May 29, 2010
- Carol -
It would figure that the second Carol leaves the infirmary to shower upstairs is the moment when her injured son finally wakes. The yelling from the stairs is something she can hear even over the shower. Luckily, it's Scout that came to fetch her, since she steps right out of the shower even as her daughter is relaying the news.
Toweling off isn't anything thorough, and she just skips underclothing entirely. Shimmying her still damp body into jeans and a shirt, she follows Scout down the stairs. The sight she sees is the best one since the nightmare began: Logan's confused green eyes blinking up at Cricket as she runs through a neuro exam.
"Logan? Mama is here," Cricket says, but the confusion doesn't clear. His eyes track to Cricket, but he doesn't look at Carol at all.
"Sweetheart? Can you speak?" Carol asks, her heart sinking when Logan doesn't respond.
"Can you trade sides with me?" Cricket requests, expression solemn. "Logan, Mama is going to come to this side of the bed."
As soon as Carol comes into view on her son's left side, his expression shifts, and he fights to speak. It's garbled at first, but then, clearly, "Honey."
"We haven't found her." Four days missing, and their teams have put down walker after walker in an increasing grid of search. None were her daughter.
Logan frowns, squeezing Carol's hand painfully when she takes his. "Taken."
That single word makes her blood turn to ice. Carol turns to Scout, seeing those pale blue eyes narrow. She eases close to Carol. "Did you see who attacked, che'lu?"
"Dark men." He frowns, wincing as the motion tugs on the damage to the left side of his head. "Dark clothes… uh… cowhide."
"Leather?" Scout asks, tone sweet and gentle.
"Leather. Killed men. Taken." Logan sobs softly. "Danny."
His oldest sister slips around Carol to gently stroke Logan's uninjured right cheek. "I know, baby brother. We'll find them, and they'll pay for that."
By now, there are others slipping into the room, and Carol catches Shane mouthing for 'direction?'. The others were found where the road went in four directions. Their best trackers haven't found anything on the ground to indicate direction, but they didn't expect to. With the trucks missing, obviously the attackers stayed on the weather rough remaining pavement.
"Logan? Did you see what direction they left in?" Carol inquires, patting her free hand along his forearm.
It takes a minute for Logan to process either the question or the response. "Capitol."
That's what they need to know, a better direction than all four of them. Scout leans in and presses a kiss to his cheek. "You are amazing, kiddo. You get better while we find Honey."
Then she's gone, dragging many of the onlookers with her on a single stern glance. Carol feels a chair slide in behind her, and she sits, glancing up to see Merle. They both soothe Logan until he falls back asleep. Once that happens, Carol switches out with Sophia, letting their daughter watch over the younger sibling.
Gathering at the end of the small infirmary, they watch Cricket finish her radio consultation. The young doctor looks distressed, and not for the first time, Carol wishes a damned neurologist survived the outbreak. Emmett saved Logan's life, working alongside Cricket and Carol, but the injuries to the teen's torso were the elder Dr. Carson's specialty.
"We think he has damage to the left parietal lobe, based on the complete lack of any awareness of the right side of his body. He isn't paralyzed and moves his limbs, but there's no sensation or awareness that half his body even exists."
Carol's mind races, trying to remember the parietal lobes' function. With so little ability to heal it, she isn't as familiar. "It's the connector part of the brain right?"
"Sort of. It processes touch, pressure, pain, and spatial perception. But it plays a part in visual processing as well. With the left side damaged, he just doesn't know there are two halves of his body anymore. I'll need more testing to determine how bad it is, once he's not so tired or distressed."
"Is that what is affecting his speech?" Merle's voice sounds bleak, reminding Carol this isn't the first time he's dealt with a brain injured child.
"Possibly. But left lobe parietal damage should affect speech more. Denise suggested possible frontal lobe involvement. We'll need to wait and see if the speech problem is expressive aphasia or something worse."
"Once you find out if he can read and write," Merle clarifies, expression haggard. The last few days are the first time she's ever thought her husband looked his fifty-plus years.
Cricket smiles sadly. "Yes. And whether or not he remembers how to do math, tell right from left, and follow directions. Every physician we have is researching, Daddy, I promise you that."
Merle pulls Cricket into a lingering hug, but lets her go back to Logan after a minute. Carol steps in for mutual comfort. "We'll fix this, Merle. And what can't be fixed, we'll work around it."
He presses a firm kiss against her temple. "We will. I'm gonna go join the search teams. Guard our boy well."
Carol just smiles grimly, patting her holster. "In every way."
- Jazz -
Jazz's team is south of Hilltop by the time Logan wakes and gives a direction to search. He pauses after hanging up the radio mike, frowning. It's late enough in the day that the southern searchers are supposed to meet up tomorrow at Alexandria to join in the renewed search with DC as the focus.
It's been years since all radio communication was done in Chamorro, but he's glad they kept up teaching it. Right now, only medical personnel are permitted English over the airwaves. Reminding himself to suggest they stick to the radio-email because three vehicles with their radios disappeared, he goes to relay the message.
It's a quiet caravan that returns. Despite the fact that these marauders took down three of their best teams, they're still searching in groups of twelve. But instead of cargo trucks and light body armor, now they look like Homestead did when they went to war with Woodbury.
The line of Humvees pulls into Hilltop, and he sees with gratitude that Paul's teams actually made it back first. Jazz goes through the standard procedures though even though his mind all but aches with the need to go see with his own two eyes that his husband is here. It is ironic, all the knowledge he has about human psychology that babbles in the back of his head about fear of loss.
His sister was the first one to ever discuss loss with him. Now Honey is somewhere unknown, probably captive, and considering she killed at least two of the attackers based on the karambit wounds, probably being tortured or punished. The idea makes his skin crawl, touch sensitivity firing in ways it hasn't in years.
That's not just about Honey, though. Logan is his brother and his apprentice, and now, at only seventeen, he may face limitations that make Jazz's own look simple.
Once he's certain everything is in order, Jazz goes looking for Paul and their son. It doesn't surprise him to find his husband already home, with MJ curled against his chest. At two, the toddler doesn't understand why his favorite aunt is missing or why everyone is so distraught and out of sorts.
MJ just tries to fix things the only way he knows how: clinging hugs and wet kisses.
Sitting next to Paul, Jazz drags both of them into his arms, glad that his sheer size makes it feasible and easy. He wishes protecting them from the dangers of the world was as possible.
"We'll find her," Paul says softly. "And as horrible as kidnapped sounds, it means they wanted her alive for some reason, so that's hopeful. It's Honey. Give her an inch, and she'll take the entire continent, you know that."
His husband loves Honey as fiercely as Jazz does, and Paul's words are accurate. The only sibling worse for them to snatch up would be Scout and her formal military training. Honey may not have gone to Parris Island and donned a Marine uniform officially, but between Scout, Tim, and Abraham, she's as prepared as any of the former military to be captured.
"Might find her in charge of the bandits by the time we get there," Jazz replies, trying for light hearted. If the group are scared strangers, maybe. Not if it's the madman from New York that everyone fears it is. "We need to send for the Oceanside leaders."
The group of women and children claimed asylum with the Allied Communities and took the offer of settlement further south in Georgia did so with obvious relief. But he knows the two women leaders might be useful here, because no matter how much detail a person thinks they write down, things get missed. Jazz needs to talk to them himself.
"The two leaders are at Tybee, right?"
"Yeah. I'll radio Beth after supper. If they sail the coast, it'll be faster than the roads."
There are reasons for boats and trains transporting long distance supplies now. While they do what they can to keep the roads passable, the Southern climate still grinds its way through what no longer has thousands of laborers and specialized equipment to keep in good repair.
The only vehicles they run anymore are modified to handle what's essentially offroading half the time they travel. In Georgia, they've begun projects to run parallel roadways safe for horse, mule, and water buffalo pulled wagons. By the time MJ is grown, Jazz thinks most of the paved latticework of roads from before the Outbreak will be memories, only the decaying concrete structures of the interstates remaining visible but unpassable.
MJ raises his head up, blinking sleepily. His blue eyes are pure Paul, a deeper and more vivid blue than Jazz's paler eyes. He reaches out to smooth the wild black curls, letting the way his son leans into the contact be a bandage to the grief and outrage boiling in the back of his mind.
High emotion isn't going to help find his sister or settle justice for the eleven dead and Logan's devastating injuries.
"How was Eugene today?"
Honey's husband in everything but official name seems like Jazz would be if Paul were missing… like half of himself is gone. Already often distractable and loquacious, those traits amplify when he is in distress like he is now.
"Oddly focused today. I know I worried about him leading his field team, but Honey chose well for who responds to him as a team leader."
"He's trained alongside her for years. It's a sort of mental muscle memory at this point, I think."
Paul thinks that over and nods, his hair catching against Jazz's beard. A couple of days of foregoing trimming it to the neat form he prefers, and he's halfway to the full beard Paul sports, it seems like. The scampering odd thought reminds Jazz that Eugene isn't the only one whose mind pinballs around under stress.
"Mama is going to want to take Logan home with her, once we find Honey." Focusing takes an act of firm mental effort.
"I can't blame her, but he may not want to go if Honey stays here."
Officially, Logan's adoption to Jazz's parents makes him a sibling, but the reality is that if Paul and Honey were older when they found him, he would probably be Jazz's nephew/adopted son instead. No one was surprised in the least when he chose Hilltop for his apprenticeship.
"She may go too." They have no idea what Honey will be coping with. Even if it's only losing her teams, that is going to rip her to shreds. Her people are her responsibility, and she's a Dixon. They take that seriously.
"Then we pack up and follow."
The confident statement strikes a chord with Jazz. Hilltop will function easily without them, easily electing another council member to replace Jazz. The veterinarian at the Kingdom is capable of covering both there and Hilltop.
"Of course we will."
Despite the confidence of planning for a future with Honey back and helping Logan, when he goes down the hall to the bathroom, Jazz finds himself eyeing the ladder to the loft bedroom. He makes the climb, observing the typical teenage maleness of Logan's quarters and feeling his chest burn molten hot with rage and grief.
How fucking dare these bastards kill their people, take Danny from them forever, and ruin a brilliant teenager's promising life? Honey is strong and an adult leader who knew the chances her profession entailed. Somehow, he knows she'll survive this.
But Logan? He's still a kid in many ways, in no rush for adulthood the way the teens Jazz's age grew up too hard and fast during the Outbreak. Jazz wanted him to have those last years of careless happiness.
Now they're gone, and all he can do is join the hunt to make someone pay for it.
- Eugene -
Eugene makes his escape from well-meaning Hilltoppers as soon as he can. Where they have an innate need to congregate and comfort each other, he needs time alone to try to come to terms with another day of fruitless searching. It's worse today, because now they suspect the Hilltop searchers were headed in the wrong direction.
Logan's head injury is something Eugene normally would bury himself in researching, joining the dozen or so physicians trying to find a solution to improve the boy's miraculous survival. But he knows better than to try to research when this restless energy crawls beneath his skin. It feels like an addict's withdrawals, and he regrets youthful bitchiness in thinking that addicts needed to set their mind to recovering.
Does it really matter that his addiction is six feet tall and covered in tattoos and piercings instead of a powder or pill?
That train of thought leads him to the bottle on the kitchen island, reminding himself that the anxiety medication Harlan's assistant gave him is just a temporary fix but absolutely needed. Once Honey is returned to her rightful place in the world, he won't need the assistance. He never has, since she came into his life.
"Abigail?"
His apprentice doesn't respond, so he takes the time to climb the stairs. Abby's room is empty, and he realizes Augustus is nowhere to be seen either. They said she asked to go home, and her disappearing is worrying. He remembers that farewell kiss to Danny, and Abby's always been closest to Honey of all her extended family. It's a double whammy for the seventeen year old.
Looking out her bedroom window across the backyard, which covers a half acre between the cottage and the original timber exterior wall for Hilltop, Eugene sees that the greenhouse door is ajar. Considering his own habit of seeking solace among the plants lately, he heads outside. Opening the door wider, he finds Abby more by seeing Augustus's aged frame standing guard as actually seeing the blonde.
"Abigail?"
The answer is the girl not muffling her tears, so he ventures inside. Had she requested to be alone, he would have respected that request. She's been his apprentice for a year, and he knows that despite the lack of biological ties, Abby is independent Dixon through and through normally.
Eugene finds her huddled on the wicker glider loveseat, arms folded around her knees as she cries quietly. Taking the seat beside her, he sets the thing to rock, hoping the repetitive motion soothes her the way it does him.
Augustus whines and drops his big head on Eugene's knee, letting the gliding motion rock him, too. He thinks if the dog were any smaller, he would crawl into Eugene's lap.
"Did you hear Logan woke up?" he asks, keeping his voice carefully soft and even.
She shakes her head, wiping her eyes. "No. Is he going to be okay?"
The teens grew up together, bright little blondes among the wealth of dark haired Dixons. Even as apprentices, they stand out here at Hilltop, natural leaders with their ease with people that Eugene sometimes envies. It makes the news especially hard, trying to consider the challenges Logan will face.
"He'll live, but they think there was some damage to his brain from the head wound."
Abby straightens, coming into intense focus on Eugene. "How bad? My dad had brain damage once, you know. He got better."
Considering the legacy Daryl still has from that injury, Eugene feels both hopeful and not. "They aren't sure yet. Speech is affected and more, but he isn't paralyzed, at least."
She thinks it over. "Could I go to Alexandria?"
If it was entirely up to Eugene, she would already be there. It was Daryl's request that kept Abby in the better security of Hilltop. "I'll ask. They may move him, now that he's awake."
Probably not as far as Georgia yet, but Solomons' research facilities are more remote and secure than Alexandria with Logan indicating DC as the area of interest. He doesn't add that it doesn't feel like he has the final decision, even though technically during her apprenticeship, he's supposed to. No sane man would invoke that clause with Daryl right now.
"I need to tell you something. Was going to tell you soon, anyway." She falls silent though, looking miserable. "Was going to have to leave my apprenticeship."
It's a distraction from the aching absence of Honey, at least. "Why?"
Abby clears her throat. "I'm pregnant. Dr. Carson says nine weeks in."
Jesus, poor kid. No wonder Danny's death is gutting her. As much as they've tried to keep pace with contraceptives, some they can't recreate. Others are unreliable from age, and whatever Abby utilized was between her and Honey and probably Lori.
"Being pregnant wouldn't stop the apprenticeship, unless you just want it to. We have plenty of things to cover that would be pregnancy safe." That's actually an area he's sure about, because they've made those assessments before. Technically, there's only seven more months on Abby's apprenticeship, since she waited a few months past her birthday to travel north.
"Really?" She sounds so damned hopeful. "Even having a baby in the house?"
"I have no problem having a baby in the house, and neither would Honey."
Abby sniffles just a little. "I thought maybe, because y'all don't have kids…"
Eugene manages a smile he hopes reassures her. "That doesn't mean we don't like babies around, Abby, just because we don't choose to have them ourselves."
Honey honors his continued wish not to risk his own genetics being passed on. While he's been open to her having all the babies she likes, and finding a donor would be easy enough, when the subject arises, she's always said she's young enough yet not to worry about it. It's true enough, since she won't be twenty-five until July.
He strongly suspects she likes the freedom of borrowing MJ or Olivia's children (or both) to spoil and send home. It is the best of both worlds in his eyes, at least.
"Mama will want me to come home."
That's true enough. Lori is going to want her pregnant daughter close by and under Cricket's care. But Abby's over sixteen, so in the end, it's her choice.
"If that's what you decide is best, then we'll figure out how we continue your training. Sophia can help with a lot of it, and you know Merle knows more than enough, even if he doesn't deem himself an engineer." Sophia was his first Dixon apprentice, because he doesn't count teaching Honey anything she asked. Eugene is confident that the older blonde can finish her cousin's training.
"I guess so." Abby reaches out to hug him, and she's family, so it doesn't make him edge away. They rock for a while, his feet pushing the glider. "I miss Honey."
That jolts the aching pain back to the surface, flipping his emotions hard. But Eugene takes a deep breath, reminding himself that legally adult or not, Abby is still enough of a child to need even his weak comfort. "Me too."
It seems to be all she needs. They both stay in the greenhouse full of the plants he coaxes to live in foreign climates, breathing in the scent of the literal tea garden and letting it remind them of the missing piece that he built it for in the first place. Augustus, old years beyond the norm for his breed, watches Eugene with mournful, trusting eyes.
Honey will be found. Eugene refuses to believe anything else where the other half of his soul is concerned.
A/N: There are therapies to help Logan's issues, but no actual full cure. He'll always have some perception loss of that side of his body. The concern about reading, math, and left/right is due to Gerstmann's syndrome which can occur with damage to thr dominant parietal lobe.
The speech issues will recover better. Ironically, music therapy can help expressive aphasia, because singing is on the other side of the brain versus speech.