Return to Bison High B2Ch11

Book 2, Chapter 11: Damaged

The airport was crowded from the inside out. People came and went from every direction, all of them looking for a particular face or location. Pushing her luggage and Naga on her barrowed luggage cart, and carrying her son in a pouch on her chest, Korra finally spotted the face she was looking for. Smiling and walking a little bit faster, she hurried over to Mako, who embraced her in a hug and spun her around ever so slightly.
“I’m so glad to see you,” Korra grinned.
Mako smiled back at her and gave her a quick kiss.
“How was your flight?” he asked.
“Not too bad. Kaskae didn’t cry much, and no one sat in the seat next to me, so I had more legroom than usual.”
Mako smiled down at Kaskae and slid him out of his pouch.
“You were a good boy, huh?” he asked the seven month old. Kaskae smiled at him for a brief moment, and then went back to looking around at all the fascinating moving objects that surrounded him. Smiling at her boys, Korra grabbed back on to the cart, and she and Mako began walking towards the exit.
“By the way, I don’t remember if I told you or not, but Kaskae has a doctor’s appointment today,” Korra said.
“You didn’t tell me that,” Mako said, “Why today? You just got home.”
“Apparently he needs a checkup before he can start at his new daycare, and today was the only day I could schedule an appointment that wasn’t at eight in the morning.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket. “I need to take him in about two hours. You wanna come with?”
“Sure,” he said, slightly adjusting Kaskae’s position in his arms, “I’ve been wanting to ask his doctor why he’s not talking yet.”
Korra rolled her eyes.
“Why are you so obsessed with that? I’ve told you a million times, he’s trying. Stop worrying about it.”
“But -”
“Ah ka ah,” Kaskae interrupted, babbling as if he was making sense, “Da yaya ah baba.”
“See?” Korra said, “He definitely thinks he can talk.”
As they walked out of the airport and started for the parking lot, Kaskae let out a growling-like sound. Mako looked down at him, and then over at Korra.
“Oh yeah, he does that,” Korra said, scanning the parking lot for Mako’s car.
--
“Eighteen pounds, two ounces,” the doctor said as he wrote it down on his chart. The room was painted a deep shade of blue, and a painting of an anchor hung on the wall near the sink and supply cupboards, while a decorative life ring hung on the wall above the exam table, where the doctor laid Kaskae down after recording his weight. “Right on schedule. He’s over doubled his birth weight.”
“Speaking of schedules -”
“Mako,” Korra said, rolling her eyes at him.
“He’s not talking yet,” Mako said, ignoring his girlfriend, “He babbles a lot, but he can’t say actual words.”
Korra huffed and rolled her again.
“That’s very normal. Not all babies have moved on from the babbling stage at his age,” the doctor assured him. He took out a small measuring tape and started wrapping it around the seven month old’s head. “Unless he still doesn’t say single words, like mama or dada, by the time he’s twelve months, there’s nothing to worry about.”
“See?” Korra said, turning to Mako, “I told you.”
“The back of his head seems to be slightly flat,” the doctor said, unwrapping the measuring tape, “How often does he sleep in his swing or car seat?”
Mako quickly turned his head towards Korra, who looked away from him and let out a nervous chuckle.
“Um, usually… once or twice a day.” She tried to ignore the look she knew Mako was giving her. “He really likes to nap in his swing.”
“Try to get him to nap in his crib,” the doctor said, writing down Kaskae’s head measurements, “It’ll help round his head out. More tummy time might help too.”
“We’ll be sure to do that,” Mako said, still staring Korra down.
“I don’t like putting him on his stomach,” Korra said.
The doctor looked up at Korra.
“Does he still get fussy when he’s on his stomach?”
“It’s not really that. I’m worried he’d suffocate if I leave him like that too long.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that, especially at his age. Now that he can lift his head up and roll over, he has a very low risk of suffocation.”
“He can’t do either of those.”
The doctor looked surprised. He raised an eyebrow, wondering if he misunderstood.
“You mean he can’t roll over?”
“Or lift his head.”
Concerned by what she was telling him, the doctor tried gently to get Kaskae to sit up. His expression dropped when he saw the baby’s floppy posture; how his head leaned forward, causing his chin to rest on his chest, and how he was relying entirely on the support of the hand on his back in order to stay in the seated position. If it weren’t for the other hand supporting him on his stomach, he would have looked like he was about to tip over at any minute.
Korra and Mako looked at each other, worry written all over their faces. Just the way the doctor was looking at Kaskae made their stomachs knot up. The look he then gave them only made the knot tighten.
“Do you see how his head’s falling forward?” the doctor asked, “That’s not normal. He should’ve been able to hold his head up months ago.”
The emphases he put on “months” made an alarm go off in the young parents heads. Unable to form proper questions, they watched as he put Kaskae back on his back, and then looked back up at them with questions of his own.
“Is there anything else he’s late on? How’s his grasping? Can he grab or try to grab his toys?”
Korra looked up at Mako. Their hearts plummeted, and a lump formed in Korra’s throat as she tried to speak.
“He bats at them, but that’s about it,” she said, feeling Mako wrap his arm around her.
She remembered the teething ring she tried to give him when his teeth were starting to come in. Poor Kaskae couldn’t figure out how to hold it, so it was constantly slipping through his hands. She remembered laughing at the little pout and frustrated glare that came on his face every time he dropped it, and getting frustrated herself when he was still dropping it after an hour, thinking he was doing it on purpose. Now realizing what was really going on, she looked down at Kaskae and picked him up off the table. She felt awful, and all she wanted was to hold him close to her.
Another question from the doctor interrupted her thoughts.
“Does he smile?”
Korra felt a small amount of relief. A little smile of her own came on her face.
“He smiles all the time. He’s a happy boy.”
“Can he laugh?”
“Yeah. He just learned how.”
“Does he respond to his name, or other noises or movement?”
“Usually, unless he’s tired.”
Mako nodded in confirmation, and decided to try to demonstrate.
“Kaskae,” he said, looking down at him.
Kaskae looked up towards his dad, smiling a little bit. The doctor nodded, approvingly.
“So his delays are mostly physical,” he said, “Is there anything else you can think of at this moment?”
Korra looked up at Mako. He shrugged.
“No,” Korra said, looking back at the doctor, “What’s wrong with him? Why’s he so -”
Suddenly, she remembered something.
“He and I were attacked almost two months ago,” she told the doctor, “He hit his head on the cement. Is it possible… that that’s what hurt him?”
“No, I saw his injury report from that night after his information was transferred back over here. If he had suffered any kind of brain damage from that incident, you would’ve been made aware. Most likely whatever’s causing his delays has been with him since birth,” he explained, “Do you remember if there were any signs that something might be wrong when you were pregnant with him? Did anything unusual show up in an ultrasound, or were you injured at any point?”
The instant he said it, Korra’s blood ran cold. Horrible memories flashed through her head, memories of the dark room and the masked man who threw her around like a rag doll. She held Kaskae even closer, looking at no one but him and saying nothing. She’d tried so hard to forget those memories, but here they were, coming back to haunt her.
Mako put a comforting arm around her.
“She was attacked when she was about four months pregnant,” he told the doctor, “It was awful. We almost lost him.”
The doctor’s face softened.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I recommend you arrange for him to have an MRI scan. If he has any kind of brain damage, it’s best to detect it as soon as possible.”
Korra looked up at him.
“Will he be like this all his life?” she asked.
“I can’t say at this point. It is possible, but the good news is he’s laughing, and smiling, and trying to talk, so it could definitely be worse. I wish I could give you more information, but we won’t fully know how to treat his problem areas at least until he gets an MRI. In the meantime, be careful when handling his head and neck. If you notice anything else, don’t hesitate to call.”
The young parents nodded. Korra barely noticed Mako leading her out of the room. She had spent months putting those memories of Amon under lock and key, but now the lock was open and everything was running loose.
“You alright now?” Mako asked.
Korra looked up at him. She remembered walking out of the building and Mako telling her to sit down on the bench that was outside the entrance, but it still felt like almost no time passed by.
“Yeah,” she lied. She stood up from the bench and started walking with Mako towards his car. Once getting Kaskae strapped in his car seat, the two of them got into the drivers and passengers seat, and started driving down the road.
Most of the talking came from Kaskae during the first half of the drive. Korra stared out the window of the passenger’s seat, her face unable to be seen by Mako. She hadn’t been this dizzy from her own thoughts since she found out she was pregnant.
Coming to a stopping point, Mako carefully reached out for her hand and brought it to his lips to give her a gentle kiss.
“It’s gonna be alright,” he told her, “We know something’s wrong, so we’re going to fix it. Kaskae’s going to be okay.”
Just barely glancing up from the window, Korra pulled her hand away.
“He wasn’t supposed to… He should’ve been born healthy.”
“We’ll find a way to get him to where he needs to be. You know we will.”
Before Korra could respond, a small voice came from the back seat.
“Ah ka! Ah da!”
Chuckling slightly, Korra looked back at her son. The car was moving again, and Kaskae was fascinated with everything that passed by his window. He looked so happy just to be in the car.
Korra looked back over to Mako, the small smile from watching Kaskae now gone.
“How’re we going to do this?”
“I told you, we’ll find a way. We always do.”
Without saying anything else, Korra leaned back against her seat, looking at nothing but what was outside the windshield. Mako glanced over at her, thinking about what must be going through her head. He knew the news about Kaskae was the last thing she needed, especially after these last few months.
He reached out for her hand again.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “How do you feel about… maybe moving in with me?”
Korra immediately looked over at him.
“Where’d that come from?”
“Like I said, I’ve been thinking. Maybe it’s time we live together, just you, me, and Kaskae. It’d be easier to take care of him if the both of us are around, and we’d be able to get a more equal amount of time with him. We’d be together, as a whole family.”
Korra thought for a moment.
“What about Bolin? What happens when he comes home?”
“Then we’ll have another person living with us. We’ve all lived under the same roof before.”
“Yes, and the result’s in the backseat.”
“You were already pregnant before that.”
“I know, I know.” She smiled at him. “You really wanna do this?”
“Do you?”
Her smile grew.
“Yeah.”
Mako stopped at a red light and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you too.”
--
A black and red car pulled into the parking lot of the Future Industries warehouse. It was late, but having been out of town for over a week, Asami decided it was worth it to check on the place.
Before she even got out of her car, she knew something was wrong. It was far too late for anyone else to be there, but the door to the warehouse was wide open. Hurrying out of her car, Asami ran into the warehouse and turned on the lights. Everything was gone.