trans_9 | [Closed, and bendytimed to just after podpop]

(( Just editing this because the typos are bothering me. ))

Eva's not exactly comfortable with the whole thing either. As the first known freed host after the war, she was an object of fascination by more neurobiologists, psychologists and behavioralists than she can count up. The first year after the war had been filled with lots of poking and prodding and scanning in her brain, a part of her body she long stopped thinking of as private. But she knows that looking at all antsy will fuel Marco's paranoia, and more than anything she just wants to comfort her son and knows this is the only way to do that.

Meanwhile, she can't help but think everyone new should be put through one of these scans, just in case. Her eyes will be peeled for a one Allison Kim, at least.

"Hopefully it's not like an MRI. Those things are like coffins," she says, trying to make small talk. "They tell you to be perfectly still and then put you in a box that would make a professional coal miner have a panic attack. Let's just get this over with."

Sam was working on his other project, analyzing the blood of a certain vampire queen, in preparation for the later exploratory surgery. He showed no signs of exhaustion, despite the events of the virus and the quarantine. He strode from machine to machine to microscope, introducing various dyes and other things to slides. He was very much in his element.

He smelt them as they came in, and could tell enough from that to know they were related, and human. But otherwise, they were unfamiliar. He finished jotting down some notes and came out to greet them. "Hello, there," he said to them. "Is there anything you need help with?"

Looking them over, they were obviously mother and son. He pushed down a twinge of longing for his own mother, and kept a smile on his face. The boy looked about as old as he was when he'd lost his mother.

Gritting his teeth, Marco decided to get this over and done with. "We need the device that can scan people for Yeerks," he said, his eyes flicking over to Eva for a moment. He tried to keep his face neutral, but even Marco couldn't completely hide the stress he was feeling. "I need to make sure that my Mom's not a Controller anymore."

Anyone who knew Marco well would realise know how desperate he'd have to be to actually go up to a complete stranger, tell him about his mother, and ask for help like this.

Edited 2010-10-10 10:04 (UTC)

Eva resists the urge to reach over and put a hand to her son's shoulder. She knows it wouldn't help, that it would, in fact, make it worse, but she feels so helpless. She's so sick of that feeling. For seven years she was helpless mind body and soul, and now even with all her faculties she can't perform the simple motherly act of comforting her child. Stupid, stupid war. Not even stupid funny, just stupid.

The doctor, at least, seems friendly. "We need it done as quickly as possible," she adds.

Sam blinked a moment at Marco's request. Somewhere, some of the vocabulary this boy had just used rang familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. "I'm sorry? Could you clarify?" His smile had faltered slightly into confusion as he racked his memory for where exactly he'd heard this.

Marco narrowed his eyes at Sam. If Kang had been lying...

"Hello, have you been living in one of your little test tubes? Yeerks? Slugs that crawl into people's brains and rake control of them? You're supposed to have a device that scan people for them."

Not that Eva wouldn't like to be snarking, whining and moaning, but she's worked in politics long enough to know that that only slows things down. She takes a deep breath, and then in an even tone, speaking a bit over her son, says "at a point in my timeline I was infested. Since I can't prove when I'm from or if I'm free, your scanner or an imposed isolation are the only ways to determine if I'm a potential threat to everyone here. So you'll excuse us for being a bit anxious - it's putting a bit of a damper on our heartwarming reunion."

After a pause where she considers whether or not to give Sam their names, she simply asks "and whom are we speaking to, for the record? I know some doctors gets futzy about titles, if you are one."

Suddenly, it clicked. He hadn't read those books since elementary school. "Right! I'm sorry, I haven't had to deal with this personally. My name is Dr. Samuel Henderson. I apologize, things still aren't entirely organized after the outbreak. Right this way," he led the way deeper into the labs. There was still lingering evidence of the damages done by rage-filled patients.

Marco raised his eyes at the Doctor title - the guy looked rather young to be a doctor - but he didn't comment, instead just following after Sam. As long as this guy got the scanner, Marco didn't give a damn who he was.

"You do know how to work it, right?" he said, still looking at Sam with suspicion.

"More flies with honey, dear," Eva mutters. It's not that she doesn't understand or empathize with the impatience. She just doesn't know what else to do and being tugged around, even for the right reasons, rankles her. Having her son talk about her and not to her bothers her. In a horrible way, it reminds her of the years when she might as well have not existed, with Edriss, and she feels frustrated with herself that she can't just shake that feeling, can't use facts and reason to rationalize it away. But she tries to stay looking composed.

The doctor's youth doesn't surprise her, given that she's already met a visible child here who was the head of some structured military division. And who would she be to talk anyway? Her son isn't old enough to legally drink but he's savior of humanity. At least Dr. Henderson is sounding professional enough. "How accurate is this scanner, doctor?"

A false positive would not be a good thing.

He nodded. If his memory served, it would be better to tell this kid what he wanted to hear instead of waiting to figure it out. "Yes, I do." He gave Marco an encouraging nod as he started to set up the machine. "Have a seat there, Ma'am." He gestured to a chair attached to the machine. "I'll be ready to go in just a moment here."

Marco didn't look at all mollified by Eva's reassurance - if anything, it was a reminder that she could still be the Yeerk. Catching flies with honey had been Edriss's whole plan to take over Earth, and she was definitely capable of employing it against Marco.

And he was still watching Sam with suspicion. "You didn't answer the question. How accurate is it?" And if the answer was complete accuracy, would his mother run, proving she was really the Visser? Would he be able to accept the results if it's accuracy was anything less than one hundred percent?

Eva takes her seat and sighs. This whole thing is giving her a headache, and the idea of the scanner having spotty accuracy makes her stomach turn. She very much just wants this to be over with, so she tries to comfort herself with the idea that at least it won't take longer than three days, even if the scanner doesn't work. It's difficult to stay stoic when the ropes of the past keep wrapping around her ankles. Her whole life is a careful negotiation with the memory of Edriss these days.

Three days at the longest. Three days, maybe, hopefully less, and then her son can breathe easy and she can work on actually being Eva, not Eva and the specter of Edriss. She looks up expectantly at the doctor, hoping for a satisfying answer.

"I apologize, I was getting some settings corrected. With Stacy's technology, we have had no false positives," he told them, looking between them as he spoke. "I've never seen any equipment with 100% accuracy before arriving on this ship. It's fantastic." He flashed an energetic grin.

In truth, he'd simply stalled a moment so he could pull up the statistics on the computer system.

Marco watched the screen closely, nodding in satisfaction after he finished reading them. Good - he could trust the results then.

"You going to get started?" he said to Sam, but turning to Eva. Uncertainty flickering over his face for a moment - he still didn't know what he'd do if she turned out to be infested still.

She knows full well that Marco will not relax until she's been scanned, but hopefully the look of relief on her face when she hears about the accuracy will calm him just a little bit until then. "I'm ready if you are, doctor."

Henderson's enthusiastic grin reminds her a bit of Peter, whenever he talks about the fun new alien technology he gets to work with these days.

He hit a few more buttons, and nodded. "I'm ready." He hit the key to start the test and waited. A digital cross-section of her brain began to appear on the monitor, from bottom to top, and he looked carefully at it. If he recalled correctly, the Yeerks were capable of permeating all the little wrinkles of the brain. In order to have the control they did, there are some very specific places that had to be touched by the creature. His brow furrowed as he watched the image be compiled, a bit like trying to load a hi-res image on a low-bitrate connection. But as it loaded, he wasn't seeing anything unusual.

He leaned down to the keyboard again, and struck a couple keys. He brought up an example of an infested brain and the two images stood side-by-side with each other. By now, it had gotten to the point where it was clear there was no sign of a Yeerk anywhere in her cranium.

Marco felt a surge of relief as he watched the screen - he's no medical expert, but he had eyes and he knew enough about how Yeerks infested people to see that Eva didn't have one.

"You're you," he said. "You...you're you."

For once, Marco didn't have anything sarcastic to say - he just pulled Eva into a hug, glad that she was still free.

She hugs him back, tightly, rubbing one hand over his shoulders comfortingly. "Mmm hmm. You can relax now."

She was uncomfortable before the scan, but she can tell from the way he's speechless how completely tense he was. "You've been worried about this a long time, haven't you?"

Nodding to the doctor, she thanks him for his time and equipment.

He nodded back with a smile, and shut the machine down. He was certainly not about to get in the way of a happy family reunion, especially not one like this. Marco was about the age that Sam had been when he'd lost his mother, so it was especially meaningful. He wondered how he would react if she ever came out of one of the pods. But that would probably be too much to hope for.

Marco pulled out of the hug, and tried to blink back the tears that were forming. He grinned at her, looking infinitely more relaxed then he had five minutes ago. "Me, worried? Course not. But it just would have been a real cramp in my style if I had to go and squish Visser One again. It'd take forever to wash her out of my toes."

"Please, you already got her once. The polite thing would be to isolate her, stick her in a jar and let me take out some much-needed catharsis on her. You shouldn't get to do all the fun stuff all the time." She grins back, her own eyes tearing up slightly. Nothing quite reaffirms the idea of luck or fate or God or whatever than always having your loved ones returned to you in one piece. She was so close to going into mourning until she saw him here.

"Oh, and before any wires get crossed - I saw Tom here. He still thinks I'm Visser One and I might not have tried all that hard to convince him otherwise." The grin turns just a little bit conniving. "Or tried at all."

The shutdown complete, Sam took his leave, going back to his other projects, such as the cleanup.

((OOC: And consider Sam out of the thread unless either of them have a question for him.))

"Well now I know what to get you for your birthday," Marco smirked. "Do you want her on a silver platter as well?"

He laughed, and his grin grew even wider when he heard about Tom. "Nice, very nice. How much did he squirm?"

Marco's eyes flicked over to Sam for a second - sure, Tom's status as a Controller was pretty well known by this point, but Marco was nothing if not careful - he'd have to watch what he said about Tom.

"With salt, if you don't mind. I always wanted to see if Yeerks are like slugs in more ways than just their shape." Eva's gotten past the point where her fantasies of violence worry her. She moved past that within weeks of being infested.

"I think he might have wet himself. Eyes like saucers." It does, however, still bother her that people will always know her as the host to Visser One, but if that's her lot she's going to milk it all she can. "I told him to lie low and reconnoiter for me, and keep me informed on all of his opinions. I assumed we can't get the poor boy free or you'd have already done it, but maybe you have some ideas for what we can do with an enemy terrified senseless of me."

She trusts that if anyone can find a way to exploit the situation, her son can.

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The Doctor requests care with spoilers from after 44

SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDO...oh wait wrong series

Re: SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDO...oh wait wrong series

Sam will keep his canon knowlege to himself, no worries

Then Marco will only have the usual level of paranoia, rather than EXTREME PARANOIA :P

Re: Then Marco will only have the usual level of paranoia, rather than EXTREME PARANOIA :P

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