In Virtue

Dear Bobby,

I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to tell you this in a way that makes sense, in a way that will make you believe me. In another place in time, we grew up together. We fell in love. We had strange abilities. You could turn anything to ice, and I could phase through matter. But something went terribly wrong in this place, and we were able to change things, to branch off in time, which is where we are now. Things are different…and that’s okay with me. The only thing that isn’t okay is me and you -

Kitty tore up the paper with a frustrated groan and threw the pieces away from her. They fluttered to the floor in an unsatisfactory way, like feathers in a breeze. She kicked them around a bit and stared longingly at the floor beneath her. She considered stomping her feet on the cheap laminate until Bobby came knocking at her door.

Bobby,

I can’t tell you what I’m feeling, and I sure as hell can’t explain what’s going on. But I’d really like to see you…

The dreaded dot, dot, dot. Such longing, such melodrama. A dot, dot, dot, is what happens when there’s nothing left to say, when words can’t describe what you’re feeling, only memories. She balled the paper up in a bout of frustration and watched as it soared across her kitchen and bounced off the rim of the trash bin.

She glared around the ugly room, a grotesque combination of home office, living room, and kitchen. It was as if Victor Frankenstein had gotten into interior design rather than raising the dead. The house was misleadingly beautiful, an old Victorian that had been gutted and stuffed  with tacky mismatched Ikea sets to make four apartments. It wasn’t the worst faculty housing ever…but it wasn’t her school, either. Her real school, Xavier’s school. Well, at least she had her own kitchen here.

Bobby lived in the space beneath her, and next to him was Rogue. Anna, she reminded herself, bitterly. The space next to Kitty’s was vacant, and she frequently wondered if Jubilee or Logan might’ve lived there if things had gone down differently. She wondered if they existed in this timeline at all.

Kitty swallowed hard, and felt tears welling in her eyes at the thought. Suddenly, she needed air. Fresh air, crisp air, air from the winter commanding the reins from autumn outside. She pushed her door open so that it hit the wall with a heavy thud, stumbled down the stairs, and through the double doors into the cold outside. The breeze seemed to breathe new life into her, the winter air stung in a good way. 

It wouldn’t be until class the next morning that her head would finally begin to clear after the long, long, weekend. She trudged into class that morning with heavy limbs, and dollar store makeup smudged under her eyes. She groaned at the thought of the raised hands and aimless questions, the ideas clearly pulled off Sparknotes.

Kitty had barely even started her lecture when a hand shot up and a voice cut her off.

“Professor Pryde?”

Kitty sighed, and weakly gestured towards the back of the room.

“Yes, Aaron?”

“This is a play.”

“The Tempest? Yes, it is.” Her voice rang more harshly than intended, a slight sneer to her words. To say Aaron was outspoken would be an understatement. He had an incessant tendency to pull even the simplest things apart, to look for cracks in sound logic. He was like a child who would reply to everything with the only word he knew to express himself - why?, and would repeat it until he found the limits of his caffeine-deprived mother’s knowledge. Sometimes his questions felt like a personal attack, a deterrent to catch her off guard and leave her “um-ing,” and “well-ing” her way into resignation and failure.

“Yeahhh,” Aaron let the word roll around on his tongue, drawing it out until Kitty felt like an animal that had stumbled into a trap. “So, why read it?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, rather than performing it, I mean.”

Kitty smacked her lips and met Aaron’s scheming gaze.

“Because this is a classic literature class,” the corner of her mouth twitched in amusement. “Not a theater.”

Aaron slumped down, resting his chin in the palm of his hand, gearing up to say something else.

“Unless,” she added. “You’d like to come up here and act as Prospero? Give an Oscar-worthy performance for the class?”

A few students glanced around with wide eyes, mouths agape. There was a giggle from the side of the room, and an amused snort from the back.

“Okay, but,” Aaron straightened up and flipped through his book. “If there’s any play that’s truly meant to be performed, it’s this one.”

His finger traced over the lines of a page near the back of the book, and Kitty craned her neck, trying to anticipate his next move.

“This is a classic literature class,” she repeated, uneasy at the sight of her student huddling over his book. “If you want theater, you can see Professor -”

Shit. What was Rogue’s real name? What was her last name? She’d simply been “Rogue,” and that was always enough. But not here, this world was different.

“...Anna Marie’s class for that…” she said, clunkily, her words drawn out in a way that made her face scrunch up.

But Aaron didn’t seem fazed by her hesitation, and she briefly wondered if he’d heard her at all.

“No, I mean - here, listen to how it ends -

But release me from my bands

With the help of your good hands:

Gentle breath of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails…”

Aaron looked up at her, and so did the rest of the class. It was silent as everyone waited for Kitty’s retort, but nothing came to her. She was surrounded, exposed for the fraud she was.

When Kitty didn’t speak, Aaron continued. “I guess all I’m saying is, if the only way Prospero can be set free is by the liveliness of the audience, then it seems a bit cruel to read it quietly. Reading it privately means that Prospero is trapped, forever.”

Kitty’s mind spun with rebuffs and counterpoints, some bordering on personally insulting. But before she said anything she’d regret, she asked herself the question she frequently asked when presented with an unideal teaching situation - what would Professor Xavier do?

She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, reflecting on the classroom environment that had nurtured, and even encouraged, her curiosity. She’d always loved learning because she'd always had the freedom to think for herself.

“That’s an excellent point, Aaron,” she managed a light smile and tried to channel the same kindness that seemed to radiate effortlessly from Charles. “And I admire your critical analysis. But I think you might be taking this a bit too literally. Prospero isn’t real, so I think it’s okay.”

“Everything you can imagine is real,” said Keeley, next to Aaron, her eyes trained on a spot above Kitty’s head.

Kitty looked back to see a colorful poster with the famous Picasso quote on it, then turned back, studying Keeley.

“Sorry,” the girl grumbled, as she scribbled something in her notebook.

“No,” Kitty dropped her gaze, realizing that her face was probably un-Xavier like at the moment. “It’s okay, that’s another interesting point.”

She seethed silently, feeling as if the poster was looking down on her, mocking her. Everything she could imagine wasn’t real, and hadn’t been for quite some time now. Her new reality, this mutant-less, Xavier-less, cruel world was certainly not what she had imagined.

“But it isn’t true,” her voice was quiet, yet firm. “As much as we may wish for something else, the truth is that there is a clear divide between reality and imagination.”

Bernie looked at Todd as if to exchange a glance, but Todd was watching Kitty intently and chewing on his eraser. Keeley slowly lowered her pencil. Aaron looked up with an expression of deep concentration and Kitty could almost hear the gears in his head turning.

“Imagination is a powerful thing," Kitty sighed, "and we can turn it into reality if it’s practical. That’s how we invent things like -”

She dug around her desk, searching for her cellphone. She’d forgotten it, again. She was slowly warming up to the idea of carrying a phone around with her everywhere, struggling to adjust from a timeline with no smartphones at all to one with cellphones that held all the knowledge known to man.

“-your cellphone,” she turned back to the class, putting down the papers she’d picked up in her search. “Imagination can be used to improve reality, but it isn’t real until we make it real. If we can make it real. Without a clear distinction between reality and fantasy, we’d lose ourselves. We don’t have to applaud Prospero because he doesn’t exist outside of here -”

Kitty tapped her forehead.

“-he’s trapped in the play whether we applaud him, or not. Because he doesn’t exist outside of it.”

Kitty pulled herself up and sat on the edge of her desk, relishing in the wide-eyed, silent, full attention of her class.

“Literature - fiction, that is, - isn’t meant to be taken so literally. It comments on societal issues and controversial subjects. Sensitive topics cause audiences to shut down if addressed too blatantly, not to mention it can be dangerous for the writer. So, the writer will instead wrap these ideas in the warm embrace of storytelling, of heroes and villains, to fall back into the safety of ambiguity. Fiction is a veil for bold ideas, it makes uneasy conversations significantly easier."

Although Kitty always did her best to encourage a discussion-based learning environment, moments like these were what she enjoyed the most. The sense of control, of all eyes on her, was almost enough to make her forget that she wasn’t even qualified to teach English. The new timeline’s version of her was, but the version of her in front of these students today had not sat through the necessary classes.

“So,” she continued after a long pause. “Our responsibility as literary critics is to lift the veil, to find true meaning in a sea of ambiguity.”

“What about Ariel?” Ranata was, quite literally, on the edge of her seat, her wide eyes fixed on Kitty.

Kitty sighed deeply and shook her head, her eyes far away.

“If Prospero is meant to embody revenge, then Ariel is like a phantom limb. He - or she, or they, it doesn’t matter - is even less real then Prospero. He’s a manifestation of Prospero’s guilt, the voice of reason against the vengeance Prospero so desperately seeks. Ariel is the fictional character’s fictional character. He’s a ghost in his own story.”

As she spoke, the sound of students slowly slipping notebooks into bags, and pens into pockets steadily rose. Kitty looked back up at the clock, which read 11:52, then faced the room.

“Class dismissed,” her words brought on a symphony of low, chattering voices, shoes scuffling, and footsteps. “Don’t forget to read The Chronic Argonauts for tomorrow.”

Kitty took her time as she headed back towards the old Victorian located just off campus, on the other side of Judovits Street. It was a long walk; all the way on the other side of campus, but she didn’t mind. She liked to take this time to get lost in her head, to think of her time at Xavier’s school.

Today she thought about the ice cream incident. One night, when the halls were silent, and everyone was sound asleep, Kitty took Bobby’s hand and walked them through the walls and into the kitchen. Although midnight snacks weren’t forbidden, messing around with friends after lights out was, at best, enough to land them in Professor Xavier’s office for a stern talking to.

Once inside, Kitty phased through the shiny door of the walk-in freezer and emerged with a tub of double-fudge ice cream. She fondly remembered laughing and talking with Bobby, though she could no longer recall what they’d been talking about. But she remembered the mix of excitement and joy, of the ecstasy of young love. Ice cream tasted better when it wasn’t allowed, and she felt closer than ever to Bobby when they shared mischief.

Then the kitchen door swung open and the lights flickered on as Bobby gasped and Kitty grabbing onto his arm.

Logan stood in the doorway, squinting at them from under an arched brow. The room was silent for a moment, the only sound was the humming of the refrigerator.

And then, Logan shook his head “I don’t care.”

He reached for one of the cabinets and pulled out a bag of chips, then pushed back through the door. Bobby sighed with relief as Kitty giggled.

And then, her reminiscence was cut short as her face collided with a hard surface.

“Ugh!” she groaned, raising a hand to her throbbing face and eyeing the double doors of the Victorian.

She must have crossed the campus already without even realizing it. When did I cross the street?, she wondered. She looked back at the cars speeding past and saw someone race up the sidewalk behind her.

“Woah, woah, woah!” The voice behind her was sweet, and the hand that grazed her shoulder was familiar. Warmth radiated from his every touch, despite his cold skin, and Kitty felt as if she was falling in love and getting her heart broken, all over again, all at once. Looking into Bobby’s eyes was like looking back in time and every feeling she’d ever felt for him came flooding back at once.

She gasped for air and stumbled, her head full of ghosts, and her face throbbing from her collision with the door.

“Are you okay?” Bobby reached out his hands to steady her. There wasn’t a hint of irony in his tone; not a shadow of a smile on his kind face. His eyes searched hers with such genuine concern, she looked straight up for a moment to stop the tears from spilling down her face.

“Oh, Kathryn,” Bobby cupped her face with one hand, and reached into his pocket with the other. She thought of the last time his hand touched her face like that and her head spun.

“You’re bleeding,” Bobby dabbed a wad of napkins to her nose. She felt underneath it and her fingertips withdrew red.

Bobby pressed the napkins to her face and gently lifted her chin. She felt pressure behind her eyes, an ache in her gut the size of Canada, and an already fractured heart about to be ground down to smithereens. But she looked deeply into his eyes, anyway, and it was like the first break of sunlight after a long storm. 

Bobby’s eyebrows were furrowed with concern and his bright eyes searched her face with a steady focus. This was Bobby in every timeline - taking care of others, even those he didn’t know very well. And then her vision blurred and she couldn't stop the tears from rolling down her cheeks and onto the napkins.

Bobby moved closer, and Kitty was painfully aware that his face was just a few inches from hers.

“You’re okay,” he smiled lightly, though his eyes were still dark with concern. “Don’t cry, you’re gonna be just fine.”

“Here, you take this -” he gently pressed her hands over the wad of napkins. “Okay, now just hold that there.”

Bobby fished through his pocket, shaking his jacket and listening for the jingle of key rattling keychain.

“Why don’t you come inside?” He turned key in lock, and pushed the doors open. “I should have some ice in the freezer, or, like, frozen peas or something.”

He didn’t wait for a reply, but propped the front door open with one foot as he picked out the key for his own apartment.

A sob croaked from deep in her throat, despite her efforts to stop it. And then she was full on, uncontrollably crying. Bobby hurried back to her, taking her free hand, and whispering gentle reassurances to her. That she hardly had a bruise, and it was only a little bit of blood. To his distress, that only made her cry harder. Because she wasn’t crying from pain, or worrying about what she looked like. She was crying out of bitterness and love. Love so deep, she thought her chest might cave in over her heart. Because even when he wasn’t hers, even when they hardly knew each other outside of courteous, neighborly greetings, he was so loving. His kind and generous soul could be felt in any timeline.

He guided her inside the narrow entryway and through his apartment. She shuffled in feeling broken, defeated, and irrevocably in love.

“Why don’t you take a seat?” His arm was around her and he steered her towards the kitchen table, where she slumped down, feeling like a child.

She lifted her head just enough to look around the apartment. Despite the frost dusting every surface outside, Bobby had both windows wide open. Kitty could see Keeley across the street, laughing with the Dungeons and Dragons Club outside of Page Hall.

The kitchen table was like a cheap knockoff out of the 50’s, with a silver rim and a slight wobble when even the slightest bit of pressure was applied. On the opposite wall, between the window and the door, was the refrigerator and sink, lined with dark wood cabinets - identical to hers. A Donnie Darko poster was framed between the doorways of the bedroom and the bathroom.

Bobby crossed over to the sink and rinsed his hands without drying them. He then proceeded to plunge them directly into the freezer. She smiled under the napkins. Some things will follow us anywhere.

When he turned back towards her, he was holding a bag of frozen corn in one hand and a box of tissues in the other. She had stopped crying by now, but she replaced the bloody napkins with a few tissues and pressed the bag of corn to her aching nose.

Bobby settled into the seat across from her and finally cracked a smile.

“Wow, Kathryn,” he shook his head and moved the trash bin to her side of the table. “You got yourself pretty good there, huh?”

“I suppose so,” her voice was muffled and nasally from the layers of tissues and vegetables over her nose.

“What the hell were you thinking about, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” Kitty shook her head and plucked another tissue from the box. “I guess, I was thinking about my time in school, and how I still feel like that small girl. Like I don't know anything and I’m just pretending to know for my lecture. And then I feel like the students can smell my fear, and the longer I mull over their questions in class, the closer they look and can see the cracks of uncertainty in me.”

“The cracks of uncertainty,” Bobby reiterated, annunciating every sound. “You sure are a Shakespeare professor, I guess.”

Then his face grew stern and thoughtful, and he leaned forward so that his forearms were on the table, causing it to teeter in his direction.

“I think I know what you’re saying, though. Like, I had my class watch Blade Runner a few weeks ago, and as I’m up there blabbering on about the ending, I get this uneasy feeling. I suddenly thought about how they don’t really need me. Like, the end is open to interpretation, anyway, so what’s there really to lecture about?”

Kitty smiled from under the tissues, readjusting the bag over her nose.

“And then did you disappear like tears in rain?”

“Actually, the quote is lost in time like tears in rain.” Bobby rolled his eyes and grinned, cheekily, melting Kitty’s heart, despite the fact that she was freezing her ass off in front of the open windows. “Get it right, Kathryn.”

Kitty’s smile withered away and she sobered up, although she wasn’t sure Bobby could see her face under the mess of blood and kleenex. 

“You’re so important to the process,” she leaned one elbow on the table, embracing the confidence that emerged when she was in professor-mode. The table tilted back in her direction. “You’re helping them see perspectives that aren’t their own, you’re showing them different sides. Like…”

She reached for the tissue box and positioned it so that one side faced Bobby.

“You look at the box from this angle, and you can see one side. Maybe two, if you count the top.”

Bobby raised his eyebrows and bit back a smile.

“But then you turn it -” Kitty turned the box so that a corner faced Bobby. “- and, suddenly, you can see multiple sides.”

“Wow,” Bobby’s words were slow and sardonic. “How profound.”

“I know,” she smiled. “Some deep shit right here.”

Kitty spun the box in a full circle.

“That’s what you do.”

“Oh,” Bobby grinned. “So, I’m the tissue-box-puppet-master of film studies?”

“I mean, obviously.”

“No,” Bobby wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “I don’t like that. That feels like I’m telling them what to think. Or, like I’m favoring my own opinions. It feels…godlike.”

“Well,” Kitty shrugged, and offered up, unhelpfully, “Self love…is not so vile a sin as self-neglect?”

Bobby squinted and cocked his head.

“That’s not from Blade Runner.”

“No, that one actually is Shakespeare, so…close?”

Bobby laughed, throwing his head back and leaning back in his chair. Kitty felt a thrill run through her and she threw out her tissues and lowered the bag from her no-longer-bleeding face. She felt on top of the world. It was just like old times. But making Bobby laugh never got old, she could see his joy everyday for the rest of her life and it would never get old.

Then he sighed, and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“I guess this is what back-to-back morning classes do to your sense of humor.”

“Right,” Kitty nodded, knowing this was her sense of humor all the time.

“Hey, so…” Their attention was momentarily captured by an older guy bobbing his head to indistinguishable, but, Kitty guessed, banger music outside the window as he rolled to a stop at the red light. “Uh, so, Scott and Jean are going to the Observatory tonight to, like, take pictures of the sky for the astronomy class. Or something like that.”

“Very astute phrasing, Professor.”

Bobby grinned, playing into it. “There’s like some big space thing tonight, or some shit -”

“- On a scale of sad-potato-chip moon behind a cloudy sky to holy-shit-there’s-a-meteor-about-to-collide-with-Earth, what kind of event is this?”

Bobby chuckled and shook his head.

“Where are you coming up with this stuff?”

“It’s the sense of humor back-to-back morning classes have left me with.”

“Right,” Bobby nodded, studying her. “I just didn’t know you, like, joked is all.”

“There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me,” Kitty said, smoothly. “Why don’t you find them out?”

Bobby grinned and looked down, the table rocking back over to him. 

Shit, agonized. Was that too forward?

“On your scale of potato chip to meteor collision, I’d say the event is about an eleven. Maybe a twelve if the stars are in proper formation.”

“Oh, so imminent death, then?” She could hear the relief in the slight tremor of her voice, but if Bobby noticed, he gave no indication.

“Yeah,” Bobby nodded in mock-assurance. “The sun might explode, or crazy cyborgs might be taking over -”

Kitty’s gut wrenched and her heart skipped a beat.

“ - we might get sucked into a black hole. But seriously, you should come. I mean, if you don’t have other plans already. I know it’s last minute.”

Other plans? Other plans? Kitty stifled a cynical laugh. She couldn’t think of a single time in her life where she couldn’t hang out with Bobby because she’d made prior commitments, and she figured she was unlikely to have other plans for the remainder of her cursed, miserable life.

She stood up and crossed over to the sink, washing her hands after turning the temperature up.

“I can make it work.”

She dried her hands on a dishtowel, and moved towards the door.

“Thank you for this, Bobby. Really, you’re so kind. And, I’m sorry for wasting your corn.”

Bobby stood up and stretched, then went to see her out.

“Oh, no worries. That bag has been in there for so long, I don’t even remember buying it. I think it was included with this apartment. Maybe it’s been there since the beginning of time.”

He widened his eyes in mock-horror.

“Maybe that’s why the sun is exploding.”

“That’s the only reasonable conclusion.”

Kitty chuckled, dropping her eyes. “Okay, Bobby. I’ll see you tonight.”

She realized only after leaving the apartment that she hadn’t asked Bobby what time they were meeting. But she figured she’d be able to tell, or maybe she’d be able to hear Bobby leaving the house like she sometimes heard Rogue coming in after all-day rehearsals.

She was wrong.

Scott, Jean, Rogue, Bobby, and two students Kitty didn’t recognize were there when she arrived. Scott was perched on the stepladder before the massive telescope, indistinctly bickering with a student. The shadows obscured her, and for a moment she felt like her old self again, as if she phased into the room, undetected.

“Hi Kathryn,” Jean was beside the telescope, holding a flashlight over some papers and occasionally muttering some indistinct instructions to Scott. She didn’t look up at Kitty, or even turn towards her, and Rogue shook her head, incredulously. 

“How do you do that?” She exchanged a look with Bobby that made Kitty’s heart sink.

Jean tapped the side of her head with one long, crimson fingernail. “I got a sixth sense.”

“Hey, Bruce Willis,” Scott stepped off the ladder and gestured for Jean to step on. “Why don’t you take a look at this?”

As Jean stepped up, Scott cast a wary look in Kitty’s direction. 

“Oh, good,” he said to no one in particular. “The English teacher is here for the science lesson. Is anyone else joining us?” 

He looked up at the exposed sky, half of the dome ceiling peeled away for the breathtaking view.

“Perhaps someone from the business school? Or a Psychology Professor? Maybe a certified clown?”

“I invited Kathryn,” Bobby said plainly, picking at the food on a little table to his left. “I thought we could use fresh eyes.”

“Yeah? You’re a real Carl Sagan,” Scott muttered, wandering over towards the two students. “There’s two physics professors here, and three in liberal arts. Figure that one out.”

“It’s always great to see you, Scott,” she smirked as the physics professor stalked past her.

“Yeah, yeah,” Scott grumbled. “Nice to see you, too, Kathryn.”

“Dr. Summers,” one of the students cut in with a lighthearted smile. “Why are you gatekeeping the Observatory?”

“Gatekeeping?” Scott howled, throwing his hands up. “Gatekeeping? I -”

“Kathryn -” Bobby interjected, rising from his seat along the wall and crossing towards the telescope.

“- this is Kier,” Bobby gestured to the student who Scott was still throwing good-natured glares towards. Kier waved and beamed in Kitty’s direction.

“And this is Leo.” he gestured to the other student who nodded curtly and sat down with a plate full of brownies.

“They’re interns for the physics department.”

“It’s nice to meet you guys."

“Likewise,” Kier sank into the seat next to Leo’s and snatched a brownie from his plate. “Though, saying student intern is a bit redundant. If we’re interns, then we also must be students.”

“Really?” Scott leaned on the railing, mock-surprise in his voice. “I thought you were just some hermit who sleeps in the attic of Raven Hall.”

“Only on the weekends.”

“We only emerge when Summers is having a nervous breakdown,” Leo said through a mouthful of brownie. “We pick up pieces of shredded notebook paper and keep him from pulling his hair out when, like, Perseus is a little bit more spread out than he thinks it should be.”

Kitty was lost, but she smiled and nodded anyway, hoping to seem like a Normal Human Being™ who’s in on the joke.

“And what are we losing sleep over tonight, good sir?” Kier approached Scott with an exaggerated posture, resembling a server in a five star restaurant. 

“There’s something in the sky,” Jean’s grim tone quickly sobered the room. Kier stopped in their tracks, as everyone looked over at Jean.

“A green light from the North, to the right of Canis Major. We’re not sure what it is.”

“Yeah,” Scott piped up, his tone significantly lighter. “But we’ve concluded it’s likely a pulse from a satellite, similar to what The Subaru Telescope picked up on Mauna Kea. Just a light from something we put out there.”

“That, or a nebulous of some sort.” Bobby concluded with misplaced confidence, crossing his arms and warranting a sideways look from Scott.

“That’s not what a nebulous looks like from here, with the naked eye," Scott smirked. "But as for the supernatural, I think it’s safe to say we’ve warded off the wormhole for another day.”

“So, no aliens?” Leo frowned, looking up at the glistening sky.

Scott shook his head and clicked his tongue.

“Not today, Mulder.”

“Damn.” Leo slumped his shoulders, disappointed.

“I’m gonna take some pictures for my students,” Jean whipped out her phone and held it up to the lens.

“Why not invite them up here to see for themselves?” Kitty suggested, reflecting on her most memorable lessons as a student at Xavier’s school. There was never a shortage of hands-on learning under Professor X, and Kitty found the experience far more enriching and engaging than a simple lecture. All the precautions and hesitations to veer from a strictly traditional classroom in this timeline baffled Kitty. She didn’t understand how anyone could be expected to learn without trying it themselves.

“Ah, yes,” Scott hissed, watching Jean carefully. “Let’s bring the circus to the million-dollar room. That should go over well. Why not take the zoo to the Louvre, next?”

“You did not just compare this place to the Louvre,” Kier snorted.

“All I’m saying is, you wouldn’t take the English lit class on a field trip to the Rare Books and Manuscripts Section of the library. There are some things that are just too valuable.”

Kitty nodded and then shrugged. “I hear you. I just don’t understand how they’re supposed to learn if we never trust them. Lectures and discussions can only get you so far.”

Jean stepped down the ladder, a smile on her face as she tucked her phone away. She looked from Kitty to Scott.

“Balance is key,” she concluded, ending the conversation in three words. “Are you ready to go?”

As the couple headed towards the door, Scott gestured something between a wave and a salute, and pushed into the hallway. They disappeared into the sudden blaze of fluorescent light that leaked into the darkness.

“For the record, I agree with what you said back there.” Bobby said as he, Kitty, and Rogue hurried back to the Victorian. “I could understand wanting the students to be supervised while using such equipment, but not banning them from it completely. You’re teaching them to be researchers, curious in their own right. How do you expect that of them if the tools necessary for research are out of bounds?”

“Yeah,” Rogue shuddered in her coat, pulling her dark hair out of the collar. “Can you imagine if my class was all lecture? You can talk about acting and theater all you want, but it’s never going to be the real thing. It would be like drawing a square and calling it a cube, or something.”

The three housemates rounded the corner and continued down the narrow cobblestone street that divided Raven Hall and the Kirby Student Center. Kitty admired the snow-frosted parapets that crowned the gothic architecture, like white-clawed fingers scratching up at the night sky.

“Besides,” Rogue continued, her breath visible in the frosty air. “It’s not like Scott and Jean are going to be running the show forever. Someone’s going to have to take over when they retire.”

“We’ll see about that,” Bobby smirked. “I think Scott has taken it on as a personal challenge to become immortal, just to ensure that no students get their grimy hands on the precious telescope.”

“I guess that’s what Kier and Leo are there for?”

“Oh,” Bobby raised his eyebrows. “Oh, great. So two out of ten-thousand students get to use the thing specifically built for educational purposes.”

“That reminds me, Anna,” Kitty cut in, leaning forward as she walked so she could see the theater professor. “My class read The Tempest and one of my students brought up how it should be performed and not just read.”

“Any play should be performed and not read!” Anna exclaimed shrilly, her dark eyes widening and a smile crossing her face. 

“Yeah, sure. But, like, specifically The Tempest because there’s an epilogue about how Prospero can only be set free if the audience cheers. He claims it’s cruel to read it in silence.”

“He’s right, you know,” Rogue raised an eyebrow. “Who is it? I want to know if he’s serious.”

“Aaron Soucie. And he’s serious.”

“I love that,” she smiled, digging her hands deeper into her pockets and shivering. “I’m going to talk to him, I love incorporating student ideas into my classes and shows. Maybe we can do a small production of The Tempest, or something.”

They turned another corner, approaching the edge of campus and the street the Victorian was across from. As they waited for the light to turn green, Kitty felt her feet begin to slide on a slippery patch of ice. Bobby reached out an arm to steady her, but there was no need. She’d gracefully regained her balance by sliding one heel back and extending her arms so they resembled a ninety-degree angle.

“Are you good?” Bobby hooked his arm under hers, ready to support her if she lost her balance again. Rogue’s hands were out of her pockets, her palms facing out, and her knees were bent as if she was preparing to spring into battle. Neither of them paid attention to the green light.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Kitty smiled, suddenly feeling warm inside. “I was an ice-skating pro back in Illinois.”

Bending her knees and leaning forward, she slid across the ice and onto solid concrete. Bobby didn’t let her go until she was safely across, with Rogue holding out a hand from the edge of the frozen puddle. On solid ground now, the three housemates crossed the street.

“That’s good,” Bobby grinned as they approached the Victorian. “The last thing we need right now is accident #2.”

Rogue was looking down and her brows were furrowed as if in deep thought.

“What do you mean, back in Illinois?” She reached into her pocket for her keys, starting up the front steps. “You’re from Westchester.”

Kitty laughed, stunned. “No, I’m not, I -”

She stopped dead in her tracks, her smile dropping before she was even aware of it. She’d let her guard down.

“Oh, yeah, no I just mean we spent summers in Illinois. It was really boring so I picked up ice skating at the local rink.”

Rogue didn’t say anything as she jimmied the key in the lock. She seemed distracted, or maybe she was just pretending to be distracted, because her tone was oddly flat when she finally responded.

“Kathryn,” she pushed the door open, Bobby lurching forward to hold it for Rogue, then Kitty. “On our first day of college, you told me that you’d never stepped foot outside of New York.”

A wave of shock ran through her, quickly followed by panic. There was no answer she could think of that would reason this away, so she shook her head in an ambiguous response, and flipped the question.

“Where are you guys from?” she squeaked, a forced cheerfulness to her voice. Only when the question had left her mouth did she realize how stupid it was. Rogue whipped around, her eyes searching Kitty’s face, Kitty trying not to melt under the heat of her glare.

She tried to think of something to say, anything at all, but the panic seemed to flood her brain and nothing came out of her open mouth. Bobby rocked on his feet and studied the ground as Rogue took a slow step towards her.

“Long Island,” Bobby piped up, commanding Rogue’s attention. Kitty breathed a sigh of relief and silently thanked Bobby.

“You know, if you couldn’t tell from this ‘Nue Yawk’ accent,” he laughed, easing the tension as he always did.

Rogue looked at him out of the corners of her eyes, her mouth in a tight line.

After a moment, he met her gaze and his smile disappeared quickly.

Rogue inhaled deeply, and pushed her hair back. 

“New Orleans,” she rocked slowly back on her heels. “We went down there for Mardi Gras our senior year? You met my parents? Said you wished you’d been raised in a city like ours?”

“Oh, yeah, no. Of course.” Kitty laughed nervously, a thousand questions flooding her mind, none of which she could ask. “I just - I don’t think I realized you spent your entire childhood there. For some reason I thought that maybe you’d lived somewhere else at one point. But yeah, of course I remember New Orleans.”

“Ms. LaBeau,” Bobby grinned. “It sounds French to me.”

“It is French, dipshit,” A smile was breaking out over Rogue’s face, and Kitty breathed a sigh of relief. “Obviously.”

“LaBeau?” Kitty wondered softly, reigniting the curiosity and concern of her two housemates. She hadn’t meant to speak it out loud, but now she felt the unbearable weight of their eyes boring into her soul.

“Oh -” she stuttered, rubbing her hands together, trying to soothe her nerves as much as she was trying to warm her hands. “No, I just meant - I don’t think I realized it’s French, is all.”

Rogue’s skepticism morphed into full on disbelief. She cocked an eyebrow and squinted at Kitty.

“What are you talking about? You always bring up my mom's accent, how French accents are the coolest, how you wish your parents talked like that…”

Kitty swallowed hard, her shoulders tense. Her wide eyes wandered from Rogue, to Bobby, who evidently took her look as a cry for help.

He took a deep, exaggerated breath to kill the silence, then slumped his shoulders.

“I think we’re all just tired,” he put a hand on Rogue’s shoulder and she eyed his hand, seemingly both amused and disturbed at the gesture. “It’s been a long, eventful day.”

Then he looked up dramatically, his eyes gleaming.

“ Plus, I’ve already forgotten what you guys look like, and my age, and -”

“Bobby!” Rogue rolled her eyes and smiled, playfully shoving his hand away.

Bobby chuckled and turned away to unlock his door. Kitty met Rogue’s gaze, scoffing and jabbing a thumb over her shoulder as if to say, get a load of this guy!

Rogue laughed dryly and held Kitty’s gaze for just a little bit too long before turning towards her own door.

“Goodnight!” Bobby called behind him, holding the last syllable out in a singsong way.

Rogue didn’t say anything as she pushed her door shut.

And then Kitty was alone, the small hallway light casting an ugly orange grow from years of neglect.

In another life, Kitty would have reached through the glass and swept her hand around the inside, clearing whatever dirt and dust was in there. But the square light was screwed tightly into the ceiling, and Kitty couldn’t see a way to clean it that didn’t involve causing permanent damage to the house.

So, she trudged up the narrow staircase, each creak of the old wood seemed to grow louder with every question about her own past that swirled around her head.