(A/N: Oh my God, it's chapter eighteen, I never dreamt I'd be able to get this far. It's just so amazing to me, but that's just me.
Again, there could still be some sensitive themes in this. I would read cautiously if I were you, I'm not responsible if you don't.)
*X*-*X*~o~0~o~*X*-*X*
Now that XL had completely cooled down from the mental break of his primitive instincts, he cleaned up the blood on his face and anywhere else on his body. The blood on the bed was also cleaned up, although it took him a little while because it had soaked into the fabric.
The half-eaten hand was disposed of, he jokingly asked if he could finish it, which was responded to with shouts, mostly from the Titans. It was only a joke, but they thought he was serious, he's been yelled at before by many hard-headed people, but that kind of hurt his feelings, it was uncalled for.
He mused that if Tlaloc was here he would tear them to pieces and swallow their limbs whole. Not just his faithful childhood best friend either, he had a few colleagues that would nonchalantly rip their heads off their shoulders without a blink.
He wasn't going to let them know this though. They might get the idea that he had knowledge of a few crimes, which may or may not be true. He might think the same thing if he was in their shoes, but this was the life fate gave him.
"Okay, now that all the blood is gone, what now?" Ben asked.
Heilen knew that he should get started on the treatment to get Angelos out of XL's body, but he also wanted to figure out why his skin was dry and how to treat it. The skin treatment would be simpler and very quick, but Angelos had to be taken out of immediately. The only issue was the treatment itself, it had never been done before, it was only something that could be hypothetically done and it would not be without risk.
"Your skin is dry, do you know when it happened?" he asked his patient.
He suspected that the mucus had frozen off on Augstaka. However, questions do need to be routinely asked, just so that there were no holes in the story.
XL debated on whether or not he should tell him the truth. Telling him that his mucus froze off while under over a thousand feet of ocean could have some unfortunate results, he knew how frustrated the eight heroes were with him and this would only add fuel to the fire. However, if he withheld certain important details the result of that wouldn't be much better, it would likely cause some doubts about his word.
Then, he realized there was a way that he could use what he hates the most to his advantage. The legal system. It might be the very system that put him in prison for mediocre crimes that were nothing more than a slap on the wrist, but it may become his salvation.
"May we speak privately?" he asked.
"Of course," he replied. "Come with me."
He got up from the bed and Heilen led him into a room where they could speak in private. Truthfully, he prefers talking to his patients with some privacy, he knows how sensitive certain topics can be.
"Before I tell you anything, I need you to swear to confidentiality," he told him. "Can you do that?"
He nodded, "Yes, nothing you say will leave this room."
He takes in a breath and sighs, "Alright, here's what happened."
They were gone for close to thirty minutes before they finally came back. XL was rubbing his arm and shoulder in somewhat of a sheepish and possibly guilty manner.
"What did you guys talk about?" Cyborg asked.
He looked up at his doctor, as if he was begging him to keep his vow. He was almost certain that he would never break it, however, Highbreed rarely lie.
"I…" Heilen looked down at XL, as if he was telling him that he was having second thoughts. He held his breath anxiously and he could feel his heart rate increasing. He could finally breathe when kept the promise he made, "...am not at liberty to say."
"What? Why not?" Beast Boy inquired.
"I am bound by confidentiality," he claimed. "I cannot break it."
Robin narrowed his eyes suspiciously, he had no problem disclosing information earlier, why the sudden change of heart? "What gives, XL? What are you hiding?" he practically interrogated.
He was hardly phased by this, he had been interrogated many times by members of law enforcement. What it was about, he couldn't say, but it was nothing good.
He shrugged teasingly with a mocking smirk, "My body, my privacy, not yours."
"Well, could you at least tell us what you were talking about?" Ben asked.
Did he not know the meaning of confidentiality? 'No,' he thought, 'of course not.'
He might have considered giving them what it was about or at least a hint, but it wouldn't be fair. He made Heilen make a vow to not tell them anything, what would the point of that be if he told them anyway? He's not usually one for fairness, but he was for this case.
"Unless an android melds with your body, then the answer is no," he responded.
"Android?!" Angelos snapped.
"Angelos, wait-" he tried to reason with it, but he cut himself off when he suddenly shouted, gripping his head in pain.
Heilen immediately got him back in the bed and made him lay down. He laid his head on the pillows, but did little to help the pain, if anything it made it worse.
"What's going on?" Robin questioned.
"It feels like my head is splitting in half!" he yelled in pain, his eyes shut tight.
"We need painkillers on the fly!" Kevin affirmed.
Heilen leaned above his patient as he seemed to get worse. He called out to his assistants, "I need ergotamine, now!"
Upon hearing the stress and panic in his voice, an assistant immediately rushed to a storage room to get the demanded medication. They came up to him less than a minute later with it in hand.
Heilen immediately took the medication from the assistant and quickly administered it. It was injected into his arm, he didn't care that it was administered with a needle, he was in too much pain to notice.
Once the primary drug was in his body, a small amount of another medication was also administered. His body immediately relaxed and he seemed to fall asleep in only a few minutes.
"What did you do to him?" Ben asked.
"I gave him a small dosage of diphenhydramine after the injection of ergotamine," Heilen answered.
"Isn't that stuff used for allergies?" Kevin questioned.
"Yes, however, it can also be used as a sedative," he explained. "It is also to treat the side effects of ergotamine, as it is known to cause nausea and vomiting."
"Wow, you really know your stuff," Beast Boy commented.
"I should hope I do, I am a doctor," he responded.
"Diphenhydramine is pretty powerful stuff, how long do you think it'll be until he wakes up?" Robin asked.
"It could take a long time, perhaps the remainder of the day," he replied. "However, this is the opportunity I needed to conduct tests on him in the meantime."
He showed them the results of the scan he did earlier. Even to the untrained eye, it looked like there was something a little off about the scan of his brain. There was brightness in some areas and dullness in others, which just didn't seem normal.
"What's going on?" Cyborg questioned. "There's a lot of activity in his brain."
"And that's unusual, why?" Ben inquired.
"I will not know for certain until tests are conducted," he answered. "However, if I am correct, this could be unpropitious."
Beast Boy looked at Raven questionably, asking for an explanation, she did so, "It means bad."
"I need help moving him," he uttered.
Slade was already at his bedside, "Where to?"
He reached back at the gurney behind him, "Get him onto this."
Nothing more needed to be said, he put his hands under him and lifted his 'son'. He placed him onto the gurney and left to let the doctor do his job, sparing only a second look down at him.
"What are you going to do?" Robin asked.
"First, a computed tomographic scan, afterwards, a magnetic resonance image could be necessary," he responded.
"Uh… what?" Beast Boy looked hopelessly confused.
"He's going to do scans of his brain to check for anything unusual," Kevin explained.
He started to wheel him away, Ben caught up to him to ask, "But doesn't he have to be awake for a brain scan?"
He ceased his steps to reply, "No. Most doctors prefer their patients to be conscious, however, I prefer them to be under sedation. I personally find it to be much easier this way."
He took him to another room to get the scans of his patient's brain done. Although somewhat reluctant, he did allow the others to come along.
He moved him onto another bed, which seemed to connect to the inside of a CT scanner, although it was slightly shorter than the ones on Earth. He then talked to another doctor, presumably a radiologist, and informed him of the circumstances.
The bed retracted into the scanner and lights began to flicker above him, bathing his entire body. The lights soon ceased and only two green lights on either side of his head remained.
Images began to appear on the monitors near the other doctor. They were similar to sonar or radar images one might see on a ship or a plane, although it was very easy to tell that it was, in fact, a brain, unlike most of the brain scans performed by doctors on Earth.
Once the images appeared on the screens, the lights turned off. The scanner extended the bed and shut off shortly after XL was on the outside again.
The two doctors started to talk to one another about what they saw in the results of the scan. They were talking in their native tongue, making it impossible to tell what they were saying to each other.
"I believe magnetic resonance imaging is an order," he finally spoke in English for the heroes and his patient's 'father' to understand what he said.
The other doctor understood this and started to type on his computers to set up the machine for the next round of testing. Soon, the scanner was changed to resemble an MRI scanner rather than a CT scanner.
"What's he going to do now?" Beast Boy whispered to Cyborg.
"He's gonna perform an MRI of his brain," he answered.
"Why? What did you find?" Ben asked, his voice slightly nervous.
"Nothing to be concerned with," Heilen responded. "This test will be to analyze the activity in certain areas of his brain."
Once again, the bed retracted into the scanner, but this time there were no flickering lights. Although, there did appear to be a dim lighting on and about his head.
More images appeared on the monitors, this time the images were brightly colored. There was a fair amount of colors in certain areas and no one was sure if that was a good sign or something terrible.
"What do the results say?" Robin questioned.
"There is activity in the pars opercularis, as well as the left fusiform gyrus, middle frontal gyrus, and rostral prefrontal cortex," he replied.
Both Beast Boy and Ben looked hopelessly lost and confused. Neither one of them were strong in the scientific field, let alone neuroscience.
"What does all of that mean?" Kevin asked.
"The pars opercularis is involved with language production and phonological processing," he explained. "The left fusiform gyrus recognizes features similar to that of a face. The middle frontal gyrus is similar to the pars opercularis, its main function is the processing of speech and language, the left part is the articulatory network, it involves motor syllable programs. The rostral prefrontal cortex is crucial for several cognitive functions, as well as prospective and working memory."
That was a lot for them to process, many of them had no idea what this meant, but knew that it couldn't mean anything good. And they were right, it didn't.
Heilen pointed at the area where the activity was most prominent, on the left side, "As you can see, the increased activity seems to indicate a mental or neurological issue."
"So, which one is it?" Robin inquired, almost too afraid to do so.
He was silent for a few moments before he finally asked, "Has he displayed erratic, irritable, or frantic behavior lately?"
"Uh, you just described him in every way," Kevin responded in a flat voice.
Taking that as an affirmative, he turned his attention back to the images. He noticed something on the right side of his brain that he hadn't taken into account before. There was activity on the right side as well, not as bright as the left, but it was definitely unusual. He also saw something near the center of his brain that confused him at first, but then he pieced all of it together and it suddenly made sense to him. He knew what this was.
"I think he could have bipolar disorder, most likely enabled by post-traumatic stress disorder," he finally informed them.
This was extremely difficult for them to take in, especially Slade. Although, he would be lying if he said he didn't expect it to be a possibility.
"What makes you think he has bipolar disorder or PTSD?" Robin couldn't help but to ask.
He pointed at the brightness in the center, "This is the amygdala, its primary role has to do with emotions, the making of decisions, and the processing of memory. You typically do not see this increase in activity unless the patient has suffered a traumatic experience."
Ben thought about something for a moment before he was reminded of what happened on Soron, "Wait. A couple of hours ago, he saw a dead body and that caused him to act distraught. Could that have anything to do with this?"
Gwen and Kevin looked at each other as if asking one another "What did we miss?"
"Actually, that would confirm the diagnosis," he responded. "If the trauma he endured has to do with witnessing a death or seeing a corpse, then seeing that dead body would be enough to trigger the experience."
"Okay, so what about the bipolar disorder?" Kevin questioned.
He pointed at the left side again, "This increase in activity is what confirms this diagnosis as well. The left hemisphere is responsible for language, analytical thought, and reasoning, all of which is stimulated during certain phases of the disorder."
Before anyone could ask another question, a groan could be heard coming from the machine. XL was still inside, he had nearly been forgotten. The other doctor got him out of it and shut it down once he was outside of it again.
"How much longer until he wakes up?" Robin inquired. "I'd like to ask a few questions."
"That is difficult to determine," he answered. "It will most likely be a number of hours, still."
"Geez, that stuff you gave him earlier really is powerful," Beast Boy remarked, somewhat jokingly.
"What do you need to talk to him about?" Ben asked Robin.
"I just want to ask him about what he was talking about before his headache," he replied. "He mentioned something about Angelos before it happened, I want to know what he meant."
"Yeah, I remember that. What do you think he was talking about?" he questioned.
"I'm not sure, but I'd sure like to find out," he responded.
Slade was listening in as they talked about what they believed his 'son' was talking about before the sudden headache. He was the only one who knew what was really going on, he had been keeping to himself this entire time, but a can of worms might be busted open if they did ask their questions and he would have no choice but to tell the truth.
*X*-*X*~o~0~o~*X*-*X*
(A/N: Sorry this is a little late and a bit short, but I had a bit of writer's block with this one. I finally got over though, I'm just fine and I'm happy this is done.
Now, before you guys hound me, yes, I did do a lot of research before and during the writing of this. If I got something wrong, I'm sorry, I tried to be as accurate as possible, but I'm not perfect.
Just so you know, I did my research on any possible links to bipolar disorder and PTSD and I found that (and I quote) "...there is evidence to suggest a link between witnessing a childhood trauma and becoming diagnosed with bipolar disorder." The wording might be a little off and I can't remember where I got it from, but I'm not making this up. I'm not an expert, but I personally think there really could be a potential link between the two.
If you want to do your own research, by all means. I really don't care what you do, but this is something I planned out almost from the beginning. So don't think that this is this something I just came with out of thin air.
Anyway, sorry about that, I hope everyone enjoyed it and sticks around for the next chapter. I do want to write the next chapter soon, but it would be better if I had some support. I won't make a big deal out of it, it's just something I think about sometimes.)