Disclaimers: Same old, I don't own the F4 characters, all the rest I do own unless stated otherwise… so please don't sue me unless it's absolutely necessary.

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Reed and Sue were sitting in the kitchen when Ben returned the following morning. "Hey," he greeted as he clomped into the kitchen.

"Morning," the other two said simultaneously.

There was a short silence before Sue asked, "How's Alicia?"

Ben nodded as he carefully poured coffee into a metal beaker, "She's alright, still a little freaked out by the other night, but she went to work today," he said.

"That's good," Sue said.

There was another silence, one that made Ben wander if something had happened, "What?" he asked looking from Reed to Sue.

Reed took a deep breath, "You may want to sit down," a said pulling out Ben's metal chair.

The big orange man's eyes widened, "What happened? Is Flame Boy alright?" he asked since Johnny was the only one not in the kitchen.

Sue nodded, "He's fine, but he did have a run in with the anti's," she said.

Ben slammed his fist down on the table, "What the hell is wrong with the kid?" he said angrily, "Why can't he just leave thing's alone? The last thing we need is to give them more of a reason to hate us!" he finished.

"That's not fair!" Sue said angrily.

Ben looked at her, "I'm sorry Suzie, I know he's your brother and all, but even you have to admit he's a hot head!" he stated.

No-one saw Johnny standing in the door way until it was too late, Ben had said his piece. "Why don't you listen to the facts before you decide to judge me!" he said angrily hurling a fire bold at the man of stone.

Sue arose and walked to her brother, "Calm down," she told him and then looked at Ben, "He's right, you didn't wait to hear what we had to say!" she said annoyed, and turned her attention back to her brother, saying gently "Come and sit with us."

Ben looked at Johnny, and saw that he may have been wrong at assuming his recklessness when he saw the hurt in the young man's eyes.

Johnny proceeded in telling Ben about the occurrences that happened the night before.

After he finished Ben didn't know where to look, he'd never felt so low in his life, and disappointed in himself by jumping to the wrong conclusion. "I'm sorry, I should have listened," he confessed, looking at Johnny, who just shook his head. Ben turned to Reed, "So this girl, what kind of 'inhuman' thing is she?" He then winced as he realised he'd referred to her as a 'thing' and quickly changed his sentence, "I mean what kind of 'inhuman' being is she? Alien or DNA altered like us?"

Reed shrugged, "I don't know, she could be either," he paused, "I'm not really up to date with the differences, I've never seen an alien, let alone take a blood sample," he half laughed.

"So she's still sleeping?" Ben asked them.

"Yeah," Sue replied, "I looked in on her before I came in here," he explained.

"So did I when I got up," Johnny informed them.

"How did she seem?" Ben asked, showing his concern.

"She seemed ok, I didn't want to wake her up or anything," Johnny said.

Ben nodded, "Well I need to go and wash," he said getting up and making his way to the door.

Johnny got up from the table and poured himself a bowl of cereal, and some coffee into a mug. "Yuck!" he exclaimed taking a sip of the coffee, "It's cold," he explained to the other two as he caught them watching him. Sitting back down on the table he zapped it with a flame and it was instantly bubbling.

"So, how are you feeling today?" Reed asked him concerned.

Johnny smiled, swallowing his mouthful of Cheerios before answering. "Yeah, I'm ok," he said.

"You sure?" Sue asked him stroking his arm.

Johnny pulled his arm away, "Yes, I'm sure!" he said hard.

Sue looked crestfallen by his outburst, "Ok," she said gently.

Her brothers face softened, "Sorry…" he paused, "I'm just trying to forget about last night…" he finished.

Both Sue and Reed nodded, they could understand how he felt, no one wanted to be reminded of a time when they were vulnerable.

All of a sudden an almighty scream was heard from just down the corridor. The three heroes looked at each other and all three jumped to their feet and ran out of the kitchen to see what had happened.

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To be continued

A/n Almost finished, thank you if you are still reading this!