Coming back doesn't mean Bobby gets an easy run with the team afterward.

Coming back doesn't mean Bobby gets an easy run with the team afterward. Doug's death hits a group that has already spent far too much time getting into fights adults can't keep them out of. Later, Warlock dies in Genosha. That's the same Warlock who went looking for Bobby when he ran away. Bobby is also there for the later Asgard adventure and Dani's decision to stay behind. The people who made up his daily life at school keep disappearing from it for completely different reasons. That makes the late New Mutants cast feel different from the early one even when Bobby and Sam are still standing there together. Their friendship has survived arguments and Bobby hurting him, but the group around them has been through major losses. By the time Cable is involved, being one of Xavier's original new students doesn't automatically tell Bobby what he wants to do next. There isn't really an unchanged school life for him to go back to anymore.