An Alternative Cure

[Jozua Cure]

She was dipping and swaying worse than the patients pumped full of morphine at her American hospital, and the effort was snatching the air from her lungs faster than she could fill them. Fatigue snared every inch of her body, limbs drooping with fast spreading tiredness. Before long, the rapid thudding of helicopter blades filled her ears, bringing with it a sense of panic. Her doctor had previously vanished from her thoughts, but now she considered him, and anxiety joined the milieu of other feelings.

How best to avoid the helicopter that was pursuing her? Snapping her wings together above her head, she dropped suddenly, surveying the building which rushed up at her with frightening speed. Her wings curled before her body, clutching at the corner of the building before she hit it, and she clung there like some kind of monstrous insect.

Will they shoot me down?

The thought entered her mind and she convinced herself of it instantly, a newfound strength surging through her frail body as she leapt away from the harsh concrete, wings ploughing through the air as she swept up towards the aircraft. The predatory instinct that had, until now, blended with her own personality without her notice, showed her how to judge, when to stop flying and how to lurch forward to grab the chopper's ski-like landing gear. The ends of the wings deformed, becoming faintly reminiscient of claw-like hands, and seized the skis with a sharp pang of organic material on metal. Jozua's own frails hands and legs wrapped around a single ski, her eyes forced closed by the air buffeting madly around her, and it was there that she paused, at a loss for what to do next.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Jozua grabbed the helicopter. Klaus, who had been standing by the open hatchway, affixed one of the safety harnesses to himself and clipped one end of the tether to a hook by the doorway.

Klaus made sure the two in the back of the helicopter understood that they were to pull him in with Jozua, he clambered out and onto the helicopter's landing gear. He eased his way out to Jozua and took hold of her in his arms. He held her tightly and let go of the flying machine, swinging freely from the safety tether. Then the others pulled them in.

Klaus set Jozua down on one of the passenger seats and removed the harness. Then he stood just inside the cockpit, watching the Jericho landing pad grow in the windshield.

Once they were set down and the helicopter shut off, Klaus informed his security team to abandon their positions in the city and return to the Center. He immdiately started inside after that, paying Jozua no mind.

He needed to calm down before he spoke to her. Punishing her out of anger would do her no good.

[Jozua Cure]

She had been held in the arms of so many people that day; it was overwhelming. As her doctor reached out for her, she smelt his touch before she felt it, and slowly, the external darkness of the 'sample' retreated back into her body, devolving into its smaller state before disappearing altogether. Clasped firmly against him, Jozua curled her fingers into his clothing, burying her head into his collar bone. She made a noise in her throat as he deposited her in a seat, weakly stretching out a hand in a voiceless plea for him not to leave her. She needed her doctor; not all was right with her.

She let her head loll back, passively waiting out the rest of the journey. Once or twice, her side twanged with pain - why was it doing that? Her eyelids flickered; something in her mind was warning her. Not all was right. Not the Sample that shared her body, not that. It had helped her. Something else, something ...

Her eyelids grew heavier and her frame slumped further into the seat the more she tried to work it out. The confusion, the desperate need to survive ...it melted away in those minutes, and as the helicopter made its landing, exhaustion gripped her with strong hands, pulling her deep into the abyss-like unconsciousness of sleep.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus busied himself with the projects he missed throughout the day. Going from one cell to the next, making sure the mutant subjects were medically and mentally fine.

Most of them hated him for the work he did with them. Most of it was not much more than most experimental treatments and investigations that many normal people agreed to on their own.

Some of them were brought in against their will. Others were brought to him under the same impression Jozua was: that he would cure them or help them with their mutancy in some way. When they found out about Klaus' so-called cures thus far, they often wanted to leave. Of course, after being in the center for so long, most of them missed their families.

He wondered how long it would take little Jozua to change her opinion of him and the facility he ran.

Klaus went down to the lowest level of the basement to view a mutant who generated nuclear energy. The poor man's body was a super-efficient nuclear power plant. He had little need to eat or sleep or even drink water. Yet, he could not be released. Several feet of concrete separated him from all humanity. The radiation he generated killed every soul in fifteen miles of him when his powers manifested. And now Klaus used him to generate his facility's power, and would until the mutant died on his own some time in the future.

He looked at his phone. One of the helicopter crew left him a message some time ago informing him that Jozua had fallen asleep in the aircraft and was moved to her hospital room. Klaus appreciated the initiative.

Then there was a call from his secretary. Jozua's parents were in the lobby to see their daughter's progress. Klaus took the elevator to the appropriate floor and opened the door to his most recent patient's room. She was asleep, still in her clothes. Her shirt was ripped from where the winglike appendages had grown out of her shoulders. Fortunately (or unfortunately) the secretary had bought Jozua two sets of clothes.

He woke her and told her to change her shirt. Her parents were wanting to see her.

"What a surprise it will be for them when you come walking out of the elevator."

[Jozua Cure]

A hand shaking her shoulder pulled her up to the surface of her dreams, and Jozua's tired eyes cracked open a fraction to see her doctor leaning over her. She smiled softly as his features came into greater focus, and breathed her words just as gently, "I flew."

Klaus' news of her parents had her sitting bolt upright, eyes wide a hand clasped tightly at her chest to try and contain the shock. "What? Really? They want to see me?"

It is because I am well, now. They have come to take me back!

With an ease brought on by her sudden excitement, Jozua bounced down from her bed, and without any inhibitions pulled her shirt over her head and wriggled her arms out of the sleeves. The spare shirt was folded on the shelf next to it, and she bounded to it, slipping it over her slender frame and buttoning it as fast as her fingers could manage. Side-stepping to the mirror, she ran her fingers through her fine hair, trying to fluff it a little in order to thwart its straightness. Resting her hands on the cool ceramic of the basin, she leaned forward to better inspect her reflection.

I believe I am prettier - healthier. Maybe now I can make them proud of me.

Turning, she crossed the room to Klaus and without warning rose up onto the tips of her toes, arms snaking around his shoulders and drawing him in close. With her forehead pressed into his neck, Jozua was able to hide her tranquil smile. "Thank you, Doctor Klaus Heidegger. Thank you."

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus took her by the shoulders and pulled her away from him. "It was my duty to cure you."

He looked her in the face. She was happy again, and excited about her parents. But before he took her down to them, he decided he had to offer her his rebuke.

"Jozua, I am not impressed with your behavior at the tower. I do not know what you were thinking, but you put yourself at serious risk. What good does it do to me to cure you when you are going to do things to get yourself killed? It makes my time and effort equivocate to nothing. I am not pleased."

He looked at her with a grave look that was almost a glower. "Now, you will curb your excitement when you see your parents. Apparently high-energy situations bring the Sample to the fore. If you forget yourself, they will see. I am not sure how they will react."

Jozua did not know what the people of the tower did when they reacted. The combination of disgust, hatred, and fear that marked their faces were the summation of the motivating force behind most of Klaus' work.

"Do you understand me? We will work on your flying in the future. You will still be here for weeks more as I study the Sample and you more closely. We will work on your flying in a low-altitude, controlled environment. One where I won't have to deal with seeing my hard work squandered."

He paused a moment to gauge her reaction. Then at last he opened the door for her. "Come along. It is time tosee your parents."

[Jozua Cure]

For a brief moment, Jozua's lower lip trembled, and she tried to hide it by bowing her head. Now she thought of it, she had not been very well behaved all day, and it was made worse by the fact that the doctor had left his busy schedule at the center to accompany her. But, she had tried. As for jumping from the building ...

I do not know. I suppose I was not thinking. I ...I cannot really remember.

Klaus swung open the door, and Jozua was out of it as quickly as possible. How could she not be excited? Her parents had stopped visiting at the hospital some time before she left for Poland, however their assent had been required for her to make the trip in the first place. Now that she was well, she could make them happy. Of course, she had promised to stay in the Jericho center for a while so that the doctor could run his tests, but after that ...

If she learned to control the sample inside her body, then she could move safely around other people. Without all the answers, however, it would be dangerous, especially if she couldn't remember important things like jumping off of buildings very clearly.

The loud ping of the elevator bell jerked her out of her thoughts. Were they in it already?

The doors slid away from one another, and with surprise Jozua realised that she hadn't even registered getting into the elevator, and that the doors revealed the lobby area that she had left from earlier that day - it seemed such a long time ago now - and the two people she had wished for. They stood close together, observing the lobby with a quiet nervousness, but their attention was sharply, suddenly fixated when the slender girl and her doctor emerged from the elevator. Jozua swallowed, her anxiety creeping through her as she stared straight back at her parents. She recognised her mother easily; Viona and Jozua shared the same thin fair hair, although Viona had hers cut in a youthful, layered style that framed her normally cheerful face. Her father, on the other hand, had grown something of a moustache and his spiky, dark hair was greyer than Jozua remembered. In his arms he held a child that, when grumbling, made noises that echoed around the lobby.

The painful silence that existed between them nearly made Jozua's knees buckle, however her mother answered her silent pleas with a cry, running the several steps that parted them to clamp her arms around her child, squeezing so tightly Jozua thought she might burst. She returned the ferocity of the embrace, fighting hard to hold back tears as her mother rapdily dampened Jozua's hair with her own.

"My baby! My Jozua, oh --" Stepping back for a moment, Viona held Jozua's shoulders in her hands, surveying her, "You're beautiful."

"Mama --" Jozua wasn't given a chance to speak further as Viona smothered her in another hug. Peering over her mother's shoulder, Jozua regarded her father with some bemusement. Was he not happy, too?

Viona seemed to be holding on to her child for as long as she possibly could. However, she broke the embrace after a few minutes and wrapped her arm around Jozua's skinny middle, guiding her towards her father. He regarded her with a hard look, which Jozua didn't know what to make of. "Papa, what is the matter?"

Suspiciously, Ruben's eyes flickered to the doctor that stood some feet away, then returned his gaze to his child and spoke several words of their mother-tongue, presumably, Jozua thought, because he was certain that Klaus didn't speak Dutch. His words stung; they had been informed that she possessed an X-gene, and that her cure was unconventional, however he was having a had time believing it. Viona protectively pulled Jozua closer to her, "You should be ashamed, Ruben Cure. This is our daughter!"

He spoke another linguistically encrypted stream, before Viona cut him short, "Ruben, please. This is rude."

He means to say that I am not acceptable. The thought swam in Jozua's mind, before being swiftly replaced by another: He does not want me.

Trying to divert his attention, Jozua pointed to the baby in his arms. It was dressed in dungarees and a blue woollen jumper, complete with a matching bobble hat. "Is he my brother?"

Viona smiled, obviously pleased to divulge, "No, darling. Your sister Gisela had her baby six months ago."

At this, Jozua couldn't help but give an elated smile, "Gisela? I knew she was pregnant, but --" She stopped, focusing her thoughts. She had not been told of the birth, but then, Gisela would no doubt have been very busy, and by that time, it seemed as though they had given up on her ever living normally ... "Has she married an American man?"

"She will do soon." Ruben said firmly, a trace of disgust in his voice. Viona patted Jozua's arm reassuringly.

"She wanted to lose some weight before the wedding; what with the pregnancy and getting married, she thought it would be too stressful. Do you want to hold him?"

The question lingered in the air. Jozua had never held a baby, but the child was her own nephew, and she had no idea of when she might see him again. Stretching out her arms, she noted her father's reluctance to hand the baby over, but Viona coaxed him from Ruben's arms and, with careful instruction, lay him in Jozua's own. "That's it, sweetheart. Mind his head -- there you are."

Again, it was difficult for Jozua to fight back tears. She cradled the tiny boy, looking down at him with a fondness she had never felt. "He is beautiful."

Viona beamed. "You're a natural, darling." Her next words, regardless of the enthusiasm that filled them, were drowned into silence as Jozua saw, for the first time, the child's name. Like a tag above his head, in clear lettering, she saw it, and didn't know how to react.

... Joshua.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus stood by. He didn't say a word. For now they were busy being a family. It would complicate things if they decided they wanted their daughter back. Luckily for him he could keep her for several more weeks and during the time could find some way to keep her longer.

Klaus understood her father perfectly. Every word was a bitter, angry sting on Jozua and it showed. The words stung Klaus too, but only because it was clear that the man had no interest in Klaus' work and deigned to think the doctor could not cure something like hereditary leukemia.

Klaus dusted off his lab coat. This would continue for an hour or so, and then he would break it up and send them on their way.

[Jozua Cure]

"And darling, Petrus hopes to be a doctor; he's been studying for three years now, and the signs are good. He's doing very well." Viona, completely absorbed in reciting the somewhat rehearsed speech of her children's achievements, initially didn't notice Jozua freeze as she looked at the child, "And Hilda hasn't grown out of her love of horses - in fact, she's been competing on behalf of the riding school, and she's won some gorgeous rosettes - oh, there's so much you've missed out on! But that's not your fault, sweetheart, you've not been well ...Jozua, is everything all right?"

In the awkward silence that ensued, Jozua was well aware of her parent's eyes on her, even though she had her own transfixed on the child in her arms. More long moments of absolute quiet reigned between them before Jozua lifted head, her face solemn.

"Joshua."

Ruben's eye twitched, and he spoke slowly, "What did you say?"

Jozua looked down at the child again, but could not hate him. The name was still there, hovering above his head. "His name is Joshua."

"My God," With that, Ruben grabbed at Viona's arm and pulled her to him, taking a step back. "We were told that you could ...could ...do - this - but I didn't want to believe it. We didn't."

"Papa, I only see names --"

Ruben's tone grew more accusatory, "Can you choose when to see them?"

"No."

"Then, it's an invasion of privacy."

Trying to bring some calm into the situation, Viona spoke soothingly, fixing her daughter with a sympathetic gaze, "How long have you been able to do this?"

Jozua's voice was level, "Since I was seventeen."

Suddenly, something about Ruben changed. His features shifted, but to what Jozua couldn't work out. He held out his hands, beckoning her slightly, "Give me my grandson."

In her arms, Joshua started to grumble. Eyes welling up with tears, Jozua stepped gingerly towards her father, planting a soft kiss on the child's head before handing him back. Ruben bundled the baby into Viona's arms, and went forward to meet Jozua, staring down at her.

"And what of this cure?" His face hardened, but there was something in his eyes that Jozua was captured by. "Did your quack doctor really get rid of the cancer? I beg to differ."

"Ruben, please." Viona's voice was trembling, as though she was about to cry. Jozua wiped the warm tears at had settled on her lower eyelids with the back of her hand, and winced as the pain that had been plaguing her for most of the day flared again at her side. Ruben looked over the top of her head, staring hard at Klaus.

"This is not Jozua. My child is dead."

Before him, Jozua crashed to her knees, her anguished whimpers matching that of Viona's, who held her grandson close to her, rocking away his complaints. Ruben cast a look that was a mixture of disdain and regret at the blonde girl, who had buried her face into her hands. She looked up at him, eyes filled with desperation, "Please, papa. Don't leave me."

As he looked down at her, his expression suddenly changed, and this time, Jozua knew exactly what it was. Fear. Fear for the black veins that were snaking over the exposed skin on her hands and neck, for the solid blackess that she knew her eyes were becoming. And, before she could think, her wings burst free like sharks on an attack at the ocean's surface, and her side exploded with pain.

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus did not radio security. This man would handle his own situation and then he would have Jozua for as long as he wanted for as much study as he could get out of her.

"See the cure I bestowed on your daughter," Klaus said, voice edging with anger. "Apart from the mutant gene she inherited from you--"the man looked shocked. "Yes, it does come from the father. She also inherited--again, from you--the genetic predisposition for leukemia. Your faulty genes made her sick and made her a mutant. And now I have cured her. I generated a tissue sample that replaced your bad genes with better genes. And now she has become more though my science than she ever could from your blood. Now deal with your inadequacies. And never ever call me a quack doctor."

The secretary dove under her desk in fear of Jozua's reprisal upon her father. Klaus stood where he was. Security would see the closed circuit cameras soon and be on their way. He didn't have to call them. As for Klaus, himself he stayed where he was. Her father's blundering could only push Jozua more solidly to him and he feared no collateral damage from her.

[Jozua Cure]

Through pain and her father's harsh words, Jozua was entrenched in an emotional storm. On her knees before the man she called father, she was barely aware of the dark wings with their tips distorted into claw-like hands, thrashing above her head and threatening to swiftly tear apart the man before her. Dainty fingernails scratched at the floor's smooth surface, her whole body trembling with the whirlpool of sadness, rejection, confusion and ...anger. There it was, boiling and bubbling and surging like fire, until she could bear the pain no longer and with a scream lashed a wing forward like a whip.

There was a loud crack, and Ruben Cure stumbled backwards, his remaining good leg failing to hold his weight and sending him slamming to the floor. The other limb was useless, snapped just below the knee, the cap of the joint all but crushed by the impact. Viona's cries of fright stung Jozua's ears like ice, running her through in an instant, and again she struck out, beating the man she no longer wanted to know against the secretary's desk. He collapsed with a weak groan, his injured leg lying at an awkward angle.

Crouched on all fours like an animal, she swept her gaze around the room, and fixated it on her mother and nephew. She could not feel badly about them. Her mother had loved her, and had not been shocked at her mutant power. Now Viona stood with tears streaking down her face, horrified at her child's violent assault on her husband. The love had been ripped out in that instant. How could she love her child if that child was a monster?

Goodbye, mama and little Joshua.

A low growl emerged from Jozua's throat; uniformed staff were beginning to emerge rapidly from the doorways, armed with equipment Jozua had never seen before. Her wings helped her to her feet, and she stood facing them as they formed a wall between her and her family, poised to strike. Her eyes narrowed and her upper lip curled in a semi-bestial snarl, fingers twitching as she waited for one to make the first move. She wasn't kept long; one had tried to sneak towards her father, and as she shot him a wary glance he aimed his weapon and fired. A wing deflected the shot with a powerful back swung, Jozua stepping round to face him as the other wing rushed forward to grasp and hurl the uniformed man to the other side of the lobby. More moved forward - Jozua's second scream cut them short.

Suddenly she was on the floor again, vision swimming and her side blazing. She curled on the floor, holding her side as tightly as she could, feeling the sample shrink at her back and recede and again she was just a girl, just a small girl in need of help. Another scream, louder this time. Another.

The next she managed to form into a word, "Doctor! ...Doctor!"

She held her side so tightly that her nails sunk through enough layers of skin to bring beads of blood to the surface, and her head pounded as the lobby slipped in and out of focus. Something, something from her time at the hospital - what was it? She knew it, but it flitted out of her mind's grasp before she could find the answer. She had seen it, seen others like she was now, unable to hold in such agonising pain that they had to shout so loudly to get it out. From somewhere behind she heard approaching footsteps, and with tear-blurred eyes she thought she saw his face above her. For a moment, all went quiet. The answer came.

She murmured faintly, "I think my appendix just burst."

[Doktor Klaus Heidegger]

Klaus enjoyed watching Jozua break her father's leg. He deserved it. The team came in and surrounded Jozua. She retaliated and injured one, and possibly killed another one or two.

Before they could begin to seriously apprehend her, she shrank down into herself again and lay on the floor shouting in pain and shaking like a leaf.

"Take Jozua to the operating room. We have to do something about her appendix."

Klaus considered the Hippocratic oath he took in medical school as he looked at the crippled man on the floor.

"And we will see what we can do to fix Mister Cure's broken leg." He sneered. "That is, if he will allow a so-called quack doctor to see to his health."

Jozua's mother pleaded that he see to her husband and apologized profusely for his behavior.

"Very well. Take him to get an X-ray. We will then set that leg and he will be on his way."

Klaus swept himself into the elevator to scrub up for Jozua's surgery. "Contact me as soon as she is in an operating room."

[Jozua Cure]

Two pairs of strong hands held Jozua under her arms and knees and her suddenly weakened body was hurried out of the lobby and into the elevator. More people joined them - how many, she couldn't tell, and she fought down another yell of pain, managing to muffle it to a whimper. The efficiency of the Jericho Center proved itself as the elevator doors opened and revealed a bed waiting for her, which she was quickly and gently desposited on before the staff hurriedly wheeled it to the nearest operating theatre.

She let out another yell as her side continued to lance her body with pain, and for once felt no assistance from the sample that shared her body. No lines marked her pale skin, no unexplained urges consumed her, even for a second. Before she knew what was happening, the anaesthetist was upon her, preparing to administer the drug to her system.

Wait. I want my doctor.

She fought the drug as it seeped into her bloodstream, widening her eyes to keep them from closing. Around her there were lights and instruments being poked at her and people talking about things she was sure would not stop the pain that was quickly becoming a dull ache. She covered her eyes with a feeble hand, but it fell away again.

If I wanted to leave, I now cannot.

Resignedly, Jozua allowed the staff to roll her onto her back, her reactions and protests becoming weaker by the second as the drug dragged her into the depths of unconciousness. The panicked thudding of her own heart drowned out any other noises, and her eyes slid closed.

I belong to Jericho.