You felt something was wrong. You cough one more time, terrified and moved backward, getting as far as you could from Warren.

You stumbled and almost fell again, barely keeping your head above the water. You could not believe it was happening again and especially not now: after all the progress you had made. You had been so successful during the training. And even before that: you did not have one accident with your power for more than a week. You had started to hope you would be fine, that you would not hurt anyone anymore... but you were obviously wrong as you felt electricity building up inside you once again. With so much water surrounding you and so many people in it... It would end badly.

"Are you okay?"

Warren was walking toward you, worried.

"Don't come closer!" You shouted, stepping backwards. You could hear your fear distinctly in your voice. If you were to hurt him, you would never forgive yourself.

He frowned, confused. "I don't understand. Did I do something wrong?" His eyes were searching for yours desperately, trying to understand what had happened.

You stopped: he looked so hurt. You tried to come up with an explanation but your brain was too foggy to think of one. You still managed to mutter: "It's my power. I-I need to get out of here."

You turned around quickly, without waiting for his answer. You were hoping he would take the hint and leave you alone. You swam toward the shore but you were so deep into the water it felt like you were not getting any closer. You did not know how long you could hold on; electricity was already pouring out of your fingers in thin threads. You brought your hands to your chest, putting them out of the water and close to your skin, where they could not hurt anyone. At this exact moment, Warren appeared in front of you.

"You can do it. I know you're stressing out because you are surrounded by water but you've done it before, you can do it again." His tone was reassuring. He moved his hand to touch your shoulder but you backed away from it.

"I don't want to hurt you," You spoke quickly, not wanting him to take your gesture as something against him. "Or hurt the others." You added, looking behind you: Ororo and Peter were drowning each other; Jean and Scott were kissing and Kurt was swimming happily.

You needed to get out of here.

You walked past Warren quickly and headed for the shore but you realized he was not going to let you go that easily when he grabbed your arms, making you face him again. He let go of you when you shocked him inadvertently.

"I'm so sorry." You whispered, tears building up in your eyes.

"Don't worry about it." He answered, not moving away from you. He was looking deep into your eyes. "Focus, you just have to pretend like you're in your bedroom, alone, and do as you would normally. Don't think about anything else. Do as the Professor told you to."

"I can't, I already screwed up once..."

"But now you know how to do it right."

He was so close to you, you were sure he could feel the electric current coming out of you and being conducted by the water around you. It was not strong enough to really hurt him yet but you knew it was not something agreeable to endure. Still, he gave nothing away. He was looking at you, confident.

You closed your eyes and focused on your breathing. Professor X's words came back to you: If you can create electricity, you can make it disappear. You had tried to do it before but it had never worked. Still, you focused on this ball of electricity inside of you, imagining it getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared. You felt it shrink for a few seconds before it got back to its original size.

"It's not working." You uttered, desperation filling your voice. You kept your eyes shut, trying to stay focus.

Warren did not answer for a few seconds but you could hear him think, trying to find a solution. Quickly, he wrapped his arms around you, pressing his warm body against yours. Burying his face in your hair, he told you: "You're not going to hurt me."

You lost all concentration. You were shocking him, you knew it. You felt it. His entire body was tense, stiff. He started to huff quickly afterward. But still he held you tightly, not willing to let go of you.

You glued your hands to your chest and focused, hard. If you did not do anything right now, you were going to kill him.

Disappear, disappear, disappear.

As hard as you tried, electricity was still building up inside of you. Warren's hold was loosening as the current was becoming too hard to handle.

You were starting to panic when you thought back on professor McCoy's words after the incident. He had told you to guide it.

You could get rid of your surplus into the ground. If you could shove it far enough, it would not hurt anyone. You focused on the earth at your feet and began to push your electricity toward it. It was surprisingly easy. The hardest part was to push it far away from the water, deep into the ground. It took you a lot of your energy but you felt it worked, as electricity was slowly leaving your body to bury itself into the soil. When you opened your eyes, you felt lighter.

You could hear people laughing on the shore. You could hear Ororo shouting at Peter for some stupid joke he had made. And you could hear Warren's breathing subsiding as every ounce of electricity had left your body.

"You did it, angel." He mumbled in a hoarse voice, his face still hidden in your hair and his hands brushing your back.

"It was a stupid thing to do." You said, pushing him gently so that you could see his face.

He let go of you. He seemed exhausted. You could not believe he had done that. You could have killed him.

He smirked: "It worked."

"I hurt you." You whispered, feeling guilty.

"And I don't blame you. We've all been through the same. Accepting and mastering our power is not always easy."

For a split second he seemed to get lost in his memories. He suddenly appeared to you very sad and physically worn out.

"You need to sit down." You told him.

Warren needed to regain some strength and you, you could not stay into the water. The best was to go back on the shore.

---

You had been sitting in silence under a tree, a few meters away from the water, for the past ten minutes. Warren was sitting against the trunk of the tree, his eyes shut, and as you could see he was feeling better. You were sat next to him, thinking about earlier. The situation could have been horrific if he had not been there. You stole a glance at him. He had put his life in jeopardy to help you. It was the selfless act you had ever seen someone do. You felt so much admiration for him, so much love too. You did not know how you would have lived with yourself if you had killed him... In those past few weeks, he had become one of the most important person in your life. Your feelings for him kept growing days after days. You loved everything about him: his lovely curly hair, the tattoos on his head, his constant teasing, his well hidden soft side and even his damaged side. He had turned out way more complex than you would have thought but it was what made him who he was. And it was what made you fall for him.

You were still looking at him lovingly when he took a deep breath, making his chest rise. You looked down and your eyes were drawn to his scars. Except for the long one on his chest, the others were discreet. It was not hard to figure out that he had gotten those during his fights in Germany.

"Did it hurt?" The words slipped out of your mouth while you were still staring at his scars.

"Only this one." He answered, touching the long white scar that was on his right pectoral. His fingers slide on it distractedly. "It was the deepest."

"How did you get it?"

"A knife-throwing mutant."

"Is he-" He nodded before you could finish your sentence.

"He's dead."

Your eyes met and you stayed silent for a time.

"Did you stitch yourself up?" You finally asked him as you were wondering about this for quite some time now.

"Yeah, with a lot of alcohol. Mostly to numb the pain even if it worked wonder to disinfect the wound." He smiled faintly, in an attempt to make it sounds less alarming than it was. But the look in his eyes gave you a different story: how this experience had left him lost and broken.

You did not answer. There was nothing to say. But he was not alone anymore and you wanted him to know that. You moved closer to him and snuggled against him, resting your head on his shoulder. You were afraid he would flinch away from you because of what had happened in the water but he put his arm around your shoulder, resting his hand on your arm. This simple gesture was enough to warm your heart but then he kissed the top of your head in a silent thank you. You stayed in this position for a few minutes, watching Jean, Scott, Kurt, Peter and Ororo playing in the water. They had seen Warren and you leave but you were sure they did not witness what had happened before. For them, it must have looked like you wanted to be alone together. In fact, it was probably what it looked like considering you did not even went back to where your stuff were but almost on the opposite side of the lake. You looked toward it and thought about your soft and warm blanket and the bottles of water waiting for you. You were really thirsty. You hesitated, not wanting to move away from Warren but you realized you could snuggle into his arms again once you would be there. You were sure he would not be against it at all. You asked him if he minded going back to your spot and he said no. You got up and a few seconds after you started to walk, a young man came to meet you. He must have been of the same age of you and was pretty handsome if you did not count the smug expression he had on his face.

"Hello there!" He said, looking at you. "My friends and I are going to a party tonight, wanna come?"

He did not even look in Warren's direction.

"No, I'm not interested." You answered, hoping that the boy would leave.

"You sure? Is it because of him?" He asked, looking at Warren.

You felt Warren tense up next to you. He was probably as annoyed by this guy as you were.

"I said I wasn't interested, what's so hard to understand?" You answered harshly, his smug smirk getting on your nerves.

"Calm down sweetheart." He retorted, raising his hands in a sign of surrender. "I'm just saying... You're not a freak like him. You can enjoy yourself."

Anger took hold of your entire body. You could not believe how disdainful his words had been, especially when he had called Warren a freak.

"You should leave." You warned him. You had seen Warren's hands balled into fists when he had called you sweetheart and you could feel he was restraining himself not to punch this idiot in the face.

The boy left, winking at you. Your anger was quickly replaced by consternation and sadness. You did not understand how someone could say such hurtful things.

Warren was still silent next to you and your eyes drifted toward him. He was following the boy with his eyes, so much anger in his gaze it chilled you to the bones.

"Warren?" you stammered, trying to get his attention. Seeing he did not respond, you took his hand in yours. "Come on, let's go."

You squeezed his hand tightly until his eyes drifted on you. All anger left his face. You gave him a warm smile, trying to cheer him up but you could sense that underneath, the boy's words were still resonating. You started to walk again, but with every step you made, Warren's anger seemed to come back stronger. Desperately, you dug your brain to find something to distract him but nothing came.

You were already halfway to your spot when you heard a group of people laugh behind you. You looked toward the sound and saw three teenagers chuckling. One was up and was looking at you, a dirty expression on his face. You looked the other way, ill-at-ease. He must have said something else because the others started to laugh again, probably some coarse joke you told yourself. You had other fish to fry, like making sure Warren was going to be okay. You turned your head to look at him but you realized he was gone.

You heard a choking noise behind you and turned around. Warren was pinning the boy against a tree. His arm was on the boy's neck, preventing him to move. The others teenagers stand up quickly but they fled as soon as Warren spread out his wings. You almost screamed when you saw his metallic feathers moving, afraid he would hurt someone badly.

You needed to stop him before he would hurt this boy. Warren was too angry to realize what he was doing. You ran toward him, moved around his wings carefully and stepped next to the boy, in front of Warren. His face was a mask of fury and hatred. He looked terrifying, even for you.

"I'm sorry, dude. It was a stupid joke." The boy stuttered, turning his head toward you. "I'm really sorry." There was so much fear in his eyes you felt bad.

But you ignored him, trying to meet Warren's eyes but to no avail.

"Warren." You murmured, your voice shaking. You had never seen him like that and even if you knew he would not hurt you, you could not help but feel slightly frightened by his threatening appearance.

He did not hear you. You tried again, this time, placing your hand on his chest. "Warren." You talked louder, pressing your hand on his skin. It was warm and his heart was beating quickly underneath.

Warren blinked, finally hearing you. He loosened his grip on the boy who took advantage of it: he pushed himself out of Warren's reach and went running toward his friends.

When Warren saw him leaving, he swore and hit the tree with his bare fist. You gasped. Splinters of wood went flying everywhere as blood started to drip from his injured hand. You shouted his name as you moved your hand from his chest to his cheek. He was avoiding your gaze, looking at the ground. You stepped in front of him, taking the place of the boy, and got so close to him that he had to look at you in the eyes. You were expecting anger, annoyance but not the sad and pained look he gave you.

As soon as he met your gaze, he stepped backwards. Your hand fell at your side as you were going to speak. You did not even have the time to utter one word that Warren was already high above the ground. Your hair flying in your face because of the gusts of wind he had created, you saw him fly away. Seeing him fly what the most beautiful thing you had ever seen but it was also the most heartbreaking, because he was not only flying away, he was flying away from you and you had no idea why.