When Bobby entered Kitty's math class, Kitty herself was ill and couldn't teach, he stopped dead in the door because for a moment he thought he saw John sitting in front of him. But a second looks reveals that the boy he thought to be John has longer hair than John ever had but the resemblance to John was still extreme. The only thing missing is a lighter in his hand.

Bobby cleared his throat and began to explain why he was there and felt NotJohn's look on him the whole time. NotJohn as it turned out was named Lee Soong and was pretty good at math.

As Bobby remembered it the students left the class as soon as the bell rang, but as he looked up he found Lee standing on front of him.

'Yes?' Lee gave him a grin that reminded him so much of John's grin that Bobby had to look away.

'Are you afraid of me? Or am I that ugly?'

'What?' Bobby asked stunned. Lee shrugged.

'You didn't look at me once. Either you can't stand my sight or you're afraid of me. Couldn't blame you. Lot of people are afraid of me, especially after I set them on fire.' The cocky grin was all John's.

'You remind me of someone.' Bobby replied tersely.

'An ex-boyfriend?' Lee threw his head back and smirked at Bobby.

'Something like that.' Lee's eyebrows rose at the answer but he didn't ask further.

'You're not a teacher, right?'

'No, why?'

'Because I want to ask you out for ice-cream.'

Bobby stared. Lee did not only look like John but he also had John's boldness. And that was probably the reason he converted back into his fifteen year old self because he felt himself blush and stammer:

'You…you don't know me.'

Lee rolled his eyes.

'Which is why I want to go out with you. So, are you already saying yes or what?'

'Sure.' Bobby said and like all those years ago he felt his heard hammer against his chest.

'Great.' Lee grabbed his backpack and left the room with Bobby at his side. It was a beautiful September day, sunny and warm, and Bobby could see numerous students relaxing on the lawn.

'You study at NYU, right?' Lee asked.

'Yes, accountancy.' Lee made a face.

'It's not as boring as it sounds.' Bobby grinned, then he asked: 'Where are you from?'

'Augusta. My parents have a restaurant there. You?'

'Boston.' Bobby changed is hand into ice and back again.

'Cool.'

'It's not so cool when you freeze yourself into the shower.'

Lee's arms went up in flames.

'At least you never had to tell your teacher that your homework went up in flames.'

Thanks to John, Bobby actually had to say that quite often.

'I can empathise, though.'

Lee tilted his head sideways and grinned:

'That's good to know. You know, in case you ever teach one of my classes in your spare time again.'

"I don't think I have enough vacation to cover for every time Kitty's ill.' Bobby laughed.

"That's even better."

"Why?" Bobby asked genuinely puzzled.

"Because that means we can go on a second date without anyone thinking I'm just doing it for the grades."

/

"You've got any hobbies besides doing other people's taxes?" Lee asked without opening his eyes he had closed against the warm afternoon sun.

"Snowboarding, ice-skating," Bobby grinned when Lee rolled his eyes in a mocking way that nearly choked Bobby because it reminded him so much of John: "And I'm pretty good at fighting for freedom and justice."

His constricted throat eased a bit when Lee leaned forward. With his long hair falling into his face he looked less like John.

"What about you?" Bobby asked.

"Well there's the cooking," Lee counted with his fingers: "swimming and I sing and play the piano."

"And you sleep when exactly?"

"Maths lesson, of course, or why do you think I'm so bad at maths?"

/

And suddenly Bobby spent a lot more time at the mansion again. Instead of spending his rare free time he drove out to Westchester to meet Lee. They went ice-cream eating or ice-skating, sometimes Bobby simply watched Lee at swim practice or visited the rehearsals Lee and his band had. The more time he spent with Lee the easier it was to ignore the many similarities between John and Lee and to concentrate on the things that separated them from each other.

/

"Who was John?" Lee asked him one afternoon while he was tracing invisible circles on Bobby's bare chest. Bobby tensed involuntarily. He had hoped that Lee would never ask him, that he would never even know that John had even existed.

"Why?"

"It's something Logan said to Ms Munroe: "The boy looks like John. Has Bobby lost his mind?"" The serious expression Bobby saw on Lee's face was one he had never seen on John's. John had never been simply serious. He had been angry or challenging or disappointed too. John had never been just anything.

"John," Bobby started but had to swallow to get rid of the tightness in his throat: "John was a friend, and I used to be in love with him."

"Was he your first?" Lee's voice held no judgement, just a quiet curiosity.

"Yes." Bobby couldn't look at Lee anymore, not when the intense expression on his face mirrored John's so much.

"It didn't...it didn't work out. We were too different I think. And then he joined the Brotherhood and I became an X-Man and then came Alcatraz and we fought each other." Bobby stared at his hands, his mind stuck in the memories of a few minutes that possibly, no probably made him a murderer.

"I don't even know if he survived or..."

Suddenly Lee sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, his back half turned to Bobby:

"It's okay if you want to leave." Bobby said quietly: "I would understand. I can barely live with myself sometimes either."

But Lee forcefully shook his head and Bobby could see how tightly he gripped the blankets; tight enough that his knuckles turned white.

"He died in a hospital four days later."

"What?"

"John, he got away from Alcatraz but the concussion was too severe and they couldn't do anything for him. They only let me to him when it was clear that he would die."

"Why would..."Bobby began slowly but was stopped when Lee turned his head and looked at him:

"John was my brother."

"But you said..." Lee interrupted him harshly:

"I'm adopted." For a moment his eyes held the same intense anger Bobby had seen so often in John's eyes but then Lee relaxed but still, Bobby smelled smoke and saw that the blankets were ash around Lee's hands.

"Our parents were mutants." Lee didn't look at Bobby, much like Bobby hadn't looked at him when he had told his story.

"I was sleeping at a friend's home when some people broke in and killed them, a burglary gone wrong. John saw them, I think but he never talked about it. My adoptive parents were friends of our parents but John he was..." Lee hesitated: "He was changed. He ran away pretty soon. Sometimes I would get postcards or letters but never regularly and he never wanted to see me. But he wrote about the mansion and about you and how happy he used to be here."

"It was always about John." Bobby concluded: "That's why you came here." He felt like he was on the edge between feeling used and nauseous.

"He wrote so much about you. First he was pretty happy but then it changed and finally the letters stopped altogether until...until I got that call from San Francisco. You and this place seemed to be the only connection to John I had left."

"What do you want to know about John, then?" Bobby asked, hollow at first but increasingly angry with every word: "How many people he killed? How we fucked? What?!"

"I'll go." Lee said and stood up. He reached for his clothes but Bobby was faster and grabbed his arm:

"What do you want to know? Since you came through all his trouble of connecting with John." He said icily and pressed Lee against the wall next to the bed.

"I don't know", Lee confessed. "I guess if I came here I'd know him better. How he ended up ding labelled as a terrorist." He looked up into Bobby's eyes. "He didn't blame you for his death. He said that he was surprised that you had the balls to knock him out. He was proud of you."

Bobby was stunned. He had always believed that John had died hating him.

"I should go." At the door Lee turned around, looking as if he wanted to say something else but then the expression vanished and the door fell into its lock, louder than Bobby was used to. It was only when he heard the front door fall shut, too that he remembered that he had seen that particular expression once before.

"You're always doing what you're told?" And John had dared him to answer, had dared him to say anything at all.

He caught up with Lee only a hundred meters away from his door and grabbed his arm.

"Bobby! Are you nu-"

"I'm not always doing what I'm told." Bobby interrupted him. In that moment Lee looked so much like John that Bobby wasn't sure whether he said those words to him or to John. Maybe it didn't matter.

"What?" Lee asked confused: "Look, Bobby, I-" but Bobby didn't let him continue this time either. He fisted Lee's long hair and pulled him into a bruising kiss.

He wasn't going to let history repeat itself.