It's something that never happens to you. It's always a friend of a friend, a colleague, someone on the news. Emma felt alien in the big house, finally empty of people. Eerily quiet.

Emma sat down, making an effort to be quiet. The silence was sharp. She jumped as the doorbell rang. //It figures. Man, I just really wanna sit down and get my thoughts together, not put up with more well-wishers...//

She wearily opened the door, feeling uncomfortable in the mid-calf long black skirt and blouse.

"Good afternoon Emma." Charles smiled up at her, as did Jean who was with him.

"Uncle! Wha... uh... Come in." She held the door open for them both, mentally thanking her father for refusing to put steps at the front door. She hadn't spoken to Charles since before she left to find Adam. She hadn't spoken to any of them. It wasn't out of callousness on her part, but due to the fact that she had simply been too busy.

"This is a lovely house," Jean remarked politely.

"Oh, thank you. Would you like a drink, either of you?"

Her uncle asked for tea and Jean for water. Emma thought that a teenager - even if it was Jean - asking for water was a little odd. She fussed around the kitchen, trying not to remember all the times she'd seen her mother do it. Her mother. Her father. It was an almost unconscious switch in her thinking. She'd always thought of them as her *foster* parents, as if somehow they were different to *real* parents. But really, were her biological parents better? Certainly not.

Her father was an insane mutant, kept in stasis in a prison. And her mother... was no where to be found. True, Charles was wonderful, everything she could have wanted in family, but that didn't negate the efforts of those who'd raised her. They'd done the hard work, and despite their fear of her and religious zealotism, she'd turned out fairly normal. //Or as normal as you can be when you shoot electricity from your hands...//

You never realise the value of people until they're gone.

Emma took the drinks out, along with a very strong black coffee for herself. Both Jean and the professor looked tense and a little uncomfortable. Emma sat down on an overstuffed armchair, remembering how her father had sat there.

She smiled. "I don't suppose you came for any reason, did you Charles?" She didn't need his powers to see that this was not just a social visit.

"What makes you say that, Emma?"

She sipped her coffee. "Well, it is a three day drive from Bayville..."

"But only an hour in the Blackbird." Jean chimed in, holding her untouched water.

"Still, I don't imagine you would come all this way if you could pick up a phone and chat."

Her uncle sighed, sensing her multi-leveled pain. "Many things have happened since you left."

"Yes, I have been watching the news. Gave me quite a nasty shock, actually. All that business with the dueling in the streets and the large metal robot. Although I can't say it didn't give me a warm glow to see my father on the news..."

"We don't know what Magneto's plotting, but we do know that we need to gather our strength, which means-"

"That you want me to come back to Bayville. I can't." She put her cup down on a coaster. "At least, not yet. I have to deal with the estate, sell the house..." //And somehow bring myself to face Logan again.//

"The estate?" Jean was not as quick on the uptake as Xavier was.

"My parents died, Jean. Earlier this week, in a strangely very normal car accident." Emma's voice was deceptively even.

"Oh, I'm so sorry."

The elder female nodded. "Thank you. So I do apologise Charles, but I can't go back to being a super hero just yet. I have a little bit of normality to deal with."

"Ah." He put his cup down. "Well, when you are free to do so, we will welcome you back."

Emma led them to the door. "We'll see, Uncle..." Her scars still hadn't faded from her last adventure in Bayville.

"Oh, I thought you might like to know that Logan is all right."

"Ah. That's nice. Goodbye then." She closed the door.