Chapter Four

Illness

The conversation ended after that, and our food was eaten in silence. While Dinah paid for the meal, I called my mother again and told her where we were. I stressed my 'I love you' at the end of the call. She came and got us about fifteen minutes later, and we dropped Dinah off at the high school.

When I got home, I went to my room and sat down on my bed, trying to put some of the pieces together. It made more sense than anything else about Dinah, and I knew from the look in her eyes that she was telling the truth.

When my father came home about two hours later, he used the rest of the sunlight as one of the last opportunities of the year to barbeque. Both my mother and I could tell something was bothering him, though. Even without this new... thing I seem to have, I would have been able to just look at his face and mannerisms and know something was wrong. We left him alone on the back deck, but when we sat down to eat, we couldn't keep it quiet anymore.

"Jason," my mother said softly when my father hadn't touched his food after saying grace, "are you alright?" She touched his shoulder, and I could feel the tension from across the dinner table.

"We'll talk later," my father grunted curtly, not looking up. '...precious daughter...' Again, like at the restaurant, I didn't see his lips move, yet I still heard it from him. I frowned. Nothing else was said until the table was cleared. Only then did my father say, "Gabby, go to your room. Let your mom and I talk."

"Is it about me? Look, I've got the right to know if it's-"

"Just do as I say, Gabrielle!" Just the tone of his voice was enough to make me jump, but the use of my full name let me know that this was serious. Without another word, I left the room, and the door hadn't even closed all the way before I heard him say, "Linda, they called today."

"Who?"

"The Institute. In San Diego." There was a gasp from my mother. I closed the door until it was open only a crack.

"What did they want?"

"They wanted us to go to their branch in Bludhaven to check up on Gabby. We moved away from San Diego to get her away from all the testing, and they follow us here, anyway." His voice was harsh, angry.

"What if it's wise? What if now is the time to check her again?"

"She hasn't shown any signs of it yet, so she is fine. She'll be fine. Besides, we've done what they suggested. It's over."

"James, you know better than I do that it's not over. It's going to show up, and we've got to check to make sure it's not just hidden. And..." My mother tailed off.

"Linda?"

"I think we should tell her." I heard footsteps. I think my father was pacing.

"We can't do that. She's finally happy in New Gotham. She's got friends, her grade are excellent, and- we can't."

"What about when she goes off to college? What about that, James? She'll be happy there, with other lesbians to talk to as well, and all of a sudden- BAM!- it happens, and she doesn't know what's going on, or even a way to keep it under control-"

"Shh, she'll hear you." My dad lowered his voice, but I could still hear it. Barely. "We'll tell her before that. I won't keep it from her most of her life like my mother did to me. I just want her to be happy NOW."

"But telling her just months before her 18th birthday may not be enough time for her. She will need to process the information and do what she can to control it..."

I couldn't listen to anymore. 'What's going on? Am I sick? Is that why there is all that humming? Do I have a weird brain tumor thing?' I asked myself. I was getting scared. My father seemed to be fine, since he was talking as if he had whatever it is that I might have. Something I got genetically from him. I looked over at the other side of the room, where my computer was on stand by.

Each search for any Institute came up blank. The name would always be more to the title, never just 'The Institute'. Well, if you don't count the pig farm in Kentucky somewhere. 'That's odd,' I thought, 'You'd think that they'd have a website if they have more than one branch.' I tried looking under hospitals, institutes, even laboratories. Nothing. The strangest part of all of this: I didn't remember any tests. I didn't remember any Institute before we moved away from San Diego. In fact, I thought we had moved to New Gotham because that was where Uncle Leonard lived, and they wanted me near him because he's a homosexual as well. I tried to think back to when I was ten and eleven. Nope, I don't remember any sort of tests being taken. I don't even remember going to any doctors. Even now, I don't remember going to see any doctors since I've lived in New Gotham. I never had the need to go. I thought more and more about my childhood. Something wasn't fitting. I kept coming up with blanks. Like, I could think of an entire school day, then, after I left school it would all be a blank.

Something caught my attention when I thought through various memories. I remembered many times when I would get angry or upset over something, usually homework of some sort, and my mother would insist that I calm down. I remembered a look upon her face that I hadn't noticed before: fear. It seemed almost as if they were afraid of stressing me out. Did they move me to New Gotham so that I won't fall apart due to stress? What would that stress trigger, some sort of brain... thing? I looked back at the computer screen. I was too afraid to look up anything along the lines of brain tumors and the like, but something still made me go to Dogpile and look up 'metahuman'. The only thing I got in responses to my search request was 'did you mean 'Metal human'?' No, of course I didn't mean metal human. It was such an odd term I heard from Dinah that I couldn't have gotten it wrong.

The strong sense of excitement I had in the restaurant at that term made me curious as to what it meant. Looking in the dictionary I grabbed from my bookshelf, there was no such word as meta human, but the term meta alone meant 'a change or alteration' something to do with a change in or of development, so I could only guess that this meant a change of my being if I was one of these metahumans. No shit, Sherlock. Why do you think I was freaking out so bad?

Nothing else interested me about the search on metahumans or anything regarding the brain, as I was too much into my thoughts to be, so I shut the computer down and lay on my bed, almost paralyzed with fear. The fact that I didn't know what was wrong with me scared me, and the fact that my parents seemed to know more than I did and weren't going to tell me about it worried me as well. Does it all mean I am just some altered human? And what/where is this Institute? If I couldn't get the address online, then maybe I could find it in the phonebook. I doubted it. I mean, if you can't find it on the internet, then apparently it doesn't exist, and that, too worried me. I don't know, a lot of things had been worrying me lately, bringing on the stress that my parents had been apparently trying to avoid. As I thought about the Institute and brain tumors and metahumans and Dinah, my eyes slowly fought to stay open, and I knew I was about to fall asleep.

[Music of my youth, music in which the radio station referred to as 'oldies', a term that always made me cringe, plays on the radio station as I drive slowly through the school zone of the neighborhood. Children ages six to twelve stream out of the school's doors and walk every which way, eager to get home to their after school snacks and cartoons. I park our newest addition to the Andrews family, the brand new Sedan and watch the children of all shapes and sizes walk to their school buses or to the sidewalk. My hands grip the steering wheel as I try not to think of where I am going next, where I must bring my daughter. I try not to think about the fact that the doctor would make sure she won't remember any of it, either. It is for the best. Right, Andrews, keep telling yourself that if it'll ease the guilt. It doesn't. It never does.

I shake my head as I see my daughter, my healthy looking, beautiful daughter who looks more like her mother everyday, walk out of the school and wait by the plants at the front. I open the door. "Gabby!" I wave my hand as she looks up and around, then she runs towards me.

"Hi Daddy."

"How was your day?" Her blonde curls bobbed as she moves her head from side to side, thinking of her answer.

"It was okay. Miranda kept pulling my hair, though."

"Did you tell the teacher?" I ask her distractedly as I start the car again and slowly maneuver us out of the parking lot.

"No, she never believes me. She's always saying I have an over active imagination, like the time I swore I heard Jimmy say that she was fat." I shake my head.

"Well, maybe he did say that, but you shouldn't have repeated it."

"I won't. Where are we going?" I knew she'd ask me as soon as she saw that we weren't going right on the main road towards our two bedroom condominium, but left towards the toll way, yet still her innocent question caught me off guard. I hadn't told her about taking any of her time away from her afternoon.

"We're going to the doctor today," I tell her. That, at least, is the truth. Of sorts.

"But I'm not sick. I feel fine." She got an uneasy look, and I'd bet half of my life she doesn't even know why she's so scared.

"I know you're not sick sweetheart. This is a check up to make sure you don't get sick." She seems to accept this. Thankfully. I don't know how many more times I can tell her that lie, even if she doesn't know we've had conversations similar to this one many times before-

The scene inside the car fades slowly into white, then the sight of the hallway is before me. The hallway seems so much longer than I remember it. I hear voices from the door before I can even see it. 'Should we tell her?' It was the only one phrase, a question that echoed down the hallway before I can even get to the door. Slowly, no matter how quickly I walk towards it, I inch my way towards it. 'Should we tell her?' Finally, I reached out, unafraid this time. I try the doorknob. Locked. I feel like an outsider. Why won't they let me in?]

"Booboo bee doo, boop!" My Betty Boop alarm clock went off at my set time of six o'clock in the morning, but it was Sunday, and no cartoons were worth getting up for. I turned off my alarm and shifted to my side. First my new friend, and now my dad. I knew this dream, at least, actually happened. I remembered the day Miranda kept pulling my hair, and I remembered being in love with her despite (or perhaps because of) it, but I didn't, as my father suspected, remember getting into the car with him. In fact, right when the school bell rang that day, my mind went blank when I searched for the rest of the memory.