InsaneJournal

They had come out of nowhere, faceless strangers dressed in black and armed with guns, the kind that -- at least according to long-term residents of the school -- had appeared as if from thin air more than once in the past and wreaked havoc. It was Tobias' first experience with men like this; they weren't mutants, seemed to have no intentions other than to make as much mess as possible. The gunfire started on the top floor. They must have landed on the roof and started working their way down. The echoing din began to crack along the ground floor soon after that, disrupting the night and throwing the school into chaos. Was this what they had been building up to? Was this why people had been disappearing?

Did these people have Jo?

Tobias like others had immediately fallen back on training. He didn't have range powers or any kind of defences as a direct result of his mutation, but he was fast and agile, had good reflexes and had trained intensely over the years since he had joined the Junior team so long ago. That was the kind of training that, with regular practise, didn't just fade away. So he'd darted out of his room and engaged the intruders, trying as best he could to shut out the sounds of screaming and what he thought with a ball of dread forming in his stomach was weights striking the ground on the floors above. Bodies hitting the floor. Tobias hoped beyond hope that they were the trespassers and not the students or residents. Everything was chaotic, broken glass and shouting and flares and booms of powers triggering and firing off in every direction. Tobias' ears were ringing before he had even finished fighting, his lungs burning and his limbs tingling with the beginnings of an ache that would soon wear off thanks to the adrenaline pumping through his body; he didn't even feel any bodily protests as he jogged through the corridors looking for others, whether they be black-clad strangers or people in need of help.

He found Laurie and Kevin together, Tobias stumbling to a halt at their feet. They'd been missing. They'd both disappeared, but here they were. Dropping down into a crouch beside them he did his best to examine their wounds. They were still alive, just barely. Tobias could help them enough for help to--

Shit. He looked down at Kevin, flexed his free bare hand -- the other wrapped around Laurie's wrist as he pumped that energy into her to keep her heart pumping and her lungs filling with much-needed oxygen before help could arrive -- and cursed under his breath. There was no way he could help Kevin, not with his abilities. "Laurie," he said gently to the blonde as she stirred enough to open her eyes and look at him. "Don't try to move, okay? Stay here with Ford. I'll bring help." With that he was up and running, turning corridors and leaping down flights of stairs. Students he found on his way were given energy that he could spare, enough for them to at least sit up and hold makeshift dressings to their wounds before others could come to take them to the medlabs.

When he saw a familiar shape huddled near the open front doors, Tobias felt his legs weaken beneath him. The breath left his lungs in a rush and then he was running, body weight going down as he came up to her slumped body in a skid that almost had him buckled over completely at her side, panting with fear rather than any kind of exertion. "Oh god, oh god, Jo. Baby?" Moving the hair from her face he tried to get her to wake, felt her neck for a pulse that barely even fluttered beneath his fingertips. She was weak, fading. "Hang on, baby." There was blood around his legs, poured from wounds in her stomach and chest and back. Oh god, oh god. This couldn't happen. His hands stayed at her face and neck and he closed his eyes to pump as much of his energy into her as he could, not even caring if it dropped him to the ground close to blacking out. He felt it leaving his body, filtering through his flesh and into hers. But Jo didn't move. Didn't stir.

Tobias' eyes opened and he looked down at her, her too-pale face and too-still frame. Her side was no longer lifting in a struggle for breath. "No, no, no--" Again his fingers sought out her pulse, light-headed from transferring so much and again the breath left his lungs in any icy, terrified rush. Nothing. There was nothing to feel. "Jo, no, don't you dare." Nothing. "Johanna." It was shouted, desperate. Pleading. She had to wake up. He had given her all he could spare. What was she doing here? Where had she come from? Why hadn't she--

Oh god, he'd done it again. He'd failed the one person he so badly needed to save, let them slip away because he couldn't do enough and his chest felt like it was going to split apart. Jo lay prone and lifeless before him and he couldn't bring her back. Just like Ally. Just like his sister. He'd let her slip away, couldn't do enough. He'd lost her too. It wasn't just pain he felt then, surging through every fibre of his being like white-hot flame. There was no word for it, his body folding over Jo's still form, hands holding her as if he could somehow pull her back to her body, undo his failure and make everything right again.

The world faded to black, the dead body and the school and the blood all dimming and drifting. The dream ended, the hold was released. But instead of jolting awake with tears of fear and anguish in his eyes the brutal stab of loss still in his chest as if he had truly watched his wife die, Tobias simply lay where he had been left, on his bed in his room in the faculty wing. He didn't wake up. His body remained still save for the rise and fall of his chest. The only change was so slight that it could have been so easily missed. His fingers twitched and shook, just for a moment, and then nothing once again.

Tobias' mind had been released from the grip that had been wrapped around it tightly for two months but his body didn't respond as it ought to have done, drained too low and running on empty, leaving him in an entirely different kind of coma.