Peter brought his hand up to her face, and she only stared at him. Her pupils had dilated, and the terror in her eyes had been slowly replaced by daze, absence. She could feel her heart racing beneath her chest, and her skin felt clammy. Distantly she heard a roar, saw Peter tense, but she didn’t care. A blue blur appeared in her peripheral vision, and when she let her head drift over to look at it and saw Hank McCoy, she knew she was hallucinating. She mourned him, even spoke at his funeral, and there was no Phoenix who killed him. She must’ve been pretty out of it, but at least she still recognized a hallucination when she saw one. Colossus scooped her up, distracting her, and when she shifted her gaze up at Peter, she forgot about Hank and decided pressing up against him and falling asleep would be the best thing in the world. But metal was cold. She needed a blanket.
As the artist moved swiftly across the room, Kitty felt like a child. Often she felt small and unthreatening, but now, in his arms, she felt insignificant. Tears pushed the back of her eyes. Memories of her mother kissing a band-aid covered knee and her father scooping her up and swinging her around to make her laugh rushed as quickly as her blood fell. She did not fear death. She had faced it, grieved and welcomed the dead back to life. But this was not her time to die. She had too much left to do. Now couldn’t be her time.
“Okay,” she said absently, watching as Peter went off to help Northstar. As she turned to see Psylocke, her eyes locked on the other girl’s wound – directly at her neck. Kitty’s was more upwards, around her jaw and cheek; she had evidently been lucky. Most of the X-Men had basic first-aid training, and the sight of blood falling thickly around the older woman’s shoulder and dripping down her uniform brought back procedures and diagrams and symptoms. It felt suddenly as if her brain had snapped out of whatever it had been going through and realized other people needed help just as much as she did – if not more. “Hi, Betsy,” she greeted in a soothing voice, releasing her own wound to take Psylocke’s gloved hand and press it against her neck. Just hope she hadn’t damaged her carotid artery or her jugular or any of the other numerous blood vessels Kitty couldn’t remember. “Keep that pressure and follow me.” With a hand wrapped around Psylocke’s shoulder, determined to not let go of her, Shadowcat phased the two of them on a bee-line to the jet. Once inside, she let go, lunging forward to the cockpit, flipping switches and following the emergency check-list to warm up the engines. After her task had been completed, she settled back into the chair for a moment, feeling very tired again. Preparing the jet was hard work. Glancing towards the back, she remembered Psylocke and returned to her side, aiding any way she could.