Victor was annoyed. Here he was, confined to bed, when everyone else was being useful and curing all the Rinken patients. He hated feeling useless. Good old Victor was back to himself.
After being put through an hour of sitting contently and listening to everything Angie heard from her dad, the incident that had occurred in the alley, how Mia saved him with the Healing Touch and all about her background, he'd heard enough. He was a talker, not a listener. He grew very impatient as Dr. Clarks and Dr. Myers talked on, and on, and on, and on...
"Okay, I get it, she's an annoying brat that's a genius, big deal," Victor scowled.
"She saved your life, you should be thankful!" argued Cybil.
"I had Derminica... It pisses me off that I didn't notice sooner! Damnit, I'm smarter than that!" he shouted.
"We all know you're smart Victor; you don't have to prove anything to us. We just wanted you to know that Mia saved you, that's all. She was so worried she left something inside you when she closed you up, we couldn't get her to shut up until we showed her an X-ray and your charts!" she replied.
"Well if she's so 'smart', why didn't she figure out hmm? Because she's a stupid neko, that's why!"
"I thought you were interested in nekos, Victor," Dr. Clarks said, frowning.
"Well, I'm not. They've caused me nothing but trouble. I'm better at working with human patients, nekos are too bothersome," Victor lied. He was truly intrigued by them, but the Derminica had only aggravated his already sour attitude. Most of all, he wanted out of bed. Bed-rest was his worst enemy.
"Your inability to express your feelings in a positive way astounds me. I would think the smartest researcher, the head of the R&D section of Caduceus, would be more impressive," scoffed a neko man dressed in a suit as he entered the room. He was Mia's cousin by marriage.
Lusaka was a well-respected Rinken researcher, a figure many nekos looked up to. Humans admired him, but didn't truly enjoy his presence. He was social, but he was rude and his crude remarks and insults made him unpopular. He was very similar to Victor; he did all the talking, and he was annoyed by anyone less intelligent than himself. He was Victor in neko form!
Lusaka wore glasses with fine black rims, which he chose to accent his ice-colored eyes. He was 29, 3 years older than Victor, but not near as smart. He only specialized in Rinken, and though he was cocky and confident, he couldn't tell you the answer to any multiplication question thrown his way. He passed college, at Yale, with the lowest grades of everyone else, though he studied his butt off. It didn't matter, because the fact was that he was able to help Caduceus by conducting his own research.
Victor looked him up and down, taking mental inventory of what he saw. Lusaka was scrawny, even more so than Victor. He had short brown hair and calico-colored ears.
"Take a picture, it'll last longer," said Lusaka in a bored tone, picking at his fingernails. Cybil and Stephen immediately thought of Victor when they met Lusaka for the first time, but Victor hardly thought anything of this cocky neko man. He was nothing but more trouble.
"What does this look like, a circus? Go back to where you came from, R&D will be fine once I'm back in office," Victor scoffed.
"I'm only here to help," Lusaka replied firmly.
"Go take your help and shove it up your--"
"Victor!" screamed Cybil and Stephen in unison.
"I don't need your help..." mumbled Victor. "I don't need anyone's help..."
Lusaka cocked his head to the side. He caught a glimpse of the notes Victor was reviewing.
He snatched up the notes, flipping through them and chuckling as Victor growled for him to give them back.
"Hmm..." Lusaka scanned the notes intently, his eyes calm and focused. "It appears I was wrong."
"Pardon?" interrupted Clarks.
"I thought all along it was lead that killed the Rinken, not mercury..." he murmured. "My calcium chlorine remedy wasn't helping either... That explains why my patients were dying..."
"Human patients?" asked Victor. Lusaka nodded slowly.
"Idiot, calcium chlorine is a powerful acid, it's toxic to humans. If we get even a little on our hands, our skin is extremely irritated. Getting something like that on an internal organ is fatal; of course your patients were dying if that's what you used!"
"My assistant, Dr. Kvetch, wasn't very good... He was old, his hands were worn and they shook quite a bit... He always had trouble with the fast-moving Rinken, so he often nicked the patient's innards 6-10 times an operation..." Lusaka grumbled.
"Well, there's your explanation."
Lusaka silently accepted defeat, realizing Victor was right and he was wrong. He may be a specialist, but he had little experience with the actual virus. He only accompanied the operations, but he never got to do much research on the virus; human researchers instead took on this daunting task.
"Teach me," Lusaka said, thrusting the booklet on Rinken into Victor's chest. "Teach me everything, genius human."
OooooooO
Months passed. A new season had come; summer. Victor hated the humid weather and the sweat-shop he called a laboratory.
He worked day and night, never resting, and though he did not depend on anyone, everyone offered aid. He sometimes accepted, though he didn't know it, and everything was running smoothly.
Lusaka, instead of being the one taking Victor under his wing, wedged himself under Victor's. He learned fast, often asking his new mentor if he would review his findings and prescribe a treatment that would fit. More often than not they were discovering victims were infected with more than one strain, though it made the task of deciphering how strains worked together easier.
Mia had been treated of her Rinken, Lacerian, which had nearly taken her life. Her heart transplant was completely successful, performed by Dr. Stiles, but she had frightening symptoms now and again. (The heart transplant had to be performed due to the virus that had eaten away at it)
Mia, in Marie's footsteps, grew attached to both Victor and Derek. Victor seemed less interested in another brotherly relationship with a neko, but Derek was open and understanding. He taught her how to control her Healing Touch, and he gave her helpful advice so she could strengthen her medical skills.
Sidney grew accustomed to having Mia on staff at his hospital, and she seemed to be accepted by patient and staff-member alike.
Even Angie, who hadn't been fond of Marie, grew tolerant of Mia. Because Mia was shy and didn't often fight back, everyone just let her be and she did whatever she was told.
Unlike Lusaka, who thought he was perfect, Mia knew she wasn't. Though her success rate was high, that didn't mean she was constantly successful. She'd failed a total of 9 operations in her life-time.
Her issue was that she was not a fast-thinker. She paused occasionally, thinking things through, and in the cases where she lost the patient, the same thing had occurred.
She was discouraged by her losses, and she agreed that nothing was worse than having to tell a family their loved one was gone. She knew, because she'd been there, and she'd been told that too. Derek and she were very similar in that respect; their parents had been that terrifying word: untreatable...
"Mom, Dad!" Mia screamed, bawling.
"I'm sorry, young lady, but they're gone! We did everything we could!" shouted the doctor, grabbing her by the shoulders.
"How will I live without them?!" she cried.
"Mia!" roared Lusaka, smacking her across the face. "Shut up! You're going to be just fine! They may be gone, but you aren't yet!" He hugged her tightly, crying along with her. "I'm going to take care of you, Mia... I won't let anything happen to you..."
"L-Lusaka..." she whispered, crying in his shirt.
"We'll find what killed them together... I promise..."
That moment flashed back to her every time she performed an operation. Whether the vitals were high or low, that memory kept her on edge. She had no room for error, no space for mistake. If she screwed up, she would have to tell the family she'd failed. That is why she was determined to try, and that is why she never gave up, no matter how intimidating the task.
"Earth to Freak, are you in?" asked an irritated Victor.
"Yeah..." Mia answered glumly.
Victor's eyes softened. Mia's aura was almost undetectable, just as the nekos' aura had been in Nobutaki's neko tribe, but he still felt compelled to be kind and compassionate when around her. Mia was slowly growing on him as Marie had so long ago.
"What's eating at you?" he asked quietly, not wanting to alert anyone else that could possibly be listening that he was even slightly concerned.
"Just... it's so hard you know? To tell someone their dad or uncle or sister or friend is... incurable," she answered.
"I wouldn't know. But I've seen Stiles do it; it doesn't look easy. You get over it, people die. It's the flow of life," Victor stated, leaning back in his chair.
"Then why do you cling to Marie...?" Mia asked, prodding deeper into Victor's very soul.
"Excuse me?" he asked gruffly.
"Marie... why is it you can't let her go? If you just 'get over it', shouldn't it be easy?"
"Shut up. You don't understand," Victor growled, turning back to his research.
Mia sighed. She'd been trying for two months to get him to cough it up, but the stubborn researcher wouldn't budge. He kept to himself. No one knew about Victor Niguel except Victor Niguel.
"She was a really good friend, wasn't she?"
Victor paused. He turned to her, staring at her coldly. His lifeless eyes flickered with sadness.
"She was one of my very best friends," he answered emotionlessly.
"What happened to her? Did she go missing?" Mia asked.
"No," Victor said under his breath.
"Did she run away from home?"
"...No."
"C'mon, what happened?" Mia wagged her tail excitedly, anxiously awaiting an answer.
Victor was silent for many moments, drawing in choppy breaths. He finally mustered up his strength and decided he'd tell Mia the truth to get her off his back.
"...She died..."
Mia's tail ceased to sway contently. Her words caught in her throat, struggling to say something to comfort him. She had no idea the issue had been so personal, or this intense in severity; she felt like dirt for forcing it out of him.
"Victor, I..." she stammered.
"Don't," he commanded.
"But... it... how...?" she asked, her blue eyes staring widely at him.
"Marie was murdered... Her own father did it... He stabbed her to death... I was so damn helpless, I felt like a useless bastard, standing over her like a deer in front of headlights..." he murmured.
"I never knew..." Mia said, exasperated and dumbfounded.
"Whatever, that was almost a year ago, it's all in the past now," Victor said indifferently.
"It's still hurting you though, I can tell..." she reached for his hand and took it in hers, rubbing it soothingly.
Victor jerked it away, nearly snarling at her in disgust.
"Please, Victor, let me help you!" Mia cried.
"You can't help me! I don't need your help, or anyone else's! Just leave me the hell alone!" he roared.
"I can help you if you just give me a chance! Just let me try!" she shouted.
"No! You can't help me! No one can, especially not you!" he retorted angrily.
"Why not?!" she queried furiously.
"Because every time I look at you, I see HER!!" he exclaimed, storming out of the lab.
Mia was left, heart-broken and in tears. Nothing hurt worse than words, especially coming out of the mouth of someone in need, who simply refused to allow anyone into their life. His words cut into her like a sharp knife; she was deeply upset. Incapable of helping someone was the worst feeling she was capable of feeling.