Five Against One: Diagnoses

[x-legion.livejournal.com]

Back in the mansion, Haller gets an assessment which reveals much about the current situation -- as does one of his visitors.



Without a doubt, this would be one of the more surreal checkups in Moira's long and checkered past of checkups. The room she was in was one of the rooms specifically for the younger generation at the mansion and it generally supposed to soothe and amuse. Considering she currently had a 10 year old strapped around her waist, Moira figured that the soothing aspect was failing miserably.

Hugging Davey back with one hand, she glanced over at David and then Lorna. "Alright, ye lot," she said suddenly, breaking the silence that had fallen after "Mommy!" and a thorough glomping. "This part's never pleasant but we need to run some tests." It was a bit weird what her heart had done after seeing Davey for the first time but she was starting to feel normal again. Worried but normal. "Jus' a quick couple o' pokes 'ere an' there...for bot' th' boys, aye?" And the sooner this was solved, the sooner she could celebrate her husband's birthday without guilt.

Or a ten year old little boy demanding cake.

Lorna had come along for just this eventuality and reached around Davey to pull his arms away from Moira. "Come on, nerd," she said, her voice full of affection, "You need to let go of her so she can work. Sooner she's done the sooner you can perfect your barnacle impression." She tugged, but lightly. It would be Davey's decision to let go. She could practically feel the awkward radiating off her best friend who was watching the whole scene. Lorna considered it heroic that she refrained from sticking her tongue out at him.

The young alter attached to Moira's waist clung stubbornly. "No," Davey said, face muffled by her lab coat. "Not done hugging."

David looked away and tried to occupy himself by settling in a chair. It had been years since he'd had any direct contact with Davey, and from the inside it hadn't been the same. He stared at the boy unabashedly clinging to the short doctor and didn't know what was worse -- the embarrassment of seeing the childish gesture and wondering how it must look when he and Davey were one person, or the fact that it made him feel a pang of jealousy.

"I'm, um," he said, resting his hands on his knees, "I'm ready."

The look Moira shot David was sympathic. Looking down, she grinned. "Ach, come on, ye wee bugger." She gave him an extra strong, two armed hug before loosening her grip. "I need ta 'ave a look at ye bot' an' ye know I never take longer than I 'ave ta. Lorna's 'ere ta 'elp, ye know, an' we cannae do tha' wit' us 'uggin'. An' perhaps I'm willin' ta use bribery like I used ta, ye never can tell."

"Okay! As long as there's bribes." Davey beamed and allowed himself to be disentangled from Moira's waist. The smile faded as he looked over to where David sat, quiet and subdued.

"He's doing it again," the boy complained, looking first at the women and then back to the main. "I hate when he makes that face. Can't you just smile? Mom and Sissy're here and probably they're both gonna feed us later. Stop being sad." When there was a void of response Davey squatted to bring his face squarely into the space of floor the young man's eyeline was fixed on. They failed to lift. Davey scowled and jerked back up, his voice accusing. "Moira, tell him to stop pretending I'm not here."

Lorna came over and rested her hands on Davey's shoulders. "Leave him alone, hon. He's having a bad day. You know what that's like, right?" In truth, she understood Davey's frustration but hell if she was going to tell David to just shake off the gut punch he'd taken with all this. "What sort of treat would you like when we're done?"

With Davey now unclenched from her midsection, Moira started to prepare the side table. Needles, swabs, all the fun sort of things a ten year old really wanted to see. But. Well, she'd done this before with him and there was bribery in the works. "He'll probably feel th' need ta rifle through my desk drawers," she mused. It was well known that a huge store of candy was kept in her office for whoever wanted it. Some of it was special--like for Kyle--but the rest was free for any who asked. "Alright, Davey, David. Faster we do this, faster we can finish it up an' be bad." It was such a struggle not to reach out for David but, she was right, the faster they did what they needed to do...

"Okay," Davey said grudgingly. He rose from the crouch and dusted himself off. There was no mistaking the dirty look he gave David, but he slid into the chair beside him without much of a fuss -- apparently.

Pushing up his shirt sleeve a bit, Moira started to put the tourniquets on. Even through the plastic gloves, she could feel warm skin...this was surreal. Very surreal. A look at Davey's face and she glanced over his head at Lorna, eyebrows raised. Davey was looking a little...too angelic, all things considered.

Lorna knew that look. She'd been the focus of it more than once, usually right before Davey went Real World on her and she just shook her head at Moira. Best they could do was stop it when it happened really. Trying to preempt these kinds of things always turned them into a bigger mess. Nevertheless Lorna slipped her hand into Davey's free hand and squeezed it gently. "I know you're old hat at this but I don't like needles. Will you hold my hand?" Perhaps it wasn't fair to ignore David like this but...it wasn't like there was much attention David was willing to be paid.

Davey shook his head. "I think he needs it more," he said, indicating the silent man. The implicit defiance in the statement was impressively subsumed by his cheerful tone. His free hand stretched out across the meager space between the chairs to David in clear offering. "Here."

David blinked. The overture had come out of nowhere, but there was really no way to say no. There was enough identity conflict going on without adding 'refused support from your own personality' to the list.

"Um, okay," David said, and reached out to reciprocate the gesture.

Davey smiled beautifically as the larger hand closed around his. Then, with a speed that would have done Jack proud, he brought it up to his face and bit it. Hard.

"Davey!" Horrified, Moira grabbed for the boy and the older man. She managed to get her arms around Davey without knocking the instrument table over but it was a near thing. "Young man, let go right now," she said, voice low with displeasure. She'd used the same tone on him many times over the years and it meant, simply, that he was in a very large amount of trouble. Now if they could only get him to unclench his jaw without hurting anyone, that would be lovely. Davey was ten and, as such, had temper tantrums but this was unusual.

He'd bitten her once, years ago, and she'd bitten him back. Not hard enough to break skin (like he had) but hard enough to show that it hurt. And this would be the first time he'd bitten since then.

While Moira went for Davey, Lorna went to David, seizing his wrist to hold him still and gripping Davey's jaw with her other hand, squeezing like when Lili had hold of a shoe. She probably wouldn't have done it to a real child but while five senses told her Davey was flesh and blood, the lack of EM fields told her he was nothing of the sort. Davey had seen Moira mad at him before. Lorna's anger was something new. "Let go of my friend," she said and unlike Moira, there was no underlying affection. As soon as his clenched jaw gave even the slightest bit, she pulled David's hand away and turned her back on the boy.

David looked down at the hand held firmly in Lorna's grip. Two red crescents glistened at him from the white skin.

"He really bit me," he said, watching the blood well with horrible fascination. This was the first time he'd had direct contact with Davey in years, but it didn't matter. The assault had been like being attacked by a friendly dog.

Like the first time Jack had.

"It's the only way to make you look at me!" Davey yelled from Moira's arms, his mouth shiny with blood. "You always did that. Acted like I don't exist and you didn't want me to. And then you get mad when people pay attention to me because it's me and not you!" The boy bucked in Moira's arms and one leg thrashed out to kick at the air. "That's not my fault! If you won't say something nobody looks!"

"Ach, tha's enough," Moira huffed and heaved back, lifting him in her arms. They were going to the corner and having a time out and they would talk. Because even if Davey was right in his own way, biting people was not acceptable. She didn't care what he was at this moment--real or not--she wouldn't put up with it. "Calm down, calm down, tha's a lad."

Enough was enough. Gabrielle Haller had spent too much time pacing the guest suite and looking over what documents Charles had been able to provide her. Now she had to see the boy - her son, she corrected herself - and see his damage for herself. She offered Amelia a glare that the doctor would have admired as she stalked down to the infirmary, one that spoke volumes about a hidden concern that had exploded in a shower of grief and guilt for someone she barely knew.

But she paused at the door to the room where she saw the green and red heads of two of the most important women in David's life. She bit her lip to keep it from trembling, and slowly but confidently opened the door and stepped inside. And once over the threshold, she found that she had nothing to say.

The door opening caught Moira's attention and barely managed to keep the scowl from her face when she saw Gabrielle standing in the doorway. Her grip shifted just a little on the small boy in her arms, enough so that he could squirm some more and get in a rather good kick to her knee. Tearing her gaze away from the other woman, she swallowed the curse that came on the edge of pain and said, "Davey, I need ye ta stop this. This isnae how we go about thin's an' ye know that." Words and tone of a mother, one who had dealt with the temper tantrums (some of them normal and some formed from pain and hurt) from children her own and not her own.

Davey gave another ineffectual kick. It was mostly for show. He went limp and hung in Moira's arms, panting, face red and body hot with sweat and struggling.

"I just want him to look at me," Davey said, and his voice had a waver that hadn't been there before. "That's all."

Lorna finished wrapping a bandage around David's hand and looked over at the two women and the boy. Then she looked back at David, "Are you okay?"

The bleeding appendage remained still under Lorna's ministrations, forgotten. Davey's plea had only half-registered; all David's attention was suddenly, painfully focused on the woman hovering in the doorway.

"Aunt Gaby," he said, the familiar address like something uttered in the middle of a bad dream. "Hi."

Davey blinked up from Moira's arms, startled. "Oh -- hi."

Gabrielle offered the boy a warm smile, a skill honed after many years of practice. "Hello, Davey." She shifted her gaze to the woman holding him, her smile never faltering once despite the knives she could have sworn she felt being mentally thrown at her. "Moira."

"Gaby, pleasure." Carefully, Moira set Davey down on the ground and willed him not to pull another stunt and simply seep to the ground like poridge from a bowl. Little boys were awfully good at that. "Davey," she glanced up at the older alter, "David. Are bot' o' ye alright?" She fixed the one in her arms a steady look. His stunt was not forgotten, emergency or Gabrielle's appearance aside. It was difficult and not at the same time to address them as separate people so quickly. There'd been a time when the alters would appear within seconds of each other and they were separate people, internally, so it was just like that...only. Well. Externally, which was the problem.

The "Aunt Gaby" made Lorna give the woman another look, curious to know if it was just a convenient title--like Mommy for Moira and Sissy for her--or if this was that rarest of beings, an actual relative. There was a certain amount of resemblance which argued for the latter but that didn't really mean anything.

With expertise, Moira held the boy's arm and snagged a needle from the side table. In less than a heart beat, the blood was drawn...and then vanished in the needle. She paused and then held it up to the light, knowing she'd hit a vein--he'd have been howling his head off if she hadn't--but it was empty. She glanced down at Davey and said, "Well, then."

"They don't have EM signatures either. Like they aren't there at all," Lorna said, figuring it might be important. "I mean, other than David."

"I'm here," Davey protested. He pointed to his arm and the dribble of blood forming. "I felt it. It hurt. That happens when you stick needles in people's arm."

David raised his wounded hand, wrapped in clean white gauze. His mind went back to Sofia's apartment and the first words he'd said while waking up on her sleek white couch.

"I can't feel anything," he said.

Davey's here. It's David who's not.

"What happened?" asked Gabrielle. She walked to David and reached over to touch the injured hand, running her fingers down the length of the gauze. She had a pretty good idea, as she'd seen behavior like this with many children. But never her child. She'd given birth to someone who could have come straight out of any psychological textbook.

The young alter, currently having a colorful Band-Aid applied to him, wrinkled his nose at the shift of attention from him to David. David himself sat awkwardly, hand held in Gabrielle's. Moira was here. Gabrielle was here. It was like being 13 and on Muir Island again, sitting in the middle of people moving around and over him. There had always been a tension between the two women -- one he'd noticed even then. Seeing Moira carefully bandaging Davey's arm and Gabrielle cradling his and knowing now what he hadn't then, suddenly the source wasn't mysterious at all.

Belatedly, David realized Lorna was still standing beside him. Realizing a lapse of etiquette he jumped at the excuse for a subject change. "Um, Aunt Gaby, this is Lorna Dane. Lorna, this is Gabrielle Haller. I, um." Best friend or not this didn't seem to be the right time to explain the unexpected issue of parentage to Lorna, so rather than pick a descriptor he settled for, "We had dinner."

The mysterious tension could be cut with a knife but Lorna just smiled and nodded at Gabrielle, "Nice to meet you." Without really thinking about it, she stepped back and to the side, putting her at David's right shoulder.

David saw Gabrielle about to say something, either in greeting or another question, but she was interrupted by the gentle whoosh of the Medlab doors. Charles wheeled himself in, the dusky-skinned man who had been with David at the brownstone following close behind.

"Charles, Jemail, right on time, the' bot' o' ye." Moira gave them a tight, but warm, smile. It had been a long day and with Gabrielle's arrival and the test results starting to clearly show themselves, it was obviously not over by a long shot. She was very purposely not looking at the other woman. Her distaste had no place here...but oh, it really, really wanted a place there.

Davey's face lit up. "Charles!" he cried, bolting out of the chair. He ran across the room and threw himself at the professor, collapsing across the man's knees to wedge his hands around his back and hug his waist with enough force to rock the wheelchair backwards. "You're here! You're here and I can see you!"

David didn't rise. He only looked from Charles' face to Jemail's, the gaze as mechanical as someone looking between split screens.

"Hi, professor," he said.

"I'm very glad to see you too, Davey," Charles told the little boy. "I've missed you, this last little while. Hello, David. Gaby, I'm glad you've come." He turned his attention finally to Moira. "I'm glad to hear it. May I take it you've discovered something?"

As much as Lorna had been a help so far, things drastically got more complicated with her presence. Oh, and Gabrielle as well. And not for the first time, Moira's thoughts ran along the lines "Damn you, Charles".

"We werenae able ta get verra far wit' th' testin'," Moira started, reaching for the file. "But from all indications, David looks like he's caught a case of Nate-ism." She raised an eyebrow at the expression on everyone's face...except for Davey, who was looking more and more bored every second. "I pulled some blood from Davey but while he felt it an' I could see th' blood pullin' inta th' syringe, when I removed it 'ad disappeared. Coincidin' wit' tha', ye 'ave Lorna's inability ta detect an EM signature. However, none of them 'ave th' ectoplasmic characteristics an', as such, I've found nothin' tha' relates ta either Marie-Ange's images nor Jamie's dupes."

She shut the file and her gaze went to David. "Which leads us ta psychic manifestation, alon' th' lines of Nathan an' the Askani. What we're seein' is nothin' more than an elaborate smoke an' mirrors trick. It forces all o' our senses ta see them as real...except for th' superhuman mutant senses. At least some o' them."

A short pause. "David said he couldnae feel anythin'," Moira continued, "after Davey 'ad bitten him. We simply assumed his powers 'ad stopped workin' 'owever..." She shook her head, her hand trailing thoughtfully through Davey's hair. "Charles, I believe this part is more alon' yer lines of expertise than mine."

"It's a fully psionic illusion?" Charles' eyebrows rose. "That's . . . actually quite an encouraging sign, however surreal the actual consequences might be. David's schism isolated his individual powers--walled them off from each other under the aegises of his alternate personalities. But a manifestation like this requires telepathy and telekinesis working together in very complex ways. What we're seeing here," he continued, tousling Davey's hair, "is the evidence of a rather profound degree of subconscious reintegration." He smiled hopefully at the man slumped in the lab chair. "In an admittedly odd way . . . you're healing, David."

Moira tapped the file against her hand and tilted her head. "Ah, which is a brilliant thin' all around. 'owever, th' next time we'd appreciate a wee less leggin' it around town ta gather everyone." She glanced over at Lorna and David and then, reluctantly, at Gabrielle. "Questions?"

A hand raised. It was Davey's.

"Uh, what's an aegises?"

"It means 'protection,' dear," Gabrielle responded, still holding onto David's hand without realizing it. "So David's alters have all taken a pseudo-physical form. What could have caused this? Reintegration is usually associated with resolving some of the inner conflicts that led to the break in the first place, but from what you have told me, Charles, they are still far from peace."

"My TK was locked." David's observation was neutral. "It was hooked into the ego-states. Blocking that power froze development. Now that it's gone things can move again. Shift. Get closer, I guess."

The other young man, silent until now, seemingly absorbed in thought, said quietly, "Or work out the things that don't belong."

The youngest alter clawed at his hair. "This is making me die in my brain," Davey whined.

Lorna's hand slid across David's back. "How long will this last?" She addressed the question to her best friend, somewhat irritated by the way that everyone was talking about David and not too him. Her gaze flickered to the dark man, 'and who is he?' she wanted to ask but didn't. It was all feeling very invasive.

"Until my brain runs past the capacity to sustain, probably," David replied, his attention split between the feel of Gabrielle's hand on his and Lorna's on his back. Two solid things. Grasping at the thread was like trying to pick up a fallen dime in gloves. He continued, "Or the conflict gets reconciled."

"A day," Jemail said.

David's head turned slowly, eyes wide. Suddenly the numbness curling around him turned cold.

"A day?" he repeated.

The other boy's head dipped briefly. "Maybe two."

David looked at Jemail, then turned to Charles. No question could be asked aloud. Not here in front of these people. But the silent assent in the professor's eyes gave him all the answer he needed.

"Lorna," Davey said, "please, can we go? I'm starting to want to break things because at least I understand what breaking noises mean. They don't need me anymore and David's already got lots of people. Please?"

The lightness was forced. The 'please' was not. He could sense the tension here. It wasn't the tension between Moira and Gabrielle. He'd known about it since all the way back in Muir, and thrived on the inherent boost of self-esteem that came with witnessing the spiritual battle of my child, not yours.

This was different. He didn't understand what was going on any better than Lorna, but he didn't need to understand the specifics to know the air in this room was full and taut, stretched with secrets.

We need to leave.

Lorna had been on the edge of suggesting the same thing. After giving David's shoulder a final squeeze, she went over to Davey and held out her hand, "Let's go raid Moira's desk for sweets. I believe you were promised bribes for being good." The fact that he hadn't been was glossed over. At this point it felt like the room was going to explode and she didn't want to get caught in the blast. With Davey's small hand securely in hers, she glanced back to David, still silent, still bent and beaten. She wanted to make him come with but settled for the attainable. "I'll see you later."

Jemail didn't look at her, but his head moved in acknowledgement. "Yeah," he said, the syllable terse, "I'm out too."

He left without a backwards glance.

David remained seated. The other man's departure caught his attention only as the door opened for him. His head turned just in time to catch Jemail's retreating back. He stared at the closing of the door, bereft, then turned to look at Lorna like someone trying to remember where he'd set his missing car keys.

"Oh," David said. "Later."

Flat, dead voice. There had been annoyance in Davey's other frowns. Not now. The alter looked over his shoulder as Lorna led him out and waved to the adults. "Later Aunt Gaby, Charles, mom."

Gabrielle very purposefully did not look at anyone when she replied with a soft "goodbye" to Davey, but her grip on David's hand did get a little tighter. At least Charles was the only psi in the room; she had little doubt that she was projecting loudly after that seemingly innocuous farewell.

As the door slid with a hush behind Lorna and Davey, Gabrielle finally looked up, eyes locked on her former lover. "Is it us?" she asked huskily. "That initiated this 'break', I mean."

"Let me think about tha' for a second," Moira responded dryly. "...aye, I believe it was. From the looks of things, this probably would have happened at some point or another. But 'avin' found out tha' about Charles an' ye bein' his actual parents? Aye, tha' was th' key this time." Years before, she had argued against keeping his parentage from him. But in the end, she'd bowed to Charles knowledge and, ultimately and ironically, parental rights. Though she'd always maintained that if ever asked directly, she'd never lie and had said upfront that something bad was bound to come of the situation. And she'd been right.

"Thank you, Moira," Gabrielle said in a tone that suggested that she wasn't at all grateful for her explanation. "~As always, your input is valued and appreciated,~" she added quietly in Hebrew. The sarcastic tone was quite evident with that comment as well. "So this is as much a psychic matter as it is a psychological one. Where are Jack and Cyndi?"

"Oh, ye're verra welcome, Gaby," Moira responded sweetly, words nearly dripping in sarcastic tone. "Trust me on this...any time. Jack is wit' Betsy an' Cyndi wit' Cain. Less damagin' in th' long run, really, an' better for everyone."

"You will both," Charles said tiredly but firmly, "please stop needling one another. Blame and acrimony only add tension to an already unbalanced situation. Kindly remember why we're all here." He looked from one woman to the other, then shifted his gaze to the young man between them. "How are you coping with all this, David? Do you have any questions?"

David gave no answer. He knew that Charles was talking to him, but nothing registered. Every word that had been spoken ran together into an incomprehensible drone, unintelligible. Concerned voices surrounded him, yet it was the staccato of the clock on the Medlab wall that struck him the most. Tick, tick, tick, the sound of the second hand crawling past midnight, filling him with him with some nameless anticipation. Why? David wondered, tugged by a pale ghost of disquiet. This had never before been one of his triggers. Why this, and why now?

Then he realized.

It had become a countdown.


* * *

"Everything's too big."

Lorna lifted her head from the desk to look at Davey, recently emerged from Moira's candy drawer. "I know. I'm sorry." She shifted to face him and held out her hand to pull him into her lap. "Moira and Charles will fix it."

Davey joined her without complaint. He was big for her lap, he had plenty of practice. Moira was even shorter than Lorna, and David had been taller than either of them. By a lot.

In his head Davey had always thought of himself as small, but now that he was it was . . . wrong.

"It's bad this time," Davey said, sitting across her knees so he could look at her face. "It's never been this bad before. I haven't seen him in forever because Jim did something bad so we stopped talking, but I know it's not right. Now no matter what I do he doesn't do anything. It's like he's dead." He paused, then added, "Also I'm sorry I used you as a human shield."

Lorna wrapped her arms around his waist and rubbed his back in small circles. "It's not your fault, hon. He's having a really hard time right now too. He really needs your help right now to make him feel better about everything that's going on."

"Uh-huh." Davey paused, then looked around, his expression strangely furtive. Seeing no one, he leaned in close enough to whisper.

"There's a secret I wanna tell you, but I can't because it's not mine. But I really wanted to tell you that I -- I wanted to tell you." He drew back, his blue eyes wide an uncharacteristically concerned. "Are you mad?"

Lorna kissed his forehead, "I'm not mad. If it's not your secret, then you have to keep it unless it involves someone doing something that will get them hurt."

Davey looked at the floor.

"Um . . ."

At that moment, the double-doors to the medlab swung open, and Cain stomped through. The scowl on his face was evident through the smears of soot, and the scorched remains of a t-shirt hung from his frame as he carried a protesting Cyndi under his arm like a loaf of bread.

"I told you, you bratty little firebug, once we get Dave's head back together you can chuck all the fire you want at me. I don't know what it is with you kids this week, but one of my big rules is no throwing goddamn fireballs in the house!"

"Dude, Marie's hair burns, what's your excuse? You think I really believe you give a crap about losing yet another Plus Plus Plus size shirt when you're the guy who wore a frigging football jersey to Youra--" The dangling pyrokinetic noticed the room was occupied. She immediately lost all interest in the fact she was still hanging in the crook of the groundskeeper's arm. "Oh, hey, you guys. What's up?"

Cain sat the girl down on the edge of one of the gurneys, wagging his finger angrily, then just growling and turning to Lorna. "You watch her, dammit. She tries to set anything on fire, I figure you can just start ripping piercings out as you see fit. That oughta learn her some self-control."

"I do so love it when I can use my special talents for good." Lorna said dryly. "Davey, if she tries anything, kick her in the shins."

"Try it, squirt. I burn you." Cyndi raised her hand to snap, then noticed Davey's expression. A studded eyebrow rose. "Yo, you okay there?"

Davey's face went from zero to grin in less than a second. "Yep, fine!" He slipped off the woman's lap and stretched, then spun back to face her. "Hey, Lorna, you want to play something? I'm still bored from before."

She smiled at him then shrugged at the others, "Sorry, Cain. You're on your own. I've got a date with my main man here and some trucks. Cyndi, there are some hospital gowns around here somewhere. Burn those and maybe they'll actually get something not completely dehumanizing." She let Davey grab her hand and drag her out. "Night."

Cyndi watched them go. The quick topic-shift had been indicative that Davey was trying to hide something. And, because it was Davey, not very well. Something was going on here. Something deep.

The pyrokinetic turned back to Cain and shrugged.

"Whatever."