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Daren Ross shivered slightly as he listened to the judge tell his lawyer that he was a lost cause and was beyond saving, beyond defending. Daren had done many things over the years and they were finally catching up with him, but as far as he was concerned they weren't really his fault. He was always in the wrong place at the wrong time, he couldn't seem to help getting caught up in things that weren't of his choosing.

"Please," He prayed, "I only want a new start, a new chance to redeem myself." He whispered while his lawyer talked on about procedure and due process.

"Mr. Mackenzie, this is the eighth time that you've come before me with young Mr. Ross, and he hasn't changed one bit in all this time. What makes you think that he will change this time?" The judge asked shaking her head.

"Ma'am what we have here is the fact that my client hasn't had the best upbringing, and his own mind has also conspired against him. You've read his clinical psychology reports, and you know what they say about him." The lawyer mentioned softly, he wasn't going to tell the judge that he felt something for the man who was sitting beside him. He'd had to deal with this man since he first found himself afoul of the law a decade ago, and he felt the same way now as he did when he first met him. When he looked at Daren what he saw wasn't a scared young man, but rather a frightened little boy, no more than six years old, who didn't understand the world that he was trying to live in.

"Jack, we both know that time won't cure him, indeed the severity of his crimes has only gotten worse as he's gotten older." She shook her head, knowing how much some clients meant to her friend. Though they were friends, when they came to work they displayed a purely professional treatment of each other.

"I know that Helen, that's why I have one more solution to keep this person from an environment that will destroy him permanently." He said, trying to keep himself his hope for what could happen. "He may not like it, but sometimes a bitter pill is better than one that will ruin him."

"What are you suggesting Jack?" She asked curiously.

"I'm suggesting a gene-tech adjustment. He would be adjusted into a body that is better suited to his personality." He said earnestly pushing a manila folder over the table to her.

"I've heard of that, but what is to say that he'd be any better in a new body?" She replied with a question of her own as she opened the folder and eyed the contents carefully.

"Because Helen, I will personally ensure that he is given a body that suits him, and I will take care of the consequences." He said firmly, again trying to restrain himself from reaching over and hugging Daren.

The judge sighed softly before looking to the young man in question. "You're lucky that you have a lawyer who is a good friend of mine, and that the ones that you stole from aren't pressing any charges. However, if I ever see you again in my office I will throw the book at you and you will spend the rest of your twenties in my jail! Do I make myself perfectly Clear young man?!"

Daren shivered and nodded, desperately trying to keep himself melting into the chair in a puddle. This woman scared the piss out of him, on more than one occasion he'd left this office while apologizing for leaving a puddle under his chair. It wasn't like he ever intended to do the awful things that they accused him of, but he needed to live, and he couldn't hold down a job to save his life.

As soon as he was out of the room he sighed softly and thanked his lucky stars that he hadn't had an accident in her office again before his lawyer brought him up short with a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Daren this time we're going somewhere different." He said and the young man shivered at the steel in his lawyer's eyes.

"Sir, can't I just go..." Daren started to say

"What home Daren, I know that currently you're living in a dilapidated old rental unit on 34th and Vine and if you aren't out of there by the end of the month I'll be surprised." Jack Wilson said harshly before he softened his tone, "Daren I know the past sixteen years haven't been very nice for you, but I think that what you need is a chance to return to what you were before... before your mom disappeared and your father started drinking, and before your sister died."

"Please... Mr. Mackenzie don' talk about those things." Daren said roughly trying to keep from bursting into tears in front of his lawyer. He hated when people brought up those things, but they were by in large, all true and those things had ruined him as a person. They'd destroyed his sense of security and safety when he was most vulnerable and he never had regained his equilibrium. What was worse was that when his father drank he became violent, and that violence had manifested itself in the abuse that he'd heaped on his innocent little boy. That abuse had ruined his son, making him into a mere shadow of what he could have been.

Jack swiftly grabbed Daren and pulled him into an unexpected hug before he leaned down and said softly into the man's ear. "No, Daren we are going to talk about it because it is high time that you get a chance to take back what your father stole from you when he started drinking. He stole your innocence, your joy, your happiness, and your ability to trust."

At that pronouncement the young man shivered and started crying, "What do you know about it? How it made me feel?" He asked through his tears.

Jack shook his head before rubbing his client's back... though at the moment he didn't feel that he was going to think of Daren as a mere client much longer. "Daren, I see it every time I look into your eyes. I don't see you as angry young man, I see the little boy that you used to be... crying his eyes out at a world that he doesn't understand." He felt the hitch in Daren's breathing and a tearing sob wracked the young man's body.

"You dun' understand what it is like." Daren tried to say before breaking out into yet more sobs, these sobs weren't of anger or another emotion like that, but of soul tearing pain and misery. He'd been beat down for so long by those who'd had the most reason to protect him that he couldn't understand why they'd done what they'd done.

"Come on little one, I know what we can do to help you heal, and perhaps in time become a more complete person." Jack said, a tear running down his cheek from his own eyes at hearing the pain of the young man in his arms. It was times like these that he wished that some form of capital punishment was still on the books for the animals that thought that abusing a child was the way to get them to grow up.

An hour later they arrived at the Center for Modern Medicine, Daren had calmed down a bit but he could still feel the raw feeling in his throat and in his soul for what he'd told his lawyer in his miserable episode of crying.

"Now Daren, right now I have full Power of Attorney over you and I can decide your fate." Jack said as they pulled in. "We are here because my friend has given me this one last chance to help you before she throws the book at you."

Daren nodded softly, his cheeks still wet with his tears at the tearing hole that felt like a hollow place in his chest. "I just want to stop hurting so much." He softly muttered.

"I think that we can do that little one, though some of this pain may take a while to heal." Jack said, climbing out of the car.

Daren reluctantly climbed from the vehicle before following Jack into the building and soon realized that Jack knew his way around.

In a remarkably short period of time they met with a doctor who smiled at Daren and then began talking with Jack in terms that Daren didn't fully understand, though some of what was said did surprise him. From what he could understand they were going to give him a new body that wouldn't carry the burdens of his current one.

It didn't take long before Daren was strapped to a table in a room full of machines, beside him in a clear cylinder was a small form that he could barely make out through the fluid in the cylinder. What he could see of the form, led him to believe that it probably looked like he did when he was five or six, though he couldn't be sure because of the distortions in the fluid of the cylinder. He was about to ask when the doctor lowered the metal frame over his head, which he'd kept shaven cause he though it made him look intimidating, from what he could see the cub in the tank was a tiger, though he couldn't be sure because of the distortions caused by the milky colour of the fluid in the tank.

"Relax little one, soon you will have a new chance, and a new life." Jack said into Daren's ear before the doctor injected something into his arm causing him to fall asleep.