Btw, the first scene of this chapter is inspired by a fanart work by Porcelainbitch that's based on the Preschool episode. I saw it and thought it would be so cute to include in the series.

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Little preschoolers squealed in chatter over their fingerpainting at each round table of the pink and aqua blue classroom that Miss Claridge watched over. The room was implanted with fun toys and trinkets for toddlers' eyes and young learning as one circle table kept three boys busied in their messy artwork. The one with the raven locks and poof ball hat with the little brown shirt of a blue football dipped his fingers into royal blue paint to slather across his white page of colorful blobs.

"I want tha' orange please!" His red-headed little friend with the green trapper hat and orange t-shirt of a boat symbol begged with reaching little fingers. Stan pushed the paint container Kyle's way so he could dip his fingers in and add to his own masterpiece.

"I'm gonna put mine on my fridge!" Stan said, holding his undried painting up proudly as paint splattered about.

"Me too," the little red shirt brunette boy said, scratching his hair underneath his light blue toque hat with messy fingers. "Mine's gonna taste the best!"

"You don' eat paintings," Kyle corrected earnestly to Eric.

"Ya you do cuz they're gooey!"

"Paint doesn't taste good," Stan stared at his blue-covered fingers, noticing Miss Claridge. "I don't think so."

"Ya, it does!" Eric said.

"No!"

Stan decided to confirm the answer, tucking his fingers firmly in his mouth when the teacher was busy.

"Kenny, you sure you don't wanna join the others?"

Stan turned on his stool, fingers still in his mouth as Kyle and Eric looked too.

"We have fingerpaints."

"No."

Miss Claridge went from kneeling to sitting before a lone boy as to reason gently with him. "Remember what your parents talked about?"

The quiet sweater of orange with the red scarf and blue jeans avoided her glance, stubbornly pretending to be oblivious as he hugged his knees tighter.

"You have to give some other kids a chance. They don't look all that bad, do they?"

"Yes."

"Yes, they do..?"

"Yes." Kenny repeated in the quietest tone known to man. He shifted his held knees and kept wary against the wall. He stared at the storage bin of building blocks and handpainted wooden race cars to his right. Those were his favorite.

"Why don't you try and play by yourself for a while?" The teacher proposed. "Then we'll talk again, okay?"

She rose from the floor to leave Kenny just to that. And while he still eyed the nearest storage bin temptingly, he didn't care enough to try and touch it. Miss Claridge sat at her desk, trying not to be so worrisome of his behavior. His brother hadn't been so much like this.

The little boys watched the small orange sweater kid. They didn't know too much about him even if he was in their preschool class. School was the same as new to all of them as it must have been for him too. He wasn't as fluently playful with many of the kids easily so far though.

"I don' wanna fingerpaint anymore." Stan decided, rubbing the messy paints on a cloth the teacher gave him in opposition to rubbing it on his shirt. That bin near the boy in the oversized sweater looked tempting. "I wanna play cars-es."

Kyle quickly decided that sounded more fun, too. "Ya, I wanna!"

"Bu' I'm not done!" Eric complained as the other two got up from their stools. Not wanting to be alone, he wiped off his hands with a pout and followed. Kyle and Stan approached the boy near the toy bin of trucks and blocks, figuring he was the gatekeeper.

"Hi! You wanna play?"

Kenny kept his knees tucked as he wondered if the little redhead boy was talking to him. Looking up with eyes over his scarf at the three that hovered over him. The redhead and raven-haired one stood closest with the little chubby kid standing wearily behind them.

"Hello," Stan followed, thinking maybe he didn't hear.

"..hi.."

"Are you playing with the cars-es?"

He shrugged.

"Can we play?"

Huddled in his seat still, the blonde boy nodded seeing as they seemed eager. He scooted as to make room while the other three made themselves comfortable on the floor. Eric took the box by the edges and dumped the lot onto the carpet for the boys to pick and choose from.

"Let's make a track," Kyle jumped right into, rearranging sanded wooden pieces that acted as roadways for the cars. Stan and Eric added to them while Kenny watched.

"And a parking place!" Eric added.

The boy who offered them usage of the toys still only watched to Kyle's notice. "You wanna, too?"

Kenny shook his head.

"Why?"

The little blond boy hesitated by the simple question. From the encouragement, he let his knees down and scooted forward, picking up a block in adding to the rearrangement carefully along with the others in silence.

Stan picked up a yellow pickup truck and a red racecar to arrange in the parking lot of their center. Kenny took notice of the yellow fascinatingly but was afraid to peep. He ducked his eyes down in building the track and mumbled something through his scarf.

Stan looked up. "What'd you say?"

"He said yellow is his favorite." Eric translated.

Despite Eric being the first to understand, Stan handed Kenny the toy truck. "Here!"

Unexpected of the offer, Kenny took the truck in return.

"Now you gotta put it down the ramp! Kyle enthused over the arrangement of blocks and slides he made for a little downhill speedway. Kenny observed it as he clutched the truck and Kyle nodded. "It'll be cool!"

Kenny placed his truck on the ramp, letting it go loosely as it rolled down.

"Crash!" Eric played, pretending the yellow truck had hit another one he waved up high. He pretended to make it flip through the air with a dramatic wind sound through his teeth. The other boys all laughed including Kenny.

"We should put a truck shop for tha' broken ones," Stan suggested, already arranging some unused blocks.

Kenny retrieved some other wooden pieces for usage. "An' a junkyard."

"Oh, yeah!"

Kyle added to Kenny's junk pile as he looked up. "Was' your name? I'm Kyle!"

The blond boy sat up, his cheeks tightening in a smile. "I'm Kenny."

Eric scooted forward. "I'm Eric, dats Stan."

"Hi," Stan said again. "I like your hoodie."

Kenny grinned again softly, before holding his truck forward. "You wanna race?"

"Yeah!"

Meanwhile, Miss Claridge smiled happily from her desk. Seeing that it was a much better day for the McCormick boy.

Stan, Kyle, and Cartman froze in being caught red-handed by the path patroller before them. The woman eyed them warily as the hiking trail was currently closed to the outside public, but for all she knew they were visitors staying at the local campgrounds.

"You kids here with your parents?"

Kyle bit his cheek. "Yeah, our campground is nearby."

The patroller nodded. "Alright, that's fine. But, this trail's closed. Next time you show me your campground." She left them, and the kids kept walking.

"Geez, you'd think Kenny's hiding spot wouldn't have such uptight bitches." Cartman huffed.

"He wouldn't be allowed to patrol a whole day if it's closed," Stan observed, looking around. "Who knows how big this trail is."

"Kenny!" Kyle called through his cupped hands. Who's to say how big this trail was and if Kenny was even on it. The campgrounds went around about the entire lake and for all they knew Kenny skipped over to another town already.

"Kenny! Wanna look at playboys!?" Cartman tried. He was met with silence. "Yeah, so, he's not here."

"Kevin said."

"You think any of us know Kenny at all anymore?" Cartman reminded. "He could be in a hole punching babies, right now."

Stan rolled his eyes and kept calling. "Kenny! Kenny!?"

"What!" A piping voice responded. The boys blinked and turned to the deep thicket where it came from.

"Well, shit." Cartman said. If Kenny felt no reason to hide, they weren't gonna waste their breath. They approached the thicket and batted their way through upon entering, finding ground on the uphill which lifted them up in their walk.

"Guys look, just try to be sensitive," Kyle reasoned as they climbed. They hooked their knees onto the top of the hill upon reaching, wiping dirt off their palms and awed looking towards the unexpected view of the lake just beyond greenery and a fast-running river below the drop. Kyle turned by Cartman's nudge to look to their left over the flat surface, where the familiar hood remained with his knees tucked. Same old from when they met him, huh. They approached the boy sitting in the dirt, away from public trails out of being caught by nosy path workers.

Kenny barely gave them a start. "You guys are dumbasses.."

"We're dumbasses?!" Cartman exploded. Kyle palmed his forehead.

"C'mon, Ken. It's time to go." Stan dismissed.

He refused to move.

"Kenny? Get. Come on."

"Shut up, Stan."

His brow snapped in a furrow. "What is your problem?"

Kenny shot up. "Mine?!"

"Yeah!"

"Why'd you have to follow me!?"

"Y'know, if we keep going on like this, I'm just not gonna speak to you anymore!"

"So, we're NOT gonna fight," Kyle intervened between the two. "Right?"

Kenny shoved his hands into his pockets, kicking the dirt below him.

"Everyone's really worried," Kyle reminded. "Your parents are freaking out."

Even after his little river-side nap, Kenny was just too tired. "Thanks for coming.." he said in a genuine attempt. "I just...I needed to get away."

"Why?" Stan asked. Kenny looked up at him and his friend raised his brows. "Please?"

"Kenny, I know it's a lot on you...but just look!" Kyle pleaded, grabbing Kenny's shoulder in his attempt to turn. "You're scaring all of us by ditching in the middle of the night!"

"You didn't have to come." The hood muttered. "You don't even have to worry."

That confused Kyle more than anything. "What kinda friends would we be if we didn't?"

"Free ones.."

"From what?!" He snapped, officially fed up to the brink. "Why the hell does it bother you that we feel bad?! You think any of us were gonna not feel anything when you got sick?! Not even Cartman?!"

"I can't keep living like a default!"

Kyle's locked brow kept frustrated, but his eyes chimed with confusion. Stan and Cartman were still equally heated and Kenny needed to look away before he felt worse. If that was possible.

"I can't, guys..."

"What're you really doing out here, Ken.."

Kenny reconnected his gaze to the lake across the low trees, watching the trickling sun in its reflection make the center look like gold surrounded by the purest blue. Everything was such a fresh of breath air out here and even at his worse, Kenny couldn't get enough. It was just too bad it didn't change the past.

"My mom's depressed."

"What?" Cartman asked, unready.

Kenny frowned. "It's things like that that I'm causing..." though he could tell from behind his back that his friends wanted to chime in, they were composed in letting him finish. "I don't want her to be unhappy because I don't work...normal."

Cartman uncomfortably looked away, voicing what the others were thinking too. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Kenny's eyes softened as he turned around. "Would it have mattered?" He sighed off his fear of their reaction. "I'm not afraid of being dead anymore..I'm afraid of killing everyone else."

Horror over Kenny's intentions ran through Stan's mind. "Did you come all this way to-?"

"No...not really.." Kenny said. "..I see the lake all the time...I wanna be here when it's all over one day. Like...that'll be the good part after everything ends. So I can skip the rest and just get to like.."

They waited on his reason, probably more patiently than Kenny's known them to be. He lowered his chin to his chest again. "..the heaven part."

The air was thick with the weight of Kenny's release. For once in the healthiest terms he'd expressed for weeks but no different on his outlook of himself. For Kenny, this was his chance to let them know he was a lost cause. Definitely not worth a bus trip just to find him...

"You can't just skip everything for heaven," Stan said. "Cuz then...a lot of people would be there, y'know."

"But if I found it-"

"Staying here isn't gonna free you, Kenny." Kyle disrupted. "You're gonna stay miserable, and you know that. I'm sorry you feel like this, okay? But you need to let someone help."

Kenny's eyes trickled with tears. "I can't do that to people, anymore.."

"Then do it for yourself...please..."

He hugged himself.

"Come home, Kenny..."

Kenny sniffed, wiping a fist to his eyes and giving the most hope to his friends for weeks; "I'll...I'll try."

That was all that was needed. Stan exchanged another look of confirmation with the others. "We're not gonna force you. So, see you.."

"Yeah.."

They assured themselves that he was okay for a minute, really only planning to wait just beyond the thicket, and decided to give him a bit more time. For him to agree at all was a good start that neither of the boys were stupid enough to take too much advantage of at Kenny's pace of healing.

Cartman looked once to assure that Kenny wasn't keen on leaving now. Seeing the boy sit still, he continued on across the hill's surface. Unwillingly stopping by a weird cool texture of a loop around his ankle that only became noticeable to his senses just then.

Stan stopped walking in notice, and Kyle followed. "Cartman?"

"I think a dick just wrapped around my ankle."

Stan rolled his eyes. "Cut it out."

"I'm serious!" The red-coat boy did a twist around to try and see what was attached to him. Having difficulty, he lifted his ankle forward which caught everyone's attention, and his own fright, to a lovely little water snake making herself at home. "ACK!"

The boys watched in surprise of his yelp, and when Cartman's foot hopped one too many times near the hill's edge, Stan's stomach dropped. "Oh, CRAP!"

"Cartman!"

His arms windmilled back in a feeble attempt of safety, shocked eyes widening in his knowledge of the danger awaiting him bellow as Stan grabbed his arms in being the nearest and Kyle grabbed onto Stan as Kenny froze in surprise. Needlessly, Kyle's feet were the last to be dragged off the edge.

"NO!" Cartman yelled. He wasn't sure if he yelled because of the fall, or because he just caused more of an accident bringing the others with him. The three descended with a splash into the river and were barely able to register before they were hurled away.

Kenny bolted after them downstream.

"Ken-!" Kyle called, but was immediately halted by the water gaining.

"Blrrrfgh!"

"Hu-!" The boy in the red poof ball hat used every ounce of strength to keep his head above water. In that state of panic and fight for survival, the orange hood that they'd searched for was still there. When Stan was able to steal another look, that boy had already been bolting after them. With an entirely new intention of setting foot in that water.

"Fuck-!" Kenny panicked, picking up the pace. The river was so much faster carrying the boys than he'd imagine. He screeched to a halt at the edge of a bush thicket the river ran into. Panicked in his next decision as he cursed under his breath once more.

With no more trail, Kenny jumped air in a pencil dive. His body met the water and deep he went from his choice of landing. Coming up for a gasping breath of fresh air, he too was being pushed down the river the same as his friends.

"Link, LINK-!" He struggled.

The three upstream from him struggled to catch arms as Kenny kept shouting in instruction rather than a suggestion. When one of the low-hanging trees represented an arm crossing halfway over the narrowing river, Kenny threw his weak arms over it. Nearly choking himself as his head plunged back underwater the river's strength with his hands still attached to the branch's top. But against all forces telling him he was gonna get his friends killed, he up pulled against the waves. Until the sturdiness of the branch was underneath his chest and his friends were nearly upon him.

Scooting down inch by inch, he reached the furthest he could go without the branch snapping. Removing his soaked hood before it suffocated him. Stan had wrangled onto Cartman, who had wrangled onto Kyle as the three drifted in a spiraling train. Stan could see Kenny's ghostly face and reached a desperate hand to him.

"Stan!"

The raven-haired boy struggled to keep an arm forward from the water's force, nearing the branch more closely and faster.

"STAN!" Kenny begged. If this river didn't get him, letting it take his brothers would.

The red glove that frailed from the river's growls swung above water, bringing more splashes with it. He kept it above and in a yelling attempt, he landed it when marking Kenny as his forearm was grabbed by the boy holding onto the branch. Now attached, the three still frailed in the river's running direction as Kenny kept hold of the tree in one hugging arm.

By careful decision, each boy climbed along the human latter starting at the end. Until they were all gripping the branch that was enough to give them a hoist onto and climb up the less steep side of the hill. The wet of their palms didn't help their grip, but their slow pace made sure of no accidental falls again. Stan was the first to make it all the way up, pulling up Cartman then Kyle, and by the time Kenny reached, his near-passing out made him reach for a helping hand. They didn't hesitate to hoist him up into the air that was now freezing upon their wet clothes.

Away from the creek, they all collapsed on their butts in the dirt. Holding their arms in self-hugs as they gathered in a circle to reevaluate what in the fresh hell just happened and if it even did.

"Thanks, Ken.." Kyle shivered. Kenny only nodded freezingly.

Cartman, the start of the accidental ruckus, looked to his hooded friend. "Are you crazy...?"

"Yeah," Kenny said forwardly. No doubt there. "Not like I was gonna leave you, though..."

Cartman clutched the sleeves of his soaked coat. His ego was not big enough now to save him from looking stupid. Or...stupider. "I'm not worth that risk, Ken..."

Kenny shook from the air hitting him, looking to Stan for confirmation who had trouble keeping the warmth in his body. But staring at Cartman all the same. Kyle swallowed the bile on his tongue, knowing he might just eat these next words.

"...you're our risk, Cartman.." Kyle shivered. "Cuz who else would be.."

Shaking, whether from the cold or tension, Cartman breathed heavily. "Don't get all gay on me, K-Kyle.."

The redhead rolled his eyes, but once met with Cartman's smirk, he looked away as to hide his growing laughs. Soon following Stan and Kenny laughed along. The four friends, albeit freezing their asses off, had a connection they'd lacked for a while. For too long.

Kenny both shivered and chuckled off the cold. "It doesn't take...saving your life...to prove I'm not a default...right?"

Kyle patted his back. "It barely takes...you just being a friend.."

Hard, visible puffs of air left Kenny's mouth in quaking movements to stay warm.

"What is it...?"

Kenny licked his mouth, his lips feeling colder. Not taking his dosage was catching up to him and he felt that creeping fear for his life shadowing over him as the cold started to hurt. "I should-should've taken my meds..."

Stan looked worried through the trembles. "Crap.."

Kenny clutched his body tighter, breathing to savor the warmth.

"W-We'll make sure to change that...again." Stan assured, looking across at his friend promptly.

The coldness giving Kenny a hug was similar to that of the night they brought him back to Kyle's. This time the pain that he'd been ignoring for weeks though was being awoken and threatening to make Kenny pass out. Pins and needles poked his head and he felt cloudy in his mind.

"G-Guys...I don't think I can..." he closed his eyes against his knees.

Seeing his friend's unstable state, Kyle gave a shoulder for him to lean on. Threatening to take away his own arm from keeping himself warm to wrap around Kenny's shoulders and nod shiveringly. "We're leaving here...all of us..."

Stan shook and tried to speak before Kenny risked falling asleep. "I-I never told you, Ken. But, after you came back from the hospital...I wasn't gonna let it-let the same thing again..."

"...that's nice, Stan..." Kenny said, eyes unopened against Kyle. "You're a good pal..."

Kyle rubbed his shoulder, noting mentally Kenny's slow breathing. "Just hold on...you're good."

Kenny's pain became evident, and he tried to soak up the energy of another human holding him. Both the physical comfort and the care put into it.

"You're good, Kenny..."

Sleep sounded so nice. "...I love...you guys..."

With Kenny nearly asleep, the three kept quiet in the river's thicket. Gathering as much warmth as they could before they could get up. The minutes ticking by made them wonder if they may ever get up though, yet it wasn't enough to scare them to move.

The sound of tires upon the mountain trail eventually popped their ears. An engine shut off and a car door shut. Not minutes later did two park rangers, man and woman, come through the thicket in their patroling uniforms. Supposedly following the direction in which these boys were specifically.

"..the hell?" The ranger approached through the branches to get a better look. "What're you kids doing!?"

One of the four soaked boys with the green hat looked up from their circle, the cold become more excruciating. "Sir, is there an office...o-or something...nearby..?"

The man took a minute to process.

"P-Please...o-our friend is sick.."

The woman looked to her co-ranger. "C'mon, before we have four kids a la mode."

To be continued...

The next one will be the last chapter! Out Friday!