“This formula has the nutrients he needs, considering his Talent. Prescribed twice a day for six months, then after that, thrice a day for a year.” The head of the infant care center explained.

She went on to say, “Also, Doctor Lorde, do remember to take care of this child.”

Lorde nodded as he held the crib in his hand. He had no clue as to how he was going to pull this off. He was a very busy doctor who was running many offices at the same time. He supposed that he could leave this child, who had yet to be named, in the infant care center during the day, and he could take care of the child personally at night.

“Absolutely not! This is a facility to nurture early infants, not a daycare. This child has found a home, so it will leave like any other.”

-_-‘

Doctor Lorde was now thinking about the responsibility he had just committed himself to…

Over the course of the next few months, Doctor Lorde was only seen in his offices a few times during critical moments. For other office managers, this absence was not that rare of a sight, but Doctor Lorde was different. This doctor was known to be extremely hands-on in the way he worked, rarely taking breaks and always willing to sacrifice.

As his patients put it, he is a doctor, not a businessman.

And the reason for his newfound absence?

It was Lord, of course!

Doctor Lorde had never had a child, and was not married, so he had to learn everything himself.

Ever since he had acted on that impulse on a fateful day after the conversation with Angelica, he had taken on the responsibility of raising that child.

It was a good thing that Lord had significant Talent, or else things would have been even more hectic.

Lord, by the way, is the name Lorde settled on for the child called Noisy (surely, no narcissism was involved).

Taking care of the daily needs of this child conflicted greatly with his work as a doctor, but he did not wish to leave Lord in the hands of an external daycare. If it were his own office that was watching the child, it may have been alright, but his own head of infant care had denied him…

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The responsibility of raising Lord then lay on his own shoulders.

Lorde had never been trained in changing diapers… good thing that process was rather straightforward, and he was not squeamish…

Crying, as well, he noticed was quite a trend. He found out why ‘Noisy’ had been the nickname for this child. Crying was Lord’s only form of communication (besides some early babbling), and quite an effective form at that. It got Lord what he wanted, when he wanted it.

And food, and water, and housing, and care, and attention. The list of necessities was quite extensive and balancing it with work and travel was difficult.

Despite it all, Lorde took good care of the child.

Time passed, and his offices continued to grow as the number of patients he saw increased. He eventually found a good balance between his own work and raising Lord: around the age of two, Lord was allowed to come to the office with Lorde. Not only would this allow Lorde to keep a close eye on him, it would also allow Lorde to be introduced to medical procedures at a young age. Lorde had some vague plans for Lord in the back of his mind…

“Did you hear? Doctor Lorde has been bringing a child to work for the past 6 months! And the doctor’s productivity has only been increasing!”

“Amazing! I wonder whose child that is? I heard that Doctor Lorde isn’t married.”

“I have heard that he is a lucky orphan that the doctor adopted after witnessing the mother’s death. No one knows why he decided on this child in particular over the others in his care.”

“I was there when that child was born, actually. I heard some talk of Talent at the time.”

The nurses chatted idly as they prepared a patient to be seen by the doctor. The patient was an old man in his forties. Yes, an old man in his forties. It was not rare these days to see severe premature aging, though the source of this aging was officially ‘unknown.’ According to some sources, it may be a disease of mysterious origin.

This patient was set to see Doctor Lorde in just a few minutes. According to the man, he had fallen and, in an attempt to catch himself, may have broken some bones in his right arm.

Fragility also happened to be common between these types of patients.

Having finished preparing the man’s arms for inspection, the nurses continued on to the next room.

In the following wait, the man had some time for thought.

This frail old man was frustrated.

He was frustrated about his lack of, for lack of a better word, life; he was only forty, after all. He should be active, healthy, and wealthy; a man in his prime.

Instead, he was miserable, tired, frail, and weak.

Simple actions were made complex, and complex actions were simply impossible for him.

Every time he thought about the loss of his prime, his inability to provide for himself, and the burden he was on all those around him, he simply wanted to cry. He wanted to stand from his chair and curse vehemently at whatever was inflicting this pain on him.

But he had neither the energy nor the breath to curse loudly.

It was truly unfair!

He ridiculed himself internally about the immense self-pity while reaching up to wipe away the tears squeezed out from his eyes.

“Sir, your appointment.” Doctor Lorde stood in the doorway and tactfully reminded.

It hurt him to see his patients like this, though the sight was not uncommon. Patient after patient, tear after tear…

He wished there was something he could do about it. For now, all he could do was to provide his best care.