Sound

Chapter Two

The next morning, Jack drives himself to his appointment. The office is located in a small building downtown; there are no other cars there when he pulls in.

When Jack enters the building, he's greeted by a man at the front desk.

"Can I help you?" the man asks, looking up from his magazine. There's mascara smudged under his eyes, barely visible against his dark skin.

"I have an appointment," Jack says as he approaches the desk.

"Are you Jack Greys?" The man asks.

Jack nods.

"Follow me," the man says, standing up and leading Jack through a door and down a flight of stairs.

"Where are we going?" Jack asks.

"The basement."

"What?"

"We're going to the basement. Come on, keep up."

Jack starts to say something else, but they reach the bottom of the stairs and the man pushed open another door and leads him inside.

The basement doesn't look like a doctor's office. There's multiple desks and computers, science equipment that Jack isn't familiar with, and then some normal doctors equipment. The room is small, but Jack can see another door leading somewhere else across the room.

There's a blonde girl in a lab coat sitting at a computer, facing away from them. Her blonde ponytail looks too tight to be comfortable and she's typing quickly.

"He's here," the man informs her.

"Thanks, Luke. Can you wait in the other room? I'll let you know when you can come in. We need to talk alone first," she says, spinning her office chair around to look at them.

Jack's eyebrows raise when he recognizes her. She was the nurse who had cared for him at the hospital.

Luke exits the room and the nurse stands up and makes her way towards him.

"I'm Dr. Lindsey Sanders," she says, extending her hand to him.

He takes it, shaking it gently.

"We've met," he says. "But you were my nurse."

She shrugs.

"Day job."

"Why couldn't you just check my ears at the hospital?" he asks.

"Because that's not the only reason I told you to come here. There's some things we need to talk about."

"Like what?"

She takes a seat at another one of the desks, and motions to the chair in front of it.

"Have a seat." she says.

He does as he's told and she picks up a clipboard from the desk.

"The return of your hearing has been labeled a miracle," she states.

Jack nods hesitantly.

"You went deaf at the age of nine due to a gunshot wound near your ear, correct?"

"Yes."

"And when you went to the hospital the day of your surgery, you planned to get a cochlear implant, correct?"

"Yes."

"There were complications during the surgery, I wasn't in the operating room and they didn't tell me exactly what happened, but I do know that there's no possible way you should be able to hear."

"But I can."

"But you can. And you can't just hear, you can hear at least ten times better than a normal human should be able to."

"What are you talking about?" he asks.

"You have ear plugs in right now, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, but what does that-"

"And you can hear me perfectly?"

"Yes, but-"

"You can hear things you never could before, even before you went deaf."

"I barely remember what it was like before I went deaf."

"Jackson, I performed your hearing test. I saw your results. I know what you can do."

"My name is Jack, and I can't do anything."

He stands up from his chair, and starts towards the door.

"You need our help," she says.

He turns towards her.

"Help with what?"

"I can see it in your eyes. You're in pain. The noise is too much. We can teach you how to control it, how to focus on what you're hearing."

He's silent for a moment before he speaks.

"Who's we?"

She smiles and the scowl leaves her face for the first time since they'd met.

"You guys can come in now," she calls, and Luke walks through the door, followed by a younger blonde boy. He wore dark sunglasses, and was tapping the floor with a cane.

"Who exactly are they?" Jack asks.

"Well, this is my little brother, Sebastian. And you already met Luke. Boys, this is Jack."

"Nice to meet you," Sebastian says, holding out the hand that wasn't holding his cane. Jack shakes it, and turns to look at Luke. He holds out his hand, but Luke just stares at his face.

"You know, you'd look really good in grey, hold on I gotta write that down." He picks up a pen and notepad from one of the computer desks.

It takes Jack a moment to realize where he's heard that sentence from, and then he recognizes all of their voices.