The hope that they would be able to return home was dreaming, because once they were on the jet, two things became apparent, the first being that they weren't able to get out of there on the jet and secondly, Ash noticed that John wasn't there with them. Looking around, she saw Bobby.

"Bobby, where's John?" She asked.

Bobby just looked at her and shrugged, though he too looked worried at not seeing his best friend in the crowd.

"He's with Magneto." Jean told them, and Ashlyn looked out of one of the nearby windows, wondering why John would have left, before her attention was snapped back to inside the jet.

"We've lost power." Storm was telling everyone as she and Scott tried to get the jet to start again, then she noticed Jean leaving the jet, so Ashlyn followed.

"Go back up with the others." Jean told her as she limped towards the edge of the jet where they could both see a mass of water coming towards them.

"Not if you're thinking of ritual suicide." She told her, moving to walk beside her.

Meanwhile, back on the jet, the Professor had seen both Jean and Ashlyn leave, and he closed his eyes.

"Jean...Ashlyn..." He spoke and everyone looked at him before they looked around and no one saw either of them.

"Where's Jean?" Wolverine and Scott asked.

"And Ash?" Rogue doubled, before they noticed that they were both outside, standing a few feet from each other in front of the jet.

Everyone watched as the swell of water went to hit them but instead, it was suddenly deflected by both Jean and Ashlyn, making the water go around the jet. Before they saw Scott run towards the steps out of the jet, only to have them close up and trap everyone inside. Then there was only Ashlyn holding back the water, whilst Jean started work on the jet, and it suddenly came to life, and whilst Scott shouted for Storm to open the jet, and she tried, Jean started to lift it out of the snow that it had landed in and out of the way of the water. When she deemed the jet to be high enough, she stood beside Ashlyn.

"Go." She told her.

Ashlyn looked at her and it was easy to see that she was struggling with holding back this large amount of water. "Not likely."

"I'll follow you." She told her and she watched Ashlyn create stairs to get her above the water as Jean held it back, but as she turned back to help Jean, the water suddenly collapsed on top of her. Ashlyn watched as Jean was swallowed up by the water, and she stayed like that, until the jet came near and the stairs were lowered and Storm stood there, holding a hand out to her.

"Come on now, it's alright." Storm told her, taking her hand. "It's okay Ashlyn."

Ashlyn looked at her and she gripped her hand as she moved to climb on top of the jet and she walked to join the others. However, as she got there, Scott suddenly pushed her into the wall.

"You selfish bitch, you could have saved her!" He yelled in her face.

Ashlyn just looked at him. "I couldn't have saved her, she gave up Scott." Compared to Scott, Ashlyn sounded so calm, but also exhausted.

"Scott, let her go." Storm told him.

"You're just a selfish bitch! You should have died instead of her! You-" He stopped as Logan pulled him away from Ashlyn after he'd hit him unconscious.

Logan looked at her and he helped her back to her feet. "Are you alright, kid?"

Ashlyn simply nodded and she stayed in the back of the jet as everyone shrank away from her and the others went back to flying the jet and working out what to do.

Eventually, they flew to where they could find a few mutants from the mansion, and that was where Ashlyn got off since they weren't far from the mansion but as she was about to walk away, she was stopped by the Professor speaking to her mind.

"It wasn't your fault."

"Tell that to everyone else." Ashlyn told him before she walked away towards the mansion and the jet took off.

When she got to the mansion, she found Peter Rasputin and a few other younger mutants there and she told them what happened and everyone but Peter shied away from her. But instead of dwelling on it, Peter pulled her into a hug, and they started to help fix up the mansion. By the time the jet came back, most of the mansion had been fixed and all of the students had gathered in the games room to watch the television report of the president's speech regarding mutants, even Ashlyn stood far at the back listening, with Peter stood next to her. When the speech came to an end, Peter turned the television off, and overall it had made them all feel a bit better, the President had come to accept them and in the light of things, that was as good a thing as any. However, this didn't stop Ashlyn nearly having a breakdown, especially when everyone gave her a wide berth, well, everyone but Peter and Logan. When the television had turned off, she walked up to her room; she stayed in there for the rest of the night, just sat at her desk, looking at her mobile phone. No one saw Ashlyn for days, and Ashlyn didn't see any of them, she only came out of her room at night to get whatever food she could which usually consisted of crackers and cheese, her favourite. Occasionally one of the teachers would stand outside of her room and try and get her to come out, but that stopped after a few days of trying with no success, even her friends tried, but they never succeeded either. The only one who left her be, was the Professor he knew that she would come out when she was ready.

It was a few days after the mansion was up and running that Ashlyn's sanity was pushed even further towards the edge and she knew that she was forever alone, was that she received a text message from John.

ASHLYN, I'M SORRY ABOUT EVERYTHING I'VE DONE RIGHT NOW, I'M SORRY THAT I'VE LEFT YOU. BUT I DIDN'T WANT TO BE KEPT BEING TREATED LIKE A CHILD BY THE XMEN, BUT BECAUSE OF THAT I'D HAD TO LEAVE THE ONE THING I CARE ABOUT BEHING – I HAD TO LEAVE YOU. ONE DAY I HOPE THAT WE ARE ABLE TO LOOK PAST THIS AND THAT WE ARE ABLE TO GET BACK TOGETHER, BUT NOW WE MUST BE APART. JUST DON'T FORGET THAT I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. SLEEP WELL MY BEAUTIFUL GIRLFRIEND; I'LL SEE YOU SOON, HOPEFULLY. LOVE JOHN XXX.

It took her a while before she even considered replying back to him, and when she did she blocked his number stopping any contact.

JOHN, I'M SORRY THAT YOU DIDN'T FEEL THAT I WAS GOOD ENOUGH TO STAY WITH. I DON'T THINK I'LL BE STAYING WITH THE XMEN MUCH LONGER AND I'LL BE GOING BACK TO AUSTRALIA, SO I DON'T THINK WE WILL BE ABLE TO LOOK PAST THIS AND SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN. I HOPE YOU MEET SOMEONE THAT YOU LOVE VERY MUCH AND YOU HAVE A GOOD LIFE. GOOD BYE. ASHLYN.

That day was the hardest for Ashlyn, she lost more or less everything, her boyfriend, her friends, her new life...All gone, because people didn't understand mutants and mutants didn't understand her. She realised how far it had gone, when she went down to breakfast the next day and she heard the whispers, saw people move away onto other tables when she went to sit down, felt the silence when she tried to talk to people and she tasted what the feeling of loneliness done in the air around her. Not even Kitty, Bobby or Rogue came to sit with her or even ask if she was okay, and that was when she realised that no one had cared, she was just another mutant, though now she had a label and that was: MURDERER. She had no classes that day, so she spent it wandering around by herself, walking through the quietest part of the grounds, sitting in the mot secluded places, just doing anything to get away from the whispers. On one occasion, she was sat on a bench that was embedded in a hedge and she looked down at her hands, they still held marks over where her power had gotten too strong and where tiredness had claimed her. She even traced them with her index finger on her other hand.

"What do those marks mean kid?"

The voice made Ashlyn look up and she saw Logan stood in front of her, and she sighed softly. "My power is strong, but physically I'm not." She then looked back at her hands. "Everyone else hates me, why don't you?"

"Why would I hate you?" Logan asked as he sat next to her.

"Because I didn't die instead of Jean." She told him. "You loved her Logan, I can tell."

"Ashlyn, you did all you could." Logan told her. "You just told me yourself; your not physically strong enough to do things like that, so don't go beating yourself up over it."

Ashlyn sighed. "I don't know what to do Logan, everyone here hates me, and to be honest I don't think I want to stay here anymore."

He looked at her. "Look, I'm not going to tell you what to do kid, but I think leaving for good would be a mistake, yet with that being said, you might benefit from being at home." He stood up. "I've got to go, the Professor wants to see me, and so I'll come and find you later alright?"

Ashlyn nodded and she looked back down at her hands, she had a lot of thinking to do, but she looked up when she heard Logan's voice again.

"And Ash, if you ever need someone to talk to...I'm still here." He told her, before he walked away, leaving Ashlyn on her own once more.

Ashlyn stayed out in the garden for the rest of the day, Logan didn't come back and find her, instead he was in Professor Xavier's office, talking with him and Storm.

"You're worried Logan?" The Professor asked.

"Not really." Logan shrugged.

"Let m rephrase, you're worried about young Ashlyn?" He told him, making Logan sigh; there wasn't much point in lying to some who could read his mind.

"Would it make you feel better if I told you that both Storm and I feel the same way?" He asked. "We too are worried for Ashlyn."

"She's been isolated by everyone, and the poor child has no one to talk too." Storm sighed.

"I now Storm, I hear what some of the others think as they walk past her in the corridors, and I heard the whispers in the dining room." He sighed. "Ashlyn's mother warned me about two things with Ashlyn, one being that we need to be careful if we have to wake her up and the other was if people turn on her then she goes in on herself and she will never come back out."

Storm sighed. "So what do we do Professor?"

"Tomorrow morning, we call Ashlyn in here and we talk to her, help her to see that she isn't alone, and Logan, if you could continue what you're doing then she might just be okay." The Professor told them.

"What I'm doing?" Logan asked.

"Talking to her Logan, right now, you're the only one she sees as an ally in all of this." The Professor told him, causing Logan to simply nod before he left the room.

Meanwhile, Ashlyn had moved into her room and she was sat on the edge of her bed, writing in her notebook, her hoodie lay next to her on her bed and she had changed into black jeans, black boots and a long-sleeved red top. When she had finished her writing, she got up and put it open on her bed, before she put her jacket on and fastened it up. She quickly looked around her room, before she shut out the light and walked onto her balcony, climbing onto the railing before she fell. However, this wasn't an act of suicide, because she landed on a platform made up of the same colourful energy that made her shields, and from there it carried her away from the mansion and into the night. When she got to the gates of the mansion, she looked back, some lights were on and no one seemed to have noticed, either that or they didn't care. Sighing to herself, Ashlyn disappeared further into the night, her black clothes disguising her until sunset and then she simply took the normal mode of transport, heading down to the airport with only one destination in mind – Queensland, Australia. She was going home, and hopefully everything would be fine from then on.