Tempest in a Teapot

Tempest in a Teapot Chapter Fourteen
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… Meep. Germany doesn’t get hurricanes… move over! I’m hiding with you! InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. J ProPhile: Hmmm…NY doesn’t get many hurricanes, does it? Morgan: Lucky landlocked city… Readers/Reviewers: In case you didn’t guess…we’re supposed to be whacked with a hurricane here in a few days so if there’s no updates, I’ve got no power at the house or I’m building an ark. Either way…

Kitty stopped dead in her tracks, causing Todd to run square into her back. “What the…”
“We thought they were getting better,” Amara shouted over the din. “We seem to have been mistaken!” She flared a bright, shimmering orange-yellow as Mark lunged for her, apparently not for the first time. “Vile dog!” she spat, sidestepping a wild swing of the fireplace poker.
Rogue seemed relatively safely ensconced as she was on the stairs, but Kurt, apparently torn between being a crane and being a swashbuckler, dangled from the branches of the light fixture, swinging wildly. “Kurt!” Kitty cried, abandoning Todd to his staring, open mouthed posture. “Get down from there!” She ran forward as if she was going to pull him down but stopped just out of reach of his tail. “Kurt! What the Hell,” she began, but her words were cut off in a loud cry as Storm tackled her, sending her sprawling.
Storm knelt over Kitty, explicitly naked and holding a long dowl wrapped in foil. “Finally!” the older woman cried. “You’re back! We missed you!” She bent and gave Kitty a smacking kiss on either cheek before leaping to her feet and spinning in a loose circle.
Kitty, on her back on the marble floor of the front hall, stared at the ceiling, a view interrupted by Saint John’s worried face. “Ow,” she said by way of greeting.
“Don’t worry,” he nodded. “I’m going to fix this!”
Kitty did not have a chance to ask what he meant; Saint John disappeared from her line of vision only to be replaced by Todd. Somehow, he had managed to get hold of her lipstick out of her purse and was wearing it. Badly. “The Prince is here!” he jittered excitedly, then promptly closed his eyes and fell down beside her, breathing shakily as if on the verge of panic.
Sitting up slowly, Kitty finally found Logan, standing in the doorway to the rec room with a distinctly pained look on his face. “Hey, Half-pint,” he said flatly. “Wanna come with me? I’m runnin’ away from home to join the circus.”
She smiled weakly, getting to her feet and dodging Mark’s sword and footwork as she made her way towards her foster father. “I have something that might help,” she said, raising her voice above the growing din. She raised the thick packet of information she had been clutching as if her life depended on it ever since she had left the car in the garage, what seemed like ages ago. “Where’s Beast?”
“Battening down the hatches,” Logan replied, nodding to something happening over Kitty’s shoulder.
Turning, the teenager winced to see Kurt being bundled into a sheet as if he were a recalcitrant kitten about to be given a pill. “Don’t hurt him!” she shouted, edging forward, only to be knocked back as Storm galloped by, singing a rhyme about posies and rain. “He’s not doing anything bad!”
Kurt was hooting sadly, his tail lashing as he fought against Beast. “I’m not hurting him!” the good doctor shot back. “He’s doing it to himself!”
Saint John, face pale and body visible shaking, mounted the stairs behind Beast and Kurt, Rahne close by his side. “HEY!” he shouted to no effect. “HEY!” He growled under his breath and tried one more time. “IT’S MY FAULT!” he shouted. “ALL OF THIS IS MY FAULT!”
It took a moment for his words to sink in, but silence fell like a thick blanket over the room. “What do you mean, kid?” Logan’s gruff voice finally cut through the atmosphere of uncertainty and discomfort. “You didn’t make anyone sick. You didn’t make the tea…”
“It’s my fault,” Saint John repeated, unable to look at Logan. “Rahne can tell you…”
“Saint John, I have proof of what this is. The tests the university did were all wrong,” Kitty said excitedly, shaking the packet in her hand as if it were a great prize. “There’s no way it can be your fault!”
Rahne cleared her throat softly. “Actually… it is.”

Kitty chewed her lower lip gently, frustration threatening to make her swear or throw a fit. “Look,” she sighed. “I have these test results. Could you PLEASE just look at them?”
“Kitty,” Beast replied gently, “there is nothing you could have found that the university didn’t check.”
Glaring at Saint John, sitting silently in Beast’s office between Rahne and Professor Xavier, Kitty finally gave in to her urge and growled. “Wanna bet? I can prove to you that Saint John had nothing and I mean NOTHING to do with this!”
“Yes I did,” the young man said softly. “I messed with Storm’s tea… I thought it’d be funny…”
“Saint John,” Kitty exploded before Beast or the Professor could even say a word, “it’s not those herbs you mixed into her tea!”
“The results showed nothing toxic,” Beast put in, frowning at Kitty. “And don’t encourage him.”
“They weren’t toxic.” Kitty tossed her ponytail in aggravation. “We are.”