~ . . . ~ are thoughts * . . . * are emphasis footnotes are dealt with at the end of each scene a row of ******* indicates a scene change or a shift on POV Most of this first part is written from the POV of Dr. James Lowel. Dr. Lowel is Leigh's mentor in things medical and does his best to protect Leigh from his 'loving family'. The Healers Pains: or Leigh's' introduction part 1 ~ Pain, ribs hurt, everything hurts. Lights? Oh, Medical bay. Can rest now. ~ Darkness swept the boy into silence, leaving him oblivious to the chaos around him. "Damnit, Doc, this is twice in a week. How many times do we have to sit here and watch Alexie's buddies beat the shit outta Leigh before we do something." Joshua Peters half yelled at his superior. "Josh, you know good and well if we ship this up to the Stationmaster, Leigh will get it again for causing him trouble. CPS (1) is refusing to touch the case, so legally our hands are tied." The doctor rubbed at his tired eyes. "I'm digging for some old friends of mine..." "Med. school?" interrupted the worn out and aggravated nurse. "Yes. I'm hoping one of them will be willing to sponsor Leigh in an accelerated Medical program." Dr. Lowel rubbed at the back of his neck. He was stiff, sore, and tired after a shift of dealing with belligerent miners, and dealing with the results of Alexie's unreasoning and obsessive love/hate relationship with his younger brother. Or worse, dealing with his Father's near malicious neglect. "You think the bastard will let him go?" Josh snapped his fingers. "Just like that? James, you are utterly delusional. Leigh can nail his butt to the wall on a dozen counts, no way in hell he's gonna let the kid walk." In his agitation Joshua used his long time friends given name. "What else can we do. We keep him here, teach him all we can about medicine and he has to practice on himself on a near daily basis. We, can, not, protect him." The doctor spaced the words to make sure his point was clear. "If we cannot find someone who can we may well be forced to watch him be beaten to death by his own father." "Dr. Lowel?" another nurse interrupted the conversation, both men turn to face her. "He's awake." "Damage this time?" Dr. Lowel rubbed at his temples and wished in his heart that the madness would simply go away. "Bruises mostly, Dr. Leigh isn't reporting any broken bones. But he did say there was some internal damage and that he might be concussed." Joshua swore under his breath as Dr. Lowel winced at the implications of 'internal damage'. "The fucking pervert raped him again." "Joshua, language." chided the Dr, even as he realized that the assessment was probably correct. "What else do you call a sick, twisted," he paused looking for a polite term "person" the term was uttered with scathing sarcasm "that watches his 'friends' anally rape his own brother on a near daily basis and beats the living crap out of him once a week whether he needs it or not." The smaller female nurse was forced to back up or be flattened by the larger mans frenetic pacing. "That guy needs a one way ticket out the nearest airlock." Dr. Lowel sighed, not that in his heart he did not agree, but that such sentiment could get, and in the past had gotten, his people hurt. Omaha Stations' Master Engineer and technical owner had no problems with using his influence to get whatever he wanted. He also had no trouble with his eldest son abusing his younger sibling, as he considered the smaller boy to be worthless and useless. Bringing up Alexie's abusive treatment of Leigh resulted in Leigh being beaten by his own Father, for 'causing trouble'. There was simply nowhere he could go outside of the dubious safety of the medical bay and nothing he could do to protect himself against the increasing violence of his own blood relatives. "Hey, Doc? You still in there?" Dr. Lowel shook himself free of his dark thoughts as his best friend and right hand started to make a joke about him getting to old to run a frontier medical station. "Someone has to, lets go look at what has been done to Leigh this time." He smiled a halfhearted smile, "and thank our lucky stars the boy can *tell* us what is wrong this time." The last time Leigh had been brought in, by Alexie of all ironies, he had been beaten almost to death and was unable to assist in his own treatment, as he normally would have. He always wanted to help, even when all he could do was tell them what was broken. He would make a good medic, if they could see to it that he lived long enough. "Shall we check on our patient?" Dr. Lowel made a sweeping gesture toward the back row of curtained alcoves, one of which held an under appreciated jewel just waiting for the right hand. (1) CPS is Child Protective Services. The agency that is supposed to look out for the welfare of abused or neglected children. The caseworker in charge of Leigh's case is unwilling to rock the boat where Leigh is concerned, his father has too much influence in local politics. ********************************************* Leigh looked up as Dr. Lowel entered his small cubby. By the stress on the older man's long and narrow face, he knew that this was not going to be just another round of 'patch up Alexie's punching bag.' Something serious was up. That was usually a bad thing where he was concerned, sometimes it was a very bad thing. He hoped today's little mess up didn't qualify as a very bad thing, those where long, drawn out and frequently very painful. He didn't think he could cope with much more pain today. "How bad was it this time, kiddo?" Dr. Lowel could be counted on to at least try to cheer him up. Leigh had learned how to hide pain behind a smile from him, even if the good doctor never realized it. "The internal is the worst of it. Rudy was pissed and didn't take the time to torment me with, with *it* this time. Just a wham, bam kind of thing, and Alexie interrupted him so it was over fast at least. I don't know if he broke my ribs before, but they are just bruised now." Both the doctor and the nurses twitched at that, Leigh's healing gift came out strongly in a sexual situation, which included a rape. A fact that made *proving* that a rape had occurred very difficult. It also made documenting the real extent of the abuse piled on him impossible. Without absolute and irrefutable evidence, nothing could be done to get him away from his 'loving' family. Some of the so-called 'Security' was as bad, Rudy was just the latest in a line of assistant tormentors. The Stationmaster had the local caseworker thoroughly cowed so Leigh had no alternatives but to endure. "There are lots of bruises, Rudy was in to much of a hurry to belt me around like usual, so they are all on my arms and legs. He knocked my head into the floor a couple times, but I didn't black out or lose any teeth this time." That provoked another round of flinches and pained looks. Not even a week before Rudy had beaten him to the point where he could not get himself to medical and had cost him three teeth. Alexie had carried him in, but had not stayed to explain the injuries. The lost teeth had been replaced with implants, but his jaw still hurt. "All things being equal, I guess I'm not to badly off." Leigh finished his recitation with a small smile that did not quite make it to his eyes. ********************************************* I knew it was bad when I saw the smile. ~ Gods, when did he start to hide his fear and pain behind a sweet smile. ~ Those bottomless blue eyes didn't light up at all. The beating must have been worse that he was letting on. And he knew full well that we could never prove it. ~ Damn it! Damn HIM! ~ I couldn't have said in that moment who I was damning, Leigh for hiding the pain, Alexie and his sick friends for causing it, or the fool who called himself their father for allowing it in the first place. In my heart, I was damning myself as well. For not being able to stop it. "Compared to the last visit I suppose not. Lose the shirt kiddo, I want a good look at your ribs." "Bethy, already took x-rays." offered Leigh. I looked over at the small blond nurse. She read my request from the statement on my face, a sharp nod set those absurd curls dancing as she went to see if the films were ready to view. I looked back at another head of absurd blond curls, and waited for the owner to comply with my request. ~ Where did this boy get golden ringlets, when his father and brother both have straight dark hair? ~ The irrelevant thought skittered through my mind as I bent to listen to Leigh's heart and lung sounds. Thankfully this time the lungs were clear and Leigh's heart beat with a steady, regular thump-dump. His ribs were mottled with green and brown bruises, half healed or better, but still painful. I didn't get to ask my next set of routine questions; Bethy was back with the films of Leigh's chest. She hadn't told me that the prep crew had gotten shots of his head and extremities while they were at it. Just as well, I would have asked for them later. ~ This is getting to be routine. That's bad. ~ A few short steps and I am over by the viewing lights. The ribs are still cracked, but they didn't open up again. If I never had to realign them again I would be well pleased. The arms and legs show some fogginess that was most likely severe internal bruising. The cranial film shows that the skull fracture sustained in the last beating hasn't been aggravated and was actually healing well. ~ Anyone else and that wallop to the skull would have been it, they would spend weeks in ICU, or worse 'that's all she wrote'. Leigh is back up in three or four days. Not really the worse for wear. ~ I glance over at the boy who was examining his films with the detachment of a trained trauma surgeon. I don't think I could do that, knowing the films were mine. ~ Not the worse, on the outside. Gods, what is this doing to him emotionally? He never shows the damage to us anymore. Leigh, what is going on in that head of yours? ~ He looked at me, awaiting my diagnosis, and my orders. On that at least I have no difficulty. If I told him to stay in bed for a week, he would. Very scrupulous about following the doctors' orders. I just better make sure that bed is in Medical, or he won't get any rest. "Well, Rudy didn't manage to kill you this time." I tried to joke; Leigh does me the favor of smiling at the weak and very worn crack. Only the names changed not the general circumstances. "If the Stationmaster doesn't interfere, I want you in a bed here" ~ Was that a flash of relief? ~ "for at least a week. Bethy, piggyback a bag of stress solution (1) to his I.V. At least for tonight. That should keep the blood sugar problem from rearing its ugly head." Leigh always has had a problem with his blood glucose levels bottoming out after a beating where he has to do a major healing on himself. I wish, Gods I wish, that one of my collogues will take the risk and take this boy away from this hell. After reassuring myself that Leigh really is as comfortable as we can make him, without drugging him to the gills, I go back to the cubicle that serves as my office. ~ Please, God, anybody, let there be a positive answer in my mailbox. Please let me be able to get this boy into hands that will love him like he deserves, to train this gift of his, before he winds up dead. ~ The notes for this latest beating are on my desk, along with the test results from the fertility clinic on Atropos. I read those first, I already knew the gist of the notes. I had to read them twice. Gods, what a joke. I had already suspected that Alexie was functionally sterile. It was common in Neuromelademia, (2) sufferers. Alexie had beaten the odds dozens of times over. He survived birth and another 22 years besides; he could still walk, talk, and beat his brother senseless twice a week. His sanity was always a subject of debate here. Most of my nurses and techs literally could not remember a time when Alexie wasn't assaulting Leigh for no reason in particular. Fortunately, he didn't beat the odds here. Alexie, apple of his daddy's eye, was stone cold sterile. That was a relief. When the bastard and his circle of bullyboys decided to expand his turf we would only, *only*, have to deal with post rape physical and psycho trauma. No pregnancies to make things more complicated. I needed to remember to update the warning memo for incoming personnel. Then I read the second set of results. Those were a lot harder to swallow. Leigh was functionally sterile too. In the note scrawled at the bottom of the page was a speculation that this was the result of the remediation done to him at 3 weeks in-vivo. What an ironic joke. Remediated for something he didn't even have, they really had lowered the standards for a gene-splice technician. How was I going to explain *this* to the overbearing fool that called himself Leigh's father? (1) Stress solution: a high glucose and electrolyte solution used to help prevent shock in trauma cases. Is also very useful in cases of backlash in people with New Type talents and for dealing with extreme heat related injury (heat stroke). (2) Neuromelademia: (Commonly called First Colony disease) a genetic neurological disease that causes the slow disintegration of neural tissues, by loss of Myelin and loss of neuro-transmitters. Only occurs in males with two sets of recessives from both parents, can be latent until triggered by extreme environmental stress. Symptoms in latency are sterility in 99.98% of cases. Other male children born of the same parents are 99.63% likely to also have the disease, due to effected sperm being more motile than normal. Can be remediated before 6 weeks of fetal development. Procedure is most commonly done in-vivo (test tube) for reasons of safety for the female parent. ///note if you really want the crudy details email or ICQ me, isn't a *real* disease per se, but it is based on several that do exist./// ********************************************* Gods help me, I never meant to fall asleep at my desk. I guess that was just my body telling me I am no longer a 17 year old medical student, but am a 47 year old doctor on a backwater mining station three weeks from the middle of nowhere on a *fast* ship. Ghaa, I hadn't checked my mail. Better do that, Leigh's salvation may be in those little electrons. ````````````````````New Messages: Dr. Lee, Anthony Belose Hospital, Atropos RE: A favor to ask James, God lord man, what is going on out there? Read the file on your problem case, the powers here are being yellowbellies. Have an address for someone who may be able to help. Dr. Po, she graduated after us and got loads of exp. in that damned war. Last I knew she was working in enforcement so should be able to give proper treatment to this case with minimum of outside interference. Mail her bud, that one needs better equipment that you've got. Mail me when you want a real job. Tony ````````````````````````````````````````````` Thank god for small favors, my hands were shaking as I started typing in the message that with any luck at all would get Leigh away from here. I had to laugh, if shakily, at Tony's usual circuitous comments. I make sure to attach everything I have in the database on one Sebogvia, Leigh M. Maybe all those reports that never convinced that idiot in CPS would convince her. I hit the send button, no turning back. Please let her answer fast, and let that answer be a ticket away from here.