Part 18: The Doctor Will See You Now...

(Dr. Lambert's Apartment-Toronto)

"Wizardmon?" a soft, feminine voice asked. "Nick? Are you sure he's not one of you? He's got that same spaced out look you get when--"

"What?" the Data snuffled from behind the double protection of his sleeves. His arms had slipped down to his nose level while he'd been remembering. He brought them up again.

Natalie gave a small cough. "I'm sorry. That was a very unprofessional response on my part. But Nick's explained everything now, so if it's okay with you, I'd like to finish what I started as well as do a general exam? Alright?"

The doctor gently tugged down on the digimon's arms so that she could see his eyes again.

"Please?"

The dark pupils shifted in Nick's direction.

De Brabant nodded. "It's okay."

Slowly, Wizardmon lowered his arms until his hands rested on his lap.

The remains of tears were still there, but there was smooth skin where the welts had been.

Natalie sighed as she closed the alcohol bottle and chucked the wet cotttonball into a nearby wastebasket while handing her guest a clean tissue with which to wipe his face. "Are humans the only ones with low-caliber healing systems? This is not doing anything for either my professional or personal self-esteem."

"Looks that way, Nat," Nicholas grinned. "Jealous?" He smiled lopsidedly at her as she flung a second of the fluffy puffs and beaned him square on the nose. "Shall I take that as an affirmative?"

"Quiet, you. I'm trying to examine a patient, here."

"Yes, milady," the vampire said with grin still firmly in place.

Natalie ignored him as she studied Wizardmon's mouth, placing a tentative finger down one of the thick, silken threads. Now that the initial shock was over, she found the brownish material fascinating---if still somewhat disturbing. The sight of them evoked the memories of a half-dozen horror novels and movies she'd enjoyed---if that was the right word--during Toronto's more inclement weather spells.

"How do you eat with these things blocking your mouth?" she asked him, noting that the stitches---though they had looked like regular cording from a distance---were actually comprised of some sort of soft metal filigree.

Wizardmon blinked. No one had ever asked him that before---at least, not in such a non-sarcastic voice. Was she truly as intrigued about him as she sounded? All at once, he felt somewhat self-conscience for reasons other than those that he normally felt when mon remarked on his appearance. As with Nick, this human was truly curious about him for his own sake and not just to find a way to hurt him! The Data was not used to sensing such thoughts or emotions regarding himself and he found himself somewhat at a loss as to how to behave Did you thank someone for not insulting you?

"They... slice my food."

Right away the doctor lifted her finger from the silken material and checked the tip for cuts.

"Not now," the Data sighed, reading her apprehension, a reaction he was far more familiar with than the other. Here he was getting to like the novel sensation of being looked at with something other than disgust and look how long it lasted! "First I have to stretch them, you see.." he slowly opened his mouth to almost an inch wide, revealing the inner crossworking of the threads as well as a slender tongue. The more he opened his mouth, the more the threads thinned in diameter, becoming stiff and hard like steel wire. "Then I push the food against them if it is too big. It works best if I move my mouth sideways a little as well. He demonstrated by making very short, rapid shakes of his head.

"And this flexing doesn't hurt you?" Natalie asked as she peered into his mouth to try to get a better look at the inner stitches.

"No. As long as I do it properly it actually feels very good. If I rush, then it hurts some."

"Do you mind if I try something?

The digimon started to raise his arms again, leaning away from her a little as he clamped his mouth shut.

"That depends." Again he looked at Nicholas for direction.

"He says his mouth is very sensitive to pressure or trauma," Nicholas explained. "But you weren't planning on anything like surgery, were you, Nat?"

Natalie heard the warning in his voice and hastily shook her head. "Erm.. no. Of course not." She reached into her medical supplies and retrieved only a stainless-steel dental mirror instead of the delicate pair of scissors she'd planned on retrieving along with it.

Darn! So much for getting a tissue sample.

Seeing that the digimon looked very nervous, she decided to distract him with another question.

"Tell me how is it I am hearing you with my ears, but your mouth and throat are not moving?"

Wizardmon saw with relief that the instrument in her hands did not look like it could do him any damage and decided to reopen his mouth for her. "I don't know. Most of the adult animal digimon converse without using their mouths. Is it different for you?"

"Mmm… what it the same with this Gatomon of yours?" Natalie asked as she touched one of the stitches head on with the telescoping mirror, curious to see how much it would give. Not much. She then tried rubbing metal against metal to see if friction would get the thread to give even more. The result was a sigh of pleasure from the digimon as his eyelids drooped.

"That feels good, huh?" the doctor observed.

The digimon made what she took as an affirmative sound.

"I wonder…" Natalie hypothesized as she maneuvered the mirror between two wires to look at the inside of his 'lips' "if it's not the stitches themselves that you're feeling, but that the thread is connected directly into a network of nerves around the edges of your mouth?" She delicately taped the mirror piece on the fleshy tissue right where a lace entered the skin. The digimon moaned in ecstasy.

Wizardmon's eyes popped open---had that sound come from him?!

"Well, that's an interesting development," A mildly flustered Dr. Lambert offered in apology, starting to withdraw her instrument out of his mouth.

Already nervous, Wizardmon reacted to the unexpected movement by flinching. The mirror bumped into the side of the stitch, cutting through the neck piece like it was made of butter before she could move it away. Natalie raised an eyebrow as the sheared off mirror head was spat out.

"Holy Cow!" she exclaimed.

Her bovine-blood drinking friend gave the coroner a nasty look. Being a steer blood drinker by choice as well as having an allergic reaction to all things holy, he didn't appreciate the use of that particular expression.

"Uh...sorry about that Nick. Unfortunate slang term."

"I am the one who is sorry," Wizardmon apologized, face taking on a purplish tinge as he bowed his head. "I've broken you're tool and acted disgracefully."

"Um, no...it was an accident. Obviously neither of us knew that that was an…"---she floundered for a less graphic term--- "a touchy area for you." Natalie finished, inspecting what was now a plain pointer stick.

Despite her attempts to put a clinical face on it, the digital wizard still looked mortified. "I don't understand it… I clean them with my tongue all the time."

"Maybe it was the metal contact with another metal that did it," Nicholas said in a mollifying tone. Now…if you're both done apologizing to each other?" the vampire smiled. He took up the sawed-off end of the mirror and eyed the neat edge just below the base. "Whew! Just remind me never to stick my fingers in your mouth."

"Do not stick your fingers in my mouth."

Natalie chuckled as she took out her stethoscope. "Why did I see that coming? Okay... lets check out the old ticker, and Nick says you might have been knifed." She tapped a finger to the front of his chest between the bindings on his red vest. "Would you mind unbuttoning that?"

Wizardmon blushed a darker shade of purple. After what had just happened a minute ago---and she wanted to continue? He was through embarrassing himself---thank you very much! "As a matter of fact, I would."

"For goodness sake," Natalie said in what was not quite a huff, "I'm a doctor."

"So?"

"I see entire naked bodies all the time. Not that I'm asking you to go monty for me."

Wizardmon mulled the unfamiliar word over for a moment before he guessed what it meant. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, blocking her access even more.

"Good. Because you haven't seen mine and your not going to."

"Nick?" the frustrated doctor exclaimed to her friend.

"Wizardmon, she's only trying to help. Don't you have medical workers in the Digital World?"

"Not as a class," Wizardmon answered sullenly as he continued to warily eye the human female before him. "Some digimon are willing to help the injured if needed, but I'm not hurt and I'm positive that my 'ticker'--whatever that is---is fine." He gave a thoughtful pause. "But I am hungry."

"Again?" Nick snickered, "You're worse than a fledgling vampire."

The humanoid 'monster' shrugged. "I'm hungry."

"Hungry, huh?" Natalie interjected. ""Tell you what, you let me finish examining you, and I'll get you a nice plate of something to eat."

The pointed ears swiveled in her direction. "You have fooood?" the wizard practically drooled, rubbing his stomach with a dreamy expression on his face.

Natalie chuckled. "Yeah, 'fooood'" she mimicked. "Not everyone on the planet exists on a liquid diet." She turned to Nicholas, "What does he eat?"

"Near as I can tell, he's a cross between a goat and a garbage disposal." He showed her the tiny mirror. "And a pretty darn impressive one at that."

"So I've noticed," she ruefully agreed taking the item back and tossing it into the wastebasket along with the cotton ball.

"Put it on my bill," Nick suggested. "As for food… Try anything organic. Oh. And better make it plant based--- he's a practicing vegetarian."

"Well, sure," Natalie rolled her eyes, "why not? What could be more normal than a living computer program that's fussy about his diet? God knows my desk system rejects half the software I try to feed it." She got up from the couch.

"You know, Nick, one of these days I'm going to get normal human males coming to my door looking for medical help and free eats who don't suffer from dietary problems. Wouldn't that be something? We could go out…share a Ben & Jerry's.. a perfectly normal lunch date."

Her vampire reached over and gave her a quick peck on the forehead.

"And you'd be bored silly," he told her.

She smirked. "True."

The sound of a discreet cough interrupted them.

"Eat first," Wizardmon asked hopefully "then finish this 'examining' you want? I'm can be much more amiable when not hungry," he added in a wheedling tone.

"Why do I always let myself be suckered by aliens?" The coroner groaned before pushing through the door to her kitchen.

"Because you can't resist the wiles of inhuman charm?" the vampire quipped after her.

"I'll get you later."