Later, you'll find out that the woman who was so kind, who took you to Paris for your 16th birthday (and other things besides), was a villain the whole time. You can't blame yourself for not noticing, especially since Brian had known the real Courtney for a decade, but that doesn't stop you from feeling sick, and you spend half the night scrubbing yourself in a boiling hot shower. You can scrub as hard as you want but you can still feel her on your body, in your mind.
You wish there was a way to forget, but there's not a telepath in the world you'd trust into your head like that. Not anymore. It's not the first time someone's turned out to be a lie in disguise, and you think of Madelyn for the first time in years. You wonder if this was how Scott felt, after. You wonder if it would be better or worse if Maddie had pretended to be Jean instead.
You're not sure why you ever thought anyone would be so kind without an agenda.
You get a little harder, a little more adult, and for fuck's sake you're barely 17 and this has become your life.
You wonder if this is how it happens. Little by little, how you get harder and angrier and less trusting (god you were such a CHILD before, in an ice cream shop thinking your life was changing for the better). If this is a step on the road to her (always "her", never "me", never "Kate"), the woman who was you (will be you) but not, who smelled the same but off, who you could just tell shook everyone, made them uncomfortable. You could see it in Logan's eyes when you came back to yourself. Sadness and anger and what might be disappointment. It's the worst with Rachel.
Sometimes, she looks to you like you're the adult, like you're in charge, even though you're younger. She'll look at you on missions, sometimes, as if she expects an order or a 'good job' (or something more) and you don't know what to do. You're not her not yet but you will be.
You're still not sure on how time travel works, how it impacts the future and the present and the past. Your inner nerd wants there to be research, experiments, some science behind it, but every new data point sends the previous ones straight to the trash. Can you ever truly study something like this without making changes yourself?
Do you become Kate because you know you will? Can you stop from becoming her if you try? When you found out the X-Men were alive, that their deaths were a years long lie (oh, to protect them from their enemies, not to abandon and lie to their friends of course) part of you is terrified. You're happy and thrilled and so, so angry (you had thought you were alone with only Courtney and goddamn it what kind of school abandons a teenager), but you're also panicking inside. Rachel has told you a little about where Kate came from, and Logan and Ororo and Peter were there, and part of you (a small, bitter part) wondered if the team's death was what changed the world for the better. It's terrifyingly possible (for all the work you do, nothing is worse for public feeling about mutants than costumed mutants). You wonder how many years you have.
You think about asking Rachel for more specifics, years or dates or anything, but the words freeze in your chest. Nothing comes out. (You will never be able to tell her what you really think.)
You don't expect Rachel to leave like she does (for Brian of all people, who you hadn't even thought was her friend, certainly not like you are, were, would be, could be). She's leaving you and while it's for a good cause part of you is pissed, like she's abandoning you to deal with her shitty future alone.
Pete is nice. Not his personality or his behavior, they're both as foul as the cigarettes he can't be without, but having him around is good. There's a nagging voice in your head saying that this isn't how it ends, why are you bothering. But you’re as happy as you can get, and it’s easy (and by all that’s good, you deserve something that’s easy). And then Peter is back and it all goes to shit (you were happy) and there it is, the constant drumbeat of no escape.
You don't give a shit about Rigby. He's a convenient excuse to push Pete away, even if you're not sure that's what you want (you said you loved me i thought i did).
Of course you end up back with the X-Men. What did you expect? That you'd live out your life in the UK, happily having zany adventures with your friends? You know better.
There is no escaping your own future.
(Later, you'll meet five children (who shouldn't even be here), and your heart will ache for what has happened, will happen, is happening to them.)