Title: Saving You by Destroying Me

Rating: Ehh... Nothing bad, but I guess the PG might come in with the angsty stuff. I'm not good with ratings - obviously.

Disclaimer: No money I make for Marvel's people I take. It's just a labor of love...and some strange need to torture the Walking Bundle of Flames (tm) known as Chamber.

Notes: It is possible to write a story involving Jono that isn't angst. I've seen it done before. I just can't seem to do it myself. Some day, though!

******

I want to set you free...

Recognize my disease.

- - Alice in Chains, "Confusion"



It didn't matter that he had been trying to build up the courage to leave for the past several days. That didn't make this any easier.

Jonothon Starsmore, known as Jono to friends, Jon to family, and "that freaky mutie kid" to most of the general populace, was not ready to face his girlfriend. Ex-girlfriend. Enemy? Whatever she happened to be now. Maybe when she woke up, she'd tell him. That is, if he had the guts or the stupidity to stay around that long.

Clutching the note in his hand for support, he felt the paper give and crinkle in the vice-like grip he held on it. It had been written while he was still in bed and trying to recover from the shock of his injuries, meant to reassure Gayle that everything was all right and nothing had changed.

Looking in at his unconscious girlfriend, who stayed that way most of the time due to the drugs in her system, he realized that he had been fooling himself.

Sighing reluctantly, mentally, he stepped into the room with airy, silent footfalls. The flourescent lighting from the hallway and the moon shining through the window provided the only sources of light in the small, private room, but Jono was thankful for that match. That meant he wouldn't be able to see exactly what Gayle looked like in her current state.

Moving quietly to her bedside, Jono dropped into a chair and stared at his best friend, girlfriend, and overall reason for not having given into the tempting lure of drugs and booze long ago. Of course, he still had, but Gayle was at least able to keep him grounded and prevent him from getting too involved with things he shouldn't be around in the first place. He reached over and brushed a stray dark hair from her face, letting his hand linger on her cheek for a moment longer than was probably necessary. She never stirred, only remained as still as a board, cold beneath his touch.

It had taken him days to convince someone to tell him what exactly happened to him when his powers chose to reveal themselves. No one had bothered telling him what the far-reaching consequences of that night had brought. No one had thought to explain that Gayle was paralyzed from the waist down until he demanded an answer from someone. Now that he was in the same room with her for the first time since that night, he had to see for himself, to see that the doctors weren't merely lying to him and he had actually done more damage that he was told.

Leaning over in his chair, he tugged at the blanket around Gayle's legs and peaked beneath it, a thick eyebrow raising at seeing the two thin but shapely legs stretched out and motionless, knees locked. Jono bit back a sob he couldn't have made anyway; she had always had a love for dancing, as her parents had enrolled her in tap lessons since she was eight.

*I'm...sorry, luv,* he started, faltering uneasily at first with the clumsy, hollow psionic speech that he was still trying to master. It was flat and nearly monotone, making him wish that he had been simply killed instead of forced to listen to the droning sound of his own "voice" for the rest of his life. *I'm so sorry. It's bad enough I did this t'meself, but you...you didn't deserve...*

He half-expected her to sit up in bed and smack him, or open her eyes and start yelling at him to leave, or anything, but Gayle remained in that stick-straight position, eyelids fluttering but otherwise remaining motionless. Jono sighed and reached for her hand, glad for the comfort it brought him, no matter how empty it may have been.

The night had been like any other Friday night. Every night during the week was set aside for school, Saturday night was band night, Sunday night was to sleep off the effects of Saturday night. Friday night, however, was strictly Jono and Gayle night, and all those concerned knew better than to try to interfere with the long-standing schedule.

As was the usual, Jono walked to her house that night, citing his reasons as being too cheap to pay for a cab. It certainly wasn't the exercise, since he was relatively tall and still the same weight he had been for the past three years. Gayle greeted him with open arms, as usual, and invited him into the house and to her room, where the two would flirt mercilessly and kiss, all to no avail. It all led into lengthy discussions about anything that came to mind, topics ranging from the latest underground band to the cafeteria food at school that day.

Jono was trying to gather the courage to tell his girlfriend he was accepted by an American college in Illinois, but he wasn't entirely sure that even their seemingly impenetrable bonds could survive such a great distance. That was when the pain in his chest had started, the blinding lights in his eyes. Gayle told him to lay down on her bed and rest for a while; her mistake had been in coming too close. The energy that had been eating at him from the inside finally made its presence known in the form of a powerful psionic blast that shattered Jono's chest and sent Gayle against the back wall of the room.

Jono tried to scream at the shock, the searing pain in his body, the way Gayle's body lay crumpled on the floor across from him, but found no words would come. The first wave of pain sent tremors through his thin frame, wracking it terribly as another bundle of energy swelled from somewhere he couldn't place, coming up and creating a hot burning feeling in his throat seconds before it, too, was blown away in the same manner as his chest had been. He could only stand and watch the events taking place in Gayle's full-length mirror, watching the flames rise and flicker about his lithe body like he was some sort of...what was he? Something that walked straight out of Hell itself, from the looks of it.

The final insult was the taking of his lower face. People told him he was smart; he told them he was just average. People told him he could play drums with a set of wooden spoons against a table and turn it into a masterpiece; he told them he was just a big fan of music. But he accepted it when people told him that he could be a virtual heartbreaker if he wanted to be with the rugged, natural good looks that caused more than a few girls to wish Gayle would drop dead so that they might have a shot with him.

Even that had been taken from him, as a wall of swirling orange light had replaced his upper ribcage all the way to his upper lip.

Feeling shock finally set in, Jono dropped to his knees, panicking at not having the familiar rising and falling of his chest to comfort him. He looked down at himself, shuddered at what he saw, and chose to ignore the inferno that had suddenly appeared in his chest.

Looking over at Gayle, he wished fervently that someone would come back to the house and find her. There was absolutely no way he was going back around her, not after what had just happened. He couldn't risk hurting her even more than she already was. And besides, he reasoned, he was fairly certain she wouldn't be pleased to see him.

Not knowing what else to do, he crawled into a corner and listened to the eerie whooshing noises that had replaced the steady beat of his heart, that being accompanied by Gayle's quiet whimpering and her pleas for him to help her. He wouldn't touch her. Wouldn't go near her. Couldn't.

Closing his eyes tightly and bowing his head, he prayed feverishly to a God he had long neglected that the final burst of energy would occur, one that would not take another piece of him with it, but rather what remained of his life.

It hadn't happened, and almost two weeks later he found himself sitting in Gayle's hospital room, stealing into the room like a criminal. He assumed he was. Attempted manslaughter was some sort of crime, be it by mutant powers or not, he thought. Clutching her hand with a bit more need than before, he thought back to how he had woken up in his room. A pounding headache that rivaled one he had gained months earlier from a drinking binge with his friends was waiting for him, but what surprised him more was that he was encountering the thoughts of everyone that walked came into the room or that walked down the hallway and happened to glance into his room. That was what hurt the most, hearing their true thoughts of him. Of mutants.

Gayle's mother had made a charitable visit that was nothing more than to subtly inflict more pain on the young man who had hurt her future cash cow in her talented dancing daughter. Jono's mother, on the other hand, saw it as a kind gesture and welcomed her into the room.

Mrs. Edgarton had smiled to the boy's face, asked him how he was doing, updated him on Gayle's status, but Jono knew he wouldn't have answered her even if he could. Her thoughts were all venomous and hateful in nature, and it was only by willpower and perhaps sheer luck that they weren't put into verbal form. She had always despised the black-leather wearing guitarist, seeing him as something of a troublemaker and from a social standing considerably beneath Gayle's. Never mind the fact that Gayle had cared nothing that she was painfully wealthy and her boyfriend was from the average working middle-class family that struggled to keep up on rent payments. Mrs. Edgarton wanted only the absolute best for her beautiful, brilliant, and future heir, though Jono and Gayle both were very much aware that she could really care less for Gayle's well-being. It was the riches she promised to bring that excited the woman.

Of course, she had to rub salt into Jono's open and eternally gaping wounds by discussing how Gayle's life was going to change forever as a result of that one night that had started out so innocently, just like every other the young couple had shared.

Not three days after "the accident," as Jono had begun referring to it, his mother gave him a package that came in the post for him. In it was a perfectly typed letter, a short booklet of information about a school in Snow Valley, Massachusetts, and a plane ticket in the event he should choose to go to the school. Seeing that he had little chance in carrying on a normal life in England, Jono shrugged, stuffed everything back in the envelope, and figured that anything was worth a shot.

Now he only had to tell his beloved girlfriend that he was leaving and quite possibly never going to see her again.

He felt awful, having already cost her the use of her legs and not even having the courage to stay around and let her chew him out as she had every right to do. Rather, he was cutting out on her in the middle of the night, leaving a note on her bedside table in hopes it would be read whenever she woke.

"Jono?"

Jono whipped his head around in surprise, relaxing faintly when he noticed his friend Alex standing in the doorway, the one friend that hadn't been scared away at the news of his recent mutation. "Been lookin' all over this place for yer, mate. 'Bout ready t'go?"

Jono nodded silently, rising to his feet and casting one last, longing glance at Gayle. In the dim light provided from the hallway, she looked to be a sleeping angel to a young man who was feeling a heart he no longer possessed tear itself in two. Bending, he pressed what were once his lips to her forehead and stayed that way for several seconds, reluctant to leave for fear he would forget what her skin felt like against his, not that it much mattered thanks to the heavy bandages the doctors had wrapped around him to contain his power.

*I don't even know if yer can 'ear me, Gayle, but...if you can...I love you.* Even the mental voice came out as a whisper, but he ignored it. Checking to make sure the note was secure on the table beside Gayle, Jono grabbed the bag and guitar he was taking with him to Heathrow, turned on his heel, and walked quickly from the room before he could have the chance to change his mind.

As the door slid shut, the small, crumpled note fluttered to the floor and slid beneath the bed, unnoticed.

Dearest Gayle,

How should I say I'm sorry for ruining your life? I'm not going to hope that you can ever forgive me. That's too much to ask of you. But I would like you to not let this get to you. You're strong, you always have been. You can work past this. It's already destroyed me, but you can still save yourself. I know you can. I don't have faith in much, but I have faith in you. That's why I'm not as worried about you as the doctors are, because I already know you're going to pull through this. I only wish I hadn't been the reason you're here.

I was accepted into this one school for "gifted youngsters" or some such garbage. It's in the States, some school for mutant freaks like me. Supposedly there are others there, too, that have already joined. Maybe I'll learn how to control this...whatever this is inside of me, and maybe I'll come back. I don't think I can, though. I don't think I can handle seeing you again, seeing what I did, what I took from you. It's enough your mother always accused me of being likely to hurt you one day. I very bloody well proved her right. I'd gladly give my life to undo what happened, to give your life back to you. I'm already dead, theoretically, just a walking shell for this energy, but it kills me even more to know that I may never see you again. I'm going to cry like Hell when I finally let Alex take me to the airport. Well, at least I would cry, if I still could. I'm killing myself all over again, this time emotionally, but it has to be done. I'm destroying myself to save you, and truth be told, it's a small price to pay for what happened. I'd do it again if you asked me to.

I can't be with you, Gayle. I can't stay with you, I can't take the chance of hurting you again. It hurts bad enough knowing you may never walk again and that I caused it. If anything worse happened...

I won't talk about that. I wish you all the luck and fortune and love in the world, and I hope that you don't consider me too much of a coward, leaving before you have a chance to wake up. But you once looked at me with love in your eyes. Seeing the hatred I know is going to be there might finish me off for good.

Please, Gayle, don't let this ruin your life. Live for me, love, live for yourself.

Love forever and always,

Jono