"I heard about your little escapade," Morgan remarks slyly as I shut the door, my back to her. "You're pretty badass for a scrawny kid."

"I swear to God, if anyone else asks me why I did it, I'll knock them out," I say, turning around. "You included."

Before I can react, she's grabbed my upper arm and given it a squeeze. "Knock me out, sure," she says, scoffing. "There's nothing of you. You need to bulk up, kid."

I yank my arm out of her grip and rub it where she grabbed me. "Hey, come on. You're what, a few months older than me? That's hardly long enough to call me 'kid'."

She laughs. "Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you anything like that. At least it's Friday, though. I'll be in Jessie and Bec's room. Come over once you're changed and we'll go to class."

She leaves and I pull a pair of faded jeans and a grey t-shirt out of the cupboard and get dressed, pulling on my long, black gloves and my hi-tops once I'm done. I take my bag off the back of the chair and sling it over my shoulder and head out the door. When I reach Jessie and Bec's room I'm greeted by whoops from the girls, and hands clapping me on the back.

"The new kid escaped!" Jessie cries.

"Yeah, I'm a bloody rebel," I say, laughing.

"Come on, let's get to class," Elle says, stepping out the door first.

We have maths first, one of my better subjects, and then history. I don't really like history; I accept its importance, but it just bores me. After lunch we don't have training, and Storm tells us that we have the afternoon off today. Laura comes into my room once I've gone back there and stands in the doorway as Morgan and I put our stuff away.

"Darcy, can you come out here for a minute?" she asks, startling me. "I need to talk to you." Morgan and I glance at each other, but I put my bag on my bed and follow her out into the hallway. "Did Rogue tell you she'd figured out what was blocking you?"

"Yeah, she mentioned it on the jet. She said she'd figured it out, but she didn't tell me what her solution was."

Laura sighs. "She asked me about it first, and I agree with her. Darcy, you need to go home. There's something there that you need to finish, and that unfinished business is what's stopping you from improving. It's created a mental block, and unless you can figure out what's stopping your potential, you won't improve past your current point."

"It sounds plausible," I say, more to myself than anything. "When were you thinking of, you know, taking me home?"

"If you didn't have any great plans, I was thinking today," she says.

"And what plans would I have?" I ask rhetorically. "What do I need?"

"Just yourself, and some decent clothes," she says. "I'll meet you down outside the infirmary in ten minutes. We'll be gone for about a day."

"Sure, I'll be right down," I say absentmindedly, my mind racing. Home. Somewhere I've never even thought of going back to since I was exiled. As I walk slowly back into my room, Morgan watches me closely.

"Something big's on your mind, isn't it?" she says.

"What? Oh, yeah," I murmur, my words detached from my thoughts.

"So what's on your mind?"

"I'm going somewhere," I say, going through my cupboard to find some clothes.

"Where are you going?" she asks, standing up from her bed.

"I-I'm going home," I tell her, shutting my cupboard doors. "Just for a bit. Rogue and Laura seem to think it'll be good for me. I don't really see how, but I trust them. Kind of."

"One more than the other?" Morgan asks, a hint of a smile adorning her face.

I laugh. "Got it in one."

"When are you going?" she asks, fingering the clothes I've laid on my bed.

"In about ten minutes," I say. "I've just got to get changed and then I'm going."

"I'll be in Jessie and Bec's room, then. You are coming to say goodbye, aren't you?" she asks as she lays her hand on the doorknob.

"Of course I will. I'll only be gone for about a day, but I wouldn't not say goodbye."

She nods and shuts the door behind her, and I change quickly. I put on a pair of black skinny jeans, a black, collared, suit-style shirt, and my black leather ankle boots. I don't know why, but black just seems appropriate, and I don't think I really want to know why. I pull my hair into a ponytail and pick up my coat, leaving the room again. I knock on the door of Jessie and Bec's room and wait until Jessie opens it. I stay standing in the doorway and say goodbye, and they all wish me luck, and Morgan pats my shoulder.

"I'll be waiting," she says. "Take care out there in the big, bad world."

"Full of people who hate and fear us," I reply, quoting one of the X-Men's frequent comments.

I decide to take the stairs down to the bottom floor, and I can see Kitty lounging on a couch with Pete, who looks like he's drawing her, but she can't keep a straight face, bursting into laughter. Bobby and Rogue are sitting nearby, and Rogue has her head resting on his chest. He puts a hand on her shoulder as I watch and she opens her eyes and follows his line of sight all the way to me. He helps her up and she walks over to me, and I know I can't leave by the look on her face. She keeps her distance from me when she stops, watching me closely.

"This will help," she says in a low voice. "It's going to make you better."

"I haven't been back home since I became a murderer," I say softly, almost whispering the confession.

"You're ready now," she says, and goes back to Bobby without a touch.

I continue down the stairs to the bottom floor and see Laura emerging from the infirmary.

"Ready to go?" she asks, a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

"Not really, but it'll have to do," I say, shrugging.

"Then let's go," she says. "We'll take the Blackbird; it'll be faster."

I follow her out of the hall and into a huge room with the lethal-looking black jet. The ramp is down and she steps up onto it and I follow her inside the jet.

"How exactly do we get out of here?" I ask as I look around the jet properly for the first time.

"We'll come up through the basketball court, and I'll set a course and we'll be there in a couple of hours." She sits down in the pilot's seat and gestures for me to take the seat next to her.

"A couple of hours?" I ask incredulously as I do up my harness.

"It's faster than your average plane," she says with a wry smile. "We'll land pretty close to your house, but out of sight. We won't have to walk far."

I feel a rumbling through my seat as the engines start up, and wonder why exactly I'm sitting in the co-pilot's seat.

"Don't worry, you won't have to do anything complicated. Just flip a few switches when I tell you to." She starts flipping a few switches and pushing a few buttons, and glances over at me. "Can you flip that green switch just above the screen there?"

I do as she says and feel the power of the jet beneath us. We rise steadily until the dark switches to light outside, and we start moving, faster than I would have thought possible.

"I told you it's fast," Laura says with a smile. "We'll be there in under two hours."

"How long are we there for?"

"However long you need." She glances over at me and smiles, then turns back to the controls. "You can sleep if you want. I'll wake you when I need you."

I nod and mumble a thank you, leaning back in my seat. Thoughts are spinning through my head and I can't get them to stop, and they keep flitting, too fast, through my dreams.

I feel rumbling under my seat and snap my eyes open as the ground approaches, not fast, but not slow either.

"Flip that green switch again, Darcy," Laura says. I do as she says, and she glances at me again, quickly. "There's a lever right in front of you, next to a screen. There's numbers on that screen going down, and that's our altitude. When it reaches ten metres, slowly pull the lever down until it says three metres, and then pull it all the way down."

I watch the screen carefully until it says ten metres and grab hold of the lever and start pulling it down. I can feel something underneath us, similar to what it felt like when Jessie sent us flying in training. When the numbers hit three I pull the lever right down, and feel a jolt within a second.

"Darcy, you're home," Laura says quietly. "Your house is a few hundred metres in front of us."

I go rigid in shock, realising just how close I am to my old home. I probably ran through here, trying to escape that night. I don't remember exactly where I went; I was too scared, and angry, and hurt to remember anything like that.

"Darcy, your thoughts are everywhere. Just relax. We're getting out now, and once we get out, you have to find out what's stopping you. I can't do it; you have to trust yourself." She pushes a button and the ramp is lowered, and the smell of eucalyptus wafts in.

I unbuckle my harness and stand, looking down at the floor. I take a deep breath and steel myself for the memories that I know I can't stop. I walk out of the jet and stop just at the end of the ramp. A shudder rolls through my body and I look straight ahead as I take a small step onto the earth I once called home. I hear Laura behind me, her breathing giving her away. I step out from under the jet and the sunlight hits my face, the only exposed skin on my body. The morning sun is warm, but the air is cold, and I like it that way.

"You lead the way," Laura says softly, and I can feel her hand resting lightly on my shoulder.

I walk into the bush, following an animal track, probably a wallaby's, until I see the hard edges of a building poking through the gaps in the trees. I stop suddenly and just look, recognising the colours and shapes, and putting them together to form my house, as unchanged as it was the last time I was here. I push onwards until I break out of the bush and really see the house. The first thing I see is the boarded window of Grace's bedroom, and the second is the window of my bedroom, boarded up the same.

"I know where the spare key used to be, but I'm not sure if they even still live here," I say quietly.

"They still live here; I checked."

I don't reply, just go over to the potted plant by the front door and poke my fingers into the small hole at the back and feel the keys inside. I pull them out and try them in the locks, and they turn easily. I put them back and rest my hand on the doorknob. I take a deep breath and slowly twist it, feeling the click as it opens. I give it a gentle push and it swings open, revealing my home, almost the same as it was when I left. I toss my coat over a stool in the kitchen and go straight upstairs, and go to my room first. The door opens easily, and it's the same as I left it, right down to the homework I was finishing when they came in, and the line scrawled across the page in shock when my father burst in. I smile to myself and take a look at the question I was stuck on, and the answer comes to me now. It seems so stupid that I could have died in this room, and I'm remembering the answer to an algebra equation. I don't want to touch anything, though; I just want to leave it undisturbed, like it has been. I can even see a few shards of broken glass lying in the carpet.

"Is there anything in here?" Laura asks from the doorway, leaning against the frame.

I shake my head. "No, not in here." I walk past her out into the hall and into the next room. Grace's room.

The door is jammed when I try it the first time, but I bump it with my shoulder and it gives, letting me inside. My mouth slips open in shock, and I feel a shooting pain through my chest as I stare at her cot. The blankets are still disturbed, and I shudder as I think of her body now, buried, probably. Mum never believed cremation was right, and she wouldn't be able to do that to her baby girl. A tear slips down my cheek, falling silently to the floor.

"Do you want a minute alone?" Laura asks, still standing in the hall.

I nod, the tears starting to fall and my body starting to shake uncontrollably. The tears fall to the floor, soaking into the pale blue carpet as my knees give out. I drop to the floor and cry, my breathing hitching as I start to hyperventilate. I try to take control of my breathing again, wiping the tears from my face with my hand, and standing up slowly. I can hear a door opening downstairs, but I don't really mind where Laura goes. I know she won't do anything wrong, but a short, sharp shriek from downstairs has me on my feet and running down the stairs three at a time and nearly tripping. I skid into the room and stop dead in my tracks, my mouth slipping open into a gasp.

"Darcy, what the hell are you doing here?"