Family Ties

CHAPTER FIVE




CHAPTER FIVE

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A/N Goddess
Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™ and Prophetic
Muse, just what did Tim do with the Friday pair? InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are sparklebunnies for
archiving. J ProPhile
gets more shiny gold stars even though he will abandon me for a week, lol, and
Jubilee and Tex get muse kibble, just because they can. And Ramsey is special, too. He gets duck hugs. ;)
Readers/Reviewers: I worship and
adore you people for reading!!!!!
Armadillos for all of you!!!!
Big shiny plaid ones!!!!

 

 

 

Kitty found her rhythm sometime
around nine in the morning. Sweep,
sweep, sneeze, sweep, sweep, sneeze…
The smell of wood shavings was nearly suffocating in the new hallway
curving through the school-wing of the Institute, little flurries of dust and
construction detritus flyin to to meet her with each push of the nearly
ineffectual broom. After her tenth
sneezing fit, Kitty let the broom drop to the floor with a clatter and let
herself drop beside, it, burying her face against her knees and trying to
breathe in anything that was not composed primarily of wood. Ugh. I smell like sweat and laundry
soap. A winning combination if there
ever was one… She wrinkled her nose at her own aroma and
let her head fall back to rest on the wall, unpainted but covered in taped-on
paint chips. The Professor had selected
ten nearly stinstinguishable shades of white for the hallway and Logan had
declared them all to look like Elmer’s glue still in the bottle. After a lengthy discourse in which all the
adults had gotten involved, it had been decided that the hallway would be
painted a shade Warren called “Boring as Hell,” but the paint chip proclaimed
to be “Eggshell White.” Looks just like Snow White to me. And Matte White and Off White and Cream and
Daisy and…greck. Warren’s right, I
think…Boring as Hell would be the best name for it. White. All the other
halls here are such nice, interesting colors with paintings and vases and
things on pedestals…this school bit is going to look like an institution…
Kitty sighed to herself. Guess that’s only fitting… She
was on the verge of forcing herself to sweep another ten or fifteen feet of
floor when Jean’s voice echoed in her head.


 

Kit,
phone for you. Someone named Esther.

 

Kitty was downstairs
before Jean could tell the caller to hold on.
“Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Kitty gasped, taking the phone from her
friend. Jean quirked a brow and
retreated several feet to give Kitty privacy.
“Esther! Hey!”

 

“Kitty,” her cousin
said, the smile evident in her voice.
“I’m so glad you’re coming to the wedding! I was worried you wouldn’t get the invitation in time…”

 

Kitty listened with
growing irritation towards her biological parents as Esther told of her
struggle to wrest the address of the Xavier Institute from the Prydes and the
ensuing barrage of half truths and outright lies that the erstwhile arbiters of
normalcy had treated Esther to before she could get off the phone with
them. After a moment of silence that
threatened to stretch for too long, Kitty asked, “Are they going to be there?”

 

“I’m…not sure,” Esther
admitted, sounding harried. “Honestly,
I kind of hope not, though Yaya would spin in her grave to hear me say that,
I’m sure!”

 

“Don’t be,” Kitty
muttered under her breath. “Well, I’m
going to be there Friday night if all goes well and I made up tons of henna
already!”

 

“Bless you,” Esther
sighed. “I hadn’t had time and you
could always get it to set better than I could…But do you think you might be
able to come up sooner? Like maybe,”
here she paused, sounding a bit sheepish, “maybe tomorrow night instead?”


Kitty grimaced, thinking of
how much of a pain it was going to be to wrangle permission for that from the
Professor, especially in light of how annoyed he was with her just then, given
her complicity in the elopement. “I
think I can,” she finally said with a sigh.


 

“Good!” Esther sounded relieved. “I wanted for us to have a chance to catch
up before everything starts. It’s been
so long…”

 

Kitty sighed
again. It had been exactly three years,
six months and two days since she had last talked to Esther. Three years since her parents had found her
in the basement that fateful midnight, her sheets trailing from the ceiling,
six months after their grandfather died, Esther having stayed with them for two
days afterwards so she could take shiva calls.
“I’m sorry,” Kitty began.

 

“Don’t be,” Esther
said firmly. “Honestly, your folks have
always kind ofepedeped me out…” There
was mutual, nervous tittering on both ends of the line, neither wanting to
continue that line of conversation.

 

“Oh!” Kitty said suddenly, excitedly. “I forgot to tell you…” Quickly, aware of Jean still hovering
nearby, she rattled off aboutt ant and the circus being in Chicago. “It’s okay if he comes, right?” she asked
breathlessly as she came to the end of the short story.

 

“Of course, you
goose! Circus, huh?” Esther sounded as excited as Kitty
felt. “Maybe we can sneak off from the
aunts and go!”

 

“The aunts,” Kitty
groaned. “I’d almost forgotten!”

 

“They haven’t,” Esther
said darkly. “Be prepared!”

 

“Oy.”

 

“Exactly!”

 

With that the conversation wound to a close,
Kitty promising to call her as soon as she knew for sure what time she would be
in town so they could make arrangements to meet. With a heartfelt sigh, Kitty turned to face Jean, her good mood
evaporating at the glum look on the older girls’ face. “What’d he do now?”

 

“What’d who do?” Jean asked, her expression
becoming carefully blank when she felt Kitty’s piercing gaze on her face.

 

“Scott.
You only look like that when he fucks up big time. So what’d he do?”

 

“Walk and talk,” Jean said, glancing towards the
stairs where Amara and Rogue were descending noisily, arguing about something
or other. Jean took Kitty by the elbow
and led her down the hall and out the old service entrance, around several
quickly diminishing piles of lumber and sheet rock, and finally to the smaller
of Storm’s two greenhouses. Once safely
ensconced inside, Jean’s face went from neutral to tearful. “I think Scott’s having second thoughts
about us being marri

 

“What?”
Kitty pushed her towards a low potting bench and Jean sank down
automatically. “Did he say
something? Do something?”

 

“He didn’t have to,” Jean said thickly, tapping
her temple.

 

“Oh…”
Kitty sat next to her and absently patted her friend’s back. “He’s probably just really stressed about
the Professor finding out and all… I mean, it was a pretty big to-do, what with
being forced to move…”

 

“That’s just it,” Jean said, a few tears leaking
before she dashed them away, radiating self-loathing. “He was fine until we got moved in. The first night, he started getting…wonky.”

 

“Wonky?
Is that some teep term I need to know about?” Kitty asked with an arch
of her brow.

 

Jean’s chuckle was watery. “I’m not that good of a teep but I can tell
things, especially when it comes to Scott.
He’s mad as Hell…at me!” She
sniffled again and a few more tears escaped.
“I think he’s mad because I’m not.”

 

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Kitty said after
a mt. t.

 

“I know,” Jean sighed. “Everything is starting out surprisingly well…I’m going to start
working for Cecilia, take that nurse’s aide course, and see about finishing
school early so I can get into college in the spring and…”

 

“Whoa,” Kitty said, holding up one hand. “I know what’s wrong.”

 

“Impossible,” Jean said, mildly taken
aback. “How can you?”

 

“Because I’m not as close to the problem as you
are,” Kitty said as if she were speaking to an especially slow child. “Look…you’re wounding his ego! Instead of being scared like he is, you’re
landing on your feet, already getting a job, already planning school…he’s
scared shitless that things are going to fall apart and you’re hitting the
ground running!”

 

Jean snorted.
“Why should he be scared? He
hasn’t even looked for work yet, so he can’t say he’s scared there’s no jobs…”

 

“I don’t know what he’s scared of, just that he
is,” Kitty said, shrugging. “I know
Scott—he thinks he’s my brother, for crying out loud! He hates not being in control of a situation and that’s just
what’s going on! He’s not in control at
all and he has no idea how to regain it!”

 

Jean chewed her thumbnail absently for a moment
and idly fingered the leaf of a glossy red tropical plant, dusted with pollen
and looking almost obscene. “You might
have a point…”

 

Kitty smiled.
“He’s probably not really mad at you at all…he’s doubts are just a way
of dealing with being scared! Bet you
anything he’ll be fine as frog hair by next week!”

 

“ ‘Fine as frog hair’?” Jean quoted.

 

“Sorry…been talking to Rogue a lot today,” Kitty
sighed. “I’d better go find Kurt…I need
to let him know I’m supposed to leave Thursday now. And maybe I need to ask the Professor, too,” Kitty murmured,
phasing out into the late morning as Jean followed in a more conventional
manner.

 

 

 

Kurt was found on the sofa in the rec room,
nursing two of the three fingers on his right hand. “What happened?” Kitty cried when upon seeing him. She fixed Logan, lurking in the background,
with a hard glare. “I told you he
shouldn’t hammer!”

 

“Schatz,” Kurt said loudly so as to be heard
over her nascent tirade. “It wasn’t the
hammering that did it!”

 

“Drill?” she asked hopefully. She had a good mad brewing and Logan would
be the only one who would not be offended by her ire.

 

“Nope,” the older man said, sounding a bit
irked. “Piotr.”

 

“What?” Kitty’s anger bloomed. “What did he do to you?”


Kurt ducked his eyes away from
Kitty’s glare. “Nothing,” he answered
meekly.

 

“Slow down, Half-Pint, before you start accusing
people of things they didn’t do…” Logan
crossed to Kitty and gripped her upper arms in his, forcing her attention on
him alone. “There was an accident
upstairs and…”

 

“An accident?” she gasped, trying to wriggle
free from Logan’s grasp and go to Kurt.

 

“An accident,” her foster father repeated
firmly. “Piotr fell through the roof
and Kurt saved him from breaking his neck.
Theoretically speaking.”

 

“Piotr c’ve ’ve just done his metal thing and
been fine!”

 

“Well, yeah, but Kurt just sort of reacted
automatically…” Logan let go of her
arms as she stopped struggling. “And
Piotr was shocked that he fell so I don’t know that he would’ve shifted
anyway.”

 

Kitty edged around Logan and he let her, easing
herself gently onto the sofa near Kurt’s legs as she asked, “So what happened?”

 

“The Elf’s out of it, Kit. Beast gave him some painkillers… Damnl wal was worn out already and ported to
catch Piotr but couldn’t port again with him in tow. He broke two fingers and…” Logan sighed, “Sprained his tail.”

 

Kitty frowned deeply and petted Kurt’s leg
absently. “I’m gonna kick Piotr’s ass
later, okay?”

 

“It wasn’t his fault,” Logan pointed out, though
he smirked a little.

 

“I don’t care,” Kitty said petulantly.t jut just makes me feel better to say it.”


“You are my daughter,” Logan
muttered so quietly that Kitty missed it.
A bit louder, he said, “Elf’s gonna be out for a while…don’t bother
him.”

 

“Okay,” Kitty said, feeling certain that her
definition of “bother” differed greatly from Logan’s. As Logan went into the kitchen, Kitty carefully pulled Kurt’s
tail into her lap and ran her fingers down it, feeling the slight swelling
where the sprain had occurred. “Poor
Kurt,” she sighed, seeing him wince even in his drug-induced sleep. “Poor, poor Kurt…” She leaned down and kissed his sore tail, which made him shift
slightly and murmur in his sleep, but Kitty did not have the chance to do
anything else as the doorbell rang.
“Damn it,” she muttered, and phased herself free. She beat St John to the door by two steps
and stuck out her tongue at him as she opened it, only to gasp in surprise at
the number of people there.

 

“Hello,” St John said before she could
recover. “Can we help you?”

 

A woman who looked old as the hills and barely
came up to Kitty’s chin nodded and said slowly, carefully, “Jubilation Lee.”

 

This was repeated by the even older man standing
on her left. “Jubilation Lee, please.”

 

Kitty nodded and elbowed St John in the ribs. “Jubilee…” As St John
darted towards the stairs, Kitty counted and winced inwardly. Twelve people and none of them looked
amused.