Blue
Not a kid
2a.
Noin's next visit was on Wednesday. Duo remembered because it was cold that day. The curtains were drawn open and the cold air seemed to seep into the room and coat everything in a layer of frigid coolness. He had slept most of the day away under the warm covers, waking up every now and then, and had only gotten up to go to the bathroom once. Noin had come in the afternoon he thought. He wasn't so sure. The sky was overcast and white with clouds and unchanging throughout the day. Rain fell every now and then, stopping for a couple minutes at a time then continuing for a couple more hours.
The click of the door woke Duo up and he sat up once he saw that it was Noin.
"Duo" she greeted. "How are you today?" She was seated in her usual seat, in the chair by the bed. He yawned and told her he was fine, like he always was. Noin smiled like she always did and Duo thought there was something different about it, something missing in it.
There was a moment of silence in which it was clear that Noin was debating over what to say next. She didn't look at him and fiddled with her hands, a nervous habit she had admitted to and something she rarely did when she was with him. He wondered if she would ask. He would have told her, if she asked. If he was truthful with himself he would admit that he wanted to tell her. A month had passed and he was still here. He knew that there was nothing left of his old life and Duo was never one to sit around all day waiting for something to happen. With the healing of his body almost complete restlessness was starting to set in. He had to leave. He had to get out of the hospital. He had to go…He had to…Where did he have to go?
With a sigh she said:
"Duo, about the other night—"
"Noin?" He didn't want to go there. Not yet. "How's the investigation? Did you find out anything new?"
She became silent again at the mention of the investigation and gave him a look that wasn't quite pity, maybe sympathy or something akin to it. He tried not to get mad—tired not to show that he was mad, like he often did when she made that face. Duo Maxwell did not need anyone pitying him. He could take care of himself as well as any adult could.
Noin sighed again. She seemed to be doing that a lot recently.
"It's going fine Duo. Nothing much has changed anyway. Why do you ask?" She asked and there was something in her voice that told him she thought it was an odd question. Maybe it was. Maybe there was something in his voice that suggested that there was something wrong. Maybe it was because he wouldn't look her in the eye or because of what happened the night before. Duo didn't know.
Duo didn't think it was an unusual question. He'd asked about the investigation the preventers were conducting on the Doctors more than once. He sometimes brought it up when he was curious or bored but always paid attention, granted he paid more attention to Noin herself than what she was actually saying but he got the gist of what was going on.
From what Noin had told him, they were no closer finding out the cause of the explosion or what the Doctors had been doing before it. She had told him yesterday morning that the team had discovered something new and possibly crucial. She hadn't told Duo what exactly.
Sally Po had also visited him that afternoon. Not unusual, but peculiar considering she had given him a check up the day before yesterday. She had taken his blood. He didn't know why because there was no need to, though he did have an idea. His wounds—the ones she knew of—were purely physical but Sally Po was a scientist, like the Doctors. He knew she would find, if she hadn't already, the cause of his abnormal health, how exactly his body could repair itself so quickly. Maybe she already knew, maybe she didn't. Duo could only guess, though his guesses tended, more often than not, to be dreadfully accurate. He wondered if that too was a result of his mechanical-self or some innate sense of intuition completely unique to himself.
.
"I can help you."
"What?" She began as her mind processed what he had said, "Duo—"
"I want to help. I'm—"
"Duo, no." She placed her hand on his. "Duo, please. No. You're too young."
"I—"
"No." She said like that was the end of it and squeezed his hand. Duo glared at her. This wasn't what he wanted. Why wasn't she listening? He had the information she needed. The investigation could've been completed in far less time than it would take them to finish if she would only let him—
"Duo," she called his name soft, like she always did when she was trying to wake him up or when she was trying to bring him back from his own thoughts.
He closed his eyes and tried to control himself. He didn't want to get angry at Noin so they talked about other things.
.
"Noin? What's going to happen to me and Heero?" He asked. They couldn't keep them in the hospital forever and the two boys had nowhere to go. They had no parents, no families, no relatives, no nothing. He wondered if they were going to put them in foster care or some other type of program similar to it. He hoped they wouldn't. He hoped Noin wouldn't. She was the closest thing he had to a friend and he liked her. It would be sad not to see her again.
Her eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed and hardened. Concern mixed with relief.
One of the things Duo loved about Noin was how expressive she was. She wasn't the type to hide her emotions. They played out on her features and in the way her body moved. Any person could read what she was feeling at any single moment if they knew where to look. Her lips curled up and her eyes narrowed a little when she was happy or amused and about to laugh. They tightened and her whole face hardened when she was serious. Her eyes narrowed and sometimes it was in that same gentle way. Sometimes it wasn't. She didn't exactly freeze, but her body stiffened and she seemed taller somehow—bigger, like now.
"Duo, both you and Heero are going to be okay I promise that. I'm not going to let anything bad happen to you. Either of you." When she spoke, the words came out tense, her voice strained—with what exactly Duo didn't know but there was an edge in her voice that reacted with something in him—he didn't know what—and gave a vague sense of recollection that flicked on and went out in a blink. It was a nameless, formless haze of emotion that rose from deep inside somewhere—deep inside himself?—and felt old like the old discolor photographs that lay in the back of photo albums or in-between the yellowed pages of the little tattered books that people liked to carry with them and depicted old people and old places and old feelings and ideas that are long gone but have left a residue of themselves in places where you can't reach and in the form of this feeling, this haze.
It made him sick but it was different from the sickness that came from Heero and more like the sickness that came from the hurt of loosing G but this had nothing to do with G. It was something before G, something he had forgotten and was coming back—no. Not coming back. Making itself known. But what was it? what was it…? Duo blinked and breathed. He would analyze this later.
"I've been talking to a few people and some of them would like to meet you." Noin continued, "There's one person I think you'll like. Her name's Helen. She used to work for the preventers but she's retired now. She already has a daughter who's a bit older than you, but she says she won't mind having another—"
"I want to join the Preventers."
"Duo…" Her grip on his hand tightened.
"I can help! I can help you with your investigation. I know where the labs are and I know how to get in. I can help. Noin, I can do it. I can tell you everything. I'm not—"
"I'm sure you can, Duo, but you're just too young. This isn't a game. I don't know what you did while you were with them but whatever they told you, whatever they did to you, Duo you're still a kids. You're only twelve years old. We can't have you running around with the—"
"I'm not just a kid!" He shouted. "I can do things Noin. I can do a lot of things. Things that even adults can't. I'm strong. G said so. I don't need someone to take care of me. I can take care of myself just fine. I don't need you or Sally or G or this Helen lady to look after me! I—"
With one hand on his chin, she tilted his head up. The other lightly combed through his hair, smoothing over and pulling back stray strands. "What is up with the two of you?" She asked but it wasn't really a question. Both her hands cupped his face, forcing him to look her in the eyes. "First Heero," Duo's left eye twitched, "now you." Noin smiled that sad pitying smile that made him mad but he let her continue. "Duo. I know. I know you can take care of yourself. You're stronger than you look. Okay, but you're still a kid, Duo, you're only twelve years old." She laugh-sighed. "What kind of adult would I be if I—if I ignored that? Duo, you're a kid. I'm the adult. Let me act like one." She hugged him. "Let me take care of you."
Duo stilled, stunned. What was he suppose to do now? Hug her back? Stay still? Would she be offended if he didn't hug her? Then, tentatively, he let his hands cling to the sides of her Preventers jersey and they stayed like that until Noin pulled back. He tried not to think about how warm she was or of the new feelings bubbling inside of him. She held him at half her arm's length and asked:
"Are you serious?" For a moment, Duo stared at her, taking in what she had just said and then nodded.
"I want to join Preventers."
"Will you tell me about what's going on between you and Heero?"
He hesitated before nodding.
Her eyes dropped and it was clear she didn't want this. In spite of herself she gave him a curt nod and said "I'll talk to the Chairwoman about it."
Then she left.
.
Duo liked Noin. He liked talking to her and he liked her talking back. He liked being around her and looking at her and liked the way she told him stories and brought him little gifts. But sometimes…sometimes she brought things out of him, made him feel things he didn't know or like. He thought that sometimes it was better without Noin because without her he didn't have to deal with all these things he didn't know or want or like.
.
.
It was a week before Noin came back with an answer and Duo was certain it was afternoon this time. The sun was high in the sky and beat down on him from his spot on the bench. The day had started out sunny and Duo, having been in his room for most of the week, decided to take a walk through the hospital grounds. He stopped in the courtyard and had lunch, a sandwich one of the hospital cafeteria ladies made him (they had grown fond of him from his more than frequent visits and made his lunch almost every day in exchange for a visit) and had grown too lazy to move so he curled down for a nap, letting the sun warm him and cover him. Noin found him there two hours later.
"Duo, wake up. We have to go." A hand petted him, flattening down his hair. It was a good thing Noin smelled so good, he thought and officially woke up. He wondered if she would be this relaxed around him when he told her.
"Did she—"
Noin sighed and nodded. Her expression morphed into the same tired look she had given him a week ago but Duo couldn't be bothered by it this time. He had gotten what he wanted.
The walk to the meeting room was a relatively lengthy one. They went through full hallways and empty hallways and up and down elevators. It wasn't long before they were out of the hospital and into the main building (Preventers Headquarters was composed of many different buildings and sites, Duo had learned from one of his many conversations with Noin. The hospital was its own building but also connected, like most buildings, to many others though a labyrinth of lengthy passageways and corridors. The main building was in the heart of the base and housed offices, laboratories, training facilities and other rooms so secret Noin couldn't tell him) and in and out and up and down all over again.
Throughout their journey, Noin talked and talked and talked. Most of it was about etiquette and what to expect from this meeting-slash-interrogation and how to behave in front of the chairwoman Une. How you should always look her in the eyes and hold your position and how it was very important not to get intimidated by her—and if Duo didn't know better he'd have thought Noin was actually frightened of the lady. All this talking held Duo's attention for about the five minutes before he started thinking of just how different Noin looked in her uniform. She had always worn a sundress or other casual clothes when she visited him. Sometimes she wore her Preventers jacket. She looked bigger in her uniform, taller, and more imposing then she ever had while in civilian clothing…
.
"Duo?" Noin paused. She had stopped in front of a door with her hand on the doorknob about to turn it when she noticed Duo wasn't with her anymore. Noin turned around and there he was, frozen at the corner of the hall. He was pale and looked terrified she thought. What happened?
"Duo? What's wrong?" She slowly moved towards him, careful not to frighten him any further. "What's wrong?" She asked again and as she was about to put her hand on his shoulder, he slapped it away, glaring at her and then at the door which opened only moments later. Sally stood in the doorway with another boy behind her.
"Heero?" Heero didn't look at her and simply glared at the Duo.
It was happening again, she thought. Whatever it was it was happening all over again. Noin looked to Sally and was met with the same alarmed expression that told her the other woman was thinking along the same lines. Silently she hoped that Sally had an idea to fix this.
"Is everything alright out there?" Noin cursed under her breathe. She hadn't thought the chairwoman had arrived yet. The meeting was to officially begin in twenty minutes time. The Chairwoman always arrived on time. She had other appointments and meeting and rarely was she early for one. Was she that interested in the boys? Noin hadn't believed it when she agreed to both Heero and Duo's proposals and so quickly at that.
"ah—" Sally cleared her throat, "Chairwoman Une, I think it would better if we moved the meeting to room I-12. "
"I-12?" the voice inside questioned. "Dr. Po, that's all the way in the east wing." Her voice was stern but she sounded curious, suspicious. This was supposed to be the interrogation of two hospitalized children who had information that could likely help the investigation progress much faster than it already was. A regular meeting room would have been fine so why was her head Physician insisting that they move into one of the official interrogation rooms and specifically I-12, on such short notice?
Noin's gaze leveled on Sally, her eyes had the same question in them but Sally shook her head. She couldn't answer now. She only had a feeling about this and didn't know if this would even work. She placed a hand on Heero's head and when the boy shrugged her away she grabbed him and lifted him up so he looked like an oversized toddler in her arms. He thrashed around but she held on as tight as she could. She motioned for Noin to do the same.
"It's just a hunch but I think this might work. My team's been experimenting with something we think might help." There was a pause, a sigh, and then the buzz of activity, papers shuffling, and chairs moving, before the chairwoman said:
"Very well. This interrogation will commence thirty minutes from now, in room I-12."
Sally nodded. "Thank you Chairman Une."
Sally motioned for Noin to go first with Duo. She would take Heero.
.
.
Room I-12 was located in the east wing of building 301 and was separated from its sister, room E-12, by a one-way mirror. Room I-12 was white and bare save an overhead light, a small square table and the four chairs that sat around it. There were cameras hidden and positioned in a way as to capture every possible angle of the room and every possible move the occupants made and sent packets of data to the many computers in room E-12 in the form of heat, inferred, and visual images to be viewed, processed, and analyzed. The room had one of the best, if not the best, surveillance systems in preventers. Preventer's security was at its finest in and out of the room because although room I-12 was almost never used it had held some of the most cunning and coldblooded criminals known to preventers.
Duo hadn't like the room from the moment he stepped foot in it.
Noin led him to the table and sat him down. They had taken a detour to the cafeteria and Noin purchased a variety of snacks and sweets. She had given him a juice box and a smile and Duo was thankful she hadn't said anything. They had then made their way to room I-12 with Noin explaining how they would be in that room while Sally and the Une and other agents would be in the other room and how all Duo had to do was answer their questions. She didn't mention Heero or how he had blacked out just moments ago.
It had come as a shock because even though Duo now knew Heero would be joining them (he doubted Sally would let the chance of experimenting on them pass) Duo still jumped when the door opened and Heero and his dark hair and glowering blue eyes and clenched fists entered the room. He didn't dare move when those eyes turned to him and matched the other boy's glare with one of his own. Noin was by Heero's side the moment he entered and tried, in vain, to get him to move closer so he could sit at the table. He didn't move, and instead—Duo flinched and drew back when he did this—sat cross-legged on the floor beside the door. Noin handed him a juice box also and a box of sweets similar to the box that was sitting in front of Duo. Noin returned to her seat beside Duo and for a few seconds there was nothing but silence, tense and uneasy. The tension was thick in the air, overpowering and so suffocating it was a wonder no one chocked. What disturbed Noin was how the two boys watched and reacted to each other. They were wary of each other, extremely cautious and in movement as well. When one boy moved another would flinch and draw back as if they were in a standstill in a fight, each boy waiting for the other to make a move. This wasn't right, she thought to herself. Two young boys should not have to have this much hatred, this much fear, between them. Not the first time, Noin felt hot anger bubble up inside her. She hated the Doctors for what they had done to these boys.
"Heero? Duo? Are you guys okay in there?" Sally's voice was coming from all over and the boys, startled, broke their stare for a second to glance at the mirror but said nothing. Noin nodded for Sally to continue. She was there as a mediator and to break off any fights or physical confrontations—judging from how they were regarding each other Noin doubted that would be the case.
Sally continued by restating the purpose of the meeting and went on to introduce the key figures that were in the room with her. There were a couple agents who were part of the investigation and Chairwoman Une.
"Are you feeling alright? Not lightheaded? No headaches?"
.
He was going to fade. Any second now, he was going to fade away. He knew it. His breath came out short and uneven as he let the anxiety take over him. Nausea swam in his belly, slowly clawing its way up into his throat. His vision blurred but he hadn't lost sight, not yet. He wanted to throw up. He wanted to scream but stayed frozen under the careful watch of those blue eyes. He wondered if Heero was feeling it too, the begging of the sickness.
"Duo? Heero?—"
Why did she have to call his name? His mind screamed. Why did she have to torment him like that? With his name…the name of the person who did this to him. It was all his fault. He was the one who brought on the sickness and the buzzing and the…the—
The buzzing…
"wha—"
Slowly, Duo brought a hand up to touch his ears. They were soft and flexible and he shivered from the cold touch of his fingers. He could still feel, still touch. He looked about the room in new wonder, taking everything in as if it were the first time he was really seeing it. The room hadn't changed. It was still white and bare and there was Heero sitting on the floor five feet in front of him. Touch, sight…
But it was quiet, too quiet, so surly sound was—no. There was the tap tap tap of Noin's short, clean cut nails on the surface of the table. There was the hum of the air conditioner and a faint murmur and scratching of noise that floated through the speakers that seemed to be everywhere in the room.
Wilderness, apples, candy, cookies mixed with gunfire and salt and sweat and steel that faded into the prickly sterilized scent that seemed to cling to him—to Heero. His mouth was too dry to taste anything.
Touch, sight, sound and smell. They were all there.
There was no buzzing either. Nothing save the nausea, anxiety, anticipation and if he were to be honest with himself—fear. He didn't understand but the more he thought about it the more his head hurt. It was a dull pounding that had seeped into his mind without his knowing and stayed there throb throb throbing like the steady beat of a drum.
.
In what seemed like a nanosecond something new had happened and the tension in the room subsided. Noin watched in curiosity (she was sure she wasn't the only one who was curious) as both boy's seemed to be lost in their own worlds. They were touching things such as skin and clothing and looking around the room. Duo had even closed his eyes and sniffed—sniffed what exactly she did not know. Noin threw a look at the mirror and then at the boy beside her.
"Heero? Duo?" Sally's voice flooded the room, "Is everything alright?" She sounded excited, eager about something. Just what exactly did she mean by bringing them all the way to I-12 in the first place? What had her team found out during experimentation and was it harming the boys? Though they didn't look hurt Noin never knew when it came to the boys. Appearances weren't everything. She knew that well.
"Duo?" carefully, Noin placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. He tensed, and then turned to her. He blinked.
"I don't understand." He muttered and if it wasn't for the silence in the room, Noin doubted she would've been able to hear him so clearly.
"Don't understand what?" She asked but she had already lost him again. "Duo, don't understand what?"
"We can't be together." Heero. She turned to him. He was looking straight at her, puzzled, like she knew the answer to a question he probably wouldn't tell her if she asked. His response both intrigued and shocked her. She wasn't sure she had heard him right the first time.
"What do you mean you 'can't be together'." He shrugged.
"We can't be together. We're not supposed to be together." He glanced at Duo and then back to Noin. Not supposed to be together?
"I'm not sick…" Duo muttered again.
"Heero, can you explain?" Sally's voice filtered through the speakers "What do you mean you can't be together? Did the Doctor's make it so you two couldn't be in physical contact or—" Heero shook his head.
"They were trying to fix it." He went on in that same puzzled speech, "They were trying to make it go away…"
"Make what go away?"
"The sickness." Duo was staring at her now.
"What sickness? Are you sick?"
"No." He shook his head. "No…" That's what he didn't get.
"They were trying to make it go away…"
"I'm not sick…" They were rambling, mostly muttering to themselves now. She had lost them again. She needed to them to tell her what was happening to them, and what had happened. She needed to understand.
"I think it's time you both explained what this is all about. What's happening—what's happened between you two?" She tightened her grip on Duo's shoulder and sent a look to Heero. "You promised. both of you" She looked them in the eyes and held their gaze until she thought they were listening. "We need to know."
The boys looked at each other and flinched and recoiled from each other. It was like they had forgotten that the other was still there and in a second the tension was back, though not as strong and though less intense, the fear was still there.
Duo was the first to speak.
"We can't be together, the two of us." He echoed Heero's words. "There's something wrong with our bodies. Whenever we're close to each other we…we" he tried to think of the word, but what words could explain this? "…get sick. We lose our senses. Sometimes they leave all at once, sometimes it takes a while and then…nothing"
"Lose your senses?" He nodded.
"You know seeing, hearing, smelling, touching—"
"—and then you pass out?" He wanted to laugh. pass out? It was more than just passing out. He faded. He became nothing. "Like what happened almost a month ago? And last week? You both…I—I don't understand…" How could a person lose their five basic senses? Noin had never heard anything of the sort before. Did they become blind, deaf mutes? And what about touching and tasting?
"we—our bodies shut down." Heero tried to explain. "The J and G, they thought it was something to do with the nanobots."
"Nanobots?" Sally was speaking again. This was what her lab was researching. So far they had yet to find a single robot but they hadn't lost hope. They just needed time and better microscopes.
Heero nodded.
"The nanobots don't only repair our bodies; they enhance everything, which includes out senses. They make us faster, stronger. It's not only our senses that get messed up. Everything else goes too." It was like unplugging a computer. Once the power shut off, they ceased to function. Not only did their bodies crash, they also lost touch with reality.
"Everything?" Both Heero and Duo nodded though it wasn't completely true. Not everything went. For Heero it was the Violet stayed, for Duo, Blue.
"G and J, they were trying to fix it. They didn't know exactly what was wrong with us." Duo said. "They tried everything they could think of." He shrugged, "but nothing worked. They died trying." G always said Duo was going to be the death of him. Duo didn't like to think about the pang in his chest when he thought of G so he gave a little nervous giggle.
"They were working on the—your, um, problem when they died? Was that the cause of the explosion?"
"I don't know what caused the place to blow up. Everything was fine one minute and the next minute I'm out.". He didn't know what happened.
"Heero?" Heero shook his head. He didn't know either. Sally signed.
"Tell us more about your um, sickness."
"We told you. Everything goes. We shut down."
"Yes, but do you feel anything? Does something happen before you pass out?"
Duo stared at the mirror and hesitated. How did she…?
"When…when Heero's around I get this annoying buzzing in my head and it gets louder when he's close. And then I start to lose my senses, like I said, until everything goes."
"A buzzing? Like sound?" Duo thought about it and shook his head.
"No. it's…like how some of the really old TVs go black and white or like scribbles."
"Scribbles?" he nodded.
"Yeah, like scribbles. Like scribbling all over a piece of paper except the paper's my mind. When it comes I can't think about anything other than the buzzing—the scribbles…"
"When you're about to fade you lose the part of you that can think and you can't remember what you were doing or thinking." Heero added quietly. "It always happens before I can get him." He muttered the last part but Noin caught it.
"Before you can what?"
"Before I can kill him." He sent an accusatory glare at Duo. Noin looked on flabbergasted.
"k—kill?" She sounded like she had had the wind knocked out of her. Was he serious? He couldn't have meant—but Heero nodded.
"You have tried to kill him?"
"Yes." Heero said as if it was nothing.
"Why?"
"It's the only way to make it stop." The more she heard out of him the harder she had believing that she was hearing him right. Noin stared wide-eyed and then turned her gaze to Duo. He had his hands clenched and was glaring at the other boy.
"It's not like I haven't been trying either." He muttered and there so much malice in his voice. Noin placed a hand on his shoulder in an effort to calm him as well as to steady herself. Were these boys really trying to kill each other? It was ridiculous. She couldn't believe it, shouldn't have been able to believe it but there was evidence of this. She thought back to that day a month ago. When she had told Duo of Heero's whereabouts the boy had ran out of the room and launched himself at the other boy. He had the same malicious glare he had on now but had gone down screaming before he could've done any damage to Heero. In the similar incident a little more than a week ago the two boys had been found unconscious in the Duo's room. Duo was in bed while Heero lay on the floor. It looked like he had collapsed. When the nurse examined the boys she found marks that weren't-quite-bruises in the shape of tiny hand prints on Duo's neck. They had mysteriously disappeared hours later, no doubt due to the boy's ability to heal rapidly.
Then she had a thought. They couldn't have thought this up themselves.
"Did the Doctors tell you this? That killing each other was the only way to get rid of the—the buzzing?"
Both boys looked at her processing what she had just said. Duo wanted to laugh but couldn't bring himself to and as a result his facial features contorted to an expression of pained amusement.
"They wouldn't even let us in the same room after it started…" He thought back to how cautious G and J always seemed to be when they met. He would rarely see Heero during those visits. Sometimes he wouldn't have seen him at all. But he always felt the other boy. He always knew he was near and it drove him crazy.
"We thought of it." It was a mutual agreement, though neither of them had discussed it prior. Duo had been the first to attempt anything and when that failed Heero had gotten the idea and the next attempt was his. Finding opportunities had been difficult since, after the first three attempts, both G and J started getting nervous and wouldn't let them within a mile of each other. It had gotten to the point where when the doctors met one of the boys would be on a job. A chance of the two meeting was uncommon, rare. Slowly the animosity between the two was beginning to dwindling and then the explosion happened. That day was the first time in years the two had felt each other…and also the day there were to lose everything.
Duo told Noin all of this except for the last part. He had never told anyone what G was to him. He had never told anyone how much he looked up to G, how much he loved him. Not Heero, not Noin; partly because he saw it as a weakness and partly because she had never really asked about him. Duo couldn't understand why she hated G so much. G had never used him. G had never lied to him.
.
.
(**A/N: So this chapter is really difficult to get down in words. I'm still working on the side B. It's not gonna be as boring as this one hopefully. really sorry to whoever actually reads this that it took so long.
also I know that so far it's "Duo love Noin" but it is 1x2 I promise (to you and myself XD) and their not really 17 yet but they will be. I wasn't really planning on dragging the time period for so long. =(
also also. I just realized I keep writing Doctors when I mean (sometimes) scientist...but really they are Doctors i guess =/...
**)