A/N: Whoohoo! Another update! Sorry again for the long wait, I've been crazy busy, and lazy. But now I'm writing again so rejoice! By the way, this chapter is in Ez's POV. And I don't own most of the characters. Also, I know some of the characters are a little different from the original characters in the books, but I think I'm entitled to a little artistic creativity. In other words, I just can't stay with the same thing too long . I also realized I might have accidentally switched my writing style again, sorry if it was confusing. :/ Um. So. Yeah, apologizing again for the long wait, this summer I actually got out of the house and enjoyed myself on vacations and stuff. Also I am working on a new story as well. So please bear with me.

Chapter 13

I'm not quite sure when last night I feel asleep, but it was very late. I itched to write for most of the night, but was unable to. It seemed Tori was having as much difficulty falling asleep as I was. She keep tossing and turning on her bed and muttering things to herself. Even though she still thought I was asleep I was afraid to open my eyes to watch her. Her mattress springs squeaked with movement she had.

When sleep finally set in for me, it was a very light one. By the morning I had felt like all the sleep was doing was making me more tired. Karma's a funny thing, it can often be quite cruel in fact. I thought the day would have been a promising one-or maybe I had just hoped that. Maybe I had dreamed that entire would just forget what happened and could all forgive each other and kiss and make up, ok, now I know I definitely dreamed that part, but so what? Every girl's entitled to a fantasy or two. I mean, all personality aside, who wouldn't want to kiss him? He was goregous.

I limped slowly down to breakfast in the morning, and much to everyone's surprise, sat down and began eating normally. Ryan wasn't there at breakfast this morning, which saddened me a little bit, for some reason. I was munching nonchalantly on some corn flakes when Andrew sat down next to me and sighed, "Ez, how are you? Are you ok?"

I looked up at him and for the first time, realized how quiet and tired everyone was. It seemed like no one in the entire house slept well last night, "I nodded to him, "I'm great, you really don't have to worry Andrew, it's takes a lot more than this to take me out of commission."

Apparently my cheerful tone did nothing to reassure him, as his ran a hand threw his hair and looked at the table for a moment. "Ez, I feel entirely responsible for this whole mess and I'm so sorry, I'll understand if you can't forgive me.."

He trailed off and blinked. Andrew thought I blamed him? I turned to him and spoke sharply, "Andrew don't dare blame yourself for a moment longer. You apologize and ask for my forgiveness when there was never anything to forgive. It was an accident, and accidents happen," my tone softened, "It was really my fault for being stupid and hiding in a giant tree. So please, don't apologize to me, it wasn't your fault."

By now the rest of the house was attempting to eavesdrop without being noticed. That made me want to smile a little bit, but I didn't because it would totally undermine the huge speech-ish thing I just gave Andrew. He smiled shakily at me and nodded, "I'll try."

I gave him a brilliant smile in return and hugged him, before shooting a look over my shoulder, "That goes for the rest of you as well. If I catch you blaming yourselves, once I'm 100% again, I'll personally kick your asses!"

I was met with a lot of hugs and chuckles after that, but the one person I really wanted to see, was no where in sight. I looked to Andrew, he seemed to choose that very moment to decide he wanted to try and avoid my gaze in a very guilty manor.

I glared at him, and only had one question, "Where?"

Andrew looked up at me a blinked, pretending that he didn't understand what I was asking, and I snapped, "Andrew you know damn well what I'm asking. So tell me now, before I go and find out myself."

He sighed and pointed to the basement. I shot him an annoyed look, but then made my way slowly down into the basement. I had to pause for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the lack of light.

He spoke while I was standing there looking at nothing, "Are you really a fool?"

I heard his voice sound behind me, but I didn't turn around, "Are you?"

He let out a pained laugh, "Stay there for a minute and I'll turn on the light."

I stayed still as instructed, mostly because my knee had suddenly developed a sharp pain, right under the knee cap. "No leave the lights off, just come to me."

He sighed, "Why are you so stubborn?"

His voice was edged with frustration, and I smirked, I knew I was going to get something out of him today, I shot back at him, "Well, ain't that the pot callin' the kettle black?"

I could of sworn I heard a small chuckle, before the sound of shuffled foot-steps told me he had decided to play by my rules today. I could him standing behind me, and I still didn't turn around. I knew what would happen if I did, he would close up immediately, there was something about talking to someone's back in the dark, that made him open up. I think it was because he could hide all of him insecurities, I couldn't see his face, read the pain, the sadness, self-hatred, and in that respect he could express himself more freely, without fear of judgement. He put his hand gently on my shoulder and winced, "You should sit," he sighed when I made no effort to move, and he added in worriedly, "Please."

So, I sat, we were making progress. I sat down gingerly on the floor, it was a pretty slow process, as most everything in my was still sore, and I refused to turn around so he could help me sit, however once I was on the floor, he sat down in front of me, and started rubbing my knee. The same feeling that tingled my arm the other night crept into my knee.

I looked down at where my knee was, and muttered curiously, "What are you?"

This time he did let out a bemused snort, "Same thing you are, just a little more skilled."

A scowled for about twenty seconds before I realized he wouldn't be able to see that, and that I would have to voice my emotions, "Care to elaborate Mr. Mysterious."

That got an all out chuckle, "You you're not the only one, a supernatural who's so different, they don't have a category for them. Granted we're few and far between, but we're out there. They call us benders. It's the only way they can explain how different we are. You see, we can see powers, well, if you train enough, you can. The reason they call us benders, is because we bend the powers we see to our wills. Haven't you ever wondered why you have a seemingly endless variety of powers? Or how your pyrotechnesis kicked in, only after you came here?"

I stared off in the dark, hard. "No."

"Really?" he was surprised.

I nodded, and then remembered, I still had to voice simple things, and spoke, "Really, I've been the outcast as long as I can remember. After being different for that long, you start to refuse to wonder why, and learn to just roll with the changes."

I noticed bitterly, that when I spoke, there was the smallest edge of pain in my monotonous voice. Ryan reached out and turned my head with his hand to face in the direction where his voice was coming from, and then at the last second withdrew his hand. I had the feeling he wanted to say something, but had decided against it. So I ventured with a little prompting, "Say it."

"What?" the confusion in his voice was genuine.

"I know you were about to say something, so say it." I taunted back.

I heard him draw a deep breathe, before he let it out slowly, "Did you want to know why Andrew brought me here?"

He had changed the subject. I could feel my face fall, he was shutting himself off again, "Yes."

I really wanted to say no. To ask him why he had changed the subject so quickly, what it was that he didn't think I could handle having tell me. Most of all, I wanted to help him to learn how to trust again.