"Jess," Lirssa sighed as the little girl stopped short at the doors to Riverview Clinic, gripping Lirssa's hand tight. Her dark eyes were fixed upon the sign. "Come on, Jess, I told you where we were going. I have a performance to do here today, and I don't want to be late. You wouldn't want to make the kids wait for me, would you?"

Immediately shaking her head, it sent a fluttering red ribbon into her face that she shyly pushed back. Jess had made every effort that morning to look her best. They had walked the entire way from High Spires House to Riverview Clinic. She knew that people would see her. Maybe, just maybe, someone would think that she was just the little girl they were looking for and stop them and ask.

No one had stopped them. No one had asked. In fact, Jess felt as if they had been looked over entirely, except sometimes people would look at Lirssa. Lirssa was taller with the strawberry hair that caught whatever light available. She had a spark. Jess felt like a cabbage next to a lily.

With a tug to Jess's hand, Lirssa gave her a big smile. "Come on, Jess, I want you to meet some friends of mine. Dr. Maranya should be in today. She's killer nice."

Reluctantly, Jess continued inside, inching even closer to Lirssa as she looked around the lobby and feeling very out of place. She just wanted to hide. Things here were so clean, that harsh sort of vigorous clean that put a tang in the air. People with purpose to their walk gave smiles and waves of greeting to Lirssa. One or two stopped to be introduced to Jess, but they did not linger long. Not long enough for her to win them over.

"Come on, Jess. We have time to go find Dr. Maranya. Now, like I told you, she might want to just give you a look over. Make sure you're eating right and all, get a place to start in case you get sick."

Jess blinked up at Lirssa. "Am I going to get sick?"

"Everyone gets sick at some time or another, Jess."

Fear struck at the heart of her. She started trembling and shaking her head. "I don't want to get sick."

Jess's strong reaction to a simple fact set Lirssa for a turn. She stopped and really looked at the girl who had gone so very white. There may have even been tears forming in her eyes. "Well, Jess, no one wants to get sick, but it does happen. You aren't sick now. We're just going to get a starting point." Searching for something to change the direction of the discussion, Lirssa gave an encouraging smile and wink. "She'll probably just tell you to eat more vegetables."

Blinking away the sting of forming tears, Jess was confused. "But I like vegetables."

Lirssa sighed and tugged on Jess's hand again. "Yeah, that's right, you do. Come on." Jess submitted to be taken through the corridors in search of this stranger, Dr. Maranya.

Lirssa thanked the matronly Mary Logan and settled into the room, wandering around the walls as much as she could without moving instruments. Jess was frozen like a statue in the middle of the room. When the effervescent Nurse Everheart arrived, the little girl darted to Lirssa's side and stayed behind her, peering out from behind her.

"Come on, Jess. She isn't going to hurt you, I promise." Lirssa stepped around, put her hands on Jess's shoulders to place her in front. "Ma'am, this is Jess. She's from High Spires House, and while she probably had a last name at one time, she really doesn't. I mean, Jess could pick one if she wanted to, but she hasn't wanted to, so can we stick with Jess" I'm Lirssa Sarengrave. Best we can figure I'm about thirteen. Jess here is about six, maybe seven. I'd say she weighs about forty pounds. I don't know how much I weigh, but that shouldn't matter because we're here for Jess."

Something about Lirssa giving out her own information first eased the fluttery feeling in Jess's stomach — but only a little. Her fingers fiddled with her red skirt, crinkling it up and then letting it go over and over. There was a nudge in her back from Lirssa, but she couldn't interpret what it was she was supposed to do, so she just smiled up at the Nurse, and said quietly. "I'm here to see Dr. Maranya because there's something wrong with me."

Lirssa rolled her eyes and put protective arms around Jess. "Nothing wrong with you, little one. We're here just to get a check up. That's what they call it: a check up." Looking a little warily at the nurse, hoping she would take it easy on little Jess. "I can't say as I can give you much more information than that. Jess, did you want to tell the nurse anything else?"

There were a great many things she wanted to say, but she just could not do it. So she shook her head and sunk back into the shield of Lirssa to wait.

Jess's dark eyes widened at the very thought of hitting an adult at all, much less with some sort of hammer. Lirssa laughed and guided the little girl towards the table. "Climb on up, Jess."

Doing as she was told, she did feel a little quaky still. Yet, Lirssa was friendly with the doctor, and Jess hadn't met an adult yet that Lirssa was friendly with that was a trickster. When she sat on the table, she straightened her dress to keep it neat and as wrinkle free as she could. Still as stone she sat and looked up at the instrument offered to her. "You can hear inside me with that?"

Lirssa piped in, leaning on the table behind Jess. "Sure, not much different from when you press your ear to someone's chest, only that thinga-ma-bob, makes it hundreds of times more clear." Twisting about so she could look Jess in the eyes with a big, encouraging smile. "Wanna try it out?"

Encouraging smile or not, Jess just shook her head, closed her eyes, and prepared to have her insides heard. She was sure it wouldn't hurt. Lirssa wouldn't let that happen, and the Doctor was even going to let her hit her, or at least she offered it. But she wondered if her insides were going to whisper all her fears and secrets as well, like they were locked up in her lungs and heart, and the doctor could hear them.

Confused by Jess's solemn, facing the hangman sort of resolve, Lirssa poked at her sides. "What are you doin', Jess?"

Blinking her eyes open, she looked from the pretty doctor lady to Lirssa. "Waiting to be listened to."

"You look like you're gonna be shot, Jess. Open up your eyes so you can see what?s happening. It's killer awesome actually. You sure you don't want to listen" I heard a dog's heart once. It was going really fast, but that was because he was sick. It was like a drumroll almost."

Jess looked skeptical, and then whispered to Lirssa. "She can't hear my deep heart secrets and wishes, can she?"

"Butter and beans, Jess, no. Just a bunch of wind sound stuff and the beat of your heart." Lirssa wrinkled her nose with a grin at the very idea, turning that grin to the doctor. "Best get on with it, Dr. Maranya, and we'll have Jess listen afterwards."

Lirssa stuck her tongue out at Jess, causing the girl to giggle, but it certainly wasn't productive to the examination. So, instead she demonstrated. "Like this Jess." She opened her mouth, tongue past the bottom lip and made the droning ahhhh sound. Jess nodded, deep breath, and well, her ahh was softer, but it at least did the trick so the doctor could see.

Jess wanted to do everything right. If she really could not tell anyone else what was spoken here, and Jess knew she could trust Lirssa to keep mum, then maybe this doctor visiting was not so bad. She did not feel too cold any more, and her stomach wasn't so queasy. Still, there was just something not quite right. It was like she were a mouse going about her proper business but feeling there was a cat stalking up behind her. Jess even looked over her shoulder once the examination of her mouth was done, expecting some horrifying realization to come pouncing upon her. But all she saw was Lirssa's smile and the girl setting green eyes cross-eyed a moment.

It was hard for Lirssa not to fidget. She leaned elbows on the table behind Jess, setting her chin in hands, but her bottom swung one way and then another like a pendulum as her legs rocked her. There was always some sort of motion, and the doctor was very lucky that Lirssa had not given in to a desire to start roaming the room and touching things. "So, doctor, you're really good at keeping secrets eh?"

"I'm good at keeping secrets," Jess offered.

"You're killer good at keeping secrets, Jess." Lirssa turned a bright smiel back to Dr. Maranya. "Do you have kids, Doctor" I bet you'd make a good parent, only, I suppose you aren't around much. That would probably make you feel guilty, though I gotta tell ya, most of us kids don't need parents hanging on 'em all hours of the day and night, and we all like people that keep secrets, don't we, Jess?"

Jess had, by exposure to it, learned to keep up with Lirssa's torrents of words. "Yes, good secrets. Bad secrets..." she shook her head and the tremble went over her shoulders spreading goosepimples like a rash.

Lirssa tried to hide her frown at Jess's mentioning bad secrets. "Right, yeah, no bad secrets. Those get told right away. Only, sometimes hard to say what is bad and what isn't, but I suspect one's gut tells one in the end."

A few silent moments, Lirssa twisting her lips as she struggled to keep quite for a bit so Dr. Maranya could think and so she could think some herself on what was eating at Jess, and maybe it was the family she thought might help her escape it.

Jess started to fidget some herself, tapping hard at just below her knee and causing her legs to jerk. The game was good for when one was alone, and made her giggle with the odd feeling, but knowing she was causing it and not some dark shadow of a memory. Timid in the giggle, furtive in her looks, she looked up through long dark lashes to the doctor hoping the rest of the examination would go well, but part of her then wondering what was wrong and why no one wanted her. The game stopped, her hands folded, and she felt uncertain once more.

"Oh, that's gotta be the best description I've heard, Doc." Lirssa grinned. "Though I'm not much for ginger ale, it's a bit bitter, but I know what you mean about the feeling. I'm going to have to remember that one for the other kids. You know, I run into some just don't know what to spill when." A wicked delightful feeling flitted up and down her spine, "But I won't spill about Mister Antonio's birthday. How old do you think he is" I'd say fifty-something, only "cause the eyes and such. What do you think we should find for him, Jess?"

Jess was still thinking about good secrets and bad secrets. She had to admit that she liked sharing in the secret about Mister Antonio. It felt like when she curled up with the dogs or felt the nose of a horse. She could not remember much of good secrets from before she met Lirssa. When the question was asked about the gift, Jess whispered. "Would he like a puppy?" Animals were always the best gifts, even if she did not really have one herself.

"Oh, I don't know," Lirssa grinned, flashing those bright green eyes to Dr. Maranya. "Not everybody is as good with animals as you are, Jess, and they take lots of work. We'll keep it on the list though."

"I'm not good with animals." Jess's shoulders began to rise up, her head sank a little.

Lirssa saw the return of that self doubt swell up in Jess. There was something there. "Why would you say that' My dog pack loves you, and I haven't seen a horse yet that you can't make friends." But the more compliments Lirssa gave, the more Jess sank down into herself. Lirssa was done with it, and having not mastered the art of tact just yet, she flung up her hands. "See what I mean, Doc" I don't know what it is, but she thinks she's broken." She crossed her arms, cocked her hip, and patted her toe. There had to be something to get the little girl out of this rut.

Jess flinched from Lirssa's outburst. "Nobody wants me," Jess mumbled as knees drew up and her arms pulled them in even closer to her chest. She had told Lirssa before. She had told the older girl that she was broken somehow. But it was hard to say it in front of an adult. The Doctor said she couldn't tell anyone else. No one else would know she was broken. "I'm broken. A throw away." The phrases she had heard like haunts in her dreams started to come out of her mouth. "Dirty. Rotten. No good. Apple core. Scrapling. Birch bark. Clipping." She looked up at the doctor. There were tears, but she wanted to be brave. She tried to be brave and not cry. "Can you fix me so someone will want me?"

Lirssa was flabbergasted. She knew Jess felt she was damaged in some way, but she had never heard her say those other things before. All she wanted to do was wrap the girl up in a big hug, but she was frozen in place. Maybe Professor Jolly was right " Jess needed affirmation out of the thing she most needed love. She needed to hear it from an adult.

Jess tried so very hard to believe the doctor. She grasped for comfort in that hug and the words. Tests said she wasn't broken. She's not broken. Eyes shut tight, squeezing away the burn of the tears, which only made the burn worse a moment, but when she opened them, she looked to Lirssa.

Relieved was Lirssa's most prominent feeling. Relieved that Dr. Maranya knew just what to do when Jess started saying those things. Lirssa had been called lots of names in her time, but hadn't really paid attention to them. She had had Bubber and other street folk contradict those bad feelings with their care. Jess, she supposed, hadn't had that.

Some of the terms, though, she knew where they came from, and it gave her a better idea of where Jess had been. That would help in finding a family, as would Dr. Maranya's assistance. "See there, Jess, tests say you aren't broken. And Dr. Maranya makes a promise, I think we can believe her, don't you?"

Jess nodded her head and gave a timid attempt at smile up to the doctor. Lirssa could tell it was not over just yet. She could see the haunting in the little girl's eyes, and yet, it was a step. Jess had accepted a promise, and she had heard it from an authority figure. "So, Dr. Maranya, now we know Jess is as right as rain, so to speak, I best be seeing to my performance and settling the bill for the visit here."

There were things to be done. Jess wasn't the only child who felt broken around the city, and Lirssa was going to do her own form of healing the best she could.