Ask and Ye Shall Receive [Kitty, Bobby]

[Iceman]

So this is what it was like.

He didn't want to think about it, because any thoughts of John led uncontrollably to thoughts of...her--the blue-skinned woman--the enemy. But there was no getting around it. Bobby had realized as he lay in his bed at one in the morning, drained of energy but completely unable to sleep, that this was how John had felt. On those nights when he'd wake Bobby from nearly being sound asleep to ask him something or make a random comment. Those nights when Bobby had woken up to find the bed across the room empty, and the sound of footsteps in the hall padding away from the door.

Insomnia sucked.

It must have been even worse for John on the nights when he'd gone to bed unsettled; feeling guilty or depressed over something that had happened that day. At least Bobby assumed, because as he stared at the ceiling and willed sleep to come, nothing was shutting his torturous thoughts from his brain.

He just kept picturing her face--not her face, but the mask she'd been wearing--as she leaned in to kiss him. The hurt look on her face at the fact that he hadn't looked closely enough before. The idea that she'd looked so hurt - arranged Paige's face to look so hurt - angered him. Then he'd picture the real Paige's face, shocked and pained, as the idea had first entered her head that Bobby had cheated on her. He'd then squeeze his eyes shut and toss and turn in his bed, as if to shake the pictures out of his mind. But it never worked.

When he turned on his side, the large red numbers of his alarm clock stared him in the face. He leaned forward and opened the drawer of his bedside table, to knock the clock into it. But in the dim glow from the numbers, the gold sheen on the edges of the pages of his Bible gleamed.

In the minutes that followed, he knelt beside his bed. He knelt there, unmoving, and he tried to pray. The only times he'd ever prayed had been as a family at meals, and even then they forgot or were too rushed half the time. He didn't know what to say.

So finally he stood. He went to the door and left his room, sliding his room key into the pocket of his athletic pants. He walked down the hall, across the landing, and into the girl's dorms hallway. When he reached Kitty's door, he knocked softly. He didn't want to wake Hannah. He paused and listened carefully, hearing only silence in the dark hall.

[Iceman]

"Hnn," Kitty said from inside. A light sleeper - she was the kind of kid who'd woken up to trees tapping against her glass, screaming bloody murder and convinced that the mafia was coming to kill her. (Watched the Godfather movies way too early.) She didn't scream anymore, most of the time, but she still woke up every time.

That hadn't been a tree, though. Her room's window had nothing outside for many feet. It was why it was her room. Slowly, she connected that it had sounded like a knock, and that people knocked on doors when they wanted to come in. Shoving her hair up off her face and behind her ears - oh, ew, it was doing its wave thing again - she rubbed at her eyes to make them open and stumbled out of bed, twisting the doorhandle clumsily and opening the door.

"Bobby?" she asked, sounding still half-asleep and looking puffy-eyed and exhausted. "What's up?"

"Can we talk?" Bobby said immediately when Kitty answered the door and spoke. His eyes were on her with an urgent look to their gaze. He looked a little pale, and a little sweaty. He looked over Kitty's head to the dark silhouette that was Hannah lying in her pink bed, then looked back to Kitty.

"You look awful," Kitty said, then remembered that the right answer was actually "Sure. Here, let me get my sweater, it's cold."

It was June, but Kitty was cold. It was nighttime, anyway. She disappeared back into the room for a moment to pick up a white hoodie draped over her dresser, which she pulled sleepily over her blue tank top and pajama pants, which had little sheep all over. She was too out of it to be embarrassed.

Closing the door behind her, she stuck her hand into the lock to secure it. She could never keep track of the key.

"Where do you want to talk?"


"My room," came Bobby's reply as he took a few steps back. He turned and started down the hall, sliding his hands into his pockets. His shoulders were drooping, and he moved as though exhausted. "Sorry to wake you up," he apologized, looking to her.

"Mf," Kitty said, then clarified - "it's fine."

Must... remain awake... long enough to be agony aunt...

Kitty shuffled down the hallway behind Bobby. She wasn't quite sleepy enough to miss his posture. He looked tired, but not like her tired.

"Wuzz goin' on?" she asked when they finally reached his door, her face shifting into a concerned expression.

[Iceman]

Bobby opened his door and held it open for Kitty to enter, then walked in behind her and shut it again. He leaned his back against the door for a moment as he stared at the ground and collected his thoughts.

"I...um..." Suddenly, he didn't know what to say. Should he tell her what he'd found out about...Mystique? Or should he just ask her for her help? But then she'd hear it when he...He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed, pushing himself off of the door. He crossed the room to his bed and sat down heavily.

"I need your help. I...I remember when I'd go to church with my Dad, they'd have confession. And it was so awkward because I had to tell some old croaky guy on the other side of a curtain all the bad stuff I'd done, when I wouldn't even tell my parents. So I'd make up stuff..."

Bobby stopped. I'm rambling. He took a deep breath and tried to start over, staring at his hands in front of him with an expression of guilt. "So I've never been good at praying. And I know you're...into all of that." He glanced up at her before reverting his gaze to his hands.

"So...can you...help me pray?" He looked up at her, and a note to his voice said that he realized that the request was an odd one - ridiculous, maybe - but the solemn tone he held said that he was perfectly serious. There was also a hint of pleading in it, that this was hard for him to ask, and that she please take him seriously.

Kitty plopped down heavily onto the bed next to him.

"We're different religions," she said, half-waking up now that things appeared to be Serious and required her attention. "But it's supposed to be, like, the same guy for everyone. At least that's what we think. Mostly."

She sighed, pulling her legs up onto Bobby's bed and leaning against the wall it was pushed against. "And everyone prays different. The way I pray might not be the way you like to pray. If you're praying person in the first place. Some people aren't."

She looked over at Bobby. "Here," she said. "Tell you what. Why don't you just tell me what's on your mind, and then we can offer it up to Him at the end. I think that's what it's supposed to be all about, anyway."

"I'm half-Jewish," Bobby said half-heartedly. "Well, at least, I'm supposed to be. I never really went to church. Or, synagogue."

She wanted to know. Somehow he'd thought he could go around that. He took a deep breath and let it out in a heavy sigh. "At the risk of sounding emo..." he forewarned her. He didn't like complaining; didn't even like talking about himself. It had never occured to him that in the last three years, that letting all of his troubles build up on top of each other and simmer inside of him was not making them go away.

"I killed a man. I know I wouldn't have done it if I had been in control of myself, but I did it. I did it because I was stupid enough to try and talk to John instead of freezing him on the spot. I was stupid enough to fight the guys who were on our side."

"And...the night before I was arrested..." Telling Kitty this was going to be the single thing that he'd had the most trouble telling her in all the years that they'd known each other. He'd never even hinted to Kitty the kind of stuff he had done, neither with Rogue nor with Paige. This felt like Confession all over again. He only pressed on by reminded himself that this was not a strange old man, but his friend, Kitty Pryde, and that she cared about him and would find some way to look past what he'd done.

"I did some things with Paige. And I noticed that she had these scars... And then today, when I saw her, they weren't there. The scars weren't there. And when I asked her about it, she freaked out. Started screaming about how I'd cheated on her and must have been too drunk to realize it wasn't her."

"So I went to Forge to get proof from the security camera in the hall that it was her. And it was. But he told me another thing." Now, Bobby's voice shook slightly. "You know how Mystique was here?" He was silent for a moment. "That's who it was. She tricked me." Guilt filled Bobby's voice, and he stared at the ground, refusing to look anywhere near Kitty. God, she was probably disgusted with him. He was disgusted with himself.

[Iceman]

Kitty listened silently, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her hoodie and resting on her knees as she slowly pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around them, unsure of what to say. She wasn't disgusted, per se. Not with him.

Staring at the side of his face, Kitty began the prayer she'd learned almost before she could speak, a prayer for supplication on Yom Kippur. "Merciful Father, hear our voice, because God Who hears prayers and supplications is You," she said softly. "From before Yourself, our King, turn us not away empty-handed... be gracious with us, answer us, and hear our prayers, because you hear the prayer of each mouth of Your people Israel with compassion. Blessed, Who hears prayer, heal us and we will be healed; save us and we will be saved, for You are our Praise. Bring complete recovery for our ailments, because You are God, King, the faithful and compassionate Healter. Blessed, Who heals the sick of His people, Israel."

She took a deep, shaky breath.

"It's gone," she said. "You have to deal with the endings yourself. But for God, it's gone."

It still felt weird to say God out loud. But she'd been praying. It couldn't count.

"We can say a Kaddish for your soldier, too, if you want," Kitty offered. It felt like so little. "For rest. And a Rachamim, for memory. If you want."


Bobby closed his eyes tightly during Kitty's recited prayer. His hand found hers, and he squeezed it tightly for the comfort of it. And when Kitty said that it was gone, he opened his eyes. Her words were perfect; and he wanted so terribly to believe them. He couldn't tell whether he did believe them or not, too many emotions swirled through his head, but he did feel some of the painful weight lift from his shoulders.

"Yes. All of it. Please," he said, his voice more weak than she'd likely heard it in a very long time. He took a deep breath and let it out in a blow of air through his nose. "And...thank you."

Her fingers were going to break off. Somehow, Kitty felt that extracting them would be uncharitable.

She recited the Kaddish in English and Hebrew; she knew it by heart. A lot of people died in her family. They were all old. She never knew any of them, but she always had to say the prayers. The Rachamim was just as easy; plus, she liked it better.

"God full of mercy, who dwells on high," she murmured softly, "grant perfect rest on the wings of Your divine presence in the lofty heights of the holy and pure who shine as the brightness of the heavens to the soul of - of the unknown soldier, who has gone to his eternal rest as all his family and friends pray for the elevation of his soul. His resting place shall be in the Garden of Eden; therefore, the Master of mercy will care for him under the protection of His wings for all time and bind his soul in the bond of everlasint life..."

A haphazard funeral. She liked it better than she'd liked her great-aunts' and great-uncles', though.

"God is his inheritance and he will rest in peace. And let us say Amen."