As Kai walked to the door, a figure ran out colliding with him. Rage stared up at him fearfully for a second before she recognised him.

"Kai" she said happy that she had found him. She hugged him tight, still shivering. But she seemed calmer now that he was there. She was wearing a white hospital gown that covered her whole figure. Bandages covered most of her legs and her left arm. As he placed a hand comfortingly on her back, he felt more bandages that circled her entire back.

"She tried to put a needle in me Kai" Rage whispered in a shaking voice. Kai just stayed still, offering a comforting presence that was working in calming the girl.

"Oh my goodness."

Kai's head jerked up at the familiar voice, he looked around to see Mr Dickinson staring at the fainted nurse in horror. Doctor Giles was standing beside him with a similar expression on his face. The doctor attempted to pull the needle out of the wall, but apparently it was stuck in too deep. So he stood up looking at all the teens suspiciously.

"Who did this?" he demanded with his voice containing more shock than anger.

"Rage doesn't like needles" Kai answered simply. He stared at the doctor, examining him for any sign that he might be a threat to Rage. Instead, when Giles met his gaze he saw only pity not anger. Kai scowled, unable to tell which was worse.

"Kai, he looks like…"

Kai's attention was brought back to the girl standing beside him. Her blue green eyes were wide with fear as they fixed on the doctor. Kai looked between them both before he understood what was wrong. The doctor was wearing the exact same uniform as the scientists at the abbey had worn.

"Don't worry, he's not. That's what all the doctors around here wear. It doesn't mean that their bad people." Kai explained quietly, although seeing as they were standing in the same hallway all the others heard him.

"If you're sure," Rage said, not sounding totally convinced.

"I don't understand" Giles gasped, staring at Rage like it was the first time that he had noticed her. Kai's eyes narrowed as he turned his attention to the doctor again, it was just in his nature to mistrust doctors. He had no good memories containing medical people, only a whole lot of bad ones.

"How is it possible that she's even conscious?" continued the doctor, who was obviously very confused about the situation. "The drugs that were given to her to keep her asleep while her lung was repaired should have kept her knocked out for at least a few more hours. This is medically impossible."

Kai rolled his eyes at this, what an idiot. He placed a hand on Rage's shoulder immediately gaining her attention. Without fully realising it he lapsed back into the uncomplicated hand signals they had used back at the abbey when they hadn't dared to risk talking.

First he gestured to her, which was the first word, 'you'. Then he flattened his hand so that the palm faced her and the fingers were spread out, 'wait'. Last he gestured toward the hospital room that she had just ran out of, 'there'.

The signs were done so fluently and quickly that only Rage who was also familiar with the non-vocal language could understand what was being said. She nodded, and walked back into the room. Her beyblade was gripped tightly in her hand, and she looked oddly vulnerable wearing only the shapeless gown.

"To answer your question it is not medically impossible. Drugs just burn through her system faster than most." Kai said in a monotone voice.

"Amazing" the doctor said astonished, "if I could just run some tests on this, it could lead to a major breakthrough."

"NO!!!" Kai's hand was around the doctor's throat before either of them knew what was happening.

"No tests" the teen hissed as the doctor struggled uselessly against his grip. The doctor's feet flailed around, trying without success to reach the ground.

"Kai!" Kai immediately dropped the doctor as the sound of Ray's voice jolted him back to his senses. He stared at his hands in shock, he could barley believe what he had just done. He looked past his fingers to see the gasping doctor stumbling back to his feet. Usually at this point he would leave to sort out in his head what had happened and decide whether it was worth an apology. But Rage wouldn't forgive him if he left now, and he would never forgive himself if while he was off moping Bathos showed up.

He forced himself to mutter an apology, and leaned back against the wall like it was no big deal. He'd just been too on edge, and at the doctor mentioning running tests on Rage. It had sounded too familiar; tests had been run on her before. Kai knew that because he had always been the one left to comfort her when they were done.

"Its ok Kai" Giles rasped "its obvious that both you and her have been through a lot."

Kai's hands trembled with the need to hurt him and shut him up. He knew nothing of their pasts, how dare he act like they were in need of his pity. Kai crossed his arms over his chest so that no one would notice him shaking.

"How is she?" Kai asked in a voice that gave away no emotions.

"She's badly hurt enough that she shouldn't be able to move, let alone tackle a nurse. She has broken five ribs, one of which punctured a lung. But we operated on that fixing the lung and strapping up the ribs. She has also fractured her collarbone, and has a great number of cuts. It looks like a whip has been used on her back, causing a great number of deep slashes. It also seems that a heated knife was used on her legs and her left arm. We found two stab wounds on her left arm. Three on her right leg and two on her right. As well as this there are multiple burn marks on her legs.

This is not including the large number of bruising. Scaring indicates that this sort of treatment has been happening for a period of about ten years. We estimated this by looking at the earlier scars and dating when they were made. Unidentified chemicals have also been found in her system, however their effect what ever it was, seems to be waning. Her muscles also seemed to have suffered some trauma, which looks like she was electrocuted. However the lack of electric burns indicate that she was in a liquid when electrocuted.

Some of her scars seem to be similar to yours Kai. However her scars look to be more erratic and yours when compared to hers look to be more precise, and complicated. Since I also estimated your scars to be started around ten years ago, forgive me if I think that there is something that you should be telling us."

Kai acted as if he hadn't heard Giles's invitation to talk. He processed all her injuries in his mind, most had been what he had as he expected. So his face did not show the shock that his fellow teammates showed.

"Can I talk to her now?" he asked, his voice monotone.

The doctor gave a dissatisfied nod and Kai went to enter the room. A hand placed itself on his shoulder forcing him to stop at the doorway. He hated it when they did that, it always made his skin crawl when they touched him. It seemed to make his skin crawl when anyone touched him, no matter how sure he was that they weren't going to hurt him.

"You are going to explain this to us, right?" The owner of the hand said.

"I will" Kai promised "Just not yet."

Its only Ray, he tried to tell himself. Calm down. Still Kai couldn't help but feel relieved as Ray removed his hand from his shoulder. They thought that his hatred of being touched was merely a minor anti social trait. The problem was that it was more than that; of course them with their delusions of life being wonderful wouldn't get that. Rage understood, she had learnt the same way that he had about the cruelties that life brought.

He entered the room.

-

Rage was sitting on the edge of her bed swinging her legs absentmindedly in the air. Her black fringe flopped over her face as she hummed to herself. She looked so childish at that moment. The fact that the legs she was swinging so carelessly were heavily bandaged and leaking crimson made the scene so unreal.

Kai sat himself down on the end of the painfully white bed. He sat cross-legged facing her and after a few seconds Rage turned around so that she was also sitting with her legs loosely crossed on the bed facing him. This was how they had conversed for hours when they were children.

"Do you want my advice?" Kai said quietly after a while.

"I always want your advice Kai, tends to be good stuff." Rage argued, with a hint of humour in her expression.

"You've got to tell the police about what Bathos has been doing to you. That way he'll be locked up, he deserves that."

Rage looked down at the area of sheet between her and Kai. "If that happens" she started.

"If Bathos gets locked up, then I'll have no place to stay anymore. I hate Bathos, I really do Kai. But he's the only living family I've got left, I'll have no home."

"You can stay with me." Kai said slowly, he smiled slightly as Rage raised her head to look at him.

"I'd like that" she said surprised at his offer. She toyed with her mainly black blade.

"Tasmine missed Dranzer," she said gazing fondly at the fire-covered wolf that stood proudly on the bit chip. "She was the one who helped me find where you were."

"I'm glad" Kai said, not knowing what else to say. The comfortable silence between them was broken as a nurse entered the room carrying a tray with a needle on it. She seemed nervous, she had probably seen what had happened to the other nurse who had tried to inject Rage.

"I'm… um… here to give you morphine by the doctors orders." The nurse stammered, clearly not thrilled by the situation.

"Morphine is a drug that will stop you hurting so much" Kai explained to the puzzled girl. They hadn't been allowed painkillers at the abbey, so her confusion was justified. At the abbey pain had had to be bared with, it had just been a part of life. If you could call it a life that is.

Rage gave a slow nod, although her fear stood out on her face. She was terrified of needles, the abbey had seen to that. She reached into a drawer on the tiny cupboard that was placed by her bed. She picked something up out of it and placed it in the space between them. When she lifted her hand, Kai saw that it was a pack of cards.

"I kept it," she said, her voice sounding distant. "I kept it to remind myself of you, about all the times we used this pack to distract ourselves from what was happening. I think that playing with these cards was the closest thing to fun we had at the abbey."

She gave a shadow of a smile as she captured him in her gaze again. "Do you remember when I first bought this pack? It must have only been a few days after I first met you. We were five and I kept trying to teach you how to play with the cards. It took me hours to persuade you that no matter who won or lost no-one would punished for loosing. I was obsessed by the game of cards for some reason, the first time I met you. I remember I immediately tried to get you to play cards with me."

Kai smiled sadly, "The fact that we had no playing cards didn't seem to discourage you." He paused and then looked at her with humour in his gaze. "You were bossy back then" he teased.

Rage nodded, "I was" she agreed quietly.

The nurse took her time in measuring out the dosage; she didn't want to disturb their memories.

Flashback

A little boy with slate hair huddled in the corner of the cell. This dark dingy cell was his and Tala's room, although now it was empty. That was fine with the boy; his roommate never talked to him and all the adults around here only brought him pain.

His age was five and a half, and in his past six months at the abbey he had learnt a lot of things, none of them were pleasant. He cradled his right arm to his chest, he was sure that it was broken.

He had just been to see his grandfather today; he'd figured that his grandfather had made a mistake in sending him here. Through the months of drill after drill, punishment after punishment. He had convinced himself that his grandfather hadn't realised what went on here. But he hadn't been able to tell his grandfather the horrors that Boris bestowed on them, as he hadn't seen his grandfather since before he had sent him to the abbey. Until today.

He had been in the middle of a training drill when he had seen his grandfather walk by the room. Kai had immediately stopped what he was doing and ran to greet him. He had ignored the punishment that would come from leaving training like that. He had envisioned that as soon as Voltaire found out the truth he'd be shocked and would take him back to the mansion where his grandfather lived. Maybe they could take Tala with them, and Toni, Tala's older brother as well.

That hadn't been what happened. Kai had thought that his grandfather would be pleased to see him, that hadn't been the case. He'd been angry, the child shivered at the memory. Kai must have done something really bad to make Voltaire that angry with him. Reflecting back on it, his grandfather always seemed to be angry with him. In those few short weeks that he had spent in his grandfather's mansion before entering the abbey. His grandfather had hit him, and yelled at him a lot. But he'd figured that this time would be different.

That this time they would be like families were supposed to be, happy. Instead his grandfather had yelled at him, and then thrown him into a wall. He'd hurt his arm when he'd crashed into the stone surface. But his grandfather hadn't cared; he'd just gone on walking like nothing had happened. He'd left his grandson to lie in pain on the ground without so much as a backwards glace. Tears pricked at his eyes at the memory; strange as it sounded he had thought that his grandfather would care for him. Because no matter how much Voltaire hit or shouted at him, he was all he had left.

"Hello?"

The small boy raised his head at the sound. There in front of him knelt a little girl, six months younger than he was. A first aid kit sat beside her, apparently forgotten. The girl's head was perhaps a inch from his own, it seemed that no one had bothered to teach her to value personal space. He leaned back against the wall as he gazed into the stranger's wide blue green eyes.

"You're name's Kai, right?" She asked, shifting her gaze from his eyes to stare at the blue triangles that were tattooed on his face.

He nodded, moving his head as little as possible to avoid hitting her head with his own.

"My name's Kay" she said with a wide grin as she sat down to sit opposite him. She sat with her legs crossed, now that there was more distance between them. Kai could see that this girl had long black hair that must reach halfway down her back at least. Her wrists were bandaged, with spots of red showing through the white material. The girl didn't appear to notice.

"My papa just got a job here. An' he told me that I was supposed to bandage you up so that you can go to training t'morrow." She opened up the first aid kit that seemed way too big for her.

She placed gentle fingers on his arm, expertly easing it from his grip. He eyed her curiously as she splinted his arm firmly, and wrapped it up using a large amount of bandages and tape. It looked like she had done that before.

"There!" she announced, "all done." She seemed very proud of herself. Which she should be, it was a very good job. Not many people would have been able to splint an arm so tight without cutting off the blood flow.

"Kai?" she said, suddenly sounding shy. "Will you be my friend?"

The boy blinked several times in confusion. Just as the girl was about to think that perhaps he didn't want to be friends with her. The previously silent boy spoke up.

"What's a friend?" he asked in a fear filled voice.

"It's a…a…um" the girl frowned in deep concentration as she tried to think up a definition.

"It's a person that you care about and don't wanna get hurt or nothin' bad like that. And they feel the same about you." She smiled, obviously pleased with her definition.

"You don't want me to get hurt?" Kai asked in a surprised voice.

"Course not" the girl smiled.

"Then…I…I… don't want you to get hurted either" Kai said shyly. Up till now everyone had seemed to want him to get hurt. But Kay seemed different from everybody else.

"Good, then we're friends!" the girl seemed to light up with joy. Before she forced a serious expression onto her face.

"Now we're friends, lets play cards" she said as if the idea of cards was the most important thing in the world.

Kai sat silent for a minute before speaking again.

"What are cards?"

Kay groaned, slapping a hand to her face in exaggerated exasperation. "What are you, two?"

Kai frowned in confusion. "No, I'm five" he said matter of factually.

Kay groaned again.

---

Hours later it seemed that he was none the wiser.

"You said that cards are bits of paper" he accused.

She nodded "And…"

"That's just the floor," he said pointing to the 'cards' she had drawn in the dust on the floor of the cell between them.

"Kai, we've got to use imagination here. Cause I haven't got any real cards yet. So we've got to pretend."

Kai blinked again, this had to be the most confusing time he had ever had. "What's pretend?" he asked curiously.

"Pretend is where you believe something is real when it isn't" she said, she was getting good with explaining things.

"Isn't that lying?" Kai asked with wide eyes.

"No, it isn't"

"How come?"

"It just isn't, alright!" She regretted raising her voice as soon as she saw Kai cringe away from her.

"Are you mad wif me?" he asked cautiously.

"No, I'm you're friend. I'm not mad at you." She reassured him, he relaxed somewhat.

"I think I like having a friend" Kai said, his voice completely sincere.

She smiled at him, "Me too."

End Flashback

"Want to play?" Kai offered as the nurse neared with the needle.

Rage nodded, welcoming the distraction from the foreboding needle. "There're all in the right order," she said, frowning as Kai checked them to make sure.

"I have a right to check," he argued with a barley visible smile playing at his lips.

"Now, watch closely" he ordered.

He began shuffling the deck skilfully fast. Rage forced her eyes not to blink as she stared at the cards. Still, she could not help but wince as the needle entered her arm. But she did not break her concentration, and it was over soon.

Kai pulled a card out at random from the expertly shuffled deck, he placed it facedown on the bed not allowing her to see it. He placed the deck down next to it as he placed a finger on the card.

"Tell Me," he said.

"The queen of diamonds" she said, sureness in her voice.

Kai turned it over. The queen of diamonds gazed up at them.

"See you haven't got rusty with it then?" Kai teased.

"Me rusty? Never" Rage gave a small smile. They had developed this game through hundreds of hours of playing cards when they hadn't been training for some reason or another. It was fun, as well as good for developing memory skills.

So, what do you think? Please review.