Millie had talked herself in and out of going to see the councilor several times. Even now as she raised a hand to knock on the mostly open door, she hesitated.

It wasn't that she thought that there was anything inherently wrong with going to talk to someone about what had happened. It was just that she really didn't want to relive it. It was bad enough that the nightmares were so vivid that sometimes she woke up feeling like he'd been standing over her and breathing in her face. Did she really have to add insult to injury, so to speak, by breaking down in front of a total stranger?

But she knew it needed to be done. That just didn't make her like it any better.

Finally, she took a deep breath and knocked lightly on the door. Here went nothing.

Okay so he lied.

He'd told her he'd be there first thing in the morning, but Bobby had woken up, and he'd been distracted with Ro and finally, almost two days after he said he would, there he was, at her office door.

It was wide open, like she'd said it would be.  For some reason, this made him happy -- he'd always liked open door policies, both literally and figuratively. After all, how were people supposed to know what was expected of them if no one ever told them?

Even though it was open though, he still knocked slightly at the frame and grinned over at her.  She was busy doing something, and he almost felt bad for interrupting her. Almost.

"So where are these cookies," he asked cheekily. "I believe I was promised cookies."

After sending an email to everyone in the contact list for the Institute, Adelaide reached out and took another sip of her cooling coffee.

The door to her office was slightly open, an invitation for anyone walking past who knew of her position to come in if they wished. She only believed in closing doors when people were actually in her room and wanting to talk privately. The Professor had always had an open door policy, as had Jean, and she was not going to be one to break tradition in such a way.

She hoped that the students would take her up on her offer. Hell, she hoped some of the faculty would too. There was nothing wrong with just sitting down and talking. It helped, a lot of the time, just to shed the load, get everything off ones chest. Sometimes the conversation wasn't even about what had happened. Often with trauma victims that was the case.

She supposed she should email Logan separately, or at least talk with him about what had happened and whether or not they should make the counseling sessions for those that were taken compulsory. She knew that her presence would help, it just needed to be taken advantage of.

"Ugh, cold." she muttered, putting the mug down beside her computer. She enjoyed cool coffee, but not cold coffee. There were some thing that should never be cold; coffee was one of those things. She got to her feet and pulled the door open a little more, thinking back on the session she'd had earlier that day with one of the younger students, and even her brief conversation with Jamie.

It didn't seem right to her that they felt they couldn't talk to the staff because they were afraid to be a nuisance in a time when they should have been able to turn to them more than ever.

Plucking a book off her bookshelf, Adelaide settled in behind her desk and waited to see if anyone was going to come to her today, the same way she would every day. She got three pages into it before she put it down again, picking up her sketchpad, pencil in hand as she drew.

[OPEN]

Shinji was stood outside of the gates of the school, wondering if now was a bad time to call by, everything seemed quiet. He reached for the buzzer then caught himself, cursing lightly in Japanese. This was stupid, really stupid.

He'd done fine all this time by himself, why did he need to go getting involved with others like him?

Although he had to admit that he was tempted, so very tempted by the idea of being around people like him, people who understood and could help him figure his power out. Maybe even stop the headaches?

Shinji eyed the mansion again and even went so far as to press the buzzer before sure enough he was turning on his heel and fleeing like somebody had set his ass on fire.

What in the hell had he been thinking?

The grown ups had left what felt like days before, but really had only been a few hours. Jamie had sneaked into the hanger to watch the jet take off, but once it was gone he was at loose ends.

He'd tried to shoot some hoops, but hadn't been able to get into it. Reading and drawing had the same result. Even if he shifted, which usually made him very happy, he didn't feel anything but sadness and fear.

After a while he'd gone to the girls dorms and sat on Millie's bed for a while. It'd started to smell less like her and more like him the more he went there, but he couldn't help it. It made it feel like she was there or would be all right. He knew he was breaking the rules by sleeping in the girls dorm, but no one cared right now.

Jamie took her Cookie doll down with him and went to wait out on the front steps. He toyed with the doll's red skirt as he looked out at the dark sky. He wanted Millie back and ok. What was the point of God letting him find her if He was just going to take her away again? He wished that there was someone he could talk to, but everyone was so busy with everything else and he didn't want to be a bother. It was more important to get their friends and family back than it was to listen to him whine and cry like a baby. He knew that.

But that didn't make it easier to sit here and wait now that they knew where they were and had gone to get them.

Who: Adelaide Russell, Scott Summers
What: Catching up for the first time in years
When: Mid-morning
Rating: PG-13
Status: Closed

It hadn't taken her long to realise that the mansion was too quiet. Way too quiet. It was an uncomfortable lack of sound rather than silence. The gaping hole where sound should be was glaringly obvious, she saw kids creeping down the hallways as if they were afraid to make noise, as if by that very act they would be bringing down the wrath of the worried staff on their heads.

Adelaide had been at the mansion for just less than a day, she'd unpacked and spent most of the time in her office, trying to get it just right. She allowed herself to be pedantic. Picky. The office needed to be just right so that she could do what she was supposed to be doing, that was helping the staff and students.

She might not have owed it to them, but she did to Xavier. And to Jean. Her heart lurched and her stomach twisted uncomfortably at the thought. She was so upset that she hadn't been there to say goodbye, to be part of the memorial service.

She cleared her throat and raked her fingers through her hair, the long, red strands now straightened, not curly like they used to be. Teeth snagged on her lower lip as she walked out of her office, her shoes clicking gently on the floor as she turned and pulled the door shut.

She didn't lock it, she had no need to.

Time was when these hallways were crammed with students, wall to wall and you couldn't stand there the way she was without getting jostled by someone or having to duck someone else's errant use of their powers.

So far she had only seen Logan briefly. He had not been the most verbose of people but considering what she had heard about the abductees she couldn't blame him. She knew Ororo was around somewhere, and Scott... But she had kept to herself, really. She didn't know if she could handle the blast from the past that seeing them would offer, even if the sights would be what she needed. That touch of familiarity in a place that now seemed so alien to her.

She just stood in the hallway for a moment, trying to get her bearings. The layout of the mansion wasn't the same as it used to be and she closed her eyes, talking to herself under her breath and making small gestures with her hands, trying to kinesthetically remember the routes.

( Tours, Talks and Memories )

Adelaide shifted the desk a little to the right, listening to the scraping sound it made as the wood was dragged along the floor. She would have lifted it, but she wasn't strong enough and the little bobble-head puppy that she had on her desk was already wobbling dangerously close to the edge.

She stopped and pushed it a little further towards the middle before dragging the desk another foot or so. That was better. At least she wasn't in front of the window anymore. She glowed often enough as it was without being silhouetted by the sunlight all the damn time. She then moved the chair to match the position of the desk.

Boxes sat to the left of the room near the bookshelves and she eyed them before she crossed over.

"Guess I should start making this room my own." she muttered to herself, opening the top box and laughing to herself when she saw that it was filled with DVDs.

Okay, so they needed to go somewhere. She was oddly connected to them. They could wait, though, because really, she thought she should get out the books that were relevant to her being here and all that.

Xavier's office had always been lined with books, she remembered that much. But he'd had books on every subject from psychoanalysis to religion to travel guides. One day her bookshelves would be filled with such wonders and interesting books on every subject under the sun.

She heaved six thick textbooks out from the next box and looked at the titles, sighing.

Her extensive library would have to wait. She only had six books on psychology, and about twenty on art. But she'd get there, she would just have to start looking.

The first book she was going to get was The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

It had been on Xavier's desk the last time she had been in his office, the day she told him she was going to college. She remembered how proud of her he had looked.

Her eyes filled with tears and she took a breath, hating the ache that flared through her. Everyone seemed like strangers, even though she knew many of them from her time at the mansion.

Things had changed. She had to remember that and make sure that she wasn't stuck in a past that no longer existed.

It appeared she had arrived just in time as well, considering. It pained her to know that some of the people she had known in her time at Xavier's were in trouble, missing. She brushed her hands through her hair and was suddenly glad that her arrival had been quiet and understated, she understood why, though and she was in no way disappointed. It wasn't like she had wanted balloons and sparkles and a parade or anything anyway. It gave her a chance to get her stuff together before she dealt with the influx of students.

She might not have been here in four - nearly five - years, but the fact of the matter was that some things should never change and that right now, it was possible to hear a pin drop. That wasn't right; the hallways were always bustling with life. One the one hand, the quiet was good. It meant she could worry about her friends in private. On the other hand, it meant there was something seriously wrong, something that needed to be fixed.

Her arrival would be announced at some point, she was sure, but until then she decided a better use of her time would be to get her office ready. That meant finishing unpacking, which she could do.

Anything to keep her mind off the fact that her friends - God, those kids - were in some kind of trouble.