A/N: Sorry for taking so much time getting this to you! I have no idea why this chapter took so long to write. I had most of it fleshed out, but for some reason a few of the parts were just really hard to get down right.

I had a pretty weird dream that I was Kitty not too long ago. I think maybe that means I'm a little too invested in this project…oh well.

Also, are these page breaks driving anyone else crazy? Sometimes they just disappear.

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men.


Kitty is fifteen when the mansion is invaded.

She wakes up to a blinding light washing over her. In just a second she's taken in the shadowed figures standing in her doorway and realized that what she's been dreading has finally happened. Then her instincts take over.

With a deep breath, she slips through her bed—falling falling falling—into the room below and runs without thinking. Things pass in a blur: soldiers with weapons, prowling, stealing into rooms—she runs straight through one, a sensation she's always hated—familiar spaces, walls, more walls, other soldiers—she hears some shooting at her, uselessly—she has no idea who they are, who sent them, why they're here, but she's on autopilot and the only thought in her head right now is out out out out

Before she knows it, she's outside of the mansion, in the surrounding woods, safe. Safe but alone.

Breathing heavily, she slides to the cold ground for a minute, allowing her thoughts to catch up. It's hard to get her bearings in such a foreign setting. The jarring sound of helicopters pierces the thick night, and she jumps every time their lights pass overhead. Searching, searching. Forcing herself to calm down, she takes in her surroundings, tries to plot where she is in the map of her head.

That's when the gravity of the situation sinks in. Helicopters, soldiers—this is a massive operation. The government is breaking into their homes now? What are their orders anyway? Evaluate? Capture? Kill?

Another thought strikes Kitty then: she ran, alone, and she never stopped to help anyone. Her mutation means that no one can ever catch her or hold her down, and she could have extended that power to the others, gotten them out safely, but she didn't. Instead she ran.

And she did it unconsciously, instinctively. Is cowardice ingrained that deeply into her?

Guilt rips at her. Any one of them could be captured or dead and it would be all her fault—and she realizes that for all the training she's gone through, in a real situation like this one it didn't count for anything. It all meant nothing in the end. At heart, she's no hero.

Kitty sits there for a minute, stunned by this realization.

Then she's on her feet. She failed but maybe she can make up for it now; if she doesn't, she'll be a coward forever.

Carefully she slinks back towards the mansion, phasing into trees every time the spotlights swing by. The ivy that covers the mansion looks sinister in the fluctuating light. Even from her distance, Kitty can see the broken windows and the brief flare of some kind of explosive. She swallows, reminds herself what she's doing out here.

Cautiously, she creeps along the forest's outskirts towards the school gardens. That's when she notices the soldiers scrambling up the mossy walls, barking orders at each other, their movements swift but not as silent as before. They're not even trying to be quiet anymore: this is no longer a stealth mission.

Kitty freezes as she takes it all in. Soldiers are scaling the walls, rappelling out of helicopters, swarming through the grounds like ants following their orders without question. They're everywhere, surrounding the mansion from all sides, breaking in the windows, kicking down the doors, slipping through the cracks. They're destroying the school. They're destroying her home.

Anger and fear build simultaneously inside of Kitty. Her clenched fists are shaking, but she stays hidden. The helicopters overhead, the noise and the lights and the waves of soldiers force her retreat. Coward, coward, she repeats to herself. The word edges her away from the mansion, but towards another option.

She slips back into the forest and scrambles down its slope, desperately calculating the position of the emergency tunnel's exit. It's her last chance. She trips and tumbles in her haste, but when she finally reaches the exit it's empty. Breathless, Kitty phases inside. The tunnel echoes with the noises of trampling feet above, but it's empty too.

Just outside are unmistakable signs: fresh footprints, trampled plants. Kitty counts them as her heart alternately sinks and soars. Whoever made it out has already left.


The sound of soldiers grows fainter and eventually fades away altogether, but the air still rings with ghostly impressions. Kitty finds a spot in the woods that's sufficiently hidden and settles there numbly. She's stunned into stillness, in sharp contrast to the jumble of thoughts racing through her mind, echoing louder and louder. Her pajamas are too skimpy and she can't stop shivering, and her heart won't slow down; she's too on edge. It seems this night will last forever.

She doesn't know how it's possible to fall asleep when she feels so impossibly scared, but somehow she does.


In the morning, the mansion stands the same it always has, but under the surface it seems haunted. Kitty sees the evidence of last night when she squints. The sun rises over the deserted gardens, but she still spends a long time staring out from the shadows before carefully venturing out. Something in the air feels just as slow. Timid, almost.

Ignoring the disconcerting silence, Kitty winds through the maze of the garden, slowly and deliberately. She hesitates at the door. The early morning calm feels wrong, misplaced; but she brushes it away and phases through.

Inside, shadows pull apart and reform in the corner of her eyes. No matter what direction she looks in, she sees ghosts. The wreckage is everywhere: bullet holes, blown in windows, walls broken through as if they were paper. Kitty is overwhelmed by the destruction. There's a tightness in her chest that won't go away.

She goes through the rooms methodically, trying to deduce who made it out. The only clue she can really make sense of stands just inches away from the emergency trapdoor. The entire hallway is dripping with melting ice, shatters of it everywhere. She follows the watery trail up the wall to the spot where she knows wooden paneling gives way to carefully concealed concrete. The dampness there forms a barely recognizable handprint. Bobby.

It's so frustrating that she still can't tell whether or not he's okay.

Kitty phases through the wall and clambers urgently down through the tunnel. There's no sign of anything in it, but she continues on anyway, going up into the garage instead of following the passage outside. Surprisingly, the garage is untouched. The only thing missing is Scott's car, which can only mean that Logan took it.

That's a dead end. There's nothing else for her to discover.

She turns back and walks through walls mindlessly until she ends up back inside the mansion. Surrounded by overbearing silence, she curls up in an untouched corner and just thinks. It's all she has left at this point.

She wonders for the thousandth time where everyone is and if they're okay.

A noise makes her shoot up, looking around frantically for a familiar face, before her eye catches a single bird who's probably flown in through one of the broken windows. It chirps, nonchalant. Kitty glares at it and balks at the fierce anger she feels; she lunges and the bird balks as well, fluttering hastily back outside. The anger dies down just as quickly as it flared up. She stares out the window; it's still again, so silent it's startling, compared to the roar of last night that still rings in her ears. It's the silence that really gets to her.

Kitty knows what it is to be lonely. She's spent years thinking it couldn't possibly get any worse. But at this moment, completely alone in this huge house, not knowing where any of the people she cares about are or even if they're alive—not her old family, not her new family—this is the most alone she has ever felt.

It feels like falling.


An hour passes before Kitty can move. When she does, it's with a new resolve. She starts cleaning up, the mindless labor shoving all other thoughts from her mind. There's not too much she can do, but even the bare minimum feels like something.

The sun is sliding west when she looks up from her work. It's barely made an impression, but that's all she really needs: to feel like she's made a difference, no matter how small. Kitty leans the broom against the wall for a moment. Closing her eyes, she plans her next move.

When she opens her eyes again, there's a face at the window, gaze sweeping from left to right.

Kitty chokes.

Seeing her there, Jones hisses, "Kitty! It's just me!" He taps a little impatiently at the glass, then taps louder when she doesn't respond.

Wheezing slightly, Kitty recovers. She reaches through the window and pulls Jones through. He shudders, but she doesn't let go. "God, Jones, how did you get out? Where did you go? Who—"

"Jeez, calm down," Jones cuts her off. His tone is offhand, aloof as always, but Kitty doesn't miss the brief flash of fear in his eyes at the mention of last night's events. "Is it safe? They're gone?"

She nods. "But—"

"Hang on," he cuts her off again. "I've got to go get the others."

Kitty lets out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding as relief washes through her. "The others? They're okay?"

Jones nods, a little more indulgently. "Yeah, Piotr got a bunch of us out. They're fine." He hesitates. "And you're fine."

"Yeah," she breathes. Jones is kind of an odd kid, more world-weary than expected, but underneath he's still just a kid and he still cares. It's so reassuring to see him here, being the same old detached Jones as always.

He's turning back towards the window already. Kitty offers her hand. "Here, I'll—"

"No, thanks," Jones says hurriedly, and makes a beeline for the nearest door.

Kitty smiles hesitantly after him. Her mutant ability takes some getting used to, she knows from firsthand experience; anyways, she doesn't have the energy to be even remotely offended. She stays exactly where she is until she sees the others creeping through the garden behind Jones. Piotr is bringing up the rear, and it makes her smile to see him try to be stealthy. He got quite a few students out, but Kitty still can't keep her face from falling when she sees that Bobby isn't among them. Jubilee, Rogue, and John are also missing. Her stomach knots, but seeing how many of the other students are okay makes her forget about it for a while.

Kitty's not an overly touchy person: she usually keeps to herself unless prompted, but her relief is so intense that she can't help pulling some of the kids into hugs. Normally she'd get weird looks for trying anything like that, but the students are obviously just as shaken and don't seem to mind. When Pete sees her, he wraps her into a hug of his own.

"I'm glad that you're okay," he mutters. "Is…is anyone else…?"

"Just me." She pulls back guiltily. His words are a reminder of her failure last night, a reminder she doesn't need right now. Biting her lip, she ventures, "How did you…"

Piotr smiles. "I'm made of metal."

To his left, Jason rolls his eyes.

"I fought a few soldiers," Pete elaborates. "The kids all came down to the trapdoor, and I met them there. We went as far as we could before they got tired. I made sure we were well hidden so that they could sleep."

"Then you sent Jones as your scout."

Piotr shrugs. "He volunteered. He's quite sneaky, actually."

"That was really brave," Kitty says steadily. "Seriously. You got them out, you protected them. That's really amazing."

"I did what needed to be done. How did you—"

"I phased," she answers shortly.

Pete frowns at her, but drops the subject. "Have you been able to contact the Professor? Or Storm and Jean?"

Kitty bites her lip. "I don't know how to reach anyone," she admits. "They didn't exactly leave a note on the fridge."

"They left Logan instead," Pete says thoughtfully. "You didn't see him?"

"No." Something occurs to Kitty then. "Do you think they'd come back? The soldiers, I mean?" she asks, vaguely frantic.

Piotr shakes his head. "They got what they came for, I think."

"Pryde, relax," Jones deadpans from across the room.

She scowls and crosses her arms, folding in on herself. "It's a legitimate concern. If they came back—and none of the professors were here—" Abruptly, she stops, unsure how to make them understand.

"Never mind." Pete pats her reassuringly, though somewhat awkwardly, on the shoulder. "Come, we'll figure it out."


Piotr and Kitty fake good spirits, which seem to catch on as they all pitch in to try and clean up some of the wreckage. Their attempts to contact any of their professors fail, so dealing with the mess in front of them seems to be the only thing they can do. With their odd combination of mutations, the job becomes far easier. A few kids raid the fridge and bring out an odd assortment of snacks for everyone, which they eat between casual comments and even the occasional joke. Kitty can almost fool herself into thinking nothing's wrong. Almost.

As the students tackle the bedrooms upstairs, Kitty slips away. There's something she hadn't thought of before, something that's been weighing on her more and more ever since it occurred to her just a couple hours ago. Phasing through a classroom wall and into the narrow pathway behind it, her chest fills with trepidation. It seems untouched so far. But if the soldiers invaded the Professor's private office, his secret room, Kitty's heart might break entirely. Cerebro's already been examined, the Danger Room thoroughly inspected; they may even have found the escape route, hidden deep in the belly of the school. This is the last sacred place.

It feels like hours before she reaches the room at the end of the passage. But the second she does, Professor X's presence is all around her, calming her, banishing her worries. The tears that come unbidden to her eyes embarrass her. She's sure it looks strange: her, standing in a nearly empty room, crying. But it feels as if the Professor is here, guiding her through this, and the comfort of it is exactly what she needs.

She wonders desperately where the Professor actually is, why he hasn't come home yet, why none of them have come home yet.

Suddenly exhausted, Kitty sinks to the floor and curls herself into a corner. The others will miss her soon—she hopes they will, in any case. If she strains, she can just barely hear them upstairs, sweeping away debris, some of them chattering. The image brings a gentle smile to her face. She'll stay just a minute longer.

Then, out of the blue, a pain unlike anything Kitty has ever experienced shoots through her. With a cry, she curls even further into herself, clutching her head against the white hot, intense pressure. It's a pain that defies all explanation.

Kitty doesn't know how long it lasts. She doesn't know anything. All her thoughts are erased. Everything is blank. She's dissolving. There's nothing nothing nothing

When she finally surfaces, she's too weak to do much but lay there trembling, gasping for air, cold sweat dripping down her face. Everything is much too bright and full. Kitty forcibly slows her breathing until her hands stop shaking and her head stops swimming. An imprint lingers in her mind. It feels like the Professor, but not in the same way as this room feels like him. No, this was something else entirely, and it shakes her to her core.

Kitty doesn't dwell on it. She staggers to her feet and goes to find the others.


Piotr is holding some of the younger kids close. Kitty's surprised to see Jones among them. She tells them all that everything will be okay, without knowing whether or not she's lying. Every single one of them, Pete and herself included, wears the same expression.

After a while Jones extricates himself and goes to find something for dinner. The remaining students look at each other and silently decide that if Jones has recovered, then it's time they did too.


It's late when Kitty's ears prick up at the sound of a jet landing. She and the rest jolt up from where they've been sleeping in the living room, feeling safer together, and run. They skid to a halt as the X-Men file out. Kitty's too tired to count the number of people who step off the plane—they all are—but Jean's absence is unmistakable. No one says anything about it. No one says anything at all.

The Professor lingers behind. Kitty desperately wants to talk to him, but the distressed expression on his face makes her shy away.

She wonders numbly if Jean is really gone.


Everyone disappears into their rooms. Kitty retreats reluctantly, pushing aside her exhaustion. She's sitting cross-legged in bed, staring into space next to her sleeping roommate, when the Professor calls to her in her mind.

Although the mansion is quiet, Kitty gets the sense that only a few of its occupants are actually sleeping. She creeps past the closed doors down to the Professor's office. He doesn't look up when she walks in, but Storm, who's sitting beside him, does. "Kitty," she greets simply.

It feels surreal, but then again, everything has lately. As Kitty sits in her usual chair, the Professor asks her for a favor. He doesn't call it a mission, but he doesn't have to. Kitty ignores her fear and accepts without hesitation. Her façade is perfect. Maybe if she keeps up the act long enough, she'll fool even herself. Maybe the bravery will bloom right into her.

"We'll leave now," the Professor says calmly, as if he were inviting her to tea.

He and Storm debrief her in the car. They give her only the details that she needs to know—how many walls between the drop-off point and Stryker's office, the location of any security cameras, the information they need her to pull from his computer. Anything else she wants to know—why they need this information, who Stryker is, what happened—is rebuffed by Storm's always-patient "later" and Professor X's quiet admonishment of "focus on the mission at hand". Storm drives the rest of the way in silence. Every time Kitty tries to catch the Professor's eye, a question on her lips, he shakes his head ever so slightly. She hates being kept in the dark, but she's starting to feel a little insensitive for pushing it so she stays silent the rest of the way.

Once they arrive, Storm and the Professor both turn to her. "Okay, Kitty," Storm says, all business. Is this what all X-Men missions are like? "This is a pretty simple operation, so let's keep it short and sweet. We're going to be right out here. Charles will take care of anyone inside, and I'm going to stand guard. You're going in alone. Get the information, and get out."

"I'm going in alone," Kitty repeats tonelessly. Panic courses through her; she pushes it away.

The Professor makes steady, encouraging eye contact. "I would not have asked you if I did not think you could do it."

She takes a deep breath. "Okay." She repeats it, trying to convince herself more than them: "Okay."

"Remember, we don't want any fighting," Storm warns. "If someone finds you, just get out of there. Understood?"

"Won't be a problem", Kitty replies nervously.

"All right. Good luck."

She nods, swallowing her anxiety systematically, and phases through.


It's over faster than seems possible. On the ride back home, Kitty means to demand answers, but she falls asleep instead.


She wakes up in her bed with a faint memory of Storm carrying her from the car in a strangely maternal way. Well-rested but still a little drained, she climbs out of her bed and makes her way downstairs. It's afternoon already, she notes with embarrassment. Classes would be over by now if there were any. Were there? She looks around on her way down. The place is still kind of a mess; some windows still need replacing, and she swears she sees a claw mark or two.

Kitty passes kids lounging around in the cleaner areas of the hall. Storm is making a phone call, but she looks over at Kitty with unexpected tenderness in her eyes. In the living room, she finds Jubilee curled on the couch next to Theresa and Artie, with Jones in a corner armchair flipping channels.

Jubilee peers over the top of the couch at her. "Hey, Kit. You missed class today."

"Overslept," Kitty offers weakly.

"Yeah, looks like it," Jubilee replies. "I mean, unless wrinkled shirts are the new thing. Did you sleep in that?"

Kitty blushes. "Uh…yeah. I guess I should change."

The other girl shrugs. "Whatever. I mean, not too long ago most of us were wearing pajamas and blankets so it's not like any of us are going to judge."

Artie turns and sticks his tongue out at her. "I'm judging," he says loudly.

"Shhh!" Theresa scolds, pointing at the TV screen. "I'm trying to watch."

Kitty chuckles at their antics. "I'm glad you're all okay."

"Really?" Jubilee remarks offhandedly. "I was kind of hoping those guys would get rid of Artie when they had the chance."

Kitty is backing away from a fight waiting to happen when she feels a hand on her shoulder. She whirls around and comes face to face with Bobby. "Uh, sorry," he apologizes halfheartedly.

Without thinking, she throws her arms around him. When she pulls away, he's smiling, if a little wearily. "Hey, Kit."

"Hey."

Instantly she notices the change in him. Maybe it's just an aftershock?

"Thanks for getting us those top secret documents," he says casually.

"The Professor told you about that?"

"Yeah." He scratches his arm absently. "We delivered them to the president this morning."

She cocks her head at him, but as far as she can tell, he's serious. "Wait…really?"

"Yeah. Really."

Kitty mulls the idea over in her head. It does seem unlikely, but then again, these are the X-Men they're talking about. "You guys didn't bring me? I would've liked to meet the president."

Bobby snorts. "He wasn't, like, signing our autographs or anything. But Xavier mentioned you."

"Really?"

"He called you a little girl," he says with the hint of a grin.

"He didn't," Kitty grumbles.

"He did."

"He did," Rogue agrees softly from the doorway.

"It's okay though," Bobby tells her, a little sheepishly. "It's like your superpower. You know, you look like a little girl but you're actually a super dangerous ninja."

He sounds the same, but the conviction missing from his eyes doesn't escape her. Kitty hopes it will heal with time; for now she goes on bantering with him just like they've always done.

"Is that a compliment or an insult, Drake?"

"I think it's a little bit of both," Rogue comments.

"Yeah," Kitty murmurs thoughtfully. "That seems about right."


She moves on, calculating every change that's occurred. So much can happen in such a short period of time. And this is only the beginning.