Chapter Five: Impossible is for Sissies

Greg stared at his constable, hoping against hope that he hadn't heard the man right. "You have what?"

Wordy hadn't looked up even once since he'd shown up at the barn late in the day; at his boss's bewildered question, the big man's shoulders hunched, somehow managing to make Wordy look small in his chair. "I have Parkinson's Disease, Sarge."

Silence fell, neither man all that sure of how to break it. Finally, Greg asked, "What are your options, Wordy?"

The brunet snuck a look up at his boss's face. "Um, for now, I'm going on a treatment plan, which should get the symptoms under control, but…"

Blast. Greg sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Let me guess. Magicals don't get Parkinson's Disease."

"Hole in one, Sarge," Wordy quipped weakly. The constable's jaw tightened and Greg pretended he didn't see Wordy forcing back a tear or two. "Even if this works, Sarge, I can't stay on Team One forever."

"Well, none of us can," Greg teased quietly, getting the hoped-for half-smile. "Wordy, as long as this medication works, you've got a place on this team."

Wordy's shoulders straightened a touch and he finally met Greg's eyes. "Thanks, Sarge," he whispered. Gray eyes dropped away again. "But, um, I should probably start looking at a transfer…"

"Let's not rush into anything," Greg chided. "You've only just gotten this diagnosis and it's too early to make any permanent decisions." The Sergeant offered a rueful look. "We haven't even made any decisions about the Auror Division yet, much less where we go from here, Wordy."

"Copy that, Sarge," Wordy acknowledged, understanding his boss's point; it was too soon, too raw to make decisions that couldn't be undone.

Greg tapped the table, thinking a moment. "Go home, Wordy; take the rest of today and be back tomorrow bright and early. We'll figure this out, I promise."

"Got it, Sarge."

The SRU Sergeant watched his constable leave, feet dragging and discouragement draping his frame. Sooner or later, he knew, they wouldn't have a choice; Team One couldn't afford to have a medically compromised team member…and they both knew it.

"There's nothing they can do?" Alanna asked plaintively, raw disbelief on her face.

Greg sighed to himself; even now, a part of his two pureblooded nipotes still clung to the idea that magic could fix almost anything. And why not? They'd been raised with that idea, after all, and a lifetime of belief wasn't something that could be shaken overnight…or even with a few years living on the tech side of the fence.

Even with all the time they'd spent in the tech world, so many times, magic had come through in a pinch and saved the day. So, yes, intellectually the teenagers knew that magic couldn't fix everything, but that was hard to fully accept so long as magic kept snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.

"I'm sorry, mia nipote, but no, there's nothing the Healers can do," Greg confirmed quietly, his own heart – and voice – aching. "Wizards don't get Parkinson's, so they've never researched it magic-side, I'm afraid."

"And the doctors can't cure it either?" Lance questioned from the other side, harkening back to his sister's aneurysm and how the tech-side doctors had succeeded where the Healers hadn't.

Parker simply shook his head, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Losing a member of his team, even if only to a transfer, was going to hurt like heck and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. "It won't happen right away, but Wordy won't be able to work on Team One for much longer. Even the best medication can only slow this down, not stop it."

The two nodded glumly, retreating to their rooms without another word; Greg watched them go and, when he was sure they were gone, let his fist thump against the wall; a gryphon's keen welled up inside. The truth was, in a way, he'd expected magic to save the day, too.

Alanna flopped down on her bed, ready for a good cry over the idea of losing one of her favorite 'uncles' from the SRU. Already, tears stung in violet eyes and she sniffled, trying to focus on the positives. Uncle Wordy wasn't dead, he was just…sick…and never going to get better. A soft bird-like whimper rose from her chest. It wasn't fair…

A knock jerked the redhead around with a fierce scowl. From outside, her brother called, "Lemme know when you're done sulking and ready to get to work."

Get to work? Alanna pushed herself off her bed and went to her door, cracking it open. "What are you talking about?" she demanded.

There was a gleam in her brother's eyes, gold glittering just under sapphire depths. "If you wanna give up, go ahead, but I think impossible is for sissies."

The girl huffed. "You think we can do what the Healers and doctors can't?"

"I think we can give it a bloody good try," Lance retorted, not backing down an inch. "They don't have Wild Magic, do they? They don't use the Old Magic, do they? And they stick with what they know; we can think outside the box, 'cause we're just amateurs."

Alanna considered that, tugging at her still short hair. "But Parkinson's Disease is modern day, isn't it?" she questioned. "I don't think they had it back when the Old Religion was still being used, did they?"

"So there's no direct spell." Lance shrugged as if that didn't matter. "We just find another way to do it."

"You already have a plan."

Lance walked over to his room and looked over his shoulder with a smirk. "Yeah, I do. Already called Mindy and told her to grab anything to do with Old Magic and healing from the Manor's library."

"But…"

One shoulder hiked. "Maybe you're right and there's no direct spell, but it can't hurt to look."

Alanna tilted her head to the side, then nodded. Lance was right; they didn't know until they looked and making assumptions at the moment was not a good idea. "We should research Parkinson's," she suggested. "If we can understand it better, maybe we can find a more effective treatment."

Her brother paused, thinking her suggestion over. Tentatively, he offered up, "I was also thinking, maybe, you could use Ancient Runes to make a healing bracelet until we find something better?"

"Like, something that would control the symptoms?" Alanna inquired, trailing her brother into his room.

"I guess," Lance conceded. "You understand that stuff more than I do, sis, but if we can figure out a short-term solution, that buys us time to find a long-term one."

As he spoke, Mindy popped in with a stack of Old Magic tomes and set them on Lance's desk before popping away again. Lance picked up the first one and held it out to Alanna, but she didn't take it.

"I think I can make a bracelet like that, but I'd need to research Parkinson's and my Ancient Rune books to make it," she informed her brother. "You'd have to do all the Old Magic research yourself until the bracelet's done."

For a moment, Lance's face fell in open dismay, then, quite suddenly, his shoulders straightened and he nodded once, sharply and firmly. "Copy that." The teenager turned back to the books and hefted them off his desk to his bed so he could reorganize them. Without turning, he added, "Get going, sis; we're on the clock."

Alanna drew in a breath, holding it for a second. Then she whirled and hustled back to her room to find a pen, notebook, and her laptop. Lance was right; they hadn't an instant to lose.

Lance sighed; the downside to having Mindy bring all the Old Magic tomes from the library was that he couldn't use the library's search spell to narrow his focus to a few books. Instead, he was tediously reading each one of the spellbooks to find out what its main topic was and then moving on. He sighed, smacking his current book down on the 'discard' stack; he was fairly certain that combat magic wasn't going to help with a cure.

The teen turned to grab the next book and felt his shoulders sink at the stacks waiting for him. Grimly, he pulled the top book off the closest stack and opened it up, paging past the first couple illustrations to find the first page of spells. He settled down, reading carefully, scanning for any hint of healing magic.

At first, his mental 'ears' perked up; while not about healing magic, the book was discussing the use of crystals. It took almost half the book before he realized the crystals were meant to be used to anchor other spells, mostly runic spells and the like. Considering, Lance put the book on a new pile, to be passed off to his sister when she was done with her research and the healing bracelet. Maybe the crystals could be used to strengthen the eventual healing spell?

The next several books were quickly discarded – more combat spells, building spells, a darker tome about manipulating dreams – but finally, Lance located a healing spellbook. Eagerly, he dove into the pages, searching feverishly for anything that looked promising. His enthusiasm dimmed with each page that discussed the gory details of healing battlefield wounds mixed with banal interludes on remedies for easing the ache of old injuries. Near the back of the book, on pages that were messier and looked more like a healer's private notes, Lance paused, examining the information closely.

" 'Most perplexing to the healer or physician is the shaking palsy; it afflicts only those without magic and is usually found in the elderly, though I personally have observed the affliction in one far younger than most sufferers. A number of treatments have been attempted over the years, but none has been successful thus far. A number of healers and court physicians have gathered in Camelot to discuss this illness and perhaps begin to formulate a remedy. His Majesty, King Uther Pendragon has invited those so inclined to the eventual feast for the newborn heir, once he or she is born to Her Majesty, Queen Ygraine.' "

Lance flipped past the small account, hoping for more, and slumped as he realized it was the book's final entry. He slumped even further as he realized what had likely happened to all those healers and physicians. With Queen Ygraine's death, most of them had probably died as the first victims of the Great Purge. And after that, the magical community had had much more important things to worry about than curing an illness that affected only non-magicals. If there had been a cure with Old Magic, it was long lost to time, fire, and war.

Sighing, the teen sat up and placed the healing tome on top of the crystal spellbook. Thoughtful, he crossed his arms and stared at the wall, thinking hard. He could keep looking – and would – but he had a nasty feeling that he'd just found the answer; namely, that there was no answer in the Old Magic.

Almost idly, his hands found a small box on his bed stand and he opened it up again, pulling the mithril bracelet within out and tracing the smooth metal with his fingers. It was a magnificent, costly gift and the teen wished he could send a thank you note to the dwarves who'd forged the bracelet, but he still had yet to puzzle out why they had sent it. They'd gone out of their way to tell Emrys…Merlin…that the bracelet had a purpose, but Lance still wasn't sure what that purpose was.

After several minutes of rubbing and thinking, Lance looked down at the bracelet and sighed. "What am I meant to do with you?" he murmured to the silent metal. Then he slid the bracelet back in its box and went back to his search.