Kurt and Amanda, Monday evening

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Amanda follows through on her promise to visit, and manages to badger some answers out of Kurt.



The email had been brief, but it had been all she needed. As soon as work was done, she'd jumped in the company car she'd started calling 'hers' and headed over to the school as fast as was safe. Now she stood outside his suite door, more than a little nervous. She'd picked up the undercurrents in Ororo's email - what the hell had gone on? Still, standing out here wouldn't give her answers. Knocking on the door, she called out: "Kurt? 'S me. You up for a visit?"

The door opened almost immediately, and her brother stood aside to let her in. "I did say you could come."

She was barely in the door before she was hugging him tightly. "You did, but I thought I'd try out that whole polite thing," she said, covering up the slight shaking of her voice with the joke. He felt thinner than normal, and tense, way too tense. Looking up at his face, she tried to read his expression. As always, it was impossible to tell how he was feeling. "How're you doing?" she asked then, softly. "You scared the bloody life out of me and Stefan, you know."

If he tensed any more at the hug, it was hard to tell given the coiled-spring feel to him already, and he hugged her back after a moment. "I am sorry for that. If I had known you were going to be in Germany..."

"It's all right. As long as you're all right, that's all that matters." She bit her lip a little. "I might've panicked a bit, sent the leather brigade after you. If you needed more time to get yourself together... I'm sorry."

Kurt shook his head. "What happened, happened. I imagine that someone would have come looking sooner or later even if you had not talked to Stefan."

She hugged him again, tightly, before letting go and nodding at the couch. "Let's have a sit down, yeah? I can make tea, if you've still got that stuff I sent back with you? The good tea?" She refrained from saying anything else about him not looking the best - best to get some tea into him before she started the badgering. And badgering there would be - he'd spent too long keeping secrets and she of all people knew the danger in that. If he hadn't already realised it for himself.

"Of course I do. Not as much of it as I did then, but... there is still some." He moved towards the kitchenette to find it.

"I'm just teasing, Blue," she said, coming to join him and turn the kettle on. "You know, that thing sisters do to their big brothers?" Leaning back on the counter, she looked him over again. "So... you didn't answer me before. How're you doing?"

She wasn't going to let him get away without answering, all too clearly. But he could still choose his words carefully. "I will be going to see Jack Leary. For the foreseeable future."

"Nate's shrink?" Not really a surprise, given things were obviously Not Okay with Kurt. "Can't hurt - I always said the best thing that came out of that love potion mess was getting me talking to Samson regular. Well, at least until I stopped last year." She tilted her head slightly, considering him. "You still didn't answer proper, tho'. And I'm not letting up on this, Kurt. You not talking led to this whole disappearing thing, and I'm buggered if I'm going to let you go straight back into it until you explode again and maybe not come back this time."

"It was just too much, in too little time", he said quietly. "And there are things, I have come to understand, that I was... perhaps not dealing with as well as I had thought."

At that, she nodded, relieved to have at least gotten that much out of him. "The team?" she asked. "I heard things got a bit out of hand on the last couple of jobs."

"That would be one way to put it, yes. It was... difficult. And I do not think I will be allowed to join the team in the field for some time."

That got a surprised look. "Because you took off without saying? Hell, Nate's done that a couple of times and they've never given him that much grief. Certainly haven't kicked him off the team." The kettle boiled and she gently took the packet of tea from his hands, where he'd been turning it over and over. "Here, let me make this."

That got something almost like laughter, as he let her take the tea. "Oh, how I wish that was all it would be for."

She paused in the middle of opening the packet. "What do you mean?" she asked, puzzled.

"When I said I was with my mother, Amanda, it was misleading, but it was not a lie. I needed to speak with her."

"But, Stefan said..." Amanda's brow furrowed as she realised he wasn't meaning Margali. She identified him as Szardos in her head so much, she forgot he'd been adopted... "Your birth mother, you mean?" she asked. He'd mentioned finding out who she was, but not much more than that. "Was that why you were in Chicago? To talk to her?"

"...she was with me in Chicago, yes", he said slowly, realizing she honestly didn't know. "You do not know who she is. Have I really talked to people so little?"

"It's something of a trademark with you, Kurt. You bring a whole new level to the whole stoic German thing." Amanda smiled at him a little to show she wasn't being malicious about it. "So, who is your birth mother? Nice lady, I hope?"

"I do not think anyone would call her that, no." He turned away from her now, not wanting to see her face when he told her the truth. "Not after all she has done."

"Kurt, you're starting to worry me here..." Leaving the tea for now, Amanda reached for his shoulder, touching it gently. "Just tell me, yeah? Whatever it is, you're still gunna be my big brother at the end of it - you stuck by me last year, remember? And you can't get much worse than joining the other side."

"I did not do that, at least", he said wearily, still not looking at her. "Though you may find some who do not believe that... after I was found in company of Mystique - and helped her escape them."

Amanda's mouth dropped open and for a moment she was incapable of doing anything more than gape at him disbelievingly. "Mystique?" she managed at last, knowing the name from the X-Force files as much as the school. "You mean to say she's your..." She trailed off again, still in shock. "Bloody hell, Blue. When you keep something to yourself, it's never small," she continued at last. The hand stayed on his shoulder, squeezing slightly. "And since you helped her get away... she either put the mojo on you or you two got on. And since getting the mojo put on you isn't something anyone would blame you for, I'm guessing it's the other?"

"She kept me from her... friends... for nearly two weeks", he said quietly, leaning into her hand almost gratefully. "And she answered those questions I had, at least to some degree."

"Until the team came crashing in." Amanda sighed, realising what she'd set in motion. But then again, this was Mystique. Her very nature was untrustworthy. "Are you going to try and see her again?" she asked, worried about the answer either way.

"No", he said immediately. "I have no plans to seek her out, and... I think measures will be taken to keep me away from her in the field, if I should rejoin the team."

If. The team had been Kurt's life. Perhaps that had been the problem. "I can't say I'm sorry to hear you say you won't, Kurt. Even if she protected you this time... well, there's always the chance Buckethead could use her as bait to get at you if he found out about you two. But..." And here she slipped her arm around him, hugging him again. "You're still my brother, yeah?"

He smiled slightly, hugging her back. "Thank you. It is good to know that that, at least, will be the same."

"We wasted enough time with the being kidnapped and then the not getting on and me going evil," she told him, returning the smile and the hug. "It's gunna take a lot more than that to get rid of me now."