Super long A/N which you don't have to read: I hope this wasn't too long to wait for an update. I just wanted to make sure I had a really solid chapter to share with you guys, particularly because this chapter was pretty important to me. A lot of basis for the personality and background that I gave Kitty in this story came from the scene in X3 when Bobby comes to her room to talk to her. The whole homesick thing didn't make sense to me initially, seeing as how Kitty was in the other movies (albeit played by other actors), meaning she'd already been there a couple of years. It sounded a bit like an excuse in the movie, but I felt like there was more to it than that. Figuring out what could have made her feel that way led me to flesh out what I imagined to be Kitty's relationship with her family and most importantly with Professor X.

So I don't usually like to reiterate actual scenes from movies in my stories, but the ones in this chapter were important to me and to the plot so I left them in. I hope they're interesting enough to keep you guys from getting bored. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men.


Kitty is sixteen when the Professor dies.

The day is cool and sunny and waning when the car pulls up. Storm gathers all the students together for a meeting, and Kitty knows right away that something is wrong; it's hard to miss. The air feels charged, ominous. In the mansion's largest aboveground room Logan stands silently behind Storm as she explains with careful, measured words what has happened to the Professor.

It only takes a few minutes, but the time seems to elongate and stretch into hours. Silence follows, punctuated only by muted crying. Kitty closes her eyes and wishes she were anywhere but here. But behind her eyelids all she sees is falling falling falling

The students disperse; Storm stays with the younger ones. Kitty walks through doors instead of walls without really knowing why.

Her room is empty. She sits.

The definitiveness of death is different than she could ever have imagined.

Losing her mother was a slow, quiet slipping away: a process that, step by step, showed her the inevitable outcome. In the end, it left her with not so much the sensation of actually losing something as that of never having had it in the first place.

Losing her father was quicker, a sudden wrenching away; but like her mother, he'd already been drifting away for a long time, preparing her for what was to come. She lost him all at once, but really she'd been losing him for years.

But losing the Professor...losing the Professor is a fresh, undiluted wound and it stings more than she thought possible. There was nothing gradual about it, no warning signs, no second chances, no choices made. He was the wisest and the kindest and maybe the best person she knew and he was gone in an instant. And it hurts. It hurts in her chest, in her lungs, leaving her floundering and gasping for breath. Kitty thought she knew loss, but she didn't, not at all. Not until now.


Surprisingly, when she shifts through the tangle of emotions that rush through her, the strongest one is homesickness. Not for the house in Illinois with her parents—it's something vaguer, nebulous, unfocused. It takes her a minute to work out what's behind this feeling.

It's because the mansion doesn't feel quite as much like home anymore.

There's something missing, something the Professor took with him: a sense of safety, comfort, belonging. His absence brings uncertainty, like a huge, dense cloud. Kitty doesn't know what the future holds now and it terrifies her. It's hard to breathe around the thickness of it all.

She is afraid that the home she's built here is disappearing link by link.

Her memories of her father, the memories from before, are already fading. How long before her memories of the Professor start to fade? How long before what little she has left of him is gone too?

She buries her face in her pillow and thinks of her earliest memories of him, the transition in her life that he guided her across. She remembers the long ride to the mansion, how the Professor was quiet when she wasn't ready to talk, receptive when she needed him to listen. She remembers when her curiosity emerged and she began asking him question after question, anything and everything about mutations that she hadn't had the chance to ask anyone about before. He answered them all and she didn't feel like he was indulging her or humoring her, but that they were having an actual discussion. He was already making her comfortable even then. Even if he didn't know it.

The memory brings a faint warmth to Kitty; she smiles just the slightest bit into her pillow. Even back then she knew the Professor would be important to her. Those first few weeks, when he helped her learn to control her mutation, only strengthened that feeling. It was a period of trial and error where he didn't always know the right things to say or the right way to help her, but to Kitty what mattered most was that he never stopped trying.

Her mind jumps back to the present and the dim warmth she felt is gone as quickly as blowing out a candle, leaving behind fading smoky trails. Kitty curls up tighter. More than anything, she wants his guidance. She already misses the way he'd gently guide her when she asked for advice, help her realize what she thought she should do. Without it she feels more lost than she thought possible.

She rolls over onto her feet, reaching for the book the Professor gave her for her last birthday. When she flips to the inside cover, his handwriting, spindly but clear, jumps out at her from the inscription. She reads it over and over and over.

And then she turns to the first page. It's like years ago: her escape.


The funeral comes too soon. Kitty dresses numbly, slowly, trying to put off the moment she has to let all the thoughts catch up to her. A funeral solidifies it, somehow.

There are people there she recognizes only vaguely, and some she doesn't recognize at all. She knows the Professor influenced many people. It lightens her heart a little to see how many of them came.

She sits there, between Bobby and Piotr, clutching a white rose and listening to Storm speak.

All these people around have known Professor Xavier for years, so much longer than Kitty has. It's difficult to put their loss into perspective.

"Charles was more than a leader, more than a teacher," Storm is saying. The day is gentle around her, as if listening. "He was a friend. When we were afraid, he gave us strength. When we were alone, he gave us a family."

Kitty feels her breath catch at the truth of these statements. The Professor gave her strength, friendship, family: all these things and more. He wasn't the only one who did, but he was the first. And it wasn't just for her, but for everyone. She can't even imagine giving that much of herself away. She can't even imagine how full—how larger than life—he had been, to occupy that much space. To mean something to this many people.

Her vision blurs just slightly, and Storm's words blur too, and then she feels Bobby, at her side, take her hand. And she feels just a tiny bit less alone.

But then Storm's eulogy ends and everyone is standing and Bobby's hand falls away from her and she's lost again. The Professor's headstone piles with white roses. Kitty, swept up in the current, approaches. She pauses a minute in front of the grave. She doesn't know what she's hoping for—a sign? A message? But this marble slab is impersonal, even with the inscription; empty. She can't find anything of him in it.

As she walks away in the midst of the quiet throng, her heart lurches. A sinking realization has permeated her, a dark damp feeling like the one she gets after drinking too much cold water too fast. The people around her fade into dull pinpricks of heat and light. They don't make her feel less alone.

She breaks off from the group filing inside and slips away unnoticed, sliding between walls until she finds it. The long corridor is familiar by now; Kitty can calculate the exact spot where it dips into a room. Taking purposeful, steady, silent steps, she enters.

The office appears untouched. As always, it's mysteriously spotless and nearly empty, but in another way it's so very full. Kitty hopes that, at least for now, it's all hers, the private space he once offered her. Papers are strewn across the otherwise barren desk, but she can't bring herself to read them. Instead, she sinks down in the middle of the floor, tucking her knees up under her chin. This is better than the heavy, soulless gravestone outside. With a silent eulogy, Kitty gently lays down the rose she's still gripping.

For a little while, it's better. But the longer she stays still, the faster Kitty's thoughts race, and the harder it becomes to slow them down. She starts sifting through her collection of mental images, her imperfect recordings. Her mind lands on the first time she found this room, then to the Professor's placid confrontation the next day. She runs his words through as best as she can remember them. He told her he should have expected her to find his secret passage eventually. No, he told her he should have expected her to find all of his secret passages eventually.

The thought catches. There are more scattered throughout the mansion; there must be. There's more of him, spread out, more pieces that she can capture and fit together. Kitty rises, overtaken with sudden fervor.

In the slowly darkening light, she wanders frantically, a frenzied ghost roaming the hallways. She phases through every floor, runs through every wall. In the end she does find a few—a tiny library hidden behind a coat closet, a long narrow hallway connecting a bedroom directly to the main floor—but the hopelessness of it all catches up to her. No matter how many secrets she discovers, it isn't him and it never will be.

The hours pass and she's no closer to him than she was before.


Kitty finds herself back in her room, sprawled listlessly on her bed, crying without any real strength or commitment. She feels depleted. Thoughts and emotions wash over her like the tears that escape down her cheeks; she's given up on trying to push them away. It takes too much effort, and she's just too tired.

That's when Bobby knocks and Kitty has to call up her strength. She pulls herself up and wipes her face and makes herself nonchalant, just a normal girl.

"You okay?" He asks, crossing over to her. Concern is plain on his face, and for a moment Kitty feels guilty. Here he is making sure she's okay when she hasn't bothered to do the same for him—hasn't even thought of him, to be honest. What kind of friend is she?

She pushes it all away again, composes herself. "Yeah," she says, like of course, not wanting him to notice. But he sees right through her anyway. He always does.

Kitty tries to explain, really tries. She wants him to understand so that later, when she can pull herself together and be a better friend, she can do the same for him. But the only words she finds are frighteningly inadequate.

"We're all feeling the same way," Bobby tells her. And he's right, they're all hurting; Kitty doesn't have a monopoly on pain. She isn't entitled to feel this way. But knowing this doesn't change the fact that she does.

So she tries to tell him again. This time her words lead and her thoughts follow their path: is she jealous of Rogue? In a way, yes: Rogue has Bobby's attention, his time. But mostly she's Bobby's person, and Kitty is acutely aware that she doesn't have anyone in quite the same way. And she's feeling lonely enough as it is.

But these sentiments don't lead anywhere, and they don't help anyone. She ends up stopping herself with what sounds like a feeble excuse (although in the strangest way, there's a truth to it). She doesn't know how to tell him all the things the Professor was to her, and how lost she feels now—at least not without barreling in a dozen confusing directions at once. She hardly even understands her own feelings anyway; as if she could expect him to.

But Bobby doesn't give up. Maybe, in his own way, he understands. When his smile flickers and flares into life, Kitty finds her own tugging at a corner of her mouth. "We won't get caught," he entices. For just a minute playful, mischievous old Bobby shines through, and Kitty can't resist that: the briefest promise that things, at their core, haven't changed that much.

"I mean, you can walk through walls, you know."

And she does. They do.


The mansion, beautiful as it is in the day, is even more breathtaking at night. The little lights, dark fountain water illuminated in the silvery moonlight, the moss and the plants like a miniature private jungle, all offset by the endless expanse of deep sky: it's all so peaceful. Kitty feels the torrent of emotions ebb away, and ignores the voice in her head that says eye of the storm. She'll deal with it later.

"This place can be home too," Bobby says at her side. Tempted as Kitty is to roll her eyes in that moment—because of course it can, and it has, it's been her home for nearly two years—she knows what he means. She understands what he's doing for her.

Then Bobby touches a finger to the water and ice radiates outward in a way that makes Kitty think of King Midas. The fountain transforms. As Kitty laces up her skates and Bobby ices up his, she feels how the ice has turned the air crisper. The water lilies all glisten with a layer of it, and the center of the fountain drips with thick white icicles. Bobby's already on the ice by now. Grinning, Kitty clambers up to join him.

She hadn't realized she missed this so much. Compared to Bobby, she's not any good, but it hardly matters. Skating here, thinking of the lake near her house in Illinois, she feels peaceful; content. Happiness rises warm and golden in her chest.

She's a little out of practice. Bobby, in his element, pulls her along too fast and she's laughing as she spins, off-balance, into him. His arms steady her and by some miracle she doesn't fall. He's there to catch her. He's always there to catch her.

What has she done to deserve someone like him in her life?

Kitty feels the warmth in her chest surge, and suddenly it's burning a little too bright. She pushes it down immediately. It's just the complete emotional 180 she's done in the last half hour—it's nothing. There's no place for this right now. Quick as it flared up, it dies down, and Kitty shakes herself out of her thoughts.

She and Bobby break apart and skate in lazy circles, side by side. They talk about nothing and everything, easy conversation, and share a few smiles, a few quiet laughs. Kitty relaxes effortlessly back into his company. She feels…serene. And it's nice.


Bobby walks her back up to her room afterwards—or rather, Kitty sneaks him back upstairs as quietly as possible. When they reach his room, they both pause.

"Thanks again," Kitty tells him. "I mean it. Thanks."

Bobby leans up against the doorframe and gives her a small smile. "I know you were close to him, Kit. But the rest of us, we're still here. You're not alone."

The hallway lights are dim by this hour, and his face is fragmented by shadow. Kitty ducks her head in response. "Sorry I've been such a sucky friend."

"What?" He frowns. "No, I—"

"Bobby." She tilts her face up to look him in the eye. "You were there for me today, and I couldn't do the same for you. But I want to." She takes a breath. "So how are you? Are you okay?"

Looking suddenly uncomfortable, Bobby just shrugs.

But Kitty's been shaken from her thoughts and she sees now, the same way he saw through her earlier. He's not her best friend for nothing. "Are you scared?" she asks.

He shifts, looks down at his shoes. "Yeah," he admits finally. "Yeah, I am. Are you?"

"Yeah," she echoes, quiet.

Without another word, they both lean in and hug each other tightly.


Rogue leaves the same night.

In the morning Kitty wakes early. The calmness she felt out on the fountain is wearing off, enough to let her see the troubling prospects of the coming days. She wanders downstairs and finds Storm and Dr. McCoy staring out a window together, talking in hushed voices. Kitty hesitates in the doorway for a minute. As much as she wants the company of someone older and wiser right now, she can only imagine what important matter they're discussing. She's turning to leave quietly when she bumps straight into Bobby. Storm and Dr. McCoy spin around in unison at the noise. They look surprised, as if they'd been so deep in conversation that they'd forgotten students lived here too.

There's an apology on the tip of Kitty's tongue, but Bobby just touches her shoulder lightly before moving self-assuredly into the room. The troubled expression on his face contradicts his assumed air of confidence. He says something to Storm; she glances over at Kitty, then back to him and responds so quietly that Kitty can't hear what she says. Dr. McCoy, at her shoulder, doesn't interject.

"We're X-Men now," Bobby says firmly, raising his voice a little. "We're a part of this, too."

Storm assesses him. Kitty sees a hint of respect in her eyes. "All right," she concedes. "Sit down."

The situation is just as tense as she thought. Beast and Storm alternate assessments—his politically based, hers broader, humanitarian. As always, nothing is as clear-cut as Kitty would like it to be. The Professor always seemed so sure of what was right and what was wrong—but he's dead, she reminds herself. He's dead and right now no one's in any position to take his place.

Bobby asks questions and gives opinions, but Kitty sits at a far end of the sofa, apart from everyone, and doesn't say a word. She isn't sure of her place here yet—and to tell the truth, the reality of what they're saying scares her. Instead, she observes. She notes the tenseness Bobby carries with him, the diplomatic way that Dr. McCoy phrases his statements. She sees how unsure Storm is, how it shows in her tight expression and her restrained gestures; how these signs carry over into their next conversation—the school, what to do now. Storm doesn't think she can keep the school open on her own. And Kitty doesn't blame her: she's seen everything the Professor did. It's an impossible task.

But Storm's also not one for surrender. Her lack of objection to Dr. McCoy's proposal worries Kitty.

"Most of us don't have anywhere to go," Bobby says, and she feels his gaze alight on her briefly before turning back to Beast and Storm. "I can't believe this. I can't believe we're not going to fight for this school."

Kitty's thinking of Bobby, and last night: how the mansion could still be home without the Professor, and how it might not get a chance to be. She's thinking of Rogue, and Jubilee, and Yousef, all of the kids here who don't have families to turn to. She's thinking of every young mutant—or even old mutant, because she's sure it wouldn't have mattered to the Professor—who will have one less safe place to turn to. And she's thinking of Storm, on her own, overwrought and overworked and alone and losing everyone she's loved without a chance to mourn. Kitty can see it from every side, but lately this perspective is starting to trouble her. She just wants a clear choice somewhere in this muddled mess that's becoming her reality—she wants to know right and wrong, the way the Professor seemed to do so effortlessly. When even Storm doesn't know what to do, who can Kitty look to? Who's going to hold them all together?

Then this random blond mutant wanders in and Storm, determined, stands up for them all and Kitty recognizes her again.


Only later does she hear that Rogue is missing.

They all know where she's gone. Kitty feels guilt burn quietly in her stomach when she hears. Rogue knows her own mind, but that doesn't stop Kitty from worrying that it was because of her—that she was the catalyst.

From that point on, everything happens all in a rush. Bobby disappears, gone looking for Rogue at one of the cure clinics, though he doesn't say a word to anyone about it. Logan's gone too, looking for Jean—or whatever it is that Jean has become. The kids can all sense something wrong: they're all apprehensive and restless and Kitty doesn't know what to tell any of them. All she can do is pace the halls waiting.

Then on the news the clinic burns with familiar flames and Magneto's face peers in at all of them like an oracle predicting the grim future. "And to my fellow mutants," he says, perfectly composed, and Kitty clenches her fingers harder because it's like he's talking right to her, "I make you this offer: join us or stay out of our way." It's happening, Kitty thinks, and then Bobby comes home trying to look stoic but she can tell he's a wreck, and he tells her about John and the explosion and how he couldn't find Rogue anywhere and what if she was in there and Kitty tries to comfort him the best she can but there's no time to do what he did for her. Because then Logan's back with news of an impending battle on Alcatraz Island and Storm and Dr. McCoy exchange weathered looks and Kitty knows this is it. Just like that last year, what has been approaching has arrived, and this time she's a part of it.

Somehow in the back of her mind she knew it would all lead here: the small women's locker room in the subbasement, silent except for a vent blowing softly in a corner. Kitty pulls her suit on slowly, methodically, trying to ease away the denial she's steeped in. And suddenly, alone in the sparse quiet, she's painfully aware of how few X-Men are left—and how she might actually have to make a difference today.

It hits her again when they all gather together, Storm and Beast and Wolverine, Colossus and Iceman and her: six of them. Kitty's presence has never mattered so much.


After the chaos earlier, the jet ride seems painfully long and still. There's nothing to do but think. But the more Kitty thinks, the more she starts to panic that things are moving far too fast. So she runs through fighting sequences in her mind instead, her eyes trained skyward. She moves through the sets she's drilled over and over with Logan, with Storm, with Scott. And this time thinking of Scott doesn't bring her sadness. This time he gives her strength.

They'll be her anchors: her mentors, her professors, her friends, the ones who are with her now and the ones who aren't.

She'll fight for all of them.