We Can Explain...

We Can Explain...Chapter Five (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta...*sniff * You sent me the sinusitis... *sneezes, sends muses flying * InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are squishy loveliness for archiving/hosting! ProPhile makes me nervous with threats of flooding inboxes... Morgan, how goes the job? Readers/Reviewers: There needs to be a reader appreciation day. AND a beta appreciation day. Really. I cannot tell you enough how much I appreciate all the reading and reviewing (and in Foxy's case, MORE reading and editing and helping and being a sounding board and muse help... ) Big, huge, chocolate covered armadillos for each of you!


Breakfast was untouched, for the most part, except for the plate in front of Kurt which was emptied and refilled no less than three times before the Professor made it to the kitchen. "I apologize for the delay, but I had to take an important call..." His face clouded briefly as he dwelt on some inner reverie but he shook himself, plastering a smile on his face and reaching for a bagel. "Now, I believe it is Kitty's turn."
She started. "Huh? Oh...yeah..."
"Katzchen, didn't you get any sleep?" Kurt murmured, shoving his plate aside. "You look..."
"Like Hell," Todd supplied around a mouthful of toast.
"Thanks," she uttered darkly. "And you look like the cover of GQ."
Todd shrugged, raking his fingers through his lank hair and smiling. "One does what one can."
Professor Xavier cleared his throat gently. "I'm quite interested in hearing Kitty's tale...and maybe a reason for Kurt's odd jealousy?"
Kitty nodded slowly, ignoring the plate of rolls Kurt shoved at her wordlessly. "Kurt's story was pretty close to what happened but..." She looked at her boyfriend beseechingly. "Well, I guess the weird stuff happened right after he fainted."
"I didn't faint," he protested. "I fell unconscious."
"Sure, sweetie," she said, patting his hand as she finally picked up a roll. She suspected they were store bought but did not care much as she picked tiny bits off, making a neat pile on her plate. "I don't really know how to start."
Jean smiled faintly. "Well, why don't you skip to the part where you disappeared, since we all were there until then."
"You...disappeared?" the Professor asked slowly. "As in...vanished?"
"As in yeah," Kitty sighed. She pushed the pile of roll bits to one side and laced her fingers with Kurt's. "Okay, so he...lost consciousness and then..."

"Is he breathing?" Kitty cried, her voice rising to a screech. "Move, Jean!" She could not hear anything other than the pounding of the blood in her ears as she pushed Jubilee and Remy, finally arriving on the scene, aside. "Kurt, wake up! Can you hear me?"
Jean let herself be pushed aside, sliding to her knees next to the open car door. She could feel Kurt's mind, active despite exterior appearances, but she could not make contact with him. "Kitty, ask him a question."
"I just did!"
"Something else. Ask him if he can feel your hand on his leg." Jean smile in relief as Kurt's mind twitched before Kitty even formed the question. She felt a mental sigh, almost as if he was regretfully coming out of a nice dream, then something went wrong.
"Kurt," Kitty said in as calm a voice as she could muster, ignoring her friends huddled around the car, silent as the grave. "Kurt, wake up...plea Sh She gasped as his eyes flew open, bloodshot gold, and he sucked in a great, heaving breath. His hand shot out to grab her wrist where her hand rested on his thigh. "Thank God," she breathed in the split second between his grasp and his tail wrapping around her thigh. "What're you doing?" Her words were swallowed as she felt a nauseating, familiar tug and vertigo, the world changing in a blink.
Kurt stretched and yawned, releasing his grip on her. They were in a cool, dark room, adding to her disorientation as she fell away from him, landing hard on a thinly carpeted floor. The place smelled of old cigarettes, air conditioning and something worse, something organic and wet and growing. Trying not to be sick, she rose to her knees and pressed her fingers to her lips, holding back a cry of surprise and frustration. Kurt stirred, obviously asleep judging by his deep, even breathing. It was a normal pattern, not like the hitched gasps of moments before. _Moments, hours, days...where are we? _ The air was dry in the room, despite the damp smell, and she could make out some dark shapes. Carefully, she rose to her feet and took a step forward, ready to phase at any moment. Her shins bumped into something hard and soft at the same time. _A bed, _ she realized belatedly. _I'm in a bedroom...er ler left hand remained on the bed while she reached backwards with her right hand, trying to feel for a wall. Instead, her fingers brushed stiff cloth, budging a curtain aside just enough to let a sliver of light in. She winced at the optical intrusion, blinking rapidly as her eyes teared before adjusting. Kitty opened the curtains a little further, finding them to be made of thick fabric that blocked out the afternoon light outside. Kurt stirred again and sighed, murmuring in his sleep as Kitty took stock of the room. _One large bed, one really bad comforter from sometime in the Nixon administration, a painting of a crappy desert scene, one t.v. last seen in *Smokey and the Bandit *... We're in a hotel. _ She could forwent the light switch and instead crawled across the bed, trying not to think of that news show where they showed exactly what sort of nasty things existed in hotel rooms, shown in vivid blue light courtesy of the local forensics unit.1 _If this is just like every other hotel room I've been to...a ha! _ She rummaged in the bedside stand and found a phonebook, the front cover torn off along with any sort of identifying information as to just where they were. _We can't be far. He can only port a few miles, max, and that's when he's not all messed up... _ She flipped hastily through the pages, looking for some sort of ad or address that would give her a clue, only to find the pages marked up, torn out or otherwise illegible. "Damn it!" she cried, throwing the book across the room and knocking a poorly bolted painting loose.
"Liebes?" Kurt muttered thickly. "Where am I?"
"I don't know," she sighed. "How do you feel?" She scooted over as Kurt crawled up onto the bed from his spot on the floor. "You aren't shaking..." Her cool fingers felt his forehead and pulse as he sat patiently, letting her. "You don't have a fever or rapid pulse anymore..."
"Did I?" he murmured, capturing her hand and kissing the palm in a butterfly kiss. "I don't feel like I was sick..." He paused, seeming to realize their surroundings for the first time. "This isn't my room... Or yours."
"I know." She pressed her lips to the back of his hand in a return gesture. "Don't you remember what happened?"
"I got into the car and then..." He frowned. "Nein. I don't know what happened..."
Kitty sighed and related what he had been through quickly. "I was thinking maybe you ported us here because you felt safe here...which makes me wonder why you feel safe in a hotel and how you know about this place in the first place."
He groaned. "I have no idea where we are... I've never been to a hotel like this. Are you sure it's even a hotel?"
"Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck..." She sighed and looked around the room again. "Hey..." She made a scramble for the phone and nearly knocked it off the table. "I can call the front desk...they'll know where we are."
"Obviously," Kurt sighed. He rubbed her back idly, trying not to worry about this new development. He had never teleported unconsciously before, even when he had been very sick or injured. _I mustn't panic. It will just upset Kitty. Ah...if I have to panic, I'll do it in Rom. She doesn't speak Rom. I don't think... _ Experimentally, he told her he loved her in the Gypsy tongue.
"Huh?"
"I love you."
"Me, too... oh! Hello! Front desk? This is room...um...I'm not sure. I just need to ask where we are... Yes, I know it's a hotel," she sighed, rolling her eyes. "I meant where is the hotel?" There was a long pause where the color drained from Kitty's face and her hand, holding the receiver, began to shake. "Oh. Okay. Thank you..."
"Well?" he asked, standing and stretching. "Bayville North? Riverside?"
"Further west..." she said thinly, sounding on the verge of tears.
"Mooresville?"
"Tuscon."
1 I think it was Dateline or 20/20 that had that...