Sorry about the wait. Homework...blah blah blah....finishing RBNH....blah blah blah....you know. But here it is! Squee!

Oh, and I am aware that the stupid thing ate a couple of my words last post. Marco's parent's died in a car crash on the way home. Sorry about that.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Um, Marco, hun....I've been dating Bryce for almost two years now."

Marco blinked rapidly in succession, wondering if perhaps he had heard wrong. But....but Bryce was a girl! A female! Which would make Ellie a...a... It wasn't until several seconds of stunned silence later, that were only broken by the boyish girl still giggling manically in her corner, that he realized he had, in fact, heard correctly.

"But....what?" he gibbered faintly. "H-how long have you been gay? Have you always been?"

He realized that if the situation had been a bit different he probably would have been rolling on the ground along with Ellie's "girlfriend." But, as it were, all he could really do is stare at her and do his own personal goldfish impression.

Ellie raised her eyes, and with an evil smirk snorted loudly at his shocked tone and shared a look with Bryce before turning and grinning down at Marco again.

"I've never been gay at all."

Now Marco was thoroughly confused. The bewilderment must have been apparent on his face because Bryce's tame giggles turned back into their former howls of amusement, reverberating loudly around the room and swirling in his ears like a mocking whirlwind.

Very cranky by this point Marco growled in the back of his throat and rubbed his face tiredly. "I don't understand. I'm far too stupid at the moment for you to keep speaking in riddles, El. English please."

She had the decency to sober up a bit and quit smiling like the village idiot, if only for a moment. "I've never been gay. Or atleast I don't like to think I am. I've dated Sean...dated you. I liked you both tremendously. Then, of course, I'm with Bryce, and the feeling is definitely as amazing as you two, if not better in some ways."

"So you're bisexual?" he questioned, scratching his head and arching his eyebrows. Why couldn't she just make sense?

At his inquiry Ellie's light laugh filled the room again. A sudden shift and Marco realised she was getting up off of him, coming perilously close to kneeing him a couple of times on her way up, kicking off blankets and placing hands in awkward places. At last, she was finally on her feet and away from bodily harming him. She turned to Marco and shrugged lazily as if to indicate the situation was no big deal.

"No, not exactly. I liked you because you were sweet. I liked Sean because he appealed to my independent, freakish side And I like Bryce because well.....she appeals to me in every way." Ellie smiled at the end of her sentence, as if willing her words to make sense for him, and then walked over to the sink, riffling through the bundle of clothing until she procured a bright green pontytail holder with an accomplished "ah ha."

Facing Marco again she sat daintily on the brunette girl's knee, holding up her hand with the tie slightly behind her ear, signaling for the other girl to take it. After an affectionate sigh, Bryce reached forward and pulled her hair back from her face with swift, practiced movements that spoke of doing an action a million times, and then wound the band around the bunched up hair, all the while smiling softly. Unoccupied, Ellie continued her explanation.

"It's never been about what body parts a person had or how deep their voice was. I've always been attracted to the personality and the silly things that make them unique. The fact that Bryce here is a female never really meant much, just made it a bit harder to tell people about."

Marco blatantly stared at her, jaw some place near his stomach. Of all the things he'd come to expect from Ellie, that was perhaps the last. It seemed in both worlds she could throw you for a loop.

And what a loop it was.

This rather startling change of events, he realized yet again, only made him love this version of her more. Here she was so...happy and carefree, and seemingly totally at ease with who she was and what she had been given in life. She walked with her head held up high and facing the world. She cried openly, and she touched even more so. It was like a reinvention of the girl he knew. Taking all her more looked down upon traits and morphing them into strengths in a very subtle way. Exactly the same person...yet crazily different. She was, he concluded, a beautiful person.

"Oh."

"Here I was, waiting for some profound reaction, but typical to Marco del Rossi style...I get a one syllable response. Bravo, dear," Ellie giggled behind her hand.

Marco blushed and stuck his tongue out at the girls in retaliation. "Sorry. That was just the last thing I was expecting. I think it's brilliant though. I'm glad you're happy."

Bryce beamed at him sunnily and squeezed Ellie around the middle before she maneuvered herself out from under her and stood up. "I'm going to go get some breakfast and see if I can track down Mr. Vaughn. I'll be right back," she mumbled, making vague motions towards the door.

Ellie nodded, watching her leave, then swiveled around in her chair to play in the clothes again, speaking over her shoulder. "Bryce brought you and I some clothes it seems. If one of the nurses or Sean don't get in here soon we're going to have to figure out how to get you dressed."

"What do you mean?!" Marco spat indignantly. "I can dress myself!"

Ellie snorted and shook her head. Though Marco couldn't see her face he would have bet money she was rolling her eyes at him. "Marco, you've been in a bed for four months eating through a straw. I highly doubt you have enough energy to keep standing for that long."

Erk. Marco didn't like this little development one bit. Thinking back to yesterday when he had climbed out of bed to look in the mirror, he was horrified to realize that it had been entirely too tiring, like he hadn't ever walked before, easily leaving him breathless and shaky, even after only a moment. Remembering this, he sadly agreed that standing by himself for prolonged amounts of time would probably be impossible.

"Then how was I able to shower? Change? How did I go to the bathroom?!" he cried near panic.

"Well, usually Sean would help, but when we're not around it's strictly the nurses. Bryce has helped a couple of times," Ellie hissed in a fit of playful spite. She was enjoying this too much, he thought.

Wait. Marco felt his eyes bug out unpleasantly. "Are you telling me that no less than three people have seem me naked!?!"

Ellie's grin got even wider, nearing dramatic proportions. "No, more like ten. Different nurses, Sean, Bryce, and sometimes Nana. Though I must say the nurses are quite lucky getting a free show like that. We should have atleast sold tickets. Make some money off your comatose sexy self!"

Feeling the burning blush creep up his neck Marco groaned in embarrassment and dropped his face in his hands.

"Ewww!!!"

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Several minutes later, Ellie was still teasing him about his embarrassing predicament and he was still steadfastedly staring at his palms and whispering pleas of "no no no," though he sensed a bit of laughter seeping into his words by this point. Or mindless hysteria, he added.

"Honestly, Marco. Chill out. It's not like you're the only one here who's been seen. You're such a big baby," Ellie giggled out after his panic attack had gone on for too long.

"A BABY!?!? How would you feel!?!" Marco stopped and shook his head, frustrated, staring moodily down at his bedspread. "How many others are here anyway? Where am I? I thought I might have been in a hospital, but it seems too lived in for that. You said yourself it's been four whole monthes."

Ellie cocked an eyebrow at the unexpected question but humored him. "Well...welcome to Borgin's Marco. I guess you could call it a bit of a rehab center in a way. It's not for mental patients, but it's for those whose conditions would require an extended period of time under surveillance. Um, it's of course, for younger people, under the age of eighteen. There's about fifty people on this floor. There are four floors, you can do the math. Um...I think that's about it really. Not much to tell, especially considering you're leaving in the next hour."

Thank goodness, Marco thought. If this process was a 'one step at a time' thing then he couldn't wait to be home. Nodding a bit stupidly Marco twiddled his thumbs wondering what to say. Now that all the drama was over...there didn't seem to be too much to talk about.

He was still rather quiet due to the blow about his parents, but luckily no one was talking about that. In fact, he was waiting to talk to Nana later that night. He had decided, that if he was to have that conversation with anyone, it would be her. She always had a way of making things seem a whole lot better than they actually were. He'd gotten through many a scraped knee in his world because of her, andthe thought made him smile.

"So Bryce said that you wished gravity would do me in this morning. Is this true El?"

Marco looked up from where he was toying with his own fingers to see Sean standing in the doorway wearing his customary clothes, a hoody draped over one arm and a pair of shoes in his hands. He was smirking in much the same way Ellie seemed prone to do.

Ellie, for her part, turned around at his voice too, identical smirk crawling it's way forward. "Why yes I did. Are you allergic from waking up before the double digits or something?"

Sean's smirk grew wider and he strode over, dumping his things in the remaining empty chair. Swivelling around to Ellie he dragged a hand to his chest in mild dramatics. "You wound me El. You really wound me. I thought you loved me."

Shaking her head, Ellie reached forward and hugged him, snorting slightly. "I would love you better if you got here on time instead of drooling all over your pillow."

"I don't drool," he shot back in his flat voice, indicating to the world that he really didn't care one way or the other. He had a habit of that. Too blank to decipher. Annoying...but effective. No one knew what was going on in his head...and that was perhaps how Sean liked it.

"Yes you do."

Instead of Ellie, it had been Bryce who had retorted this time, walking in from the hallway with a bottle of water and a very sleepy looking Mr. Vaughn behind her. "I couldn't find any food. Well, atleast none that didn't come out of a machine in a plastic wrapper. I vote that we make something when we get home."

A chorus of "okays" and "sounds good" echoed around the room and Mr. Vaughn took a seat on the stool next to him. How many people had sat there recently?

"Ah, how are you feeling Mr. del Rossi? Remember anything?" Marco shook his head and sat up a bit straighter. "Alright. Do you have a headache? Even a small one?" Again Marco shook his head in the negative, fidgeting. "Good, good. You're not faint are you? Feel nauseous?"

"No sir. Really. I feel perfect. Just a bit exhausted. Need to sleep." The doctor stared down at him intensely for several seconds before he nodded very subtly.

"Alright. You're free to go." He stood, signing a form, and turned to Ellie. "Mrs. Nash...I'm trusting you to make sure he eats and sleeps today, alright? Quite frequently."

"Of course sir. Nana would throttle me."

Mr. Vaughn left the room, Bryce making faces at his retreating back, before turning back around. "Well, let's get you dressed shall we?"

Marco shrank back into the pillows, his stomach feeling as if it were shriveling up into nothing. "Uh...."

Ellie jumped in to explain. "He went bezerk after you left. He's scared to death of being seen naked." Marco blushed hotly again, hiding his face from view, waiting for the laughs to start. Oddly enough, they never did, only understanding smiles were thrown his way. To his surprise, Sean was the one to step forward, holding out his hand.

"I guess you'll just have to close your eyes then. Come on." Though the words might have seemed dismissive, the boy's voice said otherwise. It was gentle and encouraging...and it was all he needed to atleast swallow his pride and get on with it.

Grabbing the hand in a death grip he stripped off the blankets and swung his legs over the side of the mattress. The second his feet touched the tile floor he shivered harshly, taking a deep breath and attempting stand.

Attempting being the operative word. After an instant of standing in triumph he felt the weight bearing down on his knees become too heavy. With a startled squeak, which he would later deny being girly in any way, he fell back onto the bed in an unelegant sprawl of arms and legs.

Oomph. "El? I think you might have been right. I think I wasted all my energy yesterday."

"What do you mean, hun?"

Marco sat up on his elbows and looked up at everyone annoyed. "I got up to look in the mirror yesterday. You know, after I found out we were all seniors. I wanted to see if I looked older. Anyway, it had been hard, but now it feels even harder." Marco thought of something. "Oh yeah, while I'm thinking about it. I have two words for you El. Hair. Cut."

All the occupants in the room cracked up. Bryce, manically, as she always seemed to. Ellie, discreetly behind her hand. Sean, in a slightly wheezy way that you couldn't actually hear, but knew he was laughing very hard. It was interesting watching them all interact. He'd been doing it since the first girl had made an appearance early that morning. He supposed it was really all a way of catching up with the world, but he enjoyed it nonetheless.

Eventually the humor died down a bit and Sean stepped forward again, extending his hand. "Let's try this again."

This time they made it.

Marco grinned brightly all around the room, just stopping himself from clapping in self accomplishment. He did bounce up and down a bit on the balls of his feet, Ellie rolling her eyes at him. Losing balance he almost fell over, before he felt a pair ofstrong arms wrap around his waist. "Only you are stupid enough to finally stand up straight, and then ruin the moment by celebrating. You're such a dork."

Sean again. Marco snorted and made a face at him. "Oh...shut up. Let's go. Wouldn't want to celebrate again or anything." Bryce and Ellie smiled at them, knowing there was no heat behind the words, mostly because Marco was too busy trying not to laugh, as he was hauled manually to the bathroom.

--------------------------------------

A bit later the two boys stumbled back out, one extremely red in the face and the other one making fun of him. They both stopped after the door swung open, seeing the girls were talking in one of the armchairs, Ellie in Bryce's lap and doubled over in laughter.

"What's so funny?" Marco questioned, thrown off. It was hard getting used to Ellie being with a girl. Really really hard. But he was trying.

"Oh nothing," Bryce chipped in. "We were just commenting on how thin the walls were. We could hear your embarrassment."

"Oh, shut up." Marco stopped, realizing something. "Can we go now? I mean....can I finally leave!?!"

At Ellie's brief nod Marco started bouncing on his feet again, earning rolled eyes from Sean. "Can we get him out of here then? Before he knocks me over?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ellie waved dismissively. "You know it's regulation to wheel them out in a chair anyway. Quit whining you."

And with that Marco was sat on the bed, and minutes later a sweet looking nurse came in, pushing a wheelchair and smiling pleasantly. "Hello dear. Ready to get home finally?"

Marco nodded as he was helped into the chair. "Yes ma'am. Very much so."

Being wheeled out of the building Marco looked down the halls wide-eyed, trying to take in everything. When they passed by a room he would look into them, craning his neck, seeing families crowded around beds and blaring TVs. But most of all he saw the elevator. The elevator that led downstairs.

Once they were out of the elevator he had a clear view of the door. The door that led to freedom. That led to freedom and discovery and life. He was so close! The entrance was made of glass and he could see the bright sunlight outside.

He was going home.

Rolling out through the doors he felt the first rays of sunlight hit his knees and then quickly slide up to his face, warming his skin and making him squint through the too bright light. It was nice. He wasn't in a sterile, ugly white room anymore. He was leaving. He was starting over.

In the rush of depositing him out of his wheelchair and into a silver suv he didn't have much time to reflect on what was going on. Bryce climbed in the driver's seat, Sean next to her, and Ellie joining him in the back. The car ride was quiet, sparse talk littering the silence. From what Ellie told him it was an hour drive back to the house so he settled into a nap only ten minutes in, feeling the exhaustion from not sleeping that night creep up on him. He wouldn't miss anything.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Hey Marco. We're home. Wake up love."

Marco blinked, stretching his arms up high above his head, feeling his shoulders pop. We're there? The fog of sleep disappated almost completely at that thought. We're there!

Grabbing onto Ellie's hand and then onto Sean's shoulder as he hauled himself out of the vehicle he looked up, feeling so happy to lay his eyes on the familiar sight of home at last

But it wasn't home.

"Ellie, isn't that Sean's house?"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

And there it is. They are now out of the Institution. Finally. And, for those of you still confused, if you want, just ask a question in your reviews and I can try to answer. Fwar. I don't mean to be so confusing. I promise.