Becoming Human

Duo sat in the room staring at the floor, rubbing his temples. He wouldn\'t have been surprised if his head suddenly cracked open and a little woman fully garbed in armor climbed out and proclaimed herself the Goddess Athena. The pounding was getting worse and worse, and since he\'d been sitting staring at the floor, little sparkles had begun to dance before his eyes. /That can\'t be good,/ he thought. It wasn\'t helping that the man sitting across the table from him wouldn\'t stop asking questions. They\'d been at this for over twenty minutes, and Duo still had no idea what was going on.
\"I\'ll ask again,\" the man said. \"Why did you decide to leave the desert and trek more than halfway across the country to come to Chesapeake?\"
The door opened and he glanced up, watching as a Chinese woman with blond hair walked through the door. \"You don\'t have to answer that, Duo,\" the woman said, \"or any other questions.\"
The man stood up self importantly to block her way. \"Who do you think you are Miss?! This is a-\"
\"I am Dr. Sally Po from the Mt. Tabor School for Saurs and Humans,\" she interrupted. \"And this is an illegal evaluation that you are conducting, considering that the boy was raised by saurs and has, we have reason to believe, recently suffered a mental trauma that your line of questioning is not helping and may be exacerbating.\" She pushed her way past the man and knelt next to Duo.
\"How\'s the head?\" she asked as she took his wrist to check his pulse.
He swallowed. \"Sparkles,\" was all he said, but she seemed to understand.
\"That bad? Well, I think I know what\'s causing the pain, but I can\'t treat it here. You were supposed to be sent straight to us anyway . . .\" she trailed off as she released his wrist. \"Can you walk?\" she asked.
He grinned. \"Sure, why not?\" He then proceeded to stand up to quickly, swaying as the sparkles covered his entire field of vision. Sally stood up next to him, and drew his arm around her shoulder so he could lean on her and she could monitor his pulse. Together they made it out to the hall, where they could hear a supervisor reprimanding an underling.
\"You will see to this oversight!\" The voice said sternly. Sally had a moment to notice his gasp and the sudden spike in his pulse. Turning, she saw his eyes change right before he shut them in pain as he moaned and started to collapse toward the floor. Moving quickly, she released his wrist to catch the back of his knees with her arm. She carefully cradled his head against her shoulder as she lifted him.
\"Don\'t open your eyes,\" she whispered into his ear. \"We don\'t want them to be seen right now.\" She then walked back to the waiting room where Une and Mom were chatting. Both looked up as they saw Duo carried out of the hallway before them. Mom came forward as Une\'s eyes narrowed dangerously.
\"He\'s about ready to pop,\" Sally said as she handed Duo off to Mom. \"I can stabilize him back at Student Health, but we\'ll have to get him there pronto. I can take him and his mom back with me, and you can follow in their truck, bringing the rest of the family. Is that agreeable to all?\"
Nods were exchanged, and Sally sprinted out the door, Mom on her heels with the tightly curled form of Duo in her arms. As they made their way to the School, Sally explained to them about memory acquisition, integration and rejection. She was heartened that Duo was even able to ask a few questions, because that meant his will to keep hold of his sanity wasn\'t waning, even if his strength was. His eyes remained screwed shut, his fingers digging into his skull, all the way to the school. Sally noted that as they crossed onto the school property, Duo relaxed a tiny bit. Storing that bit away for later, she brought the car to a screeching halt before the main doors.
Susan came running out as Mom handed Duo off to Sally and pried herself from the car. \"Une called ahead,\" the secretary said. \"Trieze-sama has been setting up your workroom. Shall I take all your calls as well?\"
Sally nodded in the affirmative, as she rushed in and down the stairs. \"This may take a while,\" she called over her shoulder. \"Tell any callers that I\'ll get back to them only when the situation has stabilized.\"
Down the corridor she lead them, finally reaching the door to Student Health. Pushing her way through, she continued on through the waiting room, past the examining rooms, to another door. Stopping, she knocked.
\"Come in, Sally\" came the voice of Trieze. Sally opened the door, and Mom gasped at the difference between this room and what she had just passed through. Gone was the linoleum on concrete floor, here the floor was merely hard packed clay. To the left of the door was a fireplace giving the room a ruddy glow. across on the opposite wall, water poured out of the wall to splash into a pool carved into the floor. To the right was what appeared to be a giant slab of highly polished obsidian set into the wall. In the center was a table made of cedar, covered in white rabbit furs. Next to the door was a much smaller table, upon which was burning a ball of copal.
Trieze stepped forward as Sally went to kneel by the pool. \"Here,\" he said, \"Let\'s get Duo on the table.\"
Mom stepped forward, her nostrils twitching as she set Duo on his feet. Together the three made their way over to the table, Duo\'s now golden eyes opened to a mere slit. Sally joined them after a few moments and instructed Duo to strip. He blinked uncomprehendingly for a moment.
\"I need as little interference as possible,\" she said. \"All that leather will get in the way.\" It took a second, but he then nodded slightly and started to unfasten his shirt as Trieze knelt to help him out of his boots. Mom helped him stay upright and watched as Sally retrieved a large scallop shell which held a small pile of long, thin needles. Duo had to sit against the table to help get out of his pants, but soon they too had joined in the pile with his shirt and boots. In a flash of intuition, Mom, reached down and pulled the tie off the end of his braid, running her hands through the chestnut mass until it flowed freely down his back. Then, working with Trieze, they got him lying on him back on the firs. Once she saw that her son was more or less settled, Mom looked up at Sally. The latter looked at Trieze, then back at Mom.
\"Usually,\" she began, \"I would have you leave, but since he hardly knows us, I\'ll make an exception, provided you follow my instructions. The first of which will be-go wash in the fountain and take the time to clear your head.\" Mom moved to comply, and Sally closed her eyes and started concentrating on her breaths, bringing her hands together before her face. Trieze moved off to the side, ready to support if needed, but staying out of the way. Healing was in no way his forte, but he could ensure that they were not intruded upon with great efficiency.
Mom returned and Sally opened her eyes, rubbing her hands together briefly to increase the circulation. Looking at Duo now with more than just her eyes, she ran a quick appraisal, reconfirming what she, Trieze and Une had suspected since Noin and Miiliardo\'s call. He was in full blownory ory rejection, and the only thing keeping him sane, much less alive, was an incredible strength of will. The energies around him had become so unbalanced due to this that they\'d completely stopped flowing, becoming stagnant and backing up like so many blocked drains. So thick this morass had become that Sally couldn\'t sense his energy centers at all, even though she knew they were there. She glanced back at Mom.
\"Stand here where he can see you, but do not, under any circumstances, touch him. One patient is enough for now.\" She said, then reached into a pocket and brought out a small stone. \"Hold onto this-I\'m gonna start flinging the excess energy he built up, and this should keep you from getting any stuck to you. If you should feel anything, though, just concentrate of the feeling if the ground beneath your feet, and the Earth will absorb what might be harmful to you. Do you understand?\"
Mom nodded, and Sally began her work, starting at Duo\'s feet, his toes tightly curled. She brought her hands to hover splayed about three inches above his skin. Drawing breath, her fingers curled, then she pulled her hands back as though pulling weeds out of a garden. She flicked both wrists, and Mom was surprised to see dust fly up from the floor. Twice more Sally repeated this process, before grunting in satisfaction Duo\'s feet had relaxed a significant degree, and Sally could \"see\" the energy flowing again. Picking up to needles, she observed the flow for a moment more before sticking them in the tops of his feet precisely. Duo gasped as a feeling of a cold breeze swept over his body from his feet up. A numbness he hadn\'t noticed dissolved from his feet.
Sally didn\'t stop to admire the view of the re-awakening energies. Stepping up, she clasped his hands together, lacing together the third, forth and fifth fingers, taking the thumbs and index fingers and pressing them into an L shape. She pulled the hands over his solar plexus, pointing his index fingers toward the ceiling, the thumbs resting at the end of his sternum.
The effect was like lifting a lightning rod above a tree in the middle of a storm. Duo\'s eyes flew open, the iris\' contracting to mere slits. Sally watched the energies flying between the steeple made by his fingers and the needles in his feet. Reaching her hands into the middle of the storm, her fingers flexed again, pulling, and flinging the \"muck\" onto the ground. As she began working her way farther up his body, never touching him, she began to speak out loud.
\"His root chakra looks overworked, I\'m shutting it down to half its intake. It\'s too dangerous to shut it off completely in his state, but it needs to rest a little.\" Her hands shifted an inch. \"The sacral chakra is only partly awakened, most if it\'s strength still but potential. It follows the patterns we\'ve seen in the others.\" She spared a glance for Mom. \"He\'s never met a human he was interested yet, huh?\" Mom nodded, and Sally\'s hands moved up father, over his hands. \"The solar plexus is much the same, though it too has much potential.\" Her hands moved again, now coming to hover over his chest. \"My God, Trieze,\" she breathed. \"He\'s just like the others here, too. I can\'t begin to describe. . .\" She took a deep breath. She was halfway done, but she had yet to reach the most troublesome spot. Her hands now moved to hover over his throat. \"He\'s pretty much un-awakened here as well. I\'d say that\'s just due to lack of experience, not any sort of oppression or forced ignorance. I\'m gonna wake it up, just a bit, to make the energy flow a little smoother. It shouldn\'t have any other effect on him.\" One finger dipped to tap lightly on his larynx for a few seconds. Sighing, she moved her hands yet again to hover above his brow, and found what she\'d been looking for. \"We\'ve got a major blockage here, as I rather suspected we would. Looks like he\'s completely shut down here, probably due to the memory rejection. Honestly, I\'ve never seen anything like this, but then, most humans never survive even half this long.\" She frowned as he fingers curled and pulled once more, as though trying to pull apart a delicate knot. After only a few seconds she stopped.
\"Trieze, can yot met me my lodestone?\" Trieze stepped over to a cabinet by the northern wall, opened a drawer, and a moment later walked back bearing a small bundle wrapped in white silk. He held out his hand, and Sally plucked the stone from the snowy nest, leaving the silk in Trieze\'s hand as the iron grey lump nestled in her fingers.
Over Duo\'s forehead she brought the stone, moving it slowly up, then down, then up, delicately, almost as though coaxing the result, inviting instead of demanding. After a few minutes she began to smile.
\"There you go,\" she murmured, and with her free hand, reached down to pull at the muck once more. It was, she thought, much like pulling out a nasty hair clog from the shower drain-slimy, stringy, all around icky, but with very visible results. The lines in Duo\'s face relaxed as he let out a sigh, his eyes changing from golden slitted to violet round. As the color in his face returned, Sally watched the energies re-sort and re-balance themselves. She moved her hands up one last time, to check his crown, but found nothing unusual there, now that the energies were flowing freely again.
\"Duo,\" she said sofly, \"I want you to take your hands apart now and let them rest at your side.\" He wearily complied, his body aching from lack of sleep, but still to wired and refreshed to fall asleep immediately. Sally took her shell of needles and quickly went over his body, placing the needles strategically to stabilize and reign in the now freely flowing energies. By the time she finished, Duo\'s eyes had shut and his respiration deepened into a sleeping rhythm.
Only now did Sally let herself relax and take her eyes away from her patient. Mom stood silent, relieved that her son now seemed to be resting and free from distress. Sally looked at Trieze. \"Let Une and the others in,\" she said, then turned back to Mom.
\"I\'ve managed to relieve his discomfort for now, but it\'s only a temporary measure at best. The only real cure is complete memory integration. Until then, he\'s gonna keep getting that way again, faster and faster. We can help him with that process, if you\'d like. . .\"
Une walked in, followed by the rest of Duo\'s family. Taking one look at Duo, the professor saw that he was now resting easier. She then turned to Mom.
\"As you might have guessed, the original intent of finding your son was to offer him and two others of your children places here at the school. I can guarantee Duo a full scholarship, and each of the other two half-scholarships, due to the rarity of saur-raised humans. If you agree to this, Duo can be put under longer term observation than if you do not. This way we\'ll be able to take the memory re-integration slower, which would be what I would recommend. However, the decision is up to you.\"
Mom didn\'t hesitate. \"My mind was made up by Birmingham. I want my son to have the best chance he can, and I believe that you and Trieze can help him get that. Am I correct in assuming that this will be a boarding situation?\"
Une nodded. \"If you decide to settle nearby, they can certainly visit on weekends, days off, and other holidays. Since your family is so large, we\'ll do what we can to find you local jobs, and I know of some good, well-integrated housing in the area that should be affordable for you.\" She lifted an arm to glance at her wristwatch. \"It\'s still early afternoon, so we\'ve got time to get your family processed. I know that Sally will want to keep him for observation, so we can move him to the room we intended for him anyway. Is he stable enough to move yet, Sally?\"
Sally looked at Duo again, then went and began removing the needles. As she finished, Duo\'s eyes fluttered open.
\"Time to get dressed,\" she said. Duo was still too tired to register much, so he mutely complied. He was buttoning up his shirt when he yawned. \"Upside down!\" he sighed.
Une blinked in surprise, then smiled. \"In a moment, Little Bat,\" she said, motioning for everyone to head back out of the healing room. \"We have to get you to your roost first. The all the upside down you need.\"
Duo paused on his way out the door, turning to look at her with a wide grin plastered across his face. He looked about to say something when he was hit by another yawn, which for some reason started a minor fit of giggles.
\"Yes,\" he said. \"My roost.\"\" He continued up the hall and stairs, leaning against Mom\'s arm as the other humans and saurs followed, but for Une who led the way. She finally stopped out side a door and opened it, to reveal a room with two sets of furniture, one half obviously used, the other not. Duo stared dumbly for a moment at the electronics set-up in one of the near corners. He then turned to the unused bed, then looked at Une with the question in his eyes.
\"Yes,\" she answered. \"That bed is yours now, since you\'ll be attending school here this year.\" He blinked, looking around as he made his sleepy way to the bed.
\"My square inch?\" he asked.
Une nodded. \"You have a roommate, Heero Yuy, but he won\'t be back to closer to when classes start.\"
Duo nodded, mumbling something about two bats to a square inch. He burrowed his way under the covers as Mom moved to tuck him in. Promising to return soon, they turned to leave him to his rest, but stopped when they heard a dismayed gasp from the boy. Turning, Mom saw Duo\'s eyes seeking hers out. Mom looked as how his fingers were curling into the empty air, and relaxed.
\"We\'ll get him and bring him back to you,\" she said, chuckling as his face relaxed and he fell asleep for true this time.
\"What was thaout?out?\" Trieze asked.
Karick answered, in the simplest way possible. \"He realized he was sleeping alone. He hates being alone when he sleeps, so he\'s always had his little bat to curl around. So now we have to go get Foo-foo.\"