When Logan ran the Xavier School, he’d often leave the kids to their own devices and insist that they make their own way in life. Some of the teachers wondered if, perhaps, he didn’t care enough about the students to put effort into them. The truth, however, was that he wanted the kids to have the opportunity to make their own choices and find their own way in life, something he never had.

Sometimes when Illyana wakes up in the X-Mansion, to the sounds of kids laughing and a baseball being tossed around, she half-expects to sit up, look out the window, and see Amara throwing a ball to ‘Berto and Doug racing over the grass to get the ball back after ‘Berto sends it flying. She has the quip about them forgetting to wake her up to play already on her lips as she races to the window, and then, nothing. Just some of the students Illyana doesn’t even know the name of, tossing around a ball. And then she remembers. Remembers what happened to them. What they lost. Who they lost. And the shards that remain. And, not for the first time, in the reflection of the glass, Illyana sees the faces of friends that she loved and lost, who haunt her still.