xp_logs | At last, the log that took a week to complete. Warning: it's very, very long.

The sleeves on Jono's shirt were slightly too long and he had the tendency to play with them. He was leaning against a corridor wall next to a door, fiddling with the sleeves and watching some of the younger mutants pass by. After they were gone around a corner he pushed himself off the wall and opened the door.

Eyes sliding over from where they had been previously staring out the window, Paige watched Jono enter. There was an open book on her lap with a palm over the words as if she could absorb the words through her skin and a pencil behind her ear that she reached up to remove as her eyes caught his. She used it as a bookmark once she had pushed the lead into the mechanics of the pencil, and folded the book over and closed.

Jono didn't even pretend he hadn't seen Paige and made his way straight towards her. He had seen her come into the room earlier and had decided it was as good a time to talk to her as any. "Hey," he said, fingers clutched into the folds of his sleeves.

“Hello,” she answered in a frigid tone, getting to her feet. Her book she clutched to her chest as she made to move past him. “I was just leaving.”

"I thought you just got here," Jono countered, grabbing her elbow. "No need to leave on my account."

“On the contrary.” Paige rewarded him with a glare, yanking her elbow back as if burned. “I can think of plenty.”

"Well," Jono glowered at her tensely. "You told me to find some time to inform you. Here I am."

“Oh.” There was something behind her eyes that flickered before hardening again. “How kind of you.”

Jono paused, not really knowing what to say next. He hadn't really thought this far. "I can't figure you out," he finally said, turning to stare out of the window at the autumn-coloured trees. "You kept trying to get closer to me even when I kept pushing you away." He gave Paige a brief, intense look. "I don't want you to go away anymore."

Paige’s hands turned white as she gripped her book with shattering strength. She swallowed hard, trying to collect herself, reminding herself of the things she tended to forget when he was around. “There’s a simple solution to that. But it involves not shutting me out.”

"Not even when you would get hurt?" Jono asked, but doesn't seem to need an answer. "I had.. someone back home. I hurt her. What if that happens again?"

“I’m not so easily injured,” Paige responded easily. “Not the way you think.”

"That doesn't mean I'll stop being worried," he said uncomfortably, tugging on his sleeves restlessy.

“I don’t mind being worried about,” she replied, shoulders dropping from their tense position. “But there is being worried about and there is being shut away.”

"You have to admit," he shifted closer to her without actually paying attention to it, "the line between those is blurry at best."

Paige lifted a corner of her mouth in a half smile. “Then you’ll be happy to know that I’d be perfectly willing to inform you of where you were according to that line.”

"Really? This must be my lucky day," but the sarcasm had no real bite, and Jono's eyes were curved as if in smile.

Paige laughed and some more when it came out a half sob. “It’s so much easier when I don’t have to try to hate you, Jono.”

"Then don't," Jono stroked her cheek with his fingertips. "Sunshine."

“More than happy to oblige,” she murmured, leaning into his touch.

Jono looked at her for a moment, then lowered his eyes. "Good," he nodded, grievously aware of his lack of mouth once again.

Paige placed her hand over his, turning to kiss his palm with soft lips. She watched him out of the corner of her eye, waiting for his look up again, unwilling to release his hand from her hold.

His eyes flicked up, sort of astonished she would do that, but he inched closer nonetheless, as if she really was the sun in his bleak existence. His other hand rose carefully to her hip.

A smile crossed over her features, soft and welcoming as she moved forward between his feet. Bringing a hand up to rest at the nape of his neck, fingers weaving into the longer hair there, she stretched to whisper in his ear.

“Yes.”

Jono made a move as if to kiss her, but then turned his face away and lay his forehead against her shoulder. To hide, it seemed.

With a sad sort of smile Paige kissed his hair, reaching up to run fingers in his scalp, restfully. It was with a soothing touch and she resisted yanking him up and pinning him to the wall with the force of her beating heart. Her cheek rested on his head as her own had tilted to the side, eyes half lidded.

They stood like that for a while, simply leaning into each other, for strength, for closeness. Jono raised his head then, pressing his cheek against Paige's for a second, then drawing back and looking her in the eye. "I would kiss you now."

Paige ran her tongue over suddenly parched lips, fingertips running tiny circles on his shoulder. Eyes grown dark she stared back boldly as an accent to her response. She slipped her fingertips under the material that held his mutation in check, pulling it down to reveal a warm glow. “Then I will just have to kiss you.”

Frozen on the spot by indecision, whether to lean in or to pull away, Jono only blinked as Paige closed the distance between them and, in the lack of a better word, kissed him. The only thing he felt was a sort of a tingle, starting somewhere in his chest and boiling upwards.

"No," he thought, the word reverberating inside her head as well, as he pushed her away, but not far enough and not fast enough. The energy bursting from him lit up the room, then tore it down. On her.

***

Sitting in the TV room watching cartoons with Artie, Angelo was startled by the loud noise. Telling the younger boy to stay put, he went to see what was going on.

When he arrived at the room the crash had come from, he pushed the door open carefully, and was horrified by what he saw. Paige was lying under a heap of rubble, having obviously tried to husk to protect herself, and failed. Jono was leaning over her, trying unsuccessfully to clear the rubble away.

At the sound of the door opening, Jono whipped his head around, the lower part of his face glowing like a lamp, and stared at Angelo with desperate eyes for a moment. Then he turned back to the what he was doing, not saying anything.

Angelo was taken aback by the sight of Jono's face, since he'd never seen him without the protective material in place before. But there were more important things to worry about now. He crouched down and carefully started helping Jono to move the rubble.

A creak from the door caught his attention, and he looked round sharply. Artie had apparently decided to ignore his instructions to stay put, and had followed him. Angelo immediately moved to block the little boy's view of Paige, knowing he was already too late to stop him seeing, and acted to get him away from there. "Artie", he said seriously. "I need you to go and find one of the faculty and bring them back here now. Can you do that for me?" The boy nodded and took off at a run.

Jono gave Angelo another terrified look, clearly badly shaken. "I- I couldn't stop it," he stuttered, scraping his fingernails against some of the masonry that had fallen while trying to lift it away.

Angelo looked at him levelly, before deciding that it wouldn't do any of them any good to go into the details of what exactly had happened here, and opting to try and comfort Jono instead. "I know, man. I know", he said soothingly. "Help me move this block here, it's too heavy for me."

Jono moved to help him without saying anything further. Together they managed to push the block off of Paige's legs and roll it out of the way. "She's still alive, I checked," Jono offered, his voice somehow very thin.

Angelo nodded, relieved. "Well, that's something. Artie should be back soon with someone from the faculty. I'm sure she'll be fine", he added, as much to convince himself as Jono.

"She husked," Jono pointed out rather redundantly as it could clearly be seen. "I didn't know she could do it so.. so quickly." There was still a kind of glazed look about Jono's eyes, but talking about non-threatening things seemed to help a bit.

"I don't think she knew she could, either", Angelo said thoughtfully. "But most people can do more than they think they can, when it comes right down to it..."

He glanced over at Jono in concern, wondering if he might not do better to send him out to stop the people milling around outside from coming in.

Jono had stopped clearing away the rubble, and was staring at his hand which was shaking. "Strange," was all he said, then started working again.

Angelo opened his mouth to tell Jono he should go outside, then reconsidered. It would just be cruel to keep him from helping, and Angelo couldn't move all the rubble by himself. So he stayed quiet, and kept on with what he was doing.

After a moment or two of them working silently, Jono a little slower and rather absently as if he wasn't altogether there, Hank appeared in the doorway, and immediately rushed to help.

The first thing Hank did was to check Paige's pulse, and whatever conclusions he drew from that he didn't share with the two boys. "What happened?" he asked, relatively calmly.

"I happened," Jono replied, a little bit resigned, and more ashamed.

Hank looked at him hard, and just said, "I see". He finished clearing away all the rubble that was pinning Paige down, then left the room and quickly returned with a stretcher. "Help me lift her onto this", he told them. "Gently, now."

Jono and Angelo helped the doctor lift Paige's limp form on the stretcher, then Jono stepped back, tugging the black wrapping up to cover his face again.

Hank picked up one end of the stretcher, nodding to Angelo, who was standing nearest, to do the same. Angelo obeyed quickly, lifting the stretcher slowly and carefully. Then they began to carry Paige cautiously down to the medlab.

Jono trailed after them, not knowing what else to do. He had fisted his hands in order to stop them from shaking, but it didn't help the heartwrenchingly empty feeling inside him.

When they arrived in the medlab, Angelo helped Hank move Paige gently onto a bed, so he could examine her properly. Then he looked up at Jono, worried about the other boy.

Jono had stayed near the doorway, unsure if his presence would be tolerated. He caught Angelo's look and turned away from it, starting to back out of the room.

Angelo moved quickly towards the door, not wanting to disturb Hank. "Where are you going?" he asked. "You want to stay with her, right?"

"She.. wouldn't want me to stay," Jono barely glanced at Angelo, trying to make his escape.

"She would", Angelo contradicted quietly. "You know she would. But it's up to you."

"No," Jono shook his head tensely, his self-disgust starting to leak through the horror of what he'd done. Then he slipped out, and broke into a run, soon disappearing around a corner.

Angelo gazed after him for a moment, then turned back into the medlab to watch what Hank was doing. Walking over to the chair nearest to the bed where Paige lay, he sat down with the air of one who would not be moved. If Jono wouldn't stay, it would just have to be up to him to watch over Paige.