Chapter 1
The mission had gone terribly wrong.
The nine of them stumbled through the door, Megan falling to the ground unconscious as her teleportation spell faded; Nori, supporting Julian as the boy coughed up blood from over-exertion; Cessily, Santo, and Victor all dragging themselves along, Josh trying to heal them with almost no energy left; Sooraya turning back to human form and falling on her knees, pulling a knocked-out Laura on her lap, the taller girl covered in bullet holes, blood and sweat dampening her hair.
Someone screamed.
They were taken into the infirmary; Scott gave up attempting to place them in separate rooms after Nori threatened to take his head off, and all nine of them were placed in the urgent ward, Laura’s bullet-holes refusing to close and Sooraya and Cessily both struggling to remain fully human.
-
It was three hours after the children returned that Hank recalled the date- five years to the day of the death of Brian Cruz. It was no wonder they had been so reckless.
-
Julian snuck out of his bed- and around the limbs of his teammates, asleep around him- and stole Emma’s best wine from the fridge, going to sit on Brian’s grave, the wind moving the bandages around Julian’s head.
“Hi, Bri,” he muttered as he sat down. “We all miss you. Cess says hi.”
-
Noriko Ashida woke up screaming, the only thing stopping her from running full force across the continent being Josh’s arm around her waist. His grip tightened as he opened his eyes, pupils dilating as he adjusted to the darkness around them.
“Nor? Nori?” he whispered, sitting up and pulling her into a hug without hesitation.
It took her five seconds to break. Five seconds to start sobbing.
“I was- I was supposed to help them! I’m the leader, I-” she hiccuped, and she was not supposed to show emotion, she was supposed to protect him, Josh, Josh and Laurie and Sofia and David-
Sofia is MIA, Laurie is dead, Laurie is dead-
Josh rubbed circles into her back, muttering empty words. “We’re safe. We’re safe. We’re all here, except for Sooraya, she’s in the other room, David is off-world with Tommy. Look at me. Count heads.”
She does. Victor, Santo, Josh, herself, Cess, Sooraya-in-the-other-room, Laura spooning Cess (probably had gone to bed with Sooraya and grabbed Cess after a nightmare), Megan curled around Victor, her wings over the side of the three cots they had pushed together, Julian-
Julian was missing.
Josh noticed as soon as she did and grabbed her hands. “He’s probably visiting Brian. Look at me. Let’s go get him, okay? Deep breaths.”
She wanted to curse him out, for treating her so softly, but- but tonight was not a good night, was it, and she needed him there. Her idiotic healer, the only one of them that knew she liked poetry, the only New Mutant left standing besides David (Laurie, Sofia, Jay, Laurie, Sofia, Jay); she needed him right now.
Nori pulled herself up and parkoured over the others, stumbling as the injuries along her legs came back with a vengeance. She cursed and kept walking.
The graveyard was freezing cold, her gauntlets even colder against her arms as she crossed them, but there was Julian, chugging expensive wine and trying to act like he wasn’t sobbing.
None of them deserved this. None of them deserved this.
Josh walked over and Julian crumpled in his arms, Nori joining them after a few seconds.
They dragged him back inside, the three of them curling around each other as the others shifted in their sleep, Laura moving over and wrapping an arm tightly around Nori’s chest.
-
Orientation for the newest class of Xavier’s was running full swing, and Scott couldn’t be happier with the results. The newest children (new mutants! After M-Day! A miracle!) ad settled in without complaint, already making friends and laughing.
The New X-men had all checked out of the infirmary that morning, and he noted with pride how well they held themselves up, though he worriedly checked each of them thoroughly.
The nine of them walked into the auditorium, the younger kids watching them with wonder. They were tight-knit, those children, Nori and Julian holding hands and Cessily wrapped around Laura, Sooraya and Laura holding hands while Vic sat on Santo’s shoulder, sticking his tongue out at Josh. They noticed the stares and their moods became suddenly serious, packing even closer together, Nori muttering something as they all sat down on the ground.
After the finishing remarks, several of the new kids went up to them; one yelled “Hellion!” and Julian full-body flinched, shrinking into Santo. Laura glared at the offending kid and Sooraya took her hand, waving an apology at the new student.
They had a lot to learn.
-
The first night with the new children, the Stepford triplets spend the night in Emma and Scott’s room, Scott not even questioning his lover holding her girls tight instead of him.
Midway through the night, Julian crashed in, Phoebe holding onto him until Laura stumbled into the room, taking him by the hand and talking him down from the panic he
worked himself into.
-
The second night, Laura ran into the main hall and hid herself in the rafters. Several of the students awoke to Sooraya trying to dust herself up to her girlfriend, Megan eventually floating her up.
The two of them fell asleep there, and no one bothered to question it.
-
The New X-men shared every class.
No one bothered to question it.
The new kids were scared of them, scared of their terrifying battle prowness and the way the clone looked at them- sadly, carefully, testing each and every one of them for threats to her family.
-
They all go to therapy. They all walk in together and they all leave together and their therapists are polite and quite frankly horrified, quite frankly terrified, quite frankly whispering to each other without breaking confidentiality.
-
Laura’s therapist isn’t able to respond the first time she manages to get something- anything- out of the girl. Julian Keller, from next door, through some sort of sibling sense, runs in and holds onto her while making quiet apologies to the therapist.
(She notes down that, during a panic, Laura never responds to her name on the first try. Julian calls her Twenty Three to make her snap out of it, his face pale and the words spat like a curse.
Children with numbers for names. The world was cruel.)
-
Therapy is hard.
Cessily can’t talk about Brian without sobbing, can’t explain Kevin without giving herself a panic attack. Can’t do much of anything without someone holding her hand. She feels weak every time, but whoever it is always denies it, calls her strong and kind and brave, and brave, and brave.
-
Julian’s therapist is patient, waits for his angry, spiky shell to crack, asks him about his friends (his face always lights up- he’s so proud to know them, so proud to love and be loved by them, to tell his therapist about Sooraya’s newest music and Santo’s latest joke), waits until the day he finally explains what happened on the schoolbus his best friend was meant to go home on.
He starts crying halfway through, wiping the tears away angrily, mutters something about his mother (blond, apparently, a teacher, fake british accent), but the session ends more productive than any beforehand.
-
Sooraya’s therapist is a very nice woman. She listens to Sooraya’s troubles, asks her every time about her girlfriends, makes sure Sooraya is remembering to eat and sleep.
Sooraya tells her about her mother after five sessions. Sooraya tells her about watching her girlfriends crumble in front of the monsters that raised one of them; Sooraya tells her of sitting by Julian’s hospital bed as his hand-burns slowly healed, praying all the while.
When she leaves, the woman cries.
-
Nori flat-out refuses to speak for two sessions.
By the third, she mutters something about being too old for it.
By the seventh, her therapist gets her to admit she still misses her parents.
By the ninth, Santo comes in and keeps a rocky arm around her while she explains- monotone, weary- the basics of her trauma.
The therapist is stunned; Santo doesn’t even flinch.
-
It’s hard. It’s hard. They’re children. They’re still children.
They work through it together.