Disclaimer: I don't
own the characters; I'm not using this for money, Yatsa, Yatsa, and Yatsa.
-*-*-
Discovering the
Past of
Lucas Hunter
Wolenczak
Part Two
-*-*-
So, Lucas,
as you now know, you had everyone wondering what was wrong with you. Every crewmen and officer who knew you was
trying to figure out what was wrong with you. Most of the ideas could have set you off, but there was something I
sensed with you. It wasn't something we
knew about. And whatever it was, I
didn't know if we could fix it.
-*-*-
"Found it!"
Joshua Levine yelled. He was in
Kristin's office, helping to rip it apart to find the file, and, of course, it
had been right under their noses the entire time. It was sitting on top of a box, front down, so the name couldn't
be read.
"Great! I'm going to start putting my office back
together. Do me a favor. There's an icon on the desktop that reads
Med Files. Click it and go down to
Lucas' name. From there just put in all
the codes." Kristin said, moving to pick up some things from the floor. She nearly tripped on a vid and she wondered
what it was. She put it into the player
and rewound it. She hit play and her
heart leap into her throat as she watched the image of Lawrence Wolenczak hit
Lucas and the boy fell to the floor.
While Kristin watched a security
tape from World Power, Joshua started to type the page of codes, and he smiled
at how Lucas had to have been a normal little boy at one point. Most of the codes were broken or sprained
arms or legs. He simply thought that
Lucas must have been an active kid with lots of friends – until he turned the
page over and saw two more pages, and most of them weren't normal kid injuries.
Joshua
looked at Kristin, as the woman looked at him. Neither of them liked what they just found out.
-*-*-
"Nathan, we
need to talk – right now!" Kristin said, running on to the bridge. In her hands, she held both the vid and
Lucas' file. Joshua was right behind
her, still a bit stunned to even say anything.
"Whoa
there, Kristin. What's the matter?" He
asked.
She held up
what she was holding, "This is what's the matter."
"Sir, we
have a call coming in from Dr. Wolenczak."
"And he is
what's the matter!" Kristin yelled across the bridge.
-*-*-
Kristin sat
down in the wardroom, still trying to calm herself down. It was rare for her to have an outburst like
that – and on the bridge of all places, but she didn't want Lucas to even
acknowledge Lawrence after what she'd seen. If she could, she would wring Lawrence's neck.
Nathan sat
down across from her, and Joshua sat next to Kristin.
"Okay. Now explain yourself." Nathan said to her.
Kristin drew
in a breath, and although still seething, forced her self to speak in a normal
tone, "Joshua found Lucas' medical file, after ripping my office to
pieces. So while I cleaned up…"
-*-*-
So there it was, Lucas. I got to learn about your past from Dr. Westphalen and Dr. Levine. I couldn't believe what I'd heard, and to know that you were talking to Lawrence at that moment made me sick. I had no idea what he was saying to you, or what he might ask you to do.
Kristin's
anger and Joshua's sadness had transferred to me, and I was more then tempted
to call the Bridge to have them cut the call from him, but I was still the
captain so I had to act like one – even though every inch of my body was
screaming to kill Lawrence, to end your pain, to fix whatever was wrong.
-*-*-
Lucas sat
back on his bed. He'd rushed through
the call from his father, and then thought for a few minutes. He stood up and
looked around his quarters. It was a
total mess. Clothing and things were
tossed here and there, and he started to clean. It was something he rarely did – he only cleaned up after a
conversation with Lawrence and only because he didn't want to think of his
father or his mother. However, of the
two adults, his mother had the decency of not trying to contact him.
A knock on
the door startled him, "Come in!"
Nathan
pushed the door open and walked in, "Has Hell frozen over or is it a blue
moon?"
Lucas
laughed at the comment, "I think Hell's frozen over."
Nathan
smiled and sat down, while Lucas continued to clean, "So, what brought this
on?"
"Nothing."
"Oh,
really…"
"Really."
Lucas was starting to get defensive.
"You just
decided out of nowhere that you, a teenager, was going to clean his room when he
had the excuse of helping Dr. Westphalen with an experiment?"
"Yes! Alright, can we get off the topic?! I've heard enough of you yelling at me! Is there a problem with me wanting to clean
my room?!" Lucas suddenly regained the attitude he'd had earlier.
Nathan was
surprised, but knew he'd provoked it, "Sorry, Lucas. I didn't mean to get you angry."
"Could you
please leave?" Lucas said, regaining his calm.
"Okay, but
I want to talk to you later."
Lucas
nodded his head, and the older man left.
-*-*-
I left your
quarters with a sense of renewed anger towards Lawrence. I figured that you were cleaning so you
wouldn't have to think about him, and I'd just been trying to get you to say
something. I didn't want you to think
that I was mad at you or mocking you, because I wasn't. I just wanted to hear you say it, so I could
believe it.
-*-*-
"Did you
talk to him?" Kristin asked, as he walked into her office.
"No. Well, I did but not about what your
thinking." He said, sitting down.
"We'll one of
us is going to have to talk to him, because I'm not going to let Lawrence take
him off this boat." Kristin said. She
sighed, "I can't let Lawrence hurt him again."
Nathan
hugged her knowing what she was thinking – Lucas was like their son.
-*-*-
Lucas
walked down the corridor towards Nathan's quarters. The door was open, and the teen peered in. Nathan was sitting at his desk, writing out
a letter (Or so Lucas thought) and listening to some soft music. "Sir?"
Nathan
looked up, "Lucas. I didn't think you
were going to show up." It was well after midnight.
"I couldn't
get to sleep, so I figured I might as well get this talk over with. So what did I do this time?"
Nathan
shook his head, "Not you. I want to
talk to you about your father."
"What about
him?" Lucas was beginning to get defensive again.
"What's he
like?"
"He's a man
who puts his career before his son."
"No,
Lucas." Nathan picked up the file from his desk, "Kristin and Levine found it."
Lucas'
hands grew shaky. Hesitantly, he took the
file and looked at it. He hated this
thing. Really, truly hated it – almost
as much as he hated his father. He felt
the urge to cry, but held it check, and instead, he let his only defense take
over. "So what? It's just a bunch of papers! They don't mean anything! You know what, I'm going to bed." He walked
out of the Captain's cabin.
-*-*-
I was
quickly catching on to your mood. You
were only defensive and talked back and yelled when we got too close to
figuring out your past. And now that we
had, I didn't know if I should leave you to cool off or go find you. I chose the latter.
-*-*-
"Lucas?" Nathan knocked on the teenager's quarters door, "You in there?"
Ben
appeared behind the man, "If you're looking for a certain blond teenage genius,
I just saw him heading toward the moonpool."
Nathan turned around,
"Thanks." He edged past Ben, and headed down the hall, his feet slamming on to
the deck as he ran. Finally, he jumped
through the door and looked around. Sighing with relief, he watched as Lucas emerged from the changing room
in a wetsuit, and entered the pool. He
looked up and saw Nathan watching him.
"What now?" Lucas asked, tired and pale.
"Are you okay, kiddo? You don't look so good." He asked, walking over to the side of the pool to get the full view of him.
"Yeah. I'm just tired." Lucas looked up at him,
"What do you want?"
"Nothing. I just wanted to check on you. I didn't want you to think I was mad at
you."
Lucas nodded, "I know. I would just prefer if you left this alone. I'll be eighteen in a few years then my
father won't be able to do anything to me."
"True. But there's still two years that anything can happen…I just don't want you get hurt anymore."
"I…nevermind."
"No, what?"
"It's nothing."
"It's okay. I won't tell anyone."
Lucas sighed, "Sometimes I wish you and Kristin were my parents."
Nathan smiled, "It could happen. But it would have to be decided in a court and you would have to face them again. I'm not sure if I want you to do that."
"There's
another way, isn't there? Doesn't the
military handle things like this for their people?"
"Yes, but you aren't military
personnel."
"Technically I am, and both of them work for the military in some way. He has World Power and she has some grant from the Navy to help build a new type of surface warfare vessel."
"That might work." Nathan looked down at my shoes, "I never thought you'd be able to talk about it this way. I mean to think of ways to get away from them without getting mad at us."
Lucas looked at him sheepishly, "I kinda swallowed an entire bottle of something."
"What was it?"
"I can't remember." He replied, before being dragged out of the pool by Nathan and losing consciousness.
-*-*-
I felt like I had been stabbed in the chest. I could lose you. I already lost my wife and my son, and now I could lose my second son. I wanted to scream until everything was right in the world and cry forever.
Kristin did manage to get every last bit of what was in your stomach out, but a large portion got absorbed into your bloodstream. We were both afraid that whatever you took could damage your body. And we had no idea what you took. Ben found out though. He heard and immediately went looking through your things. Your room went from clean to disaster area in less then two seconds.
He found the bottle in one of your desk drawers, and brought it to us. Kristin immediately identified it as the missing bottle of ibprophan, and you would probably be okay since she'd gotten most of it out of you.
-*-*-
"Hey, kiddo."
Lucas
looked around to see where the voice had come from, "Captain?"
Nathan nodded, "Feeling
better?"
"Yes. Except for this headache. Ironic, isn't it?"
Nathan shook his head, "Why?"
Lucas closed his eyes, "Because
I can't live anymore." He whispered.
"Why can't you?"
"No one would ever take me from my father or my mother. They both have the best lawyers in the world, and they would discredit any proof I had."
Nathan thought, "Lucas, how many times were you at World Power?"
"I dunno. Eight, nine times." He answered.
"Kristin didn't just find your med file, Lucas, she found a vid from World Power. It was a security tape. If Lawrence taped everything, then there would be proof that you couldn't have done anything to."
"But he could argue that I…"
"He can't argue anything! Security tapes can't be doctored, you know that. It would leave behind a mark on the disc to show if it had been doctored, which means that we have a case, Lucas. You have a chance."
"I have a chance." He murmured, and then smiled, "I have a chance."
-*-*-
Now we had proof, but the task now was to get together whatever else we could to give to the UEO. I was going to get them away from you – and I wasn't going to let them get away with what they had done.
-*-*-
A few days later, while Kristin and Nathan were in her office looking through his med file for dates to coincide with dates that Lucas and Lawrence were together, Lucas managed to walked out of Medbay. He was tired of being babied, although having everything given to him was great, but he wanted to hang out with Ben for a little while.
He made his way to his friend's quarters, and knocked on the door. Ben flung it open and looked with wide eyes at Lucas, "What's the matter?"
"Nothing. I was just bored. The Captain and Dr. Westphalen are working on something, so I figured I could hang out with you for a little while."
Ben nodded, "Yeah. Come on. We were just waiting for a fourth for poker." He pulled the teen into the room, where Tim and Miguel were sitting.
"Hey, Lucas! How's the royal treatment been?" Miguel teased.
Lucas sat down, as Tim dealt the cards, "It's been interesting. I didn't think I could get whatever I wanted if I asked."
The three men looked at each other wearily. This was going to be an interesting game.
-*-*-
Cassie Jamie
And?