Paradigm Shift

PARADIGM SHIFT CHAPTER EIGHT (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies and BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), the muses are massing...hide! InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are loverly because they archive. :) And ProPhile is almost evil for sending me this plotbunny, but it's a good almost-evil... And Jubilee! Gah! Too many...*faints* LOL...she sent me even MORE bunnies that are going to be worked in... * G* Readers/Reviewers: Ever see an armadillo and a platypus bond? It's disturbing. I think I'm scarred for life...


"Hello?" Kitty called out, dropping her bags in the front hall. "Like, anyone here?" She had honestly expected Kurt to be waiting front and center for her when she came in; she even had a little retort prepared for whatever flirtatious comment he was sure to make. "HelLO?"
"Hey, Kit," Jubilee said, appearing from the study with her arms laden with books. "Sorry, had my hands full finding Shakespeare. You just get back?"
"Just now...Logan's doing some random mechanical thing to the plane...where's Ku...uh, everyone?"
Jubilee arched a brow and said with ill-disguised amusement, having caught Kitty's bobble, "Jean and Amara are sunbathing, Rahne is in the Danger Room with Scott and Jean, and Evan is hiding from Rogue."
"Why is he hiding?" she asked, picking her bag up again and following Jubilee up the stairs.
"Something about womanly wiles. That's all I caught as he slinked by me earlier. Everyone else is sort of scattered to the four winds except Kurt, who's hiding in his room."
"What did he do now?" Kitty groaned, stopping outside her bedroom door. "Did Storm bust him for something?"
"No," Jubilee frowned, "he's not quite right in the head or something."
"Duh."
"Scott found him passed out in the hall yesterday morning and ever since he's been really spacey." As an after thought as she backed away, Jubilee said, "You two should get along just fine now!"
Kitty stuck out her tongue at her friend and resumed her bags, phasing through the door into her room. She was more tired than she wanted to let on, the accumulated stress of visiting her family crashing down on her now that she was back at the place she truly considered home. The days of false smiles, empty words and hidden thoughts and desires had caught up with her and she made a beeline for her bed, leaving her suitcase and duffle bag just inside the door. _Thank God, _she thought to herself, _Kurt's not going to make himself a nuisance today! _ Even as the thought left her mind, it was replaced by one that disturbed her. _He's not a nuisance, not really. He just cares about me is all. He just can't understand that I don't want him to give me stuff all the time and tail me like a shadow... _ She sighed aloud and rolled onto her stomach, bunching the pillow under her chest to get more comfortable. _Just because you've been thinking about him more than usual doesn't mean anything, no matter what Ruth says. She's wrong. _ Kitty knew, though, that her cousin had hit a sore spot with her insistence that Kurt would be better for her than Lance. "At least," she had said haughtily, "Kurt doesn't make you cry!" Kitty sniffeudlyudly and rolled onto her back, flinging her pillow at the door in a fit of pique. _What does she know? Lance doesn't make me cry. Often. This week. _

Kurt shifted his weight from one foot to the other in nervous anticipation. _You remember what you used to be like...just revert, _ he told himself over and over as he waited for the others to come down stairs. Rogue had not noticed anything off about him the night before, he reflected. She had seemed anxious and more giggly than he was used to, practically begging him to come with several of them to the carnival the next afternoon. He had reluctantly agreed, mainly because he knew that he should in order to keep up appearances, but now as he stood in the foyer, waiting a good ten minutes earlier than he was told to be there, Kurt was having second thoughts. Scott's sudden appearance at the top of the stairs made him twitch, hoping he did not seem too...off...for this place. "Hello," he said uncertainly.
"Rogue roped you into it too, huh?" Scott sighed. "She's up to something... " He leaned in conspiratorially and said, "Don't worry, man...I had Jean called Amanda and had her meet us there. I didn't want you to be too uncomfortable."
"What do you mean?" Kurt asked cautiously. "Amanda..."
"I know, I know...You love Kitty blah blah blah. Look, we all know how you feel. _All _ of us. Rogue just thinks she's doing a good thing by trying to shove you two together. You and I both know, though, that Kitty won't see things that way. So Amanda is going to be there so you don't have to be uncomfortable."
Kurt ground his teeth so hard he was sure he wore away the points on his fangs. "I wish you hadn't done that," he finally sighed. "Okay. Amanda is going to be there. Good. Great. Wunderbar. Is Lance going?"
"I don't think so," Scott laughed. "Not unless he wants his ass kicked. Kitty or no, he's not welcome here."
Kurt took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He knew that Scott thought he had been doing him a favor but in fact, he had just made things very difficult. "Danke," he said finally, plastering a smile on his face. "I'm sure today will be very interesting then."
Further conversation between them was delayed by a rush of teenagers down the stairs. Rogue had managed to corral more people than Kurt had thought possible into this outing. She was followed down the stairs by Jubilee, Evan, Jamie, Rahne, Jean, St John and a girl Kurt did not recognize, all chattering loudly. Rogue paused at the bottom step and frowned. "Where's Kitty?"
Scott shrugged. "Upstairs I guess."
Rogue snorted and rolled her eyes. "Kurt, please go get her."
Something in her tone, so formal and calm, made him look askance at her. "Can't you?"
"No...I'm...um...tying my boots." She dropped to one knee and began fiddling with the laces on one knee-high boot.
Scott nudged his elbow. "Just go," he whispered. "You're going to have to anyway. May as well get it over with."
Kurt nodded and trudged up the stairs, trying to remember which room was Kitty's in this new arrangement. Finally, he stopped and closed his eyes, inhaling deeply. _Ah...she still smells the same... _ Bracing himself, he knocked briskly on the door and said in his meekest voice, "Katzchen, Rogue is ready to go..."
There was a scuffling sound on the other side of the door and it swung open, revealing a slightly rumpled Kitty blinking at him sleepily. "Kurt? You knocked..."
"Ja...it's your room and I wasn't invited in..." He bit back the urge to tell her exactly how invited he was in his own universe but decided not to blow her mind unnecessarily just then.
Kitty made a strangled noise that he took to mean disbelief before turning around and heading back into the room. "I fell asleep when I got back from Chicago...Was I supposed to go somewhere with Rogue or something?" She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around for her shoe. "I don't remember making plans..."
Kurt said with slightly more confidence than she was used to, "You didn't make any. She did. For all of us. We're supposed to go to that carnival in town and everyone is downstairs waiting on us."
"I hate carnivals," she groaned, falling back onto her bed with a thump. "I don't do Ferris wheels."
"Well, don't ride it then." He edged into the room, stepping carefully around her luggage, still in place by the door. "Just have some cotton candy or something."
She sat up and shot him a glare. "That is pure empty calories."
Kurt sighed inwardly. He had been taking in her appearance she opened the door and was disconcerted to find her oddly thin, far too much so for her frame and his own liking, but he knew that to say so would do him no good. "Well, go on the merry go round then. Rogue is going to drag you kicking and screaming if I don't take you down soon."
Kitty spotted her errant sneaker across the room and got up to retrieve it, avoiding Kurt's entirely personal gaze studiously. "I wish I'd had some warning," she finally said, sitting on the floor to tie her shoe.
"Well, Liebes, life isn't fair sometimes," he said glibly, only catching the endearment after he had said it.
"Liebes? What does that mean?" She narrowed her eyes as she stood slowly. "I know what it is in Yiddish. Is it the same in German?"
"Um...look it up." He made a show of looking at his holo. "Oh, look at the time. Come on, we're going to miss the...the...um...thing!" Kurt swept her a bow and motioned for her to proceed him from the room. He had an idea pop into his train of thought as he looked at Kitty, one that he hoped his self from *this * world would think him for. _Wherever you are, you transdimensional little elf, you're going to love me for this when you get back... _ "Um, Katzchen," he said urgently, making her stop halfway down the hall as he caught up to her. "I don't know if you've heard about my little...accident...or not...but I'm having a verdammten hard time with my memory today. Who is the girl with the brown hair and really creepy blue eyes? She's about so tall, kind of thin, holding hands with St John?"
Kitty laughed. "You must've whacked your head hard, Kurt! That's Bobby. You know, Roberta...Bobby. They've been together for, like, ever..." She snickered. Everyone had despaired of Bobby ever dating anyone, her vaguely mannish traits putting most of the males of Bayville off entirely. "You two are friends, remember?"
"Ja, of course I remember!" he said over-brightly. "I was teasing you!"
"Sure, Elf. Sure you were," she said, smiling back at him. She was finding herself strangely comfortable with Kurt all of a sudden. _When he's not giving me the puppy dog eyes and following me around, he's not so...so him. _ She bit her lip and chanced it, reaching out to tousle his hair. "Next thing you know you're going to tell me that you're not really all cute and blue." She winked at him and bounded down the stairs ahead of him.
"What the Hell just happened?" he mused. "I didn't even _do _ anything yet!"

The Professor rubbed the bridge of his nose in tired acceptance. _There is no one called Forge anywhere we can search...no one meeting Kurt's description at all. This is not good. _ He opened his eyes and tilted his head back, staring at the ceiling of his study in mute frustration. _The fewer people who know about this, the better. I can't expect Kurt to stay here when he so obviously does not belong. The longer he's here, the more likely it is he will slip or be discovered somehow. I can accept what has happened but who else could? He would end up in an institution for sure should someone outside the institute ever hear him talk about the...incident. _ With a weary sigh, he rolled his head forward and stared at the computer screen before him. _Think, Charles. What to do... _ He did not want to admit it, but he had exhausted the capabilities of his expertise in the field of computer research. _Kitty would be good for this but we can't very well bring her in...unless... _ A quick mental search revealed that the students had already departed for Rogue's impromptu outing. Damn. He saved his work and shut off the computer, wheeling himself from his office and towards the elevators at the end of the hall. _I don't want to stir up a hornets nest with too many searches. That would raise suspicion if there were more activity on the government databases... _ He felt a surge of bitterness against the government imposed restrictions on mutants that had so recently been put into place globally. _One fight at a time. _