Disclaimer: The X-Men belong to Marvel, and Basil Martin belongs to Jack.

A/N: Okay, so this was up sooner than I'd planned. I'm review-hungry, I guess. But then, aren't we all? Big thank-you to both Jack and Lia for looking this over for me. Hope you all enjoy this, and please review! Reviews make me feel good, and encourage me to write faster.

Chapter 1 – Controlling Your Emotions

After lunch that same day, Professor Xavier called Chris, Willow, and Basil into his office. Willow got there first, looking very stressed, but glad that there was something to do other than think. Chris looked mildly annoyed. Basil was impassive, as usual.

"I called you here," the Professor started, "because I want to counsel you about Theresa's death." No happy faces met those words. "I understand that it was a very traumatic experience for all of you, being as close to her as you were. I'd like to help you work through this." He paused and opened a drawer in his desk. He reached in and pulled out three composition notebooks. "I'd like each of you to keep a journal. They can be very helpful in sorting through your feelings." He handed one to Chris and one to Willow.

"I already have one," Basil said, not taking the notebook the Professor tried to hand him. "I got one for Christmas."

Professor Xavier nodded. "I forgot. It was given to you by Theresa, was it not?" Basil nodded, his jaw clenched, but didn't say anything. He hadn't spoken much since the fire. The Professor was hoping that this therapy would help him open up about his feelings and be more social, but he wasn't terribly hopeful. Basil wasn't inclined to speak more than necessary to begin with – now that he was maintaining a forcible silence, there was little chance that anyone would be able to console him.

"Are you going to read these?" Chris asked suddenly, wrenching Professor Xavier's mind back to the current situation.

He took a moment to answer that question. "Not if you don't want me to. Journals in themselves can help people recover from traumatic events, whether they are read and discussed or not." All three of them looked slightly relieved by that statement.

"You may go," the Professor said. "I'll set up counseling sessions with each of you later." He nodded to the three students, and they all stood up and left.

The Professor sighed. This was going to be difficult. All three of them had taken Theresa's death very hard. As predictable as this was, it would make counseling them a challenge.

Willow followed Chris and Basil out of Professor Xavier's office. When Basil turned right and Chris turned left, she stopped, momentarily confused. Then she turned left and dashed after Chris. They got to the door leading to the garden before Chris realized she was following him.

"Why are you following me?" he asked flatly, turning to look at her.

Willow shrank back visibly. She mumbled something inaudible, then all but sprinted back down the hall. With every step she took, she became more and more transparent. By the time she reached the end of the hall, she was completely invisible.

Chris shook his head and walked out into the garden. So damn clingy, he thought to himself as he settled himself onto one of the stones benches. He turned his attention to the notebook he was holding. He didn't care what research showed; he was skeptical of this whole "journals are good for your feelings" thing. He didn't like writing about his feelings any more than he liked talking about them. To him, writing and talking were one and the same. His emotional strategy – ignore it until it goes away – had always worked in the past. Why not now?

Still, he mused, I should probably write something. He didn't know what he'd write, but he'd give it a shot. It couldn't hurt.

He sighed and looked up at the sky. His eyes, though, were drawn inexorably to the burned front of the mansion. He tore his gaze away and stared down at the grass, not wanting to see the towering reminder of his sister's death.

Sighing, he stood up and started walking back to the door. Maybe he and Eve could watch a movie if no one was glued to the television in the Rec. Room. He opened the door, stepped through the doorway, and nearly ran into his girlfriend.

"Sorry," he said quickly, shutting the door behind him.

Eve shrugged. "It's okay. I was looking for you. I wanted to know if you wanted to go to town and see a movie or something."

"Sure." He reached out and took her hand. "Let's go."

Willow sat on the edge of her bed, her journal on her lap. She had kept a journal before. It had sort of tapered off when she started high school, but she liked the idea of starting another. She liked being able to take all her thoughts out of her head and put them on a piece of paper.

She reached over and picked up a pen off her immaculately neat nightstand. As she picked it up, it seemed to become a little paler, matching her own partial transparency. She felt that she'd been living in a state of near-invisibility ever since she found out she was a mutant. Especially now that Theresa was…was…was dead. It felt like her entire life had been uprooted and turned on its head within the space of a week, and she wasn't sure how to put it right again. She didn't know what to do, and there was no one to help her anymore.

A tear dripped on the open page of the notebook. She wiped away the next one, which was threatening to fall, then started to write.

Sunday, January 23

Dear Diary,

I don't know where to start. This is supposed to help my feelings. I feel scared, and worried, and sad. Everything's gone wrong with my life. I don't know what I should do. I don't know anyone here except for Chris, and he hates me. Why does he hate me? Why does he have to be so mean? Is it because Theresa died?

Why did she have to die? She was such a nice person. She didn't deserve it. And she was the only person here that I knew! I'm all alone now. I just found her, Lord! Why did you have to take her away so soon? She had so much to live for.

I'm so confused right now. Everything's different now. Is there a reason for this, God? Why are you putting me through this test?

Love,

Willow
Basil was lying on the couch in the Rec. Room, watching cartoons with a gaggle of 10-year-olds, when he heard the Professor call him – mentally, of course. Basil?

He started, as he always did. But he recovered. Yes? He hoped the annoyance showed through in his mental voice. He really, really despised telepaths talking to him mentally without any warning. Even with warning, he didn't care for it.

Basil, I'd like to see you in my office.

Basil groaned. Why couldn't you have just kept me there before? he grumbled. Nonetheless, he stood up and started meandering out of the Rec. Room and down the hall towards Professor Xavier's office. The door was open when he got there, and he let himself in and sat down in his usual chair across from the Professor's desk. He was used to meeting with Professor Xavier now. He had been meeting with him since a month after he came here. What with his mutation being as annoyingly out of control as it was, he spent a lot of time with the Professor.

"Basil, I wanted to ask you about the state of your mutation right now." The Professor put his elbows on his desk and interlaced his fingers. "You are under a lot of stress at the moment, and I was curious as to the effects of this on your mutation."

"Well," Basil said slowly, "I've had constant headaches since the fire, so I'm not exactly improving, am I?"

The Professor smiled at his student's sarcasm. "I have come to a conclusion about your mutation, Basil."

Basil stared at him. "What?"

"It seems as if your mutation acts up more when you are under great emotional stress. Your move here made the headaches worse, am I correct?"

Basil nodded without breaking eye contact.

"And now your headaches have been getting worse, after Theresa's death."

He nodded again, glaring at the Professor as he did. "Yes."

Professor Xavier considered his next words for a moment. "The best thing you can do right now is learn to deal with your emotions. The more you bottle up your emotions, the worse your headaches will get, I believe. If you learn to either discuss your emotions or perhaps filter them into some form of art, your headaches will most likely become much less frequent and intense."

"Okay." Basil stood up, having been to enough meetings with the Professor to know when one was over. "Maybe I'll take up tap-dancing." Then he walked out the door.

When he was outside the room, he sat down against the wall and put his head in his hands to try to combat his headache. But it was too much. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.