DISCLAIMER: Dispensing with legal jargon, you all know what this bit is going to say. X-Men: Evo and everything associated with it don't belong to me. Never have, and never will since the rights have yet to appear on e-bay. Likewise, 'Tapestry' belongs to Carol King and Screen Gems-Columbia Music, Inc. Considering my musical talent stretches to 'London's Burning' on the recorder, that one was pretty much a given.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Argh! Why do I write crap like this? Yet again, why do I subject others to reading crap like this? I have absolutely no idea where this ficlet came from, other than it bit me and kept up the grip of a pit-bull until I'd finished writing it. It's all set the night before Rahne and Jubilee leave in Season Three, and since CNX refuses to show any episodes beyond 'Shadow Dance' I had to research pretty much everything. So I say again, why do I write crap like this?

This is a collage fic, so not everything takes place at the same time. It's also my first, last and only attempt at a songfic, but I've tried to make it different to the average songfic, so please don't be put off by that. It's set to Carol King's song 'Tapestry' (1971), which I think is singularly one of the most beautiful songs ever. Don't worry if you haven't heard it, because the lyrics are most important and are included here, but if you ever get the chance to listen then do so.

Draws heavily on comic-verse, but I've attempted to Evolution-ize a few concepts, so just bear with me, K? Hopefully this shouldn't leave any non-comic-buffs (of which I am one - never underestimate the power of the search engine) at sea. If there's anything people don't understand, then just write it in a review and I'll email with answers, explanations and junk.

Special thanks go to Greg, who beta'ed and helped me out with Japanese tags, of which I know precious little.

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'Tapestry' By Scribbler
May 2003

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[My life has been a tapestry of rich and royal hue,
An everlasting vision of the ever-changing view]

Scott stared into the mirror. It was chipped around the edges, testament to what it had endured, and threw back a grainy reflection that wobbled and flowed as he raised his head. Caught by the sight, he paused, toothbrush dripping white foam onto his hand and into the sink.

A strong face looked back at him - that of a leader, a survivor. Well, he was certainly that, of late. His cheekbones were high - aristocratic, almost - echoing those of his mother. However his chin was definitely from his father's side. The Summers' faces were all strong, and it was only through his maternal lineage that his features received any softness.

Thinking about it, Alex possessed a strong face, too, offset by gentle brown eyes, understated and warm. Eyes that belied the power their owner wielded.

But not Scott. Instead of shielding it, Scott's eyes enhanced the power he carried. Nobody could meet his gaze - his true gaze - without fear of harm, and as he stared balefully into a reflected pair of near-opaque ruby quartz lenses, it was as if a bitter knife pierced his heart.

What colour were his eyes? It had been so long, he could barely remember. Pictures of his family - mercifully carried in his wallet and so escaping the destruction of the mansion - told him nothing. The photos gave him red-eye - a trick of the camera, but oh so ironic now.

Red-eye.

But what was their real colour? Brown, like Alex? Like his mother? Or blue, like his father? The same amnesia that had stolen his family from him after the plane crash had also robbed him of that simple fact, and though so much was returned to him now, still that one part of himself remained lost. Perhaps forever.

Red eyes.

So stupid, hankering after something so trivial. Yet it preyed on his mind. So much of his life now revolved around that single colour. Once, the world had been a gaudy place, full of dyes, tints and tones able to inspire artists to great works with a merest flicker. The soft hue of a dandelion, the noble gold-edging of a butterfly's wings, dithery white stretched above in a vaulted ceiling of cloud - things people take for granted every day of their lives. Things *he'd* taken for granted.

Now perpetual red.

He almost laughed out loud at the thought. Forever red. And in so many ways, too. His glasses and visor had restored his sight, but stolen such an intrinsic part of it that often he'd wondered whether its retrieval was truly worth the cost. Stargazing lost its flair when each star emulated Mars, and small things like flowers, books, cars - each one different but the same; all turned differing shades of crimson.

Yet it was a small price compared to other ways in which red invaded his life. Idly, he fingered the bandage strapped tightly around his upper arm, tugging at the vaguely frayed edges. Blood was another redness that followed him. His parents', and more recently, nearly that of his teammates. If they hadn't gotten out in time...

Memories of blossoming flame engulfed him, alike but different, and each one wreathed in blazing red. That was what Hell looked like, so the Bible told. One he saw closely, feeling the searing heat on his skin. The second he saw from a distance, the only sensation wind rushing into his face. A hand gripped tightly onto his own, and he saw silent tears dripping from soft brown eyes, only to be jerked away and scattered as they fell like birds with cut wings.

Nothing was quite the same after you'd had to bury a parent - except he hadn't even been able to do that. Not that there had been enough left of Christopher and Katherine-Ann Summers to bury at all, had their son been able to remember them. Xavier had pulled his memories free when he found Scott, but their last image was tainted with what followed, and it hurt to look back. Better to look forward, he'd always thought. The future was an unknown commodity, right? Something unwritten.

Right?

Yet what awaited them in that future?

Mutants. The world had only just met them, and already they were despised. And why? A freaky gene? Having the audacity to be born different? Or did people just fear the unfamiliar? Was it, as Beast hypothesised, just an instinctive reaction to protect their own gene pool, and nothing more than that? Animals ignored mutated brethren when mating, keeping out unwanted qualities in their offspring. Could it be that human beings weren't quite so far removed from nature as they believed?

But all the conjecture in the world didn't change what was going on in the here and now. Tomorrow Jubilee would be leaving - Rahne too. Going home. Scott hadn't known either girl particularly well, but they were his teammates. The Institute and Alex were all he had left in the world, and now, thanks to that egomaniac Magneto, it was all falling apart around his ears. Who would be next to leave? Already, the students were reporting murmurings amongst their families about pulling them out, making them leave the Institute and what it represented. Kitty, Bobby, Jamie - all talking of leaving. It was to be expected, of course - after all, Xavier had promised their families safety and tolerance here. But with every new voice, Scott felt his restraint slipping a little bit more.

He was losing his family for a second time. And was just a helpless to do anything as the first.

Thus he came to the last red. What would he do if he never saw her again? He'd escaped that explosion with her face in mind, driving himself on to protect the others, but ultimately, to see her face again. Now her folks talked about taking her home, and though she fought their decision, it was all he could do not to collapse inside and beg them to let her stay.

But he didn't. Because he was a leader. He was strong, just as the set of his jaw implied. Whatever happened, he had to put on a brave front, as an example to the others.

He stared into the mirror, but all he got back was a mottled reflection of opaque red.

[A wondrous woven magic in bits of blue and gold,
A tapestry to feel and see, impossible to hold.]

Kurt sat on the makeshift bed, hugging a bolt of singed blue cloth close to his chest. His eyes were huge, like golden pools staring blankly into the darkness of the room he and Scott shared. He looked, for all the world, like a lost and lonely child. Which is exactly what he was.

Things were supposed to be different here. America was supposed to be the land of opportunity, where every person was born equal and treated like a brother. He'd come here believing that dream, as he'd believed the dreams of Herr Xavier that humans and mutants could - and would - one day live together in peace and harmony.

Strange that a single blow could shatter both illusions so completely.

He'd dreamed the night after the Sentinel. Dreamed of glowing torches, shouts and flames licking his feet. Dreamed of the first time he'd used his power, then lay on a desolate hillside coughing smoke and ash from his blistered lungs, waiting. Waiting to live, waiting to die, waiting for someone to find him - he hadn't known at the time. No energy to think, let alone move after his first ever 'port. So he'd just waited to see what would happen, and hoped against hope the troupe would find him before the Winzeldorfians did.

Just waiting.

Even now he shivered to recall it. Though not his first encounter with blind hatred and fear, it had left the biggest impression. Beneath the fur, his feet still carried the scars. Xavier had promised him nothing like that would ever happen here. He'd promised protection, a new life free from prejudice and revulsion.

Herr Xavier had lied.

Because, in so many ways, Bayville was exactly like Winzeldorf. Blind hatred was a human trait, regardless of location. Kurt's appearance just made him a more prominent target, but even before the Sentinel, he'd seen it in action here. Bullies tortured lesser kids, cheerleaders and cliquers harassing those who dared to be 'different', like it was some sort of horrible disease to break from the norm. Hearts were twisted, warped to do terrible things by the desire to fit in, to be normal. He knew, because that was the reason behind his image inducer, right? To blend in? To be assimilated?

Assimilated. Like a cog in a machine. Did he really want to be just another cog in a machine?

It sure as hell beat being a spare part.

All his life he'd craved acceptance. In Heirelgart it hadn't been so bad. There, people knew him for who he was under the fur and teeth. They knew the real Kurt Wagner, and they loved him for it. Nobody cared he was a mutant; that he could walk on the ceiling as easy as the floor, or scurry like a squirrel through the trees overhead. It was all just Kurt to them.

But here, amongst other mutants - others - of his 'kind' he'd found little to compensate leaving his homeland. People were people, fearing what was different. And he was nothing of not that. They ran when they first saw him, or screamed and asked the immortal question, "what *is* it?" It took them a while to realise that he was still human, that he had hopes, dreams, and above all, feelings. It hurt to be called a 'thing', just as much as it did for them to avoid certain maxims around him. 'Freak' had been the first to go, then 'demon', and all others besides that could be misconstrued. They danced on eggshells, worried about hurting him, and wounding deeper by doing so.

All he wanted was to be treated like any other of their number, not given special treatment. So he brushed his body as well as his hair in the mornings, so what? So he had five limbs to worry about instead of four, so what? It didn't make him any less of a person, did it? He was still, ultimately, human, with all faults and merits present and accounted for, just like any of them.

Nobody touched him anymore. That perhaps hurt most of all. Kurt was one of life's tactility-lovers, and back home there had always been a younger sister to fall asleep stroking his fur, a neighbour playing and not afraid to grab bare arm in a game of tag, or a parent who needed the kind of help only a fuzzy blue elf could give. Here, they circumvented touching his fur, as if by making contact they'd offend, or else break the illusion set up that he wasn't just some animal that had learned to talk and walk upright. The difference hurt deep down to his core, and as long as people stayed away, he felt empty, like a hollow version of himself.

On impulse, he held out the tiny thing in his arms. Schmerzmann was charred, his tail gone and half his face burned off. A single glass eye stared back, the other melted and laying somewhere in the ruins of the mansion. It was a wonder he'd survived the blast at all, but Kurt had found his treasured childhood toy under the pile of rubble that had once been his room. He'd found other things as well - a book containing his parents' phone number, a collection of marbles bought for Jamie's birthday next month, a portion of dark fabric later revealed to be the hood of the cloak he'd worn that first day at the Institute.

His photos, Opa's brushes, letters - all mementoes of Heirelgart were gone. Cinders now, or close enough. The money jar was little more than a mass of melted glass, cocooning blobs of metal and useless paper cash. Everything he held dear had gone up in smoke, and he'd privately cried like a soul bereft over each dead piece, before locking his feelings away and painting the joker's smile back on his face again. They expected to see it, and as a performer, Kurt could never disappoint, no matter how much his heart ached beneath the surface.

He hadn't heard from home in almost a week. Did they know what'd happened? Had the news of Mutantkind reached even his small mountain town? Did they fear for him, for his safety? Some of the others were going home, or else had talked about it. Some had no need to worry about such things, being legal wards of the Professor, or else knowing the news would never reach their homelands unless they took it there. Kurt listened to what they said, speculating about what he'd do if the Wagners called for him to leave America and return to Heirelgart, where he'd be protected. To his great surprise, he hadn't been able to answer when he'd asked himself whether he'd fight to stay, or leave quietly.

After all, America was supposed to have been different. But in so many ways, it was exactly the same.

[Once amid the silver sadness in the sky,
There came a man of fortune, a drifter passing by.]

The Danger Room rang with the squeak of metal against metal, then with the slap of bare skin. Jubilee swung herself up into the air and released the horizontal bar of the rig, turning head over heels and landing lightly as she'd been taught since she was a child. Instinctively she raised her hands high above her head, arching her back and splaying her fingers as far as they would go.

She stayed that way for several seconds, as if expecting some kind of recognition from the shadows of empty room around her. When none came she let her arms drop, releasing a sigh that echoed about the vaulted space as loudly as though she'd shouted. It reverberated into her ears, reminding her she was alone - and in doing so, also that she wasn't meant to be in there anyway.

Not for the first time since the mansion blew up, Jubilee thanked whatever deity had chosen for the Professor to build the DR below-ground, and reinforced it in such a way that it and most of the sub-basements surrounding it remained intact when the rest of the building kissed the heavens in a thousand pieces. Her room, her possessions were gone, but back in California she'd survived months without anything more than her wits and the clothes on her back, so it was hardly something she wasn't used to. There were precious few things in this world she'd be truly sorry to lose, and thankfully all of them had survived the blast.

The thought sparked her hand to descend to the pocket of her pyjamas where a small golden disc sat. That had been one of the things she couldn't live without. Her last gold medal represented so much; it was practically the only sentimental item she owned besides her jacket. That medal had been the last she won before her father died, when she still competed in gymnastics competitions with Ezra Morney, her coach and long-time friend.

Ezra.

She remembered the last time she'd seen him, when the authorities let her clean out her locker at the club before dropping her off at Los Angeles County Juvenile Hall. She hadn't been able to say anything to him for fear of breaking down in tears - something she wouldn't let herself do with long-lasting rival Phoebe Heimer looking over his shoulder like some sort of blonde vulture. Ezra had already known the whole story about the untimely death of Mr. Lee and her subsequent removal from school and gymnastics, so she hadn't had to say a word - something that now preyed incessantly upon her mind, as it had done ever since her foster parents called and said they were pulling her out of Xavier's school out of fear for her safety.

She'd never told Ezra how much she cared for and appreciated him. Not really. She hoped he'd known how much he meant to her, but the fact that she'd never stopped and said it in so many words was one of the biggest regrets of her life - especially since, after that near-tearful day at the club, she'd never seen him again.

She never told people how much she cared about them until it was too late. Her father had died without either of them ever once saying, "I love you", leaving behind questions about their relationship and culpability over the demise of her mother, who had died during childbirth. Ezra, her coach, her friend - her brother, almost. She'd never told him either. Never.

Now it was happening again, at this place; this home for freaks like her.

Mutants.

When Xavier rescued her from the streets, Jubilee had known there would be a catch. It turned out to be attendance at this school. 'Gifted Youngsters' he termed them in his sales pitch. People with abilities most could only dream of or attribute to magic and sorcery. Like the ability to fly, to teleport, leech out the life-force of another, or change shape completely. With his seemingly-bottomless pots of cash, Xavier had built a haven for them and those like them, offering sanctuary from a world not ready to know or accept them.

The brainboxes behind the Sentinel had proved that theory. Jubilee hadn't been there, but by all accounts the few humans who *did* known of Mutantkind's existence weren't overly enamoured with the idea - to the point where they'd set a giant killing machine on nine kids and their teachers just because they had an extra gene or two.

In her life, Jubilee had been a star, a nothing, a normal kid, and a mutant. Xavier had rescued her from one dead-end subsistence that could only really conclude with an early demise. Yet the new life he'd offered in its place was now in ruins, and for the umpteenth time she was having to pick up the pieces and start over.

Except this time, she had more to lose.

The Institute had become so much more than just a place in which she learned to control her powers. It had become her second home, and the other residents a part of her family. It had taken a lot for them to be raised to such status in her eyes, but now...

Her voice echoed, breathy, and barely above a whisper. It slipped out unbidden, talking to darkness and wrapping her words in shadow that would never spill its secrets to any soul. "I never told her."

Faces rose in her mind, smiling, laughing; memories of what she'd created here. Bobbing pigtails, a happy giggle as the two of them snuck around darkened halls, then gasps of awe as she twirled and spun through the air in old routines. A lump manifested in Jubilee's gut, mirroring the one in her throat. She'd never told her how she felt, and now it was too late. They were both of them leaving in the morning, probably never to return. What would be the point in confessing now; in making wounds she'd spent so much time and energy saving herself from?

Another face joined the first; longer, less feminine. Soft brown eyes filled with kindness. Waves of shaggy blonde hair wafted in breezes of seasons past, as the three of them played around the poolside, watched movies in the Rec. Room, or swapped words over bowls of popcorn and syrup.

She'd never told him, either.

"I never told him."

Her friends. So many unrequited feelings that had gone unvoiced for so long they'd rotted her insides. He was just as upset they were leaving as they were themselves. Just as upset *she* was leaving, replicating her confession in a tacit version of his own. Neither of them had told her how they felt, not wanting to spoil something as precious as their friendship. A friendship they were going to be denied anyway, it seemed.

So what had been the point? They'd taken such pains to keep love out of it, to keep what they all shared pure. But now it didn't matter anyway. New York wasn't so far away, but Scotland...

Jubilee's chin dropped onto her chest, and for a second her vision blurred as she gazed into the stygian blackness. She blinked it away, whispering and cursing herself and everything that had prevented her from saying what could now never be said.

"Rahne... Sam... I never told either of you..."

[He wore a torn and tattered cloth around his leathered hide,
And a coat of many colours, yellow-green on either side.]

Logan glared up at the stars, letting moonlight drench his face. A soft breeze caressed his hair and calloused features, soothing the harsh contours and bathing them in gentle iridescence.

Logan was very old, but rarely did he feel his age. Those times when he realised his own longevity were usually followed by a trip to rediscover his past, disappearing into the wild blue yonder after some tenuous lead, given him by a friend of a friend. Always he returned fruitless from those trips; but perhaps that was the point. If his past was a mystery he needn't dwell on it, and what wasn't thought about could be banished into the recesses of his mind in favour of the present. He didn't have to consider what he'd lost, then. All the people he'd seen grow old and die while he remained young and healthy. Or those just seen die without the growing old part.

He sighed, allowing his eyes to close. The old coat, salvaged from what was left of his room above-stairs, fluttered around his ankles. His new room had been stuffy; metal walls oppressive. He knew Charles didn't like anyone trekking above ground after dark, for fear of anti-mutant thugs breaking in and doing them harm. The defensive systems needed more than a small tune-up after the entire control room was blown to smithereens, and they'd already had a few problems with graffiti and the like.

But Logan could take care of himself. He'd been taking care of himself for over a hundred years, now. One more night wouldn't hurt.

Yet tonight, even the moon couldn't soothe his ills. Everything he saw up here, everything around him reminded of what had been done. Of what was still to come. Loss followed him like a shadow, taking many forms. Tomorrow he'd lose two students - perhaps more before the week was through. Though small in number, their departure would affect the others. He'd seen it before, in the great wars. But these were just kids, made soft by an era of modern living. They'd feel it more acutely, grieving where there was no death. It was always difficult losing someone you cared about. The thing they didn't seem to get was that Rin-Tin-Tin and Sparkler would still be alive, most probably missing them right back. Sure, they'd be gone. But they'd be alive. Alive. That was the most important thing, and the part they all seemed to forget.

Logan had been through loss without such luxury. He'd known the pain, the sharp sting of death without reprieve. That was why he fought so hard for these kids. He didn't want them going through what he'd been through; making the same mistakes he had. He drove his own lesson home to them, forcing them to understand what it had taken him so long to comprehend.

Sometimes it was painful to watch them. They reminded him of so many people, long gone from his life. Sometimes they even reminded him of himself, and what he'd aspired to be as a child - gung-ho and reckless, but golden to a fault. A hero. Upon occasion he stopped and regarded them closely, fooled for moments at a time into thinking old ghosts had been resurrected inside them. Red hair, green eyes, husky voice, olive skin, slanted eyes, the laugh of one untainted by remorse and regret. He knew they each nursed their own secrets and private woes, but to him they were as pure as he could wish for, and for as long as they'd been here, he'd aimed to keep it that way.

Rahne. Jubilee. Not his best students, but those two in particular reminded him of those he'd lost. Simple nuances, elements they possessed that sent him spinning back into the past. The shine of the sun on Rahne's hair as she splashed about in the pool struck a melancholy chord deep within his heart, and he fingered the backs of his hands where the indentations of his claws lay. Poor Rose. She'd only tried to help him. Only tried to be his friend.

Jubilee. A firecracker if ever there was one, and no mistake. More than once in sims she'd taken him out with moves he knew she couldn't have learned any place but the street. Wily and quick, he liked her and her smart mouth, despite her disregard for the rules. When she moved, her grace and elastic fluidity reminded him of Japan, of deadly warriors that melted into shadows, falling yellow blossoms, and a small glade where one sweet girl had always waited patiently for him.

He picked up a bloom and carried it between his thumb and forefinger, kneeling beside her and tucking it behind her ear before she had chance to protest. Unlike most sakura, this place cultivated those of perfect yellow petals. It was otherworldly, and their rich, heady scent filled the air like a drug.

"Logan-sama," she said, surprised as always by his soft-footed approach. Then she touched the flower, smiled, and broke the taboo of formality so ingrained into her people by giving him a quick peck on the cheek. Obviously his western ways were rubbing off, and he bashfully rubbed at the spot as she giggled coquettishly. "Thank you. It is beautiful."

"Like you, Yuriko," he ventured, the perfection around them making him bold.

The nibble of a lip, the downcast of an eye. "Logan, you know you must not say such things. It is not right, it is... not... right," she said again, lamely. He knew his gaze was wounded when she touched his cheek again. "Perhaps in another lifetime it could have been, but not this one."

His voice stayed light, but his eyes told a different story. He'd never been any good at hiding the feelings in his eyes. "Of course. I'm just the shameless foreigner, right?"

That earned a small smile. "Foreigner, yes. Shameless, no. You are a perfect gentleman, Logan-sama. A true credit to our clan, whatever your birthright."

He turned away, rising to his feet abruptly. Her hand trailed after him, suspended in the air like some frozen pennant. "Y'don't know whatcha talkin' about, Yuriko. I ain't no saint, nor ever will be. Dark things in my past. Things ya don't even wanna know 'bout."

Her expression turned hurt, and his immature heart wrenched a little. "But if you would tell me of them, then perhaps - "

"No. They're mine to deal with, not yours. I came here to be at peace with myself, not lump my worries onto the shoulders of a pretty girl with her whole life ahead of her."

Except she hadn't. He didn't even know what had happened to her now. Dead, probably. It was the way so many of his stories ended.

Dark things.

Even more now.

Logan sighed, letting the gentle wind catch his breath and fling it skywards. In light of recent events, leaving on one of his cathartic trips wasn't the best idea. The kids needed him here to look after them, no matter what they said about being able to do it themselves. They were still just kids, at the end of the day. Innocents. They needed him.

But he'd never felt so old as he did right now.

[He moved with some uncertainly, as if he didn't know,
Just what he was there for, or where he ought to go]

Ray pressed his back against the wall, all but stilling his breath in his lungs to avoid detection. Had it been Wolverine out there, it would've been useless, but with anyone else there was always the chance of escaping their notice. Especially when it was bumblefuck at night, the time when any self-respecting person was in bed. Had he not left his watch in the room he shared with Bobby and Roberto, he would've known it was fast approaching midnight, but it hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things.

Footsteps, and the sound of a pressurised door sliding shut, followed by strange sounding beeps on a keypad. He chanced a look around the corner, and was rewarded by the sight of swinging black hair and baggy pyjamas moving away from him. He was safe. She hadn't seen him.

She walked slowly, as if not caring whether or not she was caught. He supposed she didn't. After all, what could they do to her? She was already leaving, and he didn't believe the Professor was miserly enough to spoil what little time she had left with meaningless punishments.

Suddenly struck by morbid curiosity, he watched as she left, as if committing her to memory. He and Jubilee had never been the best of friends. In some ways, they wouldn't even be considered friends at all. Acquaintances, maybe. Teammates, sure. But not friends.

In some ways he regretted that. Not because he was sweet on her or anything, but because now he'd never get the chance to try out the notion. Friends. He'd grown up not having real friends. There had been a few, but they'd proven fair-weather when his powers manifested and he ran away from home. Nobody offered him a place to stay, a place to go to collect his thoughts and figure out what he was going to do with his life, now. No, it had taken a handful of grimy outcasts swimming in filth and garbage to give him that.

Ray contemplated the matter, running through the names of the Morlocks and dismissing them all against the criteria. He'd had no friends amongst their ranks. His 'normal' appearance caused dissent, making them aloof around him, like he didn't fit in. Which he didn't. They didn't like having him there, however useful he might be, since he reminded them all of what they'd lost. And vice-versa.

Six months he'd stuck it out. But there's only so much isolation a person can take. Xavier offered him another shot at Upworld life, a chance to start over, even if it meant going back to his parents for a while.

Still no friends here at the mansion, though. Morlock life had made him harsher, not a little bitter at those who hadn't experienced the growl of an aching belly, scrapping and grubbing for food, and the sting of wounds from streetfights he'd been sent out to break up when brought too close to the Alley. The other students kept their distance, wary of his sharp tongue and predilection for lack of sympathy. In some small way, he supposed, he preferred it that way. The more removed from them he was, the less likelihood there was of being hurt again.

Too Morlock for Upworld. Too Upworld for the Morlocks.

It was a lonely existence, sometimes.

Like now. Stealing back from a clandestine cigarette, hoping nobody saw him or tattled. The Institute was in mourning, after a fashion. Grieving for a home lost, and teammates soon to follow suit. He'd be lying if he said it hadn't touched him also, but his rep didn't allow him to show such things.

Thus it was he slipped out alone, and came back even more so. Not every night, but enough. From time to time he wished he had someone to go out with him, to talk and share things over a haze of smoke and shadow.

Couldn't happen, though. First impressions and all that jazz. The other X-Men thought of him only as the loudmouth new kid, even though none of the New Recruits were exactly new anymore. It had stuck, and he was trapped with and by it.

Berzerker.

Yeah, that fit. A little too much, perhaps; but it fit.

Jubilee rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. She never once looked back. Ray stared at the spot, something inexplicable not letting him tear his eyes away. Jubilee and Rahne would leave hollows when they left. Gaping wounds in the line-up that might be filled someday, but never be replaced. They had niches - roles only they could fulfil. What was Sam going to do without them? Aside from his family in Kentucky, those two girls were his whole world, and he theirs.

Yet another bad point of friendship. It hurt something chronic when it ended. And it always ended.

Ray blinked, letting his gaze travel downwards to the shiny metal floor of the sub-basement. His thoughts took a cold, hypothetical turn, asking a question he really had no answer to.

If he left the team, would he be missed? Would there be a hole where he'd been? He'd never really made the effort with his teammates. Sure, he pulled his weight in training sessions - they couldn't fault him for that. Yet he'd always been distant, never wanting more to do with them outside the DR than was necessary.

Would they miss him if he were suddenly not there anymore? Would they even notice he was gone?

He was sad to say that he didn't know.

[Once he reached for something golden hanging from a tree]

Chasing a dream.

That was what Mystique had told him the day he was abducted. "You're chasing a dream, Xavier. Always have been. Always will be. Is it any closer now than the day you started? No. It'll always be just a dream. Always."

At the time, he'd thought she was trying to convince herself as much as him. Her voice had seemed... not so much broken, as tense. Yet filled with a different kind of tension than the usual, vindictive sort she was wont to have coursing through her veins. Mystique was a tortured soul in her own way. She lashed out to dull her pain as much as to further her own ends. She'd hurt both herself and her son doing just that, and caused all manner of other, secret pains he didn't know about. Self-destructive; that was the best way to describe her. She saw that she had no future that didn't involve fighting and pain, so she set out to make everybody else's as bleak as her own.

That was what he'd told himself, at any rate.

Just a dream?

It was no secret that people introduced his ideas as a dream. Martin Luther King's most famous speech, after all, had started "I have a dream." Charles had a dream too. It was one he'd nursed all his long years, and one he'd hoped to reach fruition within his lifetime.

Humans and mutants. Mutants and humans. Harmony.

A flight of fancy?

Perhaps it was. Humans were self-destructive as a race, just as much as Mystique was to herself. Why else were there civil wars? Brothers fighting brothers, and families torn apart over things so trivial as scraps of useless land and words in dusty old books. They hurt and killed each other without a second thought. How could Mutantkind hope to reason with such ways of thinking? How could you talk when those you're talking to don't want to listen? Not can't, but don't want to.

Brother man. Brother mutant.

_Brother._

Charles knew better than most what it was like to fight against someone close, someone who isn't willing to compromise, or listen to rational words. The day Cain came home, unannounced from college, he'd been so happy. That is, until he'd seen the look on his half-brother's face; the raw hate and anger, mixed with a need to hurt, to cause pain unchecked. It was etched into his memory now, and still haunted his dreams, even though he knew Cain was safely locked away, no danger to anybody anymore - least of all himself.

Self-destructive.

_Is Mutantkind just as self-destructive as the rest of humanity?_

Magneto and his followers could do so much towards Charles' dream, but they wouldn't. They insisted on such violence to make their views known, and his old friend's doggedness on the coming war between humans and mutants was a constant sticking point between them. Charles strived for harmony. Erik preferred his bleak world-view, influenced by so many years of pain, hate and being despised.

"Men hated me when they thought I was one of them, Charles. They wrote numbers on my arm and tortured my family into the next life. They only hated me more when they found I was different. I was useful to their plans, yes; but that did nothing to alleviate their hatred. Man is a killing machine, Charles. If we're not careful, we shall be mown down like so much useless chaff."

"But if we could make them understand, Erik. If we could make them see that having power and choosing to use it are very separate things, perhaps they could learn to accept us."

He remembered the hard eyes, the withering gaze. Erik had sneered, not mocking Charles directly, but mocking the dream he held so dear. "You are a fool if you believe they would ever give us that chance, Charles. They can't even learn to accept each other, why would it be any different for us? Skin colour and creed can't hurt, yet they destroy and kill because of it. Are you willing to sacrifice your students to prove to them that mutants aren't dangerous? How many bullets will fill your X-Men before you comprehend that what you chase is a delusion, and nothing more?"

Charles stared at the blackened book in his hands, touching the half burned leather cover and running sensitive fingers over the binding. It was cracked and charred, most of its beauty lost when the desk in his study was shattered and flung it across the room. It was only due to the intricate gold calligraphy he'd recognised it for what it was when Kurt brought it to him. One of the first things he'd received upon his return to the Institute. He'd held it close, not opening it for fear of what he might see. Or not, as the case may be.

Now he gazed at it, alone in his underground room. His mind sensed the restless thoughts of the children, as well as a few adults roving what was left of the mansion, yet he shut them out in favour of his current activity. Carefully, lovingly, he slid fingertips under the leather and pulled it back, careful not to break or tear anything more than it already was.

Flakes of black fell into his lap, but he paid them no heed. He was more concerned with what lay within, and his heart leaped a little at the sight of yellowed photographs; warped a little with heat, but otherwise undamaged. Smiling faces stared up at him, caught forever in innocent pursuits, evermore to remain the age they were when the pictures were taken.

With a trembling hand, Charles turned the page; breath catching each time a fresh part of his history, his family proved itself whole and unscathed.

_Mother, Father._ He touched their images, along with those of himself as a child. Cain was there, too. The time before hatred consumed his heart, causing him to storm into their shared home and do his half-brother such damage that he'd be consigned to a wheelchair for the rest of his days. _Cain. Brother._

But if a brother was willing to do that because of a freaky gene, then how was the rest of humanity supposed to react?

Bayville was the starting point. Here they'd made their home, and here they'd finished their old lives in hiding, starting afresh with their arms open. Here things would begin, and here they would finish. For him, at least. Charles had no intention of leaving the small coastal town his family had resided in for countless generations. Before mutants 'came out', he'd been a respected, if reclusive member of the community. The name Xavier counted for something. Only time would tell if a name and a history counted for anything anymore.

"Are you willing to sacrifice your students to prove to them that mutants aren't dangerous?"

"You're chasing a dream, Xavier. Always have been. Always will be. Is it any closer now than the day you started?"

_Maybe not, Mystique. But considering the alternative, it's a dream worth fighting for._ Charles looked again at the old photographs, remembering that almost utopian era of childhood games and endless Summer days. His father's voice seemed to echo back through the years, ringing in his ears like the man was standing right beside him, hand on his son's shoulder as had been his habit since little Charlie was tall enough for him to do so.

_Sometimes the hardest road has the greatest rewards waiting at the end._

[And his hand came down empty.]

Sam sat on his bed, knees drawn up against his chest. His pyjamas were too small, and felt tight around his chest, especially when he sat that way, but he really didn't care at that moment. He had bigger things on his mind.

You see, for Sam, his whole world was in the process of falling apart.

He'd never had friends before. Back in Kentucky, his tiny town had few kids his age that weren't family in some way. The Guthries were a far-reaching clan, with aunts, uncles, second-cousins and all manner of other folk forever dropping in on their farm for a chinwag.

The other kids weren't his friends, no matter how long he'd known them. He had always been their entertainment, with his gawky height and clumsy manner. Paige fitted right in, no problem, but Sam; he'd always had a problem making friends, let alone keeping them. Not that he didn't try, of course, but bullies seemed to gravitate to him, and even those he dwarfed found sport in picking on him. 'Freak' they'd called him. Not one of them.

It hadn't been until he proved himself a real freak, and been sent clean across the country to Bayville, that he knew what true friendship was like. The Institute kids, they'd all been so accommodating, so friendly, even when they first met him. Their gazes hadn't been scrutinising, like so many people back home. Even the woman behind the desk at the airport had worn that expression; like she was looking at something and concurrently dismissing it as not worth her time. The kids at the mansion had welcomed him, tried to make him feel at home. It had been so easy to fall into their friendship, to immerse himself in it and come up with the closest relationships he'd ever had in his life.

Which was why he now felt like he'd swallowed acid.

Jubilee and Rahne. They were the two he'd formed the closest bonds with. People joked about three of them - the odd couple plus one. He knew the jibes, how the other boys teased him for spending so much time with a pair of girls. They mocked his manliness, but he'd known it was always just joking. Very rarely was anything said with any malice around here - except, perhaps, when you were talking to Ray. That guy had a chip on his shoulder the size of Calcutta.

Rahne and Jubilee. They were Sam's best friends, and difference in gender had never come into it.

Well, not in the way everyone insinuated, at any rate.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ he thought, watching as Evan turned over. The other boy was restless. Sam couldn't blame him. The air in the room they and Jamie shared was hot and stuffy, and seemed to cling to the inside of their lungs like lichen.

However, the heat had little to do with Sam's own restiveness. Jamie's absence wasn't the cause, either. They both knew where the little tyke had snuck off. The same place he had done almost every night since the Institute was blown sky high. Sam figured on letting him get his comfort where he could. Poor little guy; so young for all this to happen. It wasn't really fair.

_But whoever said life was fair?_

Sam stared over his kneecaps, mouth dry with the uncomfortable heat. He was sweating, but barely twitched when a droplet of perspiration ran between his shoulder blades. His pyjamas were soaked, but he paid them no heed.

On the foot of the bed sat a picture frame, glass shattered into a thousand fragments too stubborn to give up and fall out. Three faces stared out through the slivers, smiles made jagged. He'd recovered it a few days ago, and it had lain under his pillow and bed since then, depending on whether he was in residence. This was the first time he'd simply looked at it; really *looked* at it.

It wasn't that he was committing the image to memory. He'd done that long ago, when Jean first snapped it and gave all three of them copies. If he closed his eyes, he could easily see his own surprised expression, Rahne's face suspended above his ear, arms wrapped around his neck, while Jubilee looked on, laughing.

It had been after an outdoor training session, when they traipsed back inside, slick with sweat and all in need of showers. Rahne had been in one of her mischievous moods, and launched herself at him from off a wall, stealing a piggyback just as Jean popped up with her trusty camera. None of them had been expecting it, and it wasn't until afterwards, when they'd picked themselves up from the subsequent heap they'd fallen into, that they realised the moment had been captured on film.

Many people had since commented on how good a picture it was. Three people, completely at ease in each other's company. Friends. Everything shown in that photograph was as true and real as they day was long, even down to the slight trace of sadness in Sam's eyes as he looked up at his unexpected cargo. Not that the casual observer could see a nuance like that. Only those who knew what to look for could make it out.

It occurred to Sam now that, with the glass all smashed, his smile was obscured. All that was visible of him could be seen from the nose up, and this somehow seemed to highlight that trace of sadness in his gaze. Or that could've just been his present emotion influencing what he was seeing.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid,_ he thought again, for the umpteenth time since getting the photo out. _Stupid._ Then out loud for good measure. "Stupid."

Evan made a noise, and Sam finally tore his gaze from the picture to look at his roommate. Yet Evan said nothing else, though, and soon it returned, taking in the could've-been's and never-would-be's.

He'd been foolish to let his emotions get the better of him. He just really hadn't noticed them getting any stronger until it was too late, until it was too difficult to get rid of them without making things awkward. For himself, and those around him. He'd wanted friendship since forever - real friendship; the kind that some people go their whole lives without experiencing. The Institute, and those two girls, had given him just that. For a short, blissful time he was the happiest he'd ever been - Cloud Nine itself.

The song was right - love *does* change everything. Sam had never known anything beyond familial love, mother to son, sibling to sibling, that close companionship of those who share the same blood. God knows he'd had enough of that in his life.

Falling in love with your best friend - that's totally different.

He still remembered the day he'd realised it. They had been sitting, all three of them, watching some second class, midnight B-movie on the Sci-Fi channel, when Jubilee got up to make more popcorn. When she left their trio on the sofa, Rahne slumped onto his shoulder, half-asleep and snoring faintly. Since the movie was proving a complete and utter shambles, he'd just watched her, cheek waffling against his shirt and eyelids flickering as she tried - and failed - to stay awake. Bobby had wandered in, and sniggered about him drooling into a bowl of dog chow, then left making barking noises.

King of subtlety he was not, but Bobby had made things just clear enough that even Sam understood them. Strange that someone else was more observant of his changing emotions than he was himself. Kind of embarrassing, too.

And things had just spiralled from there. Somehow acknowledging his feelings for Rahne had made them swell and increase, no matter how much he tried to beat them down again. Things were perfectas they were, why would he want to ruin them by voicing something so stupid as love?

He tried to tell himself it wasn't love, not really. But it was as close as he'd ever come in his short life, and whatever his brain said was right, his heart rebuked and sent flying back in his face. It wouldn't give up, even when he told it that telling her would ruin everything. Jubilee, his other best friend, would be cut out of the loop, and that was the last thing he wanted to do to her after all she'd done for him - and that was just assuming Rahne would accept his advances at all. What if she didn't? Sam didn't know if he could take that kind of rejection, since it would effectively close the door on their friendship as it was. He was no fool, despite his inexperience with these kinds of things. He'd still borne witness to the 'let's-be-friends' schtick at school so many times he knew that it never worked, however the good intentions that *this* time would be different. *This* time a declaration of deeper emotion wouldn't tear good friends apart.

It always did. So he'd kept quiet, burying his feelings and smoothing them other so nobody, not even the Professor would ever know they were there.

But Sam just didn't care anymore. Despite all his trying to keep things as they were, to keep them perfect, they'd been spoiled anyway.

Damn Trask and his stupid Sentinel. If it weren't for that bigot and his toy, mutants wouldn't have been splashed about all across the national and international news. If it weren't for Trask, Jubilee and Rahne would be staying. If it weren't for Trask, Sam wouldn't be losing the life he'd so carefully constructed here, and guarded like a dog over its pups.

Of course, if he'd just told her how much he cared, perhaps things would've been different. Perhaps Rahne, at least, would've fought more to stay. Or maybe if he'd told Jubilee how much he valued her friendship, the way she'd accepted him despite their differences, she'd have pleaded more with her foster parents that the Institute was just as safe as New York.

If only....

If only Trask didn't hate mutants so much. If only Xavier's dream truly *could* be a reality. If only Logan hadn't gone missing. If only mutants hadn't been portrayed so violently by the media. If only Scotland weren't so far away. If only the Abrams would allow Jubilee to come back and visit once in a while. If only the Institute hadn't been destroyed. If only he'd done more to save it. If only he wasn't such a klutz, he could've made a difference. If only he'd told them how much he cared, how much he needed them. If only he hadn't missed so many opportunities to tell them. If only he hadn't been so stupid as to fall in love.

_Stupid._

Indifferent as a memory, the photo in its shattered frame stared back at him.

[Soon within my tapestry along the rutted road,
He sat down on a river rock and turned into a toad.]

Jean lay awake, staring at the ceiling. She was too scared to go to sleep, the rounded bulks of Rogue and Kitty beneath their respective blankets preying heavy on her mind. There were deep, purplish half-moons under her own eyes, she knew. Just this morning Bobby had made some crack about their nighttime antics, insinuating in the way teenage boys do how she'd got the black bags. Kitty and Rogue had both taken care of him in their own subtle ways, avoiding detection by the teachers, but Jean had been too tired and to stressed to say anything beyond the prerequisite, "Bug off, Bobby."

Scott was worried about her, she knew that too, but she couldn't tell him of her fears and worries. He had enough on his plate as it was, without her lumping her problems onto his already over-burdened shoulders. She appreciated the concern, she really did, but at the same time, she didn't want it.

Beneath her consciousness, she could feel the swirling mass of emotion whirling around the residents of the Institute. Since she was awake and shielded, she could block the majority of them out. The shielding techniques she and the Professor had taught everybody from Day One helped immensely, but that didn't assuage her doubts about what would happen once she fell asleep, when her defences dropped and there were no psychic dampeners around to protect her, like there had been in her old room.

She'd already had one full night of other people's dreams. Most of them were just about bearable, a fuzzy notion of perfect worlds and happy scenarios. It was when she got the to the gut-wrenching nightmares that problems arose. They invaded her mind like a swarm, slashing her tender psyche to shreds with harrowing visions and waking her in a cold sweat.

She tried telling herself that things would be different now the Professor was back, that he'd understand her need for dampeners at night. But things had been so intense lately, what with Rahne and Jubilee leaving, problems with the school letting them back, and all manner of other things he didn't share with the students. Legal maters, mostly, as well as more personal stresses. Losing the mansion was a big blow to him - after all, it was just a school to most of them. To Xavier it had been his home, the place where he grew up. To wake up from being kidnapped only to find it blown to smithereens was a weight she didn't know if she personally could bear.

But right now, in this stuffy, crowded room, Jean had much more immediate things to worry about. The constant barrage of unhindered thought and emotion made her feel slightly queasy, and she shuddered to think what might happen if she fell asleep. Especially tonight, of all nights. With Jubilee and Rahne leaving in the morning, the psychic traffic was bound to be more than usual, and she was so exhausted already she didn't dare to wonder what she'd be pummelled with if her defences fell down again.

The room was hot, and on impulse she threw off her covers, rolling onto her front and hoping that would help. It didn't, but the change of view kept her occupied for a few precious minutes, and she dutifully counted the number of bolts embedded in the wall, seeing if there were any more or any fewer than the previous night.

The digital clock, purchased yesterday in a fit of spendthrift, read a quarter to twelve. Nearly midnight. In six hours she could get up without being questioned about what she was doing awake so early. Perhaps she'd go for a jog around the grounds, see if fresh air would do anything to help clear her head of other people's fug.

For want of something to focus on, Jean's weary thoughts turned to more mundane things - school, mostly. Whether they'd be allowed back there was still up in the air, but she was hopeful of them being readmitted now that the Professor was back. Even without his telepathy, Xavier had a silver tongue. That was what had made him such a successful and popular college lecturer, so hopefully it would stand him in good stead when taking on the school board and Principal Kelly - who was turning out to be almost as big a bigot as that bastard, Trask.

Jean didn't curse lightly, but Boliver Trask deserved every syllable of that title. Bastard.

School invariably linked in her mind to her friends, the people she'd known there. Of course, she wasn't entirely certain she'd actually have any friends at Bayville High anymore. Not after some of the rhetoric several 'randomly picked' teenage interviewees had spouted when put on the news last night. Not to mention their parents. Whoever said adulthood brought maturity, impartiality and clarity of thought?

_Ha! Don't make me laugh._

Friends. Friend. Boyfriend. Duncan. Jean's thoughts followed a pattern, eventually landing on the chiselled face of BHS' star quarterback. Mrs. Matthews had been one of the interviewees, and there was no doubt what her views on Mutantkind were. Since Duncan relied on his parents for money and other essentials, Jean doubted very much he'd be falling over himself to welcome her back into the fold.

In some small way, she regretted that. Despite the views of every Tom, Dick and Harry at the Institute, she'd cared about Duncan. Her feelings hadn't taken the rather alarming turn she'd noticed since nearly losing Scott in the explosion, but Duncan had been her first real boyfriend. He'd given her a first kiss, listened to her when she grouched about school and junk, and phoned her up at home when she was sick - all the things a boyfriend was supposed to do; and in the beginning, at least, he'd done them all with good grace too. Yes, he was the stereotypical Jock most of the time, and she didn't really hold with a lot of things he did - picking on other kids coming top of the list. Still, she had a soft spot for Master Matthews she doubted would ever really go away. Just a few memories she'd carry around with her, whatever his reaction to mutants turned out to be.

Truth be told, Jean's relationship with Duncan had been souring ever since they started back at school this year. His attitude to the world was taking after his father's more and more, and Jean had been finding that she had less and less in common with him. Perhaps if it weren't for this whole mess with the Sentinel they would've broken up anyway; gone their natural, separate ways. It wouldn't have lasted to college, anyway. Duncan was aiming for a football scholarship, while Jean was looking more at medicine.

_College? What'll happen about that if they don't let us back to school?_

It wasn't a thought she relished. Too depressing. She glanced at the clock. Only three minutes had passed? How was that possible?

Across the room, Kitty groaned and turned over. She was asleep, Jean knew. Asleep and dreaming of a boy with brown hair and a temper that registered on the Richter Scale.

Rogue... well, Rogue had always been difficult to read, due to the anomalous nature of her power. Jean could never be sure she was sensing Rogue's mind or one of the other residual echoes sharing her headspace. Either way, skimming Rogue's cranium was like trying to cross town at rush hour, and though extricating herself from the tangle of psychic threads would eat up precious time, the cons of doing so far outweighed the pros.

Dragging a pillow over her head, Jean pressed her nose to the relatively cool mattress, and tried her best to stave off the sleep she so desperately wanted to embrace.

[It seemed that he had fallen into someone's wicked spell,
And I wept to see him suffer, though I didn't know him well.]

Rogue felt Jean's mental fingers brush her mind, tentative, then pull away with a jerk. Miss Popular was restless again, and reaching out for something to grab her attention.

_Well, sorry, but I'm not it, girl. Not tonight._ Rogue consciously called up every telepathic shield she'd ever learned, erecting them carefully around her most private thoughts and settling back into the recesses of her head, as far away from her ghosts as she could go - which wasn't very, but where those vaporous echoes were concerned, any peace was a blessing.

Sometimes she'd listen to them talk, just for something to do. They always talked, but never to each other. They seemed unaware there was anybody around but themselves, like they were still in their own bodies and she just some invisible bystander. It helped to pass the time in boring classes, at least, and sometimes she came across interesting, even juicy titbits about people she never would've known otherwise.

Like how Webber lived in constant awe of his older brother, Peter, or how Pietro had wet the bed until he was ten years old. Or like how Lance liked to patrol the Boarding House every night after everyone else had gone to bed, just to make sure they were all OK. Once she'd caught the echo of Fred talking about his mother, and how she'd died when he was too small for him even to remember her. That particular memory she'd left quite soon after entering it, uncomfortable about hearing something so intimate from a boy she'd assumed only thought about food, smashing things up, and whom he could next beat up for their lunch money.

The Brotherhood. With Tabby back at the Institute, Rogue's thoughts had turned to her old team more than one in the past few sun-cycles. It wasn't often she wondered after them these days. Oh yeah, in the beginning she'd wondered how they were doing; how they were coping without her more feminine influence around to keep them in check. When common sense was handed out, most of the Brotherhood had been in the bathroom and missed their places in the queue. How they survived on their own was mostly down to plain old thugginess, and the 'kind donations' of those not wanting their heads flushed down the nearest toilet.

Rogue was sometimes loath to admit she worried about them. After all, they were the so-called 'enemy', working for and with the sworn adversaries of the X-Men. She'd always been wary about bringing them up in conversation with her housemates - especially after the whole incident on the precipice with Mystique. Having Scott beaten up and nearly killed by the woman in charge of her old team didn't exactly do wonders for their cause.

After that little tête-à-tête Rogue had speculated about just how much those four boys knew of their leaders' purposes, and what Magneto really had in store for them. But what could she do? The X-Men rarely viewed the Brotherhood collective as more than a band of thugs skulking around the fringes of school, occasionally making nuisances of themselves or courting the affections of certain X-peoples. A few of them felt sympathy - Kurt, Jean, even Ray upon occasion. Whether through empathy or unspoken personal experience, some X-Men were more compassionate than most, but trying to talk about those four still wasn't an easy task.

Except they weren't four boys anymore, were they? That was right, they were three guys and a girl. Scarlet Witch, there newest member, barely registered with Rogue unless they were fighting, or the other girl's actions directly affected her or her own. They'd seen each other around school a few times, sure; and some of the other kids had commented on how they should get on because of their similar, gothic tastes. They couldn't know the truth; about how Wanda had nearly ripped the X-Men to pieces along with the mall when they first met. Not the best way to make a first impression, and *definitely* not the way to make any friends or allies.

Rogue wondered how she was doing with the Brotherhood. They weren't the most accommodating of people, but judging by how Wanda had acquitted herself in her battles, Rogue had little worry about them taking advantage of her. No, it was those four boys she pitied. Wanda's temper was famous, as was the fact she'd recently been a resident of a mental institution. Well, it was still a rumour to most people, but the Professor had divulged that detail to his team, so they knew the truth behind the whispers.

Four boys? No, wait, not four. Three. Pietro defected, didn't he? Right before the fight with that damn Sentinel robot struck. As she recalled, neither he nor Magneto had been seen since. They'd both been standing in the path of the falling behemoth, which meant Quicksilver was most likely as dead as old bucket-head.

Somehow, that struck a pang inside Rogue, in spite of all the differences, all the disputes and confrontations between the X-Men and the Brotherhood since she'd left. She was part of the 'Geek Squad' now, but the notion that one of her old teammates, someone she'd known - if only for a short time - had died so abruptly was a disheartening thing to bear.

She and Pietro hadn't been close, not by a long shot. He'd barely arrived on the scene before she joined the opposition, and their conversations had usually stretched only to an ephemeral "Can't catch me, X-Geek", "Bite me, Blondie" in the hall. Still, his passing was a saddening thing - if only to hammer home that it could happen to any one of them out in the field.

_He never even got a proper send off. No funeral. No body._

On a whim, Rogue suddenly sat up and swung her legs over the side of her makeshift bed. Jean shifted, sensing the movement but not looking at her.

Rogue crouched on her knees, elbows resting on her mattress and hands clasped awkwardly in front if her. Then she did something she hadn't done in a long while, raising her eyes to the sky - well, where the sky was through several feet of rock, metal and various debris, at any rate.

_Um, hi up there, Big Guy. I know I ain't talked to you in a while, but I was kinda hopin' you'd listen anyway, tonight. Oh man, I ain't done this in so long. Ain't even sure how it's supposed to go anymore. Um, well... OK, Father up there in Heaven, I'd just like for you to gimmie a moment of your valuable time. Y'see, recently someone I know, um... well, he died. Jeez, there ain't no tactful way to say that to God, is there? But of course, you'd already know that, wouldn't you? Um... um, OK, moving right along then.

_What I wanted to ask was that you look after him up there, a'right? Pietro wasn't the nicest of guys, but that don't change how young he was. Had his whole life left to live. So I just wanted to make sure that you, y'know, look after him up there past those Pearly Gates an' all. I'm sure you will anyway, but I needed to ask you to do that, personal like. Make sure he's got enough room to run without knockin' over no angels or nobody. Oh, an' make sure he don't get no sugar. Y'all won't get any peace if he ingests so much as a granule, OK? If he makes any trouble, then just tell him Rogue'll be up to deal with him in about seventy years time. An' if I get to hearin' he's been messin' ya'll 'round, then - 'scuse the expression - there'll be Hell to pay. A'right? Um, thanks for listenen', Lord. Didn't mean to waste your time or nuthin', but I needed to get that off mah chest. So, um, thanks. Again._

Unclasping her hands, Rogue slid back between the damp sheets, then paused and hastily re-clasped them. _Uh, Amen. Sorry, nearly forgot that part. Guess I'm a little rusty._

Laying her head down, Rogue contemplated how she'd just wasted a whole five minutes. _I must be nuts._

Still, her chest seemed a lot less tight than it had in a long while.

[As I watched in sorrow, there suddenly appeared,
A figure grey and ghostly, beneath a flowing beard.]

Ororo stood in the centre of her room, white hair lank and still around her shoulders. Her gauze-like nightgown seemed heavy and thick, and the shiny floor stuck uncomfortably to the soles of her feet, leaving sweaty imprints wherever she went.

The reason for her being abroad instead of in her own bed was the simple fact that said bed was already occupied, and the other occupant was putting out enough heat to make even her, resident from Kenya, uncomfortable.

Thus, since sleep had evaded her for many hours already, she decided to simply walk around her room, mourning the loss of windows and grateful for the three potted plants Charles, Hank and Logan had thoughtfully lavished on her to help appease her claustrophobia. Plants had a way of making her feel more at ease, she'd found, and losing the lush greenery of her attic had been as devastating a blow as nearly losing the students.

Charles had done all he could to help, but there was no getting away from these boxy metal rooms they'd all been forced into of late. Naturally, she'd got the biggest one, and since all the students knew of her... problems, not a one had complained or pointed out the illogic in stashing up to three people in poky spaces while she, alone and unhampered - most of the time, anyway - sat back in her spacious 'abode'. They knew about how cramped places overwhelmed her, how walls seemed to shift and close in, crushing her breath and...

Stop! Not going there.

Relinquishing her spot on the floor, Ororo sank back onto the bed, letting her face rest in her hands and breathing through her fingers. She listened to the raspy noise of her own breath, concentrating on the rise and fall, the in and out of air into her lungs as Charles had diligently taught her ever since learning of her claustrophobia. "Meditation", he'd said, "Is the key. It allows for clarity of mind, and it is only with such clarity that we might recognise our own faults and fears in order to combat them." He'd been a great help, allowing her to face her fears for the first time in many years, and though she hadn't yet defeated them, they weren't quite the monsters she'd once known.

_Monsters. No, that title has a new owner now._

How poetic. Ororo had been described as such before. She'd been the object of poetry as well, with fireside mantras written in her name in the hope that kind of attention would make rains fall on fields of crops, and chase away thunderclouds.

There had been poetry after coming to Bayville, too. She recalled with a faint smile the short set of verses scribed by the small figure now huddled under the sheets as part of an English homework. He'd been told to write about beauty, concentrating on the natural world. She'd never figured Jamie as a bookish type - with the all the energy he bounced around with, it was hardly a surprise - but the eloquence of his words had struck a - somewhat embarrassed - chord, even within her, and she'd hung it upon her attic wall for all to see, much to his self-conscious delight. It was a known fact Ororo spent much more time with her beloved plants than in her bedroom, and anyone who went to see her invariably also saw the poem.

Of course that, along with all other possessions not carried on her person, was little more than dust, now. Taken back to the earth from whence it came.

Tch; now who was being poetic?

_Monsters,_ she reflected again, returning to her former train of thought. _Or monster, to be more exact. If I ever get my hands on that man, I swear..._ Her fingers clenched involuntarily around handfuls of bedsheet, and despite her usually serene nature, visions of Boliver Trask, purple and gasping sprang to mind and then died away again in swift order.

As anyone from a certain small Kenyan tribe will tell you, it's not healthy to anger a weather goddess. And by threatening those dear to her, Trask and those who followed in his wake had done a great deal more than simply angered Ororo.

She remembered the panic that had washed over her when she realised Evan had been captured and taken God-knew-where after the Sentinel attack. Vi had entrusted his safety to her sister, and that, mingled with the affection she also felt for the boy, had caused a bout of sudden static electricity in the air as unannounced thunder rumbled over Bayville. Members of the general public had wondered at it as they stung their hands on metal surfaces, few knowing the reason behind the abrupt surge when there wasn't so much as a wisp if cloud in the sky.

Not that her concern had been any less for the others taken captive - even Fred had claimed part of her ire for his predicament. It was just that family was of special importance to Ororo. She had precious few left in this world who shared her blood, and the desire - the need to keep them safe was a constant goal in her life. Often Evan teased her about it, saying she was a worrywart and 'naggier' than his own mother. Upon occasion, other students had been known to join in with him, too, but Evan was by far the most dogged with the topic.

Of course, he would be, though. He didn't know what had happened in Egypt to make her this way. That one incident that had left her with the claustrophobia that still resided deep within her psyche. At least, she thought he was unaware of it. She'd never told him, at any rate, and none of the other students knew to pass the story on. Charles certainly wouldn't spill her secrets without her permission. Vi barely talked about it herself, preferring to shelve the whole incident and concentrate on the here and now instead of looking back into the past - hence, her move to America to be with her new husband while Ororo journeyed to Kenya in their youth.

Her Spirit Journey, she'd called it back then. In reality it had just been hitchhiking through any country she could, meeting people, learning about new cultures, and searching for a few answers her life hadn't been able to give her thus far.

She'd found them in Africa, when her powers grew in, and she finally realised what had been missing in her life up until that point. Always, Ororo had felt like something was wrong with her. Since childhood, when children threw stones at the little girl with strange white hair, she'd sought that elusive... *something* that she hoped would make her being complete - would make her *whole*. Wherever she went, she was always an outsider, never accepted. When her senses finally moved in rhythm to the rest of the natural world, it had been like slotting the last piece of a puzzle into place, and she never regretted that trip - even if it had meant postponing her scholarship in America for a year or two, and angering the Hungan enough that he swore vengeance on her for the rest of her days.

Hungan. Africa. Spirit Journey. Vi. Egypt. The misplaced bomb.

Ororo's mental processes retraced her steps, arriving once more back at that small apartment in downtown Cairo.

Or rather, what was left of it after the explosion.

She shuddered, lifting her face from her hands to wrap her arms about her waist instead. Hunks of rock, stone and sun-baked mortar crept into her vision, but she shook them away again, trying not to think of hours upon hours waiting in that tiny space, her mother's freshly dead corpse inches from her face as she waited for a six-year-old Vi to run the streets of the capitol in search of a rescue for her trapped little sister and dead parents.

Evan had only asked after his maternal grandparents once, as far as Ororo was aware. He'd been little more than a child, then, walking home from school with his visiting aunt and pointing at a classmate and wiry old man crossing the street.

"Auntie O, who's that with Diane?"

Ororo had looked, and recognised the pair from the school play - and reason for her visit - the night before. "That's her granddad, sweetie."

"But I saw Diane's granddad just last week, and that's not him." He'd frowned, little forehead puckering in confusion. "Does that mean she gets *two* granddads?"

"Yes, and two grandmas as well."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Wow. She's lucky." A pause as they went on, crossing the road and passing the children's playground he and his little friend Pietro had slid the slides and swung the swings of for most of their short lives. "Auntie O?"

"Yes, Evan?"

"How come I only got one granddad and one grandma, then? Was I a bad boy? Do you only get one of each if you're bad?"

Ororo had smiled at his total innocence, his questioning face, and inexplicably swept him into her arms right there on the sidewalk. He'd protested, of course, in that inimitable way little boys do, but she'd hugged him tightly, crushing him to her chest until he wheezed for breath and demanded in very few words to be replaced on the ground *immediately*.

"Man, Auntie O, I only asked," he'd said. Then he'd pattered away, forcing her to gallop to catch up and abandoning the question as another one of life's childish mysteries; like why the sky is blue, and why people live in houses.

By the Goddess... Ororo wished for that peaceful life again. No worries, no struggles to stay out of the public eye while rescuing friends and employers, and no anti-mutant rhetoric to contend with.

It still amazed her how quickly the bad sentiment against Mutantkind had flared up. She supposed, in her heart of heart's, she'd known it would arrive there sooner or later, but she also supposed she'd been hoping for the later option. The students were so young; they didn't deserve to be the victims of mindless hatred simply because of a genetic quirk. Having the X-gene made them no more 'evil' than a person with a firearms licence. Possession wasn't the problem - choice of usage was.

Too bad the media feasted on stirring a good story. Papers wouldn't sell unless things were clean cut, bad-guy, good-guy and forget all that's in between. Bottom line, as far as people knew, humans were good because they were the known quantity. Mutants, on the other hand, were unknown and scary - thus, bad.

It made her laugh in part. In some cases, the students showcased on the news surpassed the general population of Bayville as far as common goodness and decency went. Yet all that seemed to pale in the revelation that - shock, horror! - they were mutants. Big, scary, ferocious mutants.

Looking at Jamie, shivering and curled into a foetal position beneath the sheets, that description couldn't have been further from the truth. The little tyke had snuck into her room again, as he had done many times recently, seeking comfort and a motherly presence to ease his childish tension. Ororo had complied as per usual, part of her thankful for the company, part of her enjoying the maternal role she so seldom got to play with the students. Jamie was the youngest, and so looked on as the most vulnerable. Right now, she could see why.

This was the new scourge of the planet?

Not for the first time, Ororo felt a strong sense of motherliness toward him, as she did all the young ones at the school. Charles did his best, and he had more than enough help from Hank and Logan, but Ororo was the only maternal presence in their lives while they remained here. As such, she felt especially protective of her charges, showering them with the affection she might have bestowed on her own children, had there been any.

Abruptly, something she'd said to Charles the day a thirteen-year-old Jean arrived at the Institute returned to her mind, echoing through the years as clear as day.

"You are a good woman, Ororo," Charles had told her. "I won't force you into staying here against your will. You have as much control now over your powers as you ever will. You no longer need my guidance. If you wish to leave, to explore the world and live your life outside the mansion, then you can do so with my blessing and good wishes."

"Why would I want to do that, Charles? You helped me when I needed it, and with two mutant children in the house, you're certainly going to need an extra set of hands taking care of them. You can't count on Logan, what with his habit of playing Road Warrior all the time."

"Ororo," Charles had been surprised at her decision to stay - odd for a telepath. "You're young, you have many years ahead of you, but you're only young once." Then he had become tongue-tied, as if broaching a subject she might rebuke him for. "In all the time you've been here in Bayville, I've never seen you with a... uh, suitor. The world is a lot bigger than this little seaside town. I know how much you value family, and I thought..."

"That I would like to have one of my own? Settle down somewhere with a husband, two point four children, and a white picket fence around the front garden of our quiet, suburban house?" She'd smiled, and shaken her head. "No, Charles. I've seen more of the world than you know, and Bayville suits me just fine. The students are my children, now. For as long as they remain here, I shall be as their mother. I may not be of their blood, but, in time, perhaps they will come to see me that way, too."

Jamie shivered, and on impulse Ororo reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. She didn't know if he could sense her presence in whatever troubling dream had hold of his mind, but she did it anyway, hoping he knew she was there.

Hope.

_Something we must maintain our hold on, however tenuous._ She stared at the ceiling, longing for the outdoors and a cool breeze. _I must stay strong, for the children's sakes._

An image, like an old photo, appeared to her, and unbidden wetness welled up in the corners of her eyes. A pair of little girls, one tall and strong with a firmly set jaw, the other petite and topped with hair the colour of snow. They were flanked by a middle-aged couple, love painted plainly on their faces. The woman also wore white hair, rolled onto the back of her head with a colourful scarf, while the man's tresses were silvering only through age. He bent to kiss the smaller of the two children, and she squirmed in his arms, wiping her cheek and sticking out her tongue.

Ororo was mother of the Institute, the one who comforted students where she was needed. But still, she often wished she likewise had someone around to comfort her.

[In times of deepest darkness, I've seen him dressed in black.]

Roberto feigned sleep, knowing Bobby was watching him. The other boy was restless, made so by the heat. Being a mutant governed by temperature did nothing to help the situation, and Bobby tossed and turned like a regular jitterbug, throwing off his sheets and then capriciously pulling them back on again five seconds later.

Roberto gave no acknowledgment to any of this. In fact, he actively ignored it, laying on his side and facing away from his impromptu roommate. His own bedclothes covered only half his body, pooling around his waist and dripping over the side of the bed. Heat didn't bother him unduly, since when actively using his powers he was a miniature inferno all by himself. A little stuffiness was nothing he couldn't handle.

The dark, however... Well, that was another matter entirely.

Roberto hated the dark. It was a childhood fear made worse by events throughout his life, and accentuated by his mutation. He preferred sunlight above all else, and not just because it augmented his powers. The sun could bathe him in soft warmth; washing away his troubles in a golden glow few people took the time to appreciate.

It was, he reflected, a wondrous thing, the sun. Billions of miles away, yet giving life to their world nonetheless. Roberto wasn't a particularly religious person, but if he had to tell his take on any given deity, he'd have to say the sun. After all, it was so powerful; their puny little planet was no more than a speck to it. Yet it nurtured them, helping them grow, live and thrive, mindless of its own gain because it was what it was and nothing could ever change that.

Where was God? Just look up into the sky and you can see right into his sitting room.

_Gah, what am I doing? I should be trying to get some shut-eye, not discussing theological wonders of the universe with myself._ He buried his face into his pillow, seeing if momentary lack of oxygen would do anything to incur sleep faster. It didn't, and he came up gasping a few seconds later.

Bobby shifted again, somewhere in the darkness behind him. Roberto had pushed his bed right up against the metal wall for some semblance of privacy when he, Bobby, and Ray were first dumped in this room and left to sort things out amongst themselves. Of course, Ray had complained non-stop ever since, picking fault with everything the other two did and generally making things unbearable with his bad attitude and penchant for badly placed cussing. Twice he'd riled the usually affable Bobby with cracks about Jubilee and what he should do during her last night at the Institute, and though he'd studiously ignored them, the constant cries of "who's a pretty Bertie?" had ground Roberto's teeth practically down to their roots.

It was almost a blessing when Ray sneaked off for a covert nicotine intake, and things would've been bearable if it weren't for one thing.

The dark.

Or, more specifically, the blackness. Dim light Roberto could deal with no problem, but that all-consuming blackness that seems to not just absorb light, but swallow and digest it as well, was that little bit too far. The windowless rooms in the sub-basements were ideal for cultivating such numbing murkiness. There was no in between anymore; no hazy grey of sunrise, nor casual russet of sunset seeping through the windows as there had been in the mansion proper. There was just the startling brightness of the halogen lights, or the intense dark in which he now lay.

He hated it down here. It was like being buried alive. Buried in a giant tin can. A giant black tin can.

All the worst moments of his life were associated with black.

Like the time when, as a kid, his older, bigger cousin had taken advantage of little Robbie's fear and locked him in the coal cellar. For three hours. He'd been a sobbing wreck when the adults finally realised where he was, and hadn't talked for almost a week after the incident. There had been rats in the cellar - cockroaches, too; the huge kind that make scraping noises with their bellies on the floor, and can't be ignored no matter how hard you try. They'd sniffed at his ankles and skittered over his shoes and legs as he crouched by the door, yelling until his throat was sore to be let out.

And Bobby wondered why Roberto was less than impressed with stories of the pet rat he kept at home?

There had been other incidents of the same nature since then, all of them practically laughable now, but harrowing as hell for a little kid to go through. As he remembered, he'd caught that self-same cousin trying to manhandle Patchouli into the coal cellar not long before he left home. She was no lover of the dark either, and he'd been trying to play on that, remembering the kick he got out of torturing little Robbie and trying to replicate the feeling.

Needless to say, Roberto had cleaned his clock. Of course, he'd gotten into so much trouble as a result, it was a wonder he wasn't grounded for the rest of his natural life. Patchouli had been appreciative, though; sneaking him snacks and staying with him while he cleaned the forecourt as punishment. She was a different type of cousin completely, and on days when he was feeling particularly homesick he missed her and her odd ways like crazy. Those were the days when he regretted being a mutant, and wanted nothing more than to shed the abilities that usually made him feel so empowered, and just be a normal kid again.

Generally, those were the days he missed Juliana, as well. After all, everything about home he associated with her. His mutation, and subsequent exodus here, to Bayville, had torn him away from those memories, save for those precious pictures kept safely tucked away inside his wallet. Mementoes of a happier time.

_Juliana..._

That was another occasion of black. As far as he was aware, the suit still hung in his closet at home. He had no intention of ever wearing it again, thus it had stayed when he moved here. The two funerals he had already worn it at were two too many.

Losing people. He was always losing people. Tomorrow, he'd lose two of his teammates. Still, at least they'd go on living. The other loved ones he'd lost wouldn't. Couldn't.

_Oh God, I miss you... I miss you so much, it hurts,_ he thought miserably, staring into the darkness.

He realised that Bobby had stopped wriggling, and Roberto assumed this was because he'd fallen asleep at last. Either way, with Ray's continued absence, it made for an eerily silent atmosphere. No ticking clocks had yet been salvaged from the mess upstairs, and their room had no digital version like many of the others. The only timepieces were their individual watches, and since looking at it involved getting up and turning on the light, thus incurring the wrath of a roomie, Roberto refrained.

He reckoned it must be close to midnight now, if not past it already. He'd staved off going to bed for as long as he could, until being ordered to his room by Beast in not so many words. It had been strange that Beast did the rounds tonight, since that mantle usually fell to Logan's ever-watchful, and not-a-little-paranoid eye. Still, the order was still the same, and thus Roberto had found himself divested of his liberty and ordered to bed like a naughty child up past its bedtime.

Ordered into the dark.

He remembered that one time Juliana had stayed over to watch the all-night horror movie marathon on cable. They'd sat with Patchouli - visiting again, and the only other one morbid enough to sit through the buckets of gore and bad acting - until it was the little girl's bedtime. Then he and Juliana had just sat in the darkness, holding hands and watching the TV screen, until she clicked it off and Roberto realised that, for the first time in what seemed like forever, he was in total darkness and it didn't other him. Juliana's comforting presence had chased away the monsters.

Now she was gone, they were back in full force. And they'd brought their friends.

The biggest, most gruesome one wore a human face. One he recognised, no less. Keller Barnet. Old schoolmate and adversary on the soccer field. For years, he and Roberto had been at sort-of loggerheads, never descending in actual physical violence, but coming close on several occasions. Keller had been a bigot, hating Roberto and all his family simply because their skin tone was a shade darker than his own. More than once, one of Roberto's many siblings or their friends had commented on the idiocy of his racism, considering they al lived in an area of Brazil where pale folk like Keller were the minority.

Yet Keller's hatred of Roberto stretched beyond mere racism. Roberto assumed that was mostly a smokescreen, though he couldn't understand why someone would make themselves so unpopular just for the sake of it. The DaCostas were a respected family, the youngsters therein all popular and well-liked - none more so than Roberto. His prowess on the soccer pitch had long since made him the star of the school, and his relationship with Juliana had made him the most envied guy around. Keller had hated him for all the reasons that made him popular, and made no secret of his hatred after his bad attitude landed him on the bench during matches, while Roberto took the field and wowed the crowd with trademark fancy footwork.

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to block out the monster Keller that loomed out of the darkness, slavering and laughing at his discomfort. Yet the sounds of raised voices, his own amongst them, still slid into Roberto's ear, wrapping around his mind and pulling it free to replay the events on the practise pitch over a year ago.

He heard Keller's challenge, odium finally out in the open and ugly as sin. He saw the crowd peel back, then even more so when the silvery barrel exited from beneath his jacket. His father's. Keller had always boasted about his father's permit, and how he could sneak things out of the glass display cases without the old man ever noticing. He saw the gaping hole rise, saw the finger twitch on the trigger. He couldn't move, frozen by his own fear. He heard her footsteps, felt her hit, knocking him aside, then the sound of cracking thunder.

She'd been so heavy, like her shell weighed more without her spirit than with it in residence. He remembered seeing the red rose blossom against her shirt, smearing onto his own as he pressed her to him. The rest was blurry, undefined, caught up as he'd been in that one, sickening moment. He'd refused to let go of her, even when the paramedics arrived and prised his fingers loose, wrapping him in a blanket and telling him "everything's gonna be alright."

Except it wasn't. Never would be, either. Within a month of losing his Grandma, Roberto sat in the church pew again, watching a coffin with someone he loved inside of it.

Losing people. He was always losing people.

Losing them to darkness.

[Now my tapestry's unravelling, he's come to take me back.]

Normally, Rahne would've stood or sat out on her balcony to look at the moon. Nowadays she was forced to sneak up and out, just to see the pale lady's glimmering face.

Explanations for this were easy enough, since in order to get out of the sub-basements secret entrance she had to pass the rubble that had once been her room; replete with the twisted mass of metal bars once a balcony. Sometimes, she fancied she could see bits and pieces of her things mixed up amongst the mess, but always what she found was charred or smashed - ruined beyond rudimentary recognition.

Still, such loss didn't bother Rahne as it did most of the others. After all, she'd already done the whole 'up and leave your life' thing once before, and knew how to get by with nothing apart from what you had on your person at time of upping and leaving. Things were just that - things. Possessions. All part of the material. There was nothing quite like renewing your life to make you value what's more important than that.

People, for instance. People were far more important than stuff like clothes, CDs and junk. Think how bad she would've felt had it been people caught in the blast instead of just *stuff*.

Things can be replaced. People can't.

Letting loose a long sigh, Rahne tipped her head back and stared at the moon. It hung in the sky, bulbous and irrefutably white. For some reason, she always felt calmer watching the moon. A throwback to her mutation, no doubt, but she didn't much care. Other folk used food, running machines and weights to de-stress. All she needed was a few minutes with the moon.

And de-stressing was certainly something she needed right now.

She hadn't bothered to wear a watch, clad as she was in her nightie and faint smattering of fur to keep warm. Currently, it was hiked up to allow her a better perch on a tree branch, and she was very glad nobody was around to catch a glance of her in such a compromising position. She'd spotted Logan once while out here, and smelled him all around the wreckage. He hadn't seen her, though - which was rather odd, considering how perceptive he usually was. He'd seemed rather preoccupied by something, she supposed, so she didn't dwell too much on it, instead heading for the copse she, Sam and Jubilee always sat under to do homework during the Summer months.

Sam and Jubilee. A pang rang through Rahne's midriff, and she swallowed against the tears threatening to well up in her eyes. She hadn't cried yet since receiving the news she was to return to Muir Island poste haste, and wasn't about to start bawling now.

Still, the idea that she had only hours to go before being wrenched away from everything and everyone she'd come to love was a crushing thought, and skittering though it almost made her blub again.

_Come on Rahne, old girl,_ she thought, shifting her weight and bringing a knee to her chest in an unconsciously defensive move. _No point in moping about. Got to stay positive, doncha know? Jeez, I'm starting to sound like Sean._

Sean Cassidy. Co-director of the Muir Island Research Facility, and second father to half the mutant residents there. Sean was constantly teased for being the only Irishman in a mostly Scottish setting, but he took all jibes on the chin, and rode the tide of their chatter easily. Usually, he was a laid-back fellow and a strong believer in what he called 'flow' - rather much a contrast to Moira. Though not as tightly wound as some, she had a tendency to fly off the handle at people who pushed her buttons wrong, and got exceedingly uppity at the world until her partner soothed her down again.

So it had come as quite a shock to find that Sean was the driving forced behind Rahne's summons back to Muir instead of Miss MacTaggart.

The phone call had been sudden, and very much out of the blue. It seemed one of the residents had used his powers to tweak the Facility's satellite TV system into receiving all sorts of channels from the rest of the world, and then spotted a report on the 'Bayville Mutant Incident' on CNN. It was hardly surprising, considering they were the current media darlings, but Rahne had the feeling they wouldn't be attending a press conference on the matter any time soon.

"I'll hear no arguing on the matter, Rahne," Sean had said down the phone, voice soft and low. It was always easy to tell when Sean was mad about something, because one had to strain to hear him. Naturally raucous and loud, he was at his most dangerous when totally inaudible. In this case, he'd been not so much mad as intense, and refused to listen to any amount of begging, wheedling or all-out rebuttal on Rahne's part. "You're still our responsibility, whether at the Facility or not. I'll not be placin' you in the path of any whelp eager to jump on the latest bandwagon. The TV's blaring it all right now. Mutants aren't popular, and it's only a matter of time before one o' those sheep takes things a step further. You're a special girl, I realise, darlin'; but not special enough to withstand what some o' these people are capable of - believe me."

She supposed she should be touched he and Moira cared enough about her to make this a trans-Atlantic worry. Yet as she slammed the phone back into its cradle, all Rahne could think about was how much she hated them. Stupid, overprotective... *adults*!

She snickered. _What a pathetic excuse for an insult. All this time around Ray, and you *still* can't come up with anything better? Shame on you, Rahne Sinclair. Shame on you._

It felt better to talk as if to another person, though she couldn't fathom why. Pack instinct, perhaps? The need to communicate with another? Or just plain schizophrenia?

_Oh yes, come outside to de-stress, then think about everything stressful. Way to make yourself feel better, Sinclair._

Now she had a little better perspective on things, Rahne guessed she could understand Sean and Moira's anxiety over her safety. Though only a resident on Muir for six months, she'd made connections there, and all concerned had embraced her straight away almost as a family member.

The only problem was, no matter how much she understood their reasoning and appreciated the sentiment behind it, she still hated the decision itself. How on earth was she supposed to like something that meant moving away from everything and everyone she loved? Bayville, though still no replacement for Kilcuthlie, had grown on her with its generic middle-American ways, and the people loving there - even those not at the Institute - were as much a part of her life now as the air she breathed.

A year is a long time to live in a place.

And as for the Institute... aye, there was the rub. To leave those she cared for, her teammates, was as much a blow as the decision to run when she landed on that cliff ledge, a year and a half ago. The voices of Craig and his followers still haunted her nightmares, but the people here had helped her rebuild, helped her make a new life for herself. For all her talk of upping and leaving... Rahne was scared.

She had friend here - proper friends. The kind that she could count on in an emergency, and wouldn't think twice about risking their lives for her, nor she them. She'd never been that close to anybody in her life, save her parents. And maybe her brother Jonny, but his resentment of her gifts had soured their relationship over the years. Here at Xavier's school, she had people who cared - really, truly cared.

How could they ask her to give that up?

Another look at the moon. The urge to throw back her head and howl was intense, but she fought it, knowing her cover would be blown if she indulged. She couldn't exactly be punished for being out here, since she'd be leaving before most of the others were even awake tomorrow morning. Yet, should Logan happen across her, no doubt she'd be ordered back inside, and she'd lose her last precious seconds with the moon and the night. Her last in Bayville.

Her last with her friends.

Sam. Jubilee. Even Jamie. All had made her life that much better since she got here. She still remembered the day she met them, rushing down the steps of the mansion to greet them as they exited the X-Van together. Amara had been there, too, as had Tabby, and though the those two were more acquaintances than friends, still, Rahne knew that she'd even miss the cutting comments and innuendo that were so much a part of everyday life around here.

She still wanted to cry. Still wouldn't let herself, either. The last time she cried, she'd been sitting out on the balcony of her room, and Jubilee had found her. Homesickness for Kilcuthlie and the family she could never go back to had forced the tears out, and she'd been embarrassed about being caught in such a vulnerable position - especially by a person she didn't know all that well. Yet Jubilee hadn't judged her, and Rahne had found herself being more open with someone who had then been akin to a total stranger, than people she'd shared a roof with for six months.

Go figure how strange life is, sometimes. Who would've guessed that a werewolf, a human firework and a real Kentucky farm-boy would become such a solid trio? Their descriptions didn't exactly gel, but their personalities had. So well, in fact, that it was all Rahne could do now not to go to their rooms, knock down the doors and sob at them not to let Sean take her away.

Except it wouldn't make any difference, would it? After all, Jubilee's foster parents were coming to take her back to New York with them, too. The unbreakable trio; split three ways on the same day. They might never see each other again, as well. Plane tickets across the pond didn't come cheap, and though phone conversations and email were blessings, they just weren't the same.

Nothing would ever be the same.

Mutants were out, the Institute's true nature was public knowledge, and they were already being shunned for what they were. She hated to think what awaited the others if and when they finally returned to school. At least on Muir, with its chorus of qualified teachers on tap, she didn't have to worry about things like that.

Still not a substitute, though. Never would be. You can't just replace friendship like that, any more than you could replace people.

Rahne tipped her face to the moon, blinked wide eyes at the full brilliance of it all. The dark was resplendent in velvet and silver, and she revelled in it like nobody else ever could; letting it immerse her, submerge her, drink her up and sent her spinning off into an eternity of this one last night.

And as the single drop of water slid down her cheek, another, momentary star was born into the universe.

[He's come to take me back.]

The Earth kept moving, ever spinning, ever indifferent to the conflicts and pursuits of its children. It had given them life, and sustained that life where thy chose to accept it, but it could not be their judge and jury. Theirs was the world - theirs to make, and theirs to destroy should they so wish it. For its part, the Earth would go on turning as it had done for countless millennia, whether they were along for the ride or not. If they chose to kill each other over scraps of barren ground then they could. They would. They did. If they chose to hurt and maim and destroy just for the sake of doing so, then it would not stop them. Could not stop them. It could only watch and listen, forever an audience and parent combined.

Scott trudged along the corridor; eyes fixed on the ground as he asked questions nobody could ever answer, and daydreamed on a certain redheaded girl.

Couched in darkness, Kurt hugged Schmerzmann close and shut his eyes against the past that was repeating itself.

Jubilee re-entered the room she shared with three others, noting the absence of the one she most wanted to see, and slipped into bed with a mixture of sadness and relief. Listening to her blankets settle, Tabby wondered what had drawn her soon-to-be-ex-teammate out so late, while Amara dreamed of Nova Roma and lands untouched by technology's hand.

Logan stood, always alone, letting the night carry away his sorrows and worries for the future.

Ray slipped into his room, perceiving how one of his roommates feigned sleep at his presence and wondering after his place amongst the X-Men.

Charles went through all his rescued photographs, and then went back to the beginning of the album to start again, remembering a time when brothers truly could be called brothers and mutants were no more than a figment of sci-fi novels and B-movies. N the room next door, Hank pored over newspaper reports, sighing to himself over the pointlessness of prejudice and blind hatred.

Sam slid the smashed photo frame under his bed and turned over, trying to put beloved faces out of his mind and out of his heart, and failing at both. Watching him through one half-lidded eye, Evan sympathised with the loss the other boy must be feeling, not quite understanding how deeply it went.

Face pressed against her pillow, Jean thought on old kisses and a boy with ruby quartz shades, waiting impatiently for the dawn to arrive.

Across the room, Rogue stared at the ceiling, listening to her ghosts and roommates' restlessness, while Kitty slept a sleep filled with soft brown eyes and stolen moments.

Ororo sat on her bed, blankets beneath her, remembering, and yet trying not to remember. Gently, tenderly, she stroked Jamie's hair, as he shivered and twitched in the throes of a nightmare.

Head buried under his arm, Roberto listened as Ray snuck back in and flopped, fully-clothed into bed, and was glad of the sliver of light sneaking through the door he left half-open. In the bed opposite, Bobby thought about the girl he could never have, and courted a slumber that would not come.

Sat atop her tree branch, Rahne gave in to temptation and unleashed a howl so mournful and bleak that the stars themselves seemed to cry in tandem, bleeding across the sky in an arc of iridescence.

And the world went on turning.

[He's come to take me back...]

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FINIS.

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