Author's Note:

*rises out of the ground* I AM ALIVE

Sometimes she's frightened to wake up…..so many times before she's woken bound and in pain, being tortured or used as bait, all those past experiences are engraved in her mind so when she actually manages to rest without the aid of being knocked unconscious it's a horrifying feeling.

Brittany stares up at the ceiling, barely breathing as she flexes her fingers and slowly moves her arms, she feels her entire body relax upon feeling that nothing is holding her arms at her sides and she moves her feet slightly, the throbbing pain of her broken ankle reminding her of last nights events.

She's such a stupid klutz, falling into a giant hole in the ground like some wandering toddler unaware of a windowsill at eye level, she stupidly stomped right up to the thing that would cause her pain and practically threw her body at it.

She squeezes her eyes shut in pure annoyance at her own stupidity, how can she help aid the others if she's on crutches and barely 100 pounds?

"Sleeping beauty awakens," She turns her head as Alvin pokes his head into the room, a small smile on his face as he raises his eyebrows at her.

"You do realizes it's nearly 2 in the afternoon right?" He questions her, stepping fully into the room to grab her crutches for her and help her up, she accepts his help…..but only because it's him.

"What?! Why didn't anyone wake me?" She snaps as she gets adjusted to the crutches pressing up into her armpits, these damn things are so uncomfortable.

"We've been sleeping too, the only one who woke up at a decent time was Dave," Alvin explains with a shrug, staying close as Brittany hobbles along, face pinched up in concentration.

The other experiments are lounging around the living room, a few of them have bowls of cereal in their hands, evidence of sleep still lingers in their eyes as they watch a mindless cartoon on TV, Brittany's never seen that one before….must be new.

Alvin pulls out a chair for her before moving over to the cabinets, "Want cereal? Or waffles?" He asks as she settles down into the chair facing the window, her eyes are drawn to the brightly colored world beyond the glass and she watches as a mother strolls slowly across the sidewalk while pushing a stroller ahead of her.

"Waffles sound good," She answers, her bright sapphire hued eyes follow the woman as she makes her way further down the sidewalk before disappearing from view entirely…..but Brittany is already inside her mind.

Have to call babysitter-

Do I have enough groceries?

Oh gosh I hope Tippy doesn't pee on the carpet again, I just cleaned it!

She exhales a long even breath, letting herself move like water through the woman's current thoughts…..she realized at one point that she can feel their emotions…even force them to feel something if she wanted to, but she wasn't going to mess with this woman….she was merely testing her powers.

Brittany feels a rush of color bright yellows mixed with hints of orange and red flash through her mind, happiness, content…..pink pops up next and she hears the woman's thoughts as they drift to thinking of her child, almost one year old and already trying to walk, as her thoughts focus intently on the sleeping child in the stroller the pink grows brighter and brighter, love.

"They're a little hot," Brittany jumps but doesn't pull from the woman's mind, she learned her lesson…you can't jerk away from a person's mind without risk of harming a memory or train of thought, she slowly slinks away and returns her focus entirely to her own mind.

"Thank you," She looks down at the plate and feels a flicker of pink in the depths of her own mind as the munk slides into the chair beside her, honey eyes warm and intently focused on the stack of waffles he made for himself and is currently drowning in syrup.

She pushes the pink away stubbornly and focuses on her own waffles, stealing the syrup away from his hands before he can coat the table itself in the sticky sweetness she scolds her brain fiercely.

She can't be in love with him, the only reason she feels some affection towards him is because he's kept her safe…..he makes her feel secure and happy, sure she's crushing on him…..but that's far different than being in love, love is dangerous….she should know.

"Morning…hey Brittany, want to get that gimpy ankle fixed?" Wisteria places her empty bowl in the sink as she talks to auburn chipette, her violet eyes peering over her shoulder at her as she speaks.

"Yes!" Brittany shouts a little too eagerly, eyes wide with desperation as she turns in her chair to face the ash furred chipette, "Please tell me you have some sort of healing spit or something," She begs.

"Sorry, but the healing properties are in my blood, you'll have to drink some in order to have your bone fixed," Wisteria moves to the table and takes the empty seat on the opposite side of Alvin, she smiles warmly at her, "It'll taste like blood but you won't have to drink a lot…..those crutches look painful,"

Brittany studies her, skimming over her thoughts she finds nothing dark or ominous in the other chipette's current train of thought and she finds only good intentions…she felt sorry for her and simply wanted to help, she knew that Brittany was only trying to help them last night in any way she could and she would've done the same…..

"Ok, but I just feel bad, don't you have to cut yourself?" She asks frowning, even though they weren't close yet she felt bad for the girl for having to inflict pain upon herself just to get to her blood so that she can heal herself.

"It'll only hurt for a moment, my healing process is fast remember?" Wisteria winks and looks to Alvin who has remained silent the entire time, "Can you grab a small glass to catch the blood in?"

Alvin shrugs his shoulders and moves back to the cabinets to fetch a glass, he passes it to Wisteria but doesn't take his seat again, he lingers between them frowning.

"Here, your claws are sharp right? Just slice right down my palm, I'll squeeze the blood out and Brittany can hold the glass, all we need is enough to cover the bottom," Wisteria explains, holding out her open paw to the munk.

"I hope this works….." Alvin presses the very tip of his claw to the top left edge of Wisteria's left paw, pressing down he quickly slices down, cutting her skin open diagonally.

Her blood is black scarlet in color as it wells up to the surface, pressing on the edges of the cut Wisteria's forehead pinches as she forces droplets into the bottom of the glass, once they hit the bottom they turn to a light shade of violet but as more blood fills the cup the small amount of blood returns to the scarlet color.

Smiling Wisteria sits back and stops pushing on her wound, watching calmly as the cut heals up with no problem, "There, that should heal you,"

Brittany peers down into the glass and resists the urge to shiver at the sight of the thick liquid covering the very bottom of the glass, sighing she tips the glass back and gulps the blood quickly. It slithers down her throat sickly and she ignores the strong bitter taste sitting heavily on her tongue, Alvin passes her a clean glass of water and she drowns it quickly, forcing the blood down.

The three wait patiently, two are staring at Brittany's face as she too waits…it doesn't take long for her to feel an odd tingling sensation in her ankle followed quickly by slight burning before it just stops altogether…..flexing her toes in her bandages she smiles slowly upon feeling no pain.

"It worked!"

If only Wisteria's blood had made her stronger…she's still barely reaching 100 pounds and she feels like she's a walking china doll…..waiting to be broken.

Brittany was grateful she can walk on her own again so quickly but she still feels helpless…..her powers are as weak as she is, why couldn't she get healing powers or super strength? She feels cheated…..they robbed her of her humanity by experimenting on her like a worthless animal and they didn't even have the decency to give her a worthwhile power?

Passing out all the time didn't help her with her confidence either….and when Alvin found her in the back laundry room she was pretty ticked off at the scientists and was feeling hopeless…..she's nothing but a pawn waiting to be tossed around and shattered.

"You get your ankle fixed and this is the first place you go to?" It's been a couple hours since Wisteria healed her and the others were going over the new files they received from the lab they broke into the night before…Brittany didn't see the point in reading them if she was going to be left behind again when they found another asylum to attack.

"It smells nice in here," Brittany answers simply, unable to come up with a viable reason to be sitting atop the washing machine, knees tucked up against her chest as she stares at the far wall.

"Can't argue there…." He agrees watching her intently, she's been more withdrawn since she woke from her coma…she seems to be sinking deeper into her mind and he hasn't seen much of her stubborn nature recently which is worrisome.

"Something's wrong…want to tell me?" He asks leaning against the doorframe, watching as various emotions flicker through her azure eyes, confusion, doubt, worry, then finally resolve.

"I'm weak, and don't even try to pull the whole 'you're strong because you made it through all the shit this world has thrown at you', because if you weren't there to clean up after all that shit and protect me I'd be dead, and it's because without you I'm nothing but a weak mind reader who is made of glass," She closes her hands into fists as frustrated tears fill her eyes.

"I mean…..come on I fell into a stupid hole and broke my ankle! How much weaker can someone get?" She snaps.

"Well….you could've tripped over a flower and broken your knee caps,"

"I seriously think you can't break your knee caps Alvin,"

"Ah I know and you're smiling now," Brittany smothers the small grin on her face and tries to glare harshly at the munk who's watching her with concern mixed with a tad bit of mischief.

Only Alvin can make that face and pull it off, "I hate being weak," She says, eyes taking on a darker shade as she looks down at the floor.

"No one likes feeling weak…..you're only feeling it too ya know, and it's because you've practically been dead to the world and your body suffered. You can't come out of a coma feeling as fresh as a daisy…..trust me I've been there," Alvin's light tone darkens a little and he manages a sad smile as her eyes find his.

"You've been in a coma before?"

"Yes but not as long as you were, I was out for a couple months and that was before you showed up…when I woke I couldn't remember how to talk. I felt stupid, weak, because my muscles felt like jelly and my mind was a jumbled mess. I was lost and on the verge of finally giving up…then I met you. They put me in the asylum a day before that and I honestly thought I was screwed to be a target for bullies because I was weak….." His voice softens and she sees a flash of anger cross his golden irises.

"I wasn't weak for long though, with your help I realized I wasn't completely screwed and could rely on you to help me when I needed it, it's not weak to lean on someone when you're hurting ya know. And soon enough you'll be back to your old self and ready to kick ass,"

Brittany snorts and shakes her head, smiling as she lets his words sink in, "Thanks Alvin, I need that….."

"That's what I'm here for Britt…also I was coming back here to tell you that Dave brought tacos,"

Yaaaaay! I'm writing again! Or at least trying to…..thanks to all you lovely, lovely people for continuing to read and stay around to support me even when I wasn't around!

This chapter was unfortunately a bit of a filler/character development chapter but sadly we need those….it can't be all ninja kicks and kiss scenes (but that'd be awesome!)

Also! I want to try and stretch out Alvin and Brittany's relationship as much as I can…yeah they like each other but relationships are awkward and so are teenagers! So we're going to have some tension building between them and I won't make it easy on them either hehe

Welcome back to this story also! I'm hoping to update this regularly and get it finished then move onto my other stories that I left behind…..let me know which ones you guys want to see updated after this one!

Thank you lovelies, see ya in the next chapter!

MM