Author's Note: This Chapter's really short, but you'll all have to suffer through it. I like where it's ended, and it's staying the end right there. The next chapter (if I make one) will be longer, I promise.
Toad sat in the infirmary looking at the newest x-rays that Hank had put up. They were of his lower back, showing a small break in his spine. It was the last piece of the puzzle to why Toad had yet been able to walk, despite his being in rehabilitation for five long months. Somewhere along the line Toad had broken his back, not noticed, and in the process healed himself before Hank could take notice of it. Hank said it had most likely happened when Toad had hit the water from being blasted backwards in the fight with Storm. But it all meant one thing to Toad: He was stuck. He couldn't leave, because the Brotherhood couldn't, and wouldn't, use a cripple in any of their plans. He was a liability to them now. Toad knew that if he didn't disappear quickly or stay at the X-mansion Magneto would send Mystique to kill him off.
Toad lowered his head into his hands and sighed deeply. No one but Xavier, Hank, and Toad himself knew right now; but Toad knew that everyone in the X-mansion would find out somehow. News like this, despite how well kept, never stayed secret for very long in a place with so many people.
A hand touched Toad's shoulder and made Toad look up. It was one of the students, the only one Toad could put up with simply because the kid was so young. It was a young boy, with blood-red skin and jet-black hair, wearing matching shorts. The kid never spoke and rarely looked at anyone other than Hank, Kurt, or Xavier. For some reason he would look at Toad, and Xavier said it was most likely because Toad was visibly mutated.
"Wot'll I do, Squid?" Toad asked quietly. He had taken to calling the boy Squid, simply because no one else knew the child's real name. The boy seemed to like it, too, and would even answer to it. Many people had actually taken to calling the boy Squid because of the simple fact that it fit.
The boy looked like he wanted to say something but didn't know what. Toad couldn't help but grin at the look. No one knew what to say to him. But the x-ray's said it all. He was stuck, plain and simple.