Author's Note: Another style experiment, and another New Hellions-centric one shot all rolled into one. I'm on a tense game kick. Anyway, takes place sort of the night of the "Children of X-Men" story arc (New X-Men #42-43). There wasn't actually time for it to have taken place, technically. Pretend it's before Julian ran out to sit on the Sentinel or something. I'm really just playing with character introspection here.

On continuity lines, as there are several retrospectives in this piece: it's hard thinking back to 2003-04 and remembering what all of the old school New Mutants were doing at the same time as the new NM and Hellions (pre-Squads, pre-M-Day, pre- and post-Xorn) were trying to form. I'm pretty certain, though, that it was the time of Roberto's rather doomed attempt to run the L.A. X-Corp, which was nice, as then I could also fix Manuel's location quite nicely. Warpath was harder to place, as he could have been with the Mumbai X-Corp or X-Force. I nearly forgot him thanks to his uncertain team status during this time. If anyone else that I should have included slipped under the radar, I apologize. Tarot is not mentioned, as James, Terry Bedlam, and Magma never seem to have let it leak that she was still alive and, while possibly not well, still running around with her morality basically intact. So everyone assumes that she's as dead as the rest of the gang (indeed, she is now, thanks to M-Day, and it appears that her role in Necrosha is minimal, although she has one of the most dramatic pieces of artwork from the Necrosha X story line to her credit. Still, much sad pants for me, given that I found her one of the most sympathetic Hellions. There should have been more Tarot, dernit!).

Julian swallows, and looks out the window once again. He should not have said that. He knew that he should not have said it. But it's been so messed up, the past few days—weeks—no, lifetimes, he thinks. No guidance, no support, just the cold assurance that he could cope on his own. Brian died, and Sofia, he hasn't seen her in so long, and he misses them both like someone is trying to eviscerate him, and Laura—that's a can of worms he's not going to open, even in his head. Does he like her? Is that a betrayal? Gah--just stop. He's just so lost. They all are so lost, and the one person who should be helping them find their way is. Just. Not. There. Not there for him. Not there for anyone.

He looks out at the quiet grounds, blue and deep green in the moonlight. He can pick out soft purples and reds, proving that there is no such thing as true black, no matter how deep the shadows. Cess left him hours ago. He should not have said what he did.

His forehead presses against the cool panes of glass, Julian tries to find some solid ground. He really should have understood. He knows what they'd said to Ms. Frost had been damaging. He'd watched their words sending cracks through their advisor. Cessily had the right. Cessily had righteous anger, and friends that had been directly hurt by Ms. Frost's decisions. Well, so did Julian, but he had a—a duty. To Miss Frost. To himself. To understand. Not to let himself get caught up in the childish anger, to see things from another point of view.

She'd let him have his name, after all.

Julian turns away from the window. He'd admired the White Queen almost as soon as he'd actually met her. She was everything his parents held in high estimation, and she had been interested in teaching him. She found his attitude amusing. She'd indulged him, let him ask questions the other students never even got to voice to their advisors. Unlike Mr. Beaubier, who never gave him any slack—although that stability had been so important in retrospect. But Emma had answered anything he asked, or given him a reason why she would not. Except for that one point.

"So tell me about the Hellions," it echoed from the past, and a classroom that had not been rebuilt with the mansion.

She had rounded on him, her gaze freezing, despite the sunny warmth of the afternoon. For a moment Julian saw the ice queen that faced so many. Cold, cruel. Not interested in his curiosity, or him. "They are none of your concern, Mr. Keller."

It had been a slap in the face. He had worshiped her, gone to the trouble of finding out how she came into teaching, and she had rebuffed him. It had taken a lot of time and careful prodding of teachers who he didn't like to get any kind of answer. What was the world coming to when the most information he was able to collect came from Ms. Moonstar? It was as though no one wanted to even remember the old Hellions had existed. What did that say to Ms. Frost? That she had failed. Failed so utterly that the best thing that she could do was forget along with everyone else.

He still had the list in his head. Everything he knew, and it was not much.

From Ms. Moonstar: They had died because of a criminal from Bishop's timeline. Yes, they had fought the New Mutants, but no, they weren't bad people, just people setting a bad example. She had given him a look that had made it only too clear she thought that he was on that path as well. There was only one true Hellion left alive in Los Angeles--although he was pretending to be an X-Men, now. Or at least pretending to be helpful, however long that would last. Julian could try e-mailing him, if he wanted, but she did not think that would be the best use of Julian's time.

He had e-mailed Mr. De la Rocha anyway. What was the point of living in the dark when he had a lead? The answer had been even less helpful than Ms. Frost's cold rebuttle. Four words. "You are a twit."

Julian tried the others that had been Hellions. The Avenger Firestar had responded to his e-mail with a cautious lecture about not trusting Ms. Frost, although she seemed to be giving him the same line that everyone else was: The Hellions were not to be emulated.

Were they to be despised? Ms. Aquilla thought so, but certain events and boyfriends were coloring her perceptions (Mr. Da Costa's e-mail had explained a lot about the sheer weirdness in both Ms. Aquilla and Mr. De la Rocha's replies). The famous Cannonball had never gotten back to him, but Julian was not certain that he was computer literate, so that was okay.

The former Thunderbird was on some sort of hush-hush assignment when Julian had managed to track down the contact information of the Mumbai X-Corp offices. The reply he received months after becoming Hellion, was basically: they were okay people for angsty teens, and now they're dead. Life is, well, some people die too early, and others who really deserve to seem to survive through everything. It's not fair, and often you want to take the universe into the street and pound seven living Hells out of it because it's not fair. Sadly, that kind of thing doesn't work. Philosophically interesting as the reply had been, it had told Julian next to nothing about the Hellions. Indifferent kids who had ended up on the wrong end of the buzz saw of fate.

Every answer was the same, except for Wolfsbane's sad smile. She missed every one of her friends who had died, she said. And that was it.

Karma had never even answered his queries. "I didn't know them very well. Why are you bringing this up?"

Why? Because Julian was searching for something. Some reason that his idol, his teacher treated the subject as though it was personally disgusting. Had the Hellions done something? Everyone just made them sound as though they were misguided fools at worst. He just didn't understand. And then Mr. Drake had explained after over-hearing Julian make another attempt to wring more information from Emma. Iceman had dragged him off before Emma could psiblast her telekinetic student, but it was a near thing.

"Look, are you honestly trying to get Em—Ms. Frost to turn you back over to Northstar?" Bobby had asked, once he got Julian alone in his classroom. "The Hellions were, well, everything to her. More than the Cuckoos, more than you and her other advisees. She doesn't like to think about the fact that they died in front of her. She couldn't accept it when she first got—ah, confirmation. Why are you trying to dig it all up again, Keller?"

"Because I don't get why everyone seems to think it's best to forget. Isn't that like—like telling her she, I don't know, was wrong to try to teach them?"

The look on Bobby's face made Julian feel uncomfortable. "That's what she thinks."

That had troubled the Californian boy. He wanted his brilliant teacher to be—he wasn't certain, but after what Esme had done, he wanted to validate her. To show this seeming conspiracy that the White Queen was a good teacher. He wanted to be a credit to that legacy. He wanted to yell that at her, so strong, so sure of herself. She could attach followers and cast them off at any moment. He didn't want to be cast off. He'd wanted to be marked as her student.

"Hellion," Julian had smirked. His codename. Which fit. He was a hellion in the traditional sense of the word, anyway.

Emma looked at him over her desk. Another sunny afternoon, and she still managed to make Julian think that he was in the middle of a blizzard. "Must we go over this again, Mr. Keller? The Hellions are not an example—,"

He was prepared for the answer he'd gotten from every source he'd managed to track down. "Yes, they were," he said, placing the words before Emma like a challenge. "Whatever anyone says, no one thinks they were all bad people. And they—they meant something to you. If it wasn't for—they died because of chance. It was the wrong time, wrong place kind of thing. I think everyone should be as impressed with that as everyone is with the sissy New Mutants. There's nothing—they meant something, and everyone acts as though they should be swept under the rug, and not spoken about. Well, that's wrong."

Ms. Frost had been quiet. She looked up, and nodded imperceptibly. "You are a very charismatic speaker for one who sleeps through half of his classes."

Julian had beamed with pride.

There is no pride now. Not much, anyway. He still wants to be her student, but only if she will act like a teacher. Like the ideal he has. Which isn't right, and isn't fair, but it is all that Julian can hold onto at the moment when everything seems to be whirling around him.

After Northstar had been, well, gutted, he'd gone to see Ms. Frost. Only once, because Sofia was easier to confide in than the White Queen. She was encouraging, yes, and there were times when Julian thought he saw something almost caring, but Emma Frost was never going to be accused of being warm. But he told her, like a penitent before his confessor, that he couldn't stop feeling guilty for each time he'd made life hard for Mr. Beaubier, and he was missing the man, she had turned away for a moment.

"When people you know, people you cared for, die the pain never leaves," she told him quietly. "But it does get better, so they say."

Brian. Sofia.

Julian sinks to the carpeted floor. He can't help it. No one is here to see him crying like a little boy, but he wishes with all his might that Cessily, or somebody would come by, help him up, give him something to be mad at, or just do something. He's lost and alone, stuck in the nighttime shadows, artificially aged by death. This was why he stopped Laura. This was why the line in the sand was where he placed it. No killing. No matter who it is that dies, someone who knows them ends up feeling like this inside. All cut up, raw, bleeding without blood. Julian can't—will not let this happen.

His wet cheeks hit his arms, which he wrapped around his knees, the better to bunch up all the pain and anger of the last few months. Shoulders shook with silent sobs. He'd accused Ms. Frost of failing him, failing everyone as she withdrew from her students. But at the same time, he knows why she withdrew. She felt exactly like this. She is hurt by every single death. Just because she has experience watching her students turn into names on grave markers does not mean that she can deal with both her grief, and his.

Julian shouldn't have said what he did. But he needs someone to help him deal with all of this, and he wanted it—believed that it was going to be the teacher who promised that she would.

So, big question: was the overly emotional characterization too emotional for this boy? Julian's always seemed to me to be one of the more emotional characters of his generation, but a lot of that could be because his character development has given him a bigger range of emotion to go through than most of his other contemporaries. He's done a whole lot of changing in a short amount of time.

~ MF