Rating: T for violence/language.

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters of DM. I do own the ones I created.

Apologies for the delay in updating, but work got in the way again! Thanks, as ever, for the reviews.

Skeletons

Chapter Twelve

"And the next time we saw her, she was out jogging with some other guy." Steve's voice was beginning to show the strain, but he refused to be daunted by the lack of response that his words elicited.

"I'm sorry about Paris."

Jesse's hoarse voice almost caused Steve to fall off the edge of the bed, so unexpected was the sound.

"Jess…" He leaned forwards more intently.

Then he felt a strong hand drop onto his shoulder and looked up to see his father staring compassionately down at him.

Mark was just about to explain that it was futile; that, though Jesse had turned his head slightly, his eyes were still glazed and distant – not looking at Steve, but straight through him, obviously seeing somebody else. He was as far away from them as ever. But, before he could say any of this, there was a gentle knock at the door. It opened even before Mark had the chance to respond and Patricia Carter poked her head into the room.

"I know you said that Jesse doesn't remember very much," she said, advancing further in. "But I wondered if… Oh, my…"

Her eyes had alighted on Jesse and, as it had both Mark and Steve, the sight shocked her to a standstill. The bruises were livid and a multitude of bandages hid countless other injuries, but it was his eyes that held her so compelled. They were blank and empty and so far away – it was obvious that he was not merely daydreaming.

"Mark?" Her look was distinctly reproachful as she levelled her gaze on the older man. "You asked for my help regarding some criminal; didn't you think that Jesse could benefit from my assistance as well?"

"Patricia, I'm sorry." Mark looked away, somewhat abashed. It went without saying that she was much more qualified to deal with his friend than he would ever be and he could see how his neglecting to mention Jesse's condition might seem something of a snub. "I just… I thought… Well, hoped…"

"I understand, Mark. He's your friend." Her eyes softened and her mouth turned upwards into a smile. "But why don't you tell me what's been happening and then we'll see if we can help him together."

"It would be best if we talked outside." Mark still wasn't entirely sure what – if anything – Jesse could hear and he wasn't about to take any chances. "Steve?"

"I think I'll just stay here a while," his son answered, glancing forlornly back towards his friend.

He waited until the door had closed behind the two doctors before letting out a heavy sigh. He had genuinely believed that he would be able to get through to Jesse. They had been through so much together and he was convinced that one of those memories would prove to be the key.

Now, he had finally run out of words.

A tiny sliver of guilt wormed its way into his heart; along with something else – something that he couldn't quite identify. He was Jesse's best friend, dammit, he should have been able to reach him. Dane had managed it back in the cellar – even if he hadn't been able to bring him back.

Then he recognised the other emotion that was vying with his guilt. It was resentment. Jesse had heard his father's voice – and his dad had meant nothing to him for years. During those years – or at least the most recent of them – the Sloans had been his family. They – and Amanda – had helped him through some dark and difficult times; as he had helped them all through their own crises. It should have been them who he needed now. He tried to push the emotion away, knowing that Jesse would never willingly turn away from their help, but it persisted; fuelled, he knew, by the fact that there was nothing he could do. His best friend was suffering and he couldn't even touch him, couldn't even try to offer the slightest physical comfort for fear of the young man flinching away.

So Steve dropped his hands uselessly into his lap and licked at his dry lips. He didn't know if his reminders of the times they'd shared were doing any good, but they certainly didn't seem to be doing any harm.

"Hey, Jess," he said, trying to keep his voice purely conversational. "Do you remember when you had to deliver CJ in the back of your car?"

"I think I can see what the problem might be here."

Mark merely smiled in response to Patricia's words – silently glad that his son had elected to remain with Jesse. He could only imagine the sarcasm that such a statement would have invoked. The problem was easy to see; it was the solution that was proving difficult.

"Now, don't look at me like that, Mark. I know that you don't need a psychology degree to understand that Jesse has regressed back to his childhood." A twinkle of amusement in her eyes took the sting out of the rebuke.

Mark's smile turned rueful. He hadn't realised that he was so transparent, but then this was a professional he was up against.

"What I meant was: I think I know why Jesse has regressed so completely." Patricia was all business again. And, as Mark questioned her merely by raising his eyebrows, she continued: "The events of that year, when Wayne Burton made his life such hell, have only ever existed to the child. The fact that he was murdered and Mrs Travis worked so hard to ingrain that story into Jesse's mind means that the adult Jesse has never had to confront that time."

"So he just buried the memory…" Mark was still none the wiser and it was evident in his tone.

"No," Patricia was quick to correct him. "It's much more complex than that. The memories weren't so much as buried – more like compartmentalised. What happened back then was a lot for anyone to take, let alone a twelve year old child. The abuse was bad enough; the murder even worse. But then his mother ingrained a story into him as to what had happened." She realised how that might have sounded like censure and hurried to explain: "I'm sure that she only did what she thought was right at the time – that her intentions were the very best – but she conditioned Jesse in a sense."

"You make it sound like she brainwashed him," Mark protested. No matter what he thought of Mrs Travis – or her actions – he had no doubt that she would never intentionally harm her son.

"That's a very extreme way of putting it, but it's also not that far from the truth." The psychiatrist smiled at his obvious shock. "Jesse was at a very impressionable age and she taught him exactly what to say if anyone were to ever ask him about what happened to Wayne Burton. The trouble is that nobody ever did. It's sounds as though, until now, he's never even spoken about it. He's never had to take that memory out of its compartment and confront it on adult terms."

"Until now." Finally, the older doctor felt as though he was starting to understand. "And now that he has been asked, he's giving the only answer that he can. The little boy's answer – and that's why his mind has taken him back there, because that's the only place where those answers exist."

"Exactly."

"So, now that we've identified the problem, what do we do about it?" Mark fetched two fresh mugs of coffee and placed them on the table.

"Well, Jesse really needs to confront this on adult terms. Somebody has to find some way to reach him, to make him listen and then talk to him as an adult – as who he is now, not who he was then."

"But how are we supposed to do that?" Mark asked, unable to keep the helplessness out of his voice.

"You said that Dane managed to reach Jesse when you found him in the cellar – that Jesse at least responded to him," Patricia reminded him.

"That's right." Mark stroked his moustache in a familiar gesture of concentration. "But it was the child Jesse who responded. It was…" He shook his head, remembering how frightening those faltering words had been. "I've never seen anything like it…"

"I can imagine." Patricia's response was sympathetic, but she didn't have time to dwell on it. Having heard what Jesse had endured, she was doubly determined to see Bill Burton face trial fully compos mentis – and she still had some preparations to do before her evaluation of the man. "But he did respond, which is more than he's doing now."

"I did have a theory about that." Mark smiled at her raised eyebrow and pressed on: "I believe that he responded to Dane because he recognised his voice. It's as simple as that. He didn't know either Steve or me back then; our voices would have just been the voices of strangers. But his dad – his dad's was the one voice that he had been longing to hear."

"Very good, Doctor Sloan." She dipped her head in acknowledgement. "Are you sure you don't have a psychology diploma hidden away in your office?"

"Absolutely not," her colleague chuckled in response. "And I'm quite happy to defer to your expertise on this one. Do you think Dane will be able to reach him again?"

"Has he tried talking to him?" All lightness aside, Patricia got immediately back down to business, but she knew the answer to her question by the way Mark's face clouded over.

"His father hasn't been seen since last night." His disapproval was evident in his voice. "He sat with Jesse for a while – then I went to check on him and Dane said that he had some things to do. He hasn't been back since."

"Well somebody needs to get hold of him and get him back here – for Jesse's sake." She saw the disappointment that flashed across Mark's features and smiled in sympathy. "I'm sorry, Mark. I know how close you are to him, but I really don't think that you're going to be able to help him this time."

Having offered his thanks to Patricia, Mark wandered back to Jesse's room with a heavy heart. It was all very well for her to tell him to contact Dane – actually doing it was a different matter entirely. He already knew just what a difficult task that was – but now, more than ever, Jesse was relying on him.

Inwardly, Mark was seething – wondering just what it was that Dane had needed to do; just what was so important that it meant more to him than the welfare of his only child.

Although he acknowledged that he probably wasn't being fair to Dane – the agent's life wasn't easy and being called away could, literally, be a matter of life and death – that didn't help him to understand. Even life and death would have taken second place had it been his own son lying there, needing him so badly.

His own son…

Mark's face creased into a scowl. Though Jesse was not his flesh and blood, he had become a big part of his life over the years. For a long time now, he had considered the young man to be much more than just a friend. His kind, compassionate nature; his infectious humour and ready smile; his generous heart – they had all contributed towards giving Jesse a very special place in his heart. No, the stricken young doctor wasn't merely his friend. He was family.

Mark began to move with a little more purpose. He'd made a quick call before he had left Patricia, instructing the reception staff to leave no stone unturned in their attempts to track down Dane Travis – emphasising how much they needed to stress that it was urgent – but he didn't hold out a great deal of hope. If circumstances had dictated such then there was a chance that the agent wasn't even in the Country any more.

Well, Mark wasn't prepared to wait however long it might take to track the man down. He simply couldn't just sit idly by and do nothing while Jesse suffered. And, though his voice might not be enough to penetrate the nightmare of his memories, he could only pray that the love in his heart – a surrogate father's love – would.

As Mark rounded the corner approaching Jesse's room, he stopped in his tracks as he saw Amanda standing in the doorway and looking in. He moved to join her, clearing his throat softly as he neared her so as not to startle her. She turned towards him and gave him the saddest of smiles.

"I wanted to see how Jesse was," she whispered. "But now I can't go in. I've been standing here for ten minutes and Steve hasn't even realised it yet."

Mark looked beyond her into the room. Steve hadn't moved from his position on the edge of Jesse's bed and he was still talking. Even as he watched, his son's scratchy, tired voice filtered out to him.

"… that damned stupid fake moustache…" He was talking about the time he'd worked as a stunt double and the sadness of the smile this invoked from Mark matched Amanda's.

"I don't understand, Mark," the pathologist murmured. "Has Jesse regressed again? How could that happen? He's safe here."

"I know, honey." Mark kept his voice equally low. "I've been talking to Patricia Carter and I'm afraid that this is just going to keep happening every time that Jesse tries to talk about what happened."

"So what can we do? How can we stop it?"

Mark smiled at her ready offer of help but before he could answer there was movement inside the room. Steve got to his feet and stretched his weary limbs – then did an almost comical double take when he saw his dad and Amanda standing in the doorway.

"I think he's asleep," the detective said in a hushed voice as he approached them. "At least his eyes are closed." He looked back towards his friend. "Is that going to be the end of it? Will he wake up and be alright again?"

"I don't know, Steve. Maybe he will." Mark smiled tiredly. "But even if he does wake up back to normal then it still won't be over. Jesse can't keep hiding away from what happened – he needs to talk about it, come to terms with it."

"But won't he just keep… going back?" Steve shuddered at the prospect. It was unnerving to see his friend in such a state – almost catatonic and totally unaware of those who cared about him. It only made it worse to know just what horrors Jesse was reliving in his waking nightmare. "Can't we just let him forget about this? If he's okay and we don't mention it, then he won't regress again, will he?"

"He isn't going to just forget about it, Steve." The same option had crossed his father's mind, but he had been forced to dismiss it. "He still has the bruises, the marks and something will trigger his regression again, I can guarantee it. It might not be straight away, but it will happen. We need to get him through this – once and for all."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"Patricia Carter seems to think that only Dane will be able to reach him in his regressive state." Mark answered. "Unfortunately, he's done a pretty thorough disappearing act."

"But dad…"

"I said that's what Patricia Carter thinks." Mark interrupted the predictable objection. "I didn't say that I agreed with her."

"What have you got in mind?" Amanda wondered, having known that he would never consider himself to be helpless when a friend needed him.

"We've been going about this the wrong way," Mark explained. "We're not going to reach Jesse by talking about us – about now. We need to go back to then – the place where Jesse is regressing to. Then we have to try and make Jesse confront the events of that year as an adult. He hasn't been able to do that so far, so we have to find some way to make him."

"But how?" Amanda wondered aloud. "If every time he tries to talk about it he's going to regress, how do we keep him here – in the present?"

"I don't think it's a case of keeping him here – it's going to be more like bringing him back. That's why it seems likely that only Dane will be able to do that. He's the only one who can go there and reach Jesse."

"So we're just gonna go in there and force him to talk about it and send him back into that hell..?" Steve shook his head agitatedly. "Dad…"

"I would never intentionally do anything to harm Jesse, Steve. But there's no guarantee that he will be back with us when he wakes up. He might still be twelve years old. What then?" Mark clearly wasn't happy, but he could see no alternative. "What then? Do we just lock him up until we can get Dane here to try and bring him back? I don't know where his father's gone, Steve – and I don't know when he's coming back. And I will not stand by and watch that young man suffer. I can't – any more than I could if it were you lying in there."

TBC