"Here's to the nights we felt alive

Here's to the tears you knew you'd cry

Here's to goodbye

Tomorrow's going to come to soon…"

-Eve 6

Paige 'Husk' Guthrie:

Jubilee was just about to turn the big 16. She was three days away from the milestone I'd passed just a short 4 months earlier when the announcement was made. It was finally happening.

Saying that it was a total surprise would've been lying. We'd all had this…this feeling lately, this sinking sensation that occurred every time someone turned on the news or picked up a paper in the morning. There were riots outside courthouses and urban strongholds. Murdered Jane and Jon Does with scales or glowing eyes or enlarged cerebrums were turning up in garbage trucks and dark alleys on an almost daily basis. A new group calling themselves the Friends of Humanity were stirring up trouble across the country, and sending the school strange shaped envelopes on a daily basis. Scott never opened 'em. He and Logan just took them straight into the Danger Room and blew them up. But the point was that tension was mounting, anger was swelling. And Magneto had been right: a war was coming.

Hell, it was practically on top of us!

Personally, part of me believed that the whole point of Xavier's school was just to make sure that we students wouldn't be the catalysts behind such hostilities. And he'd succeeded, we hadn't been. Mission accomplished…and now we were being sent away.

Scott called us all together that evening, to talk about what was going on and what decisions had been reached, yada yada yada. But in a school full of telepathic teens and super-hearing nothing stayed a secret for long. We all gathered in the lounge that night fully aware of what events had already transpired…and where we were going.

Upstairs in room 4 the closet and chest of drawers were already empty. The two twin beds were stripped of their sheets. They now bore only packed suitcases and duffel bags. More so on Jubilee's bed than mine, but the effect was the same.

"I…we've called you all here tonight to talk about something very important," Scott said as he leaned against the arm the antique couch. None of us had seen him so grim since before Jean had come back to us. She was strangely absent from his side as he spoke to us that night, so I could only assume that she was keeping counsel with the Professor. I think it would've been good for Scott to have had her beside him right then, because he looked awful. Behind the mask of his glasses I imagined that his eyes held as much sadness as ours did. And why shouldn't they have? I mean, he'd been a student here as well. This was like the loss of his livelihood, his life.

But, then again, it wasn't as if he had to leave. The X-Men were still staying on in their capacity as protectors of mutant kind and innocents around the world. Still continuing on their noble quest, but they would no longer be teachers, mentors to a younger generation. Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters would be nothing more than a memory.

It was a somber group that night in the commons room , even excluding Scott. Kitty was cuddling against Piotr on the same couch Scott was precariously balancing against. Her eyes were red and swollen underneath a layer of off-colored makeup. This was even worse for the two of them than it was for the rest of us. Tomorrow Piotr and Illyana would be foreigners with student visas…but no school to be students at. They would have no choice but to return home to Russia, a few million miles away from where Kitty would be in Chicago. At least I'd have Sam going home with me, I wouldn't be completely alone.

I'd just feel like I was.

Jubilee looked distant, hollow where she laid on the floor next to Rhane and Illyana. Tracy was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the couch, sandwiched between Jamie and…another Jamie. Despite the fact they were going to be separated, those two…three, whatever…were better off than most of the students here: they were going back to families that wanted them. True, Jamie's was in Montana and Tracy's dad was currently on Muir Island off the coast of Scotland, but it was still something.

Rogue had sank down into an armchair as far as she could go, her gloved hand tightly latched onto Bobby's, who sat on the wide arm rest of the recliner. They both started off into the distance, as if looking at something we couldn't see. Remy, who'd gone through two packs of cigarettes since he'd heard the news, looked nothing like the charming Cajun pain in the ass he usually was. Like Jubilee, he seemed to have lost the humor that made him who he was. He leaned against the wall and flipped the jack of clubs absently between his fingers. And Sam…well Sam knew what lay in store for him back home, we both did. And we both would have given anything to avoid it by staying here…where we belonged.

"There's…there's no easy way to say this," Scott continued, looking helplessly over at Ororo, who sat, poised as always, across from me at a large library table.

"But due to recent events, circumstances beyond our control," Storm explained, a well-masked quiver in her voice, "the Professor, myself, and the rest of the staff have decided that the best thing for you is all is that we close the school." There was a giant pause after she finished speaking, as if even the school itself was waiting with baited breath for the student's reaction.

If that was so than we under whelmed them.

We'd all gotten our reactions out of our systems earlier; we'd prepared for this moment all day. Our tears had been cried, our yells echoed across the empty courtyard, and our goodbyes had been said. Now we were just relishing in our final moments together…as a family.

Tomorrow we'd all scatter back to the corners of the globe from which we'd come, as if the last days, months, years of our lives had never existed.

The next morning Jubilee got into a taxi bound for LAG. Kitty, Tracy, Jamie, Artie, and assorted others piled in behind her. Jean drove Bobby to the bus station that afternoon just as Tracy, Rhane, Roberto, Piotr, and Illyana left for JFK. And that evening Sam, Remy, Rogue, and myself boarded a train in Grand Central Station bound for the south.

And as we all watched New York fade from view out the window, I think we all agreed that this was easily one of the worst days of our lives.

A/N: Hey everyone. This idea came to me in the middle of my sociology final on Friday and I spent the last to afternoons trying to make it a reality. I wanted to show you the X-Kids in the real world, out on their own without the protection of the school and the X-Men. This is my way of doing it. Each chapter will chronicle a particular ex X-Kid and what happened to them. Where is this story going? I don't really know. I guess we'll all just have to wait and see (including me) Oh, and btw, Sam and Paige Guthrie ARE NOT OC's! I've been asked that so many times it's not funny anymore. Neither has a role in the movie, but they were in the past and still are, pretty prominent young X-Men. Sam got his start in the original New Mutants book, while Paige started out in Generation X with Jubilee. You can read more about them here: www. Just click on the Life Sciences button at the top of the page, then click on Cerebra's files, then look for Sam under 'C' for Cannonball and Paige under 'H' for Husk. Now, go and review so I can see if this story's moving in the right direction ;)