#headmistressshadowcat

"Not even a little bit."

Stephanie hasn't been this nervous since she stepped into that Brooklyn antique store that house project rebirth. She armed, at least, with wild flowers and the truth, which is the best ammunition she's got for this mission. Hopefully Marya's mother won't completely hate her.

"Happy" by Saving Jane

"Filling up my empty days with red wine. 

Wonder what you think of me."

Rachel looked at the paper in her hand and closed her eyes. In her mind the paper was torn to shreds then set on fire. This wasn't happening. Kitty...wasn't getting married. Grabbing her glass she emptied it of the dark wine. She wasn't sure if it was her second or third glass....there was a sort of buzzing in her head, a pleasant buzzing She shook it and looked back at the invitation. It was over, like a door slamming in her face. She had had to find out by invitation! Kitty hadn't even told her herself! They used to be so close, they told each other everything, she thought she had known Kitty as well as she had known herself, and vice versa. Rachel wiped a couple of tears from her eyes. Without thinking the framed picture of Kitty and herself was pushed so it was face down.

She had loved Kitty. Truly loved her. She had been unable to get the brunette out of her mind. But....there had never been the right time. And she was...she had always been damaged goods. No past, no history, no future. But she had always thought, always hoped, that on some level Kitty had known. She had always been there for her. She was her, the words tasted bitter, best friend. Rachel took another swallow of wine. But Kitty hadn't. Obviously Rachel hadn't done enough, hadn't been enough. And now it was over. 

But...Kitty was happy. She didn't enter into these things lightly. To do this...she must be over the moon. Rachel swallowed bitter feelings again. Shouldn't her happiness be what mattered? All she wanted was to see her...best friend happy. She knew what she had to do. Rachel would smile and be happy. She would hug Kitty and congratulate her. Then she would cry in the car on the way home. With that cold certainty in her chest Rachel lay her head on folded arms and began to cry.

"I'm so happy for you baby...

1 Year

It had been over a year and Quentin would have to accept the truth. There wasn’t going to be any closure between him and Kitty. Quentin was just going to have to accept that and try to move on. But things just didn’t work that way, not in Quentin’s head, at least. Don’t go to bed angry, stay up all night and plot revenge. That had been one of Quentin’s favorite proverbs for as long as he could remember. But what did you do when the person you were angry at was dead? A lifetime of sleepless nights seemed the answer, but Quentin was tired of his chaotic sleep cycle, or lack thereof. He was tired of getting upset about things he couldn’t control…

…And—god-damn it—was he tired of people leaving! People were always leaving, whether it was death, duty, or their own free will that took them away. With Kitty, it was all three in reverse order. This was the absolute worst! And worst of all, he didn’t get to say goodbye…in any way at all. He didn’t get to yell at her for leaving. He didn’t get to threaten to lobotomize her. He didn’t get to say he wouldn’t miss her; good riddance, even. He didn’t get to tell her to not bother coming back. He didn’t have time to beg and plead for her not to leave him, that he felt so alone all the time and she was the closest thing he had to a mother who actually paid attention to him.

…But he hadn’t done any of these things, Kitty had in fact left him, and he’d have to spend every single night for the rest of his life plotting revenge.

5 Years

Sometimes Quentin hated the Jean Grey School even more than he had as a teenager. He hated the way it could go from painfully, disconcertingly quiet to literally shaking with the sound of explosions. He hated the fact that he couldn’t come and go as he pleased without having to check in with the several violent security systems. He hated that it was an institution, a tool of ‘the man’ so to speak. He hated that he didn’t have a choice whether or not to enroll.

…But mostly he hated its name. Jean Grey. There was a time when Quentin’s heart raced with teenage affection every time he laid eyes on the pretty red-haired girl. But Quentin was no longer a teenager and all he could think now was that Jean Grey and her brood of past X-Men brats had stolen Kitty Pryde away from him.

“Damn you Jean Grey,” he mumbled to himself every time he passed the statue at the front of the school. But at the very least, he’d gotten his revenge on Jean, even if he hadn’t managed to get revenge on Kitty. He wondered if Jean could ever miss the Phoenix even half as much as he missed his Kitty. He strongly doubted it.

10 years

“Be honest, Professor, have you ever thought about leaving? Like, really?”

Quentin burst out in laughter at the question, squirting iced tea out of his nose, “Try every day of my life? Oh you have no idea kid. I was brought here as a goddamn political prisoner! Bound and gagged, literally in chains! You would not believe how many times I set this damn place on fire! Oh, the stories I could tell you!”

“So why did you stay?” the student asked.

Quentin thought about all his students, how much he cared for them, how excited he was to see them grow and develop. He thought about each of their individual personalities, their likes and dislikes, the things that made them angry, made them happy, made them sad. He thought about how few of them had real families to call their own, how many of them had been orphaned or neglected or simply unnoticed. And he thought about the vastness of outer space and the vastness of the human capacity for loneliness, especially the kind young teenagers tried to hide but would keep for the rest of their lives.