AN: Hope you are still enjoying this. The following chapter is mainly new material, except for the first third, which you may already know if you've read "The New Doctor"

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Jessie spent most of the day of her arrival in her office. Unlike Doctor Hernandez, who had his own house, she had agreed to occupy the small accommodations offered to her by the pueblo when she accepted the position. It consisted of two rooms, a bathroom, and a small kitchen. The first of the rooms had been transformed into a medical office, its walls filled with shelves filled with medical equipment, herbs and all sorts of jars containing medicines. In the middle of the room was a high cot, an armchair and, right next to them, a desk and a wooden chair. The other room, which was double the size of the first, included two beds, a small laboratory, and was separated in two by a curtain. On the far side of the room, next to the second, larger bed, there was also a wardrobe and a drawer.

"No mirror anywhere!" She uttered just to herself. "I'll have to buy quite a few things…"

After inspecting the office and noticing that every jar was labeled and instructions on the administration of teas and medicines were easily-found on the desk, she started unpacking her things.

A while later, realizing she hadn't eaten since early morning, she headed to the tavern for dinner.

"What may I offer you, Doctor?" Victoria asked rather coldly. Jessie was beautiful and, no doubt, intelligent and well educated, thus quite a competition for her, she believed, thinking of Zorro.

"Just something light. A salad perhaps?" Jessie answered.

"A salad?" Victoria seemed almost insulted. She was the greatest cook in the territory – as Diego often mentioned – and a salad required no cooking at all. "I am afraid we don't serve salad, Señorita!"

"Jessie! You may call me Jessie. And you are?"

"Victoria Escalante. I am the owner of this tavern." The young woman answered rather crossly.

"Well, Victoria, in that case, just bring me whatever you have nice in the kitchen." Jessie replied, with a kind smile on her face.

"Very well... Jessie!" Victoria's smile was a bit forced, as she was not yet decided on how to react to the woman's friendliness and what she perceived as impoliteness.

Right as Victoria was about to make her way to the kitchen to prepare the plate, the Alcalde entered and sat at his usual table. He frowned as he realized he was sitting just one table away from the young doctor, facing her, but decided to ignore her. She just stared at him with a mocking smile on her face,

"Señorita Escalante!" He called the taverness. "Carne asada, por favor!"

"Right away, Alcalde!" Victoria answered, and headed for the kitchen to prepare the two plates, leaving the two staring at each other.

Seeing that Jessie was looking straight at him, the Alcalde stared back, but soon found himself avoiding her gaze, a reaction which made her smile broader.

"Victoria," Jessie asked as the woman brought her food, "would you mind terribly taking a break and sitting with me? I would be grateful for the company."

The taverness hesitated, but she was quite aware that the young woman knew no one in the pueblo, most men seemed already intimidated by her, and there was a part of her kind heart which both pitied and admired her.

"I guess I can take a small break." The taverness accepted. "Pilar, would you mind taking the orders?" She asked her helper, who was at the bar.

"Not at all!" The woman answered with a smile.

"So, is it just us or are there more?" Jessie started the conversation as soon as she sat down.

"Us?" Victoria looked at her puzzled.

"You know... the women who don't accept men dictating what they should or not do. You are clearly a businesswoman, which I assume is not often seen in such a small community; you are unmarried, despite being both beautiful and a great cook - the food is delicious, by the way; and I have the feeling that you can put a man in his place." Jessie uttered.

Victoria smiled and was about to reply when the other woman continued.

"Now," Jessie asked, encouraged by her new friend's grin, "can you tell me what I did to upset you?"

"Upset me?" Victoria questioned.

"I know I have different customs than you. I am straightforward and my behavior may seem offensive to some, but I was forced to adapt to a world dominated by men who thought they were better than me.

"My father had a certain influence at the Spanish Court. He intermediated some more delicate issues Spain and the United States needed to settle in what was a very complicated historical period. Had it not been for the King's favorable impression of him, I wouldn't have even been given the chance to attend university. And when I was given that chance, I had to prove that I was ten times better than my fellow students, just to receive the same respect they received for just being men.

"Don't get me wrong, though. I am not complaining. But it hardened me, I guess, and it also made me quite perceptive to others and to their moods.

"So, since I would like to befriend at least another young woman in this pueblo, how about we start on the right foot by you telling me what exactly did I do to upset you?" Jessie clarified her question. "I can't rectify it if I don't know."

Victoria considered what to say. She could certainly see why Mendoza, as well as others, was already nervous around the Doctor.

"Zorro…" Victoria started, wondering how much should she say. "I... I saw him bringing you to town. You should know he is already spoken for!" She decided to say, imagining that Jessie, just like most other women in Los Angeles, and not only, found her black knight quite irresistible.

"Zorro? Do you know who he is?" The Doctor asked, not realizing she was upsetting Victoria.

"No one knows who Zorro is! All we know is that he is the most amazing man in California, and one day, when tyranny and injustice will be a thing of the past, he will take off that mask and we will all be able to properly thank him for all that he has done for us." Victoria answered with a dreamy expression on her face.

"You're in love with him!" Jessie realized. "Hm… Tall, masked and heroic is really not my type, Victoria. You have nothing to worry about! So if that is the only impediment for us becoming friends, I can assure you I am not interested." She told the taverness with a candid smile. "However, there is a man I would certainly care to know more about."

"What man?" Victoria wondered, grateful for Jessie's assurance, undecided if to actually believe it, yet also intrigued to find out what man the doctor considered more interesting than Zorro.

"Diego de la Vega." Came the answer.

"Diego?" Victoria inquired, confused, as if to convince herself she had heard right.

"Yes. The man seems most fascinating!" Jessie confirmed.

"You find Diego de la Vega fascinating?" Victoria wondered incredulously.

"I most certainly do! I want to know all about him!" Jessie assured her.

ZZZ

The morning after she had first arrived to the pueblo, Jessie woke up early, washed, got dressed and went to the tavern for breakfast.

She returned to her office about half-an-hour later. Some thirty minutes after that, she received her first patient. It was an older man who had badly injured his arm a week earlier, and had come to see if he could finally use it again, since he needed to return to his work as soon as possible. Jessie took off the bandage and, after examining the wound concluded that it was healing very well, but still needed at least one more week.

"That's exactly what Don Diego said. I thought you might decide differently." The man said with some disappointment in his voice.

Jessie smiled, re-bandaged him and bid him goodbye, just as a child came in with a splinter in his finger, accompanied by a friend.

"Can I see Don Diego?" The little boy asked.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart, but he is not here. I'm Doctor Kent. If you want, I can help." She answered with a smile.

The boy looked at his friend.

"I guess you don't have a choice! Unless you want to lose your finger or die of blood loss!" The other child said.

"It's not even bleeding! I… I think I will wait for Don Diego." The 'injured' replied.

"It might take a long time. Plus, I'm sure I can do even better than him!" She stated.

The boy hesitated, but agreed to let her have a look.

"Don Diego always makes us put the finger in cold water and we don't feel a thing!" The boy's friend said as Jessie was preparing to take the splinter out.

She grinned and poured some cold water in a glass.

Five minutes after her two small clients left with smiles on their faces, a mother came with her baby. The child had been ill with fever and Diego had prescribed her some teas but, since he had been gone for several days the past week – or, at least, that was what people thought – she just wanted some assurance that it was fine for her to continue with the teas.

Jessie asked her what she had been giving her baby girl, then examined her to find that she was, indeed, heeling and was already out of danger.

By the end of the day, all she had done, was to confirm Diego's diagnoses and treatments. Wondering if that was a good or a bad thing, she went to bed rather troubled.

Barely did she have time to close her eyes when she heard someone knocking on the front door.

Putting on a robe, she opened and found herself face-to-face with a young Indian boy.

"We need your help, Doctor!" He uttered. "At the Mission!" He added.

"What happened?" She asked.

"My grandmother Gabriela. She has been complaining of pains below the belly for a few days, but now it suddenly became much worse. The Padre fears she might be dying." He answered.

Jessie hurriedly got dressed, then took a medical bag she found half-full, adding to its medicines some of the medical supplies from the office that she believed she might need then followed the boy to the horse he rode there, and they left together.

After she had arrived at her destination, she spent the rest of the night operating on the woman, who had appendicitis. The padre tried to assist her but he was a far cry from a good assistant since he had no idea what she was asking for when she did. Since she was expecting, quite rightly, for the woman to develop a fever, the surgery having been performed later than it would have been indicated, she decided to remain there the following day, so that she could supervise her patient. Thus, as morning came, she wrote a note to be nailed to her office, and asked for someone to take it to town. The same young Indian boy volunteered. However, when he returned some three hours later, he recounted that a lancer had been severely injured, and that she needed to return to the pueblo to care for him.

After instructing the Padre what to do to help the feverish woman, she, thus, gratefully accepted a horse and headed into town.

The soldier had fallen off his steed while he and several others were tracking Zorro through a ravine. As a result, he had a head injury and a broken arm. Diego, who had been called to help until Jessie arrived, had been doing his best to handle the head wound, which was bleeding rather badly, and required stitches, yet didn't dare do more than try to limit the blood loss when it came to the broken arm, since it needed surgery.

A little later, while Jessie was operating on the arm, Diego proving to be a great assistant, two more people came to the medical office, one with a rattlesnake bite, and another complaining of abdominal pains after eating some mushrooms.

Lacking another choice, she asked the caballero to take over the two new patients, while she was doing her best to continue the surgery by herself. By the time she finished, Diego had also finished providing help to the other two other men, and was prescribing some teas they needed to take in order to rid their bodies of the poisons as soon as possible.

"Thank you for your help, Don Diego!" She smiled gratefully at him after the two men left, a little better than they had come, yet assured they would pull through.

He just nodded with a kind smile. "It's not usually this hectic around here, Doctor." He felt the need to reassure her. "How is Private Arenas doing?"

"We'll see. It was a bad injury, though. The damage to the nerves is what's worrying me. I did everything possible, but I'm not sure it was enough. He might never regain full use of his arm again." She replied pensively and thought to see a flicker of guilt on Diego's face, even if only for a few moments. "Now I need to have the lancers take him to the barracks, and instruct them on how to properly care for him, then return to the Mission to check on my patient there." She replied.

"Of course." Diego smiled and, about ten minutes later, after helping her clean the office, he headed for the tavern.

ZZZ

"Hola, Victoria!" He greeted the taverness as he entered.

"Don Diego…" She replied rather coldly.

"Is there something wrong?" He wondered.

"No. Nothing. What could be wrong?" She answered.

Diego looked at her with a sly smile and raised eyebrows.

"Orange juice?" She asked.

He nodded, so she poured him a glass.

"I… I hear you have an admirer." She stated, trying to sound casual.

"Really? And who might that be?" Diego asked.

"Well, the Doctor, of course. Apparently, she finds you fascinating." Victoria stated, staring intently at him.

"Does she?" He asked, faking naiveté about both her insinuation and her disguised jealousy.

Victoria continued staring, her face daring him to admit he was enjoying the attention.

He was enjoying the attention, but not Jessie's. For once, he was not competing against himself for the attentions of the woman he loved, but, instead, it was she who felt threatened by the new doctor. It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction.

"Well, she is a fascinating woman, herself. I must admit I've never known one who became a doctor before." Diego answered, faking not to notice Victoria's glare.

The taverness slammed the pitcher she was holding on the bar, gave him a displeased look, then headed for the kitchen.

I'll pay for this when I'll finally marry her! He thought with some amusement as he watched her leave, then raised his glass to take another sip of the juice, and headed for a table at which some caballeros were sitting.

ZZZ

Later that afternoon, after she had the wounded lancer taken to his quarters and left some willow bark tea with his companions, as well as indications on how to administer it, Jessie left for the Mission to check on the Indian woman. Her patient had developed a bad fever, and Jessie feared the worse.

"You look exhausted, Doctor Kent!" The Padre remarked at seeing her a while later, as she stepped out of the room for a few minutes, to get some fresh air and try to remember a potion which might help.

"I am, Padre! I don't know how Don Diego and Doctor Hernandez, before him, did this! It's impossible to be everywhere at the same time!" She answered as she sat down next to him.

"It was just a bad day. Most of them aren't like this. But, to be fair, Doctor Hernandez did have Don Diego's help for a while. Then, when Doctor Hernandez left and Don Diego took over, he could always count on his son, Felipe." Padre Benitez told her.

"I admit I was lucky he was in the pueblo when I got there, and handled some of the patients who came in this afternoon." She told him. "Don Diego, I mean. I didn't know he had a son… Padre, are you saying that I need… help?" She wondered.

"We all do, my child." The good man answered.

"And you think Don Diego might consider continuing with medicine? Because I doubt he'll want to return to it on a regular basis, especially with all the other things he is doing. His father mentioned a rather long list of activities keeping him busy."

"Diego, as you'll find out, is more than willing to help others, in any way he can, whenever his help is needed. He's also avid to learn, and lacking much of your knowledge. For example, while he can extract bullets, suture a wound, has good knowledge of Indian remedies and a mind for science - which helped him with that incredible issue of blood groups - he is not exactly very knowledgeable when it comes to more complex surgeries and diseases afflicting human beings."

"Well… I guess I'll have to think about it. Right now, I need to figure out something to help Senora Gabriela fight that infection, or her fate might be sealed!" Jessie muttered.

"I remember… Doctor Hernandez recounted for me once that Zorro had, at some point, helped him recover an ingredient he then used to make a potion for Don Alejandro. He had been shot and developed a very bad fever. I think the ingredient he mentioned was… maguey sap, if I'm not mistaken." The padre told her.

"Maguey sap? I do remember seeing that on a list Don Diego had left in my office. It's not exactly a medicine we were taught about at the university, but one never does stop learning, right? Let me see if I took it with me!" As she did that, Jessie had the pleasant surprise to realize that a small bottle containing the substance in question had been left by Diego in one of the pockets of the bag she had taken, together with a page of notes detailing recipes for several potions, including the one Doctor Hernandez had successfully used when dealing with infections.

The following day, Jessie Kent decided to take the Padre's advice, especially since, remembering his words, she realized that Diego's knowledge could very well complement her own. Thus, after a second night of almost no rest, she, once more, borrowed a horse from the Mission, then headed to the pueblo to see about the lancer, wash and change her clothes. After that, she headed towards the De la Vega hacienda to propose a partnership to the caballero.

She arrived there just as Don Alejandro had come up with the idea of having a dinner party in her honor, so that she might know some of the De la Vega friends, and secretly hoping that it might give his son the opportunity to start courting her.

The tall caballero, who ignored his father's attempts to set the two of them up, did not, however, have to think for too long before accepting Jessie's proposal, realizing, by her tired eyes, that she truly needed some help. He also liked the idea of learning from her, and sensed in Jessie a kindred spirit, just as avid for learning as he was.

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AN: Just a quick note on Maguey sap – while mentioned in the episode "Honor thy father" as an ingredient for a potion able to help Don Alejandro, it's merely a sweetener. I guess it sounded exotic enough and completely safe should kids watching the show decide to use it in some experiment.