with a self-conscious little half-smile, and
Pete drops it in the tray on the sill. He goes for a more proper kiss this
time, then pulls back slightly and grins lopsidedly. "Here's hoping all
the days ahead," he sings quietly, "won't be as bitter as the ones behind
you. Be an optimist instead, and somehow happiness will find you - look
what happiness did, I know that better things are on their way--"

He's the one that can keep on key - Kitty just listens and savors the
smoke-taste, and hums very softly with. Okay - sings with, after another
couple of lines. "Accept your life and what it brings..." Her free hand
reaches up to rest on his chest, over his shirt. "I /think/ that leaves
just one set left." She tips her head back, looking up. "Your parents? Do
you want to?" He's evaded saying a couple of times already in this
conversation; time to ask directly.

"Yeah, I do," he replies as frankly as asked. Pete has the grace to look
slightly sheepish. "Something I wouldn't have got there at all - except my
da, we'd made up and it - well. *My* da. I suspect this one's close
enough, if the shock of it doesn't send him dottier than anything else I
could ever have done. Not sure which would be more off to him, either - my
being alive or getting /married/. It's just--" Here the sheep goes and he
looks faintly bewildered, his expression taking on a taint of hurt hope,
possibly, or pained bafflement. Leaning against the wall now, still with
Kitty pulled close. "Romany said she was, in essence, a waste of space. I
don't know what to think."

Kitty takes a moment to think about this. "Your dad," she says
thoughtfully, "accused me of worshipping the A-Bomb. And of being a
Freemason. And possibly of having been in on the Kennedy assassination. I
think it'd definitely be the /marriage/ part." She settles against both
the wall and him, propped close against his side. Yeah, like that. "In
which case, Heaven help us, he /might/ actually show up out of sheer
curiosity. Except he'd probably be concerned that I'd try to offer him up
as a human sacrifice or something. I don't..." Her eyes soften again as
she glances up at him. "I don't know, either, though. But we don't have to
know. Do we? We can try."

"We don't /have/ to know, either situation." This is pointed out
carefully, and Pete's meeting Kitty's gaze; there's nervousness in the
back of his. "What I don't know is - one of the things she said. One of
the things. She said, let her rest. Because I'd buried my mother - she'd
buried her son. And she apparently went mad, and - from what Romy said,
she might as /well/ be dead. The way she is. And I thought about it a lot.
If my existance, right? If my being here, alive, could bring her back -
that'd be, well. Yeah. But thing is, I couldn't deal with having to be
there all the time. I couldn't be - and besides, if the completely
annoying happens and the portals fuck shit up, /we've/ got a contingency
plan for us, but it's for us. Felt awful enough about Romany. She didn't
mind - but I don't know, really, I just - is it fair. Is it? Is it even my
decision to make?" How long as it been since he's ever sounded this
uncertain, of himself or of anything? Has he ever? So plainly, simply
worried.

"It's not fair to /either/ of you." Just a tad angry there, though not at
Pete. She reaches up to run her thumb over stubble again. "I think - what
it comes down to is - /are/ they our parents. Are they - do we have to -
do we have an obligation." For one instant she /almost/ said, 'are they
close enough,' and that was enough to make her stumble for a moment. "If
we do - then it's - /not/ our decision. Is it? If we don't ... then we
still have to think about it."

"Well..." Pete's looking kind of wide-eyed. Kind of stuck, frightened.
Resigned. Hopeful. It's - oh yes - a very strange mix. "Well, see.
Romany's my sister. And I'm absolutely her brother. If it counts with her
- doesn't it by definition count with them? I don't know. I hate
altiversal metaphilosophy." Pause. "I really do."

Kitty gives a crooked, rueful little smile up at him. "Solves the argument
nice and fast, though, doesn't it? We invite them. Both sets. And brace in
case they /don't/ decide it's some kind of bizarre prank - but we /have/
to invite them."

"Does, at that," answers Wisdom, not quite smiling. "And who knows. It
might turn out to be marvellous. Romany'll be furious. Back to the list,
then?"

Kitty gives him a helpless look herself, this time. "There aren't any more
like Tom Baker and Elvis Costello on it, are there?" she asks in a tiny,
feeble tone.

Bright smile. "Colin Mochrie?"

Bright smile right back up at him, and Kitty tells him lovingly, "Hell
no."