Treble Clef

By Silver Falcon

Chapter Seven

Marcie felt her heart stop as soon as she entered the room. If it wasn't for Jack being behind her, she would have busted her head on the tile floor. A pulse had been found, but her body was lined with breathing machines and heart beat monitors. It was a deep set coma that they had found her in.

"Oh, Pixie..." she whispered weakly.

Jack turned to the nurse that had brought them there. "Yes, prep her for surgery and tell me what happened."

The nurse flipped a few pages on her clipboard and read. "It doesn't specify, but she was found near the Donut Shop by a group of teenagers. She has second and third degree burns over 85% of her body, along with the two stab wounds on her right thigh and arm."

Jack sighed. "Prep her for the surgery. I want you to do everything within your power to save this girl."

The nurse nodded and hurried off. With one hand around her waist, Jack led Marcie to the chair next to the bed and sat her down. Marcie clutched her chest and gasped for air.

"Pixie…"

"Marc, we can't do anything except pray right now…"

She burst into tears and leaned on him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "She was so young! I hardly knew her! She didn't even have a chance!"

Jack rubbed her head. "Marc, she'll be okay. Let's go to the church and pray. Come on. They'll be taking her for skin grafts any minute now, and that'll be a few hours. Come on…"

"I can't leave her, Jack…" Marcie whimpered.

He embraced her and nodded. "Okay, we'll stay with her."

He pulled up a seat next to her and let her cry on his chest. Jack began to doze off around two in the morning, but, somehow, he was able to stay awake until four. At two, just three hours later, they took her into the surgery unit. Marcie had cried herself to sleep and had her head resting on his shoulder, her arms tangled around his.

***

Pietro had been awake since seven, straining his ears to hear the phone ring. Everyone else was asleep, but he felt sick all night. He didn't get much sleep because of it. He lied there under his blankets staring at the wall, wishing has hard as he could that the phone would ring.

A second after that, it did.

Pietro was downstairs with the phone in hand before it had time to finish the first ring. "Hello!?" he asked in a very fast voice.

"Hello, I am calling on behalf of the burn victim that you found last night. She has been into surgery and visiting hours are nine to three and six to eight."

"What room is she in?"

"A-4-23."

"Is she okay?"

"She has been in a coma for the past few hours, sir."

"Okay. Thanks. Bye."

"Bye, sir."

Pietro dropped the phone on the hook and ran upstairs to bang on Wanda's door and wake her. She was already awake and standing at the door with her black robe on.

"She's in a coma, and he said that she had been into surgery."

"Wake Todd. You, him, and I are going to the hospital."

Wanda turned around and walked inside her room, closing the door. Pietro knocked on Todd's door, but to his surprise, it was unlocked.

And to his shock, Toad wasn't in his room. He shrugged and went to his room to put some decent clothes on. Wanda came out after he did and looked into Toad's room to find he wasn't there like Pietro had found.

"Where's Toad?" she asked, her voice carrying itself down the stairs.

"No clue. He must've gone to the hospital already," Pietro said from the kitchen.

Wanda knew that was probably where he was.

***

Jack looked up at the door sometime around five. It had opened shyly, and the tan-haired boy walked in.

"Um…Pixie's room?" he asked quietly.

Jack nodded. "They're going to bring her back in about thirty minutes."

Todd came in and sat down in the corner, sitting on the floor and staring at the tile. He looked up after a few minutes to see Jack staring at him.

"You one of her little school buddies?" he asked.

Todd nodded. "I'm the one that she got detention for saving."

Jack smiled. "Ah. Well, protecting a friend is a good way to get detention, I guess."

Todd stared at the floor. "How long have you been here?"

"Since eleven last night."

"She is going to live, right?" Todd asked, raising his sympathetic gaze.

Jack nodded. "Yeah, but they said that they might run across some complications, but so far, there haven't been any."

Toad smiled and silently thanked God for answering his prayer. She was going to live!

A doctor came into the room. "She's been moved to another room. Please follow me."

Jack gently shook Marcie's shoulders. She groaned and opened her eyes. She shot up.

"It's morning! Is she okay?!"

Jack stood up. "Yeah. Come on. They moved her."

Marcie saw Todd in the corner. "You must be…Todd, right?"

Todd nodded. "I'm the one who got her in detention."

"Oh…"

They followed the doctor into another room that was larger and had more monitors than the other room did. The blisters and burns had stopped swelling, and she had a scale-like substance on her right side. Her eyes were closed, and the tube down her throat was no consolation.

"Do you know that she has wings?" Todd said, looking at Marcie and Jack.

They shook their heads.

"A friend of mine says she knew her for a long time. She said that she's half fairy and half mutant."

"We knew she was a mutant, but fairies aren't real."

The door opened and the red-clothed girl shook her head. "On the contrary, they are real."

Todd's eyes opened. "Wanda?"

Pietro appeared behind her. "Yeah, we came too."

Todd hopped over to Wanda and smiled. "He said that she was going to live."

Jack extended his hand towards her. She took it and shook it slowly. "My name's Jack, and this is my fiancée Marcie."

"I'm Wanda, this is my brother Pietro, and this is Todd."

Wanda shook Marcie's hand too, and Pietro walked to the bedside. "How'd…she get like this?"

Wanda walked over to him and put her arm on his shoulder. "She has three men after her that have been trying to kill her for fifty years. Every time she plays that flute, it creates a homing signal that they follow."

"Fifty years?" Marcie asked.

"Yes, she's been alive for almost a thousand years. She wears the long trench coat to hide her wings, but most of her clothing was burned."

Jack's face grew angry. "Who are the men following her?"

Wanda shook her head. "Even if you found them, you can't kill them. They are far from this world. She is the Protector of Humans and Mutants, and she protects us from the Fairy Realm."

"I thought fairies were good."

"No, fairies hate humans." Wanda walked to the side and touched the scale-like covering on Pix's shoulders. "I think we need to wait. If she comes out of her coma, then perhaps she would be able to tell you in more detail about herself."

Pietro moved to her right side and covered her hand with his, remaining silent and just staring at the monstrosity that used to be the most gorgeous woman he knew.

The door opened slowly. Rogue poked her head in and walked inside with Kitty, Jean, and Scott behind her.

"Ya' guys know her too?" she asked. "Wow. Ah…didn't think it would be that bad… They announced her name ova the news this morning, and we kinda"

Kitty covered her mouth. "Oh my goodness."

On normal circumstances, a brawl would occur then and there, but this was a hospital. Rogue looked at Wanda and Pietro and came into the room, approaching the two adults.

"Ya can call meh Rogue. Ah met her tha other day at school."

"I had no clue that she knew you guys," Scott said, partially surprised and partially disgusted.

"Well, she and Toady over there just clicked," Wanda said.

Everyone looked at Todd who was still sitting in a corner. Kitty walked over to him and noticed that something was missing.

"Did you take a bath? You smell like Pert Plus!"

Todd blushed and nodded.

"Wow. I didn't think you had it in ya," Scott said smiling.

"Yeah, Todd. We're proud!" Jean said.

Todd stood up and shrugged. At about that time, the doctor came in. "If you…(wow, maybe we need to move her to a bigger room)…would so kindly step into the lobby for about an hour, we have to make sure her vital signs are stable."

Everyone in the room left, and Pietro was the last one out. They walked back down the hallway and settled in the lobby. Toad had taken his predicted seat next to Wanda on the loveseat. Pietro had claimed a chair. Marcie and Jack were in another love seat. The X-Men had taken seats that were lined together.

"How did she meet you?" Kitty asked.

Wanda was quiet for a moment. "Todd talked to her a few days ago. He introduced her for Pietro, and when Todd got in that scramble, Pietro brought her over and introduced her to me."

"Do any of you know how this happened?"

"Yeah. This was an attempt assassination."

"What!? Why would someone want her dead?" Rogue asked. "Sure, Ah don't know her very well, but why would someone want to kill her?"

"I'm not really sure. She never told me that," Wanda answered.

Todd crouched on the sofa in his usual fashion, staring across the lobby at the X-Men.

"Is there anyway that you could asked the professor to use his powers to find a mutant that can heal?" he said, blurting his statement out of the silence.

It appeared that he had thought about it for a long time. Jean looked at Scott.

"We will ask."

Todd smiled. "I owe ya one yo."

Rogue stood up and walked over to Pietro. "Uh. Ya' okay?"

"Yeah. I just need sometime away from all the freaks," he sneered.

Rogue growled in his direction and returned to her seat.

Todd stood up and went over to Marcie. "I'm…um…sorry."

Marcie hugged him. "It's okay. She'll be okay. We just have to pray for her."

Todd smiled and looked up at Jack. "I have to go do something. I'll uh…see you all later."

Todd hopped out of the door. He jumped on top of a low restaurant and began to make his way across Bayville.

He would go to the Professor now. He would ask, and surely, someone would join his cause. She had saved his butt, now it was time for him to save her. Maybe she would like him.

There had to be a healing mutant somewhere. There just had to be. Surely the professor would help him. He would help save the last good fairy, wouldn't he?

Todd hopped faster, knowing Kurt could port whoever it would be here, and then he or she could heal Pixie. He would help save her, and when those jerks came back for her, he would help stop them.

He felt his heard soar when the mansion came into sight. He jumped over the fence and darted up to the door before the stun lasers came out of the ground. He knocked on the door, being careful to avoid the lasers.

"Let me in! Professor!!! Please!! This is a matter of life and death!" he yelled.

Wolverine had to be the one that opened the door. "Yeah, bub. You're right. You live if you leave, you die if you stay."

Todd hopped between Wolverine's legs and into the mansion.

"Professor Xavier! Please! This is serious! No jokes! I swear! I'll let Wolfie here kill me if I am kidding," he yelled to the empty mansion before quickly adding, "which I am not!"

Ororo walked out of the room in front of him. "Todd, stop."

He did, sitting on the floor contently. "I have to talk to Xavier. Please. This is an emergency…"

Storm smiled, her motherly face kind and loving and totally the opposite of Wolverine. Todd smiled in return, thinking that he would get his chance.

"Come on. Follow me," she said, walking down the hallway.

Suddenly, Wolverine came ripping down the hallway claws extended, but he stopped short when he saw that Todd was following Ororo. Suspicious, he followed, claws still extended as warning.

"Professor Xavier? You have someone here to see you."

Ororo held the door open for Toad, and he hopped into Xavier's office. Xavier was looking out the window, but he turned around the instant the door closed.

"Man, I have to ask you for a big favor," he said, hopping slowly towards him.

"What is it?" Charles said slowly.

"I need you to help me save the last fairy. Please, I know it sounds stupid, but it's not. She's in the hospital right now. Can't you get on that Cerebro thing and find a healing mutant?"

As silly as it must have seemed for Charles, he smiled. "The last fairy?"

"Please, you can ask Wanda! She knows everything about her! This fairy is real!"

Todd's begging struck Xavier as hilarious, but he kept a straight face. "Yes, I'll see what I can do. I'll see. Right now, I suggest you go back to the hospital and wait with your friend.

"Pixie," Toad said.

"Pixie? Is that her name?"

Todd's heart sank. "Please, just read my mind and you'll know that I'm telling the truth."

"I know you are. I'll go check Cerebro, and you go back to your friends. I'll give you the news as soon as I can."

Todd jumped up and did a back flip. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"

He leaped out of the window and began to make his way across the yard.

Ororo came in. "What was that about?"

"Do you believe in fairies, Ororo?" Xavier asked.

Ororo stopped and stared at him. "Well, Charles, no…"

"There's one at the hospital. Come with me to Cerebro. I'll need your help."

Ororo nodded and walked out of the room with the Professor behind her.

***

"Now, let meh get this straight. Pix is 1000 years old?!" Rogue asked, nearly killing over from the shock.

Wanda nodded. "So no one act shocked when she gets better. We all know about her wings. We all know that she's half fairy and that she's being chased by three hardcore assassins. So, just lay off of her for a while and act like everything's normal." Wanda stood up and began to pace. "The men that are after her are assassins sent by the Big Cheese of all the fairies. There is very little that we would be able to do to hurt them"

Pietro stood up. "The dragon one…his name was Forez, I think. He was the one that can breathe fire, right?"

The witch nodded. "Yes."

"What about Pyro? What if we like recruited him for this short little while…"

Wanda put her hands on her hips and scoffed. "Pietro, you idiot. I am not going to let Magneto or his rats help us! Pyro probably would just recruit them for Magneto!"

Pietro cowered at his sisters outburst. "Well, still. The one with four swords wasn't fazed at all with the punches I threw at him, and I'm in perfect shape."

"You idiot! They are immortal! They are probably older than she is! They aren't stupid nor are they weak!"

"We can beat them! For her sake, we have to!"

Wanda was about to say something, but Todd hopped through the front door. "I asked him! He said he would check and see if he could find one!"

Scott grinned. "You went to the mansion, and Wolverine didn't shred you?"

"Xavier said that he would see if he can find a healing mutant!" Todd dashed up to Wanda and hugged her before jumping away to avoid death. Pietro collapsed in his seat. "Where's fuzzy?"

Rogue bowed her head over crossed arms. "He went with Beast and Cannonball to a science lab down in Atlanta, Georgia."

Todd nodded. "Man…"

Who was going to port the healer back?