Thanks for keeping up for this long, but I promise, soon it's over...

After talking to on one for about 20 minutes Warren ran out of things to say. He lay down and tried to think, but that only made him sleepy. Instead he sat up and tried to get up and take a walk on the floor. He discovered he could hardly stand, his legs were shaking and he had to sit down on the bed again, since his arms were just as bad and didn't offer any support. He turned to John;

"Now you would be laughing at me. I guess that lying down for so long gets you muscles to forget how to work…"

He got up on the bad and sat there, cross-legged. Then decided he was tired, so he put out the candle (his father had always nagged him at Christmas about not leaving burning lights unwatched) and lay down. It felt kind of good being there, and not being trapped under all the blankets…

It had taken some time for Piotr to come back, he knew that, for Bobby had gotten a wired thought in his mind and taken a stroll outside barefoot. So it first took a while finding him, then to getting him back inside, and then to tell him what had happened. After that he went down in the kitchen and made a light snack. He remembered what you could eat when you weren't feeling well after looking after all the kids that got sick here all the time.

After getting all that done and sneaking out of the way for some teachers, he finally was back.

Well, that's great, now Warren was asleep. And the silly one didn't even have a blanket! Sighting at this Piotr put away his tray and lightly began to move the Angel of from the cover so that he could put it over him. Warren stirred a bit, but didn't wake up, so then Piotr once again sat down to wait. He could smell that the candlelight had been used, and he saw it on one of the empty tables.

A fond smile creped up on his face, now he was back where he loved to be; making sure that those he loved were feeling well, were cared for, and out of danger and harm. He'd always been the one to take care of others, but lately when he'd just been around the two boys as friends he hadn't had that much to do. Now he finally could show them what they meant to him, how much he cared. It wouldn't be in a way they'd notice, it would as always be in the background, giving them the support they needed to get on going.

Therefore he now waited patiently the 45 minutes Warren was sleeping, smiling at him when he woke up, and shaking his head when he gave John's bed a questioning look.

He watched as the Angel with a determinate look once again lit the candle, pushing it so far towards John he could with some safety still in mind. He then turned to Piotr;

"Even if he doesn't wake up I still think he'd like some company, right?"

Piotr nodded and debated with himself if he should give Warren something to eat or if the food had turned bad.

The Angel wasn't that focused of eating for the moment though, he once again started to comment out loud what the thought about the decorations, describing in details the ones he though John would like the most. Soon Piotr tagged along, telling the still pale, unmoving boy about how much snow there still was out there, the was the mansion looked by now and what everyone else were doing. That they all missed him, how the youngest students asked for the funny fire-mutant, and how the teachers weren't able to come up with a good excuse…

Days passed by, even if Warren couldn't tell how many. He slept when he was tired and talked with John when he was awake. There was no watch or any windows in there, so he could never tell how long time that has passed, what time of the day it was, or for how long he'd been passed out. By now he'd tried everything to get his friend awake; normal conversation (like he always was told by his father he was doing with his old teddy bear), joking, asking questions, arguing, swearing, shouting, muttering, blaming, apologising; he couldn't come up with more!

After having Kitty sneaking around the other students finally found out where he and Pyro was, so every now and then he could wake up and find some company waiting for him. Those who came most recently were though Piotr, Bobby, two girls he learned were called Kitty/Shadowcat and Jubilee, and they often dragged the famous blue demon Nightcrawler with them. They didn't stay for too long, they didn't want to tire him out (the fact that he wasn't allowed to leave the investigation-room for his own proved that he still was in pretty bad shape), but Warren appreciated what they did. For all the time he'd spent on the mansion he'd only had John and Piotr, but he had noticed how other people whispered to each other and glanced at him all the time. He didn't understand why and when he asked Jubilee about it she didn't want to answer, though she assured him that he'd done nothing wrong. He guessed it just was because he was new; he couldn't remember how it was to start a new school since he'd been taught at home since he was twelve and his mutation appeared.

Kurt quickly became a good friend of his; the older mutant was really fascinated by his wings and they spend long time together just talking. It was reassuring to talk to someone who had such a strong belief in that it was someone who always looked after you, someone who always cared. Nightcrawler was there whenever he could after being given the allowance by the Professor to keep an eye on them, and he gently brought the Angel back from even the hint of a depression this sort of experience easily could turn into. This affected Bobby as well and he slowly came back to his usual self, the way everyone remembered him.

And it was during one of those times, when he just sat there, surrounded by people he'd started to really rely on, that a few words uttered by one of them crushed everything;

The evening before Christmas Nightcrawler had just left to see what the Professor called him for (probably to ask him to dress up like Santa Claus, if Piotr was right), leaving a dark cloud of some sort of weird smoke behind. Jubilee waved her hand in the air to get rid of it (almost hitting Bobby who sat on the foot-end of Warren's bed), but she smiled at the same time;

"Honestly, do any of you have any sort of idea what this smoke is? I mean, if it is some part of himself that he leaves, then he'll end up like nothing if he continue like that!"

Warren laughed and Piotr smiled, when suddenly Kitty came in, running right trough the door (it had given Warren quite a shock the first time she did).

"Hi, Kitty, what's up?"

Jubilee was smiling when she said that, but soon enough her happy face faded; Kitty's cheeks were covered in tears and she looked really scared. Quickly getting up, Jubilee put an arm around her friend's shoulders;

"Hey, tell us what's up?"

Kitty took a hard grip on her friend's jacket;

"The Professor…I heard him…he said…"

She obviously had run the entire way from the office and now had problem catching her breath, so Jubilee tried to calm her down, but Kitty would have none of it;

"Okay, now you just breathe and…"

"No Jubes, I heard him! He says it's no use anymore! They've tried everything anyone can come up with; and nothing works!"

She swallowed, took a shaky breath and spoke again;

"He says there is no use anymore; there is nothing left to do. John won't wake up, so they'll plug out the machines that keeps his body working, since he won't come back, since now it's hopeless…"

She burst out into new tears, hugged by a shocked Jubilee, who stared with wide eyes at the other two…

Now I'll go hiding for a while, since I'm sure that some people out there really want's to kill me...