Second reworking this chapter's recieved. The sixth is almost done, and I'll have posted it soon, I promise.

But for Mortimer Toynbee, it was different matter entirely…

The pain had been growing as the shock that had rattled his system began to fade. All the while that Victor had hovered near by, that he had laid in that damned puddle , that the two beings had carried him to where he was now, he had been aware of a tiny flame within his chest. As his body had worked to restart and repair itself, the flame had continued to blossom, and was now crawling agonizingly into his heart, his lungs, his belly. His muscles begin to tighten, his limbs curling into his sides without his consent.

There was a constant redness. A constant blinding white. A constant flaring pain. He wanted to retreat. Couldn't. Breathing was suddenly a labor.

Wos 'appenin'?

His face twisted in agony.

Dazed and confused, he lay in the company of the strangers, his eyes heavily lidded and glassy. He couldn't make himself focus on any one point, nor could he will himself to pull away from the intrusive presence. His mind, jumbled and reeling, would not relay the message to his body.

Retreat!

()()()()()

"How's he looking, Michael?"

Michael's hands remained poised over Toynbee's prone body as he shot a response over his shoulder: "Pretty awful, Dad. His insides are fried; I don't even know if I can heal him." He issued another wave of blue energy from his hands, allowing it to ripple over his patient, exploring the various wounds. "He's burned pretty bad on the outside too." He murmured an order to his brother beside him, Gabriel, who was mutely peeling away the soaked an tattered clothing from Toynbee's torso. "Careful, Gabe, they're already infected from the bay water." Gabriel complied without a word, slowing his methodic pace in his delicate task.

Michael reset his focus, willing another pulse of light from his spider-like hands into the mutant's chest. "I can't do a lot for him right now."

"He's bleeding from the mouth, Mike." Gabe's voice seeped into the tenseness of the beaten down Suburban. Michael observed the trickle of crimson in a single glance, sending a probing ripple throuth the mutant's chest. "It's not his lungs. They're still intact, for the most part. -But his body's slipping faster than I'm healing it. He's too cold." He trained his hand once again over the injured body, allowing the energy to flow. It rippled around Gabriel's hands as he begun to strip away the clothing further south.

They were touching him. Handling him. Pushing and pulling and moving him. Mortimer felt the panic rise in his chest, but could not respond, desperate though he was. He was aware of them peeling the water-heavy cloth from his skin, leaving him bare and defenseless. The chilled air bit into the exposed flesh, and he felt himself begin to shiver, his heart pounding in his chest.

Leave me alone!

Michael's fingers suddenly laced around Gabriel's wrist. "Gabe, stop." Gabe raised a brow.

"We have to get the wet clothes off of him, Mike. He'll end up hypothermic."

"-I can feel his pulse jump every time you lay a hand on him. His heart's already so weak."

Here Joseph intervened, taking his mind off navigating the road for a moment. "He's probably terrified, guys. His past is an emotional wreck that I haven't even begun to sift through yet; I can feel it from here." Gabe looked helplessly to Mike. "What do we do then?"

"Just try and keep him warm with what you can, Mike," Joseph's voice rang from the driver's seat. "I've got the heat on."

Meanwhile, Toynbee shivered beneath their restraint, his face twisted in agony. Mike lay his hand across the man's brow, willing another wave of sapphire light into him.

In his own mind, Mortimer was growing to dread every touch more and more. With each moment of contact with this creature's skin, he felt a gnawing cold slither into his body. It teased into his wounds, wound it's self about his heart, raked it's icy little fingers across his brain.

M'goin' ta die.

Mike's eyes widened as he sat straight up, drawing away it if the mutant's skin had burned him. Gabe glanced at him inquiringly. "What now?" Michael ran his fingers through his hair irately. "My powers. They're making it worse. The main agent of my healing ability is the cold. It's supposed to calm the pain. For him, it's making the damage worse, because I'm just freezing him from the inside."

Gabe's face was blank as he stared at Toynbee's body, now shivering more violently than before.

"We're going to kill him, Dad. There's nothing we can do that won't hurt him," Mike's voice was laced with frustrated resign.

"Don't think that way, Mike. I know there are some blankets back there. Just cover him up and keep him warm the best you can. We're not far from home." Gabe and Mike complied; laying the wool blanket their mother kept for emergencies across Toynbee's scarred chest.

"I've got him for now, Gabe. Go check on the other one."

Gabriel climbed carefully over the seat, situating himself with a respectable distance between his body and Creed's, examining from afar. With no danger evident, he scooted closer, noting out loud; "There's a lot of blood on his clothes, Dad. I can't see the source or that it's still coming. There's a lot on his face, too, but no cuts to justify it. It's weird."

Joseph allowed the comment to dangle for a moment before responding. "From what I picked up, -and his mind is incredibly jumbled, so there's not a lot, - his body has powerful regenerative properties. He can heal himself at rates most of us deem impossible."

"Well he just looks dead to me," Gabriel said, scooting back away from the feliniod.

"He's exhausted, Gabe. His body's trying to repair it's self."

Gabriel kept his silence, not sparing Toynbee nor Creed a second glance. He climbed back over the row of seating to collapse in his usual spot on the right side by the second window back, staring out into the darkness.

Not a single being in the vehicle, baring the unconscious Mortimer and the Semi-conscious Victor, seemed fazed by this latest incident, and for that matter, why should they have? It was just another day in paradise.

I hope this version of the chapter was a little more satisfying. I really can't make myself happy with it. Good graces untill the next installment.