Chapter Ten:

The Only Hope

There's a song that's inside of my soul
It's the one that I've tried to write
over and over again
I'm awake and in the infinite cold
But You sing to me over and over and
over again

So I lay my head back down
And I lift my hands
And pray to be only Yours
I pray to be only Yours
I know now You're my only hope

-Switchfoot: Only Hope

"Come on, come here," Dr. Alessa reached out and tried to grab Zorg's arm as he backed away and hid behind a bookcase. Leeloo sat nervously on the loveseat as the doctor had told her to.

"Come here! I've got you!" Chantal cried as she tried to poke her little brother's arm. He would be 'it' if she could get him… but he was so damn fast. "Casimir!" She laughed as she chased him around the yard. He slid between two trees and she couldn't reach him. "Come out here you silly boy!" She laughed.

"Come out here, Mr. Zorg. I need to get you to the hospital, please," Dr. Alessa pleaded. Zorg shook his head no with a mysterious glint to his tired eyes. He was pulling something out of his mind… something from long ago. He would not be caught. He would not be it.

"Got you—huh?" Chantal and her little brother looked up at a group of men in uniforms running madly into their yard.

"Who are they?" The little boy with the straight black hair asked his sister quietly.

"I don't know," the girl with the long, straight black hair answered as she pulled her little brother closer to her.

"We're looking for Mr. Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Zorg," one of the men asked. Young Casimir recognized these men: they were wearing the same uniforms that his father wore. They were the soldiers. Chantal recognized too…

"He is in the house," she said as she followed the uniformed men into her home with her little brother.

"Mr. Zorg?" One of the soldiers said as he walked towards the man who was sitting on the sofa reading. When he noticed the men he looked up immediately.

"Yes sir?" He stood and saluted the man.

"We need to again. You are being re-enlisted. This is desperate. The war is getting worse by the minute and we are losing men fast," the lead soldier said. Casimir's father nodded gravely and turned to his mother-less children.

"We need to go to the battlefield," he said. They were to stay on the reserve with him. They were to help. Fourteen-year-old Chantal and ten-year-old Casimir. Gage-Gaston Abdukrahman Sheromacciin Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel Casimir Runielle Zorg.

"It's going to be alright," Dr. Alessa assured Zorg as she wheeled the stretcher out into the driveway as a second ambulance pulled up. He was strapped to the gurney and finally sedated. He was moaning something about a reserve…

…………………………………………………………………………..

"It's okay Honey," Lily-Ray said as the doctors administered an antiviral test-run into Korben's muscular arm. He cringed when they did it.

"This should work," the tiny doctor said as he pulled the needle from Korben's arm. "We have been testing many things lately on hemorrhagic fevers and this seemed to work. It's a coagulant and it contains a medication that is related to Ribavirin…" Lily-Ray didn't really understand what the little man was talking about but if it would help her Korben…

"W-where's Leeloo?" Korben rasped. "Leeloo…"

"It's okay, Love, it's okay. Leeloo's okay. She's with Dr. Alessa," Lily-Ray said as she stroked Korben's short, short hair.

"With Zorg? She is with Zorg, isn't she? No! No!" The tiny doctor shrieked when Korben began to flail madly.

"Korben, dear, shhhhh. It's alright. It's alright. No, no, she is with the doctor. Mr. Zorg is coming in as well. He is also ill." She hated the satisfied look on Korben's face before he coughed violently.

"So I am not going to be the only one who dies!" He shouted aggressively. Lily-Ray cried.

"No! No! You are not going to die, Korben!" She wailed as she leaned onto his chest.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

"Zorg no badaboom! No badaboom!" Leeloo cuffed a doctor angrily in the face as she fought her way through the crowd towards Zorg. He was sitting up on his stretcher looking curious.

"Leeloo! Stop!" Dr. Alessa shouted as she grabbed Leeloo's steel-like arms. "He will be alright—you see, he is okay," she said as she pointed to the man on the gurney.

"NO!" Zorg roared as he pulled a Leeloo. The doctor gasped and held his bruised face. "What the fuck is going on?" He shouted. Dr. Alessa pushed through the crowd of analytical doctors and touched his shoulder. She removed her hand when she heard Leeloo snort behind her.

"You are cured. You got the disease, but now you are better."

"H-how in all Hell did that happen?" He asked as he slid one slender leg off of the stretcher. He looked down and realized with slicing horror that he was wearing a post-op gown. "AAHHH!" He pulled it tightly around his body as to close the back.

"You evil bastards!" He shrieked at the doctors.

"Mr. Zorg, please, come with me," Dr. Alessa led him and Leeloo away from the doctors and ER 30: the meeting room.

"No badaboom!" Leeloo shrieked as they all sat down.

"Leeloo, come here," Zorg said, his thick accent never failing him. She walked over to her dear with her arms crossed and a pouting look about her perfect features. "I ain't gonna' go badaboom, ya' hear? I am fine," he attempted to convince her. She snorted.

"Leeloo love Zorg. Leeloo no want Zorg go BOOM!" She threw out her arms in emphasis only to knock him in the nose.

"Leeloo, watch that strength of yours," he said before Dr. Alessa cleared her throat to get the lot's attention. "Oh right, the reason I'm alive." That got Zorg a strange look.

"Mr. Zorg, I understand that you are half-android, is this correct?" Zorg nodded. "Well that is exactly the reason you survived. The virus can obviously not get into android-parts, so only half of you was ravaged. Since it was so little inside of you, the virus dissipated quickly. So you see, your human half is now immune to the virus, and you can withstand them for your mechanical half." Zorg nodded and pretended to understand.

"So that's why all them doctors were crowded around me," he muttered. He still did not fully comprehend it. Leeloo understood fully. Zorg understood about as much as he understood about Korben's hatred for him: one thing. He knew that Korben hated him because he had Leeloo. He knew that he was alive because he was half-android. The reason did not matter.

"Well thank you, Ma'am, I guess I will be leaving then," Zorg said as he stood up. Leeloo slid off of his lap and stood happily next to him.

"No, no! You cannot go now. What of Korben? He is still ill. We need your help, since you are immune now. You need to help him, or else he could die," Dr. Alessa pleaded.

"What the—what the Hell do you expect me to do?"

"We need you to donate some of your blood to him. You have the antibodies in you to fight the disease. Perhaps it will help him if we were to donate some to him."

"You want me to help him?" Zorg seemed surprised at this implication.

"Yes. Look, I know there is some sort of animosity between the two of you, but please, please. It is a matter of life and death," Dr. Alessa was now pleading. Zorg moaned and glanced at Leeloo who was staring at him with beseeching eyes.

"Please Zorg. Please Zorg. I no want Korben die. Korben friend. Leeloo always love Zorg, but no want Korben die. No Korben Dallas die!" She wailed as she clung to the front of his white gown. If it was not such a serious situation, Dr. Alessa might have found the picture of the handsome weapons designer in a Johnny rather comical.

Zorg sighed and stroked Leeloo's hair. "Fine. Fine I will do it. But he had better be damned grateful."