Okay guys, this is the first chapter of the Harte's Hope remake! Hopefully you like it better, and please, if you have any opinions or ideas of how you'd like the story changed or rewritten don't be afraid to message me!
I don't own any of the characters used in this chapter except perhaps the rather stupid doctors.
When he'd first been approached about the program, he'd adamantly refused to have anything to do with it.
Family Reconstruction and Reunification, they'd called it. A test designed to unearth any and all potential relatives, all with just a single vial of blood. It seemed like a dream come true for those trying to desperately locate loved ones... but he was not one of those people. He did not want to find the people who had abandoned him in the Abbey so long ago, nor did he have any desire to be found, now that he was somewhat famous.
Despite his protests, he was pushed to participate, first by the scientists involved in its creation, then the BBA, then, finally, his friends and self-made family.
"Bryan," Tala had said, arms held wide, "This is amazing, don't you see? You could have a family! Something that we've never had a chance to have before... At least try? You might not even get any results, but please, try?"
Kai had come later, quietly informing him that he had already been through the program, out of idle curiosity, just to see if he had any relations besides his grandfather. The results had been negative, but Kai had said that he felt better, with solid facts, and wouldn't he feel the same?
The truth was, he was better of not knowing, and whoever he was related to was better off not knowing as well. He didn't want to know the names of the people who had discarded him in the frozen hellhole that was the Abbey- he wasn't sure he could control himself if he found out. He'd been learning, getting better with the help of Tala, Kai, and some very well paid psychiatrists, but he still had problems with emotions. Lots of problems.
He didn't think anyone took his damaged mental state into account while they pushed him to discover the identities of his genetic donors. He refused to call them parents, after what they'd done to him, and he wasn't sure he could trust anyone they'd been related to either.
That was why, when he woke up in a hospital bed three days after he'd laid down his final response, he was infuriated to discover that everyone had completely disregarded his wishes and had run the godforsaken test anyways.
"I honestly tried to stop them, Bryan," Tala murmured, seated, back straight, in a plastic hospital chair, "I swear. They walked all over me with regulations, said that because you were underage you had no choice and none of us are old enough to be considered proxies."
He sighed and twisted his fingers together, wincing when the action pulled at his casted wrist.
"I don't blame you," he said, staring blankly ahead, "Not your fault. It's mine, for getting put in here in the first place."
He, in quite possibly the most ridiculous turn of events ever, had managed to get hit by a motorcyclist going fifty in a school zone. The guy had clipped him; the side mirror had caught him full on the arm and now he was sporting a compound fracture to the wrist and three bruised ribs. They'd put him under to set it, and, while he was out, had apparently stolen a vial of blood and had run it through the system he'd been trying to avoid.
He'd made himself feel better by terrifying and intimidating every doctor that came into his room, whether it was for him or the guy on the other side of the curtain. The nurses he left alone, if only because they were in charge of his pain medication and visitors.
"Bryan, they..."
Tala hesitated, wringing his hands together in an uncharacteristically nervous gesture.
"They got hits."
He opened his mouth, ready to refuse to see his parents or whoever they'd found, but Tala held up a hand to silence him before he'd even started.
"Just... hear me out, okay? It isn't your parents or anything, they apparently died about six years after you turned up at the Abbey."
He closed his mouth and nodded, relaxing his clenched fists and smoothing out the blankets over his lap, fiddling with the corner of one absently.
"There are three of them. Your mother's sister, her son, and your mother's other sister's kid. Petunia Dursley, thirty-one, I have a file on her here if you want it later. Dudley Dursley, age eight, and Harteland Potter, age seven."
He curled up, pressing his face to his knees and breathing deeply, hands rising to clutch at his hair.
"Bryan, tell me what you're feeling."
Tala's hand pressed against the back of his neck and he leaned into it, taking another slow, deep breath.
"There's too much. I... I'm angry, I think. Sad. Scared. Happy. Nervous."
He took another breath, trying to focus on what he was feeling and why. He still wasn't entirely familiar with being able to feel- his entire life the feelings had been trained right out of him, and suddenly they were making a violent resurgence. It threw him off balance.
"I had family this entire time, yet I still had to spend my life in the goddamn Abbey... but I have family, I have a family, and that's... that's... I don't know. I don't know how I feel about that. And my mother and father are dead, and I'm glad, but I don't think I should be, and... this is a mess. A huge fucking mess, just like my life," he groaned, flopping backwards onto the bed and hissing when his cast glanced off the metal railing, "I'm done. Fuck feelings, who needs them."
"You do, technically," Tala said, placing a folder on the bedside table and ruffling his hair, "Bryan... one more thing. And you have to promise not to get upset, okay?"
He screwed his eyes shut, already knowing that he'd hate anything that could possibly come out of Tala's mouth after that sentence. That was a bad sentence, usually followed by tales of Ian's school mishaps or the loss of something important.
"They're sending you to them. Until you turn 18."
He took a deep breath and slammed his casted wrist into the metal railing, using the bite of pain to push away the overwhelming flood or rage.
"Bryan?"
"I'm fine," he said, forcing his voice to hold steady, "I was under the assumption that I had been emancipated?"
"In Russia. Not in America. The BBA operates in America and, since you're technically their ward, they have the right to ship you off to your real family if they so choose. Which they kind of did."
"Where?" he asked.
"England. Surrey, to be exact."
He pushed himself upright, reached out a hand, and grabbed Tala's shoulder, carefully making sure he didn't squeeze too tight.
"I will not leave you. Ian, you, or Sergei. I don't care if I have a "real family" now, I will not leave the one I have created for myself. I refuse."
Tala settled a hand over his, tangling their fingers together.
"You won't. Kai, he owns a home in London. Near Surrey. We'll be close."
He relaxed at that, leaning forward to rest his head against Tala's other shoulder, breathing deeply. Tala's free hand ran through his hair soothingly, gently straightening out the mess it had become.
"Fine. I... I can do this, if I do not have to leave any of you behind."
He continued to breathe, trying to focus on himself and Tala and nothing else. While it worked in calming him down, it also made him unbearably drowsy, a result of the drugs being pumped through his system.
"Go to sleep. Sergei and I will sort everything out, alright?" Tala murmured, easing him back into the bed and brushing his hair back from his face, "I'll be back with the others when visiting hours begin."
His half-asleep mind registered something wrong with that statement, but before he could figure it out, Tala ran out of the room, barely escaping before a nurse he recognized from the night shift walked in, prompting him to glance over at the clock in confusion.
The swimming numbers read 1:42AM.
He closed his eyes and sighed, smirking. Tala was an idiot sometimes, but he was also an amazing friend.
As a warning: This rewrite will be very slow. I now have to worry about college, russian classes, trigonometry, all sorts of strange classes required for my major, and the stress that comes from being surrounded by no less than three people at any given time.
Also, I don't really remember where the hell I was going with this story, so most of it will be made up. Yay.
As I said upstairs, please, if you have any opinions or questions or suggestions about the story, please don't be afraid to offer them. Kind reviews do wonders on bad days :)