Four a.m. is a little early even for Kitty to be up and about, these days
- only a little, though; their guest comes back not too long after, and
she likes to be up when he comes in. Light filters through the blinds from
the bedroom, though. There's life up there.

Said life is curled up at the head of the bed, actually. On her left side:
half a cup of chamomile tea occasionally being sipped at as it goes cold,
balanced carefully on a saucer on the sheets. On her right: a purple
dragon with his head stretched onto her lap, being petted absently and
intermittently. No reason to inflict her mood on him. The lights are on,
yes, but the air conditioner's off - it's starting to warm up - and so is
the CD player; no music, just the quiet. She's reading, slowly and
inattentively and more often staring past the pages than at them - she's
barely two dozen pages into the book, and sooner or later she'll actually
notice what the title is and wince and put it down and snag the copy of
_Paingod and Other Delusions_ that's waiting its turn on the far side of
the chamomile. Some people brood in the dark. Kitty broods over Harlan
Ellison.

If only I could be sure my head on the door was a dream. There's a key
turns in the lock. Could be Lorne home early - but it's not. Silent except
for the sound of footsteps, and the door closing and being locked behind;
footsteps, cabinet opening, cabinet closing. Cabinet opening, cabinet
closing. Liquid, the clink of glass on glass. The scent of cigarette
smoke, drifting in. The sound of glass being set down carefully, twice.
Silence for a second longer, then footsteps getting closer.

No hint of music: it's not Lorne. Lockheed eyes the door narrowly. He's
heard what happened tonight. Wisdom was supposed to take him /with/, the
stupid biped. Lack of foreknowledge is not an excuse. Kitty cocks her head
as well, but it's a different kind of suspicion. Scotch and cigarettes.
Except that Pete's on a plane to England, he's going home. The back of her
mind is whispering warily through the drag of exhaustion and lack of sleep
and everything else that's happened in the last twenty-four hours:
/Mystique knows where you live/. Absently, pointlessly, she closes the
book and places it face-down on the bed, tugging the hem of the maroon
sleepshirt she's wearing down over her knees as if she were about twelve.

Ah - but would Mystique be that obvious, would she have failed to be on
the watch, failed to do her homework? It's a wreck appears in the doorway,
same shirt with the frayed and singed cuffs, wrinkled and possibly slept
in or at least looking it; hair every which way, red-rimmed eyes, dead
expression. "Stopped to think," he says, leaning one arm up on the
doorframe, leaning his head on his arm. Balance off, both exhaustion and
alcohol slamming at his mental state with great fucking sledgehammers,
like. There's a pause. "Have to find her. Make some sense, some sense out
of something. Let it go. Mistake. Caught up with me. She told me not to
panic. Forgot. Did. Then stopped to think. Can't do this to you. Didn't
know which was worse. But have to go."

The woman's good, she's not unerring. And it's not as if he'd given much
warning. Still, there are some things that can't be faked. Kitty doesn't
say a word for a second or two, her drained mind scrabbling: not possible,
no, yes it is, things are only really impossible if your theory happens to
be right; flawed data; what the hell is he talking about. Did he talk to
Romany already? Maybe, but it doesn't sound right. Doesn't matter. He's
here. The hand that /had/ been petting Lockheed stretches out toward him.
"Stay long enough to get some sleep, at least?" she asks. "And a shower.
Change of clothes. You are not looking like someone who would make airport
security happy." Or someone who would make the dragon happy. But Kitty is
notably failing to ask Lockheed's opinion on whether or not he wants to be
evicted from her lap in the next thirty seconds.

He's drunk, and he's falling through exhaustion and depression enough to
assume he doesn't actually need antecedents. And - and. And his face is
twisting, his hand is coming up to cover it. "Plane left, just sat there.
I'm sorry - I. Airport security didn't fucking care, I had everything in
order - panicked. She disappeared. I can't do this to you. Why am I doing
this. Marley - Alex. And Sera, and Ray and Lindsey and Kurt and Jane and
Seishi and John - never enough. And then I - what I did. And to you. I
can't stay here - Lorne - have to find Romany." A low, half-whispered
monotone, like a litany almost. And his hand covering his eyes, head still
leaning on the arm in the doorframe. Not so much standing as lying down
while upright. "Didn't you smell it, Kitty? See the blue? God - it was
just like. Mightn't've been real. Just fear. Don't know anything. Can't
/do/ this."

He's very, very drunk. "Shhh. Shh." Book, picked up and transferred to
nightstand with its friend. Teacup and saucer relocated on top of them.
Dragon-head nudged gently off thigh - sorry, Lockheed - and Kitty's
getting to her feet, coming to join him in the doorway there. "Come on."
Her arm slides easily around his waist, and the nudge toward the bed is
very small. "Lorne's a big ... whatever he is. And I don't think you'll
bug him too much if you're out cold." And right now I don't care. Only one
thing that matters; everything else is secondary. Everything. "Come on.
You need the rest. You're barely managing to keep vertical." Let me hold
you before you go: no, don't say that, don't. He doesn't need that right
now. Don't think about what /could/ happen, or what's /going/ to happen;
this moment he's here, and if he's here, everything's all right. No more
of the images she gets every time she closes her eyes. This is the real
thing. And he's drunk and exhausted and hurting, but he's in one piece.
"Blue? I didn't see - but I didn't see much of anything after the flash.
Was looking the wrong direction when it hit. Please. Come lie down."

There's mild resistance, but he can't put much up - the nudge is enough to
make him lose his balance, gentle as it is, and set him stumbling into
her, propped, wherever she's leading. And his hand is still over his face,
because he's crying and he cares too much about too many things and it's
all caught up at once because he had to nearly burn Marley to death to
save her, and who knows how many friends he'll have lost over it, and
she's in intensive care and hasn't come awake yet - was in the paper, the
morning edition out before everyone's up, delivered there at the place
with the coffee, in the airport. And everything's confused and
everything's gone blind and he's going to do everything wrong, has done
everything wrong, and he's hurting because he doesn't want to hurt anyone,
especially Kitty - and he thinks he can't help but. When he can think at
all. Impressions. Remembrances. Mustn't panic - but it's too late. Have to
see Romany, she'll give him his perspective back, won't she? But it's not
his Romany. Doesn't know anything, does he? Silly boy. Stupid boy.
Arrogant, presumptuous man. She's taking him to bed - he's holding out a
hand against the approaching mattress. "No - no. Sleep on the plane. Come
with - no, don't, you don't need this - not yours, she said. I knew.
Didn't see, though. Can't see straight at all. Eyes won't open. Don't
panic, she said. Like on the cover, almost. Of the book. Where's Sera got
to? Future had her here. But you - and her --" Blood. Blood, all over the
carpet, all over. Not breathing, not moving. Wrong. "Portaled out - I
think - can't have. But..." Drunk and panicked. But too tired. Dead fear.
Have to leave. "Too much, too much."

"Can't come with," Kitty murmurs, and her tone's easy, gentle. "No
passport, and they /check/ these days." She's still trying to guide him
toward the bed - and then the next thing he says hits, and maybe it's just
that she's finally listening to him that explains her stopping. Sure it
is. If it'd hurt that much, there'd be a catch in her breath, right?
Except that she already put the walls back up, earlier. When she got the
voice mail; when she turned off the cellphone. Don't let the hurt show,
just wait, and maybe it'll go away, maybe things will be better. Life as a
masquerade. It's like riding a bicycle: once you learn, you never quite
forget, even if she was never as good at it as he was. Not hers. He
/knew/. And she couldn't tell. (Flash in a funhouse mirror, a reflection
in blue and gold. /She/ would've known. /She/ would've been able to act,
tonight, and maybe six people wouldn't have died before Sera and Pete put
an end to it. This Kitty? Helpless; ineffective; after the fear-made
lightning struck, all she could see was ways for Ichor to kill him, and
she /froze/. Didn't act on a one. She'll get him killed, like the other.
Spiral downward behind those walls, watch that genius intellect construct
worlds to lose itself in. The mind is its own place, and in itself can
make a hell of heaven.) It's only a breath's pause, as if she were
considering. "If you can't see straight, you'd /better/ lie down." And her
voice is normal, still, too much so. Don't panic. See? Everything's all
right. "I don't know what happened to Sera; I left her a message, if I
don't hear from her in the next twenty hours or so I'll start worrying.
She's probably with Ray. He's got to be busy tonight." It hasn't been a
good few hours for Beacon Harbor police.

"Nnnh. Got to get you a passport..." No she wouldn't. What would she have
done, run ahead of Pete? Ninjt Ichor and get herself killed? No. They both
have worlds of hellish self-created torture inside their heads - the
problem is, 'Downward Spiral' is a Nine Inch Nails album, and they /suck/.
He doesn't want to tell her things he thinks will hurt, but he doesn't
want to hurt her by not telling - he doesn't want to hurt her by cutting
her out, by leaving, by seeming to desert. And that's what he'd've felt
like if she did it to him. Can't do this to her. "Can't /see/ straight.
Not these eyes. Other eyes. Like in the dreaming. She said to open them -
thought they were. Opened them, got blinded - blood, there was blood,
Kitty, she showed me - you and Sera. Future. Here. But I saw, was like a
portal. Tasted like it. Not with Ray. Don't know where. Afraid of it. Just
gone, like the phantasms..." Where're you taking me? Oh - oh. No, no bed,
have to go. "No! No - can't stay, Kitty, have to talk to my sister - not
my sister - *fucking* alternates..." Bed. Want to lie down. His hand's
dropped, and he can't stop crying, and it'd be really fucking stupidly
embarrassing if he weren't so completely soused. "Fucking /everything/..."

In the dreaming. Claire. She knows the secrets we use to keep each other
sane. She knows the secrets we /keep/ to ... It'll burn, and feel
particularly wrong, and you'll be afraid, and cold. No. That thought she
rejects, calmly: he /would not/ hurt her. And that certainty grounds her a
little, evens out the chaos of thoughts and emotions and speculation. For
an instant, she doesn't doubt, she knows the words. "Pete. Love." She
turns, and her other arm goes about him as well, hugging him for a moment,
then back to simply having an arm around him. "Please stay? At least a
little while? I need to hold you." Listen. Listen. /You/. To hell with
alternates: he made his own choices, she didn't owe him anything after
all, and she's finally understanding that. And so it's only /this/ Wisdom
she's thinking about now. "Please."

Knows the words to the song and the steps to the dance. She's so calm,
she's so collected - what's she thinking? What's - no, it's not even clear
enough to wonder. All Pete can focus on is the fact she said she needed -
needed, in this case, to hold him. A little while, she said. Just a little
while. "All right -- all right. Little while. But then - got to find her,
all right? Come back, promise, won't be long - just, just. Have to see
her. Know it's not her. Don't care. But after a - yeah." How can he
refuse? Just a little while, she said. How can he deny her that? How can
he deny her? He can't - she said she needed him. And it's so hard to
think, even without alcohol it is; he sits on the edge of the bed, sinking
down, head in his hands, either slipping out of her grasp or moving slowly
enough to be followed - underwater motions anyway. "Just a little bit."

Kitty follows, of course she follows. Gentle hands stroke over his
shoulders, loosen his tie, before she crouches down to slip off his shoes.
Not trusting his coordination, no. "Just a little while," she murmurs.
"It'll be okay, love. Everything'll be okay. Just stay with me a little
while first." And then she's sliding up to sit beside him, putting her
arms around him. Holding him. "Shh." Not actually trying to silence him -
he knows the sound, surely he does. Just to reassure. It's true; she does
need to hold him. And she's fairly sure he needs to be held - and /very/
sure he needs to rest. If he can settle, just a little, maybe he can
manage it.