Disclaimer: see first chapter.

Comments are always welcome.

Life Lessons

By, Nicole Silverwolf

Steve didn't have the audacity to challenge the efficiency with which Howard got the boy washed. And any disparaging comments were lost as the seriousness of the situation and the health of the boy were put to the fore.

The soot, dirt, grease and grime that had covered the child from head to foot had given his skin a darker tinge. But as the water washed the layers away it became obviously apparent that the skin was incredibly pale, not completely due to the fact that the boy was sick. Each rib was slightly visible, a pale shadow against a smooth chest, collar and elbow bones sticking out at almost painful angles.

Ray had, sometime during the bath, disappeared but had returned by the time they had finished with his smallest pair of sweatpants. Also curled in his hands were both a thin tee shirt and a thicker sweatshirt emblazoned with his college--Carnegie Mellon--on the front.

"I didn't think you'd have anything small enough for him. I'm the smallest guy on the ship so..." he started uncertainly as he held the items out. They were soft and worn, obviously things he had had for some time. And from their soft texture also well loved.

"Smart thinking Ray. Think you can get him into them?" Howard asked, hefting a bundle of white in his arms. The boy--who had not woken the entire time--was carefully wrapped in a think towel, feet sticking out at one end and a long twisted rope of chestnut at the other. Unbraided it had been washed and looked as if it were still dirty--dark with moisture as it was.

"Ummmm, I don't know jack-shit about kids Howard." Ray eyed the bundle like a poisonous snake that would jump out and bite him at a moment's notice.

"The boy's unconscious Ray...it ain't that hard," Steve retorted from the doorway.

Howard wasn't nearly as fussy about it and gently (but unceremoniously) plopped the boy into Ray's arms. "So now you'll learn. Never know when you'll need to take care of a sick kid of your own."

So with a little tutelage from both Howard and Steve (and one near disaster later) the little unnamed bundle was curled back in the bed. The loose gray pants and dark blue, oversized t-shirt were huge on the tiny child but by rolling the ends on the pant legs and the arm holes they exposed the feet and most of the arms. The two inexperienced men observed as Steve reinserted the IV and slid his hand up under the boy's forehead to check the temperature.

"I think it went up a bit."

"Crap."

"Get some rubbing alcohol--ethanol--if you don't have anything like it. A wash cloth and bowl too."

Howard rolled off his seat and went in search of the called for items.

And so the rest if the night wore on--each person alternately giving alcohol rubs and using cold compresses to try and combat the raging fever. Perhaps what so bothered the others was the boy's absolute stillness. The whole night passed without a twitch from the form ensconced in blankets and IV's. It served to accentuate the graveness of the illness which gripped him. Barely anyone else spoke and the only change was that around 0600 Kerry showed back up. Exactly four hours from her last visit, though it looked as if those hours had not been spent in sleep.

Shoeing both Steve and Ray out to bed around eight she could hardly tell Howard to sleep. Where exactly should she tell him to go? Most of the female crew wouldn't appreciate it if she told him to take her bunk. And the rest of the quarters were full at the moment. But she doubted that she could get Howard to leave on her own. One of the more deceptively stubborn people Kerry had ever met, she doubted that unless she could move the entire ship...Howard would go on doing whatever he had to do.

So he had taken up residence near the head of the bed while Kerry alternated between sitting next to him to pacing back and forth. Occasionally she would check her messages, which provided her the most reliable information about the ship.

Awkwardly she broke the silence. "I'm going to find some breakfast and pick up some stronger antibiotics. As I expected he's got pneumonia now and I'd like to treat him a bit more aggressively than we already have been."

Brown eyes narrowed dangerously. Maybe he thought there was something she was holding back. Perhaps he simply wanted to break the unnatural silence. Or perhaps stir up some trouble.

"You not telling me something about this kid Kerry?"

The tone was off in Kerry's mind for a question--almost a threat but not really--softened by the fact that it was Howard whom Kerry had little fear of. She rose to take the bait in any case.

"Is there something you're not telling me Howard? You don't act this concerned usually," she pointed out. 'What's different about this kid?' The unspoken question that appeared in midair.

"It's none of your business Doctor," the use of the title and the tone indicating the exchange was closed.

Her dark eyes clouded in confused anger for a moment. It wasn't really directed at anyone in particular but she was upset. What exactly had she said to make her captain clam up so fast?

"Yes sir," she responded quietly, letting a little of the worry seep through. With one searching, long gaze she headed out.

A troubled expression followed her out the door.

Alone except for the beeps and the pained wheezing of a very sick boy Howard reached out and switched the cold compress, though it had plenty of cold water still trapped in it.

With what little skill he had in the area he had messily re-braided the obviously precious hair and had tied it off with an offending piece of string that had been haunting his desk for over a month.

Watching the labored rise and fall of the chest from an arm's length away Howard had the distinct uncomfortable feeling that comes with forced and unnatural silence.

Having seen the boy for only a few lucid moments he really had no basis for comparison. But some gut instinct and a rather dubious first impression told him that this forced stillness was uncomfortably wrong. His understanding of children in total was that they were bundles of energy. The obvious illness shattered that truth and made it seem all the more eerie.

A brief, if miniscule movement--the first in literally hours--was enough to bring the older man from his revere. A pinched brow, a pained expression on an otherwise slack face and a gentle roll/almost thrash that left a face turned to the side. But it pinned down the incredible loneliness that filled the room.

Howard let quiet, watchful brown eyes linger on the boy for a very long moment, a type of internal debate hidden behind the intelligent depths. So it was quiet as he reached out and gently took a slack hand into his and gently rubbed his thumb over it. From a mechanical, strictly medical standpoint there wasn't any reason for the action. From every other standpoint it was rather significant.

"So what's your story kid...and who the hell decided that I deserved a second chance?"

He half expected a response even though he knew there couldn't be one. "You just get better...we'll decide where to go from there."

A quiet tiny whine and silence were his only replies.

There was no real second in command of the Sweepers--rather an elaborate cabinet of elder Sweepers--who complimented each other and led where the others faltered. Steve held most of the responsibility and sway since he was so amiable and known by quite literally everyone on the crew and in several of the other Sweeper crews scattered around the colonies and Earth. Unfortunately he had no knowledge of shipping etiquette or how to handle traders. That duty had fallen to Kerry and several others who upon occasion had to deal with other ships and traders while Howard was occupied with other activities.

Kerry paced back and forth on the main deck...trying to resolve internally whether or not to go back to Howard's cabin while knowing that she had been rather neatly dismissed. Something was going on with this kid but it wasn't really apparent what.

She hated unsolved puzzles.

Absolutely couldn't stand not to know the answer or at least the reason. And this particular one was toying at the back of her thoughts incessantly.

Steve watched from not too far away, perched backwards on a chair, dangling by only two of the four rungs.

"So you know what's going on?"

"Not really," he admitted. "It has to do with stuff from before any of us were aboard. Beyond that..." he gestured vaguely to point out that he didn't really know.

"Should we tell the crew?"

"They'll know in a day anyway."

"Still..."

"If Howard wants to he will. It's not our place to decide on what he talks about with the crew."

Kerry had stopped her pacing and stared out the window--eyes fixated on the Earth and a few colonies visible through the port.

"Maybe."

They mutually decided to drop the subject. "There aren't any ships in the area are there?"

"No, not for a while," she responded. "The crew is busy with their own projects. So until Howard comes back on full rotation we're basically free. Dive into the repair bin and find something to do until then."

With that she spun and headed back out the door, heading back towards Howard's quarters.

"Where you goin?"

She held up a brown bottle obviously filled with medicine. "Pneumonia like I figured, stronger antibiotics like he needs."

Several days passed in much the same fashion. As Steve had predicted, the entire crew knew within a day what was happening and about the mysterious sick stowaway being kept in Howard's quarters. Rumors were also flying like none other. Howard would not volunteer any details and strangely neither did the other three--Ray included.

Each of them rotated off to try and keep the boy's temperature down. Kerry periodically came in to check or change things even when she wasn't on duty. Unsurprisingly Howard spent much of his time in the same position. And after the second afternoon she was surprised and pleased to announce that the boy's fever had indeed broken.

It didn't mean he was out of the woods...but she had been worried that they would have to resort to ice baths to deal with it. High fevers for prolonged periods of time were very detrimental. But it would only threaten slightly at this point.

The boy moved now as well, rolling from side to side weakly and spontaneously opening his eyes, though he couldn't really see. The rattle in the boy's chest was still quite severe though, Kerry's biggest concern now.

Howard was usually found dozing in a chair at the head of the bed which had become his spot during that first night. Even when he wasn't on duty--during the evening especially-Kerry found him perched calmly in the chair since there weren't many places for him to go to sleep. So he sat with reports or a book or--like Steve--with something from the repair bin. Since things were always breaking on the ship they provided something to do for many of the crew members. And most of the mechanics on the ship liked to pull things apart if only to figure out how it worked and to put them back together.

It was one of these puzzles that so intrigued him at the moment. A part of a turbine lay with its wire innards exposed on the worktable in front of him. Intent on the circuitry it was only by chance that he looked up.

He couldn't contain the surprise of seeing two lucid indigo-violet eyes watching him from over the lip of the bed where he had been propped on pillows to ease his breathing. The bed itself was really nothing more than a glorified box with a mattress sunk into it. But it was still comfortable.

"Well, you're awake. You must be feeling a little better."

Waking up for Duo was one of the more confusing experiences of his short almost eleven years of life. He knew he should've been cold and miserable. Wasn't he still in the cargo hold of that ship?

He should've been there.

But he was warm.

And he felt somewhat cleaner than he had been in a long time. For a strangled glorious and horrifying moment he thought he was back there. But the logical part of his mind knew there wasn't a there anymore. It wasn't possible.

So he had to be somewhere else.

He was so tired. Even though he knew he had been asleep for too long already. Everything ached and it hurt to take a breath. Cracking his eyes open was like pulling tape off his forearm, covered in hairs. The light had been painfully bright, most likely from spending so much time asleep in the dark.

The ceiling was a uniform dark gray. Blankets felt scratchy but were warmer than almost anything he'd been under for weeks before. And it was pretty quiet except for the whirring of a fan which he knew from experience indicated a heater and possibly someone's quarters. There was also a quiet tinkering sound off to his left, which warranted looking into.

It was quite a struggle but he did manage to get himself turned to the side slightly so he could see the rest of the room. Nothing seemed particularly interesting except for the brightly colored spot sitting muttering and tinkering with some sort of electronics thing on the table. He was bald and old-looking reminiscent of someone else and yet completely not in the same instance. Any chance to do more comparing was lost as the man glanced up and locked eyes with him.

Duo felt that tell-tale adrenaline rush flowing into him. He knew he was in a lot of trouble in more ways than one.

An enclosed space with only one escape. Too weak to fight back or resist anything this guy might try to do. Not to mention the fact that he had been caught on someone else's ship and would more than likely be killed. The expression on the man's face understandably went unnoticed.

"Easy kid. I'm not gonna shoot you into vacuum."

The child looked less than convinced and tensed wearily to bolt, though he didn't know where he could go.

The old man spoke again his voice a scratchy alto that was soothing and odd all in one. "Kid you're too sick to try and bolt. You don't know where you are and there aren't any escape pods on this vessel. So you're pretty much stuck here. Please just try and chill out a little bit. The name's Howard. You got a name so I don't have to keep calling you kid?"

The boy swallowed painfully and worked some saliva into his mouth as he unflinchingly stared Howard down. Only after a long moment and a decision on his part did he choose to relent.

"It's Duo. Duo Maxwell." He rasped quietly, though it carried just fine.

"Well it's good to meet you Duo," Howard replied amiably. During his speech he had extricated himself from the chair and sat down next to the boy. Worried that he was moving too fast and knowing that the kid needed to trust him now he moved slowly and tested the boy's temperature with the back of his hand.

The boy stiffened and didn't relax even as he pulled his hand gently away.

Deigning not to repeat the request to relax he simply stated the reason he had gotten so close.

"Your fever's still pretty high but it's broke and won't be too dangerous. You've got a couple of respiratory infections too. You should try and rest." He held a glass with water out and asked whether he would want any.

The kid ('Duo' Howard reminded himself) tried to conceal his interest in the water but he saw it anyway. He held it out without a word and helped the child take a small few sips supporting his head with a hand. The boy stiffened again but still drank, thirst overriding his inbred caution.

"Not too much, you're still sick and I'm guessing you haven't eaten much for a while. Gotta take it slow okay?"

He slowly pulled away again and helped the child lay back on the bed. Two sleepy eyes tracked him again as he set the glass down and sat back in his seat.

"Go back to sleep kid. You're still really sick."

"It hurts." He responded drowsily.

"Where?" Howard asked slightly gruffly...he wasn't used to dealing with children.

"Hurts to breathe," he responded in an almost whine. Howard had almost forgotten for a moment that the boy was just a boy. To a sick child all they could focus on was the pain and couldn't understand why it wouldn't go away. Even orphans he knew that.

Considering his words for a moment Howard phrased his response very carefully.

"I know it hurts kid. Just lay back okay? Close your eyes too."

The boy obeyed without protest this time, his features looking upset as if he just wanted it to go away.

Deciding after a moment that the orders just wouldn't be enough, he gently lowered the blanket a bit.

Carefully...cautiously he reached out and placed a hand over the boy's chest. When Duo didn't object, gently slow a rhythm appeared as he rubbed the boy's chest through the shirt he still wore. Duo didn't stiffen or retract this time, but he was sure it was more from the fact that the boy was nearly unconscious again than from any kind of acceptance.

So for quite some time Howard continued to rub circles over the boy's chest. It served a dual purpose, both giving something for the boy to focus on other than the pain that breathing caused and providing simple human contact that all people needed. Hitched breathing eventually leveled out and calmed as the boy slid further and further into sleep's embrace.

When he was sure that the boy would not awaken at least for a while, only then did Howard carefully remove his hand and pull the blankets back up around him.

The callused hand felt warm, tingling with the friction of a shirt rubbing firmly back and forth. It had felt odd being able to clearly feel each rib through a shirt and a layer of skin; it was vaguely unsettling actually.

The door slid open quietly at that moment. Howard turned quickly, to try and intercept their breaking of the calm the boy had managed to achieve for a few moments.

Kerry and Steve stood quietly in the door, Kerry holding another IV bag and Steve coming in to take shift.

"He woke up."

TBC

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