Fade Out: Part 1

Foolish Pryde

by Laersyn

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Marvel. The world belongs to Marvel. The author belongs to Kielle.

Author's Note: This story takes place just after the most hated Excalibur issue#120. I could have gone the cheap route, but I decided to give myself a challenge. Oh, and warning, there's a lot of accents in here. I apologize if they're wrong or inconsistent. There's also a lot of techno-babble and phony medical terms that would make anyone who knows their stuff laugh, but hey, I'm not Chris Carter. I don't have a team of scientists helping me out.

All the things we keep inside
All the things that really matter
The face puts on its best disguise
and all is well
until the heart betrays

~~All That I Bleed
~~Savatage

"Have ye tol' him yut?"

Kitty gave Dr. MacTaggart a guilty look and slid off the exam table. The laboratory around them was quiet save for the incessant hum of the doctor's equipment. The cold sterility of the place was, as always, countermanded by Moira's matronly warmth.

"Not...exactly..."

Moira, of course, knew of the break-up between her patient and the inestimable Pete Wisdom. If Douglock had not told her, than certainly the renewed purity of the air within the installation would have been a clue. She had to play dumb, however, lest she infuriate Kitty by letting her know that people were gossiping about her behind her back.

"Wha's that mean, 'nae exactly'?"

Kitty pulled her uniform shirt back on and wrapped her arms about herself. "We...had a fight. He's gone, Moira."

Dr. MacTaggart could see the pain on her patient's face. Kitty obviously was still not decided on how her feelings over the situation lay. "Care t'talk aboot it?" she asked, tapping absently on a keyboard.

Kitty sniffled and shivered. "Well, he got real angry about that Rigby Fallon business..."

Moira snorted and shook her head. "I'd'a thought he was made of sterner stoof. I guess I pegged him wrong."

Kitty stared at her in shock, surprised by the callousness. "What do you mean?"

"Well, if a man cannae handle some competition, then he's nae much of a man, is he?"

Moira got the reaction she was seeking.

"Pete is a good man!" the younger woman flared suddenly. "I betrayed him and hurt him and if he walked, well, I probably deserved it."

Moira gave her a bemused look, tapping a pen against her chin thoughtfully. "Taken it all onto yerself, are ye?"

Kitty threw her hands into the air in exasperation. "It is my fault, isn't it?"

Moira shook her head. "Nae, it is the fault of your parents, fer messing wit' your head. Look, Kitty, here's my thinking of it. Ye love Pete, ye do, but ye drove him away because of what ye saw happen wit' your parents and...because of the stress ye've been under of late."

Kitty sagged, nodding dispiritedly. "It's...for the best, Moira...I really believe that. I don't want to put him through this." She looked down at her feet. "What he's been through... Oh Moira, I can't do it to him."

The doctor's expression grew stern. "Kat'rine Pryde, ye cannae go through this all on yer own. I have nae told any of Excalibur, as ye asked, but you cannae expect me to sit by while ye isolate yerself like some sorta damned leper!"

Kitty shook her head, fighting back tears. "Why not Moira? You are..."

That cold slap of reality brought a sad look to the doctor's face. Moira knew not what else to do, so she took her patient into her arms and hugged her fiercely. "Yer a stubborn girl, Pryde... Ye must have Scottish blood in ye somewhere. But I guess we'll get through it together."

The trapeze creaked as Nightcrawler's hands closed around it and his weight pulled on it for just the barest sliver of a moment. Then he somersaulted away, teleporting in mid-leap to where three targets were set up. He tagged each one in the same second; the dexterity that he was legend for making it seem easy.

Another graceful, triple-flip brought him to rest directly before Kitty, a devilish grin on his face. "Usually my audience applauds," he commented.

Kitty smiled a little. "Usually, I would." There was naked curiosity in his golden eyes at that ambiguous statement. "Kurt, we need to talk."

The veteran hero and stalwart leader immediately emerged from under the good-humored facade. "Is something wrong?"

Kitty hesitated only for a moment before nodding. "I...I need to be taken off of the duty roster."

Kurt stared at her in shock, apparently unable to believe what his pointed ears were hearing. "What? Why? Is it Piotr? I can talk to him-"

"No," she told him, somewhat more sharply than she had intended. Piotr was another matter entirely.

"Then why?"

She did not really want to tell him. As she had explained to Moira, the last thing that she wanted was to have her friends hovering over her and fussing over her. She was quite certain that if anyone did start treating her that way, it would drive her crazy.

Kurt was team leader though and he was due an explanation - especially since she was one of the co-founders - and most especially because of their long friendship. Sometimes, Kitty could not remember a point in her life when Kurt had not been there with her. No, he was owed much more than a sudden resignation.

"I..." **Stop it,** she told herself. **Don't you dare start crying.** "I'm not supposed to use my powers anymore, Kurt..." She braced herself and took the plunge. "Kurt, I have the Legacy virus."

His glittering golden eyes widened for just a moment as he digested this unacceptable truth.

"Oh Kaetzchen..." he whispered.

There was a long, awkward silence as he struggled to find something to say. The moment took on a surreal quality as time ground to a halt around them.

Kitty took his three-fingered hand and held it tightly. "There's nothing to say, so don't worry about it. It's just a fact of... Well, it's okay."

He shook his head. "It's not okay, Kitty. Not at all." He managed to recover his wits somewhat. "How long have you known?"

She winced and turned away. She had hoped that he would not ask this question, because the answer would seem a betrayal. "A few weeks...since I got back from helping S.H.I.E.L.D."

"And you told no one?" he asked.

"Just Moira...I had her confirm my suspicions...Look, Kurt, I don't want pity or pep-talks or anything like that, okay? I'd just assume no one knows."

Kurt nodded in understanding. "I...I'll tell the others that you need some personal time, if that's what you want."

Kitty smiled gratefully. "Thanks"

He stared helplessly at her for a few tortuous seconds. "Is it bad?" he asked in a voice filled with worry and fear.

She swallowed hard. "Yes, very."

His world turned to ash in that moment - she saw it in the look that he gave her. His hands came to rest on her shoulders and he leaned his brow against hers. "Oh Kaetzchen..."

And it turned out that they were both crying, then.

"Gimme another."

"Think you've had enough, Pete," the bartender told him evenly as he counted out the register. "We closed an hour ago."

"Can't be enough if I've still got my eyes open," Pete Wisdom replied.

Jimmy- one of the many bartenders familiar with Pete's habits- sighed and poured out another double scotch. "Just be sure you pay yor tab b'fore ye drown in your own vomit."

"Sure, Jimmy."

Pete sipped his drink, wondering how much more he was going to have to down before he would stop thinking. His tolerance levels seemed to have increased dramatically, and it appeared that he would have to pickle his liver to knock himself out.

**And wot's the point? You'll wake up tomorrow thinking about her. You hoping to stay drunk the rest of your life, Pete?** He took a long swig of the bitter drink. **Sounds like a good way...

**What a sod. You finally find a girl that thinks you're worth something, and what do you do? You take off at the first chance. What was that bloke's name? Rigby-some-such. Bloody bastard. Better hope I never meet him...**

He chuckled bitterly at himself. **And wot would you do, Petey boy? Eh? The bloody bastard just looked at your girl and you gave up without a fight. You thinking now you'd mix it up with him? More like you'd just tuck tail 'n' run...

**Just like you ran out on Kitty. You proved her worst fears, Petey boy, and fer that you should burn. After wot her parents did, she was terrified of loving someone - figured it would never last and she'd get her heart broke.**

Pete Wisdom raised his glass to his reflection in a mocking salute. **Congrats, Peter. You managed to break your girl's heart, act like a total sod, and let your own damnable demons get loose all at once.**

**I really don't deserve her,** he decided.

Pete Wisdom put down his money and stumbled to the door. He was marvelously drunk, though not quite as much so as had been his aim. Just now, though, he needed to be out, to think - as much as he could in his condition.

"You need me to call you a cab, Pete?" Jimmy asked.

Pete Wisdom shook his head. "No, thanks. I got nowhere to go."

Kitty Pryde flopped down on her bed and curled up, drained and miserable. The lights were down low, reflecting the gloom of her mood. It had been a very **very** bad day. In fact, most everything in the last few weeks had just been bricks that helped build the prison of hopelessness that she was getting locked into.

**It's just so unfair. You'd think that after all the good I've done...after all the lives I've saved and criminals I've stopped, that I would have a "get out of death free" card or something.**

"Then again, I guess I already spent it."

Losing control of her power like this was bringing to the forefront memories of her first brush with death, a time that seemed very far away now. It had been back in her X-Men days, during the 'Mutant Massacre.'

A battle with the Marauders had resulted in her natural state being switched to her intangible form. The more dangerous part of it had been that her condition had not been stable. Her body had quite nearly phased out of existence.

Moira and Reed Richards had saved her then. This time...

Kitty refused to let herself even think about it. She had beaten the odds more than once. This was no different.

Only it was different. She knew how dangerous and deadly the Legacy Virus was. She had watched it kill Illyana. Even Moira had it, though she had no known mutation for it to latch onto. No cure had been found, despite the brilliance of Hank McCoy and Dr. MacTaggart.

Legacy might well be the one enemy none of them could defeat.

Lockheed soared in and settled next to her. She tried to smile at him, but she could not find one even for her long-time companion. He bumped her elbow with his snout. "Rrraw"

Kitty absently reached out and patted the dragon's head. "I didn't actually **mean** for him to go away, Lockheed. It's just that when he wanted to walk...well, it seemed wrong to stop him."

"Skraw."

"He's been through so much. His mom, all those terrible things the Black Air made him do... Why should he have to watch me d-die?"

Lockheed launched into the air. "Die?"

Kitty reached up and grabbed him from the air, holding tightly onto him. "Yeah. Scary word, isn't it?"

Lockheed settled onto her chest and looked into her eyes with draconian panic. "No die..."

Kitty fought back against the melancholy. "Well, not yet anyway. Moira's held on for this long, and who knows? She may even find a cure."

She thought of Pete, remembering Moira's admonitions. Sure, it would be nice to have Pete here, supporting her and making her laugh like he always did. But it would be so selfish of her. The X-Men had taught her the value of self-sacrifice. She could hardly imagine Wolverine spending his last days blubbering into someone's shoulder.

**Stop thinking like that Pryde. You act like you've already got one foot in the grave. Come on, have some faith. Hank and Moira are as qualified as they come. You couldn't ask to have your fate in better hands.**

Lockheed shifted and settled his head on her shoulder, nuzzling into her hair much like a child would. "No go ..no go ..."

"I'm not planning on it, dragon," she murmured soothingly.

**I wonder where Pete's gotten himself to. Drunk, probably. For all that he's an ex-spy and one of the more dangerous and unscrupulous men I've ever known, he really needs someone looking after him.** She almost giggled. **He'd kill me for thinking that.**

"Oh Lockheed, I miss him."

The city of London was peaceful at night, especially along the Thames. Some might have to fear cut-purses at this hour, but not Pete Wisdom. There was an aura about him that most any criminal could pick up on. It was the definite sensation that if you were to cut off Pete's arm, he'd beat you do death with it out of spite before he passed out from blood loss.

The reek of the Thames and all the garbage polluting it was hardly noticed by the inebriated man. If anything, the stench provided him with a unique sense of being home.

Only he didn't feel at home here anymore.

He sighed heavily, taking another drag on his cigarette. He had gone and done it. The very thing he had promised himself that he would never do. He had become attached.

Ever since his mother had been murdered, he had rather carefully kept himself aloof. Pete Wisdom, the incomparable operative who would take any case and succeed where no one else could - and then come back and make people laugh around the water cooler. Yes, he had created and maintained that facade for a long time.

And then circumstance had brought him into contact with Excalibur, and suddenly his life had changed.

Color had exploded into his gray, non-feeling, non-caring world. Suddenly, he was confronted with a group of people who fought **for** something. At first, his impenetrable wall of sarcasm and indifference had found the costumed heroes as nothing more than the latest side-show.

Then Kitty had phased through **his** walls as easily as she did any material ones that she wished. She had looked straight through to who he was and accepted him. Acceptance had not been what he had been prepared for.

And slowly, against every instinct and desperate defense he had, he had come to see the courage...the heroism...shining through every member of Excalibur. He had thought that people who would die for you just because you called them friend existed only in movies and books...and his code of ethics.

**So, you finally found a place where you belonged, Petey boy. I wonder... Oh bloody Christ, is that what it was Petey boy? You weren't just running out on Kitty, you were running from all'a them? They showed you a better kind of world, and because it would have hurt too bloody much to accept it, you ran off?**

Pete Wisdom shook his head at the incomprehensible turnings of his own thoughts. It seemed that he had programmed himself to sabotage every relationship - and every chance for a relationship - that he ever came across.

**I'd throw myself into the river, only I don't believe in polluting the environment,** he thought bleakly. **Then again, the river's already a lost cause...**

"Hreh!"

"As if my night couldn't get any worse," he muttered, glaring up at the dragon who circled over his head.

"Heh heh."

"What do you want, you bloody flying rat? Come to crap on my head?"

"Naw..." Lockheed fluttered in front of him. "Kitty needs you."

Pete stopped dead in his tracks, his bleary eyes filled with suspicion. "Really? I should think you'd be happy I was gone."

"Yah."

Pete rolled his eyes and kept walking. "Go ruin someone else's night."

Lockheed swooped and plowed into his chest, knocking him flat. "Kitty needs you," the dragon repeated.

Pete's response was delayed as he turned to the side and vomited rather copiously. "Ohhhh... Wot's this about dragon? You just want to watch me and Kitty fight some more?"

Lockheed perched on his chest and shook his head. "Naw."

"Then wot?"

"Kitty needs you. Sick."

A twinge of concern shot through Pete's fuzzy thoughts. "So why come here? You don't like me much."

"Don't...." the dragon replied with an evil look. Then he sighed, puffing out a tendril of smoke. "Kitty needs you."

Pete considered it for a long time. "All right, you bloody rat. Get off my chest. Let's go find that well that Timmy fell down..."

The sun rising off the coast of Muir Island was one of the most beautiful sights Kitty had ever seen, and she had seen quite a lot for her young age. Still, after all the wonders she had witnessed, there was nothing so majestic as the sun spilling slowly over the rolling surf as the ball of fire crept into the sky.

She sat upon a well-worn rock and listened to the waves crashing against the cliff below, finding comfort in the peace and serenity around her. Staying calm herself was one of the things Moira had recommended to her. Stress could only exacerbate her condition.

Lockheed had vanished, and she was worried about him. He had reacted very strongly to her news - more so than she had ever anticipated. In truth, she had not really thought he would comprehend. Even after all of these years, she still did not fully understand him.

She massaged her right hand gently, trying to work the soreness out of it. The pain had been what had woken her up so early, with its insistent throbbing. Since then, it had varied between spiking pain and a dull ache. Now it was just sore.

Salt water sprayed upward as the tide came in. Tiny droplets landed on her face, startlingly cold. She smiled somewhat to herself, lost in her quiet contemplations.

"Don't expect me to go diving in after you if you jump."

Kitty's eyes widened. She could not possibly be hearing that voice. She was too terrified to turn around, certain that the dream would extinguish like a guttering flame if she did. "Some hero you are," she joked weakly.

"Heroism's got nothing to do with it. I don't want to freeze my bollocks off," Pete Wisdom returned.

Kitty trembled and stood, begging whatever friendly deities that might be listening to allow this to be real, to not make her wake up.

She turned and Pete was right there, his dark eyes as sincere and full of love as ever. "Kitty... I..."

Her eyes stung with sudden tears. "If you're just here because you forgot a pair of socks, I swear I'll punch you in the nose."

He laughed, the tightness and worry leaving his face. "No... I'm here to apologize for being a total bloody wanker." She reached for him, but he shook his head. "No, let me get this off my chest before you decide whether or not to forgive me. It really..." It was so hard for him, she could tell. It was taking all of his courage to take this step. "It really hurt, that you even thought about another man. But... Kitty, it only hurt 'cause I love you so much."

Kitty sniffled and threw herself into his arms. "And I pushed you away because I was afraid of how much I love you," she gasped into his ear.

They held each other for a moment in which time had no meaning.

Kitty cried out suddenly, falling away from him and clutching her right wrist. "Wot is it?" he asked, reaching and touching her elbow.

"My wrist...it's hurting like hell..." she grated through clenched teeth.

The hand was completely numb now. Kitty stared in horror as it began to phase, turning completely intangible despite the willpower she was exerting to stop it.

Blood started pouring from her wrist. The blood vessels had all been severed when the hand had phased, and now though she could still see her hand, the blood was flowing as if it had been cut off.

"Christ!" Pete gasped. Instantly, he had his jacket off and was stanching the flow of blood as best as he could.

"Pete...I..." Kitty was trying to speak past the shock and the pain. "I..."

Pete Wisdom picked her up and turned towards the facility. He did not know what had happened, but he knew who could help, if anyone could. Worry tearing at his heart, he turned towards the laboratory and started walking as fast as he could.

And nearby, watching all the while, was a small dragon who was about as worried as he could possibly be - and more helpless than ever. He had brought Pete back for Kitty. Much as Lockheed wanted to, he knew that he could not help his Kitty through this.

"No go...no go..." he rasped as he watched Pete carry Kitty off to the infirmary.

I can't feel the things that cause you pain
I can't clear my heart of your love it falls like rain
Ain't the same
I hear you calling far away
Tearing through my soul
I just can't take another day
Who's to blame

If we take some time, think it over baby
Take some time, let me know
If you really wanna go
Don't know what you got til it's gone
Don't know what it is I did so wrong

~~Don't know what you've got, 'til it's gone
~~by Cinderella

To be continued in Fade Out: Part 2 - Legacy...

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