xp_logs | Kitty and Terry

Terry is taken by surprise when she finds Kitty in the common room of their suite late at night. Kitty is surprised by the obvious fact that Terry's been crying. They talk about Bobby and Lorna and other things which are difficult.

Her boss was nuts, Kitty decided, curling up into the chair, her notes spread out in front of her. These results made no sense and if he thought he'd be able to get a grant out of this he was out of his mind. Of course, when she'd told him that he'd given her the assignment of finding all the stupid things that would make the grant committee question the value of the work so they could fix it. He was probably going to make her fix it, too.

Maybe it was just the lateness of the hour that was making her so cranky. She was too young to be having homework from her job, Kitty decided, setting her computer down with a sigh. Not that she really felt like going to bed...

Terry, probably foolishly, didn't expect anyone to be awake in the suite. Or at least not sitting in the common room being studious and unobtrusive. It would have been hard to hide her blotchy face and red-rimmed eyes even if she had expected someone, her fair skin making it abundantly obvious any time she had been crying. She stopped dead when she saw Kitty and sighed. "Smashing. Hello, Kit."

And there went all thoughts of sleep. Kitty was out of her chair and across the room in seconds. "Terry, what's wrong?" she asked, worry plainly written on her face.

Terry shook her head, "I'm an idiot and you don't want to know." Kitty had been pretty clear about not wanting any kind of information about what Terry and Bobby were getting up to. The surrogate sibling block was absolute.

"Woah, woah." Kitty held up her hands, shaking her head. "No on both counts. If there's anything I can do to help you know I will..."

Terry sniffled and nodded at the couch. Once they were seated, Terry wiped at her eyes and shook her head, "It's just relationship stuff. Me and Bobby. I screwed up and you don't want details, trust me."

Kitty considered Terry seriously, not at all sure what could have happened between the two of them that would leave Terry in such a state. They'd been doing so well. "I'm serious, Terry, I do want to know. If I can help, I don't care what it is. I just hate seeing you upset."

"I don't know what it is." Admitting it terrified her. "I mean, I do sort of but I didn't think... I asked him if he wanted to sleep with me." It was a bit hard to talk past the lump in her throat and she knew she was probably bright red. "And now he'll barely touch me."

"Oh, Terry..." Kitty leaned over to wrap her arms around her friend, hugging Terry tightly. "When did this happen?"

Terry clung to her, starting to cry again, "Tuesday. We were fine and then I screwed up. Then Tommy and Lorna and...I tried to see him last night but he just was...tolerating me. I don't know what to do."

Kitty rocked back and forth slightly, hands rubbing Terry's back. "Shhhh," she said, softly, for lack of anything more soothing. "What did he... what did he say? When you asked, I mean?"

Terry choked on a sob and looked up at Kitty, blinking stupidly, "Asked?"

Kitty brushed away some of the tears on Terry's cheeks, a worrying sort of thought coming to her. "Well, I mean when you asked him to sleep with you, but.. Terry, did you ask him why he was treating you like that, either?" Kitty was definitely in the 'talk to your s.o.' camp.

"He said..." Terry sniffled and thought back, "He asked if I meant it. And if I was sure. And if I knew what I was doing. And every other variation of 'I don't want to say no so I'm going to make you change your mind' that he could think of."

Kitty frowned, but it was an abstract sort of frown. "Or every version of 'I care about you too much to rush you on this, cause I think it's important and I think you're important'," she said. "I mean, Jamie and I did the 'are we sure we're ready' thing... a couple times, actually."

"Kitty, he won't touch me! Monday we were..." Terry stopped, blushing deeply and stumbled over her next words, "we were fine. Then I asked him and it was like it was two months ago when he would hardly even kiss me."

"And did you ask him why?" Kitty repeated, although she knew how much harder doing stuff like that was than saying it.

"I...not really?" Terry said in a small voice. "It didn't seem like I needed to ask. I mean...I asked, he reacted...that's cause and effect, right?"

"Post hoc ergo procter hoc," Kitty said. "After, therfore because. And I learned that from Legally Blonde the other night, which is really pathetic. But what I mean is, maybe the asking is what made him do that, and maybe it's not, or maybe it's more complicated than that, but you won't really know unless you ask him."

"What if he says that it is my fault and breaks up with me?" Terry asked. "You can't give me advice based on a movie about a ditz who dresses her dog in sweaters!"

"Not based on the movie, just where I learned the phrase!" Kitty shook her head. "Look, in no world is talking to your boyfriend about a problem not a good thing. I know it can be really hard, but if you can't talk to him about stuff then what's the point? And I seriously doubt that Bobby would do that."

Terry drew back and wrapped her arms around herself. "I can't. I just can't do it. I love him, Kitty and I don't want to lose him. Not right now with everything that's going on." If not asking meant that they'd gone on a bit longer...maybe it was worth it.

Kitty sighed, leaning back against the couch. "I understand," she said. "I... I still think you should talk to him, but I get it. It's... It's really hard, and it's... Oh, I don't know." She thumped her head back, staring up at the ceiling, frustrated with her inability to say what she meant.

Terry bit her lip and eyed the other girl who'd been like a sister to her as long as they'd been here. There was years of covering for each other, listening to each other, defending each other and even some fighting. "Kitty?" she ventured, tentatively, "would you talk to him for me? Just to find out if he's mad at me?"

Terry was way up there on the list of people Kitty would do just about anything for, and Bobby as well. Helping them through a rough spot (or what she hoped was just a rough spot)? No question. "Absolutely," she said, turning back to Terry. "If that's what you want, then of course. I don't want to intrude, but..." But if Terry was asking, that was a different story.

The redhead swallowed hard and nodded, "I...you don't have to fix anything or...I just want to know if he's upset with me. If it's something I did wrong." Tears flooded her eyes again and she blinked rapidly, trying to dispel them.

Kitty wrapped Terry in another swift hug. "Of course," she said. There was not a question in Kitty's mind that Terry had done anything wrong, but she'd go find out what was up with Bobby. "I'll find out, I promise."

Terry just nodded, knowing that trying to talk was just going to make her cry again. She wanted so much to feel like this was a good thing, to have confidence in Kitty's help but fear was clawing up inside her and it was anything but a relief that she was going to have an answer. "Thanks," she whispered without conviction.

Kitty knew in her heart that none of this could be Terry's fault, but she also know that it wasn't Kitty's word on that that Terry wanted. So rather than say words that just sounded empty, she simply tightened her hug, giving Terry what comfort she could.

After a time, Terry pulled away again and gave Kitty a shaky smile, more to prove that she wasn't going to become more upset than because she was fine. "It's late. You should be sleeping," she said tremulously.

"Pot, kettle," Kitty replied, brushing some lose hair back from Terry's face. "I was doing some work for my boss."

"I can't sleep." Terry shrugged apologetically, "Haven't been able to since this...thing. I just lie awake and worry."

Well, that was better than crying herself to sleep. Maybe. "The docs could give you sleeping pills, I'm sure, if you wanted..."

"Tommy's awake. I can't imagine that there's a persona less grata than me in the medlabs right now. I'll be okay. It's just a little lost sleep." Nothing that liberal application of Johnny Walker Blue couldn't help, if it came to that.

Kitty blinked, then blinked again. "The FoH kid woke up? Nobody said... Oh cripes, Terry." She hugged the other girl again. "I'm so sorry. Having to deal with that on top of everything..."

Terry had forgotten that not everyone knew. "Alison told Jay. He woke up yesterday. I'm trying not to think about it."

Kitty nodded. "Yeah, I can understand that. Although hey, if you do want to think, or you know, talk about it, I'm here for you."

Terry buried her face her hands then scrubbed them through her hair. "I...I still don't know what to do about him. I just want him gone. For everyone's sake. Mine...his... He hates us, keeping him here isn't going to help."

On an impersonal, rational level, Kitty didn't have an opinion about the whole thing. Personally, though? People who hurt her friends sucked. "I agree," she said, nodding. "I can understand that the doctors have to take care of him, or something, but once he's better? He's free to let the door hit him on the way out."

"Or move him someplace where they can treat him that isn't a mutant school. I don’t want him dead. Sure and moving him before might have killed him but now? Why is he still here?" Terry couldn't really summon the familiar anger about the subject. Too many other things to worry about now.

Of course, he was a mutant too, now, which kind of begged the question 'where else but a mutant school'. Except people who hurt her friends still sucked. "Couldn't tell you, I'm afraid. It's all kinds of messed up." And Kitty sort of meant everything, by that.

"Aye. That it is." Terry sighed. "I've not seen him. Except for the once when I hit my head and that was just a glimpse. They...they said it was bad. I don't really know what that means."

Kitty's lips tightened. "They kind of need to get more descriptive, or at least use a bigger variety of undescriptive things. I mean, they said Haroun's condition was bad, too..." And bad hadn't even begun to cover it. "But, I mean, he was in a coma for, like, a month. That even tops Nathan's record..."

"Nathan just spreads his comas out," Terry joked weakly then sighed again. "Do you think they'd let me see him? Just once? If I, I don't know, promised not to upset him or something?"

"I don't know," Kitty said honestly, "but I don't see how asking can hurt."

Terry nodded. That, at least, was something she could do. Face Tommy. Take care of Jay. Anything but think about Bobby and her own messed up life. "I'll email the doctors. Maybe Dr. Grey, she's been in my head about him. Dr. Barlet will just say no."

"Yeah," Kitty said, "Dr. Grey's good about... stuff. Understanding stuff." Like the fact that she still wasn't hassling Kitty about her lack of talking with the older woman..

"Aye." Terry shook her head and stood up, "You should sleep now. You've been cried on as much as can be expected for one night."

"I don't mind," Kitty said, standing as well. "I'm totally here for you, you know. But," she added as a yawn caught her off guard, "I have to admit I'm kind of exhausted. And I've got class tomorrow."

Yawns were contagious, worse than any virus and Terry found herself covering a yawn shortly after. "Go to sleep. Class is going to be so much fun with two extra people along for the ride." She pushed Kitty lightly toward her room.

"Well, Jamie sits in on my classes not infrequently, so my professors aren't don't care about that. Explaining why I've got a random adult escort watching over my shoulder is weird. 'S part of why I was working here. Got all the paperwork and lab stuff I didn't actually have to do in the lab in the city so I wasn't keeping anybody away from the school who needs to be here."

Terry nodded. That was perfectly rational and very efficient. Which was also the description of Kitty. "Must be nice to be brilliant and beloved by your professors." She smiled then looked worried again, 'Hey, Kitty? Do you think...I mean, why would Lorna do this?"

"The million dollar question," Kitty said, biting her lip. "I don't know, I really don't. I mean, Lorna's not like... Lorna's not like Pete. I can't imagine she just decided to do this. But... But I keep coming back to what Jamie said when Mr. Summers first posted about how we should watch out for her, and thinking about Skippy, and what happened to Nathan when those Mistra people got ahold of him and he tried to kill the Professor. And Ms. Braddock. And really, we've just had this happen way, way too many times." Kitty's voice cracked a little and she sniffed.

"But Nathan had been with Mistra for years. And Skippy was gone for months and months...Lorna's only been missing a little while and..." Terry trailed off. "Why is everything happening now?"

"Because fall sucks," Kitty said, sniffing again. "Categorically. Terrible things happen in fall. Forget February, my money's on September as the worst month ever. Or possibly October."

"March was pretty bad. And May, we don't have much luck with May," Terry pointed out. "It's more like we have one good month and eleven really dreadful ones. Why do we all live here again?"

"Shared misery is somehow not so bad?" Kitty suggested. "Also there's the multiple nobel winners, for those of us who take science classes..."

"And how many other kids get to say they grew up in a mansion?" Terry smiled humourlessly. "We're all insane."

"Grew up in a mansion with it's own personal stealth jet and band of leather clad super heros. I think the crazy has been well documented, yes."

"Well...beats being normal."

"And on that note..." Kitty leaned forward to hug Terry, "I really ought to go crash. Unless you need me?"

Terry hugged her tightly and let go reluctantly. "I'm okay. Go to sleep." She smiled, "Thanks, Kitty."

"Anytime. Seriously, anytime."