CURIOSITY PART IX

Community General Hospital—1.00pm

Jesse could barely hear a thing. All sounds seemed very muffled to him. Still, he wanted to move but he found it very hard. His body still refused to function and he was beginning to find this frustrating. Jesse thought he heard voices. They sounded far away and he couldn't understand what was being said. Jesse strained to hear but nothing came. But the voice sounded so familiar—someone who he knew well to recognize. A woman's voice—not Haley's; certainly not a nurses. There was a comforting touch on his hand and on his forehead…Amanda? It was her, Jesse was positive. Even though he couldn't understand the words, he could make out enough to know she was crying. Jesse felt even more anxious to get away from whatever was holding him back. He wanted to go back to his normal life with Steve, Mark and Amanda again.

I miss you, Jesse, we all do, he could just make out.

Jesse also wanted to pull out because he wanted to warn them. He wanted to warn them in case something happened. He owed it to them as their friend and to make himself feel better. It was bad enough Day might be hurt but to think the rest of his friends who he worked with day in day out to be hurt too? Jesse knew he couldn't live with it and every time he remembered Carlos' threat, a shiver ran down his spine.

It had been after Haley left. Jesse spent the time after that asleep with head against the wall, wondering if help would come. It had been a hope, which lit Jesse up for a while. Maybe Haley would go out and call for something—find Steve perhaps? She could go out and help in return for a favor. Jesse knew it was his only chance. But somehow he doubted it. He just had to wait and see how time would pass and how much more he had to live through. So he waited and slept, thinking that since he'd hardly got any, he was going to need it to have some sort of strength.

The sound of a slamming door awakened him. Light was filtering through the open door. "Rise and shine, kid, there's work to be done." Jesse didn't remember anyone calling him a kid since Anders.

Jesse squinted against the harsh bright line that shone through. But he couldn't exactly put up hands to block. He just closed them and lowered his head. Shaking his head to shake up the remaining tiredness that threatened to swallow him, he groaned deeply. "Argh...man…what time is it?"

"I should think around half three in the morning," Carlos said. He closed the door again, allowing Jesse to see more clearly. He had a bat in his hand, which he propped up against a wall. Then he took a chair, put it in front of Jesse and looked at the young doctor. "Well, if it isn't Haley's lover-boy—Look at yourself Dr Travis. Is it really worth all this pain and humiliation for the life of someone more worthless than your own."

"You're a good doctor."

"Day is a good lawyer."

Carlos laughed. "If Day was such a good lawyer, his client, Whitney wouldn't have been wallowing in her own blood."

Jesse just glared at the man, with a scar all the way down one side of his face, those strange eyes, which looked as though they belonged to that of a snakes'. Carlos leaned forward, resting his chin in the palms of his hand and looking down at Jesse. "You know, being a doctor must be so much fun. You get to use all those wonderful instruments. I would love to use one. My mother always told me that when I was young, I liked to play with many 'toys' including the kitchen knife. Imagine how much I could have done with a scalpel." He laughed and again and drew his long fingertip lightly down Jesse's cheek to his neck. Jesse jerked back to get away from his touch.

"They don't give scalpels to homicidal maniacs," he uttered.

Carlos' eyes widened. He picked up the chair in rage and threw it against the wall beside Jesse. Jesse flinched as the wooden chair splintered into pieces. He knew he had angered the man. Carlos leaned over and untied Jesse from the piping but kept his hands still cuffed. "I have been given a job," Carlos said. "Not a very pleasant one I'm sure you can imagine. Marcus only has a certain amount of patience and sometimes, when he needs to cool off, he uses me to try and finish the job. I would like to give him the satisfaction that I succeeded." Carlos gripped Jesse by his collar and dragged him up. "I think this will be fun."

Carlos gripped the bat and Jesse's eyes widened in fear. If that bat ever connected full force with his head, he didn't have a chance. Anywhere on his body with the slightest force would give him one hell of a bruise. "You're sick, Carlos, you know that. Just like your boss you…" Jesse cut off, as the bat connected to his side. He tripped and fell onto the ground, with his hands still tied so his fall was not nice.

"Never insult me or Mr. Lavoy in front of me," Carlos shouted and kicked him again. Crying out in pain, Jesse rolled over onto his other side. He knew he had angered Carlos into an inferno of rage. Jesse didn't know how long it lasted for, the beating. It was either a kick of a hit with the baseball bat. Jesse spent a lot of that time trying to stay conscious and protecting his head or the rest of his body. He remembered ducking a lot to protect his head from getting hit. The bat, at one point, hit the wall and there was a slam as the bat gave as massive crack. Then Jesse felt the bat smack into the lower right of his body near the liver. Jesse let out a cry of pain, louder than the others and collapsed on the ground, his whole body tense. The hit had jarred him badly and the wind had totally been let out. For a few seconds, Jesse found it hard to breathe.

"Stop—please," he begged, unable to look up at him. He pressed his forehead into the ground as if that would take the pain away and gasped in amounts of air through the pain.

Carlos's face turned into a cruel smile. He was smiling to himself with satisfaction at the fallen limp figure. He leaned forward, deliberately stepping on Jesse's outstretched hand. "Are you giving in already, Dr Travis. It has only been ten minutes. Are you going to tell me where Day Passer is? I hope not, I'm just beginning to enjoy this little party."

Jesse took a ragged breath. "You're a psychopath, Carlos."

Jesse's only reply was a hit with the bat. It came down on the top half of his spine. It reverberated all the way down his spine, Jesse was sure he could feel it. He cried out and the force of the hit made him jerk and twist into a new position on his back. He looked up as Carlos leaned forward and peered at him through those snake-like eyes. "You going to tell me yet. I'm tired now."

"I'd rather you hit me again with that bat," Jesse managed to say. He was passing out and fading. It was getting harder to breathe and with every breath, he felt searing pain in his appendix area…eventually Carlos gave up.

Community General Hospital—4.36pm

Jesse stopped breathing for a few seconds after that remembrance. To everyone, it was a mystery why it had happened, especially to Pete, who thought the plague to bad things happening to Jesse had stopped. After three shots with the Defibrillator, they finally got his heart back again. He seemed to be all right now but an oxygen mask was kept on for two days just to make sure. After that incident, Mark was certain his nerves were not going to calm down. Nothing else had come up in the case. Steve had found several fingerprints belonging to man named Carlos Berrentes, a former army member of Argentina, who had several convictions and left Argentina later. All the blood was Jesse and the electrocution device had been used so much at a high voltage that the fuse had bust.

Three days passed. Community General was dismal after a confirmation by Pete Taylor that the likelihood of Jesse Travis ever waking up again was very slim. There were mixed emotions. But on that afternoon, a man entered Community General Hospital. He was rather around late thirties/early forties with cropped brown hair, which was already beginning to fade at the top, and the sides were growing gray…or maybe it was from stress? He wore a mud brown jacket and trousers with a white shirt. Looking around the hospital and shivering, he got his navigation processes in and finding reception, walked up to it. The receptionist looked up at him and raised her eyebrows.

"Can I help you?" she asked in a practiced tone.

The man looked around again nervously. "I'm—I want to see Jesse Travis."

The receptionist frowned at the request. She knew what her orders were. Steve Sloan had made sure of it. "I'm sorry, sir, Dr Travis' room is permitted to only a few people and that is just the doctors in this building."

"You don't understand," the man said, beginning to get agitated. "I need to see him."

"I know and I'm sorry sir," the receptionist said, uncertainly.

The man leaned over to her. "It's very, very important that I get to see him. Even if I just have to look at him but I have to be there. It's important to me…"

"Well, sir, Dr Travis is in a coma at the moment," the receptionist. The man looked at her in shock, almost reeling back in shock. His eyes registered absolute disbelief. From the other side of the room, Amanda, Mark and Steve who had been watching thought the man might pass out. He frowned, as if he was wondering how something like this could happen.

Mark frowned as well and pointed his clipboard towards the man. "I don't know why—but there's something about that man which is familiar to me."

Amanda looked closely. "I know what you mean. I swear he's been in this hospital before." Amanda thought back. "Yes, I remember. It was a few weeks ago. He came in for treatment. He would only want to be treated by Dr Travis for a cut finger, which he didn't show anybody. Jesse took him away and stitched him up but didn't mention a thing."

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"No, I won't speak to or be treated to by anyone but Dr Travis," the man told Amanda Bentley. "I want him."

"Well, I'm sorry, sir but I think Dr Travis is treating someone else."

"Tell him—" the man said looking around. "Tell him I'm from WPT. He'll know that it means and he'll come." Sure enough, Jesse didn't come. He looked in surprise at the figure them and then at the surprised faces of Mark and Amanda and hurried off with the man. Amanda and Mark though, curious, had followed Jesse to see what was going on.

The man didn't appear to have any injuries at all. Jesse sighed and leaned against the table. "Listen, Ande—sir. I thought we agreed that you wouldn't visit me at the hospital. It's dangerous. Besides, what could be so important that it could not wait?"

He sighed dejectedly. "There's been a leak." Jesse's face obviously fell.

Mark and Amanda heard no more. "Good morning, Mr. Sloan, Mrs. Bentley," Norman said. "We wouldn't be neglecting our patients or bodies now, would we?"

Amanda rolled her eyes. "No sir," she said and walked on.

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Mark nodded. "That man has been here on several occasions wanting to talk to only Jesse. There weren't only just excuses, just turned up and Jesse always welcomed him in. Anders?"

Steve nodded. "He's the man on the tape. The one who was checking up on Jesse and Day to see how they were. And if I remember rightly, that's the one that was in Jesse's apartment when we were there searching for something." The others all nodded in agreement. Together, they decided the man was not a threat at all when something made them doubt their decision for a second.

The man leaned forward and grabbed the receptionist by her arms, shaking her. "I need to see Jesse Travis. I need to!" The receptionist had absolutely no idea what to do and looked visibly worried about the hysterical man. Mark stepped in quickly, offering a few apologies about the 'drunk' man and dragged him into one of the corridors where Steve and Amanda were waiting. He followed them, not sure where he was being chaperoned but going along anyway. Ever since the incident, he had not been himself lately.

"Are you Mr. Anders?"

The man looked shocked. "Well…I…err, yes. Yes, I am. Miles Anders." He looked down and then up. "How did you know about this?"

"Sorry, Mr. Anders, I'm Dr Mark Sloan, this is my son Steve and pathologist Amanda Bentley. We were digging around into Jesse's incident."

Anders nodded. "You were the ones that chased me out of the apartment." He shook his head and looked up at the curious cases. "Sloan. I remember Jess saying quite a few honorable words about Dr Sloan and his homicide detective son. And about how much you had done. Seemed like the kid really admired you." He straightened his tie. "But facts are reality. How much do you know, Dr Sloan."

"Enough about Jesse's involvement," Mark said.

Anders blinked a few times. He was the perfect idea of a professional, someone used to talking with people, understanding how they felt—now the tables had turned and even though he seemed to try and gain composure, he couldn't help feeling slightly weak. "I'm no threat. I was helping Jesse and Day. That's my job—well, was my job. I got to know Jesse as well as Day really well; I would never harm that kid. Could I see him?"

Mark looked at the others and they nodded. They led Anders through to ICU, where Jesse was staying. Mark opened the door and stepped in behind Anders. Anders took one look at Jesse and lowered his head shaking it. "Aw, kid, what have I done to you," he said with deep regret.

"Was he always your 'kid?'" Steve asked amused.

Anders smiled grimly. "They were all my kids. Even Day Passer was my kid. Jesse was like anyone else but the difference between him and everyone else was, he had a choice and he took it." He walked over to Jesse and looked at the bruised figure before. "Jesse never deserved any of this and it's practically my fault why he's there in the first place. If there's one thing I'd want to take back in my whole life it's this whole goddam mess—all nine months of it."

Mark nodded and looked from the sleeping Jesse to the distraught Miles Anders. If was obvious that he had not slept in a while; the lines showed under his eyes or maybe it was just handling the strain of Day Passer's death. "You do know that Day Passer is dead?" Mark asked, expecting a no but Anders nodded. "You do?"

"I think we need some explaining," Steve suddenly said. Anders looked towards the floor. "Don't think you can hide it from us, Mr. Anders. Jess is one of our best friends. We are the ones that work with him everyday in this place. We have the right to know—if not for justice, than for friendship—what was going on. We want the whole story." Steve stared at the witness protection programmer, hoping that he had somehow convinced the man to do it. Several years in the business had got Steve used to this kind of thing. But this time he knew he felt it, not because he wanted to find an attack (even though that was still a reason) but just to know.

Anders, who had been looking down, now looked up when Steve said these words to look at Jesse again. He supposed he owed it to them to know the truth. Besides, it was what Jesse would have wanted. Time spent with him had taught him that. "All right. You'll have to come to my office. There are things to show you as well. But I want to ask for you help. Jesse talked a lot about how you did these types of cases. I don't know if it's crossing far over the line but I was wondering if you could help."

Amanda nodded. "We'd do anything we can."

----Hey, this is me now, Halina Renata, the author! I was wanna thank everyone who's been reviewing my story so far. I really appreciate it. J (I still urge you to carry and prove to me this story is not going downhill, lol.) Well anyway, I'll get back to the story now. I'm sure you don't want to hear me rattling my thank you's and all that--- Halina