Institutionalized

INSTITUTIONALIZED CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), tell John and Tim their chance to wallop someone is coming soon. :) InterNutter. TC and Maxwell Pink are wonderful for archiving! :) Readers/Reviewers: The Killer Kitties (tm) and their Minions(tm) have disappeared...I think I'm worried. And Thankyouthankyouthankyou for reading! :)

Kitty was beyond agitated. In fact, she felt quite comfortable in saying that she was well into pissed off territory. "Roulette, we've been driving for _three hours. _ I thought you had to go somewhere in town! Where are we?"
"Almost there," the blonde said, smiling. _Damn it...where's the turn-off? Shit. If I'm late, Frost's gonna kill me. Ah... _ "Right down this road."
Kitty glanced at the clock and sighed. It was well past sundown and she had no idea where they were. It was not so much missing Friday night services that bothered her, because she knew she could go the next morning, but it was the fact she seemed to be shanghaied that was irking her. _I can't believe this. This year was going so well... _"What's right down this road?"
"Where we're going," Roulette said, sounding irritated herself now. "So...how long have you and the blue guy been together?"
"Almost a year...a year next week, officially." Kitty edged closer to the door, just in case she had a chance to make a break for it. _Though where exactly am I breaking? I? I have no idea where we are other than potentially lost... _
Roulette glanced at her and grinned. "Don't be so nervous. I just have to see...someone...and drop of some stuff that she needs."
"How do you know this someone?" Kitty asked shortly. "Family? Friend?"
"You could say that she's like a mother to me," the blonde said, intentionally cryptic. "Okay. Out we go." Roulette stopped the car and shut it off before Kitty could even register that there was a house before them.
It was not so much a house, Kitty thought, as a fortress. It was huge-dark wood and brick nearly blending into the shadowy thickness of the trees surrounding it, lights barely shining through thick bottle-green glass windows and stained glass sidelights around the front door. She fought an uncouth urge to whistle in amazement at the sheer size of the dwelling. "Is this...her house?"
"You could say that," Roulette laughed. "House, compound...whatever."
Something seemed different about the area to Kitty. It felt alien and she had a sinking feeling that they weren't in New York anymore. "Um, just where are we?" She followed Roulette at a distance, looking around her at the inky darkness settling into the woods. No animals or bugs made night-calls, which struck Kitty as not only strange but downright creepy.
"We're outside of Boston. Actually...quite a bit outside. But it's the next big city!" Roulette sounded chipper and not a bit like the frowsy airhead she had been at the Institute.
"Boston?" Kitty screeched. "We're in Massachusetts? How did I not notice that?"
The blonde turned and faced her, finally looking exasperated. "Maybe because you were yakking the whole damned time! Now hurry your ass up! Emma's waiting!"
"Emma?" Kitty asked, finding herself moving though she really did not want to. Instead of bolting back to the car-the one Roberto had driven to the Institute in with the other new recruits, Kitty noted as if it mattered-and trying to hotwire it (_Damn it, I should hang out with Jubilee and Remy more after this, just in case... _), she trudged to the wide expanse of marble and stone that passed for a porch before the oaken double doors. "Emma?" she repeated.
Roulette shook her head, strands of impossibly light hair falling in her eyes. "Girl, you talk to much...Emma hates that."
_Emma, Emma, Emma...why is that name ringing a bell? _ Kitty made a face, an exaggeration showing that she was closing her mouth then and there, as they just walknto nto the house without knocking. Roulette glanced at her again, as if making sure she was still there, and led her through the expansive front hall and up a double staircase, taking the left branch to a narrow hall that was dark with red carpeting and highly varnished wood paneling. Roulette paused outside an otherwise nondescript door and knocked. Kitty felt an overwhelming sense of vertigo wash over her as they stood there, waiting for whoever was on the other side to answer. She felt blank. She could not remember what emotion she was supposed to be feeling or just why she should be feeling it, though she knew what was going on and could remember everything important to her. She was just, she thought to herself, very, very blank. The door opened then, making her twitch slightly though it was not in surprise. A rather imposing woman stood in the doorway, clad entirely in white. Her eyes pierced Kitty and a tiny smile played or fer features, though it was not warm in the way of most smiles. "Hello there," she practically purred. "You're Kitty Pryde. I've heard a lot about you..."
"From who?" she managed to ask as Roulette slid past the white-clad woman, motioning for Kitty to follow.
The woman's smile grew. "Oh, all sorts of people... I'm Emma Frost. You may call me Emma, if you like."
Kitty nodded, still feeling blank and a bit empty. _I should brrierried, shouldn't I? Where's the Professor when you really, really need him? He'd know if this is normal or not... _ "Emma..."
"Your Professor will be back in New York tomorrow, Kitty," she said smoothly, as if Kitty had spoken aloud. "He's returning with a dear friend of his. Oh, don't worry...I mean you no harm! You'll be there to meet him, in fact! I was just curious about you, about your expertise with the computers and other talents."
"I have other talents?" she asked dumbly. Roulette had disappeared through another door in the room and Kitty found that she actually missed her. She did not want to be alone with Emma at all.
Emma laughed. "Of course you do, dear! Oh, you're worried about what that red-head said to you. Kitty," she said seriously, her tone very like that of a kindergarten teacher explaining a difficult concept to a student, "you have more than enough skill and ability to be on the first team...in fact, if I had to guess," she said silkily, "I'd say your friend is a bit jealous."
"Jean has nothing to be jealous of," Kitty said distantly. "She's right. I've been slacking off. But she didn't have to be so mean about it!" Even as she said it, Kitty felt ashamed. She knew that Jean had not been cruel at all but it was her own wounded pride and ego making her touchy.
"Don't feel so badly," Emma said, reaching out and touching Kitty's hair in an almost motherly gesture. "You're right to be upset. She had every opportunity to tell you before hand, when she noticed that you had been neglecting your training. But you haven't really, have you? You still work on drills and such with that large man, don't you? Your...your father?"
"Logan," Kitty said. "Yeah, I guess he is my father." _Why am I telling her all this? _
"Foster father...but your heart calls him real." Emma perched on the edge of her ornate Louis XIV desk, feet flat on the floor. "Kitty, Roulette is a special student of mine. She is very...unique. Like yourself, like your friends. She is with you at the Institute now because I feel that there are some things there that would be quite useful to her training...some aspects of mutant life that I cannot provide for her."
Kitty nodded again, "So this is a school?"
"Not as such," Emma laughed. It was a sound like falling water, Kitty thought, ephemeral and unreal somehow. "The students I take in are here for...well, let's call it on the job training. It's more a vocational school than an academic one, if you insist on the euphemism of school."
"Why am I sitting here?" she asked, detached.
"I'm offering you a very unique opportunity. It is not often that I seek out students. Rather, they come to me. Something big is coming, Kitty. Something that will tear apart your world if you are not careful. I am offering you the chance to be safe in my quarter. I am offering you the opportunity to join with me, to join with Roulette and the others to, as your friend Beast would put it, fight the good fight."
"You sound like Magneto." The words held no inflection then, just flat statement.
"Ah, but with one tiny difference, my child. While Magneto wants to subjugate the non-mutants, I...we...want to separate the mutants and the humans." Kitty stared at her, cow eyed. Emma sighed, thinking that she had pushed the mental control too far and the girl had snapped. "You're Jewish, Kitty. You are aware of the history of your people, of the creation of Palestine?"
"Yes..." There was a long pause and Kitty's eyes widened, the first show of expression she had since entering the room. "Oh...you want to create a new state? Somewhere that only mutants can live?"
"A world power...we will not be large, but we will be..._influential." _
"Why me?"
"Why you? Well, Kitty, you possesses several traits that I find very desirable in a student. You are willing to learn, you are exceedingly smart-smarter than you let on and smarter than you have been given the opportunity to show-and you would be invaluable in working with the computer end of things. Further," Emma said, leaning forward, "it'd give you a chance to show those who doubt, those who know, that just because you are related to Magneto, you are nothing like him. You doubt it sometimes, don't you? You doubt that your friends meant it when they said they do not think differently of you now that it is known of your relatiop wip with the old man."
Kitty finally felt something. Shame. She had held it deep inside for months, the notion that she was related to Magneto and his evil, even if she had nothing to do with him. She felt dirty when she thought of it and wanted to scrape off the taint like a tangible film and throw it away, but she could not. Not even Kurt knew how she felt about it, so good was she at reassuring him and convincing him that she was fine, that her relationship to Magneto was a non-thing to her, that as far as she was concerned, her real grandfather was dead and in the cemetery in Chicago, moldering quietly in his shroud. "They don't hate me," she said finally.
"No, dear heart, they don't hate you. They hate him...they hate that blood, don't they?" Emma stood again and stroked Kitty's ponytail in a gesture both intimate and kind. "You're not his blood. You're your own person. You can fight against him with people who understand, people who will know that your hatred for Magneto is pure, not sullied by the false forgiveness of others..." She made herself stop Kitty's brows had dipped in confusion and Emma knew she was trying too hard, that the teenager was slowly coming out of her semi-trance, all the ideas being put in her head making her true thoughts and feelings vie for recognition. "Roulette is waiting downstairs for you."
"Oh...good..." Kitty was bland again, her face a perfect blank and her body held oddly rigid, as if she would fall if she tried to move. When she began to move, her walk was that of a sleepwalker, uncertain and hesitant, her hands reaching in front of her for obstacles unseen.
"I think that went well," Emma said to the woman just beyond her line of sight. "Don't you?"
The woman known as Firestar, holding several computer disks, stepped out from the room Roulette had gone into. "Do you think she will remember any of this?"
"As far as she is concerned, she and Roulette went to River View for some shopping at the new mall and had car trouble. Roulette knows her part aill ill back anything Kitty claims."
"Good...I hate killing children."

"Why am I here?" Kurt groaned, pounding his head gently against the dashboard of the Jeep. "Why, why why?"
Amara sighed. "Because you couldn't stand being in the house with Piotr mooning over Kitty. And I needed a ride to town." She stared out the window sulkily. "What time is it?"
"Seven thirty."
"I don't want to go back yet. Lance won't be asleep for hours and I don't want to talk to him tonight."
"Why did you kiss Sam?"
"I don't know...I was talking with Empath and Jamie by the greenhouse and Jamie saw Rahne so he took off after her. Empath said he wanted to get a better look at some of Storm's plants when Sam came up from the boat house and the next thing I knew..." she pressed her hands together and trailed off.
"Hmm...that seems to be going around a lot lately. Bobby and Rahne, Jean's space-out the other day..." Wheels were turning in Kurt's mind and he did not like the direction they were taking him. "Empath was there every time..."
"Bastard," Amara sighed, too wrought about Lance's potential reaction to care much about what Kurt was saying. "Kurt, what do you do when you want to hurt someone badly?"
"How do you mean?" he asked, momentarily distracted from his train of thought.
"I want to hurt someone. Really, really hurt them. Make them scream and bleed and feel bones crunch under my heel and tear their skin with my nails and..."
"I get it, I get it!" he shouted. "Why do you want to hurt Lance?"
"I don't," she said, her voice tinged with shock. "I'd never hurt him...not like that, anyway. There's some ways he likes being hurt, but that's different."
"Never having sex again now. Thanks..."
"Just doing my civic duty to ensure that you do not propagate. The person I want to hurt..." she sighed, not sure if she should continue or not. "I want to hurt Tabby. I hate her so much."
"I thought you had forgiven her." Kurt could see the tears standing in Amara's eyes, unshed, and he was tempted to put his arm around her shoulder as he would any other friend to comfort her, but something in her posture demanded that he keep his distance.
"No, never," Amara said, her voice shaking. "She killed my baby, Kurt. She killed it as surely as she had torn it from my body with her own two hands. I look at her, I see her stomach swelling and see that she is actually happy...I hate her. I want her to know how much it hurts to be me when I see her. Pietro didn't even want her and she's still happy. Her path is being eased for her by everyone and I hate that, too."
Kurt was at a loss for words. He stared at Amara in consternation and saw her tears finally spill. He had no idea that she would have actually wanted to keep the baby if she could have and he certainly had not expected her to become emotional over Tabby's pregnancy. "Amara..."
"In Nova Roma, I would have had at least one child by now. I was not gravid long, but for that short time, part of me, the part that was not panicking, was happy. I wanted it. I did not know how Lance was going to react but I knew that I wanted it no matter what he did or did not do. I felt like it was supposed to happen, like it was right. I did not really worry like some girls do, because for my people, this is a normal age for motherhood...but I worried because I was so alone."
"Amara," Kurt said carefully, choosing his words before speaking, "I don't know what I should tell you to do or even if I should tell you to do anything. I want to tell you to talk to Tabby but somehow...I think that is being naïve."
Amara sighed. "Can we just stay out here a little while longer? I don't want to see anyone tonight."
Kurt glanced at the clock. "I want to go see Erika...you can come with me, if you want."
"Didn't you see her this morning?"
"Ja, and I want to see her again. The doctor says she's doing well. They're going to do surgery on Saturday..."
Amara looked at Kurt to see him biting his lip. "Are you worried?"
"Of course I'm worried!"
She weighed her response carefully. She wanted to make a comment about Gypsy lives being worth less than those of the high-born, but decided to show him the kindness he had shown her. "I would like to go with you. Would you...would you like to talk about her as you drive?"
Kurt felt his tail twitch in surprise. "I would like that very much..."