Disclaimer: I own nothing! Except for Mina, she's my character!

Author's Note: Just a random idea I got while I was making cookies. Hope you like the story and Reviewers are wonderful! However Flames will be sent to Pyro!

Clear the Clouds Away

Ororo Manro, also known as Storm looked out the window of her office at the threatening black clouds that filled the sky.

As her name would imply Storm could sense and control the weather and lately she had realized that it was a two way street. Even without any influence from her the weather patterns were very accurately reflecting her mood.

It had been just over two months since the battle of Alcatraz and reality had finally been able to sink its cold teeth into everyone at the school. The Professor was gone, Scott was gone, and Jean was gone. At first it had seemed like a bad dream or maybe an ill thought out joke, but after several weeks they finally had to come to terms with the fact that their friends and mentors had left the school, never to return.

As Storm was brooding over this subject a small knock sounded from the doorway.
"Come in." she said as the large wooden door opened to reveal several children, all between the ages of ten and thirteen.

Ororo turned in her chair and smiled at them. "Have a seat." She said, indicating the chairs set in front of her desk with a wave off her hand.

She had decided that it would be a good idea to have a special class to speak to the younger students about what had happened. Many of the new children had never met any of the late teachers and as such were always very confused when the subject was brought up. That was addressed in this meeting as well as the grief of the children that had held the three older mutants as role models and friends.

It seemed strange to Ororo that she should be trying to help these children with their sorrow as she was fighting her own.

Shaking her head a little, Ororo pushed those thoughts aside and smiled at the students again.

"I'm pretty sure you all know what this is about, but for those of you that don't I'll go over the details of what has recently transpired here." She said.

It only took her a few minutes to tell them what had happened and she answered some questions, as most of the younger students had been left in the dark about Jean and Scott's deaths and most of the details of the Professor's.

After a little more of this, she started asking for each individual students thoughts and feelings about the situation.

As was to be expected all of them shared the mixed feelings of confusion and loss and pain that was to be expected after a tragedy like this.

As they spoke she could feel her heart staring to ache more with the grief and she noticed that the cloud cover outside was growing thicker and darker. They were probably going to have a nasty storm soon.

After the last one finished Ororo stated sifting through her papers looking for a list of questions she had for them. As she did so, she looked up at the kids sitting quietly across from her and realized something.

"All of them are older students. They all knew the Professor and Scott and Jean." Than an idea popped into her head.

"Why do you think something like this happened? Something this heartbreaking and sad?" she asked, suddenly very interested to know what they had to say.

Before anyone else could answer Ororo heard a little voice in the corner of the room. "I know why."

Looking over she saw that it was Mina Anderson that had spoke.

Mina was one of the youngest students at the institute being only barley 10, but she had manifested early and not knowing what else to do with their little girl who could suddenly breath underwater, her parents had sent her to the school.

"Yes, Mina?"

"Sad things happen to remind us to appreciate what we have and to show the people we love how much we care about them. And because if we were happy all the time, we would forget to be thankful for it." She said; her simple and undiluted child's logic bringing that to light like it was the most common of knowledge.

But to Ororo, they seemed like words made of pure gold. Here she was, months later still in pain and grief over what had happened, wondering why something this awful could come to be, but while those words didn't really make the pain any better, they opened a window to understanding why.

As those thoughts filled her head, Ororo smiled her first real smile in weeks. Those were thoughts to remember.

And out of the corner of her eye she saw that the clouds suddenly begin to clear and beautiful, clear, warm rays of sun came pouring through the window to fill the room.