[For Wyatt] Valentine's Day

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Hair twisted in a loose knot with a pencil through it, Kitty pored over a notebook filled with what must've looked like arcane sigils to someone unfamiliar with her personal shorthand. In fact, it was the first iteration of a security/surveillance drone design. Between sips of coffee, she flipped the pencil in her hand to erase one assemblage and then flipped it again to sketch in another. One she immediately saw wouldn't work.

"Fudge."

She set down her coffee cup, absently poured more from the carafe, flipped the page and then started over. The severe materials limitations made paper refinements essential, but she seriously hated doing it.

Is she hadn't already been to at least one version of hell, she'd have said she was living it.

Valentine's Day in a hotel designed for lovers, decorated by her manic partner on the Welcoming Committee so that it looked like aftermath of a glitterpunk war, everyone she'd ever loved--including her very first Valentine, her dad--as good as dead to her, and chicken with heart-shaped waffles for breakfast, without a lab to distract herself?

Yeah. She'd rather be in Limbo.

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"People in relationships fight," she said protectively without letting go. It had been almost two months, she realized in that moment, since the last time she'd hugged anyone or they'd hugged her. She wasn't exactly the huggy type, usually, but feeling it now made her chest ache. "I get feeling guilty. I always do too when people get hurt or killed and maybe I could have done something. Just don't feel guilty about the fighting part."

[st_rayed]

Wyatt felt a shudder go through him at her words. In all of his thoughts with Jess and his tries to change the past, he'd never once wrote a note to his younger self to not argue that night. It was always to Jess to go with him even when he'd been an ass.

"I tried to change that night." He began, "I wrote her a letter in the sixties and had Western Union deliver it to her before that night. It didn't work, but I tried." Wyatt pushed back just enough so that he could look at Kitty, "I never even thought about writing to me. Maybe underneath it all, I knew I shouldn't feel guilty about arguing. Maybe I just needed to hear someone else say it."

[st_alksthroughwalls]

Kitty touched her fingers to his face and caressed his jaw. It felt...simple, easy, and natural to lean in to kiss where her fingers had brushed. There really wasn't anything else to say, so she just put her head on his shoulder.

After a little while, Kitty said, "I understand if you're not ready to have another relationship. I'm cool with taking this slow."

[st_rayed]

Wyatt smiled softly when he felt her lips on his jaw. "This is the first time since Jessica's death that I've wanted to be emotionally close to someone. It's not that I'm not ready for another relationship, but slow is probably a good idea."

He'd likely take a few missteps and it helped a lot that Kitty understood.

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"Honestly, I don't know how ready I am." That she felt close to him already was undeniable, and the prospect of being with him appealed. But she knew how much of a mess her relationships got in a hurry, usually. And then there was...

Kitty sighed. "My dad was killed in that attack I told you about. And the guy I loved for years and thought was dead came back from the dead--" Jeez, her life was complicated. "--and didn't feel the same way not that long ago. I'm kind of a mess, like I said."

[st_rayed]

In all of his scenarios of bringing Jess back, the thought of her not feeling the same didn't even enter it. God, that would have been a knife to the gut, but she would have been alive. Theoretically, Wyatt thought he could live with that, but truthfully he wasn't so sure.

"God, that is very understandable." He smiled slightly as he rested his forehead against hers, "it's a good thing we both understand baggage."

[st_alksthroughwalls]

"Yeah." She turned her head enough to look up into his eyes without pulling away from him and then smiled crookedly. "It really, really is."