Brothers and Trials

Skipper Andrews

The storm raged on as the sound of a screaming woman echoed through the nearly empty clinic. When the last bit of lightening of the night crashed, a new cry came out as the old voice gasped its last. A tiny baby with black hair and disturbingly ice blue eyes cried as he felt the coldness of the world. His blue eyes looked at the still form that had been his mother for all of two seconds. She had been found on the streets in the middle of labor and rushed to the nearest clinic, which happened to be the Andrews Clinic in Downtown New York City. She hadn't been able to even give her name, or her child's name. There was no sign of a father, only the boy's mother, who was now dead on the table while the boy was in the hands of the doctor who had delivered him.

"Dr. Luna", also known as Mariam Lunar Andrews, was a kind young lady who ran the clinic with her husband, Peter Andrews. They had opened the clinic after retiring from their successful lives as international spies for a secret organization known as the Arctic Force. Mariam was a young woman in her early twenties with cool brown eyes and jet black hair. In fact, the baby in her arms could have very well been her own at the moment, if she hadn't just delivered it from its mother's womb.

Peter was a brown haired man with startling dreamy blue eyes and an adorable factor about him was increased by a ray that he had been blasted with in his early days as an agent. He sighed and shook his head as he confirmed the young lady's death.

"Mariam, why don't you take him in for examinations. I'll try again to revive her."

Mariam took the baby through the tests and was impressed with his silence as soon as he was away from his mother. He just kept looking at her with those cold eyes, and yet, they were full of warmth, life, and hope. If she didn't know any better, she'd swear that he was trying to judge her as an enemy or an ally. When she was done, she sat down with the baby in her arms on her couch. She sighed with a soft smile at the sleeping babe that was now an orphan.

"What are we going to do with you...? You're such a brave little soldier..."

Peter walked in with a heartbroken look on his usually happy face. His saddened gaze said it all. "I couldn't revive her. We lost her."

"Easy, Peter... it was bound to happen one of these days. We aren't perfect." Mariam said soothingly. She clutched the baby closer by instinct. "We can't save everyone."

"Yes, I know, but... what about the baby? We have to do something with him, and the orphanage is out of the question, those things are cruel. He wouldn't last a year."

"He's a tough little boy, no doubt about that, but you are right... he can't go to an orphanage... can we adopt him?" She looked at her husband with pleading eyes.

"What?" Peter was surprised at the sudden request from his wife. She usually thought things through rather than go through without a plan.

"Well you don't want us to have one of our own because you're afraid that they'll have all our skills from our days as agents, and he just lost his mother. We were wanting to adopt anyway, so..." She batted her brown eyes at him pleadingly. "We can adopt a whole platoon of kids! Please! He can be the cap'n!" She was excited now with the idea.

Peter closed his eyes as he concentrated on separating his wife's crazy agent talk from her sensible doctor talk. He sighed as he opened his eyes and rubbed the little boy's head softly as he started to wake up. "I suppose you also have a name for him, Doctor Luna?"

Mariam smirked at her code name, it was given to her to signify she was a doctor, and she was insane sometimes. "Of course I have a name for him! I said we'll get a whole platoon of children, and he's going to be the skipper of it! Skipper Andrews of the Andrews platoon!" She smiled as she hugged the now giggling boy tightly.

"Of course he is... of course... and Skipper, really?"

"You have a reason why not?"

"Heh, no, I actually think it suits him, look at those fierce blue eyes. He'll be a leader for sure. I wish him the best."

"We'll be there to help him, don't worry."

Peter smiled. "Right, our own little soldier, Skipper Andrews... ya know, I think I could get used to that." The baby giggled once more too before he started crying for food. "Guess he needs his rations, huh?"

"I'm on it."