Archive of Our Own ^beta

Loss is one of those wounds that stings the same after each blow. You can grow used to a beating, grow a tolerance for poison, but the hole in your soul from losing someone you love is the same every single time.

She’s lost Kitty too many times already.

It was Ororo who came to tell her this time. That Kitty had gone missing, lost at sea after a mission with the Marauders. Illyana didn’t take the news kindly: it took her two days in Limbo to work off her rage, screaming and slaughtering demons. When she was done, she was left empty; carved open.

Kitty Pryde was--is--more important to her anything else. When she clawed her way out of Limbo, an abandoned demon child, it was Kitty who still welcomed her with open arms. Kitty, who loved her, without question or reservation. I could lay the world at her feet and it wouldn’t even begin to repay her.

Everything Illyana was, she was with the love of Kitty Pryde. It was what tethered her to her humanity, a reminder of everything she could stand to lose. And now she’s lost it, again.

She’ll survive this, of course. Death is a part of everyone’s life, and apparently that goes tenfold for the X-Men. They’ve been separated by death, magic, time, dimensions--every possible barrier. And, of course, the work of the Five have made such separation simply a memory. For most people.

Illyana had given up hope after the fourth resurrection attempt had failed, leaving Kitty nothing but a clone body in that disgusting sac. Resurrection had never failed before, but of course Illyana’s heart would be the exception. Something about Krakoa had been rejecting Kitty from the start, and it didn’t look like the fucking magic island they’d all signed their lives over to had changed it’s mind. After the tenth failed attempt, Illyana went to Rachel and Ororo to start planning the funeral. She was still empty.

The funeral itself was a straightforward affair, overseen by Krakoa’s Jewish population. The only thing Illyana found herself feeling was a flash of rage as Emma Frost, whose stupid Hellfire enterprise was the reason this had happened at all, turned to leave.

And now Illyana had to get back up and keep going without her heart, without the person who’d held her in the night when they were kids and assured her she had a soul.

It was cruel for their island haven, their supposed paradise, to fail to resurrect the person Illyana wanted most, but it somehow felt crueler that it succeeded only after she had given up hope. That it waited until she had mourned before undoing it all. Even so, Illyana wouldn’t give this up for the world.

As soon as she heard of a commotion at the Hatchery, Illyana was flying through a stepping disc, the emptiness in her heart crumbling away as hope suddenly bloomed. And there she was, all wild curls and bright eyes and alive and Illyana was running before she knew it. They crashed into each other, and Illyana held her as tight as she could and said, “I hate the knuckle tats.”

Kitty just laughed. “That’s the first thing you say?”

Illyana buried her face in Kitty’s hair, pulled her even closer and said, “Well, you already know I love you.” She heard Kitty snort as she pressed against Illyana’s chest, and she’s finally whole again.

After a few moments, Kitty pulled away from the embrace to look up at Illyana as she said, “Hey, you wanna go kill Sebastian Shaw?”

Illyana kissed her cheek before replying, “Absolutely. Sounds cathartic.”