Disclaimer: I do not own Diagnosis Murder, or any of it's characters.
Chapter 1.
Dr Mark Sloan opened his eyes and sat up wearily in his bed, he scanned the almost pitch black room trying to work out where the incessant knocking sound was coming from, once he was alert he realised that it was obviously coming from the front door.
With a sigh, Mark climbed gingerly out of bed and put on his dressing gown, "I'm coming!" He shouted, unable to keep the irritation out of his voice, his swollen ankle hurt each time he put pressure onto it; he'd been off work for almost a week due to a roller skating accident. He looked back at the clock radio on his dressing table, "2:30am, Steve's home early." Mark could have sworn his son, Lieutenant Steve Sloan said his shift ended at 6am.
When he finally opened the door he was surprised to find Dr Jesse Travis, soaked to the skin and struggling to stay upright, "Hey Mark, it's raining...why aren't you wet?" He slurred, falling into Marks arms.
"Jesse, are you drunk?" If the question hadn't been rhetorical, the stench of alcohol coming off the young Doctor would have answered it, "You need to get changed, you're soaked." Mark helped the younger man inside and sat him down on the couch, then went into Steve's room and got his 'house guest' a pair of Steve's jeans and one of his t-shirts.
Mark rolled his eye's when he heard snoring coming from the couch, he dropped the clothes on top of Jesse, who's eye's shot open, "Get changed." The older mans tone left no room for debate. As Jesse sat up, Mark left the room, returning a few minutes later, carrying a pile of blankets and passing them to the young Doctor, who was now wearing dry clothing, "These should warm you up, we'll talk about this in the morning." And with that, he went back to his own room.
The next morning Mark got grumpily out of bed, he certainly hadn't had a good nights sleep, but he'd been woken up so many times through the night with Jesse turning up at his front door drunk, then Steve waking him up to ask why Jesse was asleep on their couch, and then finally hearing Steve going out again, no more than thirty minutes after getting home from work, that he knew trying to catch any more 'Z's' would be pointless.
After taking a quick glance over at Jesse, who was sleeping soundly on the couch, Mark went into the kitchen to make some breakfast, "I'm glad 'someone' managed to get a good nights sleep." Mark muttered.
Once he'd almost finished eating his breakfast he heard a loud groan, apparently the young Doctor was awake, and suffering with a hangover by the sounds of it. With a sigh Mark got some orange juice out of the refrigerator and poured it into a glass.
"Here, drink this." Mark said as he walked out of the kitchen, frowning when instead of being on the couch, the young Doctor was over at the far side of the room, shaking, and sat in a fetal position, "Jesse, what's wrong?" Mark asked in concern, going over to the younger man and putting his hand on Jesse's shoulder, "Has something happened?" He knew something was wrong the moment Jesse had turned up drunk, he just hadn't realised that it was 'so' bad, "Jesse?"
"I killed her Mark," Jesse cried out in despair, "I killed that little girl."
