Scott and Kitty: Paper Planes (Backdated)

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

Kitty and Scott escape the quiet opressiveness of the mansion in the early hours of the morning to fold paper planes on the roof.

It had been a while since he had done this Scott mused as he considered the obstacle in front of him, he had never wished for a different mutant power more than he did now. Very slowly he inched his hand forward managing to hook one finger around the door-handle and giving it a twist. He let out a sigh of relief as the door swung open and he stepped out onto the roof and took a breath of the crisp night air. It' had been a while since he'd done this, sneaking out to the roof at night, a part of him missed those days.

Kitty was crouched over her knees, hugging them to her chest as she stared out at the stars. She wiggled her toes as her mind wandered, oblivious to Scott's presence. Her phone was cast behind her, the screen still faintly glowing with the last text message.

I wonder what the stars look like from outer space , she thought, flecks of light from a nearby street lamp catching the green in her hazel eyes. She rested her chin on her knees.

Scott cocked his head to the side as he stared at Kitty's back, a grin spreading over his face as he laid his burden down silently and slipped into position behind her. "You know you never really appreciate it in the city do you? The view of the stars, without anything to get in the way. "The X-man's voice turned wistful, "I've always wondered what it'd be like to be up there looking back at earth. What would you see, what would it mean?"

She glanced up. At first, she was startled but then a smile crept onto her face, so slow and subtle it was as if she was relearning joy.

"Taking up telepathy, Scott? That's what I was thinking." Kitty laughed, glancing down at her toes. Then she forced herself to relax, leaning back a little as she braced her elbows against the cold shingles. "I guess it depends on who you are, really. Are you talking about "me" me or if I was an alien?"

"Well you know how it, you hang around Charles long enough and some things start to rub off," Scott replied good naturedly as he dropped down on the roof next to Kitty, "I guess you you, if you were an alien who had made it out here you'd have a completely different perspective. The earth not being your home or anything." The one time Scott had been to space he hadn't really had the time to sit back and really think about what he was seeing.

"I dunno. I guess I'd see the swirling blue oceans and the drift of clouds...maybe parts would be dark and other parts would have little tiny pinpricks of light...and me being me..." she laughed softly. "I'd probably wonder which lights I knew, whether it was Mom or Jean or you or..." Kitty shook her head. "I'd like to think that if I got so far above it all, some sort of profound truth would find me but I don't think I'm that deep, really."

Scott arched an eyebrow as he turned his head to look over at Kitty, "I think you're selling yourself a little short there," he disagreed, "At hte very least you have a very poetic slant when it comes to it. Me, if I were up there staring back at a word shining like a marble, honestly I'd probably end up wondering which of them were the people here. Who was getting in trouble and needed help." He gave her a wry smile, ""Sometimes as much as I try to fight it it feels like this place has taken over my life little by little." He laughed, "and then all of a sudden I find myself in my office working in the middle of the night till an angel interrupted me with a text." he told her inclining his head towards the brunette.

"Oh, I'm no angel." A sudden gravity lined her voice. Realizing it, Kitty forced herself to smile. "I'm not even sure I believe in such things." Her mouth quirked. "Good thing none of my family is here to hear me say that." Faith was a subject of controversy in the Pryde household growing up--despite her parents' erratic relationship with it, Kitty knew they had always expected her to believe. What in, however, she wasn't exactly sure.

Scott's face fell slightly at the gravity in Kitty's voice. He hadn't meant to bring up memories, just offer the woman his thanks and a compliment, but now. "I know that feeling, I'm pretty sure my mother wouldn't be too happy with my attitude. And my father....well lets just say the wonderful life of a pirate has...jaded him even more than me."

"Your dad's a...pirate?" She blinked, just barely repressing a laugh. "Like...Captain Jack Sparrow or...?" It was hard to reconcile Scott--or anyone related to him--to the mental image forming in her mind.

"Yup, I swear if he could get a parrot and teach his crew to sing Yo-ho it'd be just like something out of a story book," Scott laughed, he'd spoken to Corsair a few months ago but his father was always hard to pin down, and Scott didn't make as much time to visit as he should. "Madripoor is actually quite lovely as a holiday resort you know, if you can ignore the bloodthirsty pirates sunbathing all over the beach," he told Kitty with a smile.

"Mmm...holiday. I haven't been on a proper one of those in forever. Unless this counts." She wiggled a bare toe at Scott. "I've been all over the world but always working, working, working. I don't even know where I'd go if I could go on vacation. What about you?"

Scott blinked and leaned back, "Holiday huh, I cant' actually remember the last time I took one. If I could go anywhere in the world..." he twirled a piece of paper between his fingers. "I sometimes go to Alaska to visit my grandparents, but if I could go anywhere then, somewhere quiet. Sun sea and sand. Somewhere I could relax and just be without having to think about the X-men or the anything to do with the mansion. I could just relax ad do whatever I wanted without staying up till all hours of hte morning working on rotas and schedules." he admitted with a wry grin. "What about you, anywhere in the world, where would you go?"

"Somewhere I've never been. Somewhere cold--it's too damn hot here," she said, then with an impish grin added, "Antarctica. Aren't there penguins?"

Kitty looked up at the stars. "I've never been to Alaska though, surprisingly enough. My boss wasn't into much of the native stuff up there. She was more interested in the middle east. Countries currently being destroyed by war rather than ones already decimated by it."

Glancing at her feet, she said, "I guess...I'd also like to go to Israel. I haven't been there either, surprisingly. Or Germany. And...there's a lot of my family there. I mean, not anymore but...there was. I was named for a grandmother I never knew. I'd just like to see where I came from."

Scott nodded slowly, "I can understand that," he said slowly, "That's kind of how I feel about Alaska, it's home in a way. It's where my family is from, and still is. But the mansion is sort of where my family is too, it can get a little confusing sometimes." The X-man tilted his head and looked across at Kitty, "So why don't you go? You can afford it now, and you deserve the chance to go back and find out more about your family if you want to."

"Go? I just got here. Are you trying to get rid of me already, Scott?" Kitty grinned.

"Well I wouldn't want to keep you all to myself," Scott replied with a smile, "Well I would actually, but you know how it is, I can't be selfish as much as I wish I could be. That's kinda how we ended up here in the first place," he noted with a grin.

"Do you ever regret it?" She asked.

"All of this?" Scott fell silent leaning back against the roof to look up at the stars while he threaded a piece of paper backwards and forwards through his fingers. "Sometimes," he admitted quietly into the silence, "I've given up and lost more than most people could ever dream of while I've been here and the world is no better off than it used to be. It might have even gotten worse. It wasn't supposed to be like this you know, when we were young we were going to change the world, show everyone that humans and mutants could co-exist peacefully. So we could move on, grow up and have lives. But we're still here." he sighed, "I know the thing to do is to say that the moments make it all worthwhile, And it's true that there are people out there we saved, who's lives are better cause of what we did; there are tyrants, terrorists and countries out there who won't hurt anyone anymore. And it feels good to have done that. but it feels like we never grew up. I'm still the same as the boy 20 years ago trying to move my boulder and change the world but now I have 20 years of experience weighing me down too. And the boulder hasn't gotten any lighter, it might have actually gotten heavier."

The X-man looked down the side of the mansion at the light spilling out of the rooms of the mansion, the shadow of another night owl moving in the kitchen as the gently released the paper airplane he'd been idly folding while he'd been speaking watching it float down the side of the mansion slipping in and out of the patches of light and dark. "I have regrets, the people we've lost. The people I wasn't fast enough or smart enough to save or who I didn't even know about at all. But as people keep pointing out to me, I can't keep focusing on that or I'd never get out of bed and get anything done. That's maybe the hardest thing I've ever had to do."

Kitty watched him, letting her gaze linger on Scott's face for just a moment before she turned to watch the paper airplane floating down to the ground. He looks so much older than before... I wish...I wish I could... The thought tangled itself in her own mind, lost in a thousand other things, memories and feelings and words she couldn't define. I wish I had known him better then. For once, she didn't question the thought, just let it hang there in her heart for a moment before she turned.

Reaching out, she squeezed his hand for a second before letting go. "We all lose people, Scott. The trick is...don't lose yourself when they go."

She swallowed, knowing that she hadn't done the same. She had lost herself somewhere along the way and she'd come here asking everyone else to find her. It's time to join the others. Stand up for something even if I've forgotten how to stand up for me.

Scott smiled wanly and reached over to gently squeeze Kitty's hand back, "My problem is that I've always had trouble letting go, of the people and the guilt. But that's what drives me forward. The need to protect them, my second family. I guess sometimes it drives me too much...After M-day...I didn't take it well." Scott swallowed, even now it was harder than he liked to admit, "I needed to protect them I needed to be the one who didn't let anything else bad happen. Adrienne had to knock me around the danger room a few times before she made me realize I was just running into a brick wall and hurting myself." He shrugged and smiled at Kitty, "Sometimes what we need is our friends to knock some sense into us and help us back to who we are."