Hiya! This is my first "DM"-Story ever. Hope you like it, well, a bit at
least. I´m German, therefor it´s rather probable that my English isn´t all
that great; hope, it´s readable, though.
I´m not making any profit out of this, yadda, yadda, yadda, you know the
drill. The character´s don´t belong to me (Sigh!) as long as they don´t
belong to me, that is, a few do, but most of them aren´t even real ...
`kay, that´s it. Enjoy the cookies.
Cookie Hell
People didn´t think about the reasons they once had to become a doctor. It wasn´t a clever thing to do to think about those reasons. Like newborn babies lose their innocent beauty once they grow up and learn to be human, the motives we have crumble like leafes when we actually get where they´ve led us. They crumble and fall, and in the end there´s nothing left when we open our hands in the hour of death. Nothing to hold onto.
"You know, that´s one dark opening."
Dr. Amanda Bentley sighed deeply and snatched the book out of her friend´s hands. The young man flinched; great, he had said something wrong. The one thing you didn´t want to do to Amanda was to say something wrong.
"I knew you wouldn´t understand it!" she stated, looking at the first sentences of the novel for herself now.
"It's not just "dark"", she said, immitating the other one´s voice, "it´s beautiful. In a sad way."
The man raised his brows sceptically. "You think it´s beautiful that when we die there´s nothing in our hands to hold on, just ... what was it? ... Crumbled motives? How can motives crumble, anyways?"
"It´s a metaphor, Jesse! And it´s a good one."
"It´s depressing," he contradicted, picking a cookie out of a bag he had brought with him to the Doctor´s Lounge, where he´d met Amanda and the crumbled motives, which were inhabitants of "Holy Tears".
Amanda rolled her eyes. "That´s what you said about "House of God", too. As far as you´re concerned, every book´s depressing."
"Every book you read," he replied, mouth full of cookie.
"It´s just because you never finish them. "House of God" has a happy ending."
"You gotta be kidding."
"No, it all works out fine for him and he realizes how much he´s changed since working in that hospital, and then he returns to his girlfriend and is happy again."
"That sucks! For all I read of it, this guy could never be happy again. He´s screwed up since page 200 or sooner. And if things actually go okay again, it´s not realistic." He picked another cookie without noticing Amanda´s slight frown. "That book wants to be mean, happy ending or not. It is mean and it makes you feel bad! I hated every page of it." He gave his auditorium a final nod and swallowed, already producing a new cookie.
"It made you feel bad?" Amanda grinned. She had suggested Jesse to read "House of God", because she thought everybody working in a hospital should. Jesse had returned it two days later, saying he just didn´t have enough time to read.
"Well ... it´s ... Just don´t give me that one, `kay? I won´t read it."
"Hmmm," Dr. Bentley made, obviuosly starting to enjoy where this was heading to. "When did your motives crumble to dust?"
"When I came to page 30."
The pathologist laughed sympatheically, patting her friend´s arm. "Okay, I give up. I´m never gonna make an intellectual out of you. Some people just don´t have it."
Jesse scratched his temple. "There was a compliment in that, right? Oh, no, wait, it was this other thing - what´s it called? - Oh yeah, insult." He grabbed another cookie in mock frustration.
This time Amanda snatched the bag out of it hands, studying it.
"Jess, you´ve been eating cookies all day long, do you know that?"
"Yeah. Give it back."
His request was ignored. "D´you wanna tell me why?"
"No, I want a cookie."
"Tell me what´s bothering you and we´ll see."
"Why does there have to be something bothering me just because I´m eating cookies? Gee, can´t a man just sit here and enjoy some regressive inclinations?!"
"Wow, that bad."
"Don´t got there, Amanda," he said, trying and failing to catch a cookie out of the bag once more. "I will not talk about it."
She shrugged and remained silent.
It didn´t take five seconds for him to sink down in his chair frustratedly. "Ooookay, I give up. I´m weak." He did his best sick-puppy-look which he had learned to use in times of crisis.
Smiling triumphantly, Amandad handed the bag over, raising her brows in expectation.
All she got was a scowl, though. "Boy, am I glad I´m not one of your kids. But then, hey, I´m being treated the same way, so what´s the difference!"
"Right," she grinned back and earned a sigh. "So what´s wrong?"
"Nothin´."
"Jesseeee."
"Got a call from my mom yesterday."
"Uuuh." Amanda made a face and pointed at the bag. "Call me if you´re out of them, I´ll get you a new one."
Jesse smiled gratefully. "No, it wasn´t that bad, just ..." He stopped, obviously trying to figure out how exactly it had been. In the end he picked another cookie.
"Want one?" he asked muffeldly.
"Do you know how much fat is in this stuff? And sugar?"
"Sure. It´s written on the backside." He searched for the perversly colorful chart of calorines on the bag and turned it for Amanda to see. "Here."
"Gee, that´s even more than I thought," she stated whilst grabbing one out of the bag.
Chewing in union, the two doctors sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Is there anybody at this place who ever does some actual work? At least from time to time?" a sudden voice interrupted the peaceful moment.
Without even gazing up, Jesse shook his head. "Nope. Just go here every day for the coffee. You?" he glanced at Amanda.
"The examination tables are far more comfortable than my couch at home, so ..."
"Yeah, yeah," Jesse nodded in mock agreement.
The intruder, a police detective, who actually was the one person in the room not having worked a 24hour-shift, grimaced at his friends and sat down. "They´re handing out funny papers in the mess now?"
When there was absolutley no reaction to his wise-crack, the detective looked at one after the other, then rolled his eyes. "Gee - who died?"
The doctors looked up, raising their brows in union.
"That didn´t come out the way I planned it," he winked. "Just imagine I´ve said something completely different, `kay?"
They gave him a nod.
"So, what´s with you guys?" he asked.
"We´re bored," Jesse replied, "but now you´ve arrived with another exciting case you planned to fill us in, right, Steve?"
"Ah ... no." Frowning, he picked up the book still laying on the table. " "Holy Tears"?"
"It´s Amanda´s," Jesse filled him in. "It´s about crumbled motives, and it makes you kill yourself after 10 pages."
Amanda shook her head now, Steve smiled. "I seldom have time to read, anyways." He handed her back the book.
"Oh - men!"
Jesse shrugged, unimpressedly. "Want one?" he asked, holding up the cookie- bag.
Steve gazed at him unsurely. "Ah ... no, thanks. Is my Dad around anywhere?" Bored doctors made him nervous, he decided.
"I haven´t seen him for a while," Jesse answered. "Maybe he´s in class."
"Okay, then I ..."
Sudden movement outside the lounge made Jesse tense, then rush out. Just a second before Steve could ask the "Huh?"-question, he also heard the muffled voices and the sound of a gurney being shoved over the floor. Looking outside the window, he now saw two medics hurrying in with a patient.
Amanda stood to go out and see if she could help.
Steve followed her, asking: "How does he do that?"
"ER-training."
It took hours to finally lose the patient. He sure put up a fight, struggled with all his will. At times, the young doctor at his side silently begged him to give in, for the was no chance to win. Not this time.
When it was over at last, Jesse turned and left the room without looking back at the patient. He couldn´t bear the look he´d be confronted with. The man had died with his eyes open, fear written all over his face, which was drawn like a grimace of pain.
As if death hadn´t come on silent feet to this soul, offering a hand, guiding him away from his mortal self, but grabbed the struggling mind out of it´s body instead. Forcing him to leave, fighting with him, winning in the end.
As he walked along the corridor, seeing no one, clenching and unclenching his hands unconsciously, Jesse felt the sensation of failure crawling into every part of his body. Like he´d been infected by the patient´s own failure to hold on to life.
His legs felt heavy, not to mention his head. He wouldn´t look up even when he was greeted by a colleague passing by.
This guy hadn´t just died, he had lost, Jesse thought bitterly. "Gee, listen to me, I´m sounding like Amanda´s books now. Gotta go home."
Having made his decision, he passed the Doctor´s Lounge, but couldn´t avoid to be spotted by Mark Sloan, who rushed out to call after him.
Jesse´s shoulders sacked, but still he turned to face the older doctor. "Hey Mark. Look, I´m really whacked, I´d better be going."
Mark nodded understandingly and approached his friend with a worried look on his face. "You okay?"
Jesse smiled. Though he didn´t like people worrying about him, he appreciated it. It gave him the sensation of feeling wanted, and still he longed to feel that way. He couldn´t help it. "Yes, I´m fine," he assured, adding: "Lost a patient", because he knew Mark would understand and stop asking him about it.
"Oh, sorry to hear that. The suicide who came in around noon?"
Without knowing why, Jesse tensed. Surprised, he realized that it was out of anger. "It wasn´t suicide. It was a test."
"Test?" Mark repeated, frowning.
Before the younger doctor could answer, Amanda approached them, having left the lift. She was in a particularly good mood, humming to herself and asked: "What was a test?"
"The man who came in the ER today," Jesse explained. "Dr. Townsend. British. He´d worked on a project for about three years and, well, he ... tested the product on himself. Guess he should have waited a little longer," he added without humor showning in his smile.
Amanda narrowed her eyes. "He tested a new medicine on himself? What against?"
"Alzheimer."
"But he didn´t have it, did he?" she asked.
Jesse shook his head. "No. I asked him. He doesn´t have it in the family, too. He just ... felt it was his duty. As a doctor." He fell silent, observing the floor.
Observing him, Mark felt a sharp look that hit him like an elbow. Glanzing at the producer of said look, he put a hand on the smaller man´s shoulder. "Are you sure, you´re okay?"
Jesse smiled shyly. "Yeah. - I don´t know."
He bowed his head again. "It´s just ... what if I´d succeeded in saving him? Maybe he coulda worked it over. There´s no remedy against Alzheimer. What if he found it, at least came close to finding it? Now with him dying of it, no one will continue his works. They´ll put it in a box marked "failed" and forget about it."
"Well, it did fail," Amanda pointed out. "It cost his life."
Jesse didn´t look at her, his gaze had drifted of to nowhere. "He, like ... He trusted us, he trusted me. To do for him what he tried to do for thousands of people. If I´d saved him ..."
Finally he looked up on his friends, who both eyed him with a mixture of awe and concern.
He smiled and winked. "Oh, forget that. I know I´m not to blame, I did everything I could. It´s just ... I don´t know. I think it´s that I kinda admire him for what he tried to do." A melancholy grin hushed over his face. "It was a real doctor-thing to do, huh?"
Amanda sneered. "Try stupid," she said. "He should have known better than to go and test his product on himself. It´s unethical. And illegal."
"Do you know how many people die of Alzheimer every year?" Jesse asked instead of a reply.
The pathologist hushed, glancing at Mark in search for help.
But the older doctor simply patted his friend´s shoulder again, showing his best fatherly smile. "You should be going home now, Jess. You look extremely tired."
Lost in thoughts again, Jesse nodded and turned without even saying goodbye. His friends watched him shuffle along the floor, till he reached the lift and entered it.
"I say we should be happy that there are low chances on him operating on himself," Amanda stated, still looking at the by now closed doors of the lift. "He´d probably try a brain-transplantation."
Mark laughed softly, but shook his head. "Passion of the youth," he pointed out, holding his hands out before him in a gesture of greatness.
"More like ignorance of the youth. Young physicians alyways wanna play god. They think they´re immortal or gifted or I don´t know. They should come to my lab from time to time. You don´t get carried away about immortality there."
Again, Mark laughed, looking down on her with clear respect showing in his eyes. "Aren´t you a little too young to be that wise?"
"Have you read "House of God"?"
"Ah ... no," he replied; it sounded like a question, though.
"I´ll give it to you some time. You´ll love it." With that she went on to the reception table, leaving him to turn to go and almost bumb into a young girl, who´d been about to tip his back with her finger.
"Oh - I´m sorry," he apologised. "I didn´t notice ... You shouldn´t sneak up on people like that, you know?"
"I´m sorry," she said, her voice shaking a little. So did the whole girl, Mark suddenly noticed.
"Can I help you?" he asked, doctor-mode taking over.
"I came to see my father. I was told ... Someone called me at home and said he´d been taking here." She smiled nervously, her eyes wandering around to not meet his.
"You know, I´m, like, I´m sick. I´ve got the flu. Well, it´s almost over, but still I wasn´t in school today and stuff, and I thought I shouldn´t go to a hospital like when I´m sick, because of all the sick people, they might get it from me and then, I don´t know, like die, but ..." The need of air caused her to pause a second in order to breath.
Mark had actually fallen in staring at her. The words were still working on forming themselfes to sentences in his ears.
Ignoring his confused look, the girl continued: "Anyway, I told the lady on the phone I was sick and, like, you know, I didn´t wanna come here, but, well, she, like ..."
Her voice drifted off to normal speed till she said the first sentence Mark could understand right away: "She said my father was in a very serious condition. I should come here right away."
Her gaze dropped, the sudden silence seemed louder than her talking before. Though he couldn´t put a finger on it, Mark knew instinctly that there was something really bad about all this. He felt himself being drawn into something he neither wanted nor actually had to do.
Still, he asked friendly: "What´s your name?" and led her to the reception table.
"Townsend," the girl answered. "Tori Townsend. My father´s a doctor in Cardiff. We moved here for him to carry on on his studys and ..." She hushed, noticing the almost painful look on his face. Within seconds, her face lost all its color.
"What is it? Something ... happened, like ...? Where´s my father?"
Mark swallowed. Gee, he hated this. Years of experience hadn´t made it easier at all. It was still the one thing he hated about his job. Calmly, he took the girl´s arm in order to lead her to the nearby Doctor´s Lounge.
"Come, Tori. Why don´t we sit down in there for a while and I'll fill you in about your father, okay?"
At his touch she tensed, but didn´t move. "Is he dead?"
Mark sighed inwardly. "I really think it´d be better to sit down and ..."
She cut him off, suddenly speaking very clearly, pronouncing every word. "Is. He. Dead?"
"Yes, he is. I´m sorry." He let go off her, giving her space to take in the words.
Most people didn´t get them first. They´d ask for them again or simply stare at the one having said them or started to cry.
Tori Townsend took a deep breath which made Mark prepare himself, then gave him the smallest of smiles, a simple polite gesture and nodded.
"Thank you," she said, "I´m sure you did everything you could, and I´m grateful for that. Now, will you excuse me?"
Mark felt his chin fall down. "Tori," he called her back.
She turned around. "Yes?"
"I wasn´t the responsible doctor. Maybe you want me to call him so that he could fill you in on the deatils. Sometimes that helps."
"Thanks, you´re nice. But I know the details. He tried his stuff on himself, didn´t he?"
Mark nodded.
She smiled humorlessly. "See, I´m one attentive daughter, huh?"
A single tear fell down her cheek, a hand rushed up to wipe it away. "At least," she added with a voice so cold it sounded strange on a child, "I told him how much I hated him for all of this. I bet I told him a dozen times. Guess, he died knowing it, hu? Wouldn´t have wanted him to leave without knowing how much I hated him."
She was crying now, but still trying to keep a grip on herself, wiping her hand over her eyes from time to time. It was an unbearable sight. She couldn´t be older than fifteen, sixteen at most, and all of a sudden she looked like fifty. She lost her youth within a heartbeat.
Like her father had lost his life. By testing a medicine for people who lost their memories. It appeared as if loss had decided to take its turn at last. Forget about love and hate, here comes the emotion without passion, the unbeatable foe.
Mark felt that he´d actually fight the urge to grab and ruttle this kid out of her misery
. "You don´t mean all that," he said and listened to the echo. Boy, that was one lame thing to say, doctor.
Tori opened her mouth to object, but closed it as if it was forever, shrugged at him and turned to leave.
Cookie Hell
People didn´t think about the reasons they once had to become a doctor. It wasn´t a clever thing to do to think about those reasons. Like newborn babies lose their innocent beauty once they grow up and learn to be human, the motives we have crumble like leafes when we actually get where they´ve led us. They crumble and fall, and in the end there´s nothing left when we open our hands in the hour of death. Nothing to hold onto.
"You know, that´s one dark opening."
Dr. Amanda Bentley sighed deeply and snatched the book out of her friend´s hands. The young man flinched; great, he had said something wrong. The one thing you didn´t want to do to Amanda was to say something wrong.
"I knew you wouldn´t understand it!" she stated, looking at the first sentences of the novel for herself now.
"It's not just "dark"", she said, immitating the other one´s voice, "it´s beautiful. In a sad way."
The man raised his brows sceptically. "You think it´s beautiful that when we die there´s nothing in our hands to hold on, just ... what was it? ... Crumbled motives? How can motives crumble, anyways?"
"It´s a metaphor, Jesse! And it´s a good one."
"It´s depressing," he contradicted, picking a cookie out of a bag he had brought with him to the Doctor´s Lounge, where he´d met Amanda and the crumbled motives, which were inhabitants of "Holy Tears".
Amanda rolled her eyes. "That´s what you said about "House of God", too. As far as you´re concerned, every book´s depressing."
"Every book you read," he replied, mouth full of cookie.
"It´s just because you never finish them. "House of God" has a happy ending."
"You gotta be kidding."
"No, it all works out fine for him and he realizes how much he´s changed since working in that hospital, and then he returns to his girlfriend and is happy again."
"That sucks! For all I read of it, this guy could never be happy again. He´s screwed up since page 200 or sooner. And if things actually go okay again, it´s not realistic." He picked another cookie without noticing Amanda´s slight frown. "That book wants to be mean, happy ending or not. It is mean and it makes you feel bad! I hated every page of it." He gave his auditorium a final nod and swallowed, already producing a new cookie.
"It made you feel bad?" Amanda grinned. She had suggested Jesse to read "House of God", because she thought everybody working in a hospital should. Jesse had returned it two days later, saying he just didn´t have enough time to read.
"Well ... it´s ... Just don´t give me that one, `kay? I won´t read it."
"Hmmm," Dr. Bentley made, obviuosly starting to enjoy where this was heading to. "When did your motives crumble to dust?"
"When I came to page 30."
The pathologist laughed sympatheically, patting her friend´s arm. "Okay, I give up. I´m never gonna make an intellectual out of you. Some people just don´t have it."
Jesse scratched his temple. "There was a compliment in that, right? Oh, no, wait, it was this other thing - what´s it called? - Oh yeah, insult." He grabbed another cookie in mock frustration.
This time Amanda snatched the bag out of it hands, studying it.
"Jess, you´ve been eating cookies all day long, do you know that?"
"Yeah. Give it back."
His request was ignored. "D´you wanna tell me why?"
"No, I want a cookie."
"Tell me what´s bothering you and we´ll see."
"Why does there have to be something bothering me just because I´m eating cookies? Gee, can´t a man just sit here and enjoy some regressive inclinations?!"
"Wow, that bad."
"Don´t got there, Amanda," he said, trying and failing to catch a cookie out of the bag once more. "I will not talk about it."
She shrugged and remained silent.
It didn´t take five seconds for him to sink down in his chair frustratedly. "Ooookay, I give up. I´m weak." He did his best sick-puppy-look which he had learned to use in times of crisis.
Smiling triumphantly, Amandad handed the bag over, raising her brows in expectation.
All she got was a scowl, though. "Boy, am I glad I´m not one of your kids. But then, hey, I´m being treated the same way, so what´s the difference!"
"Right," she grinned back and earned a sigh. "So what´s wrong?"
"Nothin´."
"Jesseeee."
"Got a call from my mom yesterday."
"Uuuh." Amanda made a face and pointed at the bag. "Call me if you´re out of them, I´ll get you a new one."
Jesse smiled gratefully. "No, it wasn´t that bad, just ..." He stopped, obviously trying to figure out how exactly it had been. In the end he picked another cookie.
"Want one?" he asked muffeldly.
"Do you know how much fat is in this stuff? And sugar?"
"Sure. It´s written on the backside." He searched for the perversly colorful chart of calorines on the bag and turned it for Amanda to see. "Here."
"Gee, that´s even more than I thought," she stated whilst grabbing one out of the bag.
Chewing in union, the two doctors sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Is there anybody at this place who ever does some actual work? At least from time to time?" a sudden voice interrupted the peaceful moment.
Without even gazing up, Jesse shook his head. "Nope. Just go here every day for the coffee. You?" he glanced at Amanda.
"The examination tables are far more comfortable than my couch at home, so ..."
"Yeah, yeah," Jesse nodded in mock agreement.
The intruder, a police detective, who actually was the one person in the room not having worked a 24hour-shift, grimaced at his friends and sat down. "They´re handing out funny papers in the mess now?"
When there was absolutley no reaction to his wise-crack, the detective looked at one after the other, then rolled his eyes. "Gee - who died?"
The doctors looked up, raising their brows in union.
"That didn´t come out the way I planned it," he winked. "Just imagine I´ve said something completely different, `kay?"
They gave him a nod.
"So, what´s with you guys?" he asked.
"We´re bored," Jesse replied, "but now you´ve arrived with another exciting case you planned to fill us in, right, Steve?"
"Ah ... no." Frowning, he picked up the book still laying on the table. " "Holy Tears"?"
"It´s Amanda´s," Jesse filled him in. "It´s about crumbled motives, and it makes you kill yourself after 10 pages."
Amanda shook her head now, Steve smiled. "I seldom have time to read, anyways." He handed her back the book.
"Oh - men!"
Jesse shrugged, unimpressedly. "Want one?" he asked, holding up the cookie- bag.
Steve gazed at him unsurely. "Ah ... no, thanks. Is my Dad around anywhere?" Bored doctors made him nervous, he decided.
"I haven´t seen him for a while," Jesse answered. "Maybe he´s in class."
"Okay, then I ..."
Sudden movement outside the lounge made Jesse tense, then rush out. Just a second before Steve could ask the "Huh?"-question, he also heard the muffled voices and the sound of a gurney being shoved over the floor. Looking outside the window, he now saw two medics hurrying in with a patient.
Amanda stood to go out and see if she could help.
Steve followed her, asking: "How does he do that?"
"ER-training."
It took hours to finally lose the patient. He sure put up a fight, struggled with all his will. At times, the young doctor at his side silently begged him to give in, for the was no chance to win. Not this time.
When it was over at last, Jesse turned and left the room without looking back at the patient. He couldn´t bear the look he´d be confronted with. The man had died with his eyes open, fear written all over his face, which was drawn like a grimace of pain.
As if death hadn´t come on silent feet to this soul, offering a hand, guiding him away from his mortal self, but grabbed the struggling mind out of it´s body instead. Forcing him to leave, fighting with him, winning in the end.
As he walked along the corridor, seeing no one, clenching and unclenching his hands unconsciously, Jesse felt the sensation of failure crawling into every part of his body. Like he´d been infected by the patient´s own failure to hold on to life.
His legs felt heavy, not to mention his head. He wouldn´t look up even when he was greeted by a colleague passing by.
This guy hadn´t just died, he had lost, Jesse thought bitterly. "Gee, listen to me, I´m sounding like Amanda´s books now. Gotta go home."
Having made his decision, he passed the Doctor´s Lounge, but couldn´t avoid to be spotted by Mark Sloan, who rushed out to call after him.
Jesse´s shoulders sacked, but still he turned to face the older doctor. "Hey Mark. Look, I´m really whacked, I´d better be going."
Mark nodded understandingly and approached his friend with a worried look on his face. "You okay?"
Jesse smiled. Though he didn´t like people worrying about him, he appreciated it. It gave him the sensation of feeling wanted, and still he longed to feel that way. He couldn´t help it. "Yes, I´m fine," he assured, adding: "Lost a patient", because he knew Mark would understand and stop asking him about it.
"Oh, sorry to hear that. The suicide who came in around noon?"
Without knowing why, Jesse tensed. Surprised, he realized that it was out of anger. "It wasn´t suicide. It was a test."
"Test?" Mark repeated, frowning.
Before the younger doctor could answer, Amanda approached them, having left the lift. She was in a particularly good mood, humming to herself and asked: "What was a test?"
"The man who came in the ER today," Jesse explained. "Dr. Townsend. British. He´d worked on a project for about three years and, well, he ... tested the product on himself. Guess he should have waited a little longer," he added without humor showning in his smile.
Amanda narrowed her eyes. "He tested a new medicine on himself? What against?"
"Alzheimer."
"But he didn´t have it, did he?" she asked.
Jesse shook his head. "No. I asked him. He doesn´t have it in the family, too. He just ... felt it was his duty. As a doctor." He fell silent, observing the floor.
Observing him, Mark felt a sharp look that hit him like an elbow. Glanzing at the producer of said look, he put a hand on the smaller man´s shoulder. "Are you sure, you´re okay?"
Jesse smiled shyly. "Yeah. - I don´t know."
He bowed his head again. "It´s just ... what if I´d succeeded in saving him? Maybe he coulda worked it over. There´s no remedy against Alzheimer. What if he found it, at least came close to finding it? Now with him dying of it, no one will continue his works. They´ll put it in a box marked "failed" and forget about it."
"Well, it did fail," Amanda pointed out. "It cost his life."
Jesse didn´t look at her, his gaze had drifted of to nowhere. "He, like ... He trusted us, he trusted me. To do for him what he tried to do for thousands of people. If I´d saved him ..."
Finally he looked up on his friends, who both eyed him with a mixture of awe and concern.
He smiled and winked. "Oh, forget that. I know I´m not to blame, I did everything I could. It´s just ... I don´t know. I think it´s that I kinda admire him for what he tried to do." A melancholy grin hushed over his face. "It was a real doctor-thing to do, huh?"
Amanda sneered. "Try stupid," she said. "He should have known better than to go and test his product on himself. It´s unethical. And illegal."
"Do you know how many people die of Alzheimer every year?" Jesse asked instead of a reply.
The pathologist hushed, glancing at Mark in search for help.
But the older doctor simply patted his friend´s shoulder again, showing his best fatherly smile. "You should be going home now, Jess. You look extremely tired."
Lost in thoughts again, Jesse nodded and turned without even saying goodbye. His friends watched him shuffle along the floor, till he reached the lift and entered it.
"I say we should be happy that there are low chances on him operating on himself," Amanda stated, still looking at the by now closed doors of the lift. "He´d probably try a brain-transplantation."
Mark laughed softly, but shook his head. "Passion of the youth," he pointed out, holding his hands out before him in a gesture of greatness.
"More like ignorance of the youth. Young physicians alyways wanna play god. They think they´re immortal or gifted or I don´t know. They should come to my lab from time to time. You don´t get carried away about immortality there."
Again, Mark laughed, looking down on her with clear respect showing in his eyes. "Aren´t you a little too young to be that wise?"
"Have you read "House of God"?"
"Ah ... no," he replied; it sounded like a question, though.
"I´ll give it to you some time. You´ll love it." With that she went on to the reception table, leaving him to turn to go and almost bumb into a young girl, who´d been about to tip his back with her finger.
"Oh - I´m sorry," he apologised. "I didn´t notice ... You shouldn´t sneak up on people like that, you know?"
"I´m sorry," she said, her voice shaking a little. So did the whole girl, Mark suddenly noticed.
"Can I help you?" he asked, doctor-mode taking over.
"I came to see my father. I was told ... Someone called me at home and said he´d been taking here." She smiled nervously, her eyes wandering around to not meet his.
"You know, I´m, like, I´m sick. I´ve got the flu. Well, it´s almost over, but still I wasn´t in school today and stuff, and I thought I shouldn´t go to a hospital like when I´m sick, because of all the sick people, they might get it from me and then, I don´t know, like die, but ..." The need of air caused her to pause a second in order to breath.
Mark had actually fallen in staring at her. The words were still working on forming themselfes to sentences in his ears.
Ignoring his confused look, the girl continued: "Anyway, I told the lady on the phone I was sick and, like, you know, I didn´t wanna come here, but, well, she, like ..."
Her voice drifted off to normal speed till she said the first sentence Mark could understand right away: "She said my father was in a very serious condition. I should come here right away."
Her gaze dropped, the sudden silence seemed louder than her talking before. Though he couldn´t put a finger on it, Mark knew instinctly that there was something really bad about all this. He felt himself being drawn into something he neither wanted nor actually had to do.
Still, he asked friendly: "What´s your name?" and led her to the reception table.
"Townsend," the girl answered. "Tori Townsend. My father´s a doctor in Cardiff. We moved here for him to carry on on his studys and ..." She hushed, noticing the almost painful look on his face. Within seconds, her face lost all its color.
"What is it? Something ... happened, like ...? Where´s my father?"
Mark swallowed. Gee, he hated this. Years of experience hadn´t made it easier at all. It was still the one thing he hated about his job. Calmly, he took the girl´s arm in order to lead her to the nearby Doctor´s Lounge.
"Come, Tori. Why don´t we sit down in there for a while and I'll fill you in about your father, okay?"
At his touch she tensed, but didn´t move. "Is he dead?"
Mark sighed inwardly. "I really think it´d be better to sit down and ..."
She cut him off, suddenly speaking very clearly, pronouncing every word. "Is. He. Dead?"
"Yes, he is. I´m sorry." He let go off her, giving her space to take in the words.
Most people didn´t get them first. They´d ask for them again or simply stare at the one having said them or started to cry.
Tori Townsend took a deep breath which made Mark prepare himself, then gave him the smallest of smiles, a simple polite gesture and nodded.
"Thank you," she said, "I´m sure you did everything you could, and I´m grateful for that. Now, will you excuse me?"
Mark felt his chin fall down. "Tori," he called her back.
She turned around. "Yes?"
"I wasn´t the responsible doctor. Maybe you want me to call him so that he could fill you in on the deatils. Sometimes that helps."
"Thanks, you´re nice. But I know the details. He tried his stuff on himself, didn´t he?"
Mark nodded.
She smiled humorlessly. "See, I´m one attentive daughter, huh?"
A single tear fell down her cheek, a hand rushed up to wipe it away. "At least," she added with a voice so cold it sounded strange on a child, "I told him how much I hated him for all of this. I bet I told him a dozen times. Guess, he died knowing it, hu? Wouldn´t have wanted him to leave without knowing how much I hated him."
She was crying now, but still trying to keep a grip on herself, wiping her hand over her eyes from time to time. It was an unbearable sight. She couldn´t be older than fifteen, sixteen at most, and all of a sudden she looked like fifty. She lost her youth within a heartbeat.
Like her father had lost his life. By testing a medicine for people who lost their memories. It appeared as if loss had decided to take its turn at last. Forget about love and hate, here comes the emotion without passion, the unbeatable foe.
Mark felt that he´d actually fight the urge to grab and ruttle this kid out of her misery
. "You don´t mean all that," he said and listened to the echo. Boy, that was one lame thing to say, doctor.
Tori opened her mouth to object, but closed it as if it was forever, shrugged at him and turned to leave.