The library was quiet and cool. There was a great big fireplace not five feet away from Anna's right foot, but she had never set and lit a fire in her entire life and didn't want to risk the house on an experiment. The apartments and houses back in Caladicut County that her folks had rented usually didn't come with fireplaces, and if they did it was always too hot and muggy to ever use them. So instead of a nice fire to keep her warm, she had drug down one of the blankets from her bed and put on two of her favorite hoodies to try to keep all the heat from escaping her body.
The required reading of George Orwell's 1984 in her lap was dull at the best of times… and horrifying at the worst of times. Duh, a police state is bad. She wishes the book could just boil it down to that instead of getting into such… detail sometimes. It's a book she would be tempted to just look up an online guide for instead of reading, but her English teacher Miss Crane was surprisingly savvy when it came to cheating the reading. She would specifically make her multiple choice questions on tests to mislead anyone who didn't read the source material. Normally it wasn't that big of a deal. The books the curriculum have gotten her to read have by and large not been too bad. However, George Orwell's 'masterpiece' was the last thing she felt like reading.
Anna lowered the book and rested her head against the pillow supporting her neck. From her spot on the couch, her eyes wandered the great library. Casually scoping out the books from a distance. There was the piano tucked in the corner she heard Jean playing on every so often, and the miscolored square on the wall where a large painting once hung. It had been months now and she still hadn't found the cajones to ask about it.
A knock on the open door stirred Anna from her half-lidded inspection of the room, and when she looked she spotted Kitty standing sheepishly in the doorway.
"I came in here because I wanted to be alone."
Kitty pressed her lips together hard enough even her lip gloss lost its shine. "I - uh - heard what happened yesterday."
Anna slowly inhaled and raised her book again as if to read it. "Well, you weren't supposed to."
Anna heard Kitty's feet quickly shuffle inside and then a creak from the couch opposite hers. "No one told me exactly. Well - no one told me intentionally. I mean, I kinda coaxed it out of someone."
Anna lowered her book and rolled her head in Kitty's direction who had taken a seat on the couch opposite hers. "Kurt tell you?"
"Don't be mad at him! It's just… you guys were acting so weird and I - well I had to know, you know? So I kinda got it out of him without him meaning to tell me -"
Anna raised her book a second time. "Great. Well, now you know about fucking my mental breakdown. Hope you're happy."
"Hey, I can't exactly judge people on mental breakdowns. You saw mine just a few weeks ago." A silence hung in the air long enough for Anna to hear Kitty reposition herself on the couch. "I wanted to let you know that I'm here for you. If you wanted a friend."
"I didn't ask for a friend. I didn't ask for you to be here. I didn't ask to freak out Kurt. I didn't ask-" Anna crumpled the paperback book in her hand and threw it to the opposite end of her couch. "For this shitty book! All I ask for is some fucking sleep where I don't have that goddamned dream!" She sat up and covered her eyes with her right hand. "Damn it!"
A hand touched her bent knee, and when Anna looked up she saw Kitty knelt at the foot of her couch, her eyes averted.
"Where did this even come from? Where? I've never had a kid. Why is the kid in the dream Kurt? Why did it come up during our training session? Why is this happening?"
"Back in the attic, didn't Kurt mention that Xavier might be able to help you with this? Like, he can maybe probe your mind or something?"
"After what happened, yeah Xavier said he could help me out. He insisted on it. I still don't like the idea of having someone roaming around in my fucking head, Kitty."
"What's the worst he could do, really? I wouldn't love it either, but it's not like he can control you or anything. And if he was going around reading our minds all the time, he probably would have already known about your dream before it came up in the Danger Room."
"Yeah maybe…"
"I think I'd probably be better to get your head looked at than keep having this dream and going crazy."
"Yeah, yeah - you're probably right." Anna tucked her knees towards her chest. "God, Kitty I hate this so much." She wrenched her eyes shut and rested her forehead against her knees. "I want this to be over. I just want to sleep again and not have everyone look at me like a freak."
"We don't think you're a freak."
Anna creaked her eyes open. "You don't? Kurt looked terrified in the Danger Room."
"He was a little freaked, yeah, but he doesn't think you're weird or anything. At least anymore than normal." Kitty sat up. "Keep in mind, we've all seen your powers at this point. When you get a hold of someone, the 'spirit takes you' and you kinda get a little funky. Not like a bad funky or anything. It's like, remember when you took on Blob? After you bulldozed him, you got a wacky Texan accent for a while. It's just one of those little quirks you got with your powers. Nothing wrong with it."
"Really?"
"Totally. What happened in the Danger Room, it was just 'the spirit taking you' again. Your powers were taking you for a head trip, that's all that happened."
Anna rested her chin on her knees. "I guess that makes sense." She pressed the palm of her hand against her forehead. "It was just so embarrassing."
"Trust me, girl, I know a thing or two about embarrassing. Try having a nicotine high when your roommate walks in on you mid-cigarette."
Anna snorted. "You were going through it. That's all."
"And so are you." Kitty squeezed Anna's leg. "You'll get through this. You're the toughest chick I know."
Anna uncurled from herself and a moment later the pair were hugging. She wasn't sure who initiated the hug, but she didn't realize it was exactly what she needed at that moment. "Thanks, Kitty."
"You got it, roomie."