Snow fell outside the windowpane in a picturesque scene. The world outside the window was blanketed in white. For a few precious moments, Katherine Pryde felt at peace with the world.

These last years had been Hell. Peter had died, Pete had died, Scott had died...and then came back...but the grief had been real at the time when Apocalypse had stolen him from all of them. She had her own personal Hells to battle as well just in her own personal life. For some odd reason, immaturity had caught her late in her teens instead of early and her hormones or something had hit her hard. So hard that she had subsequently alienated those that she would call her friends, some of them alienated so far she wondered if she would ever be able to make up for what she had done to them these last years.

So, after a year of battling herself and all that had happened in the lives of her and her family, Kitty Pryde had run away. It was as simple as that. She had told Professor Xavier not to call, not to write, not to try and track her down...nothing. She had wanted to live a normal life and all the boring stability that it offered. So, she had run to a new part of the world, stealing her files on herself from Cerebro on the way out (just for old times sake), given herself the name and papers of "Kate Knight" and had started anew.

Or so she thought.

She had never counted on her need to continue the fight for mutants and equality from "normal" human beings. It had been months since the female vigilante had hit the streets of England. Where in America she would have been hailed as a criminal, here she was looked upon with some scorn for her tactics, but overall ignored to do her good deeds in peace. And in the daytime she continued her education at Oxford. Sure, she had to pad "Kate's" resume, but she had gotten into the university that had in the past turned her down and she was proud that she had made honors her past semester there. She had done nothing but go to school and fight crime in her spare time. What more could a girl want from this world?

"Then why," a little voice whispered in her head, "aren't you happy without them here?"

She brought her attention back to the scene of beauty outside and seeing how the Christmas lights she had put on the outside of the cottage flickered through the slight sheen of ice and felt some measure of peace. The whole cottage was north and out of the way of almost everything. She had paid for it and all of the things she needed with her trust fund, which, after some persuasion to the banks computers, had been given to her early. Her world suited her now. She went down to the real world for her studies, which worked fine for her, and other than that she was left alone to do what she wanted. Come to think of it, she thought to herself, she wasn't leading much of a "normal" life at all. Oh well. As she toasted the falling snow with her cup of coffee she whispered, "Happy Chanukah and Merry Christmas everyone."

She was proud of her tree. A nice mixture of Christmas lights and Chanukah decorations sparkled in an almost tacky display, but she was still proud of how good it looked. Of course, she reflected, there was only a few gifts under the tree this year, but that had been her choice and she would deal with it.

A fluttering of wings and a slight weight on her shoulder made known the presence of her best friend and her one link to her past. She reached up and petted the purple dragon on his sensitive belly, hitting his happy spot right away, "Ahhh, Lockheed. What do I want in this world? I ran away from everything the X-men stood for and now I'm waging my own one person campaign against crime over in England." She sighed as she turned her head and brown eyes locked with gold, "Let's face it Lockheed...I am an utter failure at leading a normal life. I should just stop trying now."

She was unprepared for the sudden knock at the door and that would account for her screech of surprise as she almost lost her grip on her coffee. She recovered herself as the knock turned into an insistent pounding and she had to scowl as she put her coffee down on a nearby table and motioned Lockheed to hide. He immediately flew to a nearby perch that used to be a mount for some type of animal kill she was sure and taking a deep breath the dragon froze, his claws posed before him in a regal stature. Kitty looked at the now motionless dragon and had to shake her head saying over the pounding, "You better be able to hold that pose or it's no fresh eggs for you for dinner tomorrow."

The pounding continued and she shouted, "HOLD ON! I'll be there in a minute!" Sheesh. No one came to this area at night, and who in their right mind would be out on Christmas Eve? She grabbed one of the guns she had stored around the house and placing it in the front of her pants for an easy draw she put her sweatshirt over the evidence of the gun. She finally reached the front door and not even bothering with the peephole she yanked open the door and shouted into the face of her unwanted guest, "WHAT!?!"

And then she stood and stared in shock at what was before her.

Scott Summers, Cyclops, oh fearless leader of the X-men, stood on the step of her simple cottage. She stared at him and he still stood there, making her think that maybe she was hallucinating. She didn't realize her mouth was open until a man she thought never to see again smiled his quirky grin at her and said, "Well, I'm glad to see you haven't changed that much. May I come in?" As he walked past her still shell-shocked form he added over his shoulder on the way to the living room, "And you can get rid of the gun for now. I'm sure it's cutting into your stomach by now. Even with an inner pants holster those suckers can be mighty uncomfortable."

Kitty looked out the door for any other X-men that might be hiding in snow drifts or something laying in wait to give her a heart attack and finally satisfied that there was no one else there she shut the door and followed the path the other man had taken.

She noticed right away that he had managed to get the fire going in the fireplace that she had been trying to get going earlier. Leave it to Scott to not let wet wood get in his way to making a fire light. She was finally able to find her voice as Scott sat down on the couch and started to pet Lockheed...obviously the camouflage the dragon had chosen had not worked, "What are you..."

"Kitty," Scott looked at her with an almost affronted look on his face as he let Lockheed settle on his shoulder, "Do you honestly think that I wouldn't find you if I wanted to?" He looked thoughtful, "Although, damn if it didn't take some work to find you. You did a good job of hiding your trail. I especially like the 'Kate Knight' thing...Knight...some reference to Illayna perhaps?"

Kitty shook her head in response still somewhat shocked and muttered, "No, Excalibur actually. Excalibur, a sword, a knight wields a sword...that type of thing."

Her answer was a very considering, "Ahhh...I see," which immediately reminded her of Professor Xavier and so of course it ticked her off a bit. She repeated the question that she had been wanting to ask earlier before Scott interrupted, this time with a bit more irritation in her voice, "WHAT are you doing here?"

Scott shifted his weight on the couch so he was facing her in the doorway, not even missing a beat as he shifted Lockheed onto his left knee to make the dragon more comfortable, "What am I doing here? Kitty...it's Christmas Eve. I would not let any of my close friends celebrate the holiday alone. Especially you. You have this habit of getting attacked by aliens or other bad things happening when you are left alone on Christmas Eve, so I thought I would track you down and be your rearguard."

Kitty finally walked into the room completely and walking around the edge of the couch sat down next to Scott. Her hands clasped loosely between her knees she sat forward a bit so that her hair hid her face and asked, "Shouldn't you be with Jean right now?"

Scott, who had already moved to a more comfortable position on the couch replied, "Actually she was one of the X-men who was the most worried about you and sent me on the errand to find you. Of course there were others as well...mainly Kurt, who wanted to make sure you were alright and that you hadn't changed your mind about coming back to the X-men."

Kitty sat back and locked eye to visor with Scott finally understanding. Letting the knowledge show in her eyes she said softly, "And if it was that I had come unhinged after everything that had happened this last year and was building a new better bomb to kill everyone, you're the only one out of the X-men that would have the guts to stop me aren't you?"

Scott let the admiration he was feeling in that moment show in his face, "Very good Katherine. I knew you'd make me proud as a teacher still. Kurt was worried since he got to see, you as well, how Piotr couldn't handle it all and had his episode a couple of years back. He thought you were strong enough to handle it all, but your behavior before you left was so erratic that he was a bit...concerned, let's put it that way. Logan knew that he did not have to be the one to do it and was afraid of the person he would find when we tracked you down. Ororo was the same. Anyway, I'm glad to see that you've grown your hair back out again. You were starting before you left but it's at least shoulder length now. You looked awful with a buzz cut Kitty. A year has made a definite difference in your look."

Kitty had to agree with him, but didn't say anything as she ran her hand through the mass of curls around her shoulders, "It grows faster every time I phase it seems or something. Maybe I have a growth gene like Ororo must have or something."

Scott laughed a little, "I think in Ororo's case the wind simply yanks her hair to the point it almost comes out so she gains an eighth of an inch of hair growth every time she calls on the winds to aid her." Kitty laughed a little bit with him and it felt so good that it took her a minute to realize that she hadn't laughed in a while. The realization was somewhat sad to come to.

She smiled a bit at Scott for the first time and said, "It's good to see you again Scott. I've missed you guys a lot and I'm glad to see you're all still alive." She got up off the couch and motioned for Scott to stay put when he was getting up to follow her, "Stay there please. I'm just going to go and get something." She walked down the short hallway to the kitchen and then swung through the far door into clutter Hell, as she liked to call it. The room had been empty when she had gotten there, but she had decided to use it as her storeroom. So books were piled everywhere that were to move into the study sometime soon, posters were rolled into tubes to hang up around the place. She headed straight toward a large pile of packages that were set in boxes, ready to be sealed and mailed. Using her phasing power in a "not super-heroish" type of way she made the packages lighter than air and picked them up with her fingers, carrying them carefully toward the living room.

She set them down in front of Scott and said, "I was going to mail these, but you just saved me hitting a random post office somewhere...not to mention the postage. You can give all of the Chanukah gifts to the X-men when you go back. I know that it doesn't end for another three days or so, but they can open them all at once."

Scott smiled a bit as he looked down at the Star of David wrapping paper, "Thank you Kitty. I know the other X-men will be thrilled to know that you thought of them still, even after all of the bad memories associated with them. And I have a couple of things for you for Christmas that I wanted to deliver to you. Stay right here while I take these out to the Blackbird. I'll be right back." With that Scott managed to somehow stack three boxes on top of one another and carry them without wrecking his range of sight. He walked out the door into the snow and was gone. Kitty looked over at Lockheed and said, "I wonder what I'm getting that's such a big secret." Lockheed did his dragon version of a shrug and looked toward the door.

Kitty hummed, and twiddled her thumbs, and waited...and waited...and waited. And then...

"Shut the bloody Hell up Summers. I'm going, I'm going."

Kitty's mouth fell open for the second time that evening in shock. She knew that voice. She ran into the hallway without realizing it and skidded to a halt by bashing into the wall, her eyes locked on the thin figure of a man she knew and had never forgotten. He turned around from arguing with Scott and blue-gray eyes locked with brown. Suddenly he stopped complaining to Scott. He slowly walked down the hallway and reaching up let one of Kitty's curls wrap around his finger, "What in the HELL have you done to your beautiful hair?!?"

Kitty blinked at him for a moment and then, her ire raised by his tone snapped, "I decided to weed whack it for kicks one day when I realized that when it grew back in that the natural curl would cause mats and look like Hell. What in God's name does it look like? I cut it you English git!"

Scott added in from behind Pete, not helping the situation any, "It's a lot better than it was, Wisdom. It used to be in a buzz cut."

Pete looked into Kitty's face and near shouted, "Like that bloody Irish psycho O'Connor??? Are yer loopy?!?"

Kitty knew he was irritated if his English accent became THAT thick and was about to retort when Scott looking around Pete's frame said, "Merry Christmas. He showed up on our doorstep about a month ago looking for you and has been around ever since. Every day it was 'have you found her yet', or threats to kill us if we didn't tell him where you were."

Pete added in calmly without turning around, his eyes serious for only Kitty to see, "I don't make threats."

Which of course made Scott smile a bit and looking super chipper (for Scott) explained, "So, anyway he hitched a ride along in case I needed backup and I thought you two probably have a lot to talk about. So, I'll leave the X-men's gifts to you under the tree and see myself out. Merry Christmas Kitty."

Kitty nodded in his direction and said, "Happy Chanukah Scott and Shalom."

As the door shut behind Scott a few moments later Kitty looked to the arms that were on either side of her head, Pete somewhat crowding her space, and said, "You can let me go now 'Mr. Macho'. Scott's gone and won't make you do anything anymore." Like pay attention to me, she thought to herself as she phased through his right arm and headed toward the kitchen. Putting that thought to the back of her mind, she added without looking back at him, "Would you like some tea?"

She heard him grumble something and than a rough, "Yes, I'll take some bloody tea. This is going to be a long night."

**************

After Kitty made the tea, and the beverage served before Pete just the way he had always liked it, Kitty broke the silence.

"So...the weather is snowy this time of year isn't it?"

Pete looked out the window at the still falling snow and shook his head, "Yeah, I'd bloody well say it's snowing out." He turned and locked eyes with Kitty, unnerving her as nothing else could have, "You're probably wondering why I'm not dead."

Kitty blinked at him in silence for a moment and then said dryly, "Yes. The thought had crossed my mind. So, are you going to explain why you're darkening my doorstep on an idle Christmas Eve, two years since we broke up and over a year since you supposedly died?"

Pete got up from the table and walked over to the sink. Putting his hands flat on the counter-top the Englishman watched the falling snow like it was suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. Finally, after what seemed a very slow and agonizing eternity he spoke, "Well, in all bleedin' honesty I thought I was going to die a couple of times. When that other agent got the bullet instead of me and people thought I was dead I thought it might just be for the best. Decided to lay low for a bit. Turned out to be a wise idea. Gave me a chance to chase down the buggers that were trying to kill me and get to them first. And then, earlier this year, I found out you'd left the X-men."

He turned around and leaning against the counter crossed his arms over his chest, his leather overcoat making a rustling sound she remembered from memory. He looked at her face, her hair, her familiar build that was still sitting at the table staring at him and said, "And it bothered me, that. Ever since the moment I laid eyes on you, Katherine Pryde, you were never, ever a quitter. And then I found out you just up and quit on the good guys and went out to live a normal life as a hermit. It seriously got my gander up that yer of all people would just up and leave the X-men without so much as a by your leave. So, I started to want answers to why yer would do something like that." He motioned with his hand when it looked like Kitty was about to speak, making a staying motion so that she wouldn't say anything, "AND I found me answers when I went to the X-men themselves to find out about everything. Found out about all of the confusing and bad things that had happened that last year there. I'm sorry about the Russian by the way, although it didn't surprise me. Tried to convince him that alcohol was a cure all but he said something about getting drunk once and never doing it again. Can't say I didn't try to get him help."

It was such a Pete remark that Kitty would have smiled, but he was up and talking again, "Anyway found out about all of that and how yer wigged out after everything. Can't say as I could blame yer for treating people like yer did and pushing them away. Probably don't even know if Elizabeth is still a Braddock or some other weird combination of things...and she's one of the more normal cases in that bunch. Then the Russian was the last straw for yer and yer decided to give it up and move on before someone else you cared for got trashed. When I found out about all of that...I couldn't just leave you hanging with one more death over yer head, so come Hell or high water I was going to track you down."

Kitty blinked at him for a moment and asked softly, "Why?"

Pete ran his hand through his hair somewhat agitated, and taking a deep breath to get his cockney accent under control again, a show of his emotional state that it kept slipping through muttered, "To let you know that I, at least, wasn't dead on you, that's why. I wanted to let you know that I was still around for good or bad if you ever needed me for anything."

Kitty got up from the table slowly, wondering with a warmth in the vicinity of her heart if the hunch she was getting was right or not. She walked toward the Englishman slowly and finally standing before him looked his square in the face and asked, "Why do you care if I have anybody or not, Pete Wisdom?"

Pete looked down at her and she saw the smile lift the corner of his mouth despite him, "Don't make it easy ever do you, Pryde? You just spit right into the wind and damn fate." He put his hand up to once again play with her hair and said, "Fine, you want an answer I'll give you one. I care because I care that's why. I never stopped loving you, Pryde, and I'll probably always love you. That's why I give a damn."

Kitty threw her arms around him in a death grip and muttered into his chest, "I love you too, Pete, and am sorry for the immaturity that made me let you go the first time around." She hugged him tighter for a moment as his arms wrapped around her in apparent relief. She drew back after a few moments and glaring up at him asked, "Why didn't you tell me sooner that you were alive??? Well???"

Pete simply crushed her to him and kissed her, figuring that was the quickest and easiest way for her to forget what she had just asked him.

It worked.

A while later, Kitty curled against Pete on the couch and seeing the gifts under the tree checked her watch, "Hey. It's Christmas Day in two hours." She then turned to Pete and flinching a little said in apology, "I didn't get you anything for obvious reasons I'm afraid." Pete simply smiled and tightened the tie around Kitty's neck a little, the only thing other than a flimsy robe that she was currently wearing, "I got all I wanted for Christmas right here, so no worries. As a matter of fact..." He started to part the robe slowly, the belt falling away unnoticed as his lips trailed slowly toward parts he was sure to treasure, "I think I'll open my gift a bit early and make Christmas last all year."

Kitty's laughter floated down the hallway where a solitary dragon sat watching the falling snow. He sighed as his tailed wagged slowly back and forth in irritation. He wasn't happy that the Englishman was back, but for now he left the two lovers in the other room alone. He had not seen Kitty this happy in a long time. And, he thought with an evil smile, there was time to get the Englishman later. All was well with the world for now.

Happy Holidays Everyone.

The End