Warning: This chapter is one guilt trip waiting to happen. Actually it's already happened, and it's still going!
Chapter Fourteen: The Cause of it All
Todd took the box of pictures into his room and sifted through them, searching through the moments of happiness he could not remember.
He couldn't remember how long he spent sitting on his bed staring hungrily, disbelievingly, longingly, at the pictures of him and Serena. They both look so happy together. How could the Brotherhood, his friends, his family, hide this from him? He had no memory of any of these moments, nor the memory of the happiness and joy he had felt when they had happened. He felt like he had all his life. Alone, scared, and hating the world. But what he saw in the pictures was not the him he knew, it was a guy who had found something to hold on to. Something that was worth living for. He looked as if he was born to love her.
Did I feel differently when she was around? Was I actually happy? Pictures of good times were supposed to make you happy. Happy that you were lucky enough to experience these moments and remembering what fun you had. The laughter, the tears, the arguments, the pictures made you remember those, and laugh about the crazy stuff that went down. But they did nothing for Todd. They brought no happy memories to him. No memory of the moment or the feeling of the moment. They only brought him sorrow for the lost memories and anger at his friends for keeping it from him.
In a rage he stood up and threw the box at the wall scattering the pictures over the floor. Suddenly he grabbed his head. An image of a glass shattering against a wall flash through his mind. He shook his head trying to clear his head.
"Oh whoa, what was that?"
Suddenly Todd heard a car door slam. The Brotherhood was home. Todd didn't think of it sooner but he had decided to set a little trap. There wasn't much time but with Todd being the master of pranks and his useful abilities, he was able to rig up a simple slime trap in no time. Todd had just finished when he heard the front door open.
"Hey Toad, we're home!" Pietro called. Todd didn't answer.
"Toad?" The door opened and Pietro followed by Lance, Tabitha, and Fred walked through the door.
"Hey Toad are you-- GAAAH!" That was when the bucket containing slime spilt all over them causing them to slip and fall to the floor covered in goop.
"What gives man!?" Pietro shouted.
"What do you make of this? Huh? Does this ring a bell!?" Todd shoved the pictures in his face.
"Where did you find those?" Pietro asked.
Todd's voice was cold. "In Lance's room."
"I told you to burn those." Pietro hissed through the corner of his mouth at Lance.
"Wait just a minute. What were you doing in my room?" Lance asked.
Todd held up the green T-shirt. Everybody stared at it in horror. "Does this look familiar?"
"Ooh." Tabitha cringed.
"Busted." Fred whispered.
"You lied to me! How could you do this to me?" Todd glared at them.
"Okay, first it's not what you think." Pietro started to say.
"Oh I think I have a pretty good idea." Todd snapped.
"We can explain." Lance said cautiously.
Todd's eyes narrowed. "There's no need. A picture's worth a thousand words, and I must have a dozen here."
"Toad, you have to understand. She was nothing but trouble." Pietro began.
"I understand. You just can't stand others being happy if you're not." Todd shoved a finger in Pietro's chest.
"I don't have to take this." Pietro tried to walk out but slipped in the slime dropping the McDonalds bag and landing on Lance who knocked over Tabitha.
"Hey watch where I'm going!" Pietro shouted.
"Get off of me!" Lance yelled.
"Ouch! Watch it!" Tabitha whined.
The three tried standing up for several minutes while Todd was video taping the whole thing just for fun. Soon the three were more covered in slime than before. Finally Tabitha grabbed the front of Fred's shirt, who was standing there trying to hide how funny he thought the situation was, and pulled her self up. She grabbed Lance by the shirt and almost threw him out into the hall.
"Augh! Geez, just throw me down the stairs why don't you?"
Pietro pick up the McDonalds bag which had somehow gotten open. "That's it! I'm taking your Happy Meal and your toy!"
"Oh save it!" Tabitha said grabbing the back of his shirt and throwing him straight into Lance.
"Gosh dang, that girl has a temper."
"Get off of me!" Lance yelled. Tabitha let go of Fred's shirt and walked out of the bedroom fuming.
Fred took one last glance to Todd with the video camera and waved grinning. Then he carefully stepped out of the room and shut the door.
A painful cry rang out. "Gosh dang Tabitha! Stop!"
Fred looked to see Tabitha dragging the two boys down the stairs by their shirts with ease thanks to the slime making them slide down easily. It still hurt them though.
"Tabitha stop!" Lance yelped. "Do you realize how painful this is?"
"Yeah, you try sliding down the stairs on your back!" Pietro remarked. Only until they were at the bottom of the stairs did Tabitha let go of them.
Pietro sat up rubbing his back. "What was that about?"
"Yeah, why are you so angry?" Lance asked rubbing his neck.
"What do you think?" Tabitha snarled.
Pietro put on a serious face. "Tabitha, is it that time of month?"
"RRRRGH!" Tabitha started pelting them with energy bombs. They both yelled frantically trying to dodge them. Meanwhile Fred decided to creep into his room and skip the dilema.
"I was only joking!" Pietro's voice came out high pitched.
Tabitha stopped throwing bombs. "You idiots! This all your fault!"
"How is this my fault? Look what that bug breath did to my hair." He ran his hand through his hair which was covered with slime. "This is going to take forever to wash out!"
"If you two would've have just told him, instead of making us keep quiet, this whole thing would never have happened." Tabitha boar over them like an angry lion.
"Oh, don't be like that." Pietro waved. "Toad will get over it."
"That's what you said about Serena, and look how she's turned out."
"Well, yeah but," Pietro chose his words careflully, "Toad's tougher. He can take it."
Unfortunately this is Pietro we're talking about. "You are such a jerk, you know that? You don't care if your actions hurt others."
"Tabitha would you listen to yourself. You're starting to sound like an X-Geek."
"Yeah? Well I'm starting to wish I had never left them to come here and live with you heartless jerks. At least Freddy knows what we did was wrong."
Lance said nothing. He just looked from one to the other as they argued. "This is wrong, that is wrong. What heck the heck is wrong with you?" Pietro asked.
"Me!?" Tabitha asked incredulously. "What's wrong with you?"
"All I did was prevent the team from falling apart."
"Pietro you're the reason it's falling apart. And you made little Todd miserable."
"I know it may be hard on him now, but he'll just have to cope. Sacrifices must be made."
"Oh, so you sacrificed your friendship. Well tell me Pietro, was it worth it?" Pietro just stared at her. She whipped around and stalked back upstairs to her room.
"Well at least she didn't leave a present." Pietro shrugged. As soon as these words left his mouth an energy bomb bounced down the stairs and rolled in front of them.
Lance glared at him. "You just had to jinx it didn't you?"
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Lance knocked on Todd's door and pushed it open slightly to see Todd sitting on his bed doing seemingly nothing.
"Hey."
Todd scowled at him.
Lance sat down on Todd's bed. "Look I know you're mad. And you have every right to be. But if there's any way I could make it up to you..."
They sat that saying nothing for a few moments. Then Todd said slowly, "Tell me something Lance."
Lance's ears perked up. "What?"
"Was I happy? With her I mean?"
Lance sighed. "Yes Toad. You were really happy. In fact you gave happy a new meaning. It was the happiest we've ever seen you."
"What was she like?" Todd asked.
"She was a really nice girl. She didn't mind the way you smelled, or when you caught stuff with your tongue, or any of your other disgusting habits. In fact, she thought it was cute. And she loved you as much as you loved her. You would do anything for her, and you did. You joined the X-Geeks."
Todd's eyes grew wide. "I did?"
"Yeah. Though you probably did that to make sure fur boy didn't get anywhere near her."
"Wait, you mean fuzzy?" Todd cut in.
"Yeah. Anyway," Lance continued, "we asked you to come back but you refused. You didn't want to be away from her. You two were holding hands whenever you got the chance. We were so happy for you. Well, me, Freddy, and Tabbs anyway."
Todd frowned slightly. "Then why? Why did you keep it from me? And how could I forget something like that?"
"Well, after you left Pietro got really angry. He did whatever he could think of to the X-Geeks. Well they said some pretty horrible stuff about us. And soon we all grew angry at them. I don't know. It was like a mad rage, as if someone had taken our anger and multiplied it by ten. Well we fought a huge battle with the X-Men. I was going out of control but you stopped me. Gave me a nice kick in the chest. I guess Pietro saw it and well, he went crazy to put it plainly. He punched you out. And with his super speed to add to that I'm really not surprised it caused you memory loss. You got hit in the head pretty hard."
There was a pause after this. Then Todd said in a hollow voice, "Why didn't you guys tell me?"
It took Lance awhile to come up with an answer. Why didn't they tell him? "Pietro kept telling us that it would be better if all of us forgot about it."
"Did it ever occur to you that I might've wanted to remember it?" Todd's voice was becoming steadily harder.
"Well yeah, we told him that but you know how he is." Lance shrugged.
"That's no excuse." Todd said hotly.
"Toad, I'm sorry."
Todd snapped. "You could've told me! Since when did you care what Pietro thinks?"
"Toad! He threatened that if I told you he'd tell Mystique!" Lance said exasperatedly.
"Big deal! Who freakin cares about Mystique!?" Todd shouted.
"I was only trying to protect you." Lance tried to reason. But Todd was fed up.
"I can't believe you! You took the greatest thing I ever had away from me! And the worst part is, I don't remember any of it! That's what you call protecting me!?"
"She would've flogged you!" Lance yelled.
"From what you've told me, it sounds like it would've been worth the beating!"
"Why are you acting like this?" Lance asked him.
"I just find it frustrating that my so-called friends know more about my past than I do." Todd spat.
"Hey, it's not like we enjoyed doing this!" Lance said heatidly.
"Oh I'll bet!" Todd went into a scenario. "The Toad has a girlfriend? What a shock! Total phenomenon! Oh, he's gone to join the X-Men to be with her? Let's punch his lights out! Oh, he's lost his memory? That's okay. We just won't tell him! He was much too happy with her anyway! God forbid the Toad should be happy!"
"It wasn't like that!" Lance shouted at the top of his lungs. The ground started to tremble.
"Yeah right! What would it matter to you if I was happy or not? After all I'm just your teammate."
"What?" This stopped the tremors instantly.
"Just get out!"
"Fine!" Lance screamed and slammed the door behind him.
After Lance had left Todd pulled out a picture of him and Serena holding each other from under his pillow and stared at it. He gave a deep sigh and closed his eyes looking as though he was about to cry.
Lance slammed the door behind him. Tabitha was standing outside the door, arms folded and eyebrows raised. "I take it didn't go well."
"What makes you say that?" Lance said in a sarcastic tone.
"Just remember, he does have every right to be angry with us." Tabitha reminded him.
Lance's anger melted away. "Yeah, I guess."
Lance went to his bedroom, flopped down on his bed, and stared up at the ceiling.
He had always considered Toad more than just a teammate. He hated to admit it, but he felt almost like an older brother to the little guy. That's how he felt about all the guys. He was the oldest, and most mature of the group. The only one to keep those idiots out of too much trouble. He did feel like they were brothers, all lost and alone, wanting more than the world had to offer.
"How could I let this happen? I was the only person who really understood how the little guy felt. Tabitha's love is more of a lust. But the kind of love me and the Toad have experienced is a love-making, heart-breaking, soul-shaking love. It's the kind of love you get when you know you've found that special someone you've been waiting for all your life. The one person who looks past what everyone else sees in you. But then again maybe Tabbs has felt that kind of love before. It was not our right to take that away from him. In fact it was totally wrong. But Pietro didn't see anything wrong about it. He thought he was doing Toad a favor, or maybe he really can't stand it when someone else is happy and he's not." Suddenly lance heard something smash. He sat up. "What the heck?"
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Pietro flipped through the channels using his super speed. There was nothing good on so his turned the TV off and threw the remote aside. Without television to distract him his mind dwelled on everything that he had done. He felt bad and he hated it. He was weighted against the consequences of his actions. The guilt grinded away at his sanity, and he felt it everyday.
I just wish this guilt would go away. But I made the problems in the first place.
He walked over to the mirror and looked at himself. He looked different. But it wasn't physical appearance, but then maybe it was. His body was still smooth and slender and his hair was perfect as always. But his smug face was hard and his eyes filled with regret, as if the reflection was ashamed at what it saw.
Use to I was perfect, at least I thought I was. Now every time I see myself there's always something wrong with me. I can feel it swelling up inside swallowing me. I just wish I could put a stop to this thing that's killing me. I'd rather not even be then the man that's staring in the mirror through me.
He hated the way he was feeling. He hated the fact that everybody was mad at him. He hated himself. In his frustration and anger he smashed the mirror. He stood there looking at himself in the shattered pieces.
"Pietro breaking a mirror?" A voice spoke. "Now I know the world is coming to an end."
"Shut up Lance." Pietro growled.
Lance walked down the stairs. "Face it Pietro, you feel as bad about this whole thing as we do."
"I do not!" Pietro shouted.
"You can't hide it Pietro! Now matter what you say it shows. And yet you keep trying to deny it."
"What do you know?" Pietro said savagely.
"I know that deep down your insides are bruised. Your insides are screaming at you. You feel like you're going insane."
"Shut-up!" Pietro yelled.
Lance kept going. "You can't live with yourself. You hate yourself."
"SHUT UP!"
"I know how you feel Pietro. Me, Tabitha, Fred, we all know what you're feeling because we feel it too. But you're getting the worst out of it because you are the one who caused all this."
"I SAID SHUT-UP!"
"And do you know what's even more ironic? You're the one who talked Todd into inviting her to the dance!"
This was a hard blow to Pietro. He had forgotten all about that. When Todd had been sitting in his room lost and confuse, it had been he Pietro who had helped him. And it had been him who had convinced Todd to ask her out.
"In fact now that I think about it, you're the cause of everything that's happened."
Pietro shook his head. "No."
"Yes." Lance implied. "You're the one who forced Todd out of bed so that he would go to school. That's when he first met her."
"Knock it off."
"And you were the one who told him to ask her to the dance."
"Go away."
"You flooded the school so we went on that trip and they got closer."
"Leave me alone!"
"You wanted to get rid of her so she left, and Toad followed."
"Get away from me!" Pietro tried to walk away.
Lance blocked his path. "Then you provoke the X-Geeks and knock Toad senseless."
"Get the hell away from me!"
"Oh, but you didn't stop there. You kept the truth from him!"
"So did you!" Pietro yelled.
"Because you threatened to get Todd thrown out!" Lance shot back.
"That's why!?" Tabitha's shocked voice came out of nowhere.
"That's why you didn't say anything Lance?" She glared at Pietro. "How could you do that!?"
"Look I was only trying to keep the team together." Pietro said frustrated.
"Some excuse." Fred stepped out of the kitchen. "I heard the whole thing. Kinda hard not to. But I think Tabbs and Lance are right."
"Would everybody stop ganging up on me!?" Pietro said agitatedly.
"Why not? After all you are the one who caused all this." Tabitha said.
"You know I never realized it until Lance pointed it out but Pietro really did cause everything to happen." Fred said to him.
"GET OFF MY BACK WILL YOU!?" Pietro's voice could've shattered glass.
"Face it Pietro, you were jealous of him."
Pietro threw his hands in the air. "Fine! Yes! I felt left out because all of you know what love feels like and I don't! Are you happy!?"
"Not really, since we all have to suffer from your thoughtless actions." Tabitha said.
"Hey, I'm going through a rough time too you know!"
"I thought you said you didn't feel guilty." Lance said to Pietro.
"I- I just-" Pietro sputtered. "I'm not!"
"Right." Lance rolled his eyes.
Pietro who was one step away from going over the edge had sped to Lance to throw a punch. Lance however expecting this, grabbed Pietro's fist before it had made contact with his face. They stared daggers of death at each other.
"Is this how it's gonna be?" Lance whispered softly. "Are you gonna start hurting us too?"
"Too late for that. He's already hurt us." Tabitha said coldly.
Pietro had had enough. He wrenched his hand out of Lances grip and tore out of the house slamming the door behind him. The three just stood there staring at the door. A few minutes past before anybody said anything.
"I'm starting to think we shouldn't have done that." Fred said worried.
"Todd's mad at us, and now so is Pietro." She dragged a hand across her face. "If this goes on there won't be a Brotherhood."
Lance said nothing. He just stared at the door wondering what horrible thing they had driven Pietro to do.
Where will Pietro go? What terrible things might he do? And what's going on with Serena? Stay tuned!
Oh, and just to let you readers know, I will not stop until I get this story done. So don't worry. You'll find out what happens in the end.