Author: Celeste
Feedback: (Yes!) keviesprincess@netscape.net
Rating: PG-13 for yaoi themes and implied NCS
Pairings: Really indirect mentions of Haru/Yuki
Summary: Companion piece to "The Price of Peace and Quiet" and "Storyteller"- Duty and beyond for Hatori Sohma.
Spoilers: Not that I know of, really.
Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my sad, twisted scenario. As far as I know, anyway… *sweatdrop*
Dedication: I've noted that dedications bring me some trouble, but I'm too lazy to stop now. This one's for Anrui just because. ;P
A/N: Not a POV piece, but rampant with runon sentences, I'd imagine. Sorry, I suck at grammar! And I know, this arc is kind of depressing and I'm a giant chicken for doing everyone's perspective except those directly involved, but I'm not good enough to pull that kind of thing off. I just write what comes, and if it happens to be cowardly (as well as OOC and plotless) I can't help it… *sweatdrop*
Distribution: Just lemme know.
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He'd never had any dreams of grandeur as a child growing up. Not the same kind that his cousins had always entertained, those fanciful notions of fame and fortune and lovelorn people clamoring for attention at their feet that they always promised they would someday obtain through their natural beauty and confident charm.
He had never been much of a dreamer.
It was never in his nature, and he'd known it from the moment he'd first heard Shigure and Ayame engage in one of their loud (and not infrequent) boasting competitions that had occurred consistently over the span of the years they'd grown up together, a long time ago.
He had decided that didn't particularly care for fame or fortune.
And being in constant company with his two more boisterous cousins, he decided that he wasn't one who cared for attention much either.
He'd become a doctor because it had been the practical thing to do. He had always been good at math and science in school for one, and his parents had told him he possessed a uniquely calming demeanor and unshakeable temperament --their excuse to make him watch over the two more eccentric boys— for another. He wasn't easily rankled by their off-the-wall, completely unpredictable antics and had the ability to use a strong though quiet voice authoritatively and manage to have them obey to some extent.
When he'd gone off to college, the family had voiced their desire to see him practice medicine. The household could use a doctor because of frequent, congenital sicknesses that ran along some branches of the family tree, and there was always the perennial flu or cold seasons that needed to be dealt with quickly amongst those more 'special' members of the clan. Since he knew well enough about those special members, it was sensible that one of them become capable of caring for the rest of them without the unnecessary risk of having to expose someone else to the secret as a prequel to medical examination.
It was just more convenient for someone who was familiar with suddenly turning into an animal during sickness to be in charge of the care of the others who behaved similarly in the face of any ailments that might affect them. Also, if anyone outside of those special twelve might witness something, they could always be sent to see him for fever or hallucinations and under the pretext of examination, he could use his other special abilities to quickly sift through their minds and discard information pertinent to the secret.
So he'd become the family doctor. It was convenient for the aforementioned reasons as well as the fact that he had the abilities and had been guaranteed a position and a constant source of food and shelter if he pursued that particular avenue of employment.
As the family practitioner, it also guaranteed him a certain degree of privacy, a shield from the possibility of discovery by the outside world, and a quiet, peaceful existence that afforded him a moderate but not overwhelming degree of respect and responsibility.
Practical and not unimportant. He never liked useless things.
That was why he became a doctor.
And with time, he had found that even in disliking fame, fortune and attention, he enjoyed the simple notion that he helped people.
He was a healer, someone who helped ease someone else's pain. It lacked the grandeur that Shigure and Ayame had babbled about in the days of their youth, but it had been practical and yielded a purpose which Hatori regarded as important and necessary.
He helped people.
When they were hurt.
He'd wet countless balls of cotton to place against scraped knees and scratched elbows, had written thousands of prescriptions for antibiotics, cough medicines, painkillers and tranquilizers alike. He'd performed hundreds of physicals and routine checkups, even X-rays, Mammograms, and ultrasounds. He'd stitched wounds and set bones and given shots. He'd spent many nights at a patient's feverish bedside and hours beside laboring women or the dying elderly. All of these things, he'd done numerous times such that they were second nature to him now.
He'd helped many people in his career as a doctor. Through the years, the necessity of his work had constantly been affirmed, and he allowed himself to take a little pride in the fact that beyond his practical reasons for taking the position, there was a real need for his expertise.
But then…something happened.
Beyond his expertise, beyond all professional detached notions of necessity and practicality.
One night, there had been a frightened boy brought to this room and laid gently onto the small bed he kept here. He had suffered numerous contusions along the length of his chest and abdomen. Several ribs had been fractured and the wrist of one hand broken. Hand shaped bruises dotted either side of the pelvis and bite marks that broke skin and drew blood were evident on the inside of thighs and along both sides of the neck. Rope burns marred the ankles and upper arms. One eye had swollen shut and bloodied scratch marks lined the back, stretching from the middle of the victim's shoulder blades down to the curve of his buttocks.
Though it pained him slightly, Hatori could state every one of those injuries like he was reading a shopping list.
But it was the last one that was the only one he had any severe problems with. It was the last one that was the only one that made him so nauseous his vision sometimes blacked out around the edges and his breathing sped up just thinking about it.
Severe tearing…
…internal…
…trauma…
…it had been horrible.
He'd done his best to swallow the bile that rose in his throat at the sight of the unconscious, broken and silently shaking youth that had been entrusted into his care and proceeded to wash and stitch the worst of the injuries to stem the bleeding.
He remembered the pain filled whimper he had elicited from the boy when his hands had moved lower out of necessity, when his needle and thread had punctured burningly sensitive areas to try and begin the healing process.
After many hours he had finished, could wash the blood from his hands and hope that his vigil at the ox's bedside would provide some comfort when his young kinsman regained consciousness and was forced to face the physical pain of his injuries as well as the realization of what had been instigated against his psyche.
All his days as a doctor, all the practicality of his actions and the convenience of his position were ripped away as he spent those few hours listening to the shaky breathing of his patient. The cool precision and calm rationality he had been praised for as a young man and which had eventually led him to this occupation had suddenly been stripped from him and he was at a loss as to what his job was now, what he could possibly offer after the stitching and washing and bandaging that he was so used to performing. It felt incomplete somehow. He felt that beyond the physical treatment of Haru's injuries, there was something else required of him that he was not prepared to offer.
He had never had to deal with something like this before.
In the face of blood, broken bones, internal bleeding, he was collected, authoritative, knowledgeable. He knew how to take care of those things, to make sure they would heal over a set process and a certain duration of time.
And he had done that for the ox.
But he felt as if that had been just the beginning of his job, one small action that was the prelude to a thousand more which he could not look up step by step in one of his medical journals or remember from his school training no matter how hard he looked or tried.
He had felt ill prepared to face what would come next, what would occur when the boy beside him would open his eyes and look to him, ask him why.
It bothered him that he hadn't known what to do in that situation, that his expertise in his field suddenly became nothing in the face of the real horrors that had occurred within the confines of his own home only a few hours before.
He'd studied hard to become a doctor, because it had been practical and necessary. As a doctor, he was required to know everything and be able to do everything possible to ensure the best chances of recovery in his patients. He did it initially because the job ensured him all of the things he needed to survive as well as kept him from things he did not want. He'd never been a dreamer, not like Shigure and Ayame were.
But suddenly, all eyes were on him as he faced this situation, all breaths collectively held, watching, waiting for him to take action and lead the way because this was the path he had chosen. Expectantly, they scrutinized what the doctor would do, how he would approach his work and heal this wounded boy.
Suddenly, many of the things he had avoided as a non-dreamer had been pushed on him, and he was ill prepared to face it all.
Looking down at the sleeping boy with a troubled brow whose wounds he'd stitched and bones he'd set, he knew his job was far from done.
But he didn't know what to do next.
He didn't know how to heal this boy.
For once, all practicality escaped him; all his calm professionalism and infinite patience and rationale seemed nullified. All his training, hard work, studying… meant nothing.
And everyone was waiting to see what he was going to do.
Because it was his job. He'd chosen it.
Shigure, as an author, was expected to shroud the events in fiction and document it as a lesson for future generations- to immortalize what had happened and hope that in doing so, it never happened again. His job was clear enough, he taught through his words, indirectly invading thousands of minds with the horrors of what had occurred and educating them through the dreadful emotions he evoked upon the page.
Hatori, as a doctor…was expected to heal.
He didn't know where to start.
END