Chapter 16

"You're too late, Sloan…"  The mocking words echoed in his head, as Steve jerked violently awake, drenched with sweat, the sound of his racing heart pounding hard and fast in his ears.  Nightmare, he thought, as he realized he was still lying in the unfamiliar hospital room, it was just a nightmare.  He lay still for a few minutes, struggling to get his breathing and heart rate back under control.  The too-vivid images of the dream were already starting to fade, thankfully, but the emotional horror remained.  He'd had this nightmare, or something very similar, before, although it had been a long time since the last one.  The dream varied in detail, but it always revolved around his father's conviction for murder when he had been framed by the Trainors.  In its worst forms –  and this had been one of them – he not only relived the heart-breaking moment when the judge had pronounced the death sentence on his father, but he failed to prove Mark's innocence in time, and he had to endure the agony of watching his father's execution.  This time, in his dream, he knew he had evidence that would free his father, but when he arrived at the courthouse to present it, he found that Mark had already been taken to the execution chamber.  He had rushed to the prison, only to be forced to watch in helpless anguish as his father was strapped in and prepared for the lethal injection.  He had seen the fear and desperate appeal that Mark couldn't quite hide as he faced his imminent death, and heard Malcolm Trainor's mocking voice taunting him with his failure to save his father, as he had struggled frantically, but unsuccessfully, to halt the execution.

Steve concentrated on taking long, slow breaths to calm himself.  It's a good thing I'm not still attached to the monitors, he thought to himself with grim humor, or I'd be setting off alarm bells all over the place.  As his racing pulse gradually slowed, he cursed his current helplessness that he knew had triggered the nightmare of that previous, horrific time when he had lived with the gut-wrenching fear that he would be unable to save his father.  The sense of failure, of letting his father down in his time of greatest need, lingered, compounding his aching frustration with being tied to this damn bed while Mark rotted in prison.  His mouth compressed into a tight, grim line, Steve fought the desperate need to get out and do something to bring this current nightmare to an end.  He knew that, unless there was some sign of progress in the attempt to clear Mark soon, he was going to lose that fight.  He hoped that Jesse would turn up with some good news before too long.

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Jesse hesitated before entering Steve's room, taking a moment to compose himself. He realized that, if he was going to have any chance of keeping Steve in this hospital, he had to put as positive a spin as possible on the events of the last 24 hours. Drawing a deep breath, he walked in, announcing as cheerfully as he could, "Good news, we've got an ID for the kid at the cabin!"

Steve turned instantly, his eyes intently scanning his friend's face.

"Great. What did Dad say?" he asked, the tension in him palpable. Jesse surveyed him as unobtrusively as he could, dismayed to notice that his friend obviously wasn't dealing very well with his enforced inaction. He got the distinct impression that he had been correct in his assumption that if he hadn't shown up with some definite information, Steve would have been on his way out the door already.

Jesse chose his words with care. "He identified one of the pictures in the high school yearbook as the boy who drugged him. His name's Bobby Phillips."

"Okay, so where is he? Have you talked to him yet? Did you have the sheriff see if he could corroborate Dad's story?" The torrent of questions poured forth with a decided edge.

"Well, I haven't exactly had a chance to talk to him yet," Jesse started to explain. However, he was interrupted before he got any further.

"Why not?" demanded Steve angrily. "We've got to get his story if we're going to get Dad out of jail. What've you been doing all this time?"

"Wait a minute," Jesse exclaimed defensively, his own temper shortened by the pressure and anxiety he'd been experiencing. "I've just got back from talking to Mark!  I haven't had a chance to see this kid yet – he's not even out of school yet!  Besides, I sort of figured you'd want to know what was going on, so I thought I'd stop here first. Maybe you'd rather I'd just stayed away?"

Steve's flare of temper died abruptly.

"I'm sorry, Jess," he apologized. "I'm just so worried about Dad and frustrated with being stuck in here."

"I know," Jesse interjected, already regretting his own angry words. "I'm worried about him too."

"How is he?" Steve asked, the depth of his concern reflected in the sudden vulnerability in his face. 

Jesse walked toward the window, knowing that he would have a better chance of prevaricating if Steve were unable to see his face too closely. He could almost feel Steve's gaze following him intently.

"Well, he's not too happy," he admitted with deliberate understatement, "but I think it helped that he was able to identify the boy."

Steve scrutinized as much as he could see of his friend's face, noting the fact that Jesse was having a hard time meeting his eyes. He felt himself tense again, his always-sensitive instincts regarding his father's well-being honing in on the slight hesitation and the careful wording of the response.

"That's not telling me much, Jess," he prodded suspiciously. "Was he able to tell you any more than he did last time? Now that he knows I'm going to be okay, is he coping any better?"

Jesse struggled to find the words to answer Steve's questions without unduly alarming him, but his reluctance to be forthcoming was increasingly obvious, and Steve was not prepared to accept anything but the truth.

"Jesse," he urged, his voice soft, but compelling. "Please. I have to know." His eyes held his friend's, making further evasion impossible. Jesse capitulated, his concern, once released, flowing forth in a rush.

"How do you think he is, Steve?" he asked, his frustration with the whole situation getting the better of him. "You know how he feels about you. You mean the world to him, and now he thinks he shot you." He started to pace up and down the room, struggling to find the words to accurately convey Mark's state of mind. "I've never seen him like this. Your dad is always so together, you know? He always manages to keep things in perspective. When the Sweeneys blew up the hospital, I know he blamed himself, but he always managed to keep in mind that, although he was the reason Community General was targeted, it was still the Sweeneys who were to blame. He always kept his focus on the goal of stopping them. But now, he has nothing to do but sit in that jail cell and think about how he hurt you. I never thought I would apply this word to Mark, but he's really depressed. We're talking a serious clinical depression here."

Jesse paused, assessing the impact of his news on Steve by the grim set of his jaw and the tightness around his eyes, and instantly regretted his honesty. Even as he watched, he could see the resolve start to form, and he moved quickly to intervene before it solidified.

"At this point, the worst thing you could do is to show up at the jail," Jesse warned, anticipating Steve's instinctive response. "We've already been through this; it's only going to make things worse for Mark if he feels responsible for you risking your life by leaving the hospital too soon."

Steve clamped his jaw shut, trying to contain the mounting frustration that was rapidly reaching explosive proportions.  The thought of the anguish his father was experiencing was breaking his heart.  He knew how much Mark hated parading his own grief and pain; he always managed to maintain a reasonable degree of composure in front of other people, even his closest friends.  Even to his son, during those heartwrenching prison visits when he had been languishing on death row, he had put up a good front of remaining hopeful and focussed on resolving the situation.  To sit by helplessly while his father endured a degree of anguish severe enough to break down his usual reserve and resilience was more than Steve could stand.

"I've got to do something," he insisted. "I can't just sit here and do nothing!"

Jesse pulled out the photographs he had had developed overnight, and held them out to his friend.

"Here; take a look at these," he suggested. "I figured since you couldn't go to the scene, I'd bring the scene to you."

Steve eagerly seized the pictures, but paused for a moment, looking back up at his friend.  "You know, Jess," he said, "Dad and I don't tell you often enough how much we appreciate your help.  Thanks for helping us through this one."

Jesse smiled at him.  "Hey, we're practically family.  In fact, you guys taught me what family means, so don't worry about it.  I'm happy to do anything I can to help."

Steve nodded, and returned his attention to the pictures, thumbing through the pile, examining them carefully. He paused over the shots of the dishware scattered around the picnic table, and suddenly had a vivid flashback of the same scene, the day he returned from the trial.

"What is it?" Jesse asked in alarm at his friend's sudden immobility. From his position next to the bed, he was unable to see which photograph has provoked this reaction.

"There's something wrong here," Steve said slowly, still perusing the series of pictures intently. "I've got it! When I came back that afternoon, I remember wondering who had been eating with Dad. There were two plates on the table, one with an unfinished sandwich, but there was only one glass and one bowl."

"I found the other bowl in the kitchen," Jesse told him, pulling out the picture he had taken of the drainboard.  "Mark must have brought it in and rinsed it out when he went back in the cabin for the lemonade.  And I found one of the plates stuck in a bush."  He pointed out that picture as well.

"That accounts for both bowls," Steve commented, "and it's possible that the other plate just blew away.  But there's still only one glass that I can see." He looked up at Jesse, a triumphant gleam in his eye. "I'd bet you anything the drug was in the missing glass; that's why they couldn't find any trace of narcotics at the scene. If we can find it, it would go a long way towards clearing Dad."

He continued to study the photographs, feeling a new energy and determination. As he stared at a picture of the clearing, he experienced another flashback, this time of his father standing there holding a gun, and felt an instant of fear; but he knew instinctively it was for his father not for himself.

Lastly, he looked at the picture Jesse had taken down the hill where Mark had fallen.

"I'm glad Dad wasn't hurt any worse," he observed, as he noted the steepness and rockiness of the slope.

"No, luckily the rib was just cracked, it could have been a lot worse," Jesse answered absently, his mind elsewhere. He didn't realize his mistake until Steve jumped on that last comment furiously.

"What cracked rib? Damn it, Jesse, you didn't tell me he was hurt. How dare you keep that kind of information from me?"

Unused to having Steve so angry with him, Jesse reacted instinctively, a guilty blush creeping up his face.

"I only found out this morning." He realized at once it was the wrong thing to say. Steve's expression grew more thunderous, and, almost involuntarily, Jesse found himself explaining.

"He said there was some kind of altercation with another prisoner. He wasn't badly hurt…"

"What kind of 'altercation'?" Steve demanded in a voice tightened by the sudden anxiety and dread that gripped him.

"He got punched by one of the prisoners; it only lasted a minute before the guard broke it up," Jesse explained hastily, trying to offer reassurance against the fear he saw in his friend's eyes.  "The cracked rib and a bruised throat were the only damage."

Steve's gaze bored into his friend, trying to determine if there was anything more to it that he still hadn't told him.  Convinced that Jesse hadn't kept anything else back, he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to control the terror that had washed over him at the thought of what might have happened.  He knew all too well what could happen to someone in prison – the types of beatings and assaults, even rapes, that sometimes occurred among the prisoners.  The vision of his father being subjected to those horrors was literally more than he could bear.  Goaded beyond his endurance, he painfully sat up and swung his legs to the side of the bed, declaring with finality, "That's it."

Jesse was in no doubt as to the meaning of that utterance, but he made one last-ditch attempt to keep his friend in the hospital long enough to recover more fully.

"Steve, we've already gone over this. If you end up back in here undergoing emergency surgery, you're only going to make things worse for your dad."

"So what do you expect me to do, Jess?" Steve demanded harshly. "Wait around until the next time my father is attacked – until someone does more serious, permanent damage? Or until he tears himself apart with guilt and grief over something that's not his fault?"  He held Jesse's eyes, his own filled with a hard anger and determination. "Well, I'm not going to do it.  I can't.  I'm signing myself out now. You can either help me or get out of my way."

"It'll be against medical advice," Jesse tried without much hope, recognizing an immovable force when he saw one. The news of Mark's physical danger, coupled with his emotional state, pushed every protective button Steve had concerning his father, and there was no stopping him now.

"Just give me my clothes, Jess," was the grim response.

Jesse complied, accepting the inevitable, his mind already turning to ways to minimize the risk of further damage. He'd have to pick up a supply of oral antibiotic – they couldn't risk any chance of returning infection.  Maybe he could borrow a wheelchair… As he disconnected the IV and helped Steve up, he reflected that it was becoming increasingly difficult to try to juggle the best interests of both his friends at once.