X-Men: Italy, Sicily, France+Spain

'You cry if you see a hawk kill a sparrow.'

'Storm cries, Kurt cries, the Professor cries.'

'Yeah but I'm not a kid!'

'Nobody said you were. I've known you the longest, and you are in every way that matters the most mature and resilient member of our team. I will always put my life in your hands.'

'Don't say that! If it wasn't for me and my course plotting we wouldn't be in this mess!'

'If it wasn't for you I would be another addition to the moons of Neptune, gods and monsters as they are and me just as myself.'

'Aww, Peter, don't. I thought I'd lost you out there. It was horrid, so cold, so empty, no life not a damn thing out there. You were all alone... I'm sick of this! Sick of space.'

'You didn't cause those problems we've faced. You didn't no matter how much you wish to take responsibility for them. They are not yours to take.'

'You sound like my old priest.'

'If that is what you need to absolve yourself, then so be it; I can call for Kurt.'

She swatted his shoulder.

They sat.

'Oh, God.' She exhaled.

The condensation was gathering at the base of the mirror, steam long since escaped from the corners of the shower. Kitty shivered. 'It's getting cold... I need to go to bed.'

'Are you going to be alright?' He asked.

She flicked back the covers, looking at the gelatine lump passing for a pillow.

She sniffled.

'Yeah. Yeah, I'll be ok.'

He stood and turned to leave, switching out the bathroom strip lights with a wave of his hand over the sensor. The room became a blood vein, back-up lighting crimson while outside the quarters a harsh white.

Kitty gazed at his huge silhouette in the doorway. He took up most of the space, and had to duck to get in and out. He had this amazing presence. 'Peter?' She asked.

'Yes Kitty.'

'Stay here tonight.'

She saw him turn and pause, facing the corridor. She felt a rush in her belly. He turned back into the room and sat in the low-backed chair facing the bed, his form indistinct in the darkness.

She rest her head and watched him until dreams gathered.

***

A jolt shook Peter awake. His eyes wouldn't adjust. He realised what he had been staring into moved. It had a voice. He wasn't in isolation, not in the black room with the white lights, no glass at his feet, not alone.

'Don't sleep in the chair.' She said.

He allowed a pull and a shift and he hit the mattress. His arms, heavy from the latent drugging, tripped over themselves and he came to lie at the pillow, outstretched. Kitty nursed the lines of his face and jaw, starlight her guide.

'Thanks.' He mumbled.

She put her head back down and closed her eyes.

Between the hours of two and three he stirred again.

Pressure, soft, on his cheek. Fingertips.

The scent of honey. Breath on his lips. The weight on the mattress; his eyes open to see her proximity. She murmured his name. Stole a kiss. She was being tentative.

He laid his hand on her shoulder preventatively, on his back her inclined toward him.

'Kitty?' Searching her face.

'Do you remember the time we were taken by the Brood, Peter?' She whispered.

'Yes.'

'The night we knew we were going to die. Do you remember that?'

'Yes.' He said.

'I said I wished I had been older. I said it didn't matter.'

'I know.'

'It still doesn't matter.'

'...Kitty...'

'I don't want to die thinking what might have been.'

'... I don't either.'

She placed her hand on his breast, feeling up to his collarbone and cheek. Her palms were damp. Her heart pounding. She tried to gain some focus. How many times had she done this?

Enough.

How many times had she done this?

She could feel the gravity in him. Coming in waves, evaporating from his chest. The inevitable. The drawing of clouds inland. The flight south. The salt of the sea and the moon and its pull.

'Take me Peter.' She said, pressing herself into him, his body an altar and her approach the one single moment of her young life.

She reached one hand down to his stomach, short, cut nails grazing over his bare muscles in nervous discovery. Her other went to the back of his head, coaxing him into another intimate kiss. He responded slowly, his fears outweighing the arousal being leeched from his heart. She knew his head and heart would be at war. He was honourable, selfless. Too good for anybody else, just right for her. She took a fistful of hair, bunching her fingers and opening her mouth to lick his lips. There was little black hair to hold onto, Peter keeping it short, not growing it long like his brother used to. Her fingers drew back to his chest, raking gently against a nipple and she felt a shudder, the follicles stiffening on his neck by her elbow. He was waking up.

She tilted her head, his kisses becoming insistent, vengeful and found herself rolling onto her back with him leaning over and reciprocating. Kitty ran through his hair and to the base of the neck. He locked lips with hers and opened his mouth to let her in. A drop of sweat hit her shoulder from his underarm. She stroked his face lovingly, curling hands down then resting at his chin while he kissed her again. He had such massive hands and arms and muscles, and a huge chest of all bare skin, not so much as a blemish. Her eyes fell into the bottomless magma of his skin, the red light dark enough that neither could make out shapes properly. She wondered what his expression was. What he was thinking. What he was feeling. A glow entered her belly, travelling downward, but she barely registered, legs entwined with his and now his fingers and damp palm pressing into her left shoulder and then a little further south than that.

Peter was thinking where his restraint had gone. Perhaps dissipated along with his refusal to live up to the fact he was deeply in love with Kitty still. She was staring at him, eyes questing for an answer only his soul could surrender. She kissed him lazily. Doe eyes. Hair spread on the pillow, carbon dioxide and lack of breath. 'I'm yours Peter. Take me.' She said.

Peter reached down to hold her breast through the cloth, the weight of his body pinning her in comfort and familiarity and submissive consent. She moaned through their kiss, desire making a cramp below her stomach. He caressed her hair, silken from the wash. She smelled so vital and new and with that the scent of a woman's intentions; she, the key to unravelling his very being, every bit as essential as his own thoughts and eccentricities. She gave herself over to him, grabbing his hands as he became increasingly desperate and autonomous. She made an excited pant and suddenly shoved him out the way pulling unsuccessfully and pulling again at her top and then over the head and discarded on the floor. Her hair fell in a cascade and he waited until she turned to face him, arms covering herself, crossed, glorious. Her next reach went across galaxies, past spirals and nebulae, binaries and the centre of the universe. She fell into his arms never losing connection through her lips, landing on his neck, jawbone, nibbling at his ear while he stroked her chest and waist. She groaned and reaching down, sliding past the band of elastic on his slacks stopped just short of his bulge. He exhaled raggedly and paused. So did she. This was it.

It sped up and she circled her thumb and forefinger around him, a tight clasp. He gritted and groaned, eyes connecting as he gripped her flesh. She held him like that, motionless while his reactions flowed out at random. She kissed him fiercely then scooted down underneath the covers.

Mind blank, he laid down hands free concentrating on the intricacies of sweaty fingers.

She lifted the band over his erection and yanked his slacks down a way, over his buttocks, further down his thighs, hot in her seclusion. He bobbed in front of her, sixth sense telling her the details. She drew back the skin and held him in a loose fist. There was a groan. She pushed her hand against him, motioning the fist up and down and dragging him in a rough pattern, figure of eight she thought. Her other hand held steady at his thigh, the pheromones coming thick and fast. With it she fingered his testicles, light probing whilst jerking the fist up and down. Peter shut his eyes, conscious of his saliva. He had thought about this a great many times. Suddenly there was wetness around the tip of his cock, her mouth fitting him in. A fuzzy blanket clouded his mind.

She performed the same motion with her head as with her hand, which had not stopped moving. Closing her eyes, she felt her hair dislodge and flop against his belly, trickles of saliva coming down the side of his shaft. She used it to slip her fist into a twist. She cupped his testicles and inside her mouth, used her tongue to lick at the top of his cock. She nudged the lost hair back behind her ear, but it came loose again.

Above the covers Peter felt the pull in his groin. He knew he wouldn't last long, his toes curling and his thighs tensing, especially when Kitty gripped his balls. She was pulling up and down faster now, and he spoke out without knowing whether she would hear it or not. 'Kitty -- Kitty, stop... I'm not going to last...'

She raised herself, not letting go in hand and throwing the covers off. He could see the gleam of reflection in the moisture at her lips. The silhouette of her long neck and messy hair made him surge inside, the surge that he couldn't hold back.

'Do you want me to stop?' She whispered.

Her fist went up.

He shook his head.

Her fist went down, picking up the pace.

'Kitty... I'm -- I'm going to come any minute.'

She bent at the waist and took his cock in her mouth once more, bobbing her head. He closed his eyes trying to stave it off. She gripped his balls again and tugged. He was coming. He was seeing the whiteness all the colours battling each other behind closed eyes and feeling the rising come from deep down. She moaned softly, straddling his knee and rubbing herself against it. He inhaled sharply and she took it into her mouth swallowing again and again. His body jerked and he grabbed her head holding her down.

She took the chance to wiggle out of the slack leggings and kick them to the end of the mattress.

His breathing slowing, she let him out and licked her lips, throwing down on top of him with her lithe and little body spread out. She kissed him deeply, an obtuse fog in her brain the only receptors and synapses firing those of uninhibited desire. Her hands pinned him and rubbing her wetness against his stomach she leant back. 'Peter...' she moaned.

He shook off the stupor and took her in his giant grip, laying her out at the end of the mattress while her legs restlessly buzzed and searched for fulfilment. She needed something right at the core of her desire. She wanted to be tasted. To be sucked on. He pressed firmly at her thighs, breath hot but shallow and nuzzling the skin of his jaw against her soft folds. She pressed into his scalp with both hands and draped the covers over herself. She closed her eyes and surrendered the rest to him. 'Yessssssss....'

Even when he slid a thick finger into her pussy she didn't open her eyes. She couldn't if she wanted to.

'Ahhhhh!'

He stroked her inner thighs and outstretched his tongue to sooth the burning of her clitoris. Vibrations radiating from within her womb shot out to her legs and toes, raising them at the knee and surrounding him with mountains of her flesh. He rest a palm at her mound, dragging his thumb over her clit and licking faintly, tasting the liquid sponging out of her folds. The other hand twisted its fingers inside her, and she growled; he made a towing motion and her chest rose up from the bed in sweet escape. His thumb moved faster, his tongue lashed harder and more insistent, pleading the come she knew was coming. 'Peter...! Don't stop!'

She bit her lip and grabbed at the sheets forcing them into herself trying to reach the place he was getting to. Her breathing was getting shorter, she felt a bass rumble in her ears, sensory input meaningless this close. His tongue lathered her, and he pulled with his lips at the apex of her legs. Surprised, she gasped and held her breath. She was there. He was in her and on her and she was there. He ran over her clit again and again and again, and her legs wobbled, and her whole body trembled and she let out a fantastic cry, shaking and bucking. Weight from his body kept her relatively still, but she felt the roll of thunder reverberating outward absorbing all her toes and fingers, the erect nipples on her breasts and the tips of her ears.

He let her come down gently, and finally stopped when she became too sensitive. Her focus was out. His was too, but she could sense he was ready again. She beckoned him over and let the build of the man push her down. They kissed intensely, no fireworks, just a hatred of all the time spent not being still like this, not entwined like this.

He opened her lips with his fingers, tongue tentative in her mouth as she was very very still all of a sudden and then not, just her nerves in the way of sensation but her muscles and bones straight and expectant as he pushed his erection into her and she was all touch and taste and sight and sound and feel and all of those things blinded and scorched by Peter's strength and fire. She lost her voice, jaw open, heads to the side of each other, ear to ear and one of her hands wrapped around his neck and the other down by her pussy touching the both of them as he pushed in and out of her. In and out of her body, her whole person offered to him and this glorious physicality dominating the room.

He held her tightly, few words murmured, most spoken in tongues not understood by the everyday parts of the brain. She bent the way he bent, moved the way he moved. She was tingling, goose bumps and response, his muscles tensing at the automatic motion. Kitty gagged and felt the glow pop inside, a release of sorts ballooning and bursting where he dug into her. Damp flesh at her thighs made wetter. She had come. The sensations were delayed by the disconnection in her brain. A yell tried to come out, but Peter silenced it with his lips, closed eyes holding her down and pistoning in and out harder and faster. He raised his head, staring down at her neck and chest, where they joined, feeling the peel of sweat separate as he did and she groaned loosely not wholly conscious of what was happening. And at the last moment it flashed across his three a.m mind: they had no protection.

Her voice cracked. 'Why you stopping?'

'No protection. I'm not wearing anything Kitty...'

Her mind raced. She felt a deep and insistent dig well up and inside her. 'Oh... god...'

He stopped and got off her, dashing his arm across his forehead trying to slow his body down as she struggled up. She draped across his belly, hair all over the place and stroked his tingling cock. 'You don't need to come inside me, Peter...'

He almost laughed, but she stopped it by taking him into her mouth. He felt holy.

She moaned, thankful to be connected to him. 'Kitty...' he intoned blindly, letting his body tense and tense and tense and give himself over to her. She used her hands again and made him jerk. The blast hit the back of her throat and she swallowed thickly, savouring the moment as if it were her last while he spasmed and came in streams.

He went lax, and she curled against him, her feet nowhere near his but her head and her kiss at the exact point they needed to be.

There was no telling how long they slept. The stars had no faces and the planets no hands. When time was relevant, the ship had flown successfully past Saturn. They approached the command deck with the others in good spirits, tangible release in the air. Kitty wondered whether Logan would notice. They had showered -- a long shower -- and dressed, but she had read somewhere that sex caused certain chemical changes in the body felt over several days. Women referred to it as a sort of "glow" in the skin, a cleansing of mental cobwebs. Men called it a good mood. Whatever he was bound to pick it up.

'Mornin'.' He said.

'Er. Hi. Everyone okay?' She asked, taking a seat at the command table close to Peter but not so close as to reveal anything. He caught her eye.

Kurt fidgeted with a fluteful of synthsauce. He presented them with a large grin. 'A good night, ja?'

'Eh? What you mean...?' She said.

'Oh come on!'

Peter felt a gathering of nerves sweat out at his arms. He glanced across at Kitty, then each of them individually, spaced out in a panorama around the command bridge, then back to Kitty.

'What?' She said, voice wavering.

'You didn't hear myself and Ororo celebrating?'

'Celebrating what, tovarisch?'

'We have found a way to get back to Earth!'

'Yeah? For real?' She squealed.

Peter's ears subconsciously pricked up with her pitch.

'For real kid, no foolin'.' Logan added.

'How?!'

But Kitty didn't really listen to the reply.

She watched the outside of the window. The blackness of space. The unfathomable distances between. The epic frontier they still knew close to nothing about. How everything had its place on Einstein's space-time plane and how bodies orbit each other and forces act in strange and wonderful ways on all they touch. She thought of Wisdom, and Doug Ramsey and last night, Illyana and her divorced parents, Lockheed and Deerfield, Stevie Hunter and the Hellfire Club. How life has it's intricacies of love and loss, hate and inexplicable emotions which unbalance people from time to time. How the head does not follow the heart and how the heart does not follow the head, and how sometimes they do and neither make sense.

She thought about being asleep last night, holding on tight to Peter and not waking up. She thought about being pregnant. Caliban and Callisto, people who have made her hurt and whom she has hurt. She thought about being a teenager, eating an ice lolly on the peer at Lake Michigan with her dad when she was thirteen. He told her to look at all the mussels. They were an invasive species: Zebras. All the way from Russia he had said. The Yenisei basin. Serious impact on North America. A serious impact on Chicago and Milwaukee. Siberia to space. A serious impact on her.

'So you see we are going to make it!' Kurt triumphed.

'Excellent news! That is excellent news my friends; don't you think Kitty?'

'...What?' She asked, smiling cheerily.

'The fuel dump? Weren't ya listenin'?' Logan asked. 'Wassup with you? Kurt gave it the 411 and you're off in the clouds.'

'We tried to wake you last night Kitten but the door was locked. Are you well? I knew we should have given you more support.' Ororo said, walking over and clasping Kitty's hands.

'I'm fine... I was fine last night. It's okay. That's great. Wonderful, even!'

'Yes.' Kurt grinned. 'Sounds like it.'

'When can we get started?' Peter asked.

'Right away. All it's going to take is a few commands we process up here; we do not even have to venture near Engineering.' Kurt said. 'The plasma core is ejected from the aft of the ship, rather near the damaged nacelle, but because of our awkward tilt we will hit it with our exhaust. We're already moving at a velocity required to evade another detonation shockwave, and if we time it just right the blast will carry us to well above light speed.'

Kitty thought a moment. 'What happens when we want to slow down and there's no fuel?'

'We leave the residual fuel in the engines until the very end, and draw on that to fire in the retros.' Ororo replied.

'We've only one chance then. A concentrated explosion and if we get it wrong we are royally screwed.'

'Yup.'

'Don't let me near the controls then.' She laughed.

'Actually Kitty, we think you're the perfect candidate to pilot.' Kurt said.

'No_way.'

'Yes, Kitty. You can do it.' Peter said.