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Good morning children.

Next week I will be dedicating my class time to a crash course in psychic self-defense, to take place in the conservatory or in the dance studio depending on time. I expect all students to attend. The course will cover psychic awareness in the first session, focus and fortification in the second, and displacement and obfuscation in the third. All sessions will begin and end with lessons in meditative technique.

Please sign up on the boards outside my office with your first and second choices for each of the three sessions. Sign up in groups, by all means, but I will be trying to keep class sizes as even as possible. You have until Wednesday lunchtime to sign up. I will post the session assignments on the same board on Friday.

Also on the board is a sheet where you can sign up for the extended psychic defense courses that will be added to the curriculum during summer school, and continued throughout the next academic year. I would encourage all of you to take this course, but by all means see how you fare in the crash course before making up your minds. The extended course will count towards your Personal Development requirements.

Those of you in my study groups will be trusted to the care of Alison Blaire for the duration of next week. You are of course all welcome to see me outside of school hours if you require any additional assistance. I will only be running one voluntary study clinic next week, on Wednesday evening.

Thank you; I look forward to seeing you all.

Ms Frost.

Dear John,

You left without saying goodbye! Darling, did all those months of study room mean nothing to you?

I understand you can still log in to the system and read this. I'm very glad that I still have a way to reach you. Teachers aren't meant to have favorites, but they always do, and I'm sure you know you've always been one of mine.

I was so looking forward to seeing you again after all these months, but I suppose it's a deserved slap in the face that you didn't wait around for me. Still, I never thought anyone would leave me for an older man.

Darling, what happened? Why did you feel you had to leave? Whatever you're going through, whatever you're raging against, there is someone here who can help you. The people you're with aren't your friends, and you don't want to go through this alone.

Oh, I don't think you've heard the news. After you left, Dr Grey died. She gave her life so that the others could make their escape. There will be a memorial service tomorrow here at the school. You could come along. Your friends and teachers would love more than anything to see you there.

But you're welcome back any time, John. And even if you don't want to come back, you and I can still talk. You know how to reach me. No matter what happens next, no matter what you do with those people, I will always be here for you.

Please keep well. Tell Mr Lehnsherr that if he harms a single hair on your hot little head, I will bite out his tongue.

With love,

Emma.

Charles. Dear heart. Wherever you are. Do be careful where you put that thing.

I'm keeping the limousines on hold until the streets are a little clearer. I would have booked a helicopter if I hadn't been on the balcony watching CBS's Eye In The Sky damn near parking itself into Ground Zero. Now wouldn't that have been a fine argument for mutant registration?

All that said, we are going home just as soon as we can. I don't expect a second attack. I think I have a fairly good idea what happened, and a fairly good idea that if it failed once for each species, it's unlikely to happen again.

I could feel you, Charles. I have your sticky thumbprint on my brain.

It's almost dawn. I'm writing this from the balcony of my suite, where I can see the sun taking a fearful first look at the deep, rich velvet night that it means to chase away. I wanted to be here to see this. The first light of day refreshes me. It's that moment between chill and light, that moment where you can see that disappearing whisper of dew slide across the landscape like a thin silk. The morning frost.

The children are all sleeping. I can feel their minds in the rooms behind me; I have woven myself into their dreams, to chase away the shadows and give them rest. I do it to protect them from fear, but as I'm here I can feel their little dreams, pulsing like beating hearts in my hands. Sweet children. The bogeyman won't come for you tonight.

In the morning I must send some people to the school, to prepare for the children's return. We must get them back as soon as we can, so that their lives can begin to feel normal again, for whatever value we can place on normality. I sent some workmen to board the windows and begin repairs. Hank went to the school to supervise, and he's still there now. It must be strange, being alone in the vast halls of a ghost school.

I have asked the hotel to prepare a vast breakfast in one of the function rooms. Pancakes with maple syrup, yoghurt and fresh strawberries, Canadian bacon and waffles, Danish pastries, thick, sticky malt shakes, sharp grapefruits for the older children and sweet, syrupy mandarins for the youngest; everything the hotel can provide. We will all eat together, as a school.

I've also ordered some toys to be brought in from FAO Schwartz, to keep the children distracted throughout the morning. We shall then return to the school in expensive limousines with CD players and televisions, ice cream cabinets and Coca-Cola pumps. One cannot buy the children's happiness, but one can maybe make the worries and doubts a little easier to bear.

Ah, here comes the sun. How does the song go? "It seems like years since you've been here."

Children. A lot of you are scared, a lot of you are upset, and evidently a lot of you are having trouble resting and catching up on your sleep. Please understand and be under no illusions; I will not leave your sides. I will not let anyone hurt you. I will not let you come to any further harm.

I promise you, we will find the missing students. We will bring them all home. We will find the people who took them, and we will punish them, and we shall make them understand that to bring fear to our children is to bring a terrible price upon themselves. We will ensure that they never, never lay a single finger on any of you again.

No-one attacks my school and gets away with it. Those who do not understand that will be made to understand.

Rest, children. Let me calm your racing minds. I will be watching. Everything will be fine.

Damn it. Fuck. Alison, we're... four blocks away, if that. We're coming. You'll have to... just, be ready to tell me everything, OK. I need to know everything. Has anyone heard from Charles?

We're on our way.

Damn it. Henry, I'm sorry, Betsy and I were going to surprise you and try to make it to the filming of Hard Talk, or whatever it was you were filming last, but they locked down the airport because of this damned assassination attempt. I mean, God, what do they think, that this little mutant Lee Harvey is going to be flying in to the country? But of course, we are at JFK.

Henry, the party we're going to is at the Guggenheim, and I'm told it's going ahead as planned. In fact, I understand Shaw's now planning some sort of unveiling, and if it's what we think it is, he's picking his moment well, I'll give him that.

Anyway, the world's going all to shit, so Betsy and I have decided we're drinking that damn place dry. After that, we've booked a suite at the Four Seasons, and there's room for one more. For God's sake, come and join us, I'll put you down as my plus one and we'll use the old Jedi mind trick to get Betsy in. 'This is not the fabulous blonde you're looking for'.

That's assuming I ever get out of this stupid fucking airport. We can't get to our luggage, we can't get changed, we can't freshen up beyond a lemony spritz and a spearmint goddamn Lifesaver. I could just wear a handkerchief and my knickers, but I hate to wear the same outfit twice in public.

Maybe I should just go ahead and use the mind trick to get out of here. Betsy's listening to the news reports, I'll sign off and go and find her. I probably won't dial in again until we stir tomorrow, which I don't expect will happen any time before midday.

I'm not supposed to be using my laptop in here anyway, but it's not like there are any planes in the air. It's all so stupid. They took away my nailfile, you know. I can switch your brain off, you petty piece of shit, why would I try to stab you with a nailfile?

God, if I never see another airport as long as I live...

Oh, I'm so looking forward to getting back to the school and teaching again. Young minds are so ripe. I can do Iguassu Falls in the summer; I'll be back at the school later this week, in good time for finals.

Just met with Mr Wisdom - a very brief encounter, but Charles, he sends you his best wishes, and he has a little present he wants me to pass on. Next I'm having dinner with Elisabeth, and tomorrow we'll be flying out to New York for a little party with some of New York's industrial glitterati, which promises to be most enlightening. (I was hoping young Mr Worthington would come along, since he's part of the set, but I understand he's not up for playing Playboy of the Western World this week.)

My jetset sabbatical is almost at an end, children. Get ready to welcome Auntie Emma back home!

I've just had a lovely little online chit-chat with young Kitty. I should have been getting ready to go out - I should be ready now, it's almost midnight - but I felt a sudden need to touch base.

We were chatting about Alison Blaire, who will be joining the faculty shortly to teach music. I mentioned that Alison and I first met some years ago when I'd been testing my own little mutant tracking device, which I concede was never a patch on Cerebro. As with Cerebro, the idea was to find potential students for the Academy. Unsurprisingly, Alison shone rather brightly on the psi-scape, though Alison was on her path already by that stage,

And then I remembered that my device had also once found Kitty, though it seems she never knew about it. In fact, the Academy approached her parents a good while before Charles ever got there. Of course, whatever Charles offered was clearly better than what we had, because the Prydes turned us down in no uncertain terms, yet there she is at Xavier's School.

And I realised that I'm glad. I'm actually glad to have been rejected! Kitty is such a bright girl, so full of promise. What would have happened if she had come to my school? I couldn't protect the other students; how could I have protected her? The truth is, if she had been at my school, I would have failed her. Now I'm at hers, hopefully I'll get a chance to do things right.

Damn you and your X-Project, Charles, for reminding me of what I'm missing by being away from the school. I had plans for the evening, yet I'm sitting in my hotel room... I'm in Paris for the weekend! I was going to dance until morning! I have this fabulous Ungaro dress that I...

Oh, hell, this isn't me.

This damn Ungaro dress just isn't me at all.

Current Music: The Spiral - Dazzler

I have a meeting in ten, so this will have to be quick. Henry wanted me to test the remote dial-up on the new system, so here we go. Weather here is lovely, blah blah blah. Is that OK? Is that enough? I'll speak to you later, Henry. I have news from Berlin, and you're not going to like it, but I won't say any more until I know the system's working.