A man and his dog

"We thought it was just a touch of a bug, but it's making me uneasy," Kate said. "Robert and Khaat and Brian are all away, and Dakota was becoming slow and lethargic before they left. It's only gotten worse though.

"She's normally our child with more energy than she can possibly spend, and she goes full tilt from daylight til bedtime. She's our mischief maker and our food fight instigator. This is not Dakota.

"She has slowly started sleeping more and more, and she's rarely awake now. She's clingy and whiny, and she's not eating anything except a few crackers and tea. I don't think she's ever had much pain in her whole life--until now, and now she complains of hurting all over. I'm hoping I'm just an over reactive grandmother. Would you be so kind as to take a look at her, please?"

Apollo wasn't sure if anybody had even noticed him, which was probably for the better. From within his healer's robes, he withdrew the journal he'd been using to keep track of his notes. The symptoms were written down, though he left the poor girl's name out of it in case anyone wanted to look through it - whether he'd given permission or not.

But he got distracted from his notes as Mrs. Lupin went on. He waited for her to finish and for her request to be answered before he spoke up.

"I'm sorry - did you want me to reach out to the Minister? I thought he was heading this way to pick up some ingredients I collected for him, but perhaps he'd want to show up early."

Michael smiled at Kate enquiringly, and with some amusement, though hopefully the latter would go over Apollo's head. She surely had some method for contacting her own husband, but Apollo's suggestion was just as useful.

Besides, from their talk, Michael had begun to get the impression that Apollo was the kind of person who might easily become frustrated without regular positive reinforcement. Michael much preferred the kind of people who could take blunt criticism in stride, but it was hardly a unique trait and certainly nothing he'd never encountered before.

He left it up to Kate to take up or decline Apollo's offer, and approached Dakota.

"Hi, Dakota," he greeted her. "My name's Michael and I'm just going to check and see if we can figure out what's making you feel so sick, okay sweetie?"

"Do you think you can sit up on the edge of the bed for me, or do you need Grandma to help you?"

"Oh that's right," Kate said, looking at the apprentice and realizing this was the man Robert had spoken so well of. "He had intended to come here for those. I apologize on his behalf. It's always something with him, isn't it? Robert's not here--he got called away unexpectedly on some Ministry something-or-other."

Kate knew that when Robert and Lee Shepherd got together, they could be getting into just about anything because both men were fighters who had been dropped into politics. Neither one of them knew how to back away from a fight. This was a terrible time for him to buggar off someplace with Lee, and Kate wasn't happy about it and had let Robert know it before he'd gone. She was thinking he might rightfully deserve to hear a chorus or two more of it when he returned.

"I can reach him or her parents if need be," Marcus said. "We're hoping this is minor enough not to disturb them, though." He drew out a parchment envelope from his pocket and looked at it, double checking that the name did indeed say Zabini. "I presume this must be for you, then. He meant to send it by owl before he left, but he left it by mistake." He handed the envelope to the apprentice.

"Zabini," Robert had written, "Sorry I missed you, but it can't be helped, I'm afraid. I trust you managed the ingredients, yes? If you did, go to my office and get the blue book off my desk. It's got some potions for some autoimmune disorders, and while we don't use most of them, Mrs. Weatherly in Room 405 needs someone to make her the skin lotion I've underlined in that book. She'd like to be rid of the teal colored patches on her skin. Could you do that for me? (Note--if the berries you brought turn the lotion a rather disgusting shade of yellow, you've got it right.) I have every confidence in you and look forward to hearing how it turns out. R. PS--Mrs. Weatherly will shower you in chocolate pasties when you cure her. They're delectable and not to be missed."

Dakota looked at Kate, and Kate did not like the sad and tired look in Dakota's green eyes. Nor did she like the reclusive behavior she was seeing from the normally outgoing little girl. Kate looked towards Corner, in a silent request for Dakota to pay attention to who had spoken to her. Dakota reluctantly looked at Corner, not reluctant at meeting him as much as she just didn't want to be fussed with.

"I'm just tired," she told him in a small voice and then sat up. Kate saw it was clearly taking Dakota a lot of work to sit up, and she was ready to help her if she truly needed it. Then, momentarily prepared to get cranky, Dakota glared at Kate.

"What'd you do with Henry?" she asked suspiciously. Marcus silently pointed to his pocket. That seemed to settle Dakota for the moment, and she refocused on Corner. "Sorry. Grandpa doesn't like Henry," she told him as a means of explanation.

(addie--not dodging bringing robert and khaat and brian. they will certainly come the minute it does not appear to be simply a run of the mill thing, so i'm hoping apollo sticks around.)

"Oh," Apollo said, startled. "I didn't mean-.." He held up an apologetic hand. "I wasn't sure when he was coming by, so I just- It's completely fine."

Still, he read over the note attentively, before tucking it away in his robes' pocket so that he could attend to it after they found out what was going on with Dakota. He wasn't putting off Robert's request, per se, but he was interested to know what was happening to this part of their family. If he was meant to be seeing Robert as a mentor, surely he ought to do what he can to help?

Hopefully the Minister would see things the same way. So he thanked the man that had given him the note, and took a couple of steps forward to see what Michael was doing.

"Well," Michael said, "you can tell your grandpa I said if he didn't work so hard he wouldn't be such a grump."

"Keep your head forward and follow my finger with your eyes," he said, watching as Dakota tracked his hand as he moved it back and forth in front of her.

"Now look up at the ceiling.  And down at the floor.  And side to side."

"Okay, this is a tricky one.  I want you to put your arms out to your sides and close your eyes," Michael waited for Dakota to follow his instructions.

"Now I want you to touch your nose with this finger," he said, tapping the forefinger of her left hand.

"And then with this one," he went on, selecting the ring finger of her right.

"Okay, eyes open and Apollo's going to see how tall you are for us and check your heart and temperature."

Dakota knew her grandpa worked too hard because he was gone a lot. She had also, at her young age, become accustomed to the fact that her family seemed to get itself into more than its share of trouble and weirdness. There was nothing traditional about it. It was a big house with a lot of people in it.

Dakota followed the healer's directions but it tired her, and it gave her a headache. The more she followed his instructions, the more she didn't like it.

"Did Abbey do this?" Dakota asked the healer suddenly, the new thought occuring to her.

"Why would you say that?" Kate asked, knowing that she and Abbey sparred a lot, but Kate didn't see Abbey as capable of something like this.

"The toys used to throw themselves at her when she got mean but they don't do that anymore," Dakota said. That didn't make sense to Kate. She looked at Marcus who frowned slightly. Abbey had accidental magic sometimes, but it was certainly time for them both to start having some of that. Still, it didn't make sense that Abbey would throw toys at herself.

Apollo stepped forward when the subtle instructions were given, doing as he was asked. It didn't help that Dakota seemed upset; that inevitably made her heart rate unusually high. He would have expected it to be lower, if only because of how tired she'd seemed when they first walked in. But Apollo also understood that people could be quite frightened when at a hospital. But he gave the numbers to Michael between Dakota and Katherine speaking to each other.

He couldn't help the bemused look on his face at the little girl's story. That didn't sound right at all. It sounded more like Dakota was throwing things at whoever Abbey was without meaning to, and that in itself was fascinating. He was sure it probably wasn't unheard of, but then, it wasn't like he really knew that much about rogue magic.

So although he kept Dakota's name out of things, he continued taking notes. Perhaps he could go home and do a bit of research on the topic later. The girl was starting to get one of those faces - the kind of expression that his mother sometimes got when her patience was all but lost. Hers usually came with a migraine and a decision to go have a glass of something strong, which he might have found amusing if Dakota had asked for one.

Rather than stepping away directly after completing the tasks Michael had set him, Apollo tilted his head to try and make eye contact with Dakota. He'd already managed to get several things wrong that morning. So what was one slight against Michael at this point?

"You seem uncomfortable, Dakota. Does anything hurt? Right now, or, even when Abbey starts throwing her toys around?" He nearly said something leading - about how he, himself, might get a headache if something that crazy was happening. But he knew better than to suggest things that patients could latch onto. Even little ones.

Dakota seemed lethargic as she did as Michael asked, but the important thing was that she did it, which at least meant her neurons were firing okay.

Abbey must have been a friend or sibling or cousin. Probably one of the latter.  It wasn't helping that Michael had never concerned himself with the youngest members of the Lupin family.  He knew many of the children were adopted, and had never been able to keep track of the relationships between them all.

But before Michael could ask about Abbey, Apollo had got in with a question of his own.  It was fair, Michael supposed.  If Kate was right about her "hurting all over" then it was possible Dakota would forget to tell them, though that wasn't his experience with any child ever.

"Abbey makes my head hurt most of the time," Dakota told the apprentice, not without some small measure of sarcasm on her part. Kate and Marcus both stifled an urge to laugh.

"Sibling rivalry," Kate explained to the healers quietly. Then she turned her attention back to Dakota. "'Kota, answer the question, please."

"Yeah," she looked at the apprentice. "Its worse when she throws the toys, though. I don't like it. Once, when Abbey was throwing toys, she did throw a book at me and hit me with it. She made me hurt and I got really mad. Papa gave me tea, though, and it felt better."

"I remember that," Kate said. "Robert put just a drop of potion in some tea to make her more comfortable, but that's the only time I remember that happening. The kids are all growing so fast that we sort of brushed it off as growing pains, but perhaps we shouldn't have."

The truth was that, between Dakota and Abbey, it was usually the adventurous Dakota who instigated things, but with all the kids, it wasn't always easy for an adult to witness who started it. Still, the truth usually came out in some form or another.

Kate knew that Abbey was having some episodes of uncontrolled magic, but it had not come in throwing things. Nor had it entered Kate's mind that perhaps some of the unexplained magic might have come from Dakota and not Abbey at all. It wasn't as if Kate didn't have her share of facepalm incidents, but this was feeling more colossal by the moment.