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estinosePart 9, almost done!
Walking Into Danger With Eyes Wide
Part 9: To Make The Best of Things
Three weeks. Four battles.
Ziggy was grateful to flee to his tiny classroom after giving his litany of bumps, bruises, and cuts to Doctor K after the team's latest debriefing. Battles were getting worse for him, and he knew he wasn't fighting or defending himself as well as he could. Doctor K hadn't precisely called him on it, but suddenly he was losing school hours to training time, her silent comment that he could do better than how he'd been doing.
He wondered if his parents realized it, too. That he'd rather be anywhere but in the forefront of humanity's defenses, that he wanted nothing better than to join Sophie at the Vachons'. But no, of course his original had to bond himself to the morpher, and then get turned into the four-year-old that eventually became him.
Ziggy Grover had made a really sucky life choice, as far as Ziggy Truman-Landsdown was concerned. He was the one having to deal with the consequences of the man's decisions, and he really didn't like it. He didn't want to die, even if he died a hero, or become the slave to a computer virus, both of which were real possibilities in his life.
But it was something he couldn't share with anyone, not even his parents. He didn't want to get into a fight with anyone that he didn't have to over something he had no choice to be, so he kept quiet and bit his tongue at Doctor K's increasingly acid comments, and did what he was told.
He felt like crying. It was his study period, so he probably was safe there, but it was even safer up in his room. It was his refuge, and a place where he could pound the mattress and cry as much as he wanted without anyone being the wiser. For the moment, he lay his head down on his desk, letting the tears seep out onto his jacket.
"ZIggy?" he could hear his mom. She had to be standing at the doorway. Ziggy straightened up, quickly batting his tears away so she wouldn't realize what he'd been doing. "Are you all right?"
He turned around to answer her, and realized that both his mom and his dad were in the doorway, both with worried expressions. Had he left too fast from the debriefing and worried them? Of course, him in the dark classroom wasn't exactly the most reassuring sign either.
To his horror, as he breathed in to reassure them that he was okay, his nose betrayed him with a rather large sniffle.
"Oh, Ziggy." His mom jogged forward to grab him into a hug. "It's all right. Breathe."
His father shut the door behind him, flipping on the light. "Ziggy, what's wrong?" his father asked. He grabbed one of the chairs from the teacher's desk, and Ziggy's mom let go briefly to do the same. Ziggy found himself sitting between his parents, wishing they'd go away but not willing to say that to their faces.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "Nothing."
His parents looked at each other. "Ziggy, the whole team knows something's wrong. Dillon knows something's wrong, and he barely knows you," his mother said gently. "It's very hard to hide things like this on our team."
"And you've never had much of a poker face to start with," his father added.
Had he been that obvious? Obviously so. But how could he tell his parents that he didn't want to fight any more? The last three generations of men on his father's side had all been military. And no matter how much he wanted to run away from there, he couldn't.
He was much too responsible for his own good.
Looking at his parents, he wished he knew what to say. "I, um." That was about as much as he could get out with them looking at him. "Never mind."
"Ziggy, it's bothering you so much that you're barely fighting out there," his father told him, hand on his shoulder as if to be reassuring. "You're not like that in here, you do fine in training, or so Doctor K tells me."
Running off, as much as he really wanted to do it, was a little hard with his mom holding him and his father's hand on his shoulder. So he didn't. Instead, he wondered what to say that would get him out of this without causing too many problems. "I'm not a warrior," he said finally. It was the truth, it wasn't something that would surprise anyone, and it might solve his problems if he admitted it. "I'm a scholar. I like books. Knowledge. Not battle. The only reason I'm out there is because I'm a Truman and I inherited the morpher." He sighed. "I'm fourteen, and I'm being asked to fight."
"Ziggy, you know the last thing we ever wanted to ask you to do was fight in a war, right?" his mother asked, brushing a lock of long blond hair out of her face quickly. "We're proud of you, you've grown up to be a good person. We want to do what we can to get you through this."
"Why didn't you tell me about the patches?" Ziggy blurted out. That was maybe what hurt the most. His parents, as far as he could tell, had never said a single thing about him carrying little bits and pieces of Venjix technology within him, or the fact that his could reactivate. Sure, a lot of the population had mechanical parts, but wouldn't it have been obvious to tell him something about it? He could hardly defend himself if he didn't know. "The ones that are in my fibula."
"On your fibula," his mother corrected absently. "I don't know if they ever got around to ever taking over the bone… I don't know, Ziggy. The infection was always so small with you that I don't think we ever thought to tell you about them."
"Considering mine could start growing again at any time…." He ran a hand through his hair.
"If it makes you more comfortable," his father said, as if planning to give an order, "I could ask Doctor K to run a scan after every battle. If anyone would catch it, she would. Plus, you have to be 51 percent mechanical in order to be taken over. You're at a hundredth of a percent at most."
Yeah, it was very small, but it bugged him. Of course, his parents were probably telling the truth, that his infection was so tiny compared to most everyone else's that they probably never thought it would be an issue. He wondered what else didn't occur to them, what secrets they held to his past because they didn't think that they were important. "I wish he'd never taken on the morpher."
Surprisingly, his mother and father shared a laugh at that, and his father grinned. "You know what? I thought the same thing a dozen times when he did it. It's not like he really had a choice, but I still wish he hadn't found himself in that position. Doctor K and I didn't like him a whole lot when he bonded with the morpher, totally unauthorized."
"He was an incredibly brave person," his mother told him with a small smile. "And you're a lot like him in that way; he didn't want to be a Ranger either. He wasn't a fighter, not at all. But he'd held by a promise, and he learned to fight. If there's anything more important about Ziggy, I can't think of it. For a criminal, he was one of the sweetest people I knew, and one of the most determined."
So he was in this position because of a promise held by a man who had never been meant to be in the war against Venjix. Somehow, it didn't comfort him that he was now sort of replaying that part of his predecessor's life.
"And you know what?" his mom continued. "He became incredibly brave as well. He could have refused to fight. He never did, even with everything that happened to him. He lived with those patches of yours, Ziggy, and worse - he had to live with the hardware growing inside him, knowing at any time that something might happen and it would become worse for him. By the time he became you, he had little bits of hardware throughout his body, just ready to start the process on some of his other bones. And he was scared, Ziggy. Incredibly scared. He tried to hide it from the rest of us, but I saw the look in his eyes every time he had to go into the lab. It probably didn't help that Dillon became terribly overprotective of him, either."
His lunch threatened to come up his throat, but he was able to take a deep breath, forcing it back down, and thinking about what his mom was saying. And then the puzzle piece clicked into place in Ziggy's head. Dillon had tried to save Ziggy Grover, and failed, and now Ziggy was not only a reminder of his lost love, but someone close he'd failed to save, especially from what had happened to him. No wonder he was a painful reminder to Dillon, and he didn't blame Dillon at all for not wanting to deal with him.
"We can't ask you not to be scared," his father said, his expression thoughtful and serious. "No matter what I think of him, Ziggy, he went out fighting. He died a hero. But he had to work hard, and learn a lot, and, as your mother said, he was scared. But that meant that he didn't take foolish risks, either."
"Unlike some people named Truman that I know," his mother said, lightly teasing his father.
"Yeah, well, that wasn't my proudest day ever," his father admitted, grinning back. "Especially after Gem pointed out to me that I was doing exactly everything I kept telling him not to do."
Ziggy sighed. It still didn't really solve his problems, but at least his parents did care. "I want to hear everything you know about him. Because I'm tired of not knowing. I'm not even sure who I am, really."
"You're Ziggy Truman-Landsdown," his father said, leaning forward. "That's the only person we're asking you to be. We'll work with you, we all will. Even Dillon, even if it kills him, he's going to help you out. We're a team, Ziggy. You've got all the help you can ask for, we just have to know when something's wrong… and in some way other than getting your butt kicked big time in battle because you can't ask for help."
"Do you want a therapist, too?" his mother asked, looking from his father to him. "Scott, me, all of us… we all were going to therapists by the time the war was over. We all had to recover from being soldiers and having that weight upon us."
His father nodded. "You're not weak," he said. "You're my son. And I'm proud of you. And… I can't believe I didn't think about asking if you needed one earlier."
"Neither did I," his mother echoed. "We should have thought of that."
"I thought about running away." If he was admitting everything, he might as well do that one. He, at least, would be honest. "But I couldn't. Because of the morpher."
Sighing, his mother said, "That proves that you're just as much a Ranger as the rest of us. Ziggy was like that too. He was determined to make the best of things, no matter how much he didn't like them."
Maybe he should do that too. It wasn't like Venjix was suddenly going to go away just because he didn't want to fight. He was stuck in this war he didn't want to fight, but at least maybe he'd get some support. Maybe someday things would get better, even if they didn't feel like it right then. "Skip the after-battle scanning, but… I'd really like it if we'd all just get together and tell me about him."
"That," his father said, leaning back in his chair, "We can do. In fact, I think it would be good for all of us."
Walking Into Danger With Eyes Wide
Part 9: To Make The Best of Things
Three weeks. Four battles.
Ziggy was grateful to flee to his tiny classroom after giving his litany of bumps, bruises, and cuts to Doctor K after the team's latest debriefing. Battles were getting worse for him, and he knew he wasn't fighting or defending himself as well as he could. Doctor K hadn't precisely called him on it, but suddenly he was losing school hours to training time, her silent comment that he could do better than how he'd been doing.
He wondered if his parents realized it, too. That he'd rather be anywhere but in the forefront of humanity's defenses, that he wanted nothing better than to join Sophie at the Vachons'. But no, of course his original had to bond himself to the morpher, and then get turned into the four-year-old that eventually became him.
Ziggy Grover had made a really sucky life choice, as far as Ziggy Truman-Landsdown was concerned. He was the one having to deal with the consequences of the man's decisions, and he really didn't like it. He didn't want to die, even if he died a hero, or become the slave to a computer virus, both of which were real possibilities in his life.
But it was something he couldn't share with anyone, not even his parents. He didn't want to get into a fight with anyone that he didn't have to over something he had no choice to be, so he kept quiet and bit his tongue at Doctor K's increasingly acid comments, and did what he was told.
He felt like crying. It was his study period, so he probably was safe there, but it was even safer up in his room. It was his refuge, and a place where he could pound the mattress and cry as much as he wanted without anyone being the wiser. For the moment, he lay his head down on his desk, letting the tears seep out onto his jacket.
"ZIggy?" he could hear his mom. She had to be standing at the doorway. Ziggy straightened up, quickly batting his tears away so she wouldn't realize what he'd been doing. "Are you all right?"
He turned around to answer her, and realized that both his mom and his dad were in the doorway, both with worried expressions. Had he left too fast from the debriefing and worried them? Of course, him in the dark classroom wasn't exactly the most reassuring sign either.
To his horror, as he breathed in to reassure them that he was okay, his nose betrayed him with a rather large sniffle.
"Oh, Ziggy." His mom jogged forward to grab him into a hug. "It's all right. Breathe."
His father shut the door behind him, flipping on the light. "Ziggy, what's wrong?" his father asked. He grabbed one of the chairs from the teacher's desk, and Ziggy's mom let go briefly to do the same. Ziggy found himself sitting between his parents, wishing they'd go away but not willing to say that to their faces.
Taking a deep breath, he said, "Nothing."
His parents looked at each other. "Ziggy, the whole team knows something's wrong. Dillon knows something's wrong, and he barely knows you," his mother said gently. "It's very hard to hide things like this on our team."
"And you've never had much of a poker face to start with," his father added.
Had he been that obvious? Obviously so. But how could he tell his parents that he didn't want to fight any more? The last three generations of men on his father's side had all been military. And no matter how much he wanted to run away from there, he couldn't.
He was much too responsible for his own good.
Looking at his parents, he wished he knew what to say. "I, um." That was about as much as he could get out with them looking at him. "Never mind."
"Ziggy, it's bothering you so much that you're barely fighting out there," his father told him, hand on his shoulder as if to be reassuring. "You're not like that in here, you do fine in training, or so Doctor K tells me."
Running off, as much as he really wanted to do it, was a little hard with his mom holding him and his father's hand on his shoulder. So he didn't. Instead, he wondered what to say that would get him out of this without causing too many problems. "I'm not a warrior," he said finally. It was the truth, it wasn't something that would surprise anyone, and it might solve his problems if he admitted it. "I'm a scholar. I like books. Knowledge. Not battle. The only reason I'm out there is because I'm a Truman and I inherited the morpher." He sighed. "I'm fourteen, and I'm being asked to fight."
"Ziggy, you know the last thing we ever wanted to ask you to do was fight in a war, right?" his mother asked, brushing a lock of long blond hair out of her face quickly. "We're proud of you, you've grown up to be a good person. We want to do what we can to get you through this."
"Why didn't you tell me about the patches?" Ziggy blurted out. That was maybe what hurt the most. His parents, as far as he could tell, had never said a single thing about him carrying little bits and pieces of Venjix technology within him, or the fact that his could reactivate. Sure, a lot of the population had mechanical parts, but wouldn't it have been obvious to tell him something about it? He could hardly defend himself if he didn't know. "The ones that are in my fibula."
"On your fibula," his mother corrected absently. "I don't know if they ever got around to ever taking over the bone… I don't know, Ziggy. The infection was always so small with you that I don't think we ever thought to tell you about them."
"Considering mine could start growing again at any time…." He ran a hand through his hair.
"If it makes you more comfortable," his father said, as if planning to give an order, "I could ask Doctor K to run a scan after every battle. If anyone would catch it, she would. Plus, you have to be 51 percent mechanical in order to be taken over. You're at a hundredth of a percent at most."
Yeah, it was very small, but it bugged him. Of course, his parents were probably telling the truth, that his infection was so tiny compared to most everyone else's that they probably never thought it would be an issue. He wondered what else didn't occur to them, what secrets they held to his past because they didn't think that they were important. "I wish he'd never taken on the morpher."
Surprisingly, his mother and father shared a laugh at that, and his father grinned. "You know what? I thought the same thing a dozen times when he did it. It's not like he really had a choice, but I still wish he hadn't found himself in that position. Doctor K and I didn't like him a whole lot when he bonded with the morpher, totally unauthorized."
"He was an incredibly brave person," his mother told him with a small smile. "And you're a lot like him in that way; he didn't want to be a Ranger either. He wasn't a fighter, not at all. But he'd held by a promise, and he learned to fight. If there's anything more important about Ziggy, I can't think of it. For a criminal, he was one of the sweetest people I knew, and one of the most determined."
So he was in this position because of a promise held by a man who had never been meant to be in the war against Venjix. Somehow, it didn't comfort him that he was now sort of replaying that part of his predecessor's life.
"And you know what?" his mom continued. "He became incredibly brave as well. He could have refused to fight. He never did, even with everything that happened to him. He lived with those patches of yours, Ziggy, and worse - he had to live with the hardware growing inside him, knowing at any time that something might happen and it would become worse for him. By the time he became you, he had little bits of hardware throughout his body, just ready to start the process on some of his other bones. And he was scared, Ziggy. Incredibly scared. He tried to hide it from the rest of us, but I saw the look in his eyes every time he had to go into the lab. It probably didn't help that Dillon became terribly overprotective of him, either."
His lunch threatened to come up his throat, but he was able to take a deep breath, forcing it back down, and thinking about what his mom was saying. And then the puzzle piece clicked into place in Ziggy's head. Dillon had tried to save Ziggy Grover, and failed, and now Ziggy was not only a reminder of his lost love, but someone close he'd failed to save, especially from what had happened to him. No wonder he was a painful reminder to Dillon, and he didn't blame Dillon at all for not wanting to deal with him.
"We can't ask you not to be scared," his father said, his expression thoughtful and serious. "No matter what I think of him, Ziggy, he went out fighting. He died a hero. But he had to work hard, and learn a lot, and, as your mother said, he was scared. But that meant that he didn't take foolish risks, either."
"Unlike some people named Truman that I know," his mother said, lightly teasing his father.
"Yeah, well, that wasn't my proudest day ever," his father admitted, grinning back. "Especially after Gem pointed out to me that I was doing exactly everything I kept telling him not to do."
Ziggy sighed. It still didn't really solve his problems, but at least his parents did care. "I want to hear everything you know about him. Because I'm tired of not knowing. I'm not even sure who I am, really."
"You're Ziggy Truman-Landsdown," his father said, leaning forward. "That's the only person we're asking you to be. We'll work with you, we all will. Even Dillon, even if it kills him, he's going to help you out. We're a team, Ziggy. You've got all the help you can ask for, we just have to know when something's wrong… and in some way other than getting your butt kicked big time in battle because you can't ask for help."
"Do you want a therapist, too?" his mother asked, looking from his father to him. "Scott, me, all of us… we all were going to therapists by the time the war was over. We all had to recover from being soldiers and having that weight upon us."
His father nodded. "You're not weak," he said. "You're my son. And I'm proud of you. And… I can't believe I didn't think about asking if you needed one earlier."
"Neither did I," his mother echoed. "We should have thought of that."
"I thought about running away." If he was admitting everything, he might as well do that one. He, at least, would be honest. "But I couldn't. Because of the morpher."
Sighing, his mother said, "That proves that you're just as much a Ranger as the rest of us. Ziggy was like that too. He was determined to make the best of things, no matter how much he didn't like them."
Maybe he should do that too. It wasn't like Venjix was suddenly going to go away just because he didn't want to fight. He was stuck in this war he didn't want to fight, but at least maybe he'd get some support. Maybe someday things would get better, even if they didn't feel like it right then. "Skip the after-battle scanning, but… I'd really like it if we'd all just get together and tell me about him."
"That," his father said, leaning back in his chair, "We can do. In fact, I think it would be good for all of us."
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-09 03:00 pm (UTC)