Chapter 21: Pushed to the Edge

Alex busied himself for much of the morning. It was a warm sunny day and the Test Rose Garden was busy. Given it was a work day, the garden's visitors were mostly either invalid or retired, so Alex had a lot of people to concentrate on.

"There you are!" someone called out as Alex stood after talking to an older couple, his hand resting lightly on her arthritic knee to steady himself. Since she hadn't tried to use it yet, she likely wouldn't even notice it for some time, which is what Alex liked best: not attracting attention to what he did. Still feeling good, he felt confident he could continue for some time, though Cate noticed he kept glancing around, looking for something beyond who around them needed help. What's more, his increased energy drew people to him from both sides of the hillside they were now on. Since downtown Portland was to the east, he was now drawing people from the more westward areas he hadn't visited yet. So far they'd found two Seekers and one Seer. The Seekers were trying to steer people his way, while Gini was working with the new Seer, Felicity, trying to teach her how to diagnose people.

Alex turned and saw the army vet they'd helped earlier. Groaning inwardly at having someone returning to praise him for his 'miraculous treatment', Alex nevertheless put on a smile and greeted the man.

"I was hoping I could still catch you," the man said with a grin as big as his friendliness. Though his face was scraggly with a couple days beard growth, he looked bright and chipper with dark hair dangling into his face, warm welcoming eyes which seemed a little world-weary despite his age, and a single diamond stud in one ear. "I got home and tried to set up an appointment with the VA hospital, but wouldn't you know it, I can't get an appointment with my doctor for another three weeks. But I met a couple of my friends and started braggin'. The next thing I know, they wanted to meet you to see if you can do anything for them," he finished, indicating the two friends he'd brought along with him.

Alex regarded the two new additions. There was a tall, thin black man with a camouflaged long-sleeve t-shirt and dark glasses who seemed to a bit skittish about approaching and a slight woman with short pageboy cut dark hair wearing jeans and a sweat shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The woman smiled at Alex with a friendly, folksy attitude but the man appeared leery of him.

"Hey, I don't know what to tell you, but I had nothing do with what happened," Alex said, trying to head off any promises he may have told his friends. "I only looked at it and did a minor adjustment. Any healing you got was done by you, accumulating over time."

"Don't sweat it, little man," the vet assured him good-naturedly. "I don't know if your idea of a wound just getting better on its own is correct or whether you have lucky hands, but my friends wanted to meet you. This is Sal, on the left," he said, indicating the thin black man, and this is Laura on your right."

The two vets were polite, the woman vigorously shaking his hand while Sal hung back, nervously digging into the dirt with his boot, afraid to make eye contact.

"Sal?" Alex asked, intrigued by the odd moniker.

"Yeah. Short for 'Salamander', cause he was always slithering away from dangerous situations. He'd crawl out of one situation after another no one ever expected him to survive."

Alex smiled, viewing the young man in a whole new light given that brief description. Still, Sal didn't look quite as outgoing and friendly as the other two.

"Hey, thanks for helping out Bud," Laura exclaimed, sounding as friendly as Bud was social. "He's been having trouble with that foot forever. To see him walking normally again is more than we could imagine. The VA keeps trying, but usually by the time we service personnel reach them, it's already too late to fix anything."

"Hey," Alex repeated, holding both hands up in front of him, "I had nothing at all to do with it." Cate's giggling behind him effectively negated his denials.

"Laura here suffers from both vision and hearing problems from operating the loud guns out in the field," Bud explained. "The military always gives us a lot of hearing protection, but sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. They don't seem to be able to predict who'll develop problems and who won't."

"What?" Laura asked, cupping her ear as she peered over his shoulder, before turning back to Alex with a big grin.

"Well it's good to see you still have a sense of humor about it," Alex said, warming up to them, especially since they didn't demand help from him. They didn't presume he could help, but asking him if he could anyway, just on the off chance he might be able to.

"Hey, if we didn't have a sense of humor, we'd do like so many of our fellow vets do and eat our pistols," Laura answered sadly, shaking her head at the memory of the many pals she'd lost over the years.

"So how do loud guns affect your vision?" Alex pressed, unsure about the connection between her hearing and her sight.

"Oh, the doctors claim the vibrations of the guns and the few explosions I was near had something to do with it, but they couldn't really identify the source of the problem," she answered with a shrug.

"What about this shy salamander?" Alex asked, turning to regard the aloof solitary figure as Cate stepped up and introduced herself to Laura. Alex didn't approach him, figuring it would be better to wait for him to make the first move.

"Sal's problem is—"

"Hey, sorry," the new Seer said, slowing down after rushing up. "I was wondering who all the cuties are?" she said to partially explain her presence, though she had to shade her eyes from Alex's glare.

"Hey, what's the deal with your eyes?" Bud asked, cocking his head curiously. "The other girl has the same problem."

"Oh, it's nothing," Felicity said, waving his concern off dismissively. "Just a little light sensitivity."

"Hey, don't kid a kidder," Bud told her, looking her dead in the eyes. "I've spent too much time pretending there's nothing wrong with me not to recognize when someone is trying to hide a physical problem.

He excused himself as he grasped the sides of her head and peered into her eyes. "Your pupils look clear enough, so I don't see anything obviously wrong with them." Felicity blushed, but let him examine her anyway.

"As I said, I'm fine," she reassured him, despite the fact her left eye kept blinking uncontrollably and tears were streaming from the one eye.

"The hell you are," Bud said, turning her head slightly so he could see her eyes from a slightly different angle. Sal, though, hadn't said a word since he'd first arrived, despite the abortive introduction. Alex tried not to stare, but he was wondering what the man's issues were. But without either Gini or Felicity's help, he wouldn't have any idea how to help either one.

"You know," Bud said, glancing between Felicity's eyes and Alex, "I'd swear your problem is your friend."

"Pshaw!" Felicity exclaimed, hurriedly breaking away from the bigger man's grip. "It must be seasonal allergies. I was running through some trees and got a face full of pollen on my left side," she said, trying to account for her single tearful eye.

"Yeah, right," Bud said, eyeing Alex warily.

"So what was Sal's—" Alex began again.

"Hey there, you come back for your cane?" Gini asked, hurrying up to run interference, recognizing Alex and Felicity were having trouble.

"Now you see, I'd almost believe you, missy, if it wasn't for my girlfriend here squinting on the same side your eyes are watering on. The same side this young man is standing on."

"Look, if you don't mind," Alex insisted, figuring the time to deny things was past, "let's stop playing guessing games and kindly tell me what your friend is suffering from?" Sal hadn't reacted to Bud's inspection of Felicity, or to the several interruptions, merely standing there casually observing everyone.

Alex's demand shocked Bud out of his previous conversation. "Oh, sorry, Sal is suffering from PTSD. He's a little gun shy, so he's skittish about approaching people, just about anything can set him off."

"Oh, really?" Gini asked, her interest piqued. "I suffered from a bad case of the same thing," she said as she slowly approached the young man and examined his head from a respectful distance, circling him looking at his head from all angles but never once trying to touch him. "It was so bad I took to living in a cave in the desert hunting jackrabbits and lizards just so I didn't have to deal with people."

"And how did you treat it?" Bud asked. "After all, you seem fine now." As if by a prearranged signal, Bud, Sal and Laura all turned as one and examined Alex. Alex glanced down and blushed, Gini kept looking away from him, Laura looked horrified, and Cate once again tried to suppress a fit of giggles.

"You might as well go ahead and treat them," Cate suggested. "After all, you're not going to discourage their questions."

"I was getting to that," Alex tiredly told his sister. "I was waiting for Gini. Felicity, I know you're new at this, but if you could check out Laura, that would speed things up."

"It's about time," Cate concluded. "I thought we were all going to dance around the issue all afternoon."

"So what's the deal with—" Bud tried to ask, but Alex cut him off with a quick glare.

"If you want to get treated, you won't ask any questions, and you won't mention this to anyone. Got it?" he barked.

Bud jerked slightly and then snapped to attention. "Yes, Sir. Absolutely, Sir," he replied. His cockeyed grin suggested he was being playful, but he treated Alex differently after that. Cate once again broke out in giggles, only this time she didn't attempt to hide them.

Without saying anything, Alex approached Sal and Gini stepped aside as he did, turning her head away and carefully placed her fingers against his skull. Sal once again never moved, other than to shift his eyes from one figure to the next.

When Gini dropped her hands, Alex put his own exactly as hers had been, with Gini shifting two of his fingers a minute amount. As soon as she finished, Alex dropped his hands without a word of explanation.

Sal, glancing between Gini and Alex finally spoke his first words. "Is someone—"

The sudden sound of Felicity clapping her hands behind Laura had all the vets jump. Yet when they turned to see who had done it, Sal stood firm, glancing questioningly at Gini and Alex.

"What the hell?" Laura asked. "Normally if that happened, Sal would either be on the ground, slithering away, or one of you would be unconscious and bloody!"

"It's mostly temporary, although it's a decent first step towards a total cure," Gini informed them as she casually walked over to Laura. "Unfortunately, it takes him spending all his available time with you so he can react each time you have a reaction, as he has to retrain your brain not to respond to your triggers. It's very effective, but we've got to leave town in a little while. This will help, but he'll slowly revert back to how he was." As she was explaining this, Gini was peering into Laura's eyes and ears, not being quite as deferential as she'd been with Sal.

Without a word, Gini once more stepped back and when Alex stepped up, she moved his fingers into place before stepping back. And once more, Alex simply dropped his hands and Gini put them where she wanted as if he was refusing to play this silly game of hers. When they finished their little dance, Alex turned to her.

"I suspect the damage to the eyes is permanent. Your optic nerves are only partially functional and you have scarring on your retinas," Alex informed her quietly, "but I think I managed to regrow part of the ear drum for you."

"How did ... you regrew my eardrum? How's that even possible?" She asked, shaking her head to see if it felt differently. "I've been told there's no way to repair a damaged eardrum."

Alex grinned. "That's what you get for listening to doctors. They know a lot, but even they don't know everything under the sun."

"Or even a few things outside the sun's sphere," Cate added, with a wicked teasing glint in her eyes.

"Now remember, my only payment for these services is none of you are allowed to mention this to anyone. You got it? From now on, this is simply a 'spontaneous recovery' for which you have no explanations and no clues. If you can't abide by those rules, I can always reverse the process," he threatened, but he doubted it would be a problem even though it was an empty threat. As service people, he was sure they were used to following orders and keeping quiet.

"Anyway, it was great meeting you," he concluded. "I'd ask you to keep me informed, but I'm not going to be available in a short while. I'm on my way across country, and then I'll be out of the country for some time. I hope you guys have a great time resuming your lives. Just don't blame me if you have to find a job now that your disability is no longer viable."

They each regarded Alex oddly, then Bud shrugged, turned and left, followed almost immediately by Sal, who hadn't said much since his one brief outburst. Laura looked after her retreating comrades, shrugged too, apologized for having to run off without properly thanking him, then turned and ran after her friends.

"I suspect it might be time we split," Gini suggested.

"Oh, do you really have to?" Felicity asked, sounded disappointed to see the morning end. "I was learning so much!"

"I think it's probably a good idea," Alex agreed, glancing at the departing trio. He thanked Felicity for her help and asked her to accompany them to their car, which she readily agreed to.

As they headed to the car, Gini—walking in the lead—stopped by another old couple. When Alex drew near, she indicated the man sitting in a wheel chair by his wife with a subtle nod. The couple watched downtown Portland stretched out before them, facing away from the walkway Alex and the others were using. Alex stopped, out of Gini's field of vision, and studied the couple, who hadn't even noticed them.

"So how are the two of you enjoying the park this beautiful day?" Alex asked out of the blue, coming around to greet them with a bright smile. "That's really a great view, isn't it?"

The two turned, surprised by the interruption, but said hello and Alex started up a conversation. They didn't say much, but during the discussion Alex tapped the man on his leg to emphasize a joke, giving the useless and wasted leg a boost of energy which would help prevent them from decaying further despite his inability to exercise them properly. As he stood back up, telling the couple he'd enjoyed talking to them, Gini alerted him to something else. While Alex had been talking, she'd knelt behind the man's chair where she and Felicity examined something, out of the couple's line of sight.

"You know, if I may be so bold, could you tell me what happened to your legs?" Alex asked the man.

The older gentleman seemed surprised, but then his face brightened as he started revealing the details. After all, it's not every day a young man asks an older gentleman about his daily struggles. "It's an old injury. I was working for my brother-in-law and I fell from the roof. It wasn't really a long fall, this was back before houses are as tall as they are nowadays, but apparently I fell wrong and broke my back and I've been paralyzed ever since. But it shows you need to value every moment, because you never know what might await you around the next corner."

"This is going to sound odd," Alex told him, getting up and moving behind him as Gini walked along one side of his chair and Felicity came around the other side and they each grasped him arms, "but my two friends are going to give you a little lift so I can take a quick look at something."

"Huh?" the guy said, unsure what was happening.

"Don't worry, he's just checking something," Gini assured him, flashing him her best smile as she and Felicity grabbed his arms and lifted him from his chair, leaving his immobile legs dangling in the air. Alex meanwhile, knelt behind him and held his hand a few centimeters from the man's back and held it there.

"What are you doing?" his wife asked, trying to see what Alex was up to, but it was an awkward angle so she couldn't observe much.

"Frankly, as long as I have two young lovelies like this helping me out, I'm not likely to ask too many questions," her husband responded as his eyes lit up at the flirtatious smiles both Gini and Felicity gave him.

Although it took almost two minutes, during which they had to distract the couple to avoid unwanted questions, Alex finally stood up and leaned over the man's shoulder—while he was still being help upright by the two women. "Could you try moving your toes?" Alex asked.

The man, surprised at having his flirtation with the two young fillies interrupted, looked distracted. "I've got no feeling below my hip. I haven't been able to wiggle my toes in decades," he insisted, though he made a vain effort to prove the young man wrong. Cate, meanwhile, knelt down in front of the man and removed his shoes, observing the big toe on one foot flicker slightly.

"What the... ?" the man gasped. He then concentrated, trying to do it again. When it repeated its small twitch, he tried the same thing on the other foot, and after a slight delay it too responded, although the response was again very slight. But for a man paralyzed for decades, it was anything but minor! After a minute more, the man's other toes also begin moving slightly.

Alex knelt behind the man again, once more holding his hand over the small of the man's back while Cate encouraged the man to flex his feet instead of just the toes. The man, ignoring the flirtatious Gini and Felicity, grew increasingly enthused, although his wife became visibly upset, getting up and circling around to watch Alex, ignoring the others.

"OK, set him down on his feet—gently," Alex stressed.

"Wait, you can't do that!" the woman, who they still hadn't introduced themselves to, insisted shrilly. Gini and Felicity paid her no mind and Cate steadied his legs as they gently set him down, not releasing his arms as they did.

Lowering him gingerly, his feet touched the ground and they continued lowering him until he was supporting his full weight on his feet. His knees almost collapsed a couple of times, but each time Gini and Felicity steadied him and a moment later his unused muscles recovered. His wife looked on with a look of horrified shock while the man grinned more expansively than when he'd been flirting with the two cuties.

"OK, ease him back down," Alex gently instructed. They did, completely unaware of the people gathering behind them.

When he was seated once again and Gina and Felicity stepped back, he attempted to raise his right leg—which only rose a small amount. But the jubilant look on his face revealed what that small movement meant to him. "Good Lord!" his wife exclaimed, tentatively reaching forward to touch his face in disbelief, as if physically connecting with him would confirm what she'd witnessed. Her relief and happiness were apparent in her eyes as she leaned in and kissed him.

"It'll take a while for them to recover," Alex warned, still remaining behind the man so he wouldn't blind his two companions. "Obviously they'll be weak, so you'll need to exercise them. I suggest you contact a physical therapist, one who isn't familiar with your physical history. Chances are you'll have to pay out of pocket so you won't require a doctor's orders, but it's best if you keep this to yourselves anyway."