(A/N: Thank you Magnacarta for your nice review and your advice! I really appreciate it! I also want to thank anyone else who gives me a review be it positive or negative ahead of time as I started this chapter almost immediately after I read Magnacarta's. lol ^^; I just wanted to be sure someone would be willing to read it before I continued. In this chapter I'm going to be telling stories about where different people are within all that is happening in Metro City right now, and you'll get to see some of the big issues my character Emily was talking to President Logan about at the beginning. And the best part? You get to see where Astro and Tenma have run off to. )
Chapter Two: The Thing's I Wish You Knew
"I hate this place."
"You too?"
Zane looked to his left and to his surprise saw the ginger-haired Grace standing next to him. He had not expected to see her so early in the day. She was usually kept busy in the kitchen and in the laundry rooms washing dishes and folding laundry with the other little girls her age. The owners of the so called children's home had had he and all the older boys from the surface out working in the dirt with the construction robots for the past seven months which was where he had been all that day…drudging through mud, and the driving rain and hammering nails where robots couldn't and adding an extra back where one was needed.
Grace usually carried a mean, rakish, expression on her face which she used to keep the bigger girls in the kitchen from bullying her but at the moment she looked like she was really wanting a hug and Zane held up his hands and demurred.
"Look at me dude.", he said smiling as cheerfully as possible, and making the mud that had made its way onto his face crack as he did so. "I'm too dirty to hug you. You don't wanna get your laundry dress the children's home gave you dirty do you?" The past few months had made Zane forget how much Grace had always hated girly things being put into connection with her name and what she said next made him instantly regret having uttered the word 'dress'.
"I don't give a flip flying FUCK about this dress, OR this shit hole Orphanage!" Grace pinned him with her trademark 'I –WILL-KILL -YOU' stare, and then proceeded to take off her laundrer's dress.
Zane would have freaked out had he not discovered seconds into it that she had a shirt and basketball shorts on under it. He stood there frowning at her for a bit before finally holding out his arms slowly. "You can hug me if you promise to stop cussing so much. We're not at Hamegg's anymore Grace. People actually come here to look at kids to KEEP. And I promised Cora I'd look after you guys."
Grace flattened her short skinny self against him frowning. "I don't want to promise that. How come people can't just accept their kids for who they are. Personality and all that crap? If someone comes to look at me I don't want them to only see my face." She looked up at him through his arms smearing some of the mud from his t-shirt onto her face and into her hair. "Don't you agree Zane?"
Zane nodded. "Yeah Grace. But just…try to relax it a little still though okay? When you grow up you don't want people thinking that's all ya' know how to do, alright?"
She nodded and released him looking a little more cheerful than she had before. "Gonna go back and –shiver- clean out the sinks from today's lunch." Grace snatched up the dingy yellow dress and ran from the room waving goodbye at him from behind herself.
"Awright. See ya when you get done then!" Once Grace was gone Zane sighed and looked around the sleeping quarters of the older boy population of the Metro City Children's Home. It was going to be hard trying to pretend he was sleeping somewhere else tonight. He'd been in this place way too long. When he'd lived with Cora and everyone else at Hamegg's he'd always dreamed about what it would be like to live in Metro City and be waited on hand and foot by robots. After Astro had defeated that crazy President/Robot thing everything had seemed like it was gonna get better…not all come down to …this. The Social Worker that had brought he and the other kids here had painted a much rosier picture of where they would be going.
Zane watched as a small mouse poked it's nose out one of the old couch cushions they were given to use as pillows. There were about 30 beds in this room, and not everyone had their own either. Zane himself had opted to sleep on the floor when he'd first gotten here, having seen who was to be his bunk mate. It was a boy named Nate Peter's everyone at the orphanage spent a lot of time punking and getting over on. Zane wasn't really that kind of guy himself, but he could definetly see the attraction. Nate made it easy. He was absolutely disgusting, and had a lot of really nasty habits. He had a pretty foul odor too. Even for Zane, and it wasn't like he spent much time in the shower himself. Nate was one of those really pale, shaky kids that picked his nose and put the contents in places no one would think to be wary of. He also liked to eat odd things that had no nutritional value whatsoever. Zane had once seen him swallow a glob of paste and then just work it down like he was dissolving a delicious gourme piece of chocolate in his mouth.
If the cold, vermin infested, rooms and hard labor weren't bad enough there was also the low quality food they received on a daily basis. They had the same thing to eat pretty much everyday. They were given a thin piece of pan sausage, and cold oatmeal in the morning for breakfast. They had green beans and tuna sandwhiches for lunch, and some kind of weird soup with brown stuff floating around in it for dinner. Cooking was about the only thing they didn't have to do for themselves each day, but it was little consolation for the rats and roaches they had to swat off their pillows each night and the work they were forced to do.
The directors who were supposed to be caring for them all, were hardly ever present and when they were it was only to make sure that the people that they had hired to keep the place running were doing it as cheaply as possible, which was why Zane and kids as young as Sludge were out doing construction work within the city to make extra money and do the heavy work around the building, and why Grace and little Widget were stuffed into a tiny kitchen washing dishes and doing laundry. They didn't want to actually have to buy robots or pay any adult's to do the work so the kids were all basically running the orphanage all on their own, which, when he thought about it, Zane really didn't understand how something like this could be going on right smack-dab in the middle of a such a supposedly great city.
He felt a slight pang of anger and regret as he continued to look out the window. It was still raining out. It seemed like such a travesty that it should even be possible for it to rain in Metro City. It was even more of a travesty that there was such a thing as mud and orphange's here too. When he'd first come here he'd looked out this window, and even though the city he saw was a pale shadow of its former self he had been so excited to be here. But it had become so far removed from what he'd imagined it would be like that he'd cried into his dirty couch cushion on the yellow and blue checkered floor on many an occasion when he'd thought everyone in the room was in a deep enough sleep not to hear him. Zane wasn't a push-over, a punk, a weeny, or any of those derogatory names that tended to be put on a teenage boy who happened to cry on a regular basis. In all actuality he was really a pretty tough kid. Before he'd ever met up with Cora or any of the others he'd lived with his mother and father in the most bare-boned, poverty stricken area in the Outland's. He could remember his mother trying to make a game out scrounging food out of dumpsters so she could feed him, and how his father had tried as hard as he could to earn money just to get them something decent…or rather get Zane something decent. There was never enough for all of them, and when he had finally gotten old enough to understand that concept, he ran off away from them not wanting to be a burden on them any longer. No. Zane wasn't a punk and he wasn't any stranger to hardship by any means, but it still hurt to have your dreams crushed. Cora had been right when she'd told him Metro City wasn't all it was cracked up to be, and he wished he listened. Hamegg's garage seemed like a world away now. A paradise compared to this dingy Orphanage. It didn't matter now though. Things were, how they were, and there was no changing them now.
He took one last look out at what he could see of the city, and then turned and walked towards the door to the outside hallway. He really needed to wash all this mud off.
Cora
Cora pulled her hood tighter around the sides of her face and then folded her arms in as she walked through the throngs of people all having lately moved into Metro City from the Outlands. There was a pungent odor in the air. A mix of both human and animal waste all settling in one area. Because so many veteran resident property owners of Metro City had refused anyone from the Outlands apartments and houses to rent, a lot of people had ended up pitching tents in alleyway's and in public squares and parks.
The center of the city had been the most severely damaged in the fight and it was there where a lot of the construction effort was being made. That was where Cora was headed now, to go take her mother a lunch. She was one of the two repairmen for the robots that did the work there. A slew of Social Workers had barreled down on her and the other kids about two or three weeks after Astro's big battle with Stone. She'd been sent back to live with her mom. Cora had never actually really been a run-a-away. She and her mother had just always had a certain understanding about things. They didn't have the played out stereotypical 'Lifetime Channel' mother daughter relationship. They didn't yell and scream at one another all the time, and they didn't cry and eat ice cream together when one of them was sad. When Cora was old enough to want to go outside and do things, her mother simply let her go with a, "Be back before dark." The only thing they had ever really argued about was when Cora was around eleven and she'd started hanging out with Zane and the other kids at Hamegg's garage. Cora's mother had always had a personal interest in robotics, and she agreed that Hamegg was talented in his way…but she just didn't approve of his use of the robot's he repaired. Fixing a robot just so you could break it again was a waste. She did want for Cora to learn a trade though…and what better trade was there than robotics in a place like Metro City? She had let the Hamegg issue go, and it ended up, instead of Cora having to be back before dark, she just had to ,"Come home and get something to eat and a shower once in a while." She had realized early on when Cora was a small that going to actual school was just something she wasn't going to be able to make her strong willed little girl do, so she took to home schooling her up until she started spending night's at Hamegg's. There was a bit of a gap in Cora's learning, but it wasn't such that it couldn't be made up for when there was time, and that's the way both Cora AND her mother both felt about it.
Cora looked around her. The square she was in was full of tents and port-o-potties and people walking to and fro. Her mom's work tent was just a little farther up ahead past the big fountain in the middle of the square where some people could actually be seen washing their dirty laundry. There seemed to be a lot more people in this particular square than there had been the last time she had come up here. Cora walked on, shoving her way through the crowds of small children and families that were mucking and drudging around the area. She never liked being out here during the day when all the refugee's were awake. It made her feel uneasy…and nervous..and just…uncomfortable.
Once she got up to the beige tent she walked right in, finding her mother hunched over a small robot on the repair table. The other two repairwomen were off on the other side's of the tent working on others. All of them wore the same uniform. Blue, oil-stained overall's with black t-shirts underneath. "Mom…got your lunch." Cora walked over to the table on the right side of the tent and sat her mother's lunch pail down. "I made you tuna…your favorite right?"
"Mhm. Thank you, Cora." Cora's mother turned around wiping her hands briskly over her blue jean overall's, speaking over her shoulder to let the robot on the table know she'd finish with him in a few minutes. She was a petite woman, not that much bigger than her 14 year-old daughter, really. The white name tag on her overall's read: *Ms. Demimia Roberts. She had black, shiny, hair that came down to the middle of her back when she wore it down which was usually when she was at home and relaxed, but at this moment it was pinned up in a bun at the back of her head, so as not to be in the way while she was working. Her eyes were also the same deep blue as her daughter's, but larger, and more alert in their appearance. She walked over to the table to where Cora was and held out her left arm for a half-way hug, which Cora gave.
"There's chip's too…and some pineapple juice I got for a good price."
"Pineapple juice…?" Demimia rummaged through the lunch pail and pulled out the small thermos of pineapple juice and looked at it gratefully at first, then suspiciously. First her favorite sandwich. Now her favorite fruit juice. She looked at the chips. Dorito's….Spicy-Sweet Chili Dorito's.. She sat the bag down and peered over at her daughter who was staring back at her very intently.
"You gonna eat mom, or just look at it?..", Cora asked, trying to make her smile appear as genuine as possible.
"I'm going to eat…what about you though? Did you eat the breakfast I left you this morning? The eggs and rice, and biscuits?"
"Yeah. It was really good…", Cora tried again to pull her face into a smile but it faltered halfway through. She heard the lunch pail snap shut and then heard it scrape against the table as her mother pushed it back toward her.
"Cora?"
"Yes?" Cora swallowed and looked down at her shoes.
"Did you eat ANYTHING today?"
"…."
"Did you?"
"No, mom."
"Why not?"
"I just can't…"
"Is this some kind of body image thing Cora? Because if it is I-!"
Cora looked up from the floor back at her mother with a look of pure disdain on her face. Her nostril's flared out in irritation. " I thought we agreed we would never have any sissy-fied tweety-bird Lifetime Mother-Daughter talk's mom! I'm not bulimic or anorexic so don't go there okay? I don't have image issues!"
"Then why the hell are you pushing my cooking away? I don't watch Paula Dean's fat ass flounce around the kitchen for nothing! You haven't eaten in three days! You're losing weight Cora! It's bad enough I let you eat two day old pizza out of the garbage at Hamegg's, but I'll be damned if I'm going to be the one responsible for letting you starve yourself!"
"I'm not starving myself mom! I just…I just-! I've been thinking a lot lately..I just don't wanna eat alright? I'm not hungry!"
The two other construction repair women by this time had stopped their work to listen to the argument. The shortest, stoutest one stood looking over Cora's thin frame with disapproval. She leaned over to the woman next to her and whispered loudly, "Did she just say she let her daughter eat out of the trash? What kind of a mother is that?"
Demimia picked up the lunch pail and shoved it back into her daughter's arms. Her large blue eyes were starting to tear up slightly, and a pain was beginning to develop in her chest. She folded her arms over her chest and stared hard at Cora for a moment before speaking again. The last comment…the one she'd made about Hamegg's had just reduced her normally spunky, bright, smart allec teenage daughter into a puddle of tears.
"You miss them all that much? Those orphan's?"
There were about three or four construction robots with their heads stuck inside the tent looking on, wondering when the argument was going to be over so they could get their few minor repairs done. Demimia narrowed her eyes at them, and their head's, along with those of the other two repair women, went back to minding their own business. Cora was still crying. In a normal setting Demimia would've tried to comfort her with a hug, but to her, work was really no place for personal family issues, so she didn't make the attempt. She just waited until Cora calmed down enough to answer.
After another two or three minutes of weeping, Cora stood back up erect and looked back up at her mother who was still waiting for a response. She took a quick second to rub her sleeve across her face and the underside of her nose. "Y-yeah mom. I do. I miss them. A lot."
"And you want me to give you permission to go and see them?"
"No. I want your permission to FIND them."
"FIND them?"
Another robot stuck its head inside the tent. "Excuse me Miss Robert's, but-"
Cora moved to the side quickly as her mother let loose with a monkey wrench and a string of curses at the unfortunate machine. "I"LL GET TO YOU WHEN I'M DONE! NOW, PISS OFF YA' BUCKET OF BOLTS!"
Cora's mother turned back around. "FIND them? They'd probably be in an Orphanage somewhere in the city honey…"
"I know that…and Zane promised he'd try and write me to keep me updated on the kid's and I haven't gotten anything! I wrote down our address perfectly for him!"
Demimia frowned. "He's the one that has trouble spelling and reading right?"
Cora nodded. "Yeah…..but he was getting better with Astro teaching him! He even managed to spell MY name right a couple of times!" Cora gave her mom a pleading look. The very best one she could muster. She'd been going out of her mind the past few months wondering what was going on with everyone. She had no idea whatsoever what Orphanage they had all been taken to and the stress of not knowing whether or not her friends were safe, and happy had caused her to skip meals…and sometimes even forget she was hungry at all. Cora wasn't starving herself….she was just stressed to the point of forgetting her own needs. There was another part of it too though…but it was one she didn't really feel very comfortable talking to her mother about.
Demimia sighed heavily and unfolded her arms. "Can you wait until I get off work and get home before I give you an answer?"
Cora nodded and smiled. This time a much more genuine smile. "I'll eat something…I just wanna know that their all okay."
"I know hun. I'm still not going to eat that lunch though. You have it. And you eat my breakfast from now on too. Understood?"
Another nod. Cora started to back out of the tent.
"Cora?"
"Yeah mom?"
"I want to talk to about this…'Astro' when I get home, too. You say his name in your sleep pretty often." Demimia's eye's narrowed again, this time in suspicion. Cora paused right at the entrance. She had no clue at all what to say. She just stood there, hoping her ears weren't betraying her by turning their trademark pink when she was embarrassed. She ended up just giving her mother another quick nod, and then running out of the tent. From now on she was going to have to make sure her door was closed before she went to bed at night.
The trip back home to she and her mother's apartment was much faster than when she'd left originally. This time she decided not to try and cut through the refugee areas, and went through the less damaged areas instead. She wasn't exactly sure why they all chose to go to the heavily damaged places, but she assumed that there were a lot of men, and families who had come up from the Outland's who had hoped they could make some quick, temporary money by helping out with construction work. Too bad no one seemed to want to hire anyone who didn't at least know a little bit about robot repair though. It seemed they would rather just get as much work out of obsolete worker robot's as they could rather than put up with human workers. And who could really blame them when you look at it from a business perspective? You have to pay a human worker. You have to feed it. Make absolutely sure it's satisfied or it'll get all the other worker bees together and start a riot, and no one wants that. No. Better to just push the robots. Machines without souls or minds of their own. The generic personalities they carried the simple programing of some roboticisist at the Ministry of Science. You don't have to pay them. You don't have to be nice to them, and you don't have to feed them either. Just tell them what to do, and fix them when they break. That's it.
As these thoughts worked their way through Cora's mind she sat and nibbled on the tuna sandwich she had made and looked around at she and her mother's shabby apartment. It was situated on the lower end of Metro City. The part of the city where the low income families lived. It was a small two-bedroom apartment with a little kitchen…a little living room with a dirty, ratty, old couch and old T.V that actually had antennae's on it. Cora's room was about the size of a large walk-in closet. All four of the walls in her room were covered with picture's she had taken with friends, and Metal Band posters. Her twin bed which sat up against the right wall was totally bare at the moment. She had her and her mother's bed sheets in the wash. She wondered for a moment what Zane and the others were sleeping on. She hadn't heard anything good about any of the orphanages in the city from the people she'd asked. She also wondered where Astro was. He had all but disappeared with his father and Dr. Elefun after the fight. She looked down at the sandwich between her lips and laughed at herself mentally. She had just been about to ask herself the question. "I wonder what Astro has to eat?". Back when he had lived with them as an Orphan at Hamegg's she'd always wondered why he just sat and picked at his food so much, or gave it away when someone asked for it without any hesitation. This thought made her stomach rumble uncomfortably. She sat the tuna sandwich down, and put her face in her hands.
"Don't think about it. Don't think about it…."
The other issue Cora had been struggling with the past seven months was what she knew had to be a serious crush on Astro.
When she'd first come back home she'd spent almost all her time with her mother, or running around Metro City checking Orphanage's for her friend's or stopping into the half-burned down postal office to see if she'd gotten any mail from Zane. She hadn't given a single abnormal out of the way thought to Astro until about two or three months ago when she was sitting on the couch watching Robot Chicken after her mom had gone to bed. The clip of the robot humping the washing machine had instantly put her in mind of him and she'd nearly snorted cherry flavored generic Kool-Aid out of her nose trying to picture him doing the same thing in a laundry-mat. She hadn't been able to get the thought out of her mind, and eventually, that funny thought made her think of all sorts of question's she wanted to ask. Did Astro know how to hump? Did he know what 'humping' was? What was his skin made out of? What were his teeth made out of? Do robots have robot porn? Then, later on the dreams started. The first dream had her waking up laughing. She'd dreamed she'd gone to the laundry-o-mat and Astro had snuck in like the robot on Robot Chicken and humped the washing machine she was using. The one's after that were just too weird and uncomfortable to even think about.
Cora shook her head vigorously from side to side shaking out the memory of the last dream she'd had. She had to figure out some way to STOP crushing on him. She didn't even really have any idea WHY she was feeling this way all of a sudden. It was just…WRONG. They had been relatively close back at Hamegg's and even though she had to admit she'd given some thought to him as a potential 'boyfriend' back then, that was when she had thought him to be human just like her and all the other kids. She knew she had to make this go away somehow. She couldn't very well tell her mother that she'd been having pg-13 rated dream's about a robot. And for sanity's sake she hoped the dream's STAYED pg-13. Astro was her friend. A good robot friend. Albeit a very human looking, and human acting robot friend..but still …he had to STAY 'just a friend'. Yeah. She would just go and get some Trash and Vaudeville catalogues and stare at some hot Grind-Core band member's try to shake this. Astro probably didn't think about girl's anyway…..right? He probably thought about stuff like….computer chips…like normal robots. Yeah. That's definitely what he thinks about!
(A/N: Okay, I know some people will be a little upset at how I portrayed Cora as being in denial about her feeling's for Astro, but even though Cora can accept the fact that Astro is what he is, who's to say that would make her equally as quick to accept that she does indeed have feeling's for him? Feeling's for someone who isn't human? I don't think it would be right to just have them instantly already in love with each other so I decided to write it this way. Plus, I decided to make Cora a Death Metal fan in this story. She just looks like the type. Any who, I won't interrupt with my ramblings anymore! Last part of chapter two, coming up! )
Tenma and Astro
(A/N: One last thing. The Tenma in this story is the one from the 2003 series. Nicholas Cage just didn't do it for me. Sorry folks.)
*Dr. Ramsey looked from both Dr. Tenma to his robot son with deep concern etched into his weathered face. He'd been a family therapist for fifteen years, and this was the most unhealthy father-son relationship he'd seen to date..and he'd seen a lot. When his old friend, Pakadermis J. Elefun had called him and told him about these two he'd originally been very reluctant to take the case on, especially considering the boy, Astro, was not really a boy..but a robot. How do you conduct a therapy session for what's supposed to be just a soulless machine? He chose to disregard that though when he'd met Astro. This boy was definitely no average little cleaning bot. He'd cried. His face conveyed emotion. He'd yelled at his father like any angry wayward teenager during their first few sessions and this one wasn't any different. He didn't know anything about science or robotics but…. had truly…truly made a marvel.
He scratched at his thick grey beard, and brought his eyes back to Tenma, the father. Tenma was sitting bolt upright staring at his son with his mouth open in shock. He looked like he couldn't decide whether to be furious or just hurt. A few moment's ago, Astro had just revealed to him and his father that he had once attempted suicide when he was nine. Ramsey could sense what would be behind something like that, but it looked like Tenma wasn't seeing the bigger picture…just the 'My son tried to take his own life by throwing himself off the top of the stairs' part.
"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?"
"Because you wouldn't stay home unless I was sick or injured! You were always working! I just wanted some attention from you! I was really hurt you were always choosing work over me, so I thought maybe-!"
"HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOU WHEN YOU HAVE A BROKEN NECK? YOU COULD'VE ACTUALLY DIED!"
"I DID DIE DAD! OR DID YOU FORGET? YOUR STUPID ROBOT THAT YOU PICKED OVER ME BLEW ME TO BITS, AND THEN YOU GOT THE BRILLIANT IDEA TO REBUILD LIKE THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN! REMEMBER THAT SHIT DAD?"
"WATCH YOUR MOUTH WHEN YOU SPEAK TO ME OR I'LL-!"
"DO WHAT DAD? BEAT ME AND TELL I'M A WORTHLESS PIECE OF JUNK AND THAT I'M NOT THE REAL TOBY?"
Dr. Ramsey took this moment to intervene. "GENTLEMEN PLEASE!-PLEEEAAASSSEEE!"
They both snapped their head's around and looked at him, anger and heavy emotion written in both their faces. Ramsey let his eye linger on Astro a moment. The boy even had tear-ducts…and eyelashes and eyebrows. And was his hair actually swaying slightly from the breeze air conditioning? If he hadn't been told beforehand he was a robot, he wasn't sure if he'd have been able to guess otherwise.
"This is supposed to be a therapy session for the two of you…NOT a scream-off." Dr. Ramsey sat down his notebook and leaned forward in his chair. His small, beady, watery blue eyes went from father to son respectively. "We've been at this for nearly a month…and you two don't seem to be doing any better than when we started….so I have a proposal for the two of you."
They both looked at him attentively without speaking. Dr. Ramsey pushed forward.
"I believe the problem here is serious breakdown in communication. Neither of you listen's to the other..you just react! And I can't go about trying to fix the problem when you're screaming in each other's faces. So here's what I'm going to do…" He stood up and paced the little area in front the coffee table. "From now on, these sessions are going to be split into two thirty minute sessions instead of just the one. I'll talk to one of you for the first session while the other wait's in another room."
Astro and Tenma looked at one another and then back at the doctor and nodded.
"But there's one thing." Dr. Ramsey stopped directly in front of them and stared hard at them both. "The person in the other room will be able to hear everything you are saying. You two…especially YOU Tenma, have trouble just sitting and letting one other talk, so I think it would be best if I separated you. You'll be able to hear what is said, but you won't be able to respond until it's your turn and vice versa. Am I making sense?"
Astro nodded and narrowed his eyes at his father. "Yeah. Perfect. I can talk without him overreacting to everything I say."
Tenma opened his mouth to make a retort, but Ramsey cut him off by thumping Astro on the forehead lightly with the back of his hand. It was something Ramsey had done a couple of times during some of their session's…the first time because he was curious to know if his skin felt as human as it looked. The second time to stop him from ripping out a string of sailor's curses at his father that has caused the man rip out some of his own even more colorful one's right into his son's face.
"THAT, Astro, has to stop. NOW.", Ramsey said giving him another tap on the forehead.
Astro waved the man's hand away in irritation. "What? He does! Every time I say something, he-!"
Thump.
"Quit! That's annoying!"
Ramsey took his hand away. "I'm sure it is. It's annoying to me that you keep making sassy remarks in order to get your father fired up and yelling at you. You seem to be an intelligent young man. I'm sure you can think of a more positive way to get attention when you want it."
" I DON'T WANT MY DAD TO YELL AT ME! HE JUST DOES! AND I'M NOT TRYING TO GET ATTENTION!"
Ramsey smiled inwardly to himself. He had definitely hit a nerve there. Astro's eyes were welling up with tears again, and he had his fists clenched and his teeth bared. It was the classic look of someone who had just been called out on something deep and personal.
Dr. Tenma took advantage of the silence and looked at Dr. Ramsey from his place on the couch next to his son. Ramsey looked toward him and raised an eyebrow in question. "Yes?"
"We'll try it…that is…I'll try if he wants to. The separation that is."
Ramsey smiled outwardly this time. Two breakthroughs today…after nearly a month. Tenma had just attempted to follow advice he had previously given him about trying to including Astro in decision making, and he had only a moment ago gotten Astro to admit through body language, that he was extremely attention starved. He looked over to Astro who was now looking defiantly out the window at the broken remnants of Metro City.
"Do you want to give it a shot as well Astro?", he asked.
Astro didn't respond verbally. He just nodded rigidly.
"Then we'll begin tomorrow then. At the same time." Ramsey went over to the desk and picked up his notebook and tossed it in his briefcase. He heard the shuffling of feet behind him and then the sound of door closing. Astro had just gone into his room or what was his room when he and his father slept at Dr. Elefun's house. Ramsey turned and nearly jumped out of his skin. Tenma was standing directly behind him with a pained expression on his face. Ramsey frowned and stepped back a bit. He hadn't even heard him move…
"I need advice about something before you leave Dr. Ramsey..if you don't mind."
Ramsey nodded. Sometimes the way Tenma acted made him think there was more going on in his mind than just trouble dealing with his adolescent, robot son. His eyes were a very dark blue and eerily reflected everything he looked at. Ramsey could literally see himself in Tenma's eyes. It was rather unsettling, especially seeing as how Tenma didn't seem to hardly ever blink.
"Yes..certaintly. What is it?", he asked, taking another small step back.
"Do you remember when you told me that I shouldn't attempt to fix problems between him and me with my….profession?"
"Yes?"
"Well….there's been another issue lately….and I'm not sure how to go about…fixing it…without actually..fixing it."
"What do you mean?"
"He's been…locking up."
"Locking up…?"
"Yes….just stopping…and crying."
Dr. Ramsey tilted his head to the side. He wasn't getting what Tenma was trying to say to him. "Dr. Tenma…if you could…be more descriptive?.."
Tenma took a moment to think and closed his eerie dark eye's which made Ramsey relax a bit…until they popped back open again and he was presented with the image of his grizzled, old self for the second time.
"Sometimes…when I'm making improvements to him…or when we're doing that 'silent conversation' exercise you suggested…he tenses up..and doesn't respond when I speak to him. He stares….just stares… and then his eye-lights flicker..and he cries..and looks…like he's in pain."
Dr. Ramsey stood a moment before answering simply, "Oh.." He didn't know about any of Astro's abilities, so the word 'eye-lights' was pretty odd sounding to him.
Dr. Tenma continued. "I don't know what to do when it happens…so I just..wait until he responds to something I say. I'm not sure if it's something…emotional..or if I should just take a look to see if his programming is damaged in any way."
Dr. Ramsey nodded and scratched at his beard again. "Well..I'm not a robotocist Dr. Tenma, but…I stand by my earlier advice to you. You say during these 'lock-ups' that he cries and look's pained. To me, and like I said before, NOT a scientist, but that to me indicates something emotionally wrong…not physically..or technologically wrong."
Tenma nodded. "Alright..but..what would you suggest I do if it IS something emotional wrong…and not…physically wrong?"
"You said you try to talk to him? How long does it take for him to respond to you? What do you say?"
"I just call his name…Astro…sometimes his birth name…Tobio. Sometimes it only last's a minute or two…but the last time it was a full ten minutes…"
"Hmm. This is going to sound a little erm…on the odd side …but have you considered…physical contact?"
Dr. Ramsey couldn't help but laugh when he saw the way Tenma's face screwed up at that. It seemed all father-son pair's had an aversion to that word no matter how innocently he tried to say it.
"I just mean a hug Dr. Tenma. Or a shake. A slap in the face to snap him out of it, or a pat on the head even! I'm not trying to get you to molest the boy!" Ramsey continued to chuckle as he walked toward the door with his briefcase, and his overcoat under his arm.
"I'll be back tomorrow at the same time Dr. Tenma. Good day!"
Ramsey exited out into the hall where his good friend Elefun sat waiting. He stood up upon seeing Ramsey walking toward him with a worried look on his face.
"Are they still yelling…and fighting?", Elefun asked anxiously. "It sounded pretty loud in there for a moment…"
Ramsey sighed and nodded. "Fighting like cat's and dog's still, old friend. That'll be tough to get them to stop, but they're making some headway. I'm going to try the separation method with them tomorrow."
"Do you think it'll work?"
"I'm not sure. Those two definitely have some serious problems…but I'm going to give it a shot anyhow."
Elefun smiled. "Thank you for doing this Markham. You don't know what it means. It bothers me like nothing else to see a father and son behave that way toward one another! My father and I had our disagreement's when I was a child but….GOOD LORD! "
Ramsey laughed. "You have to take into consideration that they aren't the average father-son pair Elefun. You know more about them than I do after all."
"I know…but still."
Ramsey nodded again and took a cigarette out of his coat pocket and stuck it between his lips, and took out a lighter to light it with. "Anyway old chum, got to be getting home to the misses. Keep me posted if they have anymore screaming matches…and don't let Tenma make any…unnecessary 'improvement's' to Astro."
With that last, Markham Ramsey left, and Dr. Elefun was left alone in his hallway outside the living room. He walked toward his living room door and sighed. Another night of making sure father and son don't crush each other emotionally. Whoopee. Boy did he wish Markham wasn't the type of therapist that liked 'talk' to his patient's rather than give them happy pills. He hated to be thinking negative thoughts like that but trying to reprimand a robot with a billion horse-power rocket leg's, and super strength for calling his father a 'Mega-Twat' was not an easy, or fun thing to do at all. Neither was dealing with Tenma's dark moods, and black stares.
(A/N: So what do you guy's think? Please review! I worked hard on this one. ^^; And yes. Astro cusses. In the movie he WAS a teenager..and teenager's cuss. I don't think that he and his father would have instantly had a great relationship just because Tenma decided to stop being a douche and not deactivate him and finally accept him. They woulda still had some thing's to discuss, hence…THERAPY SESSION WITH MARKHAM RAMSEY! Lol.)