ROGUE: "I'll get it."
As students walk by, they glance at Rogue coldly, but she ignores them and walks to the main doors. Rogue opens the doors and looks ahead in shock. Rogue steps back and stares, tears welling up in her eyes. Xavier is seated in a wheelchair, wearing a business suit. Moira stands behind Xavier, holding the handle bars on the back of his wheelchair. Xavier looks at Rogue with a soft smile.
ROGUE: (whispers) "Professor?"
XAVIER: "Hello, Rogue."
Moira wheels Xavier into the room and stops it before Rogue. Rogue hugs Xavier, which startles him. Rogue kisses Xavier's cheek and holds him close to her.
ROGUE: "I... I thought you were..."
XAVIER: (interrupts) "It's good to see you again, too."
Xavier ends the hug and looks at Rogue, puzzled.
XAVIER: "Your touch..."
STORM: "Rogue took the cure."
Xavier turns around and Rogue looks up, as Storm and Logan walk into the room, wearing normal clothes. Storm stands beside Moira and Storm looks at Rogue sternly, a bit coldly.
STORM: "She went off to a clinic to take it while we were fighting at Alcatraz."
Xavier looks at Rogue, noticing her hurt expression. Xavier holds Rogue's hand and she looks at him, as he eyes her softly.
XAVIER: "We all make choices we think are for the best. The ones we think are right aren't always the easiest ones to make."
Rogue smiles at Xavier and Logan rolls his eyes.
LOGAN: "And we've come back to the cornball dialogue."
ROGUE: "I'd love to catch up with you. There's so much to talk about. But I have to get to class."
XAVIER: "We'll make time later, I promise you. I'll see you later, Rogue."
Rogue nods and walks off down the hallway. Xavier watches Rogue leave, while Beast approaches the open doorway from outside.
BEAST: "Am I interrupting?"
Logan and Storm turn around, as Beast walks up to them.
STORM: "Hank? What're you doing here?"
XAVIER: "Come on in, Hank."
Moira turns Xavier's wheelchair around and Beast sees him for the first time. Beast steps back, stunned.
XAVIER: "Welcome back."
BEAST: (beat) "Charles?"
XAVIER: "I'm sorry. I know this must be a shock."
Beast shakes his head and walks over to Xavier.
BEAST: (sighs) "Well, I've already found another of my friends isn't really dead. I guess I have to get used to expecting the unexpected."
LOGAN: "What do you mean by that? I thought you were supposed to be busy in Washington as some new big mutant ambassador or something."
BEAST: "I am, but I've learned of something that concerns all of us. We need to talk."
XAVIER: "Very well. Let's go in my office."
Beast nods and follows Moira, Xavier, Logan and Storm down the hall. As they walk down the hall, several students passing by stop in their tracks and stare at Xavier in shock. Among the stunned students passing through are Bobby, Piotr and Kitty. Kitty stares ahead with tears in her eyes and Piotr stands beside her, setting his hand on her shoulder as he eyes Xavier in equal shock.
KITTY: "Professor?"
In Xavier's office, Xavier is at his desk, with Moira standing beside him. Storm and Beast sit on a couch nearby, while Logan sits on a nearby chair. Beast looks at Xavier, stunned. Logan folds his arms over his chest, as Xavier grins at Beast.
BEAST: "Forgive me, Professor. It's still a bit of a shock."
LOGAN: "It's a shock to them, too."
Xavier, Beast and Storm look at the doorway. Almost every student in the school must be in the hall, staring into the room at Xavier. Logan rises from his seat and walks to the door.
LOGAN: "Yeah, yeah. He's alive and back in school. Now, go on back to class. He'll still be here when school's over."
Logan shuts the door and turns back to Beast.
LOGAN: "You had something to say, furball. It must have been pretty important for you to come all the way down here."
BEAST: "It is. I learned of a report of a mutant attack in Canada. Two days ago, some staff members in the hospital's top floor were killed by unknown individuals and a mutant patient was abducted from his bed."
STORM: "A mutant patient?"
BEAST: "He was found ten miles into the woods at Alkali Lake, close to where Jean was found. The lower half of his face was singed and his throat was damaged. He did, however, manage to tell them his name." (sighs) "Sir...It's Scott."
The others look at Beast, stunned.
XAVIER: "What?"
LOGAN: "That's not possible. Jean killed him at Alkali Lake."
BEAST: "Apparently not. He was almost dead when they found him. When he came to, he reportedly grew nervous when his doctor tried to look at his eyes. After they did, he shoved a nurse and the doctor out of the way and punched a hole through the roof of the hospital."
The door silently opens behind them and Alex and Lorna step into the room. Xavier looks away from Beast, stunned.
LOGAN: "Well, that certainly sounds like Scott's style. But even if it was him, how could Scott have survived?"
Xavier looks at the doorway, as Alex and Lorna look stunned at Logan.
ALEX: "Scott is alive?"
The others stop and look over at Alex and Lorna.
XAVIER: "Can we help you?"
ALEX: "I hope so. You can tell me what you know about my brother, Scott."
Xavier looks at Alex in shock.
LOGAN: "Brother?"
In Miss Danvers' classroom, Carol sits behind her desk and holds a textbook in her hands. The students seated at their desks - including Rogue, Bobby and Kitty - look at Carol, with their own textbooks opened and set on their desks.
CAROL: "All right, class. Now, we're going to do a quiz over what we learned in Chapter Five."
Carol picks up several sheets of paper from her desk and holds them up. Carol looks at a seated student at a nearby desk, AUTUMN ROLFSON - 18 years old with long black hair.
CAROL: "Autumn, would you please pass out the quiz sheets for me?"
Autumn nods and rises from her seat. Carol walks to the blackboard, picks up a piece of chalk and starts to write on it. Autumn walks to Carol and takes the papers from her hand. Autumn walks to each desk and hands each student a sheet of paper. Autumn walks to Rogue and hands her a quiz sheet. As Rogue takes the sheet of paper, she notices Autumn sneering at her. Autumn walks off to pass out the papers. Rogue looks at her paper and notices a post-it note on the front of it, which reads: TRAITOR. Carol continues to write on the blackboard, writing TONIGHT'S ASSIGNMENT: READ SECTIONS ONE TO THREE OF CHAPTER SIX. Rogue takes the post-it note off the paper and crumples it in her hands. Carol stops and looks at Rogue.
CAROL: "Rogue? Is everything all right?"
ROGUE: "Yes, ma'am."
Carol walks over to Rogue and stands beside her.
CAROL: "What's in your hand?"
ROGUE: "Just some trash."
CAROL: (sighs) "Give it to me, please."
ROGUE SIGHS, pauses and hands Carol the crumpled post-it. Carol opens the post-it and looks at it. Carol pauses and looks up at Autumn, as she passes out the last quiz page to Kitty.
CAROL: "Autumn?"
Autumn turns and looks up at Carol. Carol holds up the post-it to her.
CAROL: "Did you post this on Rogue's quiz paper?"
AUTUMN: (beat) "Yes, ma'am."
Carol looks up and around the class.
CAROL: "I admit I've only been a teacher here since yesterday and I have yet to know the whole story of what has been going on around here. But I expect each student I work with to be courteous and respectful to each other. There has been a cruelty shown to this young woman for some time before I got here. That cruelty stops, here and now."
Bobby looks at Carol a moment and looks away. Kitty notices Bobby's grim look and looks at Carol, puzzled.
CAROL: "If anyone shows any more notes like this in my class or does anything to this girl and I hear about, that person will answer to me."
Autumn rolls her eyes.
AUTUMN: "It was just a little note."
Carol looks at Autumn and approaches her.
CAROL: "And that 'little note' just got you detention and an extra assignment. This is a school of tolerance, Miss Rolfson. I suggest you and the other students remember that."
Autumn sneers and Carol walks back to her desk.
Back in Xavier's office, Lorna and Alex sit on the other couch on the other side of the room, as Logan, Storm, Beast, Xavier and Moira look on.
ALEX: "And when I read about Scott's obituary in the paper, I came down here to find anyone who knew him. After all that time looking for him, I wanted to get to know what he was like. And since I thought he was dead, I was hoping anyone here could tell me what he was like."
STORM: "So while Scott has been here, what have you been doing the last eighteen years? He thought you were dead."
ALEX: "Well, I was put in an orphanage after I got out of the hospital. I grew up with a set of foster parents up until I turned sixteen."
MOIRA: "What happened?"
ALEX: "I had developed a pain in my hands when I turned fifteen. The doctors didn't know what was wrong with me and no medication helped me. Then one day, early in my junior year of high school, some guy tried to carjack me. We got into a struggle and I knocked him off of me... with these."
Alex's hands glow with dim red energy.
ALEX: "I kept it a secret and after graduation, I got a job working as a guard in a security agency. That's where I met Lorna."
Alex's hands stop glowing, as Logan looks over at Lorna.
LOGAN: "And what can you do?"
Lorna grins and motions her head at the desk. All of the metal objects on it, from paper clips to the stapler, slowly levitate off of the desk and spin around slowly in a circle. After a moment, the objects lower back down.
LORNA: "Magnetic manipulation. I can move metal objects, generate force fields and levitate off of the ground."
ALEX: "So that's my story. Care to tell me what this matter is with my brother?"
BEAST: "It seems that your brother is actually alive and well, Alex. He was recovering at a hospital in Canada and was abducted two days ago."
ALEX: "Who abducted him?"
BEAST: (sighs) "I don't know yet."
Logan turns to Xavier.
LOGAN: "What do you think, Charlie? You think Scott could have survived?"
XAVIER: "It's possible. While we never found Scott's body, it doesn't mean he was disintegrated into ashes."
ALEX: "Whoa, hold on a minute. You want to run that by me again?"
LOGAN: "Nope. That's a long recap for another time, bub." (turns to Xavier) "Do you think we should check it out?"
XAVIER: "There's only one way we can be sure. Logan, you can detect the scent of anyone. I want you to take the Blackbird with Alex and Lorna and go to the hospital where he was sighted. If Scott was in there, see if you can still get a trace of his scent."
Logan nods and looks over at Alex and Lorna.
LOGAN: "Come on, kiddies. We're going on a road trip."