DISCLAIMER: I don't own Darker Than Black and its sequels. This fanfiction is NOT for profit, only for fun.
A/N: Thanks for the reviews, tityuio, InflatedChimp, Dear4Life and A.J Sawyer. And thanks to InflatedChimp for pointing out a mistake.
Sorry this update took so long (and some of you are still waiting for an update for Black Dust), but I had to do overtime on my job almost every day and on the weekends I had to do the stuff that piled up during the week (grocery, cleaning the house, washing…). But thanks to the overtime I'll get two days off next week, so I'm positive that Black Dust will get an update, too.
And thanks to Wikipedia again.
Ages: Xing/Bai: 8 years (almost 9); Hei: 12 years
Names: Xing means star; Bai means white; Hei means black; Tian means sky
OC description:
Chiang Linh: middle-aged Chinese woman; long black hair; blue eyes
Chiang Fa: middle-aged Chinese man; brown hair; blue eyes
Chapter 9
Day 9
The day of the sleep-examination had arrived and Tian had left the school earlier with the pretended excuse of terrible stomach-ache. He wanted to support his sister and he wanted to know first-hand what was wrong with her, so he arrived at home just in time to accompany his mother and sister to the doctor. His mother had other worries at the moment than to rack her brains about her son lying to his teachers.
During the long examination, Tian had to remain in the waiting area and his mother soon joined him while the assistant of the doctor explained Xing that the many cables attached to her head wouldn't hurt. The little girl only nodded and shook her head on the question if she needed anything – like a glass of hot milk – to get tired. Xing had by now figured out that the use of her new power made her tired, so she zapped the blanket a little – fully aware that nothing would happen to the fabric – yet it had the desired effect and the girl slept soundly a few minutes later.
XXX
Three hours had past and the doctor asked Linh to accompany him into his office, where her daughter already waited. Anxiously the woman hugged her child and sank down in one of the chairs across from the doctor – his large desk separating them.
The gray-haired man smiled at the worried mother and the unreadable child. "First the good news. The sleep-EEG of your daughter is just like it is supposed to be. She has the N-REM phases and enters the REM phase like any other healthy person about an hour later. A narcoleptic would experience the REM sleep within the first five minutes. Your daughter doesn't have narcolepsy."
"And the bad news?" Linh asked tentatively.
"Usually people do have dreams at night, but sometimes you just don't remember having them the next morning." Now the man's forehead wrinkled into a frown. "But your Xing doesn't have any measurable brain activity during the REM phase which suggests that she doesn't have any dreams at all. It's usually very low during REM, but we couldn't get any data at all in your daughter's case." He lifted up a print-out of a long straight line. "I haven't seen this before… Maybe this is the reason for your daughter's fatigue." He pushed the sheet back into the heap of other data collected during the sleep-session and folded his hands on top of Xing's file. His concerned gaze was on Linh. "I would like to make an MRI. I'll call a friend at the hospital and make an appointment for you."
"Do you think it's a tumor?" Linh was really scared for her little girl. A brain-tumor could also explain the strange behavior.
The physician turned towards the child. "Do you have head-aches or does anything else hurt? Is your vision blurry?"
Xing shook her head. "No. All is fine." She didn't really understand the adults' worries – especially not the emotions of the doctor towards her - the man was a stranger, yet he was apparently concerned for her well-being. Until now she had been sure that nothing was wrong with her – the day before she had paid attention to when exactly she got tired and came to the conclusion that it had something to do with her ability. Maybe the use of her powers simply exhausted her body to the point that only sleep could recharge it? She had tried to tell her mother that she could stop being tired during the day, but Linh mistook it as fear of the doctor's appointment.
By now Xing was glad that she had made this examination. Apparently there was something wrong with her – the data didn't lie.
On their way home, the three stopped at a Pizza Hut and Linh had told her son everything the doctor had said. At first she hadn't wanted to do so, but the boy was persistent and seeing his worry in his large blue eyes broke her heart.
Linh forced a smile and looked at her daughter, who didn't play with the stuffed puppy she had gotten with her children's menu. "Let's speak of something more delightful. What do you want for your birthday, Xing?"
The girl in question stared at her mother. Her birthday. Usually she would be so excited that she wouldn't stop speaking of the things she wanted as presents, but now she realized that it was a day like any other. "Nothing."
Linh frowned. "C'mon, think about it. There has to be something. How about a new manga? Or a game for your gameboy?"
Xing figured that she needed to say something to make her mother stop. At first she was about to say that it was a day that didn't needed to be celebrated, but then another thought welled up from deep within her - surprising the child a little bit. "I don't want to be sick." But those words didn't have the desired effect to make her mother shut up – even worse: tears welled up in the woman's blue eyes.
"Oh, sweetie… I promise we'll find out what's wrong with you." She took a deep breath and calmed somewhat. She didn't want to make a scene in the restaurant and her children were already feeling bad enough. They deserved to brighten up. "You need to laugh more. Laughing is healthy." This brought a disbelieving expression on both her children's faces – though Xing's switched quickly back to her expressionless one. "We'll make a big birthday-party, Xing. Who do you want to invite aside from Minako and Asuka?"
"No one."
Linh was a little surprised. Last year they had trouble to convince Xing that eighteen kids were way too much and that she needed to set priorities. "Only the two?"
Xing finished her pizza and shook her head. "No one."
Tian saw that the two were talking past each other. So he finished the fifth slice of his extra-large pizza with two big bites. "Mama, Xing doesn't want to invite anyone at all. She isn't friends with Minako and Asuka anymore."
Linh turned her shocked face from her son to her daughter, who simply nodded. "Is this true? Why aren't you friends anymore? Did you argue?"
"No. I just don't need to be friends with them any longer. And I don't need a birthday-party."
Linh's questioning gaze centered on her son. "Did something happen at school?" It kind of hurt her that she needed to ask Tian to get up-to-date with his sister's life – she was their mother and should know this first-hand.
The boy sighed. "Apparently there was no fight or stuff, but Xing simply decided that the two were only distracting her from classes to the point that she got punished and they were misusing their friendship to get Xing's homework." This was the version he had also told Minako's mother the day after her call.
Linh's eyes widened in realization. "Oh, I'm sorry, honey." She smiled at her daughter reassuringly. "You'll find better friends quickly."
"I don't need any friends."
For a moment her mother stared at her, but then returned her gaze to her food, guessing that her daughter was simply hurt at the moment about her former friends' behavior. "Then we'll make a small party with just the four of us." She inwardly hoped that the girl would have found a new friend till then to invite.
"I don't need a party." Xing repeated and her brother was already contemplating that a party and celebrating a birthday was irrational in his sister's new train of thought.
That evening, the door to Tian's room opened and Xing walked in, finding her brother reading on his bed. "Mama is crying." She stated matter-of-factly and sat down next to the boy, who immediately put his arm around her shoulders.
"I know." Tian muttered and wiped a tear from his dark eyes. He had stared onto the very same page for the last half hour.
"I don't think I'm sick. I feel fine." Xing said after a long moment.
Her brother pulled her closer and pressed a kiss to her head. "I hope you're right."
Later that night, their parents came into their son's room and found both siblings asleep in each others' embrace. Linh smiled and stifled a sob at the cute sight. What would their son do if something happened to his sister – they loved each other deeply. Fa wrapped the blanket, he had fetched from Xing's bed, around his beautiful children's bodies and took his wife by the hand to lead her out of the room.
A/N: I hope you liked this chapter.
Concerning the sleep-data: I think it was ep 15/16 where we were told that Dolls have no measurable brain-activity during their sleep – also no dreaming for them, yet Kanami said that she guesses that those creatures DO dream, but they just can't collect any data with their devices. And we were already told before by Mao that Contractors also don't dream, officially – and Contractors are just some (unfinished) kind of Doll (see Gaiden).
Oh, and the restaurant they visited HAD to be a Pizza Hut, of course - those sometimes not so subtitle advertises for that certain fastfood chain popped up during the entire first season of DTB. My sis and I made a game out of it, who notices one of the ad-signs first while watching the show. In one episode there were even 5 'hidden' ads...
