Monet St. Croix touched down on the Xavier Institute lawn in the early morning, a few days after Jubilee's visit. Madrox had offered her a ride from the X-Factor Investigations office but M had wanted some time alone with her thoughts and had, thus, opted to simply fly there herself. The brief time she'd been with XFI had been hectic as a result of M-Day, even with Madrox's duplicates. Even so, he'd offered her some time away to check in on her old teammates after hearing about Jono and the institute.
M sensed Emma's mind the second her feet touched the floor, though she was doing an admirable job keeping her thoughts locked away from the students. M marched straight for Emma's office, where her former headmistress was, indeed, waiting for her. Neither said a word as M entered; not that they needed to. The two had rarely, if ever, seen each other since Sean's funeral, making their reunion under not dissimilar circumstances an awkward one.
Emma and Monet had probably been the two with the rockiest relationship in the entire team, even with the love triangle between M, Ev and Jubilee and all the drama between Jono and Paige towards the end. M looked around the office, searching for an ice-breaker.
A part of her hoped to find a picture of the team, or perhaps of Emma's newer Hellions team, but she was strangely disappointed to find that no such thing existed on any of the walls. There were pictures facing away from her on the desk; one of those most likely contained at least one of Emma's teams. With nothing she could use on display, M just said the first thing that popped in her head.
"I half expected you to plaster the walls in a thin layer of frost." It was a terrible joke; M knew that, but it did seem to fulfil its intended purpose.
"I'm not a literal ice queen, Monet," Emma quipped back without turning to face her.
"What about the time you swapped bodies with-?"
"You must be desperate to be dragging that old memory up, Monet, Dear." Evidently, her time in Iceman's body was not a moment Emma particularly enjoyed revisiting; not unless she was rubbing her greater control of Bobby's powers in his face, anyway. Still, she seemed to have opened up a little from the banter. Just like old times, M supposed.
"I heard Jubilee was here earlier."
"Sad to have missed her?" Emma asked with a smirk as she turned to face M for the first time. It was difficult to pin down the intent behind those curved lips. Was she mocking M? At a time like this? No. Emma was a lot of things: condescending, self-righteous, indignant, even blunt with her opinions... but given the context surrounding her visit, M found it hard to believe Emma could be so tactless, even with the stress she was clearly enduring. M had always admired that tenacity in Emma, though she would never admit to such out loud.
No, Emma was actually being completely and totally sincere with her seemingly mocking question. And in all honesty, yes, M would have liked to have seen Jubilee again. She had no idea what she would say or do. Catch up? Console her, perhaps? It didn't matter either way, though, seeing how she wasn't there. But Emma was.
"I didn't come here to see her," M replied, attempting to maintain her air of detachment, though she was sure Emma could see right through it, even without using her powers. That was another thing M admired: Emma's natural ability to read people. It was a particularly useful skill for a teacher and former villainess to possess.
"No, I suppose you didn't. It's Paige, isn't it?" M nodded slowly as Emma indicated towards a seat as she took her own seat behind the desk. Emma picked up on M's faint quizzical expression and chose to elaborate. "Given how our group's number has... diminished... you could only be here to see Paige. You don't need to come for my permission to visit Jonothon in the hospital, Jubilee isn't here and you've no reason to see me other than obligation."
"Very astute," M replied simply.
"Indeed," Emma responded, seemingly quite pleased with herself. "How are the twins?"
"They're fine, thanks for asking." Emma could most likely tell that M was intentionally keeping the status of her sisters' powers to herself. She was thankful that Emma seemed to respect her privacy for once and changed the subject.
"I trust you'll be stopping by to see Jonothon before you head back to Detroit."
"Naturally. But Paige comes first; I can do more for her than I can for Jono..."
Emma, perhaps uncharacteristically, reached across her desk and placed a hand on M's. "You'd be surprised what good just being there can do." It seemed that Emma's natural maternal instincts were briefly overpowering her desire to maintain her own detached façade. It creeped M out. But even so, she appreciated Emma's words. She placed her own hand over Emma's, hoping to offer similar encouragement but no words came to her. Emma patted M's hand with her own and pulled back.
"Now, if you don't mind, I've got work to do," she said standing from her seat and turning towards the window again. Despite her best efforts, M was able to catch a glimpse of Emma's faint smile. Neither would ever admit it, but their meeting had done both of them a world of good.
From what M had been told during a brief run-in with Dr. McCoy, Paige had been one of the unfortunate staff members tasked with contacting the parents of the few hundred students to explain what little they knew about Decimation and how their children had been affected. For those more grievously affected, it had fallen to Emma.
It occurred to M, as she wondered if Emma had contact Jono's parents in England, that she really knew nothing of Jono's personal life aside from how his powers had affected him and his then-girlfriend. Looking back, M and Jono had probably had the least of a relationship of the entire team; M and Jubilee had never gotten on, but it was something. M respected Jono's natural leadership skills and his ability to pull through when it really counted. But that was probably as far as it went: mutual respect. A part of her regretted not getting to know him better back in Massachusetts, but regret would get her nowhere. Right now, it was Paige that mattered most.
She quickly found Paige's room, its door wide open. She peered inside to find the blonde sat on her bed, legs crossed and surrounded by books - a sight not unfamiliar to any who had lived with Paige for an extended period of time. From the titles M could glimpse from her position, Paige was evidently researching various phenomena in hopes of figuring out what had happened on M-Day. She had done much the same at the height of the Legacy Virus fright as well, M recalled. M knocked on the door to get the blonde's attention.
As Paige looked up from her book with bags under her eyes, her expression brightened considerably as she recognised the Monaco-raised woman in her doorway.
"M!" she cried, suddenly bursting with energy as she bounced off her bed and rushed over to take her former teammate up in a tight hug.
"H-Hello, Paige," M choked out with a feeble pat on her friend's head, thankful that Paige wasn't currently husked into a stronger material.
"Why are you here?" Paige asked as she relinquished her grip and pulled away.
"I wanted to check up on everyone," M replied.
Paige looked away sadly. "Not many of us left, huh?" she asked, obviously referring to the deaths of Sean, Everett and Angelo.
M placed a hand on Paige's shoulder. "I'll be visiting Jono in the hospital later. I was hoping you might be willing to accompany me."
Paige looked back up at M and slowly nodded. She was evidently quite uncomfortable with the proposition. Whether this was more because of the now vacant crater where Jono's chest used to be, or the fact that the two's relationship had never truly recovered after the big falling out back in the day, M couldn't quite tell.
M squeezed Paige's shoulder reassuringly. She had never been great at empathising with others; nor at comforting them, for that matter. Her time as Penance had only made that worse. But spending time in various X-teams had helped her learn to better cope with people, and Paige was probably the Generation-X member she most considered a friend. She gingerly wrapped her other arm around Paige's shoulders and pulled her in close for a tender hug.
Paige's body became limp and relaxed in her arms and M started to wonder if Paige had actually fallen asleep - she did look exhausted, after all. M didn't mind though; they were family, and no mass depowering or altered reality would ever change that.
The two had plenty of time to catch up on the cab ride to the hospital. Since M hadn't brought a car and Paige was too distracted by the myriad of problems she was faced with, M felt it best to get external help to make the trip. The cab driver didn't pay their conversation any attention, which M assumed was Emma's doing.
"How is your family holding up?" M asked Paige, the second eldest of ten Guthrie children.
"A little shaken up by this whole depowering thing," Paige replied openly with her natural Kentucky accent. Her days of trying to hide it were long behind her. "Sam and Jay still have their powers. Sam's part of Nightcrawler and Bishop's team and Jay's still at the school. Melody and Jeb lost their powers, so they're back home on the farm. Emma said she'd keep an eye on 'em for me while Sam and I are up here."
Paige always was more trusting of Emma than Monet, in spite of the White Queen's antagonistic nature towards Sam when he was with the original New Mutants.
"How are the twins?" Paige asked.
"They're fine, back home," M replied. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather keep their powered/depowered status in the family."
"Uh, sure," Paige replied uneasily, seemingly a little let down.
"I can assure you that they are fine, Paige," M added, hoping to reassure her friend. After all, the twins were the first version of 'Monet' Paige had met. Now that she thought about it, M was fairly sure her teammates hadn't heard from the twins since she had removed them from the school. "But enough about that. How are you holding up?"
"Me? W-Well, Ah..." It seemed she was about to lie and say everything was okay, but her eyes meeting M's seemed to dissuade her and she started to tear up. "Ah had t' call a bunch a' the parents an' tell 'em that their kids weren't mutants any more 'n' the hate - oh, God, the hate, M-"
Once more, M pulled Paige in for a hug, gently rocking her friend as she let it all out.
"Ah just feel so... powerless, Monet," Paige muttered through her tears.
"That's the irony of it all, Paige. For all our vast powers and proclamations of being 'the next step in human evolution', we still have no greater power or understanding of the universe than baseline humans."
By the time they arrived at the hospital, Monet had managed to calm Paige down, though she suspected another bout of comforting would be required once they reached Jono's room. It seemed that Paige hadn't seen Jono yet, thanks to both her increased workload and her own inability to face him, since she knew exactly what to expect.
Upon reaching Jono's room, Monet offered to enter first and help Paige brace for it, but she respectfully declined the offer. She was determined to face this challenge herself, which M respected greatly. M opened the door and the two friends stepped inside.