Disclaimer: Still not doing any X-Men owning…

Rating: PG-13

Summary: More Lance. Happens sort of simultaneously with the last part. (Part four in the series "Is There a Place for Us?")

Author's Note: This story is semi-AU, meaning it isn't completely alternate universe, but it doesn't really go along with the show completely either. Basically, it takes place after "Hex Factor," and ignores anything that may come after it. (Which it sort of has to, seeing as at this current time, the two part season finale has not yet aired.) Anyway, it diverges from what is sure to be the path the show takes by having Lance leave town following the battle in the mall between the Brotherhood and the X-Men. (I just don't see the writers doing that…)

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On Mortal Nights, Blue Eyes, and Cheese Grits

By: Addie Logan

 

Have you ever been to a Waffle House? No? You should sometime. It's…an experience.

If you have been, then, well, I'm sorry.

I work at one now. It's in a small town in the Upstate of South Carolina of all places.

I hope it's far enough from Bayville…

I'm a short-order cook, and I have to wear a yellow paper hat.

This place is near a university. At three A.M. it's always full of people in their early twenties, just starting to feel the buzz wear off.

I cook a lot of eggs.

A girl came in tonight who looked like Kitty. I didn't notice at first. She was wearing a ball cap. Purple with the letters "FU" emblazoned on the front in white. FU—it's the school's monogram. Apparently, there's a rumor going around that their mascot was once a "Christian Knight, so they were the Furman University Christian Knights… But that isn't the point.

The point is that the hat covered her eyes from my view until one of the guys she was sitting with reached across the table and snatched it away. I could see her face, could see her blue, blue eyes.

She looked like Kitty.

And I didn't handle that very well at all.

I wish I hadn't even turned around. The grill I use doesn't face the customers. I should have just kept looking forward, never seen the girl.

But I turned. And I saw her.

After that, I couldn't concentrate anymore. I kept messing up the orders. Some blonde bitched me out because I forgot to put cheese on her grits. She said she'd paid for cheese and she wanted cheese.

I didn't point out that she didn't even have her check yet, so she couldn't have possibly paid, or that it wouldn't really matter anyway if she wasted forty cents of Daddy's Money. Instead, I unwrapped a piece of American cheese and slapped it on the top of her bowl of grits. I'm glad my boss was amused. Looking back, it would've been a stupid thing to lose my job over.

Not that it pays enough for me to really care. I could be underpaid and under appreciated somewhere else, too.

Like back with the Brotherhood.

I was grateful when my shift was over. The girl who looked like Kitty was still there, sitting in one of the booths, leaning up against a window. I wanted to get away so I didn't have to look at her and her too blue eyes anymore. I was out of there as soon as I could be, sinking down on the back steps by the dumpster.

How long would I be haunted by the memory of a girl I'd never really got to hold?

I should've left. I should've driven off, slept until my next shift. But I didn't. I stayed on the back steps of the Travelers' Rest Waffle House, smoking a cigarette and staring at the Golden Arches just ahead.

I should've left.

I should've left before the girl who looked like Kitty came out back and found me.

She said she'd noticed me behind the counter, and was glad she'd found me. She sat down on the steps with me. Part of me wanted to leave, wanted to get away before the pain of memory grew anymore.

I couldn't. I couldn't tear myself away from the woman who had become like a mirror of the past.

She smoked one of my cigarettes and we talked. She didn't have a lot in common with Kitty. She was more like me—more edge, less innocence. But the eyes. They were the same eyes.

She told me her roommate was gone for the night. She invited me back to her apartment on campus. I wanted to—damn, I wanted to. It would've felt nice to be in a warm bed and a warm body. But I had to walk away.

Those eyes…

I knew in the heat of passion I would've called out "Kitty," and this girl had said her name was Sylvia.

So I got up. Told her good night. We didn't exchange phone numbers, didn't plan to meet again. Nothing to pretend that it would've been more than finding comfort in another body for one mortal night.

One mortal night. I'm getting poetic in my depression.

Once back in the rat-trap I call my apartment, I wanted to call Kitty. I wanted to hear her voice, to talk to her late into the night the way I used to.

We used to have such good talks on the phone before…before…

Before the time she pushed me away.

Maybe it's good that I don't have a phone. I couldn't have handled the rejection again.

As the sun comes up, I fall asleep and dream of blue eyes.