Kitty heaved up her suitcase and began unloading its contents. Much as she was glad back to be in Westchester, she hated moving back in. It was so weird seeing her old room barren of any of the posters or decorations she used to have hanging up. As she hung her clothes in the closet she thought of new ways to decorate her room. She picked up an old jacket and something slipped out of the pocket and fell to the floor. Kitty picked it up and found it was a picture. A picture of her and Piotr when they had been an item. Kitty looked embarassed when she saw how dorky she looked in the picture. She had an humungous dopey grin plastered across her face because she was in Piotr's arms.
"Jeez, I can't believe I look so nerdy. It's a wonder Piotr ever went out with me, that smile must have been a mile wide every time I saw him." Kitty smiled at herself and placed the photo in her pocket. She went back to moving in but the picture had brought up memories of her and Piotr. She smiled at all of them.
Kitty sat on the bed and started to remember every minor little detail about Piotr. About why she had fallen for him in the first place. He was so disarmingly handsome. He was tall, strong....so many things. She had liked him at once. At first she had tried to deny it. They were X-Men. Fighting for a better future for all mutants. But being a young teenager, she couldn't help herself. She loved every part of him. How he would so polite and shy. The way he would tilt his head to the side and scratch it every time he was painting. And how he would time after time again risk his life for a better world. They had grown close. He would still be shy when she tried her best to flirt with him. He would turn a slight shade of red and just brush it off. Kitty had known the first time she saw him that he was wonderful.
Kitty stood up abruptly. She was supposed to be fixing up her room. Not thinking about things that were past. Could have happened.....should have happened.
"What is with you, Pryde? "Kitty thought to herself,"After all this time why am I thinking of Piotr? We're friends now. Friends. We're both X-Men, at that. We had our chance and it didn't work. Get on with your life."
Kitty tried to put away some old junk into a drawer but she still couldn't get her mind off Piotr. Knowing she was not going to be able to get some real work done she used her mutant power and aligned the molecules in the air and began phasing her way up to Ororo's attic. Where she could just sit and think and sort things out.
Piotr Nikolievitch Rasputin sat on the cool wooden floor of his friend, fellow X-Man, Ororo's attic. Ororo had gone out to town with Kurt Wagner, to buy some food for them all. A picnic was to be later that day. Piotr was in no mood to celebrate. He wasn't ungrateful, no, nothing like that. He just felt there was something...missing. Void out of him. It could have been a number of things, the loss of all of his family. His hardworking, loving, parents. His brother, Mikhail, who had turned insane and then perished. Or his lovely little snowflake, his light, his love, his little sister Illyana who had died by a deadly virus that struck out and killed mutants. Piotr hung his head. He may be strong and powerful, able to lift well over 50 tons. But he couldn't save his own little sister. Whom he had told he would always protect. Piotr sighed. He had dealt with all of that and had come out a stronger person. Though he had to learn the hard way. After his sister died, he had turned against Charles Xavier and his dream, for it had betrayed him. Then out of spite, he had joined the X-Men's most accursed foe. Magneto. Not only that, he had joined him in front of all of his fellow X-Men. He had been so blinded by sorrow, he didn't care. None of the faces who looked at him in pure shock had meant nothing. All except one. He had looked down at Kitty Pryde's face. It wasn't of shame or disappointment like all the others. It was of pure, deep, hurt. He looked at her face, just long enough to see her eyes fill with tears and to see her lips silently mouth "no" before he had to turn away.
Piotr held his head in his hands. That had been a mistake. He knew that now. But he had been so full of sorrow he couldn't see what he was doing. He had left Magneto and his Acolytes. He knew he had messed up. He had let down himself, the professor, his friends and his Katya. Kitty. He had hurt her the most. As soon as he left he had come to where she was. The European X-Men, Excalibur, on Muir Island. She had accepted him once more. Though, it must have been hard for her. Considering, that he found her making out with her new boyfriend and had beat the living bejezzus out of him. She still had forgiven him and listened to him and tried her best to get a laugh out of him. All in all, Piotr was glad Kitty had dropped her old boyfriend, Pete Wisdom. Though he had tried to conceal it, badly at that, he had despised Pete Wisdom. He wouldn't presume to pick who was right for Kitty, but he sure as hell knew it wasn't Wisdom.
"No, not him. Not for my Katya," He said to himself. He stopped as soon as the words came out of his mouth. My Katya. Piotr cursed himself. No, not his. That had ended. He and Kitty had had their shot and it hadn't worked.
"Because of me,"He thought to himself. He had always known he had messed it up. He had been the one to hurt her. He hated himself for it. Everytime he imagined tears in her eyes he would want to find some way he could make it up to her anyway. He couldn't stand to know he had made her cry.
Piotr reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny slip of paper, it was the reason he had come up here anyway. It had brought up so many things, he had to come up to Ororo's attic, just so he could sort things out. He slowly opened it and read it again. Written, in purple ink, was " Peter, I think you're absolutely wonderful. Love, Katherine" Kitty had written it to him after the first time she had kissed him. When she had made him close his eyes and just kissed him. He laughed a little at her courage. He rubbed the tiny note between his fingers.
"I think so, too Kitty. I think so, too."
Kitty phased into Ororo's attic to find Piotr sitting on the floor rubbing what looked like a tiny note between his fingers whispering something to himself.
"Peter?"
Piotr spun around so quickly it almost frightened Kitty.
"Katya? What are you doing here?"
"I was just...I came up here to...well, I could ask you the same thing," she replied with a sly smile at the corners or her mouth.
"I just came to...think," he said as he tried to slip the note back into his pocket.
Kitty noticed.
"Hey, what's that?"
She walked over to him and playfully grabbed his hand and the wrestled around for the note, like kids. Both smiling. Until they started to stop and their hands were simply touching each other and started to lower. Kitty took the note without any more struggle from Piotr.
Kitty opened the note and recognized it at once.
"Oh Peter, where'd you ever find this?"
"When I was moving back into my room I found it among some other things."
Kitty laughed. "I must have seemed like such a geek to you back then. Look at this. 'Love Katherine' I thought by using Katherine I would seem so much older and mature to you." She laughed.
Her laugh caused a sensation of warmth to spread all across Piotr's heart.
"No Katya, you never seemed 'geeky' to me. I know that when you gave it to me, it was from you. A part of you. And as my...friend...it is special."
Kitty smiled, even though she did her best not to.
"Well since we're sharing nostalgia let me show you this picture I found when I was putting away some of my old clothes," Kitty said as she dug the picture out of her back pocket and handed it to him.
Piotr smiled at the sight of it.
"It's you and I. When we all went for a day at the beach. It seems so long ago,"Piotr breathed out.
"Yeah...,"Kitty said as she took back the photo, not because she wanted it back right then, but because she wanted to feel his strong, gentle hands once more, she couldn't help herself. Here was the man who was her first love, her first kiss, standing in front of her holding a love note she had written ages ago. Kitty knew then that like it or not, part of her would always love Piotr Nikolievitch Rasputin.
She quickly stuffed the picture back in her pocket and sat on the floor. Piotr joined her. They sat in a comfortable silence, only as the best of friends can until Kitty broke the silence.
"Peter, do you remember, that day at the beach, you bought us both ice cream and I dropped mine on you, but you gave me yours?" She smiled at the recollection. Until she realized how she much have sounded.
"Stupid, Pryde! Stupid!" she thought, "Can I be more obvious that I still have feelings for him?"
Piotr didn't say anything and Kitty cursed herself even more until Piotr finally replied after what seemed like centuries.
"Kitty...," his mouth seemed dry. Can you do me a favor?"
He sounded so nervous so immediately Kitty said she would. She expected him to ask her to help him move back into his room, or be funny and never eat ice cream around him again. but instead she got something she never expected.
"Close your eyes. Just trust me and close them."
Kitty closed them without hesitation and felt herself, and her heart lift when she felt herself in Piotr's arms.
"Piotr, I trust you. You know that. But what are you doing?"
He was going to tell her. Tell her what he had wanted to say for so long. He loved her. He was going to tell her and then kiss her with her eyes shut, as she had first kissed him. It had seemed like a wonderful idea. Unfortunately, Piotr Rasputin is not an impulsive man and he had just let impulsiveness take the better of him.
"I'm so sorry. Here, let me put you down. I, I'm silly. It was nothing."
Piotr placed her down but found Kitty still had her arms around his neck, not letting go.
"It had been so long, "she thought to herself," since I've felt his lips on mine."
She wanted to kiss him so badly. She knew she couldn't and she knew she was making it even worse for herself and for him because he wouldn't know why she was still hanging onto him.
She dropped her arms from around his neck suddenly and turned away doing her best to stop the tears from welling up in the bottom of her eyes. She was trying her best not to cry, but this entire day seemed to be re-openind old wounds, long thought healed.
"Katya...?" Piotr carefully asked,"Are you all right?" He was scared. Scared her hurt her again. He didn't know how, but still scared.
She turned around with the tears fully flowing down her face. Piotr's heart broke at the sight of them.
"I can't do this anymore, Peter. I know what we had...stopped. But I can't stop my feelings. I still have feelings for you. And I know you probably don't want some little kid following your footsteps everywhere and I'm sorry that I'm probably going to cause ackwardness between us but I have to say this. I love you. I always have. From the moment I saw you. Ever since," The tears flowed in currents down her face.
Piotr was so elated, and shocked at the same moment, he couldn't speak. She waited for a response but found none. "I know I just messed everything up, but I couldn't keep it inside anymore. So, I can't be around you just as friends anymore. You mean more to me than that. Being around you, day after day, I couldn't take it. I just.... I have to go.Leave. The X-Men. I'm so sorry, g'bye.
Kitty had let her emotions get the better of her and she quickly phased downstairs, determined to never come back.
"Katya! No!" Piotr shouted as she phased into the floor downstairs. He had to tell her. Let her know he felt the same way, too. He and Kitty, they wouldn't have to be seperated anymore. They could be together....if only he could find her. She had been upset, she was probably leaving right away What better way to travel faster than the Aurora, the X-Men's new ship?
He ran as fast as he could to the hangar. The ship sat there, unmoved. No one else was there.
"Where could she be?" he thought? "The Aurora is the fastest way out of her..unless....."
Piotr began running towards the mansion's garage where numerous cars were kept. He hadn't expected her to take a car.
By the time, he reached the garage he noticed a parking space empty. He shut his eyes.
"No, this can't be happening. I don't know where she's going."
He sat on a overturned tire and placed his head in his hands. He didn't know how but he had to find Kitty. He had to tell her that he was in love with her, just how like she was in love with him. After so long they could truly love each other, not just keep it to themselves. He stood up. Picked up the keys for the black Chevy Blazer, got in and started to drive. To where? He had no idea. But he was determined. He would not come back until he had found Kitty.