The Pediatrician's Closet

Perspicacity

"For the record, Dani, don't tell my brother Hikaru anything."

She cocked her head to the side and gave the most forced, blank look he had ever seen. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Then for future reference: don't tell Hikaru anything. In fact, don't even talk to him."

She flapped her hand at him dismissively as she turned back to the computer. "You've got twelve brothers, dear, I can't even remember all their names let alone whichever one is Hikaru."

"You can't miss him. He dresses in drag."

That gave her head a spin. She opened her mouth to say something about it, then remembered she didn't want part in this conversation anyways and turned back to whatever she had been up to.

Inwardly, he hefted a heavy sigh. He didn't know why he bothered. It wasn't like it was going to stop her. Not when Hikaru could dangle juicy insider info on him in exchange for something as simple as his schedule. Why she found so much interest in his life he had never understood. She had three kids of her own. Maybe it was because none of them had married, yet.

He dealt with three other cases of the horrible sinus and tonsil attacking beast that he had gone through. Four regular checkups, two for some older children, one for a toddler, and one for a six-month baby with the most adorable fat rolls. He had trouble letting that one go. Though, in hindsight, that cuteness had probably been fate's way of opening him up to the torment about to come, for not soon after he got another baby, this one afflicted with that pesky hand, mouth, and foot virus. The poor, tiny thing could have only been two months old and by its thin, squeaky wails, had been beyond exhausted by the pain and inability to suckle through the blisters in his mouth.

It was by far the worst case he had seen yet. He hated when these ones happened.

"He's going to need to be admitted," he told the exhausted, frayed with worry mother as he bounced her weepy infant. "His lack of milk has made him dehydrated, among other things. Do you nurse or bottle-feed?"

"Nurse," her large, dark eyes were wet.

"Then we'll have you on hand with a pump, if you don't mind. We'll need to feed him via straw, but the taste of something familiar should calm him." He gave her his best, reassuring smile, needing it for himself as well. "He'll be okay. You'll both be okay."

His heart broke even further as her face scrunched up and tears leaked out. She probably needed something to eat and drink as well, and since she was nursing and her baby hadn't been suckling, her breasts were probably adding pain to her exhaustion.

He wished he could have tended to them himself and bounce and care for the babe until he and his mother could finally get some much needed relief, but with three more patients lined up, and knowing he didn't necessarily have to, he instead handed them over to chief hen Dani. Her overwhelming need to mother would more than take care of the two, and all the doctors in the building knew better than to make her wait.

For some reason, though, long after he had gotten home, the feeling of the frail, exhausted baby still stuck with him. He thought after all these years, he would have been used to it. After all, he was a pediatrician. His job dealt with sickly kids and babies. But every so often there'd be days one would crack through his tolerance and leave him shaky and weak. To feel so much overwhelming need to fix it made him wonder how mothers ever lived through it with their own children. How he would ever live through his own? Perhaps it was better if he never did have his own.

Though part of the reason he found comfort in being a doctor was because the job involved protecting against non-human enemies. There was no fighting with human nature or laws or societal roles. It was fighting using that which he was most comfortable with: gentility, intelligence, kindness, and empathy. That deep, innate need within him to protect and defend was filled, while his sensitivity to violence was left well enough alone.