Sohna and Vivian - My Brother's Keeper

Virginia looked down at her husband's sleeping face, still sallow against the white of the pillow, and the thick bandage that covered the right side of his neck. He'd been lying in their bed in Wendell's castle ever since they'd stumbled back through the mirror with his brother in tow and Wolf had collapsed in the dungeons as Rafe was safely locked away. That had been nearly three days ago.

She glanced at her watch. Dr. Oberon should be here by now, she thought. Not to see her, however. No, after careful consideration - well, okay, frantic consideration - of the attitude of Nine Kingdoms doctors towards half-wolfs, Oberon, the only "Tenth Kingdom" doctor who knew of the mirror's existence, had been the only one she'd trusted with Wolf's life. Even then, she'd had to point out to him that his limited experience in general medicine (he's said just an internship?) was better than any treatment Wolf was likely to get otherwise. And still, she'd gotten the strange impression that he'd agreed to do as she asked for some other reason wholly his own.

She fidgeted, and felt the baby flutter inside her. That's getting a lot more noticeable, she thought, just before a surge of emotion brought tears to her eyes; she wished he could wake up and experience it with her. The reassurance that Oberon had given - that Wolf would "probably" be all right, worried her - suppose the vital signs of half-wolfs were nothing whatsoever like the vital signs of humans? He might be dying and ...

Oh, stop it, Virginia! she told herself severely, wiping her tears away and trying to take deep breaths, You're just making it worse. Still, she wished the doctor would hurry up. Her mind went back over how they'd come to be at Wendell's in the first place.

The policemen who'd come in response to the alarm she'd set off had been beside themselves to find two werewolves in the museum. She remembered thinking at the time that even if she hadn't somehow sensed Wolf changing back to himself behind her, she'd have known it by the looks on the cops' faces. The one had been so overcome he'd nearly dropped his revolver, and it had taken some moments for the other to find his voice. He, however, had kept his gun trained on Wolf the entire time. Even then, from the questions he'd asked her – he'd seemed to know she'd been abducted and to have somehow met Wolf before – she wondered if their previous acquaintance was the only thing that stayed his hand. Not that he'd gotten all chummy with him.

In fact, after what seemed like an eternity spent in the patrol car, the two policemen came to the conclusion that the safest way to deal with the entire incident was to escort them all out of the country. Immediately. Luckily for Gerard, it hadn't taken a lot of convincing for Virginia to be allowed to help collect their luggage from the hotel, after all, Wolf and Rafe were the obvious threats. But her flesh still crawled at the memory of the horrifyingly pitying looks they'd given her obviously pregnant body.

She'd managed to clean Wolf up fairly well using some towels the hotel had given her - with the policemen's blessing - and the first aid kit in the patrol car. Wolf, however, had taken care of his brother's disheveled appearance himself, for which she was glad. She didn't think she'd ever be able to stand being near him again. Fortunately - and curiously, she thought - he'd been completely passive since regaining consciousness in the museum. Wolf gave him orders - Sit here, move this, hold that - and he'd obeyed with wordless compliance.

Their flight home from Duesseldorf had been uneventful, and they'd easily caught a cab back to Central Park. Although he'd been much more subdued than usual, she'd managed to convince herself that it was due to her ordeal at the hands of his brother, and that his own wound had looked much worse than it actually was, so normal did he seem otherwise. Then, this. Dr. Oberon had told them he was suffering from shock, as the bite Rafe had given him was quite deep. She squeezed Wolf's hand.

Outside in the corridor she heard voices, then footsteps. The door opened and the doctor entered carrying his little black bag, ushered in by one of the ubiquitous servants. It amused her - or would have if she hadn't been so worried about Wolf - that he actually owned the classic doctor's kit. Virginia stood up.

"He hasn't woken up yet," she told him.

Oberon quickly examined Wolf.

"He's just sleeping," he informed her. "Nothing to worry about."

"But for three days?"

"He needs the rest, Virginia," he said gently. "He'll wake up when he's ready. I do have something that may help now, though."

To her surprise, he removed a vial from his bag and measured some fluid from it into a syringe.

"What are you doing?" she asked. "I thought you said you couldn't give him anything ..."

He was silent as he gave Wolf the injection, then turned to her and said, "I didn't want to before as I didn't know how it might affect him. But ..." He paused a moment and led her to a chair, saying, "Why don't we go over here and talk?" He sat down facing her. "How have you been feeling, Virginia?"

"Me?" she asked as he sat down across from her. "I'm fine. I really wasn't hurt at all. Wolf ..."

"I know you weren't injured in Germany," he told her. "I meant as far as the baby goes. I am an obstetrician, remember?"

"Oh," she said, nonplussed. "Well, fine, I guess. I mean there's nothing wrong. Why? What does this have to do with Wolf?"

He looked momentarily at the floor.

"Well," he said, "I ran some tests on your husband and the results were ... quite astonishing."

She felt her heart skip; her worst fears were coming true. THIS had been his ulterior motive, she realized. Why hadn't she seen it coming? She should have known better than to trust someone. Who knew what he had given Wolf just now?

"What kind of tests?" she said icily.

"Blood tests, a chromosome count, a DNA analysis," he informed her casually, ignoring her tone as he rummaged through some papers. "Here." He shoved one of the sheets into her hand.

She glanced perfunctorily at it, then glared back at him. "You know, we're not guinea pigs for you to experiment on," she spat.

"What?" He looked up. "You think ... Oh, no, that's not it at all."

"What is it then?"

He rattled the paper she was still holding.

"This," he said emphatically. "Your husband is as human as we are."

Tom watched Virginia's expression go from confusion to surprise to disbelief in quick succession - as he had expected it would. His own reaction had been virtually the same, and because of this he was prepared for what he knew she would say.

"They must have mixed the samples up at the lab."

"No," he assured her smoothly. "I thought the same thing - even though the blood testing and genetic screening are done in different locations - so I sent a second sample just to be sure. And the results are the same." He pointed to the chromosome pairs shown in regular rows on the paper she held in her hand. "He has forty-six chromosomes, like anyone else, complete with an X and Y, like any male." He pulled the second sheet from her numb hands and laid it on top. "And his blood sample shows he has O positive blood, which is the most common type."

She looked up.

"But how is that possible?" she asked, still suspicious of him, but, he thought, beginning to waver. "You know he ... he can change ..."

"He's a werewolf, basically," he finished for her.

"Yes, but ..." She sighed and looked away a moment before continuing, "I know that in the movies, people became werewolves because they were bitten by one or they were cursed or something, but here it isn't like that. It's genetically inherited."

"Well," he offered, "the chromosome count doesn't show what's in the individual genes."

"He has a tail." She said it as if it were her trump card and she'd just won the hand.

Tom blinked. "Okay," he said. He hadn't really known that, but somehow it was easier to accept than a person being able to change shape - which he'd never have believed if he hadn't seen it to begin with. She looked at him, her lips tight, her eyes still flinty. "What exactly were you planning to do if these ‘tests' had showed something else?" she demanded.

"Claim that they must have been contaminated."

"Oh, really?" He voice dripped sarcasm.

"Yes, really," he insisted. In a way he understood her fear, but because he also knew his own profession well, he knew it was unfounded. "If I had tried to do as you're implying I might have, I'd hardly have been believed anyway. The scientific community is far too conservative when it comes to revolutionary discoveries. I'd have been flooded with rebuttals claiming my testing procedures weren't reliable. Not only that, but any reputation I've already gotten built up would have been destroyed. So I'd be far worse off if that was my reason for these tests."

For a split second, she watched him warily. Then, quietly, she asked, "So what was your reason?"

He hesitated for what he knew was a fraction too long before replying, "Besides needing information to help me treat your husband, I needed information on the baby's genetic make-up. So that I'd be well prepared for anything that might happen. I wouldn't have been able to give him that electrolyte shot without knowing it wouldn't likely harm him. He has been asleep for a long time. I'd start an IV if I wasn't worried that it would come loose if he inadvertently shape-changed. It's possible he could become dehydrated."

As if in answer to this suggestion, a hoarse whisper from across the room said, "I could use a drink ..."

"Oh, Wolf!" exclaimed Virginia, running to him. "You're awake!" She nearly threw her arms around him, but stopped herself at the last minute, obviously afraid she'd hurt something. Wolf reached up to her, resting one hand on the small of her back while the other felt her bulging stomach. He smiled and closed his eyes again.

Tom watched them with a pain in his heart, in that moment knowing Wolf's thoughts; knowing the other man was at peace no matter how physically battered he was - he'd saved his family. I didn't, he thought. I wasn't there ...

He looked abruptly away. What he'd told Virginia about his reasons for taking the samples from Wolf was only partly true. The part he hadn't told her - hadn't even wanted to tell himself until it was thrust so graphically in his face - was that he'd taken them to prove to himself that a land with different rules really did exist; that if he could find even one thing different here that could be unequivocally measured as different, then he could accept the possibility that his Julie might be restored to life; that he could see her and touch her once again; be allowed to not make the same mistake twice. Yet his tests proved Wolf nothing but human - at best, a member of a race of men who didn't exist on the New York side of the mirror, but who were men, nonetheless. And he thought bitterly that if he were to somehow be allowed to test the fairy girl he'd seen, that she'd be human too.

He shouldn't feel this way, he knew, and he'd tried not to; tried to convince himself that he was entirely ambivalent about the results, concerned only because if the tests were normal, then he'd have no real explanation for why Virginia was so much bigger than twenty weeks pregnant (he no longer doubted she'd gotten the wrong date after hearing the circumstances of their meeting), nor did he still believe she might be trying to deceive her husband. But he knew realistically that her size could be accounted for by mundane means: She might be carrying twins, for instance, or an extremely large baby, or ... no, he didn't want to think of that, but he had to consider it ... something might be wrong. There was, however, no way he could check - no matter what the results, an ultrasound was out of the question after seeing Wolf's reaction to it. Tom fumed at his own dependency on technology. And you're still not facing the truth, he told himself bitterly. You were disappointed more because you wanted to believe Julie could come back than because of any concern about your patient.

He glanced back over at Wolf and Virginia feeling as if his guilt were written on his face. Well, he's awake. Time to get up yourself and go examine him. Realizing belatedly that tears had tracked their way down his cheeks while he ruminated, he dashed them away on his sleeve, then rose. Hopefully they wouldn't see his hands shaking, he thought. But he was saved from having to interrupt them just then by the arrival of King Wendell.

"Oh," said the king as he stepped into the room and saw Virginia and Wolf embracing. His head turned at once to Tom, and he continued smoothly, "I saw you come in and I wondered if maybe Wolf had awakened yet ..."

"Only just now," Tom managed to say. Odd, he thought, how his voice sounded completely normal - he didn't feel that way at all. "I don't advise he be subjected to any kind of question and answer session." Tom knew the young king had been itching to hear Wolf's report on what he'd discovered in Germany; Virginia had helped with the research, but she'd had little real clue about what Wolf might be using to tie European history to the Nine Kingdoms.

Wendell glanced down at the floor, then back up and at a letter the doctor now noticed he was carrying - a sheet of parchment clutched against a legal sized envelope of similar paper, its blue wax seal broken.

"I wasn't intending to," he said, then amended, "Well, not entirely. You see, something has just come up that I'm certain is a result of exactly what we're trying to fight against ..."

"What is it, Wendy?" asked Wolf's ruined voice. His eyes remained shut.

"Nothing that can't wait," interjected the doctor.

Wolf waved his comment aside with a minute wave of his fingers. "S'okay. I can listen all right." He then turned to Virginia and asked for a glass of water as Wendell brought the letter up, preparing to read it.

"I received this a little while ago from King Gregor of the Eighth Kingdom. I'll read what it says:

"Your Majesty,

I am writing to implore you to help me with my son. I fear he has gone quite mad with rage and is launching a campaign to rid the kingdoms of half-wolfs. His mother is beside herself with worry and I must say that I share her feelings as well. A fortnight ago, he was expected in Queen Claret's court for their official announcement of betrothal, but did not show for the ceremony. When asked about his whereabouts, his first lieutenant informed me that he was making his way to the Sixth Kingdom. I dispatched a letter, imploring him to return and to cease this nonsense. He is insisting that they are going to bring the death of us all. I have not noted any significant wolf activity for some time and cannot understand why Gunther is acting so. He sent back no word, and I feel that if no action is taken, I will lose my son forever.
Please, Wendell, he considers you a friend and he looks up to you so. I beg of you to help.

Your humble servant,
Gregor"