Alex stared with weary eyes into the microscope that was standing on one of
the tables in the laboratory of the Community General Hospital. The people
who usually worked here had gone home ages ago, closing time was long over.
Behind Alex stood Mark and Amanda, also tired, exhausted and shocked by the days events, but that was not a reason for them to stop working right now. For about one hour they had been taking turns, making tests, mixing things together, always keeping an eye at the blood corpuscles under the lense as though those were about to run away as soon as they wouldn't get as much attention as they needed. After all Mark wouldn't even have been surprised by that, these little things didn't behave at all as they were supposed to.
Never having really understood the motives of most of the murderers anyway, Mark could even less understand how someone was really able to produce something with such awful consequences without only wasting one small thought about the men who would have to bear it.
Though it was long after midnight and a creeping mugginess was making the air around them heavy and numb, the three doctors were still concentrated, as well as possible considering the lack of sleep and the worries which fought a hard battle against their normally so keen minds.
Amanda sometimes secretly felt like smashing everything onto the floor in a state of anger and frustration, thinking of the fact that everything that they were doing now might be senseless and not able to rescue Jesse anyway. She threw Mark a glance from time and his lookes told her that he was thinking exactly the same and at the same time knew that he shouldn't think that, wasn't allowed to think of giving it up. However, all this was much more complicated than they had expected.
The worst that couldn't happen now was that they would make a mistake or need on the other hand too much time. Knowing that, the three of them became more and more restless.
"That's it!", mumbled Mark finally, lifting an ampule with a liquid, the result of an hour of their whole efforts.
"Sure?" asked Alex, still stunned by the sight that had offered to him under the microscope. He could read from Mark's eyes that the older doctor didn't dare to acknowledge what he had just said and really Mark didn't want to repeat it because he wasn't certain if he wasn't about to speak out the biggest lie of his life that he would once regret badly.
As Mark entered Jesse's room, his heart was beating in his throat. He wasn't sure if that serum would help his friend and if it wasn't already too late.
Jesse was very calm and his head was turned slightly to the side, the wet cloth had slid from his forehead. The practiced eye was able to see that he wasn't sleeping, but had already drifted into a deep unconcussiouness. Mark shook his head and took place next to the young man. At first he put one hand onto Jesse's forehead only to notice horrorfiedly that his fever had got higher again, then he checked Jesse's breathing and heartbeat. Both was hardly to feel, for a dreadful second Mark believed that there wasn't any pulse, but then he realised that it was just so weak that he needed more than one attempt to find it in the young doctor's sweaty neck.
Mark injected Jesse the antigen, mentally cursing de Nino for everything that had happened. He had rarely ever felt such a big hatred for someone. Mark remembered the time on the roof, the short moment when he had sympathsized de Nino for everything he had been through. But what about the things Jesse had been through and, more important, would still have to go through? If there had still been some of that pity for John left in Mark's soul, it was totally gone now. Now that Mark replaced the moist cloth on Jesse's head and stroked his young friend's blonde hair, he was only angry.
De Nino had been arrested, he would get a trial, he would get his punishment, but did all that help Jesse? No, Jesse was left to himself, again, he had to win that fight for his life on his own, a life that hadn't been to be put into that situation at all.
"Now it depends on you, Jess!", said Mark, though he knew that this time there was definetly no chance that Jesse would be able to hear him. But maybe this sensible little guy was at least able to sense what Mark was telling him with such an ardour.
Now they had to wait.
"Ouch!!!", cried Steve out and cursed. "Considering that you are a surgeon I've thought could do that a bit better!"
"And considering that you are a cop I haven't thought that you would be such a dastard!" retorted Jen as she rammed the sterile neel into Steve's hand.
"Doctor Andrews, you are insulting a civil servant!" replied Steve sulkingly as he winced because of the pain that was constantly dazing his hand.
"And you are quarreling with woman who has the license to use a syringe on you filled with whatever she wants!"
"Are you threatening me?!"
"Depends on you and if you hold still finally or not!" said Jen and made a next attempt to fix the wound on Steve's hand properly. To her surprise and almost to her disappointment, he shut up. His blue eyes wandered through the examining room, his watchful look and the frowns over his temples held a heavy discomfort.
"You are really worried, are you?", she asked and was astonished that her voice could sound so softly.
"Why should I ?!" Steve mumbled sarcastically and frowned. "Because someone has almost killed my father or because my best friend is about to die of a terrible infection?! That's not a reason for worrying, is it?!" His eyes narrowed and Jen felt that, if he had been able to, he would have clenched his fingers in rage and she was glad that she was holding his hand in a tight grip that she wasn't up to loose as long as that wound wasn't taken care of. But she realised that she wasn't going to get anything out of him this way.
"You are making it a little too easy for yourself with your sarcasm, don't you think?" When their eyes met after that question, it was as though hostile sparkles would spread all around them.
"I think that it is not your buisness how I deal with my problems!" snapped Steve and if his hand hadn't hurt so badly he would probably have gone by now.
"Actually....you are right!" she replied calmly, examining the thread she was going to fix his hand with.
"Good...", he glared at her. What was this girl up to? 'She wants listen to you, you damn idiot!!', shouted someone in Steve's head, but he ignored that voice. The least he wanted to do now was to pour his heart out to someone who was only about as half as old as him and besides annoyed him with such impertinent questions. There was only one man Steve knew who could afford to do something like that and would always get an answer, though...Jesse.
Steve sighed. He could feel that he was giving in to this voice. "Jess is my friend...", he started carefully. Jen looked up, in her eyes he believed to see some gloss of triumph, but maybe it was only imagined. "When I went into his room earlier and saw him in that terrible shape, I got that he was about to...god, I'm even afraid of only thinking of the possibility that that nightmare could be become true...My dad was already in danger and then I had Jesse there in my arms and I knew that...." Steve went quiet and looked away from Jen. He didn't want her to see that his eyes were becoming red.
Jen had noticed it, though, but she only carried on sewing his wound.
Steve didn't allow himself to let his emotions win the control over him, he had been used to do that for years. And after ages of experience Steve was doing a really good job. He would probably have forgotten to continue if Jen hadn't asked politely: "Knew what?"
"That...I wasn't able to protect him..." Again Jen Andrews felt how his muscles cramped in his hand and she had quite a problem to aim the punctures properly without hurting him too much. Steve was a hard nut to crack. Both outside and inside.
She sighed. "No one was able to, Steve! Call it destiny, but that whole mess was NOT predictable. And after all we have an antidote now..."
"Of which nobody is sure if it'll work!" Steve threw his hands into the air in frustration and this time Jen couldn't prevent it in time. "Damnit!!" exclaimed her patient as he sank back on the consulting table. When he had calmed down finally she allowed herself one little last question. "Do you really believe it was your fault?"
An almost unrecognizable sad smile flitted over his face. He shook his head. "Actually no, you are right, I couldn't have done anything about it, no one could. But that made me so angry....you know...I've failed once as a big brother, I don't want it to happen a second time!" As he looked into her sligtly stunned face, he wondered if he should regret to have admitted that, but only for a few seconds. He, though feeling a bit sheepish and even emberassed, was sure that telling her the truth hadn't been a mistake and she, though having neither an idea of Carol nor of the problems the Sloans had had with her, was now seeing everything a bit clearer than before.
And, even if it was only a small image of it, she could recognise that tight bond between Steve, his father and his friends, which was actually more than a friendship, it seemed as though each of them had got a part of a family they had always wanted and also deserved, a place to turn to, even if the world had got you with the back against the wall.
Impressed and also a little touched by the fact that some people could share such a great friendsship, Jen Andrews decided to tell Steve what she had been thinking for the past two days, which would maybe sound patheticly when it had been spoken out, but she was willing to take that risk.
"You know...I haven't known Jesse for long..." she began, making the last prick on Steve's wound, "..not as long as you did at least. But you'll certainly agree with me when I say that he is a very capable doctor..."
Steve shrugged almost outragedly. "Capable?! He is the best!" and then he added a bit more reservedly. "Don't think that I have much idea of medicine. I just see how he treats his patients and...that reminds me so much of the way my dad does...I know Jess is good at his job!"
Jen smiled broadly at him. "He surely is, Steve! And to be honest...I think that...if he fights for his own life only half as hard as he does for anyone else's, he will make it through!"
Maybe it was because the determination in her tone, which Steve had missed in all the words that had been spoken out in the last days, even in those from his father, maybe it was because he had often seen his friend rescuing lifes, but he got her point and was even willing to believe it.
He nodded. "You are right...", he agreed and straightened up. He had a much more positive feeling now. Jesse would never give up anyone, also not himself, not as long as there was still a small chance left to win.
Jen wondered if she had exceeded her limits, if she had gone one step too far to the side one the thin line between giving hope and throwing sand into somebody's eyes. But she shook that thought out of her mind and forced herself to be not too self-concussious right now. Instead she pointed at Steve's newly dressed wound. "It is not that bad, but you shouldn't play basketball for the next few days!"
She couldn't know that Jesse had said something similar to Steve once and so she didn't even recognize Steve grimacing a little. He only nodded, pressing his lips together to prevent a coming up tantrum about John de Nino, Gale Wentworth, the guard O'Neill, actually everybody. That whole story was nagging on him, no matter how hard he tried to deny it.
"Thanks!", he said and though it sounded a little suppressedly, Jen could sense the uprightness in his tone.
When Steve walked along the halls, lookin for Amanda and his dad, another very well-known face came towards him. "Still in one piece?! I am impressed!", teased Tanis Archer looking at Steve's bandaged hand.
"The surgeons here are the best!" Steve shrugged, hiding his hand behind his back, which his partner noticed gleefully.
"You must know it!", shot Tanis back.
They were quarreling as usual, in their sarcastic and charming ways, but both noticed that they weren't really in the mood of fooling around.
"So...how is Travis?" inquired Tanis, who never seemed to learn Jesse's first name, but the face that Steve pulled was more than enough of an answer.
"Though I don't think that will make you feel much better...de Nino confessed everything. He poisoned Berrow by giving his pepper drops which contented anticoagulants and he mixed that whatever it was in your father's drink. He wanted to take revenge for his twin's death." She had to force herself not to make any sneery remarks about evil twins, knowing that Steve would't find that very funny right now. He had probably other problems.
Her partner nodded, but, as she had assumed, he didn't seem to be really happy. "Dirty swine!", muttered Steve. After all Tanis was glad that he limited himself to those insultings towards de Nino. There had been times when Steve wouldn't even had hesitated one second before beating him up.
"Told you it wouldn't be a big help!", said Tanis, gnawing on her lip. "I'm going back to the station to write the protocol...."
"I'll stay here!", answered, but he didn't really assume that she had been about to request anything else.
"Good luck!", mumbled Tanis before she left.
'Yeah, good luck...', thought Steve as he made his way to Jesse's room
Without knocking, he only opened the door and sneaked in. Mark and Amanda were sitting on two old chairs. There wasn't much light in the room since Mark hadn't wanted to switch it on and the night outside was still cloudy, moon and stars couldn't be seen. Through the curtain of water drops on the window leaked in some light from the skycrapers around the Community General, they threw a weird cold shimmer and strange shadows into the room.
Mark turned around as he heard the door opening. He and Amanda hadn't been talking, they had just been sitting there lost in thoughts and completely exhausted. "Hey", whispered Steve, he didn't want to disturb the seemingly peaceful silence.
"Hey, good to see you!" Mark grinned a little relievedly. Steve was fine and he was here, and that made Mark feel at least a little at ease.
Steve smiled back. "Mind if I join you?"
Mark and Amanda shook their heads. "Not at all!", Mark replied quietly, as Steve took place on another chair.
So many things had been unsaid and an unpatient, restless and close silence filled the room now. They could hear nothing but Jesse's breath, which was so much weaker than theirs that it was almost drowned by them.
They were waiting, also praying and thinking, but mainly waiting.
Last chapter following soon!!
*********** Actually I had the intention to put everything into this chapter, but as it looks now that would have taken ages! Hope you forgive me and that you are still enjoying the story a bit!!! :-) I thank you so much for the reviews, they are a great help!!! Please keep reviewing! ************
Behind Alex stood Mark and Amanda, also tired, exhausted and shocked by the days events, but that was not a reason for them to stop working right now. For about one hour they had been taking turns, making tests, mixing things together, always keeping an eye at the blood corpuscles under the lense as though those were about to run away as soon as they wouldn't get as much attention as they needed. After all Mark wouldn't even have been surprised by that, these little things didn't behave at all as they were supposed to.
Never having really understood the motives of most of the murderers anyway, Mark could even less understand how someone was really able to produce something with such awful consequences without only wasting one small thought about the men who would have to bear it.
Though it was long after midnight and a creeping mugginess was making the air around them heavy and numb, the three doctors were still concentrated, as well as possible considering the lack of sleep and the worries which fought a hard battle against their normally so keen minds.
Amanda sometimes secretly felt like smashing everything onto the floor in a state of anger and frustration, thinking of the fact that everything that they were doing now might be senseless and not able to rescue Jesse anyway. She threw Mark a glance from time and his lookes told her that he was thinking exactly the same and at the same time knew that he shouldn't think that, wasn't allowed to think of giving it up. However, all this was much more complicated than they had expected.
The worst that couldn't happen now was that they would make a mistake or need on the other hand too much time. Knowing that, the three of them became more and more restless.
"That's it!", mumbled Mark finally, lifting an ampule with a liquid, the result of an hour of their whole efforts.
"Sure?" asked Alex, still stunned by the sight that had offered to him under the microscope. He could read from Mark's eyes that the older doctor didn't dare to acknowledge what he had just said and really Mark didn't want to repeat it because he wasn't certain if he wasn't about to speak out the biggest lie of his life that he would once regret badly.
As Mark entered Jesse's room, his heart was beating in his throat. He wasn't sure if that serum would help his friend and if it wasn't already too late.
Jesse was very calm and his head was turned slightly to the side, the wet cloth had slid from his forehead. The practiced eye was able to see that he wasn't sleeping, but had already drifted into a deep unconcussiouness. Mark shook his head and took place next to the young man. At first he put one hand onto Jesse's forehead only to notice horrorfiedly that his fever had got higher again, then he checked Jesse's breathing and heartbeat. Both was hardly to feel, for a dreadful second Mark believed that there wasn't any pulse, but then he realised that it was just so weak that he needed more than one attempt to find it in the young doctor's sweaty neck.
Mark injected Jesse the antigen, mentally cursing de Nino for everything that had happened. He had rarely ever felt such a big hatred for someone. Mark remembered the time on the roof, the short moment when he had sympathsized de Nino for everything he had been through. But what about the things Jesse had been through and, more important, would still have to go through? If there had still been some of that pity for John left in Mark's soul, it was totally gone now. Now that Mark replaced the moist cloth on Jesse's head and stroked his young friend's blonde hair, he was only angry.
De Nino had been arrested, he would get a trial, he would get his punishment, but did all that help Jesse? No, Jesse was left to himself, again, he had to win that fight for his life on his own, a life that hadn't been to be put into that situation at all.
"Now it depends on you, Jess!", said Mark, though he knew that this time there was definetly no chance that Jesse would be able to hear him. But maybe this sensible little guy was at least able to sense what Mark was telling him with such an ardour.
Now they had to wait.
"Ouch!!!", cried Steve out and cursed. "Considering that you are a surgeon I've thought could do that a bit better!"
"And considering that you are a cop I haven't thought that you would be such a dastard!" retorted Jen as she rammed the sterile neel into Steve's hand.
"Doctor Andrews, you are insulting a civil servant!" replied Steve sulkingly as he winced because of the pain that was constantly dazing his hand.
"And you are quarreling with woman who has the license to use a syringe on you filled with whatever she wants!"
"Are you threatening me?!"
"Depends on you and if you hold still finally or not!" said Jen and made a next attempt to fix the wound on Steve's hand properly. To her surprise and almost to her disappointment, he shut up. His blue eyes wandered through the examining room, his watchful look and the frowns over his temples held a heavy discomfort.
"You are really worried, are you?", she asked and was astonished that her voice could sound so softly.
"Why should I ?!" Steve mumbled sarcastically and frowned. "Because someone has almost killed my father or because my best friend is about to die of a terrible infection?! That's not a reason for worrying, is it?!" His eyes narrowed and Jen felt that, if he had been able to, he would have clenched his fingers in rage and she was glad that she was holding his hand in a tight grip that she wasn't up to loose as long as that wound wasn't taken care of. But she realised that she wasn't going to get anything out of him this way.
"You are making it a little too easy for yourself with your sarcasm, don't you think?" When their eyes met after that question, it was as though hostile sparkles would spread all around them.
"I think that it is not your buisness how I deal with my problems!" snapped Steve and if his hand hadn't hurt so badly he would probably have gone by now.
"Actually....you are right!" she replied calmly, examining the thread she was going to fix his hand with.
"Good...", he glared at her. What was this girl up to? 'She wants listen to you, you damn idiot!!', shouted someone in Steve's head, but he ignored that voice. The least he wanted to do now was to pour his heart out to someone who was only about as half as old as him and besides annoyed him with such impertinent questions. There was only one man Steve knew who could afford to do something like that and would always get an answer, though...Jesse.
Steve sighed. He could feel that he was giving in to this voice. "Jess is my friend...", he started carefully. Jen looked up, in her eyes he believed to see some gloss of triumph, but maybe it was only imagined. "When I went into his room earlier and saw him in that terrible shape, I got that he was about to...god, I'm even afraid of only thinking of the possibility that that nightmare could be become true...My dad was already in danger and then I had Jesse there in my arms and I knew that...." Steve went quiet and looked away from Jen. He didn't want her to see that his eyes were becoming red.
Jen had noticed it, though, but she only carried on sewing his wound.
Steve didn't allow himself to let his emotions win the control over him, he had been used to do that for years. And after ages of experience Steve was doing a really good job. He would probably have forgotten to continue if Jen hadn't asked politely: "Knew what?"
"That...I wasn't able to protect him..." Again Jen Andrews felt how his muscles cramped in his hand and she had quite a problem to aim the punctures properly without hurting him too much. Steve was a hard nut to crack. Both outside and inside.
She sighed. "No one was able to, Steve! Call it destiny, but that whole mess was NOT predictable. And after all we have an antidote now..."
"Of which nobody is sure if it'll work!" Steve threw his hands into the air in frustration and this time Jen couldn't prevent it in time. "Damnit!!" exclaimed her patient as he sank back on the consulting table. When he had calmed down finally she allowed herself one little last question. "Do you really believe it was your fault?"
An almost unrecognizable sad smile flitted over his face. He shook his head. "Actually no, you are right, I couldn't have done anything about it, no one could. But that made me so angry....you know...I've failed once as a big brother, I don't want it to happen a second time!" As he looked into her sligtly stunned face, he wondered if he should regret to have admitted that, but only for a few seconds. He, though feeling a bit sheepish and even emberassed, was sure that telling her the truth hadn't been a mistake and she, though having neither an idea of Carol nor of the problems the Sloans had had with her, was now seeing everything a bit clearer than before.
And, even if it was only a small image of it, she could recognise that tight bond between Steve, his father and his friends, which was actually more than a friendship, it seemed as though each of them had got a part of a family they had always wanted and also deserved, a place to turn to, even if the world had got you with the back against the wall.
Impressed and also a little touched by the fact that some people could share such a great friendsship, Jen Andrews decided to tell Steve what she had been thinking for the past two days, which would maybe sound patheticly when it had been spoken out, but she was willing to take that risk.
"You know...I haven't known Jesse for long..." she began, making the last prick on Steve's wound, "..not as long as you did at least. But you'll certainly agree with me when I say that he is a very capable doctor..."
Steve shrugged almost outragedly. "Capable?! He is the best!" and then he added a bit more reservedly. "Don't think that I have much idea of medicine. I just see how he treats his patients and...that reminds me so much of the way my dad does...I know Jess is good at his job!"
Jen smiled broadly at him. "He surely is, Steve! And to be honest...I think that...if he fights for his own life only half as hard as he does for anyone else's, he will make it through!"
Maybe it was because the determination in her tone, which Steve had missed in all the words that had been spoken out in the last days, even in those from his father, maybe it was because he had often seen his friend rescuing lifes, but he got her point and was even willing to believe it.
He nodded. "You are right...", he agreed and straightened up. He had a much more positive feeling now. Jesse would never give up anyone, also not himself, not as long as there was still a small chance left to win.
Jen wondered if she had exceeded her limits, if she had gone one step too far to the side one the thin line between giving hope and throwing sand into somebody's eyes. But she shook that thought out of her mind and forced herself to be not too self-concussious right now. Instead she pointed at Steve's newly dressed wound. "It is not that bad, but you shouldn't play basketball for the next few days!"
She couldn't know that Jesse had said something similar to Steve once and so she didn't even recognize Steve grimacing a little. He only nodded, pressing his lips together to prevent a coming up tantrum about John de Nino, Gale Wentworth, the guard O'Neill, actually everybody. That whole story was nagging on him, no matter how hard he tried to deny it.
"Thanks!", he said and though it sounded a little suppressedly, Jen could sense the uprightness in his tone.
When Steve walked along the halls, lookin for Amanda and his dad, another very well-known face came towards him. "Still in one piece?! I am impressed!", teased Tanis Archer looking at Steve's bandaged hand.
"The surgeons here are the best!" Steve shrugged, hiding his hand behind his back, which his partner noticed gleefully.
"You must know it!", shot Tanis back.
They were quarreling as usual, in their sarcastic and charming ways, but both noticed that they weren't really in the mood of fooling around.
"So...how is Travis?" inquired Tanis, who never seemed to learn Jesse's first name, but the face that Steve pulled was more than enough of an answer.
"Though I don't think that will make you feel much better...de Nino confessed everything. He poisoned Berrow by giving his pepper drops which contented anticoagulants and he mixed that whatever it was in your father's drink. He wanted to take revenge for his twin's death." She had to force herself not to make any sneery remarks about evil twins, knowing that Steve would't find that very funny right now. He had probably other problems.
Her partner nodded, but, as she had assumed, he didn't seem to be really happy. "Dirty swine!", muttered Steve. After all Tanis was glad that he limited himself to those insultings towards de Nino. There had been times when Steve wouldn't even had hesitated one second before beating him up.
"Told you it wouldn't be a big help!", said Tanis, gnawing on her lip. "I'm going back to the station to write the protocol...."
"I'll stay here!", answered, but he didn't really assume that she had been about to request anything else.
"Good luck!", mumbled Tanis before she left.
'Yeah, good luck...', thought Steve as he made his way to Jesse's room
Without knocking, he only opened the door and sneaked in. Mark and Amanda were sitting on two old chairs. There wasn't much light in the room since Mark hadn't wanted to switch it on and the night outside was still cloudy, moon and stars couldn't be seen. Through the curtain of water drops on the window leaked in some light from the skycrapers around the Community General, they threw a weird cold shimmer and strange shadows into the room.
Mark turned around as he heard the door opening. He and Amanda hadn't been talking, they had just been sitting there lost in thoughts and completely exhausted. "Hey", whispered Steve, he didn't want to disturb the seemingly peaceful silence.
"Hey, good to see you!" Mark grinned a little relievedly. Steve was fine and he was here, and that made Mark feel at least a little at ease.
Steve smiled back. "Mind if I join you?"
Mark and Amanda shook their heads. "Not at all!", Mark replied quietly, as Steve took place on another chair.
So many things had been unsaid and an unpatient, restless and close silence filled the room now. They could hear nothing but Jesse's breath, which was so much weaker than theirs that it was almost drowned by them.
They were waiting, also praying and thinking, but mainly waiting.
Last chapter following soon!!
*********** Actually I had the intention to put everything into this chapter, but as it looks now that would have taken ages! Hope you forgive me and that you are still enjoying the story a bit!!! :-) I thank you so much for the reviews, they are a great help!!! Please keep reviewing! ************