Title: Twelve Points

Author: Sidnea Blackstone

Rating: Teen

Summary: Aaron watches Marta and contemplates why he doesn't want to tell her his secret.

lj-cut text=" Twelve Points "

"I tell you what I am going to do for you Kenny," Corporal Jansen leaned forward in his chair, "You want—"

"Kenneth," he interrupted, "My name is Kenneth James Kitsom." He hated it when people did that; shortening his name was common. They did not think he knew they did it to poke fun or make him feel stupid, but Kenneth knew the sound and cadence of people's voices sometimes said more than their words. He was not as book smart as Corporal Jansen but he knew people looked down on people that did not seem to measure up, people like him.

"What," Corporal Jansen asked confused.

"I like Kenneth," he interrupted, "Call me Kenneth."

"Sure," Corporal Jansen laughed and it was a laugh that Kenneth recognized; it made him angry. It said that he thought Kenneth needed to be coddled. Almost everyone assumed just because he was a little slower to understand things he was breakable. "Kenneth—It is. Well, Kenneth, I have to say I was a little disappointed in the scores that came back."

"I don't like tests," Kenneth fidgeted, rubbing his hands over his jean covered thighs.

"Yeah, well they don't seem to like you either buddy." Corporal Jansen shook his head and flipped a page in front of Kenneth as he spoke. "I explained that the test would decide where you would be placed; do you remember that?"

"Yes," Kenneth muttered, shame making his voice catch as he continued. "You said the test would tell you what kind of work I can do."

"I said it would determine whether or not you would be eligible to serve," Corporal Jansen explained, "These scores are below the norm, Kenneth. The armed forces are a very serious profession and it takes hard work, skill and aptitude."

"I just want to serve my country and you said you would help me get in," Kenneth shoved himself to his feet and turned away from the pitying eyes of the recruiter. "I am strong; I work hard and I only gotta be told one time what to do. I love this country! I wanna make it safe. What they did…Somebody has to keep them from doing it again."

"You said you came to me because of what happened in September," Corporal Jansen prompted. "You lost someone?"

"Yeah," Kenneth nodded and turned toward the desk once more. Mrs. Monroe was the only person that treated Kenneth like he was worth the space he took up at the home. He knew she was the same with all the others but it did not stop him from letting his guard down and letting the kindly lady into his heart. He watched the way she cared for Junie, a girl about his age that had been injured in an auto accident when she was three. She could not walk or even talk as far as Kenneth knew, but Junie sometimes had a look in her eyes that he recognized. He saw the same look in the mirror often enough. He was not smart like most people his age, but he was not stupid. The trouble was that he knew things he just did not know how to get those things out of his head and into the world around him. He was trapped, like Junie except he was strong and his body able.

Mama Mo, she had everyone call her Mama Mo, read to Junie and talked to her every day. Junie was special to Mama Mo and when she died, late one night in her sleep, it was Kenneth that woke to hear Mama Mo's grief-stricken cries. Early that morning Kenneth sat drinking a cup of good ol' American Joe with Mama Mo as she explained that Junie was her daughter and that sometimes accidents happened and sometimes nature just made mistakes and people were left to watch as life and opportunity passed them by.

She had looked at him then and, with tears streaming down her face, told him that he might have been something even more special if nature had slighted him.

"Junie she was so bright all smiles," she wiped her eyes as she gazed off in the direction of Junie's room; her voice was soft and broken as she murmured, "I used to dream she would be a doctor or a lawyer, but mostly a doctor helping people be better."

When she turned back to Kenneth and grasped his hand so tight it hurt she told him fiercely, "You may have been stuck with one of nature's mistakes Kenneth but you have a chance my Junie didn't have. You be your best and work hard; no matter what you strive to be the best you can be!"

"I will Mama Mo," he assured her but there was something in her blue eyes that said she did not believe his best would ever do.

"I know you will Kenneth," she sighed, tiredly, and patted his hand. She stood up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "It is late. You should go on back to bed."

He had gone to bed that night feeling ashamed that Mama Mo did not think he would do his best. She had always encouraged them all to be the best person they could be and not to let their limits define them.

A few months later Mama Mo was in the middle of preparing the food for her annual 4th of July barbeque when her sister called to say she was sick with cancer. Mama Mo was a self-proclaimed ol' army brat that decorated for the fourth of July more than she did for Christmas, but that 4th of July Kenneth was the one that rallied the others and burned hotdogs over the grill as the sky lit up in the distance with the city fireworks display.

Kenneth would never forget that day three years ago, in September, when she boarded a plane to visit her sister in West Virginia and never came back. Her plane was used in one of the most horrific attacks ever to occur on US soil. He had been sixteen when he helped the new matron clear out Mama Mo's room. In a box that was tucked into a drawer Kenneth found Junie's social security card, birth certificate and a few personal mementos; he never knew what possessed him to take them and secret them away in his own personal effects. All he knew was that he decided at that moment that he would make Mama Mo proud and keep what happened to her from happening again. He could not be a doctor but he could make people be better. "You said you would help me," he scowled as he came out of his thoughts.

Sighing, the man stood from his desk and straightened his uniform. "I will…"

In the grand scheme of things it did not sound like much…Just one more than eleven…Just eight less than twenty. Ninety-eight minus eighty-six equals just twelve. It was only twelve points but it had changed so damned much.

Aaron watched her in the mirror as she seemed lost in her own memories. She was all natural. Beautiful and intelligent from birth; she was like his mirror opposite. The first time he saw her she took his breath away she reminded him a little of Mama Mo's Junie except her hair was darker and her eyes were brown and Dr. Marta Shearing had been smiled on by nature. There had been no accident leaving her less than she could have been, only realized potential in the pretty doctor that attended him.

Of everyone at the medical facility she had made him feel…At ease. He got the impression that she never looked beneath the surface of what Outcome was and though he was able to fluster her with his flirting she seemed to see him only as a patient. He wondered how much she knew about him but no matter how many times she read his file she would never know the whole truth unless he told her and he would have to tell her soon. He was smart enough to know that, but he was not sure how long that fact would remain true. The half a crushed Blue would only sustain him for so long and when he came crashing down it would mean their deaths.

Aaron hated that she would know his most shameful secret and of everyone in the program she was the only one whose opinion mattered to him. It started that first day when she walked into the exam room smelling of kerosene smoke and vanilla. She had a 'Proud American' pin on her lab coat and her hair was shorter than it is now. She used a barrette to pull her hair back, but the front was too short and a fringe escaped to brush against her forehead. After he was released he had gone back to his 'place' and over the next year created June Monroe's life. All because her hair smelled sweet like vanilla and she reminded him of a mother's broken dreams for a handicapped girl.

It was only after her hair grew longer that she began sporting the sexy little up-do and he had on occasion wondered what her hair felt like, but he had reigned in the impulse to touch. The rules stayed his hands, but as he watched the lost, sadness play over her pretty features in the mirror the realization that the rules no longer applied became a heavy weight in his chest.

He moved without thought, it was instinct, and tapped on the door jam. She startled and her eyes met his in the mirror and Aaron could swear it was like a physical touch transmitted through cold silvered-glass. For a surreal moment he wondered if other men had met other women's pleading gazes in just such a manner and been as floored by the experience.

"Why is it so important to you," she asked tossing the towel on the counter and turning to him. He hated that he was ashamed of whom he had been and that he was afraid of living the rest of his life without the wonderful freedom his dependence upon a little Blue pill gave him.

"Let me show you something," he hoped his voice did not sound as resigned as he felt but he choked down the anxiety and typed in a few keystrokes bringing up a familiar page.

"I don't understand," and indeed she sounded confused.

"My recruiter added twelve points to my baseline IQ," he confessed, "He was probably short on his recruitment quota. He altered my IQ score…" When it looked as if she was still trying to understand he clarified, "Twelve points to make the minimum requirement."

There he said it, but she did not gasp and look dismayed. "Have you seen what happens when someone stops taking the blues?"

"No," she shook her head, but the scientist was alive in her eyes now. He could tell her keen mind had gone straight to the heart of the matter. The Blues were far more powerful than the tests had shown. To take a man from near retardation to hyper-intelligence was ground breaking science and he could see her need, her desire, to focus on the potential harnessed within the little blue pill.

"Let's just say it is something you never want to see," he told her emphatically snapping the laptop closed, "I won't go back to that." In the grand scheme of things twelve points did not seem like much, but twelve points changed his world.

"It will work," she assured him as they packed for their trip to Manilla.

"It had better," he said, "Or neither one of us will have much of a future."