A/N: Sorry sorry guys! It might take me forever, but I will update. Eventually.

Question: what season is X-Men 3 (The Last Stand movie) set in? I know it's kind of a silly question, but it would help me a bit with this story. There's a poll on my profile, or just PM me. Thanks!

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men.


Winter Break this year is very different from the last. Kitty remembers that cold and empty month vaguely, as if under a film. It's hard to believe that so much has changed since then.

She dutifully takes her exams just as she did last year, but this time when they're over there's no sudden letdown. The steady stream of X-Men training and meetings continues unaffected. The professors have arranged a few extra sessions as well; Kitty suspects they have nothing better to do than amuse themselves by torturing their students.

Besides training, Kitty is also registered for an online winter course, a computer science class. Captivated with this subject, she devotes a good amount of her former class time to studying it. She wants to learn all its intricacies, all its secrets.

"Are you trying to be a hacker or something?" Jason asks her, half-interested. "Like that girl in Jurassic Park?"

Kitty furrows her brow trying to remember this detail from the movie; Jason loses interest while she thinks and walks away. As soon as he leaves she googles it and gets lost in an internet hole for the better part of an hour. She hadn't realized there were quite so many programming languages; now she feels the desire to absorb them all as quickly as possible.

Kitty's glad for the extra work she has now, even the work she creates for herself. She's always loved winter, but the break last year felt oddly muted, frosted over and silent, like words muffled in layers of snow. This year it's full of life—and Kitty wonders if it's the environment around here that has changed, or if it's that new layer of life she's discovered since becoming an X-Man.


Bobby sticks around this time—that might have something to do with it. He talked to his parents not too long ago, and it seems to Kitty, from what he's told her at least, that they've come to a kind of truce. Neither side quite understands the other, at least not yet, but they have agreed to put it to the side for the time being. Bobby isn't ready to go home yet, though, but Kitty understands. It's too fresh still.

Rogue is happier with him around, and Kitty is too, and she thinks this brings more life into the mansion. The three of them have taken to playing video games together every now and then. It's not really Rogue's thing, but she knows more about them than Kitty does. Jason and Artie, deeply insulted by Kitty's lack of knowledge, actually made her a set of flashcards before they left for home. "Here," Artie had said, handing them over. "You can't keep playing Call of Duty and calling it MarioKart."

"Last week we played Final Fantasy and she called it Halo," added Bobby, prompting even more snorts from the students scattered around the room.

"We played Final Fantasy a few days ago," piped up Jubilee, "and Kitty thought it was The Legend of Zelda. She kept asking me which one Zelda was."

"All right, all right," Kitty had grumbled. She's studied the flashcards since, embarrassing as it is, and thinks she's finally getting the hang of it. If she slips up it will only elicit more snickers, and that's enough motivation in and of itself.


Last year there was a small Christmas celebration in the mansion—pretty low-key, just some food and decorations—and Kitty, unconcerned with her own religion, had just treated it as any other holiday celebration. So when Christmas approaches this year, she isn't prepared for the wave of homesickness that hits her. As soon as the kids start digging the garlands out of the storage closet, she feels something sink inside her, and she can't fathom what it is or why it's only appearing now.

Kitty's never put much stock in religion. Her family was Jewish only in name and in the few traditions they held on to: lighting the candles on the menorah one by one, ordering Chinese takeout on Christmas. She's never had a bat mitzvah or read a single page of the Torah. Religion doesn't hold much importance for her, but those faint memories of family traditions do.

She thinks of them, huddled in her room as the students unravel streams of lights below her. When Kitty first came to the mansion, she had tried to make her room as familiar as possible. She's in a different room now, but the furnishings have stayed almost exactly the same, familiar enough to ease her rare homesickness, comfortable enough not to pull at her emotions too strongly.

Most of what she brought with her from her old home was clothing and books, but there are also a few random trinkets she packed in a daze. She's still not really sure why she took some of the things, why they called to her through the thick blur of her thoughts. They are arranged atop her dresser: some of her favorite childhood toys, a small jewelry box filled with rocks she'd collected from the science museum (one for each visit, adding up to quite a collection), a snow globe, a few framed photos. Kitty, age six, and her parents smile out from one, obscured by a photo of her and Bobby just a month or two after she'd first arrived, Jubilee smirking out from behind them with two fingers held in a V above Bobby's head.

As much as the photos make her smile, it's the stupid trinkets that draw her attention now. She doesn't regret taking them anymore; their presence helped her feel a little more at home when she first came here, and even now she doesn't look back and feel quite so uprooted.

Kitty sinks further into her bed and remembers standing in front of the storage closet her first night here, looking up at the rows of spare sheets and towels, feeling disoriented and small and displaced. She picked these sheets, the same sheets she's lying on right now, navy with tiny yellow dots: they'd reminded her of the night sky just enough to make her feel a little more at ease.

The only other thing she had brought from home was her pair of ice skates. It was stupid to bring them, really. She's hardly used them since coming here, and in fact she hadn't been using them much in the year before she came here. But Kitty loves to skate, even though she isn't particularly good at it. She loved skating when her dad took her and she loved skating with her friends—those are some of her fondest memories.

Hugging a pillow, she curls up tighter in her bed. She loves it here, but suddenly she can't stop thinking of her father and her old room with the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling and the pond near her house in Illinois. She's thinking about the old menorah in the window and the way she and her dad used to sing silly things to the tune of Christmas songs, all the stupid old traditions they clung to.

Someone knocks on her door while she's brooding. She opens it to find Jubilee, grinning sheepishly, a long strand of impossibly knotted Christmas lights in one hand. "Hey, Kit," she says, in the light tone Kitty's learned is usually the preamble to asking a favor. "So…since you and Prof X are always using your mutation to untangle stuff…we thought this might be good practice." Her grin widens. "Umm…when you're done, you know, practicing, you could help us decorate the stump with it, if you want."

The stump is the affectionate name some of the kids have given to the fake Christmas tree the Professor purchased after several disastrous incidents involving real trees. Kitty has heard rumors about these incidents, most of which involve fires. She rolls her eyes at the wording of Jubilee's request and takes the string of lights. It's a pretty simple task: Jubilee's right about something, she has been practicing this, and she hands it back within a minute.

"Thanks, Kit Kat, you're the best! I mean, uh, you're welcome. For the practice," Jubilee says all in a rush, continuing the charade for no one's benefit in particular. "So, wanna come help us decorate?"

Kitty opens her mouth to remind Jubilee that she's Jewish, then reconsiders. It's not like religion was really a big part of her life before this, and holding on to that label feels like holding on to a life and a family that have long since dissolved. Even those old traditions, those last vestiges of Judaism, are just a barrier now. She doesn't need them anymore.

So she just shrugs. "Sure."


"Ten minutes until midnight," Jones says, blank faced. He's become the unofficial announcer for the wandering occupants sprawled out in various places across the mansion's main floor.

Kitty looks up from the floor, where she's been playing a tense and somewhat violent game of Speed with Rogue. The other girl is far nimbler and keeps winning; Kitty tried cheating once, phasing the cards to get to them faster, but Rogue caught her and dealt her an extra slice of the deck as punishment. They've been playing in terse silence ever since and Kitty feels more stressed than she'd like to over a game of cards.

"Last round, unless you want a rematch," Rogue says to get her attention. Kitty looks back to the game at hand, where she's losing miserably.

"I think I'll quit while I'm ahead, actually. You win."

Rogue grins with the same ruthlessness she sports when playing video games. "Bobby," she calls over her shoulder. "You're up."

Kitty rises and heads over to the couch. On screen, the ball hovers in the background while the hosts shiver and jabber to each other. Jones looks uninterested, but Kitty doesn't miss the anticipation in his pose. Piotr is sketching on the other end of the couch, and she peers over his shoulder.

"Can I see?"

He flushes a little as he tilts the sketchbook towards her. Staring out from the page is a caricature of Jones, teenager-bored and holding an old-fashioned pocket watch, that odd quality of old-beyond-his-years jadedness perfectly captured. Kitty laughs out loud. Pete flips backwards, showing her cartoons of Jubilee, Logan, Artie, even the Professor.

"Five minutes," Jones announces.

Storm enters the room with a bag of multicolored noisemakers that she hands out to everyone. Kitty knows the professors will all regret buying these later, when the kids blow them tirelessly late into the night, but the gesture is still touching. It's incredibly, really, how much effort they put into making sure everyone feels at home.

"Four minutes," yawns Jones. Kitty has noticed that even though Jones never sleeps, he still yawns on occasion. It interests her—scientifically—the way his body functions.

Jubilee drops over the sofa next to Piotr as Scott wanders in, silent and hunched over and looking smaller. Kitty frowns, but she's soon distracted by Jubilee blowing a noisemaker in her ear.

"You're supposed to save those for after midnight," she reprimands, clamping both hands protectively over her ears. Jubilee shrugs innocently.

"Three minutes."

There's a triumphant shout as Rogue slams a card down onto the deck, followed by a drawn-out groan from Bobby. Logan waits at the room's edge, leaning casually against the wall and downing yet another beer. His mood looks just as bad as Scott's, but considerably…grumpier. Kitty watches as he finishes the beer and goes to get another, wondering if he can actually get drunk. Wouldn't his ever-healing body simply filter the toxins from his system as quickly as he introduced them? She smiles a bit to herself—that would account for his perpetually foul mood.

"Two minutes," Jones calls. He's inched almost imperceptibly closer to the TV.

The Professor arrives with champagne and sparkling cider, and Logan appears behind him, a stack of plastic cups in hand. Kitty feels a little guilty for internally laughing at his mood. A new year probably means the same thing for him as it does for Scott—a step further away from everything that's happened, another landmark they can't go backwards from. It means different things for both of them, she's sure, but in the end it's all the same.

"One minute."

The countdown begins onscreen. Rogue and Bobby abandon their game and sidle up behind the sofa to watch. Jubilee readies herself, positing her noisemaker in her mouth, and Pete finds inspiration in her pose and flips to a fresh page.

"Ten," they all say, as if on the same wavelength. "Nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two…"

"One!" Bobby bellows, just as Jubilee puffs as hard as she can into her noisemaker. The rest of them take a hint from her and follow suit. Even Scott shrugs good-naturedly and makes some noise as well.

"Happy New Year!" Jubilee shouts, letting a few sparks dance from her hands. A few others happily echo her sentiment. The Professor is benignly pouring champagne for Scott and Ororo and himself. He even offers some to Logan, who grunts his refusal and takes a swig of beer instead. Storm hands out cups of sparkling cider, relenting when she comes to Piotr and slyly pouring him some champagne instead. They all crowd around the sofa to toast each other.

"New Year snowball fight?" Jubilee suggests to Kitty, and they run outside together into the cold and dark, Bobby tagging behind in his infuriating short sleeves. They throw snowballs at each other until Storm shouts at them to come inside.

A new year means a lot of things. As Kitty loiters on the way back to her room, she thinks back to everything that's happened this past year. While she's brushing her teeth, she counts the days since all the things before, memories of fear, memories that bring a flush to her face. She changes into a t-shirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants and reflects, reaching out to the person she was just a year ago, afraid and uncertain and insecure. So much has changed. She feels impossibly far now from that person.

These thoughts bring a twinge of melancholy—but Kitty's grateful for the distance. She doesn't want to forget, but she also doesn't want to remain stagnant. She wants to move forward. She wants to keep changing.


There's a brief lull just after the New Year—the Professor and Scott haven't scheduled any meetings for the next few days, and Kitty's ahead of her coursework—when she focuses intently on X-Men training. It's during this period, in a Danger Room session, that she realizes something.

This particular simulation that they're running is one of Kitty's least favorites. It's dark and confusing, and more often than not the team members get separated. Kitty almost always finds herself wandering an empty, shadowy hallway, hardly breathing, shaky fists clenched in anticipation of whatever will jump out at her. It's exactly where she finds herself now. This simulation reminds her unreasonably of the night the mansion was invaded—the night she let her fear control her, the night she ended up almost like this, alone, afraid.

She turns a corner cautiously. Just when it seems that no one is there, a computer-generated soldier leaps out at her. Kitty sucks in a fast breath, panics, phases—the knife slices harmlessly through air.

It's later, when they're all stumbling out of the dissolving simulation, spread out all across the room, that Kitty catalogues it. There's a bruise forming on Rogue's cheek, Piotr is limping, Scott rubs his shoulder. Storm breathes heavily, looking a little wild-eyed—traces of the claustrophobia that must have overtaken her. Claustrophobia that Kitty will never feel, because she always has a way out. She takes this all in, now, sees how they all have to be more afraid, because things can hurt them, can really hurt them. She doesn't need her fear—nothing can touch her—but they do.

It's only then that she begins to understand that her power isn't just phasing. It's freedom.


After the session, Kitty strips off her uniform (only recently custom made for her, and she's already wondering where, and if it's dry clean only or what) in a daze and jumps into a long, hot shower. She feels alone suddenly, as if she's standing a long way from everyone, far off on her own. Untouchable.

It's a stupid thought, maybe, but she can't get it out of her head.

It's still there, biting ceaselessly at her as she sits in the computer lab, lines of code wavering in front of her. She sighs and slides her chair back with a low scraping sound. Just minutes later, she's pacing the hallways. Piotr is in the living room, writing meticulously in a notebook, and Jones and Jubilee are arguing over something behind him, but Kitty passes by them. She doesn't want to stop moving yet.

"Kitty," someone calls from behind her as she's wandering a hallway upstairs. She turns to see Bobby, an amused smile tugging at his lips. "What's up?" he says.

She shrugs feebly. "Nothing really…you know…"

He smiles at her again, less amused and more sincere. "I was going to get a snack before I meet up with Rogue. Come sit with me for a little."

Kitty makes some weak crack about his constant eating and walks alongside him. In the kitchen, she pulls up a chair, her usual ritual. Bobby digs through drawers and eventually piles something together, his usual ritual. "What's on your mind?" he asks over his shoulder, peeling the plastic off a slice of what barely passes for cheese.

Kitty hesitates. "It's stupid."

"I don't think stupid and you ever go together in the same sentence."

She shifts uncomfortably in her chair, and Bobby must sense it, because he doesn't speak again until he's brought his concoction over to her. "Talk to me," he says.

Taking a breath, Kitty tries to look at him, but ends up with her eyes trained on the table instead. "Do you ever think about dying during a mission?"

She hears an unexpected hint of a laugh in Bobby's voice before it fades. "Doesn't everyone? Don't you? It's what we do, Kit. It comes with the job."

There's a strange expression on his face when she looks up, and she shakes her head. "You always get hurt in the Danger Room. You, and Pete, and Rogue, and even the professors—even if it's just a bruise, it's always something. But I never do, not anymore." She frowns and shrugs, trying hard not to let him see how much this bothers her. "And I was thinking…that's the way it's always going to be."

"You're not as untouchable as you think you are," growls a voice from near the doorway. "Plenty of things can hurt you. Just maybe not in a way you'd expect."

Kitty and Bobby turn in unison to find Logan standing there. Kitty groans and hides her face in her hands. "I feel like such an idiot."

"You're not," Logan says. "It's not a stupid thing to think about. I would know."

She looks at him curiously. He shrugs—a repeat of her own fake-casual gesture, an attempt to shrug off the seriousness they feel. "I don't know how long I'm going to be around. Might be forever. Chances are I'm gonna outlive all of you."

Kitty's waiting for him to say that it's lonely. That he's a loner because he was made that way, that he's already thinking about how to distance himself from them. But he catches her eye and says nothing. Bobby looks back and forth between the two of them. "That's it?" he asks incredulously. "I thought you were going to give some advice."

"It's not advice," scowls Logan, and just like that the moment is over. "Okay, I'm done sharing. But just you know, half pint," he says over his shoulder, "you're not going to live forever. So don't dwell on it."

They both stare after him. "I'm still bummed he didn't try to give you any advice," Bobby jokes eventually.

"Actually…" Kitty says, a lopsided smile spreading across her face, "he kind of did."

Bobby grins back at her and all of a sudden she just feels tired. On their way out, he leans into her. "We're not going to lose anyone else," he promises her, low and serious.

Kitty smiles faintly at his conviction, but she isn't so sure anymore. The longer she trains, the longer she's only sure of one thing: that someday, there will be war. They wouldn't be preparing for it otherwise.


She sees the Professor only a little later that week and he plays a game of chess with her. As her fingers hover over the pawns she's reminded of a battlefield and he smiles sadly at her and she thinks maybe this is his own version of war. It's controlled and it's distant and maybe that's exactly how he feels, sending his students out somewhere he can no longer go. The details don't matter. One way or another, it's still war.


Kitty wanders into the rec room one day to find Rogue playing a video game she's never seen before. On second glance, it's not a video game at all: it's a flight simulator. Rogue holds a set of unfamiliar, complicated controls, and the simulation on screen is so real that Kitty feels dizzy for a moment. Off to the side, Bobby is watching and scribbling down an occasional note.

He sees Kitty or senses her somehow and waves her over silently. She creeps over, not wanting to disrupt Rogue's concentration. They watch together, hushed, until Rogue shakily lands the plane. Kitty can see the way she's clutching the controls even through her gloves.

Bobby whistles as she sets the controls down. "Not bad. You're really getting the hang of this."

Rogue lets out a long breath and glances at Kitty. "Sorry," Kitty says, flushing. "I hope you don't mind having an audience."

"That's all right. Just don't invite anyone else."

Kitty nods, and Bobby scoots down the sofa and nudges Rogue gently over so that he can take her place. He flicks back to the menu and starts the simulation over. Kitty, watching, feels a thrill of fear and then a sense of safety—she's not the one who's going to have to get behind those actual controls and actually take off into the air. But she'll be sixteen soon and maybe then she'll learn to drive and then maybe the offer will be on the table again. If that happens…will she take it?