Disclaimer: The world and some of the minor characters belong to Marvel Comics and are being used for non-profit entertainment only. All other characters and the story belong to me. The song lyrics scattered through this story belong to Counting Crows and come from their first CD, August and Everything After.

Note: The only character I can really do this with is Melissa Burgross from "When the Walls Fall Down", "The Course of Time", and the alternate reality story "The Only Thing I Have Left." For this story I have to take Melissa out from her world and put her into yet another alternate reality just for the purpose of killing her. Sorry Melissa.

Note 2: I'm not really sure about the timeline on this. I guess I'd put it about four years after the disbandment of Excalibur...maybe more. I'm not sure.

Melissa Burgross shook the sleep from her hair, glancing around the room, her eyes two, great disks of bright, dark green dancing around the pre-dawn shadows on the wall. It was a normal day, beginning like any other, destined to end like any other, in peaceful sleep.

"M'lissa!" the voice rung through her ears, a dull ringing that played itself over and over again in a continuous loop. This happened every morning.

A short, petite girl opened the door to Melissa's room and stood there, leaning stolidly on the doorframe. The girl had long, curly blond hair that was tied back in a ponytail and her blue eyes skated the room, boredom written on every glance.

"No need to shout, Drew. I'm up," Melissa mumbled as she threw the covers off and swung her legs down to brush against the cold floor.

The girl at the door shrugged, rolled her eyes, and said, "Whatever, M'lissa, whatever."

"Don't believe me?"

"Give me a reason to," Drew quipped and turned away from the door.

A cruel smile passed over Melissa's face as she grabbed one of the overstuffed pillows from her bed and threw it in Drew's direction. The blond whirled around at the last instant and deflected the pillow with a ninja kick, sending it reeling to the other side of the room.

"Hmmm?" Melissa noted as she watched the pillow roll across the room. "Can you teach me that?"

"Not even," Drew laughed as she walked out of Melissa's room and down the hall.

~Believe in me because I don't believe in anything~

~and I want to be someone to believe~

Juliet Bryson was in the kitchen practicing her telekinesis on the moldy English Muffins when Melissa walked in. Of all the young mutants that had been gathered by First Superior Wisdom, Juliet was the only one who seemed...distant, like she wasn't even there.

"Hello Jules," Melissa greeted the girl warmly.

The tall, dark skinned, black haired girl turned slowly around in her chair, letting the English Muffin settle slowly back on the table. She folded her hands in front of her for a minute as she sized Melissa up. "Melissa, if you must force nicknames upon people at least make sure that don't sound like something a six year old would come up with," she commented and then started to work on the muffin again.

"I'll take that to heart, Juliet," Melissa mumbled as she pulled a couple glasses from the cabinet.

~We all want to be big stars, but we don't know why~

~and we don't know how~

~But when everybody loves me, I'm going to be just~

~about as happy as can be. ~

Melissa looked towards the stairs inquisitively as she felt the stirring of someone's mind. Seconds later the loud thumping of Evan Charles Stansh's footsteps graced the stairs.

*Tsk, tsk, Evan. Be quieter. You'll wake the Superiors,* Melissa whispered into his mind.

Evan's dark eyes scanned the room as he walked towards her. The light continuously played over his eyes, his unblinking eyes, reminding Melissa over and over again that he was blind, and that it was her fault. One of his hands brushed through his hair, sliding through the greasy auburn strands with a fierce determination.

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Evan, Melissa thought as she watched him, his movements stiff, his eyes steadily faced forward, as he shuffled towards her.

"Don't be sorry," he told her as his pale hand touched her face.

~You leaving me alone?~

~All alone?~

Juliet sighed rather loudly and got up from the table, the moldy English Muffin following closely behind her. One of her greatest problems was with the closeness of Evan and Melissa. When he had first arrived at the school, Juliet had imagined herself getting together with the fair skinned, highly attractive young man.

Melissa Burgross had come to the school in a flurry of disaster and intrigue, a world of life and death. The self-same world that had stolen Evan's eyesight and graced him with the scars over his beautiful face.

Juliet remembered the moment that took his eyes. The instant when the Sentinel's arm reached for Melissa, started to wrap around her body to take her far away. When Juliet was smiling slightly as she saw her rival being carried away.

But Evan was a hero, born and raised, weaned on the death defying stunts of the Avengers and the X-Men, the superheros he had watched on television. In that minute he must have felt something inside him, some kind of urge to go against Second Superior Pryde's instructions and race into the fray...to save Melissa.

The battleground had exploded with light. Juliet could hear Melissa's psychic screams and had tried her hardest to block them out, get them away from her head. The Sentinel had reached down, its arm colliding with Evan, its sharp nails connecting with his face. And Juliet couldn't hear anything over the orders of Second Superior Pryde but she knew that Evan's gorgeous eyes had already paid the price.

She hated Melissa for that, for every bit of pain that she had caused beautiful, kind Evan.

It was possible that she hated Drew even more. Drew, the prodigal savior, the healer, the one with the magic touch. For everything First Superior Wisdom said about Drew and her power, in the end, it failed. For not even Drew's hands could heal the scars, could fix the eyes. It was as much the healers fault as it was Melissa's.

Juliet cast one last look at Evan and Melissa before turning and making her way out of the room. She doesn't deserve him, she thought as she walked up the stairs. Why is he with her? Why? It's her fault. I love him. I love him.

~This circus is falling on its knees~

~The big top is crumbling down~

Second Superior Pryde sat in the hall security station, watching the students in their various activities. Juliet had made her way into her room and was telekinetically playing her electronic keyboard, Evan and Melissa were talking in the kitchen, Drew had wandered off and couldn't be located by the cameras, and Christina, Lawrence, and Eric were down in the rec. room watching something on the television.

"`Ow's it goin'?" a rough voice asked as the poignant, harsh smell of cigarette smoke filled the room.

Second Superior Pryde turned and faced the man standing in the doorway. "Better than I would have expected, First Superior Wisdom," she noted, her voice flat, dead.

The man shrugged further into his trenchcoat, trying to get away from the ice in his partner's voice. Things hadn't been the same between them since Adam Sult had been killed on Pryde's watch. The poor fellows death couldn't be blamed on her but the weight of it was crushing her.

"Kiity," he drawled slowly, keeping his gaze solidly on her.

The woman drew in a breath and faced the televisions again. "Don't call me that. I'm not Kitty anymore. Either call me Second Superior Pryde or call me Katherine. Nothing else, Pete. Nothing else."

First Superior Wisdom dragged his good hand through the thick crop of black hair that had started to turn gray and was, little by little, falling out. Then he flicked his cigarette into the ashtray and walked away, letting no words of acknowledge grace his tongue.

As she sat down in the swivel desk chair, Second Superior Prdye's shoulders slumped down in defeat. She always tried to be strong in front of him, wanting him to only see the tough as nails side of her that had existed when they started this school. But with each night, with each new nightmare, she felt the need to cry long and hard and never, ever stop.

~I'm gonna set fire to this city~

~And out into the desert~

~We're gonna ride.~

Eric Duritz sat in the overstuffed chair in the rec. room, his dark brown eyes shifting from the television to the security camera. One of his fingers tapped against the dark brown skin of his cheek as his eyes swept the room. After entertaining a sigh, he ran a hand over his eyes and played with his dreadlocks, swishing them back and forth. His concentration was broken only when he heard a small, muffled giggle.

Christina James looked up at him, a smile covering her pitch face as she averted her gaze from the television. The light sparkled over her eyes, making them glow and even brighter shade of purple as she spoke in her voice, which was so soft and so pained. "Sorry to laugh, Eric, but you just looked so..."

"Funny," Lawrence Welch piped in, gazing over at his girlfriend with eyes so green, so pale that they caused most people to stop and stare.

"Lawrence, don't tease," Christina muttered, hitting him with the flat of her hand so as not to hurt him.

Eric laughed, a full-bodied laugh that sounded as if it could shake the building to its foundation. "Don't worry, Chrissy," he told her, a smile working his lips, "I don't mind your boyfriend teasing me a little. Want to know why?"

Christina just smiled and nodded emphatically.

"It's `cause I can whip his Irish ass any time I want to," the older mutant admitted, nodding, letting his dreadlocks swing around his head.

"Ye thin' ye're so bad," Lawrence muttered under his breath as he listened to his girlfriend's peels of laughter and caught Eric's smug grin out of the corner of his eye. "Ye thin' ye're so bad."

~I wanted so badly~

~Somebody other than me~

~Staring back at me.~

Drew stared out over the edge of the roof, her toes curled around the gutter. It was very liberating to be out here in the open, away from everything and everyone inside the house. They expected so much from her. They tested her, added up the stats, and saw what she should be capable of doing. That was what they expected of her. What she could do right now wasn't good enough. They wanted her to be at her limits edge, to be completely in control. They wanted too much.

The sky blue orbs that just happened to be her eyes melted away in the soft blond curls that cascaded over her face. She had thought of leaping from the roof before, of diving into the lush arms of the greenery below. Once she had nearly done it, she had almost stepped off the edge into the horizon colored oblivion. Only one thing stopped her and it was a single question that skated around her mind like somebody in a roller derby.

Could she even die?

As her toes had hung over the side, dangling in the nothingness, the legends had come rushing back at her. All the stories that Second Superior Pryde had told them about the X-Man, Wolverine, had flooded into her mind. He was blessed with a healing factor, which was close to her power, and he had lived for so long, was still alive.

After letting her toes hang over the nothingness for a minute, Drew stepped back from the ledge and sat down the rooftop. For now she would be content to simply sit in silence, to be alone with no one talking to her or yelling at her. All she wanted was a few minutes to be herself, a half-hour to be free, before she put the chains back on and submitted to there will.

It wasn't much to ask.

~But it's not all that easy so maybe I should~

~Snap her up in a butterfly net~

~Pin her down to a photograph album~

Evan sat at the kitchen table his hand playing with the salt shaker...or the peppershaker. He wasn't sure which one he had and he wasn't about to ask Melissa.

Melissa. She was sitting across from him, watching him, and, no doubt, biting her lip in worry and guilt. He could imagine her wrapping strands of hair around her fingers, her green eyes bright and focused yet slipping away into the past. Even if he couldn't see her, he knew how beautiful she looked.

"I don't blame you," he proclaimed, his voice cutting through the thick silence.

"You don't have to," she muttered back and his ears caught the shift in her voice and the catch in her breathing. If anything more was said, she might begin to cry.

Evan nodded his head simply, twisting it this way and that, listening, smelling the air. In some ways, the loss of his eyes had been a gift, a blessing because of the enhancement it had given his other senses. Most of the time, however, it was a curse, depriving him of the sense he had needed the most, had loved the most. His blindness was a double-edged sword.

Just like his mutant power.

When most boys were outside playing in the summer's air, Evan had been inside, looking at everything, touching books, brushing his fingertips over their words, recording. The doctors all said it was just some kind of advanced photographic memory when his mother first took him in. He remembered her eyes, so open, so clear, and so...scared.

But when Evan started memorizing whole books, being able to repeat poems line for line, just by touching them, the doctors changed their tune. Now he was a mutant. Now he had to be confined and tested and catalogued. Saddest thing was, his mother had let them.

So fearful of being a single mother, of raising a mutant son, was she that she abandoned him to the doctors and the machines. Evan had lived in a cage for years. So many years that even his perfect memory denied the existence of any other life.

The back wall of his cage blew in when he was sixteen. At first he thought that it was some kind of test, like the ones where the doctors put him in front of the television and then asked him to repeat the exact moves the Avengers had used to fight Doctor Doom. But when he saw the man in the flapping trenchcoat and the woman with short cut brown hair, he knew. He knew that he was going to be free.

"Evan?" Melissa's voice cut through the haze of memories that had surrounded him.

He shook his head trying to free himself from the bottomless pit that was his mind. "Sorry, Melissa. I just drifted away."

"S'okay," she managed to get out before she fled the room, her sobs making their way into Evan's mind, imprinting themselves into his flawless memory.

~She says: "It's only in my head."~

~She says: "Shhh...I know it's only in my head."~

Second Superior Pryde couldn't keep the images of Adam's death from playing endlessly before her eyes. Everywhere she turned she could see the pleading, helpless eyes of the young Asian boy. His screams echoing in her ears as the Sentinels pulled him from her grasp, tearing his body from her intangible state leaving her stunned wondering how.

How didn't matter now. It shouldn't have mattered then. But it did. How caused her to hesitate. How was the reason that Adam died, crucified on the "X" outside of the school like a modern day Jesus Christ dying for their sins, for her sins.

"And I'm Jewish," she exclaimed into the air. "I don't believe in all that."

~Past the shadows that fall down wherever we meet~

~Pretty soon I won't come around.~

Tears streaked down her cheeks, falling in large puddles on the cotton pillowcase. Melissa couldn't hold them back any longer. She had to release her pain, her guilt. Her parents' death, the destruction of her small hometown by the Sentinels, and Evan's blindness, it had all happened because of her.

No, not because of her. It was because of her power. The power that had blossomed out of her head years ago and let her see the world the way it was meant to be seen, no bigotry, no prejudice, no hate. Everyone's mind linked to a blissful collective, working together towards peace with Melissa as the hive's hub.

"I don't want to be anyone's damn hub," she cried into her pillow. "I just want to be normal. I want my parents back. I'd trade it any day, at any time, if I could just give Evan his eyes back."

The voices were at the back of her mind, they were always there, talking quietly, planning. Today they sounded like Eric and Lawrence talking as Christina laughed in the background. Other days they resembled the dialogue between the First and Second Superiors. And sometimes the voices were just the gentle back hum of the world.

She couldn't focus the voices; she couldn't pick who she wanted to hear. First Superior Wisdom kept promising her that one of his ex-teammate's was going to send someone in to teach her how to use her mental powers. The person never came. Melissa would have known the instant her steps crossed the threshold. No one was going to come.

No one cared.

Sometimes, Melissa thought that the mutants hidden in the Superior School of Forgotten Ways were the last mutants on the face of the earth. And she wasn't sure if that would be such a bad thing.

~All you life is such a shame~

~All your love is just a dream~

~Open up your eyes~

Juliet sat in her desk chair, gazing out the window into the nothingness that was the outside world. The glass between her and the swaying branches of the tree was more than just a pane of glass, it was a metaphor for her life.

Ever since her telekinetic powers flared up when she was six, Juliet's mother had kept her hidden behind locked doors and windowless rooms. When the Sentinels, or the Prelates, or the Flatscans got within six states, they moved again. And, for a while, Juliet got to see the sky, got to smile at the sun. At the end of the journey, no matter what happened or how well things went, she was always put back into a sealed box.

She could remember her mother's voice, sweet, pure, and too clear as she said, "It's for your own good, Juliet. You are my only daughter. I do not wish to lose you."

As the years ticked by and Juliet became eight, then ten, then twelve, the walls of her box seemed to get closer, tighter. The journeys seemed to get closer together, more frequent, like she was being tracked. And Mother finally stopped saying, "It's for your own good," and started saying, "Don't die." It had scared Juliet to hear her mother tell her, "Don't die," in a voice so defeated, so crushed that it didn't seem to even care anymore.

The one memory in Juliet's mind that stood out like a flame in the darkness was the day of her salvation. Mother had fled the house, fled from her mutant daughter, leaving the door to the box open, setting her free. Juliet could remember standing the open door just looking out at the sun and the flowers enjoying the sight, the beautiful sight.

There was the harsh clacking of metal, the light of the sun was blacked out, and a huge shadow fell across the ground. Juliet couldn't think of anything to do as the giant Sentinel ripped the roof off her house and stood there, towering above her, its blank eyes looking down into her face.

Then the Sentinel was falling, sparks shooting from its eyes and its mouth and Juliet was screaming as the metal fell around her feet. But a strong hand held her right where she was and the debris passed right through her and onto the floor. And her tears were mixing with the dust and she couldn't stop screaming but the calming voice next to her ear wouldn't go away, it wouldn't leave her.

Juliet recalled looking into the warmest, gentlest, brown eyes she had ever seen. They gave her the will to stop screaming. Then the woman took her hand and phased her away from the house, from her box, and Juliet was free.

First Superior Wisdom and Second Superior Pryde hadn't even started their school when they rescued her. The first place they took her was called Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters and was located in Massachusetts. That place reminded Juliet of her box and she was constantly on the phone pleading with Kitty to come and take her away.

So, on Juliet's fourteenth birthday, the Superior School of Forgotten Ways was opened and she became their first student.

It didn't take long for First Superior Wisdom to find Eric and bring him to the school. Eric and Juliet had never hit it off, their personalities just clashed and made dealing with each other unbearable most of the time. Eric could be loud, funny and laughing one moment, and then threaten to rip your throat off the next. The mood changes were always so swift and sudden that one minute he'd be smiling at Juliet and the next he looked as through he was going to attack her. He unnerved her and Juliet didn't like her feathers ruffled.

The Second Superior brought Adam to the school. Ten-year-old Adam had become instantly attached to Juliet, following her around like a puppy, eyes wide as he asked her questions a little brother would. Juliet had never had any family, never had a younger sibling longed for her attention, craved her presence. It was nice. Juliet had liked the young pyrokinetic boy, even if he was given to set her stuffed animals on flame.

Two months after Adam's arrival, the Superiors brought Evan to the house. Evan. The wonderful boy with the laughing eyes and the mutant photographic/touch memory. The one who had been raised in cages all his life, just like her. The hurt one, the scarred one. The sixteen year old. Juliet couldn't have fallen for him any more than she did that day.

Juliet sighed and shifted, her eyes scanning over the pictures on her desk. There was the one of her with the Superiors at the opening of the school. Second Superior Pryde was smiling. She never seemed to smile any more not after...The picture of Adam sitting on her lap was next on the desk. If she tried, she could remember that day, remember how light and weightless, Adam seemed as he sat on her lap, his long arms wrapped around her neck.

Adam. After his death in the incident a few scant months ago, the whole school seemed to change. Drew pulled into herself, farther and farther from everyone else, as though she felt the blame no one laid upon her thin shoulders. Evan took it in much the same way as he took everything, he had escaped up into his room to think and ponder. Melissa had cried and cried for days on end. Christina destroyed her room in a blind panic and then moved on to the rec. room, where she was stopped by Lawrence who held her in his arms until she cried. Eric simply lit a candle and said a short incantation over it, then his mourning was done.

Juliet hadn't been sure how to take the loss of Adam. Adam, the boy who had become the little brother she had never had, never really wanted before. He had been twelve and she just turned sweet sixteen. But to stand there, powerless and watch as they killed him, crucified him on that X, it was too much. Juliet had shut Adam out, she had forgotten him. The tears found their way down her cheeks. It had been years since she cried.

"I'm sorry, Adam," Juliet whispered and dropped her head down to let the tears slip off her chin. Her eyes traveled over to the picture of the boy on her lap. Adam, she missed Adam. She wished he was still here. She wanted to hug him and say goodbye properly. Then her soundless tears turned into wrenching sobs.

~I'm almost drowning in her sea~

~She's nearly crawling on her knees.~

Eric's eyes tracked across the room as the wave of emotion hit him. Christina was fine, sitting quietly in front of the television, her mind adrift in her own fantasy world. Lawrence was slightly peeved about their disagreement earlier but that was just his way. No, these emotions were coming from somewhere else.

Once, when he had first come to the school, Eric had allowed the other emotions in his head to take him over because he didn't want to have to try and sort his feelings out of the tangled web in his heart, his mind. In those early days, he had suffered mood swings that could take him from the brink of desperation to the throes of rage. It had scared his father, his mother, his siblings, so they called their old friend Pete Wisdom, who had quickly snatched the boy up. Eric could still remember the look in Juliet's eyes the first time his mood changed, pure fear.

He got up from the couch and walked over to the stairs, stepping over Christina as he went. As he passed, he patted her on the head and whispered into her mind, "Sorry, Chrissy, but someone just paged."

The large purple eyes looked up at him, sweet innocence in their depths. "S'okay," she told him and focused on the televisions again.

With a sigh, Eric climbed the stairs, shutting down his telepathic link to Christina before anyone noticed. The Superiors didn't know he could do that. He didn't want them to. He had a hard enough time dealing with their empathic training, going through telepathic might kill him.

Evan was sitting in the kitchen, his back to Eric as he stirred a spoon around in a cup of time. "Hey buddy," Eric called to him.

The sightless eyes turned to look at him, the face bearing a smile. "Hello Eric."

"Made a fool of yourself with Melissa again, huh?"

Evan's smile grew wider, then sagged into a frown as he asked, "How'd you know?"

"I'm an empath. You'd think with a memory like yours..."

"...that I could remember that. Right. So, what are you doing out of the rec. room?"

The black twenty-year-old paused for a moment in his journey as he said, "The beeper went off."

The blank face of his eighteen-year-old friend, crisscrossed with scars, nodded slightly. "It's not me, Eric."

"Knew that, friend. Knew that." With that Eric turned away and started walking up the stairs, still searching for the person under the great haze of emotional distress.

~I walk in the air between the rain,~

~through myself and back again.~

It had been hours since she climbed the steps and crawled out the window to sit on the slanted roof of the school. The seconds had turned into minutes, which flew into hours, and Drew still hadn't found a reason for this, for her life, for her pain. She needed more time.

She needed lots more time if she was ever going to get this all figured out, get everything right.

The wind had changed to a cold bite sometime ago but it didn't bother her, or make her feet or hands cold. Drew hadn't felt pain in years. As soon as the wind touched her, then her power kicked in and healed her. Just like that. Fast as the beat of a hummingbird's heart.

Drew's sky blue eyes scanned over the horizon as a strange sound echoed in her hypersensitive ears. The sound was familiar. A deep, throbbing, mechanical sound that was so low it hurt, so high it was almost imperceptible. It was the sound of Sentinels.

Sure enough, a few seconds later the large purple heads towered over the tops of the green trees, blasting garishly against the blue of the sky. But panic did not touch her and neither did fear. The only thing Drew was aware of was the fact that last time the Sentinels had showed up, Adam had died and she had been blamed for not being able to save him.

Things were not going down like that this time. No way in hell.

"Melissa!" Drew yelled through the mental plain, hoping the girl would pick up on her thoughts. "Trouble. Sentinels."

To be continued...