houndedbythepast-blog

[houndedbythepast-blog]

Good Mourning

Rachel had made a point, a long time ago, to never wake before the sun if she is able to-- A half-life of sleeping in had left her unjaded to the stark beauty of the sunrise and she would, if in another situation, take a moment to watch the sun's rays break through the clouds and give the colour only giving in polluted areas like cities.

However, she is currently staring across the room, much like every morning, with her back to the dirtied and peeling wallpaper.

The first week, she tidied Kitty's apartment from top to bottom. She'd carried Kitty from where she'd collapsed and put her on her bed before setting to order everything into neat piles. Microchips. Motherboards. Ancient floppy disks and Alien gas screens. Everything that had been strewn around the apartment with somewhat reckless abandon had been sorted and stored in cabinets and corners.

The second week, she restocked the food cabinets and fridge.

The third week, she had attempted to enter Kitty's mind, but something was blocking her. Kitty was blocking her.

At the beginning of the fourth week, Rachel had sat, cross-legged on the floor opposite Kitty's bed and meditated.

She'd thought that Kitty would have been able to work through whatever it had been that broke her so badly Rachel needed to induce a deep-stasis coma for, but when she took her first tentative steps around the edges of Kitty's mind, she felt that a little help was needed. The deep-rooted pain was bad enough, the pain that masqueraded as loathing was worse.

So for the fourth week, Rachel barely slept, barely ate, and barely drank. She merely sat across the room, with her back to the dirtied and peeling wallpaper, and helped Kitty's deepest subconscious order and heal the thoughts that still flickered.

That was about the time that Rachel discovered Kitty had 'killed herself' while in her forced stasis, and that was when Rachel had had to grit her teeth, dig in deep, and start gently teasing her best-friend back out of her own mind, and the depressive quagmire it had become.

At the end of the fourth week, someone groaned.

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Rachel glared and exhaled heavily through her nose, seething.

"Fine. I'm so glad that you can just throw everything away because you can't grow up."

And with that,she turned on her heel and stormed out, slamming the lockless door behind her so hard the doorframe shuddered.

Intrusion

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"Because you're not a kid anymore, Kitty!" Rachel nearly yelled now, becoming increasingly unsettled by Kitty's defeatism. "We're adults! We've got responsibilities to kids now! You can't just run away from that because you think people are leaving you behind!"

As soon as she'd said it, she regretted it's tone, but it was out now.  She just couldn't stand the idea that Kitty had been brought so low and refused to get back up.

Intrusion

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"No."

Rachel had listened calmly (but not at all agreeingly) to Kitty rant, but she knew Kitty. And Kitty, no matter what, was family. A best friend, a sister.

"Kitty, I love you, we all love you. You can quit the X-Men all you want, but you can't just cut us out of your life." She waved a hand at her friend, "You can talk all you want about us leaving, but what are you doing right now, Kitty? You've left us without another word and you're leaving us behind." She sighed in exasperation, "Not everyone's gone, Kitty."

Intrusion

[houndedbythepast-blog]

Rachel winced, but took a step forwards anyway.

"Kitty--Logan wanted me to to go check up on you. You left with a note to Scott. One note. And nothing since then, Kitty." Rachel held a hand out to the apartment.

"And you're in the dark and tinkering with god knows what, and look at your hands, your face. Have you even been sleeping?" Okay, she knows she sounds like either a fussy mother or a concerned friend but god, Kitty's always been so stubborn and it's not like she 'ran off to space' for fun.

"You can't just walk away from your family without another word, you've got to talk sometimes."

Intrusion

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"You can bill it to the school." Rachel answered, looking over Kitty once, twice, three times. There was something off about her, something deeper than scratches, bandages, and the dark circles under her eyes. Something fundamentally weakened by...god knows what.

"Kitty..." Rachel's voice went from worried to concerned in a second, softening a little around the edges. "God, are you okay? What's the matter?"

Intrusion

Kitty had looked up in shock when the door had broken open. She had heard the knock, assuming it to be her landlord. So she pretended she wasn’t around. She knew she had only gotten worse since arriving here, not better like she had hoped. She just wanted to escape the world that had been crumbling around her. Escape people leaving and dying, but now she was alone. So she threw herself into her computer work. Barely stopping for bandages when her fingers became bruised and cut from the constant tinkering. When the door split open she figured it was Logan or, god forbid, Remy. Not Rachel. How could she not have guessed that. The psychic link. She hadn’t even recognized the probing sensation, she’d been too far gone in her dark world to even recognize it. She steeled herself against what was coming next.

“You better pay for that.” Her feeble attempt at a joke fell flat. He voice sounded so empty, even to her. Immediately all hope of convincing Rachel she was fine and happy went out the window. Rachel knew better. She was going to have to take the offensive to get her to leave then.

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Concern.

Chicago. Just south of the Loop.

Rachel holds the pulsing beacon of Kitty's mind in her own as she pilots the Blackbird, using it like a psychic GPS and honing in on it from miles away.

She's not unduly worried for Kitty, after all, the woman was...well, a woman. Not a girl any more. She'd quit the X-Men before and hell, she'd enjoyed it. So why, Rachel wondered, was she getting more uneasy with every single step she took down from the roof to Kitty's apartment?

And why, when she knocked on the door and could feel Kitty inside, was it not answered?

And why, when she finally gave up on tact and splintered the lock out of the door, was Kitty in such a state?

Why were the lights out and why was wiring strewn haphazardly about Kitty's normally fairly presentable room? Why was Kitty on the bed, cross-legged between some kind of wreckage of a monster motherboard and an ancient cooling fan; her hands bandaged in apparently frantic hurry, but leaving her fingers free to tinker? Why did she look up in a mixture of alarm, skittishness, and anger?

Rachel didn't need to be a telepath to know something was terribly wrong with her friend, but it certainly helped.

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...Sure. I'll be back before you even have a chance to miss me.

areyoubeer replied to your post: Hey Rach, I’ve been looking an’ I can’t peg down where Kit is. Ya think ya could use the psychic link ya got with her t’ find her?

Lot goin’ on. Be lyin’ if I said this wasn’t takin’ a toll.

Ugh, getting a lot of fuzz from Quire, god knows what he’s doing right now, but I can say Chicago. South of the Loop.

You coming?

[houndedbythepast-blog]

areyoubeer replied to your post: Hey Rach, I’ve been looking an’ I can’t peg down where Kit is. Ya think ya could use the psychic link ya got with her t’ find her?

Lot goin’ on. Be lyin’ if I said this wasn’t takin’ a toll.

Ugh, getting a lot of fuzz from Quire, god knows what he's doing right now, but I can say Chicago. South of the Loop.

You coming?

[houndedbythepast-blog]

Hey Rach, I've been looking an' I can't peg down where Kit is. Ya think ya could use the psychic link ya got with her t' find her?

I'll have a look, you seem a wreck, by the way.

[houndedbythepast-blog]

Why? Did she say? Where's the letter?

areyoubeer replied to your post: Rachel, Logan needs yo’ help.

Kit’s gone. Like /gone/ gone.

What? How? Where?!

[houndedbythepast-blog]

areyoubeer replied to your post: Rachel, Logan needs yo’ help.

Kit’s gone. Like /gone/ gone.

What? How? Where?!

[houndedbythepast-blog]

Rachel, Logan needs yo' help.

With?

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cardsandcapers replied to your post: ~*Magic Anon*~ For however long you want you are now a Kadabra *Poof*

[Pokeball to the face] …Whoops!

[houndedbythepast-blog]

~*Magic Anon*~ For however long you want you are now a Kadabra *Poof*

What the hell is a--

Kada?

[houndedbythepast-blog]

Hey Rachel! Good to see you home! How was the space odyssey?

Psh, Sam. I'm fine, a little weird, but fine.

You?

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cardsandcapers replied to your post: Rachel. Hey. I got an idea. Hear me out, mmkay?

We should turn th’Danger Room into a dance club.

......

Why?