Categories > Original > Drama > Separation
September 19, 1979
“The hell’s up with all the white coats?” Charles asked, shrugging out of his own jacket as he entered the room.
“This is a teaching hospital,” Dr. Straussen reminded him. “As such, you’ll have a few observers, that is of course as long as it won’t interfere with your work.”
“I’m not a teacher,” Charles stated flatly. “Either I work alone, or I don’t work at all.”
“Charles?” Dr. Xerxes spoke up, voice frosted with icy courtesy. “A word?”
Leaving Dr. Straussen and his gaggle of lab coats silently gaping after them, Charles followed his grandfather out into the hall. Once there, Julian gently closed the door and then rounded on his grandson with one of the most fearsome scowls of filial outrage Charles had ever seen.
“The fuck did I do now?” Charles demanded in a stage whisper.
“Shut up,” Julian snapped. Charles shut up, if only out of shock from the sudden vehemence in his grandfather’s voice.
“I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but you’d best either get over it or put it aside.”
“I—“ Charles began.
“Don’t interrupt me,” Julian warned. “Now is neither the time nor the place for personal grudges. There is a person in need. Help him. No one is asking anything more of you than to simply do your job. You don't have to like it, just do it. Do I make myself clear?
Charles frowned momentarily at the thought of the half-dozen eager young pill pushers looking over his shoulder while he did his best to duct tape his friend’s psyche, but after a moment decided his grandfather had a point. Day saving- life saving- shouldn’t be a matter of personal preference. Besides, if he taught the white coats what to do, odds were they wouldn’t need him to hang around.
“Alright”
Turning, he entered the room once more. Dr. Straussen and the others looked up expectantly.
“Sorry,” he offered half-heartedly, “wasn’t anticipating an audience today.”
Dr. Straussen nodded, accepting the veiled apology.
“I apologize for not warning you, Mr. Porter.” One of the taller young men present stepped forward and offered Charles a long-fingered hand. “I’m Dr. Eddy McPherson and these are my students. They’ve been assisting in Ray’s therapy. This is uncharted territory for us and we’re all eager to hear any suggestions you may have.”
“Pleasure,” Charles murmured, eying the hand for a moment before turning back to Ray.
“You cool with the peanut gallery?” he asked, thumbing at the assembled med students. The subject in question was already laid flat if fully dressed on the bed in the middle of the room.
“Most of these guys have already seen me naked more times than we’d care to remember,” he stated completely straight-faced. “My soul can’t be any scarier than that.”
This prompted a snerk Charles was powerless to suppress. He’d rather missed his friend’s self-deprecating humor. “All right, just making sure your legendary modesty wouldn’t suffer.”
Stepping forward, Charles eyed the men and women crowding around the bed. He recognized a few here and there from the early days of Ray’s treatment, but about half of them he’d never seen before. Perhaps it would be best to take inventory before he got started.
“All right class, show of hands. How many here are telepaths of some sort?”
Two.
“Okay, healers?”
Three, including Eddy.
“And what the hell are you?” he asked the remaining physician without sarcasm or malice. The young man blinked at the swearing, but otherwise took no offense.
“X-Ray vision. I’m mostly here to get integrated.”
“Right…” Great. Only two of them would really be able to follow along without help then. A daisy chain wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to do today but it was probably the best way to keep everyone involved.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he told them, unbuttoning his shirt and shrugging out of it, glad he’d thought to wear an undershirt. “I am going to need my hands to work. Telepaths, get between the healers. No, no,” he corrected, pulling the misplaced surgeon over to stand beside him and placing the young man’s hand on his own bare shoulder. “You’re hanging out with me. No taking notes today. Everyone else join hands or find some other method of hospital approved skin-to-skin contact. That way, we can all see what’s going on.”
With everyone arranged, he turned his attention to Ray, lying patiently on the bed.
“You ready?”
“Yeah.”
Extending one arm, Charles pushed a finger against the skin between Ray’s eyebrows; gently pressing his head back against the pillow. That had always been the location of Ray’s “on/off” switch to his eyes. It would be better to do this in safe mode.
“G’night…” The word was said more to himself than to the attending physicians or even to Ray. For a moment he simply stood there, watching as his friend powered down and sank into unconsciousness. Thoughts and feelings swirled in Charles’ mind behind thick walls. Some part of him still felt envious of the little man, though without the bitterness that had turned that envy into a jealousy so venomous that it had eaten away at the most precious bond he’d had. His thoughts and emotions were his own and the onlookers could only see what he wanted them to see. And they sure as hell didn’t need to see that. Taking the mental step back, he let the white coats tap into a select current of his power.
Right now, what Charles saw phantom-like, superimposed on his friend’s body resembled the uncovered inside of a robot-- after someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. The physical corrections that his grandfather and Dr. Karl had made were evident, but the psychic damage remained in all its appalling impressiveness. He managed to stop short at calling out the attending psychics; realizing distantly how minimal their own power was in comparison to his. It wasn’t truly their fault, they’d be fine for most things, but a wreck of this level would be beyond almost anyone’s capability. Looking over the sad remains of Ray’s psyche, Charles tried to decide where to start. His eager young space cadets were also staring, goggle-eyed at the mess.
Eddy, stammering like a bespectacled parody of Jimmy Stewart, sniffed vainly against welling tears. “I knew he was hurt,” the man choked, “but I could never see it…”
One of the female empaths had broken the chain to press both hands over her mouth, her complexion fading rapidly from white to green. With a sharp jab of one finger, Charles pointed her toward the nearest trashcan. Turning, she hurried to make use of it.
“I don’t understand…” another trailed off. “Why didn’t I…why didn’t any of us see this?”
“Because he wouldn’t let you.”
It took Charles a belated moment to realize the words had left his mouth, and another to realize that they were true. Still stricken by the revelation, he could only listen as his voice explained what his brain had only recently processed.
“Ray’s always been shy about himself, but especially about his powers. He doesn’t really know any of you, and therefore he doesn’t trust you.”
But he trusts me… Only a few days ago Ray had swallowed hard and placed his hand in his, lowering what little shielding he had left and invited Charles into his mind and soul. Ray’s self-consciousness often bordered on shame, and allowing someone- even a friend as close as Charles- to see him stripped to his mental phantom was no small feat. The relationship between Ray and himself had always had a sort of nervous tension to it because of that. With no mental abilities of his own, Alex had been allowed a small half-step closer, the privilege of intimacy without fear spreading the first ripples of jealousy in Charles’ heart. However, a feature unique to all of Ray’s relationships was that they were only so close; allowing for mental, intellectual, and even emotional intimacy but stopping short at the physical. Even Misty- especially Misty- had been granted extra distance because he felt so strongly towards her. How much more, then, would he hide from a stranger, even if they were trying to help?
“He probably didn’t even know he was doing it,” Charles went on, mind and voice once again in synch. “And since everyone was convinced he’d burned out, well, why bother probing more extensively?”
Eddy still had one outsized hand spread over his face, obscuring his features completely. “I wanted to help him…I tried to patch him as best I knew how, I knew it wasn’t enough but…”
Dammit, he wasn’t any good at this. “Dude. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. We all fucked up. We all should have seen this sooner. Bottom line, we know now and there’s still time to do something.”
The verbal slap seemed to do the trick, for Eddy shook himself and lowered his hand, his lean features firmed into a look of gawky determination.
“You’re right. Where do we start?”
Where indeed? Perhaps it might be wise to initiate a brief tutorial. If nothing else, with so many attending physicians at least he had a ready supply of labor. Once shown what to do, they could help with some of the more basic cleanup.
“Okay, I realize you’re all interpreting the damage differently but that isn’t going to affect what we need to do all that much. I’m an engineer; I tend to use computer terms. I personally don’t care if you don’t know shit about hardware and software; it shouldn’t really matter because we’re all looking at the same thing. See this?” He pointed to spot of what to him appeared to be badly smashed and corroded circuitry. “This is what happens to chakra bits if you don’t put them back right away. The energy leaks into the surrounding tissue and damages it.” Shifting, Charles ran his hand up the length of Ray’s spine. “You can see all along his main power cable where the nodes have been damaged or in some cases smashed completely. I am going to work on this. What I want you guys to do is pick out and dispose of the shrapnel and damaged bits. Observe.”
With thumb and forefinger, Charles leaned and carefully dislodged a tiny, glass-like sliver. Once out, he examined it closely. Under all the dirt, the shard was faintly sage-colored and felt vaguely warm.
“See this? This is part of him. Ray’s color is red- maroon, mauve, cadmium- he’s rose-colored right down to the bone. However, once you get it out of him, you’ll see these little pieces have their own distinct color and signature. You find any; you give those to me. I’ll put them back where they belong.”
Testing the fragment for a moment, it seemed to say “heart” and so he set it in one of the smashed brackets along Ray’s spine near his chest. The assistants ooh-ed as it settled into its appropriate place, balancing on end seemingly without support, glowing faintly green like a tiny blade of grass.
Charles stooped and repeated the process with a second shard. This one came away more grudgingly, revealing itself to be jagged and rusty, like a corroded bit of metal.
“This,” Charles instructed, holding it up, “is shrapnel. You pick it out, and you throw it away.” He tossed the piece over his shoulder where it evaporated in mid-flight. “However, what I want all of you to do is save all the scraps you find for me to look at later. I don’t want anyone tossing something important. Got it?”
They got it.
Glancing up from time to time to make sure everyone else was on task; Charles discovered it was actually rather interesting to watch them while they worked. The surgeon, lips pressed together, was carefully lifting fragments with pointer and middle finger as if they were a set of tweezers and depositing the bits on the palm of his other hand. The empath who’d been sick was daintily picking out pieces with thumb and forefinger before dropping them into her cupped fingers. Eddy, with his huge hands, seemed to be concentrating on a slightly different form of cleanup. Eyes half-lidded and attention turned inward, he moved his hands slowly, deliberately over Ray’s body. The tall doctor had spoken truthfully; he could tell where the wounds were, but he was unable to see them. Not bothering to attempt extraction with his huge fingers, he instead spread his palms over the areas the others had cleaned, a vague smile that had probably been a long time in coming tugging at his lips as tissue that should have healed months ago finally truly began to pull itself back together.
After about two hours, Charles called a halt. Attempting a job this mammoth solo would have left him with a splitting headache. However, with so much help, a lot had been accomplished and less than half the energy expended. Indeed, no one else seemed ready to quit. Perhaps, he mused, a teaching hospital wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
“The hell’s up with all the white coats?” Charles asked, shrugging out of his own jacket as he entered the room.
“This is a teaching hospital,” Dr. Straussen reminded him. “As such, you’ll have a few observers, that is of course as long as it won’t interfere with your work.”
“I’m not a teacher,” Charles stated flatly. “Either I work alone, or I don’t work at all.”
“Charles?” Dr. Xerxes spoke up, voice frosted with icy courtesy. “A word?”
Leaving Dr. Straussen and his gaggle of lab coats silently gaping after them, Charles followed his grandfather out into the hall. Once there, Julian gently closed the door and then rounded on his grandson with one of the most fearsome scowls of filial outrage Charles had ever seen.
“The fuck did I do now?” Charles demanded in a stage whisper.
“Shut up,” Julian snapped. Charles shut up, if only out of shock from the sudden vehemence in his grandfather’s voice.
“I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but you’d best either get over it or put it aside.”
“I—“ Charles began.
“Don’t interrupt me,” Julian warned. “Now is neither the time nor the place for personal grudges. There is a person in need. Help him. No one is asking anything more of you than to simply do your job. You don't have to like it, just do it. Do I make myself clear?
Charles frowned momentarily at the thought of the half-dozen eager young pill pushers looking over his shoulder while he did his best to duct tape his friend’s psyche, but after a moment decided his grandfather had a point. Day saving- life saving- shouldn’t be a matter of personal preference. Besides, if he taught the white coats what to do, odds were they wouldn’t need him to hang around.
“Alright”
Turning, he entered the room once more. Dr. Straussen and the others looked up expectantly.
“Sorry,” he offered half-heartedly, “wasn’t anticipating an audience today.”
Dr. Straussen nodded, accepting the veiled apology.
“I apologize for not warning you, Mr. Porter.” One of the taller young men present stepped forward and offered Charles a long-fingered hand. “I’m Dr. Eddy McPherson and these are my students. They’ve been assisting in Ray’s therapy. This is uncharted territory for us and we’re all eager to hear any suggestions you may have.”
“Pleasure,” Charles murmured, eying the hand for a moment before turning back to Ray.
“You cool with the peanut gallery?” he asked, thumbing at the assembled med students. The subject in question was already laid flat if fully dressed on the bed in the middle of the room.
“Most of these guys have already seen me naked more times than we’d care to remember,” he stated completely straight-faced. “My soul can’t be any scarier than that.”
This prompted a snerk Charles was powerless to suppress. He’d rather missed his friend’s self-deprecating humor. “All right, just making sure your legendary modesty wouldn’t suffer.”
Stepping forward, Charles eyed the men and women crowding around the bed. He recognized a few here and there from the early days of Ray’s treatment, but about half of them he’d never seen before. Perhaps it would be best to take inventory before he got started.
“All right class, show of hands. How many here are telepaths of some sort?”
Two.
“Okay, healers?”
Three, including Eddy.
“And what the hell are you?” he asked the remaining physician without sarcasm or malice. The young man blinked at the swearing, but otherwise took no offense.
“X-Ray vision. I’m mostly here to get integrated.”
“Right…” Great. Only two of them would really be able to follow along without help then. A daisy chain wasn’t exactly what he’d wanted to do today but it was probably the best way to keep everyone involved.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” he told them, unbuttoning his shirt and shrugging out of it, glad he’d thought to wear an undershirt. “I am going to need my hands to work. Telepaths, get between the healers. No, no,” he corrected, pulling the misplaced surgeon over to stand beside him and placing the young man’s hand on his own bare shoulder. “You’re hanging out with me. No taking notes today. Everyone else join hands or find some other method of hospital approved skin-to-skin contact. That way, we can all see what’s going on.”
With everyone arranged, he turned his attention to Ray, lying patiently on the bed.
“You ready?”
“Yeah.”
Extending one arm, Charles pushed a finger against the skin between Ray’s eyebrows; gently pressing his head back against the pillow. That had always been the location of Ray’s “on/off” switch to his eyes. It would be better to do this in safe mode.
“G’night…” The word was said more to himself than to the attending physicians or even to Ray. For a moment he simply stood there, watching as his friend powered down and sank into unconsciousness. Thoughts and feelings swirled in Charles’ mind behind thick walls. Some part of him still felt envious of the little man, though without the bitterness that had turned that envy into a jealousy so venomous that it had eaten away at the most precious bond he’d had. His thoughts and emotions were his own and the onlookers could only see what he wanted them to see. And they sure as hell didn’t need to see that. Taking the mental step back, he let the white coats tap into a select current of his power.
Right now, what Charles saw phantom-like, superimposed on his friend’s body resembled the uncovered inside of a robot-- after someone had taken a sledgehammer to it. The physical corrections that his grandfather and Dr. Karl had made were evident, but the psychic damage remained in all its appalling impressiveness. He managed to stop short at calling out the attending psychics; realizing distantly how minimal their own power was in comparison to his. It wasn’t truly their fault, they’d be fine for most things, but a wreck of this level would be beyond almost anyone’s capability. Looking over the sad remains of Ray’s psyche, Charles tried to decide where to start. His eager young space cadets were also staring, goggle-eyed at the mess.
Eddy, stammering like a bespectacled parody of Jimmy Stewart, sniffed vainly against welling tears. “I knew he was hurt,” the man choked, “but I could never see it…”
One of the female empaths had broken the chain to press both hands over her mouth, her complexion fading rapidly from white to green. With a sharp jab of one finger, Charles pointed her toward the nearest trashcan. Turning, she hurried to make use of it.
“I don’t understand…” another trailed off. “Why didn’t I…why didn’t any of us see this?”
“Because he wouldn’t let you.”
It took Charles a belated moment to realize the words had left his mouth, and another to realize that they were true. Still stricken by the revelation, he could only listen as his voice explained what his brain had only recently processed.
“Ray’s always been shy about himself, but especially about his powers. He doesn’t really know any of you, and therefore he doesn’t trust you.”
But he trusts me… Only a few days ago Ray had swallowed hard and placed his hand in his, lowering what little shielding he had left and invited Charles into his mind and soul. Ray’s self-consciousness often bordered on shame, and allowing someone- even a friend as close as Charles- to see him stripped to his mental phantom was no small feat. The relationship between Ray and himself had always had a sort of nervous tension to it because of that. With no mental abilities of his own, Alex had been allowed a small half-step closer, the privilege of intimacy without fear spreading the first ripples of jealousy in Charles’ heart. However, a feature unique to all of Ray’s relationships was that they were only so close; allowing for mental, intellectual, and even emotional intimacy but stopping short at the physical. Even Misty- especially Misty- had been granted extra distance because he felt so strongly towards her. How much more, then, would he hide from a stranger, even if they were trying to help?
“He probably didn’t even know he was doing it,” Charles went on, mind and voice once again in synch. “And since everyone was convinced he’d burned out, well, why bother probing more extensively?”
Eddy still had one outsized hand spread over his face, obscuring his features completely. “I wanted to help him…I tried to patch him as best I knew how, I knew it wasn’t enough but…”
Dammit, he wasn’t any good at this. “Dude. It’s okay. It’s not your fault. We all fucked up. We all should have seen this sooner. Bottom line, we know now and there’s still time to do something.”
The verbal slap seemed to do the trick, for Eddy shook himself and lowered his hand, his lean features firmed into a look of gawky determination.
“You’re right. Where do we start?”
Where indeed? Perhaps it might be wise to initiate a brief tutorial. If nothing else, with so many attending physicians at least he had a ready supply of labor. Once shown what to do, they could help with some of the more basic cleanup.
“Okay, I realize you’re all interpreting the damage differently but that isn’t going to affect what we need to do all that much. I’m an engineer; I tend to use computer terms. I personally don’t care if you don’t know shit about hardware and software; it shouldn’t really matter because we’re all looking at the same thing. See this?” He pointed to spot of what to him appeared to be badly smashed and corroded circuitry. “This is what happens to chakra bits if you don’t put them back right away. The energy leaks into the surrounding tissue and damages it.” Shifting, Charles ran his hand up the length of Ray’s spine. “You can see all along his main power cable where the nodes have been damaged or in some cases smashed completely. I am going to work on this. What I want you guys to do is pick out and dispose of the shrapnel and damaged bits. Observe.”
With thumb and forefinger, Charles leaned and carefully dislodged a tiny, glass-like sliver. Once out, he examined it closely. Under all the dirt, the shard was faintly sage-colored and felt vaguely warm.
“See this? This is part of him. Ray’s color is red- maroon, mauve, cadmium- he’s rose-colored right down to the bone. However, once you get it out of him, you’ll see these little pieces have their own distinct color and signature. You find any; you give those to me. I’ll put them back where they belong.”
Testing the fragment for a moment, it seemed to say “heart” and so he set it in one of the smashed brackets along Ray’s spine near his chest. The assistants ooh-ed as it settled into its appropriate place, balancing on end seemingly without support, glowing faintly green like a tiny blade of grass.
Charles stooped and repeated the process with a second shard. This one came away more grudgingly, revealing itself to be jagged and rusty, like a corroded bit of metal.
“This,” Charles instructed, holding it up, “is shrapnel. You pick it out, and you throw it away.” He tossed the piece over his shoulder where it evaporated in mid-flight. “However, what I want all of you to do is save all the scraps you find for me to look at later. I don’t want anyone tossing something important. Got it?”
They got it.
Glancing up from time to time to make sure everyone else was on task; Charles discovered it was actually rather interesting to watch them while they worked. The surgeon, lips pressed together, was carefully lifting fragments with pointer and middle finger as if they were a set of tweezers and depositing the bits on the palm of his other hand. The empath who’d been sick was daintily picking out pieces with thumb and forefinger before dropping them into her cupped fingers. Eddy, with his huge hands, seemed to be concentrating on a slightly different form of cleanup. Eyes half-lidded and attention turned inward, he moved his hands slowly, deliberately over Ray’s body. The tall doctor had spoken truthfully; he could tell where the wounds were, but he was unable to see them. Not bothering to attempt extraction with his huge fingers, he instead spread his palms over the areas the others had cleaned, a vague smile that had probably been a long time in coming tugging at his lips as tissue that should have healed months ago finally truly began to pull itself back together.
After about two hours, Charles called a halt. Attempting a job this mammoth solo would have left him with a splitting headache. However, with so much help, a lot had been accomplished and less than half the energy expended. Indeed, no one else seemed ready to quit. Perhaps, he mused, a teaching hospital wasn’t such a bad thing after all.
Sign up to rate and review this story