“Alright Eric, all we need you to do is stand there when Julie wakes up, and tell her whatever she needs to hear to reassure her she’s safe, and you are too.” Dr. Tachibana said.
Martha and Ben were waiting with Frances outside the hospital room. Samantha had left for the police station, where the normal who had seen Eric and Cassie in their lupine forms was being brought.
Julie was coming out of the MRI room, and the heavy sedatives they’d given her would soon be wearing off. And to prevent her from trying to escape again, or worse flatlining again, Eric was to present himself to her disguised as her were merman.
They’d found some blue colored contacts for him to wear, and then proceeded to smother him in as much fish smell as possible to disguise his wolf scent.
“You can smell a bit like a werewolf, Nate’s still your brother and you two do live in the same house.” Frances said while Eric was rubbing the rags on his clothing. After much thought, they decided the best course of action would be to soak some spare cloth in fish oil, and then have Eric apply it to his body.
“Julie will still be quite groggy, hopefully that will keep her from realizing things aren’t quite right.” Tachibana concluded. What he was referring to was Eric’s more obvious physical changes. Weremer weren’t known for their drastic transformations. They gained minimal muscle mass, and most of it was centered on their upper body for swimming.
But Eric was more muscular than a merman should be, and his hair a darker brown than it had been prior to his transformation.
“Do you really think this will work?” Eric asked the doctor. He still had his doubts about the plan, though the longer he thought about it, the more it made sense. What else could they do? Julie was determined to find HER Eric. A person who simply didn’t exist (at least not in this Moon Lake).
“We have to try don’t we? I’ll call you in once she starts to wake up. Until then, wait outside. Don’t worry Eric, everything will be fine.” Tachibana tried to reassure the young were before him. The boy had been through the wringer. Losing his father, and then having his girlfriend not only reject his decision to become a different kind of were, but lose most, if not all, of her sanity.
Eric nodded, and went to sit beside his mother and Ben. Frances got up to speak with Tachibana about the test results. Once seated, both Martha and Ben asked Eric if he was okay. And while he appreciated the concern, he was really getting sick of people asking him that.
“As okay as I’ll be.” he said flatly. They got the message, and didn’t say another word. The three watched as Frances slipped into Julie’s room, where Tachibana was preparing for the patients’ return.
“The test results?” Frances asked in regards to the papers Tachibana had in hand.
“Preliminary findings. What do you make of them?” He passed the images of Julie’s cranium to Frances. She examined them as best she could. It had been years since she looked at any sort of brain scan. Most of her work was emotional, not physical.
“Is that what I think it is?” she asked.
“I’d say so. It would appear our patient, at some point, suffered a small aneurysm in the brain’s anterior communicating artery. I won’t know for certain until the secondary images appear, but I’d be willing to bet my job that this is the cause of many of her problems. Though what brought on the aneurysm in the first place is debatable.”
“Severe emotional trauma is my best guess. Have you called her parents?”
“I already informed them. They’re waiting downstairs, they needed a moment to themselves.”
“Of course they did. So would I if something like this happened to Ben.” Frances thought.
For a fourteen year old girl to suffer an aneurysm, it was something no one could have predicted. And the type of aneurysm certainly did explain Julie’s mental state. The area of the brain where the it occurred, the prefrontal cortex, was responsible for decision making, social behavior, and personality. An aneurysm would have most definitely have affected those areas in a negative way.
“So, what do you plan on doing as far as further treatment goes?”
“Unsure. Julie’s parents both want to avoid surgery, but I don’t see how that’s possible. The swelling needs to be reduced. And what’s more, the longer we wait the worse her condition will get. Which explains why she was suddenly so stressed and agitated. She’ll only become more so the longer the aneurysm remains untreated.”
“Do Martin and Melissa really not want Julie to undergo surgery? It seems to be the only course of action you can take.”
“Aside from a lobotomy, it is.” Tachibana said. He would NEVER perform a lobotomy on a patient, but that was the only other way he knew of to treat a problem like this.
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*Tried to keep medical jargon to a minimum. Hope everyone was able to follow it - bj88