Bellwether

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… Things, hopefully, will start rolling downhill soon. I hope. InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly for archiving/hosting. J ProPhile: *gold star * Morgan: Purple glow in the dark, huh? Readers/Reviewers: No update tomorrow since I'm working on some indfic I'm behind schedule on but we'll be back on schedule for Friday. *G * Thank you so much for reading and reviewing and sticking with the stories! AFFN's archive of my stories will be fixed soon so yay for that too.

Kitty passed a hand over her tired eyes, wishing desperately for a nap. She was emotionally, mentally and physically wrung out and wanted nothing more than to crawl into her bed, pull the blanket up and just sleep. The sticky note with Pete's number on it, scrawled in someone else's hand, fluttered to the floor as she let her other hand drop to her side.

"Dropped something," Kurt stated quietly, unable to keep silent any longer. He glanced at the bright pink square of paper and frowned. "I'm sure he'd like for you to call back soon."

"I know," she sighed. She looked up at him from her seat at the desk and frowned. "You're upside down." Kurt hung from the ceiling as only he could, a dark indigo shadow just above her door, fingers and toes splayed wide for security as he stared down at her with wide, golden eyes.

"Ja," he shrugged, dropping to the floor in a fluid movement, landing on his feet in a crouch next to her chair. "Kitty…" He paused, uncertain what to say next. He was late for his assigned meeting with Mark in the library but he did not care. He had been passing her room and found his steps slowing, his body turning towards hers. Before he knew what he was about, he was there, trying to be unobtrusive, trying to be outside her notice, but she knew. She always knew.

Kitty shifted in her chair and turned to face him, a mask of exhaustion clouding her normally clear and simple features. "I'm so tired, Kurt," she breathed. "I'm just so tired of it all. I can't live a normal life—no, not because of you! Stop trying to look guilty. It's not all about you! I have never had a normal life and I wish…" she paused, a strange expression coming over her face. Her words, her tone, all coincided into one painful, emothat a word? lump in her throat and she fairly choked on it. She silently made fun of people like her, she thought with a blazing realization. She hated the whining, crying, idiotic pseudo goth kids Rogue called Baby Bats, the ones that were always woe-is-me, life-is-pain. The kids who sounded just like her now. "Oh, crap. I'm going to have to kill myself."

"WAS?" He was on his feet like a shot, grabbing her shoulders in a death grip and shaking her slightly. "Katzchen! Don't talk like that!"

"Ah, sorry. You missed the internal monologue," she said in a voice more like herself, shrugging his grip off her shoulders. "I'm not going to do anything stupid, okay? Besides…" she paused, her brows creeping up. "Ruth did that, remember? I wouldn't want to put my loved ones through that, not like she did." She stood suddenly, forcing Kurt to take a step back. "I haven't been myself lately," she announced, a smile blooming to life on her lips. "And you know what?"

Blinking with the conversational whiplash, he shook his head. "Nein… was?"

"I'm sick of it. I'm not going to wallow. What's the point?" Her smile had reached almost full force, her entire body shifting and changing, it seemed, before Kurt's very eyes. Her chin came up, her back straightened, and lines of worry fell away from her eyes.

"Liebes," he breathed, the endearment coming naturally to his lips. He made to reach for her but hesitated, his hand inches from her elbow, uncertain and tense. "Kitty… what do you mean?"

"I mean," she said, almost laughing as she grabbed his hand and pulled him into an embrace, "that I'm tired of being someone I don't like very much. I'm sick of it. I'm tired of hurting and aggravating the people I love the most and I want to be myself again." She bounced slightly on her toes as she announced this, oblivious to Kurt's flutter of tension as she moved in his arms. "And," she paused, tilting her face up to his, "I want us to try getting to know each other again," she added almost shyly. "I don't think it'd be a good idea to pretend none of this ever happened but I want to start…"

Kurt nodded, not caring that he probably appeared too eager. Kitty did not laugh and that was all that mattered. "I think… I think I'd like that," he admitted, relief and happiness seeping up from his toes, through his limbs and making a home in his chest. "Kitty…" he paused, his tongue darting out across his suddenly too-dry lips. "Kitty, I…"

"Kitty!" Jubilee's strident tones cut through the atmosphere like a knife. She bounded into the room before receiving an answer to her call and paused, brows shooting up in surprise. "I take it someone sprinkled happy dust and all is forgiven?"

Kitty pursed her lips and peered at Jubilee through narrowed eyes. "Maybe. Can we talk later? After the library?" At Jubilee's nod, she smiled. "Good. I have a lot of things I want to say to you and I bet you've got some stuff to say to me…"

Jubilee nodded cautiously. "Um… yeah…" She paused and took a deep breath. "Uh, okay, Mark is kinda going weird downstairs so…wanna help?" She glanced at Kurt and added, "You too. He's pulling all the books off the shelf and stacking them in the middle of the room, muttering about Essex…"

Kitty nodded sharply. "On it. Kurt?"

"Meet you there."