Well, here I am again! Sorry about the long wait, writer's block and plot bunnies have been ganging up on me and threatening to halt all my fanfics, but I'm back! .

A huge, gigantic thank you to the six people who reviewed the last chapter. Six. And do you know how many the other chapters had? On average, twelve. That's a 50 decrease, people! What was wrong with the last chapter! (pulls hair out in frustration) Anyway, so, Lady-Nikki, SensiblyTainted, crimsonbloodyvampire, MikaMiko, Kikino and BloOdy-JoKeR, thank you so much, you are the reason that this chapter is here, and that I didn't just crawl into a hole somewhere and cry.

As you can pobably tell, I like reviews!

Okay, Enjoy!

Ray swung his legs backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards, watching them as if they were nothing to do with him. He tipped his head slightly to one side, straining to hear what Rachael and Sallie were saying at the other side of the room.

"...broken ribs...cracked skull...dislocated shoulder..." He stopped listening, his stomach churning. His teeth went to a bloody gouge in his lip and began chewing with practised ease. He had watched enough television to know that Kai was seriously injured - the look on the teacher's face alone had been enough to confirm that. He didn't want to hear details, he didn't want to see anyone, he just wanted to stay here and try to convince himself that nothing was wrong.

"You okay, Ray?" He looked up. For a second, blind fear flashed through him at the burly profile and he pushed himself futilely against the wall, eyes wide. "Relax, it's just me." Jonathon sat down next to Ray and gave him a tired smile. "You okay?" he repeated. Ray nodded woodenly. He didn't want to be here, he had been here for nearly six hours, he wanted to be back at home, curled under the covers, fast asleep. Not in that horrible, dream-like state that he had been in after the ambulance had come for Kai, but proper sleep, nice sleep, that would help sort his head out.

"When can I go home, Jon?" he asked. Jonathon looked surprised.

"Soon, Ray, I promise. Rachael and I just need to sort some things out, okay?" Ray nodded again. Suddenly and without warning, he began crying silently. Annoyed and more than a little uneasy at the speed of the outburst, he wiped his streaming eyes and tried without success to stop. He felt Jonathon put a comforting arm around him. "It's okay, kiddo...everything's going to be okay..." Ray shifted, uncomfortable with the sheer size of the lie.

Everything's not going to be okay, he thought sadly, bitterly. Not for a long, long time.

"Jonathon?" His foster-father looked up at his wife. Ray yawned and pulled away from Jonathon's arms, blinking up at the two women he trusted more than anything in the world. Both Sallie and Rachael looked exhausted and tearful.

"What is it?" Jonathon stood up and put a soothing hand on his wife's shoulder, rubbing his eyes with his free hand.

"Kai's in a medically-induced coma." Sallie said curtly, her tone more businesslike than Ray had ever heard it before. Ray opened his mouth to scream, but then his twelve-year logic kicked in, calming him. He had been in a coma, hadn't he? And he'd woken up and been fine, just a little bit ill for a while, that was all. So, if Kai was going to do the same thing, then all he had to do was last two weeks without him. He looked in puzzlement at the miserable faces surrounding him.

"What's the matter?" he demanded. "All we need to do is wait two weeks for him to wake up!" The atmosphere thickened, the silence so thick that Ray started to feel stifled.

"Ray, sweetie, Kai…isn't exactly the same as you were." Sallie said eventually. Ray frowned.

"What do you mean? I know he's not the same as me! He's a different person!"

"His…his condition is different, too." A horrible, unwanted light began to dawn in Ray's mind.

"You mean he might stay in the coma for longer?" he asked tentatively. Rachael nodded. There was silence for a few minutes. "What's wrong with him?" Ray asked at last, his voice barely more than a frightened whisper. All three adults looked at each other nervously.

"He's broken a lot of his bones, and…and…" Rachael shook her head and buried her head in her husband's shoulder. Her shoulders shook. Ray front teeth went automatically to their newfound place on his lower lip and began chewing. Blood trickled over the young boy's chin as he stared up at the three people he had always assumed would stop him and Kai from being hurt ever again.

"You know all your medical television shows?" Jonathon asked at last, his voice hollow. Ray nodded slightly. "Do you know what a brain haemorrhage is?"

The floor dropped out from under Ray's feet. He collapsed back into his recently vacated chair and nodded dumbly.

"I-Is he going to die?" "The doctors don't think so, not unless something changes dramatically." Rachael answered, her voice trembling.

"I-Is…" Ray sank his teeth even more viciously into his lip. "Is he g-going to be b-b-b-brain-damaged?" he whispered, forcing the word out through unwilling lips. He felt light-headed. The world was spinning very slowly around him. His lip hurt. His mind was a murky, foggy mess that didn't work properly.

"There is quite a large chance of some degree of brain damage." Sallie replied, reverting to a tone that was almost brusque in a desire to keep her emotions under control. Ray blinked dazedly up at her, not understanding. "Yes, Ray. He probably will."

Ray's teeth punctured his lower lip and came out the other side. Blood streamed down his chin and into his mouth. Vaguely, he felt it stinging and lifted a hand to his mouth, staring at the blood that stained his fingertips. He imagined the same substance inside Kai's head, boring through the delicate tissue in a destructive, horrifying stream.

His eyes stretched impossibly wide and the room went horizontal, then black.

He opened his eyes. Where was he? He looked sleepily around, quickly realising that he was in his bedroom. Waking up gradually, he rubbed his eyes and swung his legs out of bed.

"I wonder if Kai's awake yet?" he mumbled to himself. His face crumpled degree by degree as reality forced its way into his hazy mind. "Brain damage…" he whispered in a voice full of horror. As his eyes began to heat up with tears, he scrambled back into bed, so fast that the covers got hopelessly tangled around his small body, buried his head in the pillow and cried out with a horrible, high keening sound.

Time lost all relevance. Seconds seemed to stretch like hours into the distance, a distance where Kai wouldn't be the same boy that he had relied on for the past two years, the one that had rescued him from Shane and Naomi. The tidal wave of his mental pleadings, his sobs, his hysterical demands that everything should go back to normal smashed against the iron-clad coast of the truth with the force of a thousand tsunamis. Yet the huge black wall loomed above his frenzy, mocking him, telling him that nothing anyone could do would alter it. Kai will change, and not for the better. He cried out in incoherent Chinese, blindly flailing his arms against the bitter message before subsiding back into a stupor with a soft whimper.

Gradually, as the shock receded, optimism returned, a ray of blessed light in the menacing shadows that his mind had been filled with. Hopeful thoughts pierced the gloom, encouraging thoughts.

Sallie did only say "probably", not definitely.

There are different amounts of brain damage, aren't there? Kai would get a small one! He wouldn't give up like that!

"Tong zhou gong ji." I promised him we'd stick together, he promised me the same. He never breaks a promise, ever.

He blinked and opened his eyes slowly. They felt sticky and were hard to open. Once again, the first thing that came to his mind was; "Where am I?" He shifted position and found himself on Rachael's lap. It was definitely Rachael and not Sallie, because Rachael wore perfume. Also, Sallie had a bigger chest. He blushed at what he had just thought.

"Hi, Ray." He looked up at his foster mother and smiled. He winced and cried out in a mixture of pain and surprise. Rachael's face split into an answering smile. "Don't do that too often just yet, that was a nasty bite you gave yourself." Confused, Ray uncertainly raised a hand to his sore lip and felt the scab, with a tender area around it.

"Ouch." he said finally. Rachael laughed.

""Ouch" indeed!" She hugged Ray's slight frame to her for a few seconds. Ray waited patiently and then started to wriggle around. Rachael let him go. "I'm so glad you woke up at last, we were all worried… Do you feel better now?" she asked anxiously. Ray nodded, giving her a smile that was only partly forced.

"How long have I been asleep for?" he asked nervously.

"Nearly three full days." Ray's golden eyes widened.

"Wow."

"Oh, before I forget, Tyson came over the day before yesterday."

"What? When? Why?" Ray demanded, jumping off Rachael's lap.

"Tyson came round the day before yesterday morning to see how you were." Rachael replied, a smile on her face at the young boy's alarm.

"What's the time? Can I go round his? Oh, and where's Jonathon?"

"Four o'clock, yes and at the hospital." Rachael reeled off the answers. Hesitating only slightly at the word "hospital," Ray nodded his thanks - smiling was far too painful to be attempted a third time - and hurried off to wash and brush his hair, which was lying in greasy, matted clumps down his back.

Feeling fully awake for the first time in a while, he closed the front door behind him and tried to remember Tyson's address. Oh damn, he didn't think he had ever found out, had he? Oh well, he was just going to have to guess. He desperately needed to talk to somebody who had no idea of what had happened over the past few days. Crossing his fingers tightly for luck, he started walking. Suddenly, when he had taken only a few steps down the path, the image of Kai lying on the ground zoomed in at him, taking up all of his vision.

The older boy's face was twisted with pain, the parts that weren't deathly white stained gorily with the blood that dripped from his mouth, nose and ears. His clothes were half-ripped off and red marks showed where he had been hit. One ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle.

The picture changed. Now, Kai was in the ambulance, with a blanket and oxygen mask covering the worst of the damage. Without any kind of warning, his arms and legs started thrashing around in a violent seizure, his head lolling at an awkward angle. His eyes flickered open and closed, staring blindly ahead. Then nothing but black.

Ray swore as loudly as he could, his heart racing, pounding, thudding almost painfully against his ribs. What had just happened? Why had he remembered that now?

He no longer felt like going to see Tyson. He was shivering uncontrollably and felt jittery and scared. Nausea swirled in his stomach, dizziness swirled in his head. Gulping down air like a drowning man would water, he turned and ran back to the house as fast as he could.

Crawling under the bedcovers, he silently berated himself for his stupidity, his childishness, the immature fear of nothing. Even after a detailed self-admonishment, he couldn't bring himself to move from the warm cocoon of his duvet.

I hope I go back to normal soon… he thought fervently. After all, I have school tomorrow, and everyone'll be getting worried.

He didn't go to school "tomorrow." He got halfway down the street and baulked, those two images of his foster brother sending him running back to the house in a cold sweat of fear.

The day after that, he finally asked to see Kai. He reasoned that if he could just get the horrible pictures out of his head, he would be able to go back to school. If that meant replacing them with more images that weren't how he knew Kai, was that really so bad? Surely they wouldn't be the same kind. He would just pretend that Kai was asleep. In a way, that was what he was, wasn't it?

Jonathon gave him the thumbs-up sign and opened the heavy, important-looking door marked I.C.U. Ray stepped inside, recoiling at the wave of hospital-smell that hit him like a punch to the face.

"Tong zhou gong ji."he muttered under his breath. "Don't back out now, you chicken." He went further into the huge room, shuddering every time a machine gave an extra-loud beep. Eventually, he spotted Kai's unruly bi-coloured mop of hair and headed towards the bed, relief and apprehension twisting together in his stomach like battling snakes.

He nearly screamed out loud as he saw Kai's face. Most of it was covered by an oxygen mask, but even through the mask the swollen purple-green bruises showed clearly. His head was swathed in bandages and his body was covered by a blue and white checked hospital gown and intersected by what seemed like endless wires, but there was still skin showing and every inch of it was black and blue. And green, and yellow. And some black as well. Ray stopped his mind from going off at a tangent about colours and just sat there, staring at the battered, lifeless body in front of him.

He's alive, he told himself firmly. He's alive, and he's being treated. He just looks so bad because the bruises are all coming up. He will wake up. Don't know how soon, but he will. He stayed sitting there, motionless, listening to the beep of the heart monitor, the whistle of the intubation tube, reminding himself that Kai was being helped.

He would wake up eventually. He had to.

"We've got to go now, Ray. Visiting hours are up." Ray stood, wincing as blood flowed back into his cramped limbs. Acting on impulse, he leaned over and whispered in Kai's ear.

"Tong zhou gong ji, Kai. You promised me." A sudden thought hit him, and he turned to Jonathon. "He isn't still wearing his contact lenses, is he?" he asked, wondering why Jonathon was suddenly laughing at him.

"No, he definitely isn't. The hospital would have taken them out when he was brought in, in case they damaged his eyes." his foster-father explained, chuckling. Ray nodded. He felt calm again, for the first time in days. He believed in Kai, in Kai's natural stubbornness, his inability to give up.

Kai wouldn't give up. So, neither would he.

"Ray!" Ray staggered backwards as Tyson dashed up to him and flung his arms around him, navy eyes shining with delight. Mystel joined him, the added weight making Ray overbalance and land on the floor with a bump.

"Ow, get off, you two!" he demanded, pushing them unsuccessfully. Laughing, Tyson and Mystel untangled themselves and stood up, grinning like Cheshire cats. The remainder of the group came running up, identical grins on each of their faces.

"Glad to see that you're back, Ray!" Miguel said, clapping Ray on the shoulder. Raul nodded agreement, sending his messy scarlet curls flying everywhere.

"Are you all right now?" Oliver asked. Ray shrugged.

"I'm okay. Been better, been worse," he answered lightly. Suddenly, he spotted Max, who was hiding behind Miguel and Tyson. "Hi, Max! Am I really that scary?" he laughed. Max's curly head poked out and Ray sucked in a breath. "Wow. What happened to you?" Max shrugged one shoulder, his pale face gradually shading to pink under the group's combined stares.

"I fell." he mumbled.

One eye was swollen and bruised and there was a livid, raised red stripe down the left side of his face. A purple bruise protruded from underneath his regulation white polo shirt.

"You fell." Ray repeated, keeping his tone even. Max nodded earnestly.

"Down the stairs." he elaborated. Ray opened his mouth to say something else, then stopped. You're being stupid, he told himself firmly. He probably did just fall down the stairs. Yet, why did he look so edgy, if he had just fallen down the stairs? I'll talk to him later.

"So, what homework did I miss?" he asked.

"Maths." Raul grumbled.

"Oh, great. Just great." A tight ball rose in his chest for second, but he took a deep breath and swallowed it back down. Just when he thought he had it thoroughly under control, Mystel asked the fateful question.

"What's wrong with Kai?" Ray swallowed. "Is it…serious?" He nodded. "Yeah, but what is it?" In that one moment, he hated Mystel more than anyone else in entire universe.

"He's in a coma." he said finally. Dead silence greeted his statement. The bell went for the beginning of school, making everyone jump. Head down, his shoulder-blade-length hair dangling in his eyes, Ray pushed past his friends and silently made his way to his form room.

"Mystel?"

"Yeah."

"Dean?"

"Yes sir."

"Ray?

"Yes, sir." Ray mumbled. He didn't want to look up, he didn't want to catch Mystel's eye. He didn't want sympathy anymore, he just wanted to be treated normally. And there was one person whom he could always rely on to react in the same way. As the class were dismissed, he hung by the door until nearly everyone was gone. Only Mariah remained, looking sadly after the hordes of departing pupils. Ray stepped forwards, forced a smile. "Hey, Mariah can I walk with you to PE?" Mariah's face lit up and a smile spread across her cat-like features.

"Sure! Thanks a lot, Ray!" She hurried up to him, painfully eager. Ray felt a small stab of guilt enter his heart at how alone the she had looked, and how absurdly grateful she was. He had never noticed before, but she never hung around with any of the other girls. Her sole friend was Emily, and even that was more of a tolerance on both sides than a friendship, if rumour was to be believed. She wasn't in any of the school clubs, she was just always…there, in the background. Part of the scenery, noticeable only by her Oriental appearance and her thug brother.

"No problem." he replied as they began walking. He smiled back cautiously, wincing and putting a hand to his mouth as he stretched the scab where he had bitten straight through his lip. Mariah cocked her head curiously.

"What did you do?" she inquired. Ray shrugged.

"Bit through my lip." Mariah shuddered in sympathy.

"Ouch!" she exclaimed. Ray nodded.

"Yeah, it was a bit." Talk stalled after that, which suited Ray just fine. He glanced over at the younger and slightly shorter girl, who had the happiest expression on her face that he had ever seen. She must really fancy me, he thought, smirking. Or be really lonely. His smirk faded and he waved farewell to her as they separated to go to their changing rooms.

Damp with sweat from where he had pushed himself to his limits during the Athletics session they had done in PE, he dragged on his school polo shirt and trousers and sank down on the wooden bench, breathing heavily.

"That was hard, wasn't it?" He looked up to see Mystel staring at him, his light-blue eyes worried, and with the same look of loneliness that he had seen in Mariah's only an hour earlier. Can we be friends again? that look beseeched. I'm really sorry. Ray cast his mind back over the past few weeks.

He saw Kai run off down the path, felt his cheek throbbing painfully, felt the anger and shock and fear that had washed over him in a paralysing wave. He saw himself forgive Kai and not mean it, saw Lee's fist power into Kai's head, saw himself in the hospital, forgiving Kai and really meaning it.

He shuddered involuntarily as he remembered his foster-brother's crumpled form, remembered the blood, the way that Kai's face had twisted in agony. As if from above, from an adult's point of view, he saw himself, curled up in an insensible ball, traumatised by the knowledge that one the person he loved and trusted more than anyone else was going to change, saw himself waking, going out, unable get himself down the street without cowering away in fear. The memory of "hospital smell" burnt into his nostrils again as he remembered sitting by Kai's unresponsive side, half of him hoping for a miracle while half composing himself, resigning himself to what must be.

With a small smile, he went over to his best friend and sat down next to him, whacking him gently on the arm.

"Yep. Very hard." he replied softly. "But we can cope, can't we?" He raised his voice slightly, enough for Raul to hear, and the three boys grinned at each other.

"Of course we can!" Mystel said cheerfully. "We can cope with anything!"

Well? Opinions? Before I get people yelling at me because of the slight Ray/Mariah element in this chapter, my reply is; hello? He's a twelve year-old boy! He barely even knows what hormones are, let alone which direction they're going to take him in! He just feels sorry for her, that's all. For now. (cackles evilly)

Kai/Ray will come, (as if I could ever ignore it!)but it's going to be a long, long time yet. Be patient. .

Please review! They make me so very, very happy!