For the next few days that was how he would lure her down to the testing rooms. He would take pieces of candy bars and leave her trails to follow. 

She may have followed the trails well enough, but she didn't take to the tests. 

Whatever test it was, may it be matching the colors, shapes, or animals she wouldn't cooperate. Even with bribes of food she wouldn't respond. She still wouldn't talk either and Jongsuk was getting frustrated. A person had to admire his gumption, though, for he still believed that behind the facade was an extremely intelligent person. He just needed to figure out a way to access it.

Four days later, Jongsuk went into his office, a stack of books and papers in his arms. He was tired of the wolf girl, what people had dubbed their new mystery patient as, not responding to any of the tests and so had come up with a bunch of his own. Leigh walked in and raised her eyebrows at the stack on his desk.

"What's all this?" she asked.

"A...surprise," he said after a minute, a slight smile on his face.

"Don't smile like that," Leigh said with a shudder. "It's kind of creeping me out."

He just laughed and walked past her, part of the stack in his arms, "I am determined to crack her. I will get her to talk."

Leigh chuckled and shook her head, "What you need to do is get her to take a bath."

"A bath?"

"Or shower, whichever is fine with me. Seriously though Suk-ah, she smells like ."

"She does? I haven't really noticed," he said rubbing his neck awkwardly.

Leigh rolled her eyes, "Seriously? Have you just been focused on getting her to talk that you really haven't been able to smell her?"

He shrugged making Leigh groan. She took the papers from his arms and set them on the desk. "Give her a bath. I'm not letting you do any more tests until she is clean and free of disease. Seriously, she's probably like a walking petri dish now. I'm surprised you havn't caught some disease yet."

He blushed, "But...she'll be...I mean she's a..."

Leight started laughing making Jongsuk start to blush even more. "Are you serious?" she asked. "Yes, she will be . Yes, she's a girl. So what? I'm sure you've seen a girl before." This statement made him start blushing even more so that his face resembled that of his red jacket which was hung up neatly near the door. "Oh my god," Leigh said, her hand going to . "You've never...you're a ? I mean that's not my business. I'm sorry. I'm just a little surprised is all."

He cleared his throat and looked away from her, "I don't feel comfortable with this conversation anymore."

Leigh nodded in agreement, "Ok, fine, I'll do it. You'll have to convince her to trust me and let me though."

They walked down to what was now known as 'wolf girl's lair'. When he opened the door he was immediately attacked. The girl had jumped on to him making him fall down to the floor. She was straddling him and staring down at him with big blank eyes. He lay there stunned, his hands clenched at his sides. He looked over at Leigh for support but she was just as dumbfounded as he was.

The girl finally crawled off of him and sat staring blankly at him. Jongsuk sat up slowly, brushing himself off.

"Someone seems happy to see you. Does she do this all the time?" Leight finally said, a laugh bubbling under her words.

Jongsuk looked at Leigh and rolled his eyes and turned to look at the girl who had gone back to her corner. He stared at her sternly and held out a finger.

"No. Don't do that. Don't"

She just stared at him and then yawned making Leigh laugh.

"She's not a dog and she doesn't understand you."

"I think she does."

"Look, I would love to argue all day with you about whether she understand us or not, but the stench coming off of her right now is making my eyes water."

Jongsuk stood up, "Alright, alright." He turned and approached the girl who was staring up at him lazily. "You need a bath. Come on, Dr. Rodell is going to help you take a bath."

He held his hand out for her to grab but all she did was look at him with her blank stare. He reached down slowly to grab her hand but she backed away from him, panic in her eyes now. He crouched down and pulled his hand back to place them on his knees.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I promise. I'll give you a chocopie if you come without any problem. Please, we just want to help."

She looked at him warrily but stood up and waited for them to do something. Leigh looked at Jongsuk and he nodded as if to say it was ok to approach her now. 

"Okami, can I take your hand?"

Jongsuk looked at her, "Okami? Isn't that the Japanese word for..."

"Wolf? Yes it is. I thought it fit. I think we should call her Ami for short, though. Has a nice ring to it don't you think?"

Leigh turned to look at the girl, "Do you like the name Okami?" The girl tilted her head like a dog when you ask it a question. "Okami," Leigh said again, pointing towards the girl. "Okami. Your name is Okami now, ok?" She chuckled and shook her head. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

She approached the girl slowly and reached her hand out towards hers. Okami growled a little but didn't back away. Ever so slowly Leigh inched closer and closer until she grazed her fingertips lightly against the other girls knuckles. Ami jumped back with a yelp and into Jongsuk, hiding behind his back.

Leigh put her hands up, "I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry."

She glared at Leigh from behind Jongsuk and looked up at him almost as if to say, "Why are you letting that stranger touch me?" She stalked off to her corner and curled up into a ball not letting her eyes off of either of them.

"Well...that was a bust," Leigh said after they walked out of the room and back to Jongsuk's office.

"She's getting better though. A couple of days ago she was attacking you now she just growled."

Leigh rolled her eyes, "Yeah, great improvement."

~~~~~~

Almost a month went by and Jongsuk was still no closer to understanding the girl. Okami, or Ami as she was refered to by everyone else, knew her name, knew what hungry meant, understood what 'no' meant, and finally allowed Jongsuk to take her hand to her to places. (Of course when she was difficult and wanted chocolate she would pretend she didn't understand him and make him give her some kind of treat.) She didn't growl at Leigh anymore, though she didn't seem to particularly like the doctor, and Leigh finally got to give her a bath. Her knowledge seemed to stop there, however, and no matter how many tests he tried to run Jongsuk never cracked the fountain of knowledge that he was still sure she possessed.

Dr. Lee Sungkyu, the head of their department and the man who had entrusted Ami to him in the first place, came to visit and see how she was doing.

"How are you, doctor?"

Jongsuk and Ami looked around to see the man at the door. They were on the floor, Jongsuk trying to get her to put together a puzzle but her interest in it was non-existant. Ami bared her teeth a the strange new man, a low growl in the back of but Jongsuk clicked his tongue making her stop instantly.

"Director Lee, I wasn't expecting you today."

The older man just smiled and moved to sit on one of the chairs in the room, "I thought I would come see how much progress you've made. The interns aren't liking having to share one room when they work overnight so I was hoping we could move her somewhere else where we don't need all of these machines and such."

Jongsuk put his head down a little, "I'm sorry Director, but it seems that I havn't been able to make as much progress as I had hoped."

He smiled at the younger and nodded, "I suspected as such. We really can't keep her here any longer though. I'm afraid it's not in our jurisdiction anymore."

"What? Not in our jurisdiction? How can that be? She's been our patient for almost a month now because of her brain, which is what we specialize in I might add."

"We deal with the brain itself, not people. We don't have the jurisdiction nor the funding," the director said, a frown on his face.

Jongsuk took a deep breath, "I don't know how we would transport her. She doesn't trust other people. She barely trusts Dr. Rodell. It took me a month to gain her trust and now you want me to abandon her?" His voice started to rise and Ami looked up at him in fear. "How do you think she will react when I leave her? How do you think she'll open up whent he one person she thought was familiar to her, who she could trust let's strangers take her to some sterile lap where they'll poke and prod and drug her? She won't and what little progress I have made will be wasted!" 

Ami had retreated to her corner and was cowering in fear of Jongsuk who was shaking with an uncontrollable rage. His eyes had take on a wild look and his lip jutted out in defiance.

Director Lee just put his hands up and shook his head, "Now, now, no need to get all moody. I wasn't going to do anything to our precious girl here. I was just informing you of what could happen. There are always other options of course."

Jongsuk visibly relaxed but was still cautious, "What do you mean? What options?"

"Well option one is to send her to one of our sister facilities and let the doctors there handle her. There are trained psychiatrists, doctors, specialists, you name it, there and they are more qualified than us to help her. Option two is to send her over seas to a facility over there to get the help she needs." Jongsuk tensed again making the older doctor laugh, "Of course I figured that wasn't even an option. Third option..." He trailed off and looked at the girl in the corner who was studying the two men closely. The director couldn't help but feel a slight interest in the girl, her innocent and clear features reminding the older man of his own daughter. 

"Third option is?" Jongsuk questioned impatiently.

"Third option is to get her a guardian to take care of her. No tests, doctors, no poking or prodding besides the regular check-ups that we could conduct here if you so wished." He stared at Jongsuk to see if he understood what he was trying to tell him.

"A guardian? Can we do that? But...who would take care of her."

"We can do that since she is an adult, or what seems to me an adult. However, she would still need a guardian to take care of her for a while so that she could live here and to watch her. A kind of babysitter if you will."

Jongsuk took his bottom lip between his teeth and thought about it for a moment. He didn't know if he could trust a stranger to take care of her. He didn't worry so much about her safety but more about whoever took her in. He couldn't deny that he had gotten a little attached to this odd girl and he didn't want to see any harm come to her. He felt responsible for her and she seemed almost reliant on him. He wasn't quite sure how he could let her go to someone just willy nilly.

"You don't understand what I'm saying to you Dr. Lee." It was a statement rather than a question.

"I'm afraid I'm a little lost, Director."

He sighed, "How would you feel about becoming a guardian?"

Jongsuk's eyes widened, "What? Become...you mean...me? You mean I would become her guardian?" He looked over at Ami and she tilted her head at him as if trying to understand what was going on. Her large, round, green eyes were trained on him, the intelligence that came every once in a while was there once more. She tilted her head again and a smile seemed to flash across her lips before her usual blank face replaced it once more.

"Exactly. That's exactly what I am saying."

"I..."

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