6426/Home Is Where The Heart Lies

Home Is Where The Heart Lies
Date of Scene:	09 February 2019
Location:	Xavier's School
Synopsis:	Kitty is greeted by Bobby after a year away at Oxford
Cast of Characters:	Shadowcat, Iceman

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Shadowcat has posed:
    Kitty kept her laptop with her for entertainment on the plane, of course. But a surprising portion of the 7 hour flight from London Heathrow to Boston's Logan airport was spent staring out the window at the water below. Sometimes idly chewing on a strand of dark brown hair. It would have been difficult to tell from the twenty-year-old's face that she was going home again.

    The already long trip was made longer when she found one item of her checked luggage had not arrived with her flight. Lockheed's animal carrier, covered so no one would know it was a dragon inside and not a canine. Put on the wrong flight, a 3 hour delay before it would land. "Oh I'm not going to hear the end of this," Kitty had said as she slumped into an airport chair to wait out the later-arriving flight.

    Finally Lockheed had arrived. Kitty, dragon and her luggage all were stowed safely in an Uber that wound its way up to Salem. Finally it stopped at the gate. "That's fine, I can get it from here," she tells the driver. Her luggage ends up in a pile sitting on the thin layer of new-fallen snow. Forgotten for the moment as Kitty wraps her coat about her and pauses to look at the school in the distance. Memories and emotions flood her, until she feels a clawed foot squeeze at her shoulder. "You ready?" she asks Lockheed as he perches on her. She opens up the gates and begins tugging the luggage along in her wake, the rollers sometimes sliding on the snow rather than rolling gracefully, the number of bags just at the edge of what she can handle by herself.

Iceman has posed:
Bobby has his twitted set up that so when some people come and go, he knows. His first teammates and dear friends he has made on the way - Kitty is among that number. So when he got the notice that she was returning to the school, he just had to make sure she's warmly welcomed. Unfortunately he didn't have time to meet her at the airport and embarass her with something like a sign reading:

'Welcome Kitty Pryde, my Mail Order Bride'

Instead, it gave him plenty of time to get access to Kitty's room and do some 'redecorating'. He finished not a moment too soon as he was told by a student of the arriving Uber and Bobby comes racing downstairs, dressed in blue jeans and a comfortable sweater as he throws open the door. "Kitty!" he exclaims, a smile blossoming warmly to his feature. "You've returned to the roost!" With that, he's stepping up to grab her up into a hug. Of course he can't pick her up and swing her around like Pitor could, but still, she's totally earned a hug.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde hadn't put out any public tweets or posts about coming home. But that mention of packing she'd made in Private Message to Bobby had apparently made it easy enough for a curious friend to find out she was booked on a flight into Boston. Kitty drags her bags down the long driveway, gaze alternating between the snowy driveway and the house. "It looks just the same. But I wonder how many times it has had to be rebuilt since I was here last?" she says to herself.

That joyous-sounding cry with her name draws Kitty's attention over to the doorway, and the rapidly approaching Bobby Drake. Whatever thoughts had distracted her on the flight and the drive can't withstand the appearance of an old friend. "Bobby!" she says, dropping her bags in the snow as he gets to her and gives her the hug. She hugs him bag, squeezing him with a surprising tightness at first. "Surprise," she says as she loosens up the embrace. "If I'd known I'd get a greeting like that, I'd have gone away sooner," she jokes.

Iceman has posed:
"Bah, flatterer." Bobby says with a grin. "And you talked - that's good, means you're not a shadow puppet." There's a smirk at that, deciding to push that aside for the moment as he considers Kitty and her bags. "How was your flight in? Any problems? And let me help you with some of those bags? I promise not to go peeking."

"So how much have you kept up to date with since you've been gone?" He knows they've PMed back and forth on occassion, but at the same time, he's not really talked about school too much. "And you're not allowed to leave and come back just to gete hugs, I'll have to keep you on a counter." There's a wink at the woman as he moves to pick up the bags.

Shadowcat has posed:
Kitty Pryde happily passes custody of half of the bags over to Bobby. There are a pair of suitcases and a pair of overnight bags. More than someone usually brings for just a short stay. Lockheed buzzes about Bobby excitedly, giving little snorts of smoke.

"Thank you," Kitty says as she passes the handles to a suitcase and an overnight bag over to him. "No problems other than Lockheed's carrier getting put on the wrong flight. Had a friendly telepath help me get Lockheed through the screeners in London. Was a little worried until he finally showed up at Logan," Kitty tells him.

She begins roll-dragging the other luggage through the fresh, light snowfall. "I've tried to keep up, though I'm probably out of the loop on a lot of things," she tells him. "Maybe you can help catch me up?" She looks at the school ahead. "Wow, it looks good," she says, smiling. She looks back to Bobby. "You look good too. Putting on some muscle? Scott making you train, train, train?" she asks with a warm laugh.

Iceman has posed:
"Me? Train?" Bobby laughs at that. "It's not from a lack of trying.." though he does get a blush. "I had a date last night and wanted to look good for it, you know? Anyway! School looks good because the entire backwing just got rebuilt again. There's shadow puppets of the X-Men wandering about. The Rogue one is the one that damaged the school."

"Mine apparently caused a massive amount of destruction to a bridge connecting Metropolis to Gotham." There's a sigh and a shake of his head at that. "So I'm laying low for a bit, because apparently it can do - like way more than I could even imagine trying."

"Let's see - we apparently have a time traveler about - one of get this.." His smile turns conspiratorial as he explains, "She says that she's Scott and Jean's daughter. Her name's Rachel. She looks like Jean did back when she was a student, but yeah. Crazy, right?" With that, he hefts the bags up to start to carry them. And then he glances to the shoulder dragon. "Sorry, Lockheed, I forgot to bring you any beef jerky. I'll get you next time, promise."

Shadowcat has posed:
Someone who knows her well might notice some physical changes to Kitty. She has lost more of the girlish look she still had when she left for England, in her body but especially in her face. Her eyes are the same though, warm and lively most of the time as they look over to Bobby, listening to what has been happening.

"Oh no. I hope there isn't one of me out there. One of me is more than enough me, if you get me?" Kitty says. She stops as they reach the doorway, giving a smile as she hears about the date. Choosing here to gossip rather than inside where there are more ears to hear. "Uh oh, a date? How'd it go? Who is she? Did you take her dancing? Did you open doors for her?" Kitty asks. Even if her face might look a little more like a woman, there is obviously still plenty of the same girl inside that left a year ago.

The mention of the time traveler causes Kitty's eyes to widen. "Get! Out! Really? How are they taking it? And... are they, you know?" Kitty asks, just alluding to the relationship issues and the on-again, off-again nature of that particular couple.

Iceman has posed:
If Bobby made note of the changes, he's not going to voice it yet. They have catch up and gossip to do first! "So far it's just Rogue and I. I don't know why I was picked. Maybe they thought snow was cool?" He downsells his powers. It's what he always does as his cheeks darken slightly.

"Megan Gwynn. You might know her as Pixie? She's half-fae, half-mutant, has pink hair and wings? We're having a second date, so I'm pretty confident it went well." There's a smile, one that shows that he at least feels comfortable in the idea, which is far better than he tends to do in relationships - Kitty's had a ringside seat to that show on occassion.

"Are Scott and Jean going horizontal? Naw, I don't think they even considered the idea until - boom child in their face." he says with a laugh and then adds in amusement. "I heard that Scott fainted when he heard about it."

Shadowcat has posed:
"Pixie, right. Well that's great, Bobby. You deserve to have somebody who recognizes just how awesome of a guy you are," Kitty tells him. He should probably savor those words as her tune might be changed whenever she gets to her room and sees what he's done to it.

Kitty covers her mouth with her hand to try to hide her grin about Scott. "Well, sounds like things are as interesting around here as ever. So you're teaching Math still?" Kitty asks. "How is that going? Are any of the students giving you as much trouble as you used to give our professors?" she asks. Kitty suddenly gets a huge grin. "Remember what you did to Hank that one time, with the snow and-" Kitty says, trailing off as she's laughing at the memory.

Iceman has posed:
There's a beaming smile at that memory. "Oh, I don't do pranks like that anymore. I'm all grown up." Nevermind that he's crossing his fingers behind his back. "Still teaching math. Handling the books. You know me? Steady, capable, never leaving the school Bobby." Smiling and laughing, he considers Kitty.

"You look really good. One of the things that Pixie said when she went back to the UK for a year herself was that she wanted to grow up a little and get the bravery to say what she wants. So she asked me out." he shrugs his shoulders at that, before his phone beeps and he glances at it.

"Dammit. I have to take care of some grading for an online quiz. Promise me we'll catch up later?" he asks, before taking the bags. "I'll drop these off at your door, I'm not too far down the hall as you recall!"