There, another one done. Not much to say really...

The next evening Piotr quickly made his way back to his friends in the examination-room

The next evening when he woke up Piotr quickly made his way back to his friends in the examination-room. He knew how unlikely it was that any of them would be awake, but he just wanted to check…

They lay still, like dead, in the same positions they had left them in. Someone had been in there and placed a chair at a good place, so Piotr sat down on it. He looked at the two boys and realised he didn't know what to think. His mind was all blank. No thoughts, images or memories; he had nothing! All that he had was the thing in front of him; the image of the motionless mutants he'd started to think of as his two best friends (of course John had been there with him for a longer time than Warren, but now when he'd stopped hang around with Bobby they'd come really close…).

Then a great sadness came over him and his shoulders sank down as he put his face in his hands. Was this really what life was like? You get to know people just in time for seeing them pass away? That couldn't be it… But he already missed them so much it hurt! Is was almost like a book or a movie, and this was the great drama-part where all character finally show their right faces without thinking about it. Where you get to know them.

But life wasn't like a movie, because in that made-up world there would always be at least someone having a happy ending, and as it looked now there wouldn't be anyone… John wouldn't find warren on the other side like he wanted to, and here Piotr and Warren would be stuck, missing the person who brought and held them together… Sure people that didn't belong to the story, those in the background that didn't have a place where they'd know what was going on, they might be lucky, but in some way you always loose. Life gave humans the ability to feel sorrow for a reason. That might only be so that they could feel happiness, but in chases like this you really wondered why there was no limit to the sadness, why you could have so much of it so that you, like Pyro, decided the happiness it was created for wasn't worth it. A sorrow so strong that even death seemed better…

Looking up at his friends with an expression he wasn't aware of showed that he felt a complete hopelessness and empty worry of the situation, Piotr turned towards the presence of another creature at the door.

It was Bobby.

He just stood there, with his gaze somewhere between the beds and Piotr's chair. He looked more lost and sad than Piotr felt, and finally the older mutant felt that he could do something. He wasn't much for talking, even if he'd done that more the last few days, his whole mutation told you that he was a man of action. Right now he maybe couldn't do anything for his friends in the beds, but he could at least make sure that not another person ended up like Pyro. Bobby's mind had been through a lot, but more had happened in a few hours in that hospital that most people experience in years; his mutation took away his emotions when he, without knowing it, decided that he didn't want to feel anymore due to all hte pain he'd gone through. He got them back just in time to get a final confirmation to his broken heart, a confirmation that assured him that his loved one wouldn't fix the damage but leave him. He then watched how someone he'd hurt himself almost killed his loved one's closest friend, he saw how a mutant carrying one of the main elements lost control and then sent himself to the grave. He'd seen the only one he really desired in the whole universe he knew about lay down next to what very well might be a dead body and there forcing himself to search the other side for said friend, rather than stay in the world he'd lived in and learned to hate.

Piotr slowly stood up and made his way over to the other boy, who just stood there, not realising that he'd stopped walking when his feet automatically led him to the place where he wanted to be needed. The warm hand on his shoulder didn't startle him, but only made him look up at the person who the hand belonged to. It was someone he knew, someone he knew wouldn't make this worse. Piotr wouldn't send him back to his bed just because he couldn't do anything about this, neither would he come up with comforting phrases that he wouldn't believe in himself. Instead he just led Bobby to a chair that someone had used recently, it was warm, and made him sit down. From here Bobby had ha good view of the sleeping boys. Of course they were only sleeping…

Not bearing to look at that familiar face anymore Booby's gaze began t wander around the room. It was all the white and blank hospital-way. Bobby frowned a bit at that; John had always loved to be around at places where they kept a lot of stuff, things that made it look like home. Like in his own room he only had things he owned himself, even if that wasn't much, and that made the room his. The library was full of books and shelves, and now the mansion started to get Christmas-decorations. But John would miss that. He wouldn't be able to see all the beautiful trees, the fake snow, the crystal-balls or the ginger-cookies with icing, and all because he was stuck here! And he voiced his thoughts in once sentence, the first one he'd spoken in a very long time;

"We need to decorate in here so John will like it when he wakes up."

Piotr looked up at him; he'd been sitting and looking at his feet on a chair at one of the tables. He thought over what Bobby had said, and it made good sense. If John didn't like this when he woke up (and he wouldn't, since it was a hospital) he'd find a way to sneak out. And more likely he'd sneak outside, to see if there still was any snow left.

And if he did he'd probably die of it.

With a nod Piotr stood up and together they walker out to see if the boxes with decoration still were left untouched by the other students…

They weren't.

All over the place were younger and older kids running around, standing on chairs, unpacking and singing Christmas-songs; it was the 1 December, the day when all lessons were cancelled so that the students could decorate the whole house however they wanted. The teachers watched over the whole thing, but didn't help if not asked to, nor interrupted until things would become dangerous (like when some students a few years ago tried to use powers to open boxes and make things fly out).

After some searching the two boys managed to get their hands on some unused stuff and quickly made their way back, ignoring questions about the rumours that were already circulating.

In the room they hung up stuff where the boys would see them the first thing they saw when they woke up. After some hesitation Bobby took the chair and put the mistletoe over the beds instead of over the door. He then stepped down and walked out to the middle of the room to look around.

It was good.

John would complain about that it was too little of it, but they didn't think they'd get away with putting up more…

Now what to do?

All that was left now was waiting…

Days went past in a blur; the kids outside the examination-room lived their lives as they should, with unmade homework, friends and weekends. They were soon rewarded with Christmas-holidays, which most of them celebrated at the mansion, when they went shopping presents, watched movies and lived their lives as they pleased.

Though inside the room time seemed to stand still; every morning Piotr and Bobby arrived to just sit there and wait for something to happen, and then Piotr took the task of making sure that Bobby would get to eat at every meal (even though none of them ever felt hungry, so both of them just poked in the food). Then they would get shooed of to bed by either Storm, Jean or Scott, depending on whoever thought of it first. More than once they both fell asleep in their chairs when all of the teachers thought that one of the others had done it.

It took a little more than two weeks for something to change;

At the 17 December at 18; 03 the machines connected to young Mr. Warren Worthington made a sound that caused everyone in the room to jump;

Jean had just went down to make sure the boys were of to their rooms, she didn't want to repeat the mistake to leave them there the whole night and their minds were so full of worry, sadness and chaotic thoughts that she couldn't use telepathy to find them without starting to cry when she found them. She saw that both of them sat at their now seemingly permanent places; Bobby at the chair at the foot-ends of the beds and Piotr on the one placed at the window. Bobby looked at her with his icy cold eyes when she went past him to wake up Colossus. When she touched his shoulder he opened his eyes and looked at her with an expression she didn't want to seek the reason for. Just when he was about to stand up a beeping sound echoed from a speaker, and the lines going in lazy waves on one of the screens suddenly started to move faster, forming storm-waves.

Jean ran up to the machine with Piotr on her heels just as the Angel started to move…

Don't kill me for stopping here, I'll put up the next one as soon as I can!