Disclaimer: I own none of the characters within.

Author's Notes: Thank you all so much for the reviews. I had no idea I would get so much positive feedback. This chapter took a while to write, because I was losing the electricity of the Prologue as I had to expand the dialogue. I decided that in scenes where it's only Pietro and Wanda, that's when it'll kick into a higher gear. Anyway, thanks for reading, I hope this chapter lives up to your expectations.

~

Sunlight shafted through her window with such ferocity, she wondered if it had been hired specifically as a wake up call. It seemed to loop around various pieces of furniture, slipping across the floor and scrambling up the bed to deposit a lovely blinding glow of sheer white directly on her eyeballs.

"Damn it all…" she muttered.

Even squeezing her eyes shut didn't help. When she did that, an explosion of strange black dots leapt before her vision, swirling and ebbing the tighter she squeezed her lids. No, looked like despite all her efforts she would have to get out of bed and face the day.

"Damn it all." She repeated, louder, for good measure.

Sliding out of bed, she was hit by a shattering wave of cold that chased away any ounce of sleepiness that had been left in her. With a hissing gasp and widening eyes, she snatched her blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her shivering frame. Fortunately, the fabric still held all the body heat that had accumulated there during the night, and it acted as an instant heater.

Stalking over to the door and feeling a need to pin this infraction on someone, she threw it open and stuck her head out in the hall, caring little that she looked an absolute early morning fright.

"Alright, which one of you bozos turned down the heat?" she barked.

As usual, she was instantly answered when Todd came bouncing up the stairs, a happy expression on his face and eagerness bubbling out of him.

"Morning, sweetums!" he chirped with far more energy than anyone was allowed to have in the morning. "It's wicked cold out this morning, so I suggest ya dress warmly! And we got the heater up as far as it'll go; the house just ain't keepin' it in!"

Eying him, she noticed that even he had taken his own advice and was wearing something different than usual, which was enough of a shocker. He wore a large red sweatshirt that was far too big, but apparently kept him warm, as he was chipper and enthusiastic. Wasn't he cold-blooded or something? She was too tired and cranky to care.

"Whatever."  She muttered, retreating into her room.

"Want me to make ya some hot cocoa or sumthin'?"

His question went unheard as she shut the door.

Still huddled in her blanket, she sat down stubbornly on the bed and pulled her legs into the haven of warmth. She was never ready to get up in the morning; for her, it would be perfectly fine if she could sleep till noon. Had she once been able to do that?

She shook her head to clear it. She'd been so confused lately… it was like she wasn't herself. And where was her father? She had vague memories of him always being there… where was he now? Or maybe… no, that wasn't right either.

"Damn." She hissed between clenched teeth.

If there was one thing she didn't like, it was being helpless. And right now, she felt exactly that. She felt like her life had been turned upside down somehow, and she couldn't figure it out. Who was she, really? And where had her brother been in those idyllic years? She had no memories of him, and yet still…

"Ah, screw it."

Trying to get herself away from such dangerous and tedious probing, she wandered over to her dresser and yanked out a faded pair of blue jeans and a thick black sweatshirt. Dress warmly. And while she would ordinarily never follow the advice of anyone, the weather suggested that it was only common sense to do so.

~

Wandering down the stairs was always like stepping into another world. No matter how many times she descended that path, she would never get used it. For she was leaving her calm, organized, and sharply feminine bedroom to trespass into a foreign land…

Downstairs was like a slap-in-the-face reminder that she was living in a house inhabited predominantly by those that were male and craved all things macho. While it wasn't the disaster area it had been when she first moved in, it still had a disconcerting sense of disorder and chaos, while occasional articles littered the floor. At the moment she could see a sock, a pizza box, a shirt, an empty bag of some kind… various things lost by the various people she lived with.

Todd was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, and he sprang into action the moment her feet touched the floor.

"Take a look out the window!" he cried exuberantly, like a little kid on Christmas. "See what happened!"

Obediently, she wandered over to the dirty living room window and looked outside… her breath was stolen away.

During the night, temperatures had dipped below freezing, leaving everything covered in a glistening casing of ice. Light ricocheted off the frigid surface, sending a dazzling kaleidoscope of shimmering brilliancy everywhere, as though thousands of stars had been captured and set in glass.

"Wow…" she breathed.

Immediately she thought of her brother, musing if he came in at all last night. Had he stayed out there and let the ice cover him, heedless as always of any danger that something as trivial as frostbite might inflict?

An amusing image of him frozen like a Popsicle danced into her mind, and she smiled wryly, her eyes scanning the yard in the half-hope of spotting him out there completely encased in ice.

It was not to be. Instead, she felt a light tag on the back of her head, and a rush of air behind her as a certain blur of speed raced around the room.

"I expected you to be an ice cube by now." She grinned, turning around and flopping on the couch.

Pausing in the middle of his run, he looked at her with an insulted expression on his face.

"Moi? An ice cube? Never! Although…" He struck a ridiculous pose. "I am too cool."

"Lame pun, little brother."

"I believe you mean big brother."

"No way. I came first."

"Nice try, darling! You're only telling yourself that."

"Whatever."

With her dismissal of the argument, he threw himself down on the sofa next to her and sat twiddling his thumbs, mocking their split-second of inactivity. It was as if he needed to constantly be in motion, like he couldn't even sit still for one moment and say good morning to her…

"Good morning, by the way." His voice said next to her.

Whirling on him, she stared open-mouthed. He threw up his hands defensively.

"What? What'd I do?"

"Nothing." She said hastily.

Raising an eyebrow, he leaned his face right up next to hers and made a huge show of studying her carefully, making 'hmm, hmm' noises in his throat. At last, he leaned back and nodded slowly, before blurting out,

"You're lying!"

And then he was gone, zipping away before she could even blink. Again, she wanted to be so angry with him for being so difficult… but she couldn't.

Another wave of confusion assaulted her. Wasn't she supposed to be mad at him? Or was she not? What was happening to her? Leaning forward and resting her head in her hands, she was hardly aware of another person settling on the couch next to her. Somewhere inside she felt a niggling suspicion that her brother knew exactly was wrong with her…

And yet he had helped her so much. In her agony and bewilderment for the last few weeks, he had suddenly become the most familiar and rock-solid thing in her life. He'd always been there, even out of sight, and now that her mind was in turmoil she felt immensely comforted to have that feeling she had when she was hear him.

She'd never yet tried to explain it to him, but lately it was getting so overwhelming that she wondered it he felt it too. Like a second heartbeat, or like she could feel this heat or passion radiating off of him and enveloping her. But was it possible for two people to be linked like that? So that they could always feel each other and know what the other was thinking?

Once or twice she'd read about it, brushing it off as nonsense and exaggeration. But lately she wasn't so sure… was she? Confusion again. It was like running into a brick wall.

"You okay?"

Startled and defensive, she whirled on whoever was sitting next to her. Todd shrank away instinctively, looking like he expected her to throw a hex bolt at him or something. But she would never do that… would she?

"I'm fine…" she waved his concern away absently.

"Ya sure?" he persisted. "I'll talk to ya if ya want…"

He was like a puppy dog, she mused. Eager to please, and never getting the hint, sometimes.

"I'm fine, Todd, fine."

Perhaps she'd spoken too sharply. At his hurt expression, she added,

"Thanks for asking."

The moment was on the verge of getting dangerously sappy, when a violent shudder ran through the whole house and threw both of them off the couch. Jumping to her feet indignantly, she stalked towards the kitchen and the source of the problem.

Lance stood there, fuming, with something wet and slushy dripping down his back. He was scanning the kitchen for culprits, and spotted only Freddy sitting there playing solitaire with himself. Rattling the foundations again, he bellowed,

"Pietro!"

A silver head poked around the corner.

"How'd you know it was me? I'm guilty until proven innocent!"

"Well, considering there's only one person in this house who's crazy, sadistic, and juvenile enough to bring a snowball indoors, the suspects were pretty limited." Lance said dryly, brushing the snow off his back and flicking the chilly particles back at their original owner.

It was strange; a few weeks ago all the boys would have leapt on Pietro for such an outrage. But now, it was as though they had drifted back into their early state of brotherhood. He had… well, the only way to describe it was going soft. Ever since Wanda's mellow return from the ski resort, Pietro had mellowed out just as much, becoming the silly prankster he had once been in friendlier times now lost.

The change had been noticed by all of the others, Wanda included. She noticed the hesitant smiles he sent her way when they shared a secret joke, and then the ecstasy when she returned the grin. Had he been angry because she was angry?

In a flash, Pietro was standing on the kitchen table again, trampling Freddy's card game and holding himself in a dramatic pose.

"Yes! It was I! Defender of chaos! Protector of truth, beauty, freedom, and love!"

"I saw that movie." Todd contributed from the doorway.

"What movie?" Wanda raised an eyebrow.

"Moulin Rrrrrrouge." Pietro answered, rolling the 'R' for effect.

"Never seen it." She admitted.

"You never saw it?" Todd laughed. "Man, everybody saw that thing! But of course, I guess you were…"

His sentence trailed away and a guilty expression slid over his face, his eyes dropping to the floor and then glancing around the room for a few seconds, until he finally smiled and added thinly.

"It was a good movie."

"MYYYYYY gift is MYYYYYY SONG!" Pietro belted from his perch on the table. "Musical. Very good, I thought."

"ROOOOOOOOOXANNE!" Lance countered from the floor.

Spying a challenge, Pietro whirled on him and sent the cards he stood on flying everywhere, to Freddy's annoyance.

"Because we can, can, can!"

"Voulez-vous couche avec moi?"

"There was a boy! A very strange enchanted boy!"

"Come what may!"

"Diamond's are a girls best friend!"

"Shut up!"

At Wanda's outburst, both boys turned to look at her quizzically. Glaring at both of them, she tried to appear stern, instead of the amusement she felt at watching two teenage males singing 'Diamonds Are a Girls' Best Friend'.

"I've never seen the movie, so A) you're really confusing me; B) you're making me feel left out; C) you might give away some plot point and then I would have to kill you."

"Why, Wanda!" Pietro clutched his chest in his most melodramatic fashion. "I never knew you felt so strongly!" Returning to a normal stance, he added, "You really should see it, though."

"It's got can-can girls, yo!" Todd laughed.

Taking his cue, Pietro began prancing around the table and swishing an imaginary skirt, kicking his feet up in a bizarre imitation of a can-can girl. Freddy's attempts at reorganizing his game were by then hopelessly muddled under the white-haired boys' tramping feet. Finally, enraged, he went to grab the speedsters' legs.

"PIETRO!" he roared.

And then they were all shocked.

Pietro vanished.

~

She felt a chilling, numb sensation sweep through her, like a terror she had never experienced before. The terror escalated into a panic, a gnawing hysteria that spiraled to her mind and dizzied her so that she dropped to her knees. Blur… everything was a blur, a hazy and phantasmagoric apparition of fangs and jaws dripping with the saliva of madness. Eyes, shimmering eyes that were bleak with horror, glared at her from a thousand cavernous recesses.

From a distance, she heard voices calling her brother's name…

And then everything snapped back to reality. The subtle familiarities of the kitchen beckoned to her warmly, and the gentle appliances smiled at her from their cozy shelves.

But something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong, and this realization pumped through her veins like a powerful drug, the whole peaceful vision of domesticity sharpened and clarified by the knowledge that something… was… wrong…

Piercing through the fog, she heard a voice, a thin and reedy whisper strangled by fear and panic…

'Help me…'

The others were jolting in one unified wave of concern towards the living room behind her… turning slowly, trying to blink away the peculiarity that was shaking her senses… she saw what the others saw… her brother, reappearing in the blink of an eye… falling on his knees, clutching at his head… trembling like a reed in a hurricane.

In one bound she was across the room, kneeling to be at his level and grabbing those thin shoulders lest he disappear from right under her nose. He was shaking, shaking harder than she'd thought any person could. It was as if were a vibrating piece of machinery… but the description that suited him best was the image of a mountain climber that had become lost in a blizzard of monstrous proportions.   

His eyes were wide with animal panic, darting around the room, black pupils shrunken to pinpoints of fear teetering precariously on their icy backdrop. The whites were visible all around, reminding her of how he looked when he was on a sugar trip or running fast. But this was no game.

Fingers clawed into her knees, and she saw his long hands digging into the carpet, opening and closing spasmodically on thin air, clutching at some imaginary hold.

She whispered his name in an effort to get his attention. Nothing. So she shouted it, feeling her own terror building at this gibbering fool that was only moments ago her witty sibling. Shaking his shoulders, she finally got him to look at her.

He opened his mouth to say something…

And only gibberish came out.

Starting backwards, she gaped at him in horror as he continued his attempts to form words that came out in a string of babble. She listened carefully… he was talking at superspeed levels.

"Calm down." She commanded in a low voice.

Even as she said it, she didn't how she'd decided on that phrase. Ordinarily, she would have said 'slow down' or 'stop', but instead this… but its' soothing powers seemed to be working; the hysteria was fading from his eyes. Finally, he forced out,

"Whyareyougoingsoslow?"

Whispering back her quavering response, she said softly,

"I'm not."

A look of strained agony passed over his pale countenance, as he squinted his eyes at her in a look of utter incomprehension. Gripping his shoulders more firmly, she said calmly,

"Calm down. Come back to us."

Again, the words appeared in her mouth like magic. This time, however, their soothing effect was lost as he pulled away, rising to unsteady feet and tottering towards the stairs, gradually getting slower and slower. The other boys parted in dead silence as he trudged through their ranks, finally going up the stairs and out of sight.

Those that remained in the wake were as breathless as a tomb, their own heartbeats hammering in their ears and their brows set in curves of bewilderment. Finally, Todd's hushed voice broke the silence.

"What just happened?"

And no one could answer.

~