Dr X looked at Em with eyes soft as down, his shoulders huddled like a goose bracing a bitter winter wind. She looked back, eyes wide, the view before her, shades of shapeless golden colors dancing as the hope before a heart unscarred, her hand outstretched for the suitor. Trev stood to her side, his nervous hand on her right shoulder. Mairi, standing beside the doctor, refused to make eye contact. He tried to think his concern to her. The Dr sighed.
"Em." said Dr X.
"Yes," she replied, not allowing him to finish his thought.
"I don't know how to say this, so I'll just say it. We have two options."
"Oh my Janus. What is wrong?"
"Nothing wrong. Everything is as it is."
"Then what? Options? How can we have options if the path is clear? What's blocking our way?"
Dr X drew a breath. "Your sight, the damage, is, more, how do I say it, delicate than I anticipated."
"You can't fix it?" Em stood as if standing to confront the news, her fist balled at the end of forearms flexed.
"As I said, we have options. We can--"
Tocsins blared and a faded red light flashed. "This is Kyra. I need everyone in the conference room. Now. Repeat. I need everyone in the conference room immediately."
15 comments:
A bit of backstory:
When "Dr X" first appeared in the story, I was writing as I often do, which is to say, off the top of my head and I couldn't, in the heat of the moment, stop to decided on a name for the good doctor. So, I just typed in "Dr X" with every intention of coming back later to give him a proper name. Well, as you can see, like a puppy one takes home, before I could find a suitable name, the appellation stuck. So, there you have it. :-D
I like it, kind of 007-like, or rather Dr No, single syllable and X has such an interesting sound. The other suggestion once given was even more Bond-ish but in the genre of the Pussy Galore. :-D
Dr X alluded a little while back that his presence aboard Bravo did not equal the return of Em's sight, that things would not be so simple, but given his success with Yul, there was and is still great faith that whatever those options are, hope for a full recovery remains. What will happen though I can only guess at. And therein lies the fun. :-D If her blindness is permanent, will it have repercussions for the newly budding relationship that she has with Trev, a relationship she entered into when she, they, believed that her blindness would soon be a thing of the past. She would have a very hard time accepting it to be permanent and I could see her pulling away, shutting herself off not just from the rest of the crew, but Trev too...perhaps Mairi least. Lots of options indeed. :-) Very nice opening paragraph, love 'eyes soft as down', such a soft image. The support of Mairi and Trev with her confirming the separation that existed for a time is all but faded (still haven't seen Rog and Mairi interacting since they had words). Hope appearing and now seemingly being retracted at least in the sureness of the outcome, I like very much what you did with Em here.
And in the midst of it all, a more pressing matter, :-), never a dull moment. Good stuff, Poppet, smokin' still, x
sirocco! That's what came to mind when this image opened.
I like the "Dr. X" name because way back when you introduced him, I thought of "X" from X-files. I loved the cool "X" character, and was disappointed when he was written out of the show.
So, I'm all for you sticking with "Dr. X".
Crickey Trée you can't leave us hanging like that!
Happy New Year Tre MWAH!
Keshi.
Happy New Year Keshi. :-)
Miladysa, Dr X is going to give Em a choice between an artificial eye (with perhaps some superpowers) or they can attempt to repair her natural sight. Very good odds on success with the mech eye, not as good if they go the natural route. The catch is, once a choice has been made, success or not, they can't go back, no do-over, no second chance. So if she were to go "natural" and it didn't work, she would be blind for life. That's where we're headed. :-)
Deb, Dr X it is and Dr X is shall be. :-D
Sweetest, as always, your comments warm the hearth with love and tenderness. :-)
The options... spill it! What are her options?
K, look up three comments. ;-)
I have been going through old posts for about an hour. Not really interested in the milk of the Who's Who, but the meat of character development. I have a question....Dr. X - my first impression was he was a very bad guy. Now he is helping Em, the girl next door with the sight thing. Is he good or bad? Or is the jury still out on this one? Jennifer
Jennifer, Dr X is still a bit of an enigma. He semi-raped (is that possible?) Mairi, but saved Yul's life and is now going to help Em see again. The more I get to know him, the more I like him but he is still a relatively unknown character of the Arc'teryxian race. By the way, he is also helping Mairi develop her "nullness," which is her special ability to dampen telepathic activity in her immediate area--something of great interest to the Arc'teryxians and the main reason Dr X got his hands on Mairi in the first place.
Yea! I'm keeping up a bit 'cause I knew that last little bit of info...This is like a blog - puzzle to me, something interesting to research and try to figure out. Bet that is not the intent though - doesn't quite do it justice. Puzzle? Art? It still engages the mind and makes me think. I'm enjoying plundering your site. Jennifer
Jennifer, I think I like being plundered. :-D
Keep me updated on your progress and by all means ask questions as they occur to you. I'm flattered you find the story interesting. :-)
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