Surprise! I promised myself that I wouldn't post the end of the end until I'd finished the chapter I've being procrastinating on for "Down at the Tavern". Chapter 31 is up for that so now you guys get a super bonus chapter for this!

Enjoy! And Merry CHRISTmas!

Waking up is like swimming through a haze of silt and fog to find the surface of a still pond. Gravity, or maybe its whatever's causing the ache in his bones, pulls him downward insistently forcing him to struggle with all his might to drag himself out and up into the light.

An eternity later he blinks slowly and immediately lets his eyelids drop shut again. The light is blinding after the all-encompassing darkness that had surrounded him.

"He's awake. You can sit with him but don't crowd and don't even think about stressing him in any way whatsoever. If I have to stabilize him again because one of you decides to excite his heart and sends him back into shock I will personally run you through my special training program with pleasure. Crystal?"

The voice is gruff and out of place in his soft and warm, if overly bright, surroundings. Before he can place it however other voices pile on top of it drowning out whatever tentative identification he'd been about to make with a rush of the familiar.

"Hey-Todd-how-are-you-feeling?" Pietro.

"It's good to see you in the land of the living." Lance.

"Hi Todd." Freddy.

The relief and happiness in their voices is overwhelming and confusing. What had happened? Why were they here? Where is here? What had happened to make the Brotherhood forget about their petty squabbles and collectively worry about something? What was it that they'd been worrying about? Not him surely.

The voices continue in whispers above his head.

"He is awake right?"

"Give him time. He's not going to bonce back right away."

"Todd? Can you nod if you can hear me?"

Nod? Yeah, he can probably do that. The collective release of breath when he manages it serves again to confuse his meager understanding of the world and what had happened to it. That's enough, he decides. It's well past time he opened his eyes and started getting some answers.

This time the light is mitigated by four shadows leaning over him. He blinks drowsily. "Yo, bros." His throat is dry but words instigate nothing worse than a mild itch and a desire for a glass of water. That's good at least. "Why-" he peers around them and corrects his sentence. "What is this place?"

Pietro disappears for a moment and when he returns there's a cup of water being pressed to his lips. Lance takes the initiative to clue him in while his memories of the last few days trickle back in fits and starts. Most of it makes sense until the last day- yesterday according to Lance. The last hours before he'd gone under are a vivid blur of color and movement with only occasional clear images: Freddy standing in the doorway; Lance laying down a full house against his flush; Pietro and Lance fighting over the top of him for control of the blankets… that's pretty much it actually.
"-and Freddy ran into X and once they got here they found out that Kurt had to stay home because he was too sick to travel and Wolverine stayed as well to take care of him. Blueboy teleported your ass over here and the rest is history. Wolverine's been down here since you arrived at what, two? this morning, coaxing you back into the land of the living."

Pietro butts in. "Did-you-know-that-frogs-hibernate? Claws says that you should have been dead, cold as you were, but that something in your system was keeping your blood from freezing entirely, like antifreeze."

"X wants to see you when you are feeling recovered enough to see her."

Freddy's last statement is the one that finally holds Todd's full attention long enough for him to blurt out, "Wait. A girl wants to see me?"

The boys snicker.

"She says you smell good!"

"I think you may have found your soul mate Toad."

"Only-your-screwed-because-she's-Wolverine's-daughter. Literally. Some-freaky-scientists-tried-to clone-him-and-ended-up-with-her."

Their words wash over him in a soothing buzz. He doubts half of what they're saying is anywhere near the truth. It's a known fact that the Brotherhood loves to extrapolate along the oddest tangents. But he can't doubt the obvious, hit you in the face, concern for his wellbeing they'd been expressing.

He doesn't quite know what to think of that. On one hand he's almost sure it has to be some big hoax, a joke that's going to blow up in his face the moment he thinks he's safe believing it. But people, especially these people, don't put this kind of effort into him period, not to be nice and not to be cruel. He's just not worth the time. So either way, genuine or false, this attention is nice.

On the other hand, hadn't they worked hard to keep him alive all this last week and a half? Making sure he stayed at school. Forcing him to stay on that stupid couch, directly on the best seat in the house, literally, right in front of the tabletop heater? If they just wanted to be cruel why wouldn't they simply let him die? That would be so much easier and then they wouldn't have had to deal with him any more. To top it all off, they'd gone to the X-men. The X-men. They'd gone to the X-men to ask for help. For him. So, since he is a rational being presented with irrefutable evidence, he can only assume the rules of the universe haven't stood on their heads and that that degree of pride swallowing means they actually care about him. Somehow. It's still hard to wrap his brain around.

"Todd? Todd? You still with us?"

"Wha-Yeah?"

A spot of worry wrinkles Lance's brow and then smooths again when he makes direct eye contact again. More evidence. "Just don't want you drifting off before your girlfriend gets here," he smirks lightly.

Todd grins sleepily. " 's much as I don't want t' object t' being given a girlfriend-" Yawn, "- I think she might object and I don't wan' any chick related t' Wolverine mad-" Yawn, "- 't me. Can I go back to sleep now?"

As if on cue – he'd probably been monitoring them – Wolverine appears in the doorway to kick the boys out and check his vitals. Todd closes his eyes for a moment and when they slide open again he's alone. While he'd been under, someone had set up a miniature Christmas tree in the corner and adorned it with paper cut outs of Christmas ornaments and cartoon drawings of the Brotherhood and X-men. At his bedside is a cardboard box with a big red bow on it. He sits up and reaches for it curiously. The microwave dinner inside is still warm and he wolfs it down hungrily as his stomach suddenly remembers he hasn't eaten since breakfast the day before.

Soon after he finishes Lance appears to wheel him up to the rec room. Outside the sun is curving down towards the horizon but there's still enough light out to see that someone had staged a massive snowball fight out on the front lawn. Gathered in rec room are his bros; Lance, Piet and Freddy, and x-geeks; Kurt, Wolverine and the girl X he'd heard about. Not that he'd be caught dead calling the last two x-geeks. Either would probably slice him a new one and he has absolutely zero, zip, zulch desire to abuse their hospitality at the moment. Maybe in a month or two or three. Y'know. When it's actually warm out again.

Kurt pretty much just alternates snoozing and gaming. He plays a mean game of MarioKart but apparently his fever had just broke and Wolverine had only caved to his begging after X had pointed out that he would get more rest if he wasn't 'missing out'. Personally Toad just thinks the grizzler has a soft spot for X.

He certainly does. The first think she'd done when he'd entered the room is walk over to him and glare him in the face before sniffing his hair and informing him that he smelt healthier and he will keep it that way, before walking away again. Weird. Definitely weird. But's he officially fed up to here with Wanda so maybe…

OoO

Without exception, Christmas passes peacefully for all concerned. What had started as a staring match between Pietro and a pile of bills had turned out pretty well, in his own humble opinion. And maybe he'd been doing Wolverine a disservice, comparing him to those slips of paper. If the last week has taught him anything it's that bills are much deadlier, cold-hearted, and intractable than any Wolverine.

Feedback is, of course, always welcome. In fact I think I have a few pies and a cake in the oven if any reviewers are interested...

Regardless, hope you enjoyed!