My head hurt. A steady throbbing pounded angrily in the back of my head, spreading slowly to the front and down my neck into the rest of my body. Desperately, I searched the link for an empathic hand to hold and found none.

Nothing.

I fell into a sick panic that didn't blend well with the aching pain that threatened to consume what was left of me. I swallowed deeply, feeling my breath come shorter and the ache in my shoulders pressing from within, like something longing to break free of these restraining walls this body provided.

For a moment I felt everything: every mind in the whole house, in the whole campus, and further -- spreading out until I was certain I felt the emotions of every rational and irrational creature in the whole of Snow Valley. And then it was gone. Not silent, because I never heard anything to begin with, but gone. Just -- just gone. My own emotions were as gone as the rest of them, the world dead around my heart. And the only thing I could have reached out to was gone with it -- the telepathic link was -- it was dead. Just dead. Not cut, not severed, not anything like that. Just dead. Broken.

Under any other circumstances, the termination of that which I held so dear would have certainly been cause for saltwater to sting my eyes and fall to my cheeks. But now the emotion that would bring tears was as absent as the link it would have cried over.

I felt nobody. And nobody came, and nobody talked to me, her feet echoing in dry footsteps on the hardwood floor I sat on. She pulled me from the bench I reclined against and propped my limp body against her own, walking me down the hall and repeating my name in my ear like an abstract litany.

"Jen? Jennifer, can you hear me?"

I nodded. I could hear just fine. I turned to the nobody that helped me down the hall, the dark-haired nobody -- Jubilee? What was she doing here? "I can walk," I informed her.

Yes, I could walk just fine. And breathe, and talk, and -- and I was here. But that was all. The bright pink aura that I was so used to seeing around Jubilee had also disappeared. I couldn't feel her. She might as well not be there. She wasn't there. But she was … how could she be if I didn't feel her? Or anyone? That was weird. She must have been there. I could see her fine.

She drew her hands from me, relinquishing her support, since she realised I didn't need it after all.

"Jen, are you okay?"

"Yeah," I said absently. I guessed I was okay. There wasn't anything I could do, of course.

"Cassidy wants to talk to you."

There was something odd about her request -- something else I had to tell her -- right, some old memory that tickled the back of my mind, reminding me of some task I hadn't done. But I didn't know what it was -- I t must not have been too important if I couldn’t remember. "Oh. Okay," I answered. I let her take me to wherever he was, down hallways to a vaguely unfamiliar office space. "By the way," Jubilee began as we walked down the hall, "aren't ya supposed to be grounded or somethin'? Why's Irish wanna talk to ya?"

I had to admit I had no idea; I shrugged. "Dunno."

"But how come yer like so out of it and stuff?"

I shrugged again. "Dunno."

Jubilee stopped in her tracks and turned to face me directly. "What is up with you? Everything okay?"

"Dunno," I explained. I truly didn't know. Why did she think I did? I was only being honest.

I walked into the office. It was dark.

"Thank ye, Jubilee," Cassidy said from behind his desk, his words hanging in the air just outside my ear.

She left.

This was a pretty office. The carpet was a deep shade of forest green with little spots of brown, and the walls were almost raspberry colored. No, not raspberry, more like cranberry … or currant. Yes, more like currant, with richly finished dark cherry wood on the desk and cabinets, and an eclectic collection of tables and chairs, which were not necessarily upholstered, and those that were didn't match. They should have matched. Of course, that would've defeated the purpose of "eclectic" altogether, wouldn't it?

Before any more could be said, the door opened apparently of its own accord. Paige ran in with her hair all messed up. "Mr. Cassidy?" she asked, her voice small and rushed. "Sir, I -- I can't find Jono." As soon as the words left her lips, she looked at the floor, and I thought that through the blonde curtain that hung before her face I saw her face flush crimson. "I mean," she continued, trying to fix her apparent errors (not that I saw any), "I mean I was supposed to meet him over an hour ago. I've looked all over the campus. I'm -- I -- I'm worried, sir." She tried to smile but her face wouldn't let her.

"He's upstairs," I explained.

Paige's eyes went wide and then narrow and she looked at me harshly, the hands at her sides curling into fists. "What -- " she began.

"Paige, please, I'm sure he's alright," Mr. Cassidy interjected, in an almost vain attempt to calm the poor girl down.

I didn't understand why she was acting like that. "Actually," I admitted, not sure I really wanted to explain the situation to them -- but above all, realising that I had to or Jono might not get better, "he's not all that okay."

Paige tensed but said nothing, trying desperately to remain calm under the circumstances and Cassidy's watchful eye.

He looked to me, with his eyebrows in unusual positions on his face, and said, "What I have to talk to you about will have to wait, then. Why don't ye tell us what happened?" He pushed the door open to let Paige and me out as I led the way back to my room.

"Well," I began, "I was in my room, and Jono came in to talk to me. And we were talking when … I don't know … I blanked out, I guess, I don't remember what happened next --"

Paige coughed.

"-- anyway, something purple happened and Jono wasn't answering me or moving or anything. I don't know why. He's probably still up there or something…."

"Sir," Paige began, obviously addressing Mr. Cassidy. After all, I was not a sir. "Don't you think Jen's story ought to be considered more closely?"

He turned to her. "I do nae think there's anything to consider about it," he told her, and that made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. I was doing something right, and Paige was wrong. I smiled, and it hurt. But then I remembered poor Jono still behind the doorway that was coming up on my left. I pushed the door to my room open and he was on the floor in the same position he'd been in when I'd left. This didn't look good. I didn't know how they were going to make sure he was okay. They couldn't easily check for breathing or a heartbeat like they could with anyone else, since it wouldn't matter anyway.

Paige got an idea and knelt beside him, methodically unravelling his bandages. The bright orange-yellow fire that should have been there, that I expected to see, had been replaced by a calm, pale blue glow. That was strange. He should have been orange. I hoped he was okay. He wasn't okay.

There wasn't anything we could really do for him, either, except wait for him to wake up. He was going to wake up, because he wasn't dead. If he was dead, then the glow would be completely absent, and the glow was still there, so he was going to be okay. But right now he wasn't okay.

"He needs medical attention," Paige explained. "Do you think it's safe to move him?"

I had no way of knowing whether it was safe or not, so I didn't say anything. I hoped Mr. Cassidy knew what was going on, though, because I certainly didn't.

"I cannae tell," he explained. "Both of ye watch him, and note any changes. I'll be right back."

I didn't know where he was going and apparently neither did Paige. I didn't like being stuck in my room with her, though. She didn't belong in here. It was my room. I didn't want or need her in here. Silently, I willed her to find some reason to leave and act upon it, allowing me my solitude.

Instead, she actually had the audacity to speak to me. "Can you do anything?" she asked, her voice soft and small.

"Why would I be able to do anything?" She was confusing me. Maybe she was being confusing on purpose. I knew she didn't like me much.

Her face twisted up and she made a funny noise. She visibly swallowed before yelling at me. "You can check him. Find out what's wrong. I don't even know if he's still alive! You do!"

She was doing that confusing thing again.

"The … your … thing. Link. Check on him!" Now she was talking louder, her hair flying into her face. She made no effort to brush it aside.

"I can't," I told her, "it's all gone."

Her eyes went wide and her mouth started working but no sound came out. "What's gone?"

"All the people," I answered. I couldn't explain any better than that. All the people were gone. I'd known they were there before, and now they weren't there anymore. And the person who had been there even more than any other, the person I knew everything for, well, he wasn't there anymore, either. Nobody was there.

"What are you talking about?" Paige demanded, her hands in the air in front of her. She was talking funny, stressing weird words, and I could have sworn I heard some kind of accent creep into her voice.

"All the people went away," I repeated. "Him, too." I added, indicating Jono. He didn't look so good.

Paige folded her arms. "Can ah hear this in English?"

I wondered what language I was speaking in if I wasn't speaking in English.

"Are ya tryin' ta tell me that" -- she unfolded her arms and brushed her hair behind her ears -- "that your powers are gone?"

Powers? That was such a funny word. I didn't have any powers. I was just Jen. Just me. Why would I have any powers? "Yeah, I guess. But -- "

I was interrupted as Frost and Cassidy and all the other students barreled into my room without knocking. Mr. Cassidy and Monet and Everett took Jono away. I didn't want them to do that. I wanted him here, where I knew he was okay, and where I could keep watch on him. Ms. Frost watched them leave, and with a glare dismissed Paige and Jubilee and Angelo, who lingered in the doorway, hoping to get in on the most recent developments. She closed the door before turning to me. "Would you mind explaining what in hell just happened here?" she demanded. Her eyes were burning me, and I couldn't look at her anymore without getting hurt.

"I don't know," I admitted.

"Why don't you tell me what you *do* know," she insisted icily, taking a seat in my desk chair and crossing one leg over the other.

I sat down on my bed, holding a pillow in my lap. "I --" I began.

"Take that pillow out of your lap," Frost instructed, and I could feel the telekinetic energy sizzle in the air around the pillow, ready to snatch it away from me if I dared defy her order.

I set it on the bed beside me, swallowing. If I told her just what happened, I would certainly get in trouble, since I was veritably grounded. "I -- he was visiting," I explained. "And we were talking, and he just wasn't answering for a long time, and I went to get help, and then, I don't know, Jubilee found me and brought me to Mr. Cassidy."

"I see," was all she said, never taking her eyes from me.

What on earth was I supposed to say to that? I had told her the truth. Was there more to the truth that I didn't know about that she did? "I --" I began again.

"You were under explicit orders," she informed me, a definite edge to each word. "If I cannot trust you to follow those orders, how am I ever to trust you? You do not do as told in class. You do not do as told outside of class. You don't seem to think the rules apply to you. That may cost you your life one day," she explained. "I will not take that risk with you."

"Risk?" I echoed, not really sure what she was talking about, but Ms. Frost didn't seem to hear me. She didn't even seem to be aware that I had even spoken.

"How do possibly expect to survive in today's society? Have you forgotten the way the world works? It is not kind to women. It is not kind to mutants. It's especially harsh to someone who is both a woman and a mutant. Judging from your escapades this evening, I don't believe you've even opened the document you should have received by now. I suggest you do. And read it. Read it well. I would hate for such an opportunity to pass you by." She turned to leave the room.

"But Ms. Frost," I protested, seeing the lapse in her own reasoning skills, "Jono was here to deliver that document. It's -- " I searched for it, hoping to produce it as evidence to support my statement. I waved it in the air once I'd found it, certain she'd believe me now. "-- here. Right here! I have it."

"But you have not yet read it," she insisted. "Jonothon was sent only to bring this to you. I see now I've made a poor choice. In the future I shall think what repercussions my choices may have. I suggest you do the same." She left my room without another word, and I opened the envelope jaggedly, extracting the folded papers from within.

The document -- really a letter -- was composed entirely in Ms. Frost's elegant handwriting, save for the stationery heading at its top. I read it -- as told -- though I expected no less than the same lecture she'd just given me in person, and since my reading was naturally forced, I certainly resented every crisp word delivered.

I write this letter with a great deal of concern; concern that I fear you will never see. I must admit, I was surprised when you handed this letter to me. I saw you writing it during my lecture on proper English grammar yesterday, and I expected it to be tucked away in a folder somewhere, or crumpled and tossed in the trash. I never expected you to have the courage to actually give it to me.

Still, you did so, and I suppose you deserve an answer. Why do I spend so much time in your life? Why do I hold you to standards and strictures that you feel are confining, irregular, arbitrary, and unfair?

You might expect me to answer that "you remind me of myself, when I was your age." But you don't. As spoiled as I was, you are far more fragile than I was. That you maintain any coherence over your own thoughts is a marvel to me. Why? You're a female American empath, maintaining a strong psychic link with an unmedicated, clinically depressed British male. I fear for your sanity, girl. Have you ever considered that I just might have more experience in the dangers of telepathic communication than an untutored novice?

I worry about your ability to make a single rational decision when the situation involves an emotional response. When the link shows him being upset, rather than finding out what's wrong, you pout, because he won't, or can't, tell you freely. When you're upset, you cry when he can't, or won't poke inside your head to magically tell what's wrong. When one of you is upset, both sit and mope.

Jonothon is not doing well. I have not heard Jono pick up the guitar in weeks. When I confronted him on it, he confessed that he feels intimidated by your musical talent, and has apparently abandoned music, feeling inadequate. Haven't you felt intimidated by the piano recently? When you first came here, you played constantly; now it's infrequent. Jono is projecting his emotions, and you seem unable or unwilling to block them.

I want to help you. I really do. I don't want you to be unhappy, not permanently so.

And I will help you. Because I can, and because you really don't know half as much as you think you do, and you are less than prepared to face a world where coldness, anger, and hostility are the rule, with few exceptions.

You are wrong to lock yourself in with your fictional heroes. They may lift you to new heights, or they may betray you; they may wound your soul or teach you to love, but they cannot touch you physically. The creatures of this world can, and will, do all of the above, and you cannot ignore them. You have such false confidence. You think you know what the world holds, so you clutch your leather jacket to you and defy the world to come and break your spirit, knowing that you, unlike the others, have the strength to resist, to remain innocent and wise in the face of humanity's press.

You are not the first psi-powered woman to think so.

You want to know when it will be your turn to make the rules?

When you make it your turn.

You want to know why you have to write inside the lines?

Because that's all they can see. And too many people see a free spirit as a spirit that must be broken. Especially when she's beautiful and female. Don't write me a letter about molds, about society's constraints, about seeing what's inside other people. I've been fighting on this battleground you find so abhorrent for half my life.

Why do I emphasize my gifts? Not just my psionic acumen: but the outside, the body too?

As you say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. And there's a lot of beholders out there, and if they find your words, if they find your thoughts, if they find your self ugly, they will take whatever beauty you possess and destroy it. If they find you pleasing, they will lift you higher than you dreamed possible.

I know, I've been there. You haven't. How can I convince you of this without putting you through the horrors of what I've gone through?

When I was your age, all I saw for six months was white: White walls, with even the staples where the padding was held to the concrete were carefully painted white. White coated men, with white, shaking hands, their faces white as they realized what they had willed themselves to do. And white noise, where the pink sparkles used to be, as the cocktail of drugs dragged at my brain, leaving me only able to gleam the strongest emotions: Lust, Greed, and Hate.

When I was free, I looked around, looking for the love, the tenderness, the joy, the emotions that I was sure were missing due to the asylum. Nothing. Then I supposed that it was the location. I was, after all, homeless and living on the street, and that does not encourage joy. So I attended my first Hellfire Club meeting, and looked around. Surely one of these people felt great tenderness, love, or joy. All, again I found was Lust, Hate, and Greed, although muted by a mild joy in material possessions.

So I made myself a persona, one to show the world, and it welcomed me. The school you attend was built with monies raised by my talents runningFrost Enterprises. And I have had to use my telepathy a surprisingly few number of times to close a deal. For the longest time, all I had to do was show some of my legs, and CEOs would sell their souls to me, let alone all of their stock options.

You think you are shattering my world? If I ever feel that you're getting close, I'll send you home so fast you'll swear it was teleportation. I am not about to let you, or anyone shatter my world. I've been shattered, almost more times then I can recall, and put myself back together each and every time.

That's not true. I can recall every time, every psychic cut, every iota of energy used in the psychic surgeries on my own brain. All the pain. All of the emotional drama, whether it was due to a misguided attempt to use electronics to boost my telepathy, or due to Fitzroy's attack, or due to relearning to use my body after giving Drake his own back.

And it never shows. It doesn't, does it?

It doesn't show that I'm scared to death every morning when I step outside my bedroom door. I'm not a teacher, I never was. I can lead, and I can direct, but I can't motivate you learn it for yourself.

I never learned how; why should I have learned? I'm a much better administrator. But Xavier thinks of himself as a teacher, when he's nothing more than an overzealous general. And they pair me with an Irish halfwit whose life story is full of beating the odds, and expect me to keep you safe, and teach you to live a happy life, when the odds are you will die, crushed by the mass of humanity who are anything but human to one another, or hunted simply because of your genetic birthright, or die as some misguided zealot chooses to attack the school. I can't train you to beat the odds.

All I can do is resist training you students to be another terrorist/anti-terrorist squad like the X-Men, or X-Force. A well-adjusted bunch of mutants the Xavier Academy turns out, hmm? Not one of them outside of the original five have managed to live a normal life amongst the humans, barring Colossus' time without his original memories. Read the files sometimes.

And perhaps you do have things to teach me. There are colors to the world, more than black and white, and my first students showed me that they could find them. Your class shows me that perhaps I can too.

But not doing my job? You wrote:

"Over the course of this writing, I have shifted from a mere rant to something that is specifically directed at you, Ms. Frost. I should like to know what you are going to do about it."

What am I going to do?

I'm going to throw away that ridiculous piece of freeform poetry garbage that you turned in for your last essay assignment, and substitute this in its place. Congratulations. Your first "A" in my class.

But don't think it's going to be easy from here on in. Don't think you can turn in reams of paper with rants on them, bitching about every little imperfection you find in this oh so imperfect world. But if you can articulate your rage, define your problems, and seek solutions to the pain, then there may be hope for you yet.

Emma Frost,

CEO of Frost Enterprises,
White Queen of the Hellfire Club.


I wiped the raw tears from the side of my face with the back of my hand. I didn't think she'd be right, nor did I think she'd ever evoke an emotional response from me like that. Her words seemed to sing to me -- so much so I could scarcely believe she'd even written them herself. I saw some other woman in that paper than the one who insisted I follow her rules blindly. She gave reasons for doing what she did, and for feeling what she felt. I caught this wild glimpse into Emma Frost's psyche, something so often blocked to me, and she'd given that glimpse to me willingly, allowing me to truly understand her.

I was really beginning to understand.

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