Need

"She can't leave." Kurt surged to his feet so quickly that the Professor looked startled for a second. "Not like this." He tried to teleport out of the office and to go and find Kitty, but he found himself blocked by the professor.

"Kurt sit down." The command came inside his head and he sat. "You need to calm yourself. You've been losing control slowly over the last few weeks." Kurt nodded numbly. The professor entered the young man's mind. He pushed past the panic and pain and nudged Kurt's reason to the front of his thoughts. "Talk to me."

Kurt spoke as honestly as he could. When he couldn't find the words to verbalize his pain, Xavier read it in him. he was ripping apart inside and couldn't seem to stop the spiral that was consuming him like a fierce tidal suge. He didn't feel the first tears begin to slip out, but when he looked at his hands, he noticed them wet.

"I feel like I'm dying inside." He said. "I can't help resenting her for pulling away, and I can't stop myself from hating her." He buried his face in his hands. "Just a little bit." He said. "I hate her just a little bit." He switched into German and sobbed out a few of his more negative feelings. The professor spoke many laguages, but even if he hadn't, he could understand Kurt on a pre-verbal level. When the young man had cried himself out, Xavier reached out and lay a hand on his shoulder.

"She's not leaving forever." He said. She's just getting her own place with Rogue, off the school grounds where she can have someplace to go at night." He handed Kurt some tissues and allowed the blue-furred mutant to mop his face up. "She'll still continue to teach here and work with the students till she goes to college in the fall. But she's lived here for four years and needs to spread her wings a little."

"Why did you stop me from teleporting?" Kurt asked, afraid to hear the answer. Xavier frowned a little and closed his eyes.

"I was afraid you were going to find Kitty before we'd had a chance to talk."

"I was." Then Xavier entered his mind and gently showed him a few disturbing images. They were flashes from Kurt's own memories. Kitty talking on the phone to her parents, Kitty shopping with Rogue, Kitty sleeping in her bed, and Kitty taking her moring run through the estate grounds. Kurt felt tears again as he was forced to relive his shamful moments of weakness. He'd been watching her, sneaking around secretly and watching her like some kind of stalker. "Mein Gott." He whispered. Then, "I never would have hurt her Professor." He said, begging the man to understand him. Xavier lay his hand on Kurt's shoulder again.

"I am certain that you would never mean to harm *any* of your friends, Kurt. But you were coming dangerously close to losing control of yourself and I'd prefer not to consider what might have happened."

Kurt knew. He knew deep inside what might have happened. He'd thought about taking her away with him sometimes. He thought about teleporting the two of them to someplace quiet where they could talk uninterrupted. But the more desperate he felt, the more the thoughts were getting twisted and he began to imagine taking her out of her bed, or grabbing her during her morning jog. Maybe she wouldn't be upset, maybe she'd listen, and maybe she'd be relieved that he'd brought his feelings out into the open. The ugly, honest, voice inside of him whispered that it might not happen that way. Maybe she'd be angry at him, maybe she'd try to run away, and maybe he'd try to hold onto her too tightly. Maybe he'd lash out from his own pain and hurt her.

"I've always been able to control myself until recently." He said. "Why have I lost control with this one woman so many times?" He didn't expect an answer, and the Profesor didn't give him much of one.

"I can't tell you that, Kurt. But my door is always open if you wish to discuss it furtner." Kurt got up and walked out the door. He felt raw and sore inside as if he'd swallowed glass. He'd had no concious concept of how close he was coming to the edge. He wasn't a dangerous man. No, that wasn't true. He *was* a dangerous man. The house was filled with many young people whose gifts made them capable of serious destruction. From a philosophical standpoint, he had to wonder if, as a man and a mutant, he *was* what he was capable of. He went back to his room and showered before perching on his balcony and sitting out in the cold, January air for a long time.