xp_logs | Kitty and Jamie: New Years Logs (Reply)

Backdated. After a fun Christmas in Kansas, Kit and Jamie go to Chicago for a far less enjoyable New Year. At least she gets to have a fabulous dance first.

Jamie had to give Kitty's dad's coworkers one thing--for a bunch of computer programmers who didn't even make video games, they threw a decent party. Especially considering the live band. The live band gave him all sorts of possibilities, especially when getting drinks gave him such a good excuse to go have a quiet word about them..

But that was for a little bit later, he thought with a grin as he caught sight of Kitty again. "Having fun?" he asked, handing her her drink.

Kitty grinned, accpeting the cup. "I am. For a bunch of old people, my dad's coworkers are pretty cool. It's been ages since I've seen half of them, and yet they have, by and large, refrained from telling any embarrassing stories about when I used to follow dad around work and stuff envelopes and so on. I was such a nerd when I was little."

"Oh yeah?" Jamie raised an eyebrow. "Maybe you should point those people out, you know, just so I can make a point of not asking them about those kind of stories at any point during the evening. Because I bet you were completely adorable."

Kitty snorted. "I shall do no such thing," she told him with a smile, "but I will admit that, in general, any of the secretaries is likely to have a frightful collection since, if dad was busy, it would usually be them watching over me."

"Secretaries. Right. I am making a note. And you are, if it needed saying, still completely adorable." Jamie leaned in for a kiss, and gave the band a covert high sign out of Kitty's field of vision. The bandleader grinned and struck up a new selection. "Hey," Jamie said innocently, "you feel like dancing?"

"Do I ever not?" Kitty asked with a grin. "You want to, though?" Turning, she glanced out at the dance floor. The band had moved on to a nice, high tempo tango and a lot of the other dancers were clearly deciding to sit this one out.

"Well, I tell you what, let's give it a try and I'll do my best to keep up."

Jamie took Kitty's hand with a flourish and led her out onto the dance floor, where he not only kept up, he stood out, leading her through the steps with confidence and a surprising amount of flair.

Kitty's smile spread into a bright grin as the dance progressed, Jamie moving with not just talent but a clear amount of skill as well. The dance floor had been mostly clear when they started, so there was plenty a room for them to move in and a not-inconsiderable amount of atention garnered by their dance.

As the music whirled to a stop, Jamie swept Kitty into a deep dip, then drew her back up close against him, grinning down at her as scattered applause sounded from the sidelines. "Not so bad, huh? Surprise."

"Good God, Jamie," Kitty said, eyes shining. "When did you learn to dance like that, huh? You can't have been holding out on me..."

Jamie laughed. "And you thought you knew everything about me. Asked Kurt for lessons around the middle of November, but he had some personal thing for a couple weeks there, so I've only actually been having the lessons for a little bit of November and all December. I bet I packed about eight subjective months of practice in there, though. You could tell, huh?"

"You were fabulous," she said, hugging him tightly. "The tango, of all things." Kitty grinned, leading him off the dance floor towards the bar in the back of the room, planning on getting some water. "What an excellent surprise."

"I'm glad. Ever since--well, for a while, anyway," he self-edited lamely, "I've been wanting to make it a little more fun for you when we go dancing. This seemed like a pretty good start."

It wasn't hard to fill in the edited line and Kitty reached up to give him a soft kiss. "It's always been fun dancing with you, really. Not that I'm objecting to you wanting to dance better for me. But, truly, I'd have to be out of my head to ever not mean that."

"Just because you were having your head messed with didn't mean you didn't have a point," Jamie replied firmly. "You shouldn't have to hold yourself back to my speed all the time. Besides, I like dancing with you."

"Well, that I definitely won't argue with, since I like dancing with you, too." Pushing past a couple of people who were milling about the bar just chatting, Kitty caught the bartender's eye. "Two waters, please," she said, smiling at him.

Her father's unexpected hand on her shoulder was the first she noticed that he was sitting there by the bar. "What, jus' water, kitten?" he asked. "It'd be ok wi' me if you wanted somethin' more. Wouldn' say a thing."

Jamie paused for a moment, surprised by Kitty's dad's obvious state, then smiled at him, shifting mental gears smoothly and giving Kitty's hand a reassuring squeeze. "She's driving tonight, sir. Probably wouldn't be a good idea."

It took Kitty much longer to catch on to what was going on, and in the meantime Jamie had caught her father's attention.

"Ah, she's a good girl t' drive f'r you, then. No' like her mother." Catching the bartender's wrist as he placed the two water glassess in front of them he grinned. "'Nother whiskey, Caleb, an' one f'r Jamie here as well. My lil' girl's boy, doncha know."

"Ah--" Jamie waved the bartender away, taking a firm hold of his own water glass. "'Fraid whiskey and I don't get along. I snuck some of my grandpa's stash out to the barn when I was twelve, and I swear I threw up everything back to my first spoonful of strained carrots." Jamie smiled sheepishly. "Swore off the stuff after that. Sometimes you never get over a bad first impression, you know?" And the lecture had been memorable.

"Ah, well, two f'r me then," Mr. Pryde said. "Be a shame t' let good whiskey go t' waste. Even though 's not very good whiskey." Turning back to Kitty he frowned suddenly. "Wha's'a matter, princess. You don' look happy. 'S somebody botherin' my lil' girl?"

Kitty's hand tightened in Jamie's. "It's nothing, daddy," she managed, trying to smile. "I'm fine." This she really didn't know how to cope with. Her father's voice had risen a little and people were starting to look over at the three of them, but there was far more pity and understanding in those looks than Kitty could cope with. Clearly her father's coworkers had known about... this... for a while now.

Jamie had more experience than he'd ever wanted to with recognizing the telltale signs of Kitty in imminent cope failure, and he was seeing them now in spades. And, truth to tell, he wasn't sure how much longer he was going to be able to deal with this either, especially not if Mr. Pryde decided to start ordering him drinks again. "Maybe a little fresh air," Jamie suggested. "It's a little noisy in here. Nice seeing you again, Mr. Pryde."

Away, yes. Away would be excellent. "Yes, right. I need some air. Dancing, you know." She gripped Jamie's hand a little tighter as she verbally floundered, backing away. "We'll see you later, daddy."

"All righ' sweetheart. I'll see you la'er."

Jamie ushered Kitty out of the room as quickly as he could, and enfolded her in his arms as soon as they found a quiet, secluded spot. "I'm here," he murmured, stroking her back. "We're all alone now, it's okay, go on and let it out if you have to."

Kitty curled into his arms, hiding her face in his shoulder. "Well," came her muffled voice, "at least now I know what the hell's been going on..."

"Mm." Jamie rested his cheek on Kitty's hair. "Kinda wish my wild-ass guess he was a secret agent had been right, though. I mean, this . . ."

Voice still muffled by Jamie's shoulder, Kitty made a sort of vague assenting noise before saying, "Well, does possibly present another reason mom wanted us to stay at her place. And begs the question why she couldn't just tell me."

"Wish I knew," Jamie sighed. "Your parents just baffle me most of the time."

"Me, too," Kitty said. Hugging him tightly, she finally moved back slightly to look at him. "Familial dysfunction, thy name is 'Pryde'."

Later, after they get home and Kit finally gets to sleep, Jamie has a little talk with Kitty's mother.

When Kitty got into a clingy mood, she could be downright . . . Jamie's tired brain hunted for flattering comparisons, but kept cycling back around to words like "limpet." Not that he minded--hell, he was more than a little proud that he'd finally managed to soothe her into sleep, however fitful it might be. But by the time that happened, he'd worried himself into a fine old bout of insomnia. Which probably went to show . . . something.

Luckily, one of the perks of his power was that he could get out of bed and go hunt for cocoa without actually getting out of bed and waking Kitty up. Unluckily, Mrs. Pryde either didn't have cocoa or she kept it somewhere that, at this time of night, might as well be Mars as far as Jamie was able to tell. Which also probably went to show something, mostly that he probably wasn't gonna be able to put himself back to bed with a nice cup of cocoa.

Sarah Pryde, seated in the darkened dining room, watched the young man hunting among her cupboards. She'd meant to go to bed a while ago - that was why she'd turned the lights out - but it hadn't worked. Still worrying, still thinking, she'd simply stayed where she was until Jamie had come wandering out into the kitchen. Presumably he just hadn't seen (or expected to see) her sitting alone in the dark, which gave Sarah a good chance to consider the boy. Finally, though, his clearly frustrated hunting got to her. "Is there something I could help you find?" she asked quietly.

Jamie started. "Um. Sorry, ma'am, didn't see you there. Um. Cocoa?" He shrugged helplessly. "I couldn't sleep, thought maybe some cocoa would help. You either, huh?"

She couldn't quite help the little smile at his startlement, although she hid it. Standing to move into the kitchen, she pulled a small jar labeled 'tea' off the counter and opened it, revealing a number of packets of Swiss Miss. "Here," she said, handing him two. "Afraid I don't have any of the real stuff just now. And I don't know, I haven't tried yet." Sarah considered asking about Kitty, but couldn't bring herself to.

"S'okay, this'll be fine." Having pretty much found everything else in the kitchen, Jamie set some water on the stove to heat and got out two mugs. "Kitty's asleep," he added. "It's not, y'know, incredibly good sleep, but I'll take what I can get at this point. Visit's been a little rougher than we thought."

Sarah sighed. "I know. I am sorry about that." Not that being sorry helped.

Jamie stared at the water for a moment, watching the bubbles form on the sides of the pot. "You knew about this already?" he asked neutrally.

Her mouth thinned, lips pulling in to stifle a sigh. Eventually Sarah said, "Yes, I knew, or at least I'd had hints."

Jamie frowned. "Y'know, you probably don't think it's my place to say, but have you ever considered not letting Kitty be the last to know about stuff like this every time? Just as an experiment, to see if forewarned actually is forearmed?"

She wanted to yell, 'Don't judge me!' at him, but it would just be too cliche. Instead, Sarah said, "Oh, yes. And do you want to tell me how you would go about telling your little girl that her father, her beloved daddy who she adores and always has, is a selfish asshole who's started drinking too much and didn't even stop to think about what it might do to his little girl?"

"I don't know," Jamie admitted. "But damn near anything would've been better than finding out when her beloved daddy who she adores and always has came up behind her three sheets to the wind and offered to do shots with her." He stirred the cocoa into the hot water perhaps a touch unnecessarily fiercely. "She had to find out in public. With an audience. We were the only two people in the room who didn't know what was going on. And you could have taken her aside and softened the blow, at least, instead of sending her in there blind to get her heart broken. Again."

Jamie sighed, shaking his head. "Look, I'm--I'm sorry. I didn't come in here looking for a fight. It's just . . . she's my whole world, and she's hurting, and it didn't have to be this way, except all three of you have this whole family structure built on ignoring each other as much as humanly possible, and Kitty--hell, all of you--deserve better."

Sarah wanted to get defensive, to yell and shout and say she'd never sent Kitty in anywhere and ask what right this boy who knew nothing about anything had to be questioning her but, in truth, maybe Jamie was the only one who had any right. The outside observer, the only one who'd never been hurt by it all. The one who just had Kitty's best interests at heart.

Turning away from him, she stared out the window towards the streetlight, not seeing anything. "I don't know," she finally said. "I just don't know."

"Well, don't you think somebody should do something? I mean, I don't--" Jamie snorted. "Okay, maybe it's just the three years of homeschooling talking here, but I have a hard time imagining not talking to my parents at least a couple times a week, or at least e-mailing them, I don't know how you guys manage. And I'll help as much as I can, but . . . I think one of you needs to make the first move." He paused, chewing his lip. "And I don't think it's gonna be Kitty. I'll love her forever, but she doesn't--she doesn't trust as easily as she used to. Which isn't your fault," he added hastily. "A lot's happened. But there it is."

"I've been trying." The edge of defensiveness in Sarah's tone was faint, but it was there. "We're talking more, really we are, but... She hasn't trusted us... she hasn't trusted me in years. Maybe ever." This last was little more than a whisper.

"Oh, I dunno about that. She's a lot more together than she would be if she'd never trusted you. And if this was the way it'd always been, well . . . it probably wouldn't hurt her as much. She'd be used to it. Not that that's comforting, I guess." Jamie topped up his cocoa. "The thing is--and I know I don't have the whole story here, so I'm sorry if this comes out too blunt--there's some pretty big hurdles in the way. When you and Mr. Pryde separated, well, you didn't exactly do much to soften the blow when you finally got around to telling her. And then that summer . . . Kitty doesn't like being, I dunno, marginalized, or ignored--treated like she isn't important enough to have an opinion, she hates that. So yanking her back here all summer--I'm sure you had the best intentions, and hell, I wish the two of you would spend some time together and figure out how to get along better. I just, I guess I'm trying to say your method, that time, um. Kinda sucked."

"It wasn't easy," Sarah said, aware that it wasn't much of a defense. "None of that was easy for me. I never even wanted to send her away to school, and after we did she never came home. I just wanted some time with my little girl!"

"And maybe if you'd told her that, she would've been happier about visiting. She didn't loathe absolutely everything while she was here, and she does love you, although--" One corner of Jamie's mouth crooked up. "She likes classical art a lot more than modern. Just saying." He shook his head. "But this is what I'm saying--from all I can see you don't even try to meet her halfway. You dictate uncompromising terms and make her toe your line, and then you wonder why she doesn't want to spend more time with you. She's not a child anymore."

"Well, I'm sorry I don't meet your exacting standards, Jamie Madrox," Sarah said, putting down the half empty cup and standing up, furious, although which one of them she was mad at she probably couldn't say.

Jamie cocked his head, nothing but honesty in his face. "Ma'am, it's not my standards you have to meet."

She couldn't take it. She just couldn't take it. The anger drained out of her, and Sarah turned away from the boy. "Good night, Jamie," she said, a note of finality in her voice.

Jamie nodded, resigned; he'd already said more than he'd meant to, and thank God Kitty hadn't heard the two of them. "'Night, ma'am." He
paused uncertainly, glancing over at the stove. "I'll, um, I'll clear this up, unless you'd rather?"

"Leave it," she said. "I'll deal with it in the morning."