Chapter One: Healer-Doctor?

Author note: This story is the thirty-fifth in the Magical Flashpoint series. It follows "United We Stand".

Although all original characters belong to me, I do not own Flashpoint, Harry Potter, Narnia, or Merlin.

Greg Parker sighed as he surveyed the contents of his refrigerator; one thing his nipote had failed to mention the night before was that his new instincts came with a distinct desire for meat: the rarer, the better. Unfortunately he hadn't had much time for grocery shopping lately and his last shopping trip had been more of a milk and cereal speed run. He finally snagged the milk and grabbed a box of his usual oatmeal cereal off the counter, but couldn't quite help his longing look at a package of uncooked bacon hiding in the 'fridge's corner.

"Real pain in the butt, huh?" Lance observed, smirking as his uncle jumped and whirled. "Always takes me a day or two to get used to eating 'human' again after I shift."

The Sergeant watched as his nephew raided the freezer and slipped the milk away to pour a glass for himself. One eyebrow hiked at the teenager's breakfast choice. "A cheddar and ham Hot Pocket is eating 'human', mio nipote?"

"Well, it's more human than raw bacon," Lance teased as he popped his plate in the microwave.

Busted, Greg busied himself with his cereal. Then his mind reprocessed his nephew's words and he turned, giving his nephew a narrow, suspicious look. Lance made to smirk, but the smirk vanished altogether as Alanna sailed in and put her own two cents in the mix. "I caught him in here last week reaching for it."

"Really," Parker remarked, a low warning rumble building up in his chest as he glared at his nipote.

Lance jerked back, his head lowering and a soft apologetic whine coming from his own chest.

Alanna paused in the middle of reaching for a container of strawberries and glanced over her shoulder, confused by the odd behavior from both her brother and uncle. After a few seconds of looking between them, understanding blossomed in her eyes and she moved to her uncle's side. "Stop," she ordered softly. "You're letting your inner gryphon out again."

Until that moment, Greg had been unappeased by his nephew's instant and contrite submission; the rumble in his chest had been deepening into a growl as his human disapproval of eating raw meat mixed with the gryphon's inability to register anything other than that the fledging in front of him had tried to eat fresh meat before he could. Alanna's intervention broke the spell and the Sergeant lurched back, shocked at how easy it had been to slip into the gryphon's mindset and not even realize it.

"I…" Greg stumbled to a stop, wanting to apologize, but not even sure what for. It didn't help that his gryphon instincts were bristling at the idea of apologizing to an impudent young fledge getting too big for his wings.

" 'Lanna, stand down," Lance murmured, waving his sister back. Without hesitation, the teen walked right up to his uncle, tilting his head to the side just enough to expose his neck.

Greg swallowed hard as the bristling inside his head faded, the instincts shifting to the background once more. Before he could speak, Lance moved his head just enough that their eyes met; Parker stiffened as the gryphon instincts pushed themselves forward, indignant once more at what they perceived as a challenge to his authority.

"I know it's hard," Lance whispered, just loud enough for his uncle to hear. "But you can control this, Uncle Greg; the gryphon's not human, but it's still you…as long as you make sure it knows you're running the show. Give it a millimeter and it'll take a kilometer. Either you're in charge or it is."

It took an iron effort and every bit of willpower the Sergeant could muster, but as the moment hung, he determinedly powered through the gryphon's reaction to normal human behavior. Lance held perfectly still throughout the process and Alanna wisely stayed out of Greg's line of sight. The gryphon instincts, given free rein throughout the previous day, did not surrender without a fight, but Parker was not about to let this new set of instincts ruin his life.

Lance perked up as his uncle's eyes shifted fully back to human and Greg let his breath out. Greg held his position a few seconds longer, then rested his hands on his nephew's shoulders. "I think I've got a handle on it now."

"Yeah," Lance agreed. "Really, this is the hardest part, Uncle Greg. You might have to do that a few more times; I sure did; but the first time's the worst."

"Copy that," Greg breathed before going back to his half-poured bowl of cereal. The Sergeant grimaced; the cereal looked even less appetizing than it had before. Reminding himself that letting his gryphon instincts control him – even if it was in a small area – wasn't a good idea, Greg finished pouring his cereal and picked up the milk jug Lance slid to him. "You said 'shift' earlier, but I didn't. Not yesterday and not just now," the elder man pointed out as he worked.

"Actually, you did, even if it wasn't a full shift," Lance replied. Greg turned, surprised. Seeing his expression, the teen explained simply, "Your eyes shifted just now and you told me last night that you were pretty sure your teeth shifted. Eyes and teeth might not seem like much to you, but it's enough."

The Sergeant made a face at that and stubbornly pushed away the mental images of ripping into a nice, juicy steak. Instead, he took his bowl of cereal to the table and started in, only to freeze and stare at the bowl. Choking down his mouthful, he asked, "And, um, how long does it take for things to taste normal again?"

"Huh?"

For several long seconds the two stared at each other, Alanna nervously observing from the background. Then Greg groaned and dropped his head into his hands. Welcome to the new normal, Parker…

After breakfast, the small family gathered in the living room, where Greg laid out the day's agenda. "Okay," he began, fixing both teens with a look that was both hopeful and a trifle expectant, "We need to find a Healer with a medical degree: someone who can do full medicals for every member of Team One."

"I thought it was only Uncle Wordy who needed a full medical?" Alanna questioned, quietly nudging a small plate of apple slices in her uncle's direction. Parker ignored the silent offer; it was bad enough that the taste of his usual cereal had been radically altered by his newly acquired gryphon instincts without immediately discovering how his taste in fruit had also changed.

In the meantime, Greg didn't bother to hide his wince at his niece's question. "For now, yes, Wordy's the only member of the team who's required to have a full medical," he conceded, "But sooner or later, all of us will need one. Spike's been hit by the Cruciatus, Sam had that Old Religion spell cast on him, Jules temporarily lost her memory to an accidental Obliviate, and I can only imagine what they'd find if I had a medical right now. That means almost the entire team could end up accidentally exposing the wizarding world if anything magic-side shows up in our medicals."

The teens traded looks, unsure and clearly not quite buying the idea that techie doctors could discover the wizarding world simply by doing full medicals on the members of Team One.

"Most Healers probably wouldn't bother with getting a tech-side education," Alanna finally admitted, after thinking the matter over. "If they make it to full Healer, they're pretty much guaranteed a good job magic-side, so why bother?"

Their uncle's shoulders slumped. "Then we have a problem," he sighed.

Lance was silent as he stared down at the coffee table; when Greg looked over at him, he shrugged – he didn't have any ideas either.

The Sergeant scowled to himself; there had to be an answer, there had to. In the silence that fell, the three Calvin-Parkers each pondered the problem, searching for an idea, an inkling, something to say. Into that silence, the knock at the door was surprisingly loud; the teens jumped and Greg arched an eyebrow in the direction of the door, as if that would tell him who was outside.

When there was another knock, Parker pushed himself to his feet and trudged to the door, peeking through the peephole and drawing back in some surprise. Cautiously, he pulled the door open. "Mrs. Taylor?"

Grant Taylor sat in the kitchen of his home, scowling at the Toronto Oracle as he sat at his table and sliced a pear for breakfast. At the counter, Brooke was reading through and marking the latest theory tests for Brady's class; Brady's father had recently run into some unexpected health issues and the young wizard had gone on personal leave to help his parents keep up with the Healer's appointments and the family business. Brooke and Grant were tag-teaming Brady's defense classes and keeping the students up-to-date even as Grant ran in circles, trying to finish up the last of the parchmentwork for the Shiloh Eagles dueling team.

Without looking up, Brooke asked, "Are they screaming about those poor kids again?"

"At this point, Brooke, if you have to ask," Grant sighed. He scanned the article again, his scowl growing fiercer by the moment. "Still no details about why it's so bad to have this 'Wild Magic', just ranting and raving."

"Must be quite a story," Brooke mused, looking up and propping her chin on her hand.

"Or it's so old that no one remembers why it's an issue, just that it is," Grant countered. "Like a grudge or something."

"Did you ask Brady or J.T.?"

"Sure I did, Brooke. First day the story broke, I took the Oracle to work and asked, but they didn't have a clue what the problem was."

Brooke nodded. "That's when I was up at your folks, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," Grant confirmed, slapping the newspaper down in disgust and turning to his breakfast. "It's like they made up their minds that those two kids are dangerous without even investigating. I wanted to go over and ask Giles about this, but he's suspended. His partner, too."

Brooke mused over her husband's words as she went to the cupboard and pulled down a mug to mix her usual morning tea blend. "What about the kids? Did you ask them?"

When she glanced over her shoulder, surprised that Grant hadn't immediately answered, his face was troubled. Without meeting her eyes, he murmured, "Lance and Alanna haven't been to Shiloh for over two weeks. I was getting close to sending Sergeant Parker a note asking why when the Oracle published its first article. After that, I figured they were probably laying low."

"But the Oracle's first article came out last week," Brooke protested quietly. "So where were they the week before that?"

"I don't know, Brooke," Grant admitted, shadows in his eyes. "I don't want to send a note, though. With all this…hysteria…I don't think now is the time to advertise that we have their home address."

Brooke considered that as she stirred her tea and took a sip. "What if I went over there? As long as I take the Knight Bus, no one needs to know who I'm visiting. We've got so many tech-borns at Shiloh now, I could be visiting any of the parents and who's to tell the difference?"

Hopeful dark brown eyes lifted to her. "Would you, Brooke?"

Brooke laughed softly at the puppy-dog look Grant gave her. "You'll have to handle Brady's class today," she warned.

"Done."

"Good morning, Sergeant Parker," Brooke said as cheerfully as she could. "Grant's been a bit concerned about Lance and Alanna since they haven't been over at Shiloh for a few weeks, so I thought I'd drop by…"

His brown eyes darkened for a second, then he gave her a rather weak smile. "It's been…a complicated…couple of weeks for us, Mrs. Taylor. I'm sorry I haven't been in touch." He backed up and turned, silently inviting her inside.

Brooke smiled back and stepped over the threshold, perfectly aware that no Auror ever verbally invited people inside; after all, her husband used the exact same silent invite every single day. "So, how have you and your rascals been, Sergeant?"

"We've had better months," the Sergeant admitted candidly. "Lance had a car accident on his birthday and let's just say that kicked off quite a hornet's nest. We're still dealing with the fallout."

"The Wild Magic thing," Brooke concluded, earning a single nod. "We've seen the articles."

Parker winced. "I've been avoiding them," he remarked. "But I suspect they're long on shrieking and short on details."

"Truer words were never spoken," Brooke agreed at once. "Grant's taken to folding the Oracle's pages into parchment airplanes for his students to use as target practice."

The other barked a laugh and led her into a small, but comfortable living room. Two teenagers looked up from their seats on a chair and the couch. "Mrs. Taylor," Alanna greeted, jumping to her feet.

Brooke gave Alanna a chiding look. "Now, now," she mock-scolded. "Outside of Shiloh, it's Brooke, remember?"

Mischief danced, right before Lance offered a contrite, "Yes, Mrs. Taylor."

Parker stifled a chuckle and Brooke sighed in resignation as she took the seat Alanna discreetly guided her to. "Grant wanted me to tell the two of you that, on behalf of the Shiloh Dueling Academy, you are always welcome," Brooke began. "If there's anything you need, please, let us know and we'll do what we can to help."

She watched as the three traded startled looks, then Lance cleared his throat. "Um, actually…"

"Yes?" Brooke prompted, leaning forward.

Alanna blurted it out. "Do you know any Healers with Muggle medical degrees?"