Rae wasn't sure how long she had been by Jesse's side before she began to take in all the machinery around him. Slowly she looked at the face of the man she really wanted to be married to, and saw that it was as bruised and battered as she imagined her own was. But more than that he was, she knew, on a life support machine. Rae turned and looked at Alex. "Tell me, Alex, tell me what's wrong with him."
Jo appeared by her side then, and Rae just stared at her. "Texas? Oh, God, I can't take all this in." She put her head back down on the bed. It seemed to her just minutes since she had been completely alone and tied down, and now she was free with all her friends, or almost all of them, around her.
Jo crouched down beside her. "Honey, I have been here with Jesse on an' off since we found him, so has everybody else, we never left him alone for a moment." Well, not since he was put on this machine anyway. "I bought these for you from the hospital shop, would you like to slip them on in a while?" She handed Rae a pair of pale blue pyjamas and Rae nodded.
"But, but the paper said he was… he was dead. Levington couldn't have made that up, could he?" Rae looked confused and her eyes swept over the three other people in the room.
"No, Rae, he didn't make it up, we did." It was Steve who spoke and he saw something else, another emotion as it crossed her face, and then her eyes flashed with fury, and he thought she was about to explode, but the anger disappeared again, as quickly as it had arrived.
"Why? Why did you do that? It just gave him the chance to humiliate and punish me more, and if it hadn't been for my baby…" her eyes travelled back over to Jesse, "our baby, I would have given in there and then. Steve, how could you do that to me?" Rae's voice was raised for a moment and she tried to move away from them all but she felt Alex place his hands on her shoulders.
"Stop it, Rae. Sit down and listen, and we will explain to you. Do you think that we didn't consider you and your feelings before we put that announcement in the paper? Of course we did. You were the reason it was there. Nothing else mattered but to find you, and we had no idea where you were."
Alex saw Rae's emotions change once again, and he knew, without a doubt that she was going to have big problems, sooner rather than later, as she let her body just crumple against her doctor. "Come on, sit back down, and let Steve explain to you. Ok?"
"I'm sorry, Steve, I'm sorry." Rae sat as she had been told. She took a deep breath. "I will listen, and I will try not to interrupt." She smiled as she saw Texas pull a chair over next to her.
"God, girl I have missed you." Jo placed her hand over Rae's and prepared to listen as well, as her boyfriend explained the horrors they had all endured.
"We had no idea that you were in any kind of trouble until the Monday morning. Dad saw the announcement of your engagement in an old edition of the paper while he was eating his breakfast here. He called us and we decided to come over and help you celebrate." Steve paused for a moment as he remembered that it was the last time any of them had felt anything other than helpless, and he knew it would be a long time before they would all feel that happy again.
Jo took over for a little while as she saw Steve become lost in the early emotions of the case. "We had balloons an' cake. We knocked on your door, but nobody answered. We were gonna go when Steve remembered that Mark still had a key." Jo leant over, hoping to make her friend smile just a little. "CJ an' Dion had decorated Steve's casts. He can show you them later, an' he had a smiley balloon tied to one of his fingers!" She felt her mood lighten just a little as she got the smile she had hoped for. "We let ourselves in an' we were decoratin' the room when Steve thought he heard a noise."
"I still don't know what it was I heard, or even if I did hear anything, but I just knew we weren't alone. I moved into the bedroom." He paused again. If he shut his eyes he could still see Jesse tied up and half dead behind the bed. "I saw Jesse…" He too moved closer, crouched down and placed one of his large hands over Rae's "Honey, do you know what he did to Jesse?"
Rae nodded, and began to tell part of her story. "I woke up and Levington was in my apartment. Right there next to my bed. We had nearly left the building when Jesse came round the corner, I called out for him to run away, but he didn't. He… he stayed with me, just like he promised he would. Then, Levington took us back to my place… yeah, I knew what he did to him." Her eyes travelled back to the completely still figure on the bed just out of her reach. It seemed to her that he had been out of her reach almost forever.
"I couldn't get to him, there isn't much room between the edge of your bed and the wall, and Dad wouldn't let us move anything until the paramedics got there. I don't know if he was conscious when we arrived, but Jo lay across the bed and talked to him until the ambulance came. He was unconscious when he was finally moved to a gurney, but he came round and he told us that Levington had you, and that you were pregnant, then he passed out again." He looked across at Alex, and waited. Slowly the young doctor began his part of the tale.
"Rae," he said just the one word so that she knew who was speaking. "Jesse crashed in the ambulance, and again almost as soon as he arrived here. It took a long time to get him back." This time it was he who paused as he remembered trying to get Mark to stop resuscitating Jesse. He had been wrong; it was a lesson well learnt, he wouldn't make that mistake again. "Mark got him stabilized and down to the OR. He had a bullet lodged in his back, in-between his shoulder blade and his spine."
"Oh, my, God. Alex, what does that mean? Is he paralysed?"
"We don't know yet. The bullet is still there. Everywhere was so swollen by the time we got him to the OR that the decision was made to leave it where it was. Once he is a little better then we will operate and remove it. He is on broad spectrum anti-biotics so that there won't be any chance of infection, but he has more problems than that."
"When did you say you found him?" Rae's mind had started to backtrack.
"Monday morning. He was very weak, he had suffered major blood loss, and had to have a transfusion, he was dehydrated, which is what the IV's are for, and he was suffering from shock." Alex waited to see if Rae had anything more to say.
"Saturday, Levington took me Saturday morning, he was there for forty-eight hours before anyone found him. Oh, God, why did we say we wanted a weekend to ourselves?"
"Honey, did you tell Jesse about the baby while you were together on the Thursday an' Friday?" Jo watched as her friend nodded. "Then I can understand you wantin' to spend the weekend alone, that is special news, an' what with Jesse proposin' an' all. Most people would have done that. You have nothin' to be remonstratin' with yourself for."
Rae looked at her three friends. She could tell from their expressions that they still had things to say, and she got a feeling that the worst was still to come. "There is more to this isn't there?"
"Jesse wasn't on life support when he first came in. Even though he was very ill, once he had been resuscitated he was breathing on his own, then after he came round he was lucid and it appeared that the bullet hadn't caused any paralysis." Alex stopped. He didn't want to be the one to tell her the next part.
"But, now, now he could die, couldn't he?"
Alex nodded and looked over at Steve. He hadn't been a major part of what had happened next, and Alex knew that Steve would tell it better than he could.
Steve took a deep breath. He didn't want to speak, but he knew that of the three of them he alone knew what had really happened. He hadn't been there for all of it, but the results of what had occurred had reverberated around the squad room and he had been given an accurate account of everything.
"Once Dad had gotten Jesse stabilised he came round real quick. They x-rayed his shoulder and that was when the decision was made to leave things as they were. Jesse was conscious the whole time, and they discussed it all with him. He was a bit out of it, but his medical training kicked in, he knew what was happening. He was real worried about you and the baby, we all were, and when I had to go back to the station I promised him I would let him know what was happening."
"And then? Steve, for God's sake he is on a life support machine, if I press that switch over there he will die. What happened to change everything so dramatically?" Rae was far more alert now. She was terrified for Jesse, but for the first time in days she wasn't scared for her own safety.
"Jesse was put in this room, and Dad told him not to move. He was gonna put a neck brace on for him and then they were going to give him some drugs which would induce paralysis so that he couldn't damage himself. Dad didn't want to move him until the treatment had been completed; so he was settled in here first and then the treatment was gonna start. But the neck brace wasn't with everything else so Dad went down to the stores to get one." Steve paused then. In other circumstances the sequence of events would have been annoying or just mildly annoying, but instead it had become life threatening.
"Dad got down to the ER just in time for a major RTA to arrive. He was handed a patient and it was forty minutes before he was able to leave and get the brace. He hadn't been worried about Jesse, because he knew that he wouldn't move. Anybody else and he would have been extremely concerned, but Jesse is a doctor… and that was the problem in the end."
"Steve, I swear I will shake it out of you in a minute. What happened?"
Jo put her hand back on Rae's "Honey this is very difficult for everybody. We all feel responsible for what happened next. Let him tell it in his own time, ok?"
"Steve, I'm sorry. I'll wait." Rae looked at her partner and for the first time she saw how physically exhausted he was. It had registered earlier that he was unshaven and… haunted, she had thought of him as haunted, but now, she could see that he was on the verge of breaking down himself. She stood up and moved closer to him and slowly and carefully, because most of her hurt or ached, she made him sit on the end of the bed, and then she knelt in front of him. "Steve, look at me." She was relieved that he did so straight away. "I don't know what happened yet, and I will wait, but I do know that none of you would hurt Jesse purposely." Steve put his arm round her and for a minute or two they just hugged each other.
Jo and Alex watched, as the two detectives seemed to draw strength from each other. Jo hadn't talked to her friend about the kiss Rae and Steve had shared, and she knew now that she never would. She could see for herself just how close they were, and how special their relationship was, but she could also see that she had no need to worry about losing her man to her best friend, it just wouldn't happen.
"Rae, I have to tell you this, I can't keep it in any more, bring your seat over here, and then I'll continue."
Rae did as she was told, and they could all see just how much it hurt her to pick up the chair and move it across the room Alex rushed over and took it from her. "Thank you, Alex, I'm just a bit sore." She sat gratefully down, and then placing her hand over Steve's larger one she prepared to listen to how Jesse ended up the way he was.
"There were two police officers stationed outside Jesse's room, and when I went I left the door open. Well, these two men began to talk, I don't know if they knew that Jesse could hear them, or whether it even occurred to them to check, but they started to voice their opinions on whether or not you would be found. I only have their account of what they said. I think it's true, and as they had the Chief and the Captain staring them down as they recounted their version I guess it's as close as we will get. First of all they began to talk about how things seemed to happen to you, how ever since you had arrived here you had been nothing but a liability." Steve looked at her.
"Go on." Rae's voice was tight; she didn't think she could say anything else.
"They talked about how screwed up you had been the last time Levington had been on the loose. I don't know how they knew, station gossip I guess, and then they got on to what had happened this time. One of them is a friend of Martin's and he was saying that you would have been much better off with him, that at least Martin would have been able to protect you, and not keep ending up in his own hospital." Steve stopped again, he knew she wanted to hear everything but he wasn't sure if he could tell her.
"Go on." Rae still had no idea what else to say. She looked straight at Steve and he knew he had no choice but to continue.
"Then they started talking about the impossible task of finding you. How nobody had any idea where you were, whether you were even alive, and now that you were pregnant, well, they both decided that you were already dead, and if you weren't, once you began to show you would be turning up as a Jane Doe, no doubt about it."
"How did they know I was pregnant?"
"Mark talked to Jesse about it when they were bringin' him up to the room. I guess he was tryin' to cheer him up, give him somethin' positive to think about. The two cops were with him by then."
Rae looked over at Jo. "Oh. He was so pleased you know, that he was gonna be a dad." Rae brushed at a tear. She would not cry, not yet.
"Well, Jesse was very fragile, you know that, he was suffering mentally and physically from what had been done to him and you. We don't know exactly what happened, but this is what seems the most likely. He got out of bed, and picked up a canister of painkillers from the medicine tray that was waiting ready for Dad to treat him. There were plenty of different drugs on there, but he knew what he was looking for, and then he got a glass of water from the sink, and he took them, all of them. By the time Dad got back he was unconscious on the bed, the canister beside him. He wasn't breathing, Rae, and Dad had to revive him. We have no idea how long he was without oxygen. He could have some brain damage."
Alex began to speak again. "He should really be in ICU, but it was too risky to move him, so everything was brought to him, and he has been like that ever since."
The tears began to flow now, and Rae could do nothing to stop them. She had believed him to be dead, and hadn't been allowed to grieve, and now he was alive, but that was almost worse. He had tried to kill himself; because he couldn't cope with the fact that she was lost, she couldn't believe that someone so positive and alive as her Jesse could do that. And she had to accept the fact that he may yet die or wake up different to how he had been before.
"Rae, " This time it was Alex who spoke. "We pumped his stomach, and got him onto life support straight away. We are pretty sure that he will recover, but when he got out of bed and took the pills, the bullet moved. Mark had him x-rayed once he realised that he had been up and about, and it is closer to his spine now than it was before. I'm sorry, Rae."
"I know." Rae wiped her hand across her eyes. "This is the fault of those two officers, nobody else, well apart from Levington, but I don't even want to think his name anymore." She lowered her voice then and they had to strain to catch it. "Even if legally it is my name too." She shook herself. "What has happened to them?"
"Well, as soon as Dad realised what was going on and he had treated Jesse, his mind started to work. He knew that there had to be a reason why Jesse would attempt suicide, and he also knew that nobody had been in to see him, so he began to question the two officers."
"And what did Bill and Ben have to say for themselves?"
"Sorry, Rae, who?"
"I don't know their names, but I have to call them something, to give them a form I can hate. Bill and Ben were two characters on children's TV when I was small. They were made from flowerpots and they talked gibberish. It's a shame these two hadn't been doing the same."
Steve looked at her for a moment. She never ceased to amaze him. She wasn't any less concerned or angry about what had happened than he was, but she dealt with it in a completely different way.
"They told the Chief and the Captain what they had said. They hadn't even realised that Jesse had been conscious and was now unconscious until Dad came back. Rae, I am so sorry that this has happened."
"But why did you tell the papers he was dead? I can understand why he wanted to kill himself, when I read that headline I felt the same."
"Bill and Ben were right." He couldn't help but smile to himself; it did help to give them a name. "We had absolutely no idea where you were, he had two days start on us at least. Jesse didn't know what day it was; or how long you had been gone. When we nearly lost Jesse, and it was very close, Rae, if Dad had been away any longer he would have been gone when he got back… anyway when we nearly lost him, it gave Dad the idea of how we could flush Levington out. He knew that he just wouldn't be able to resist seeing Jesse laid to rest. But letting him know had to be done realistically, and not knowing where he was we had to put it in the paper. We got onto Shelby at the Comet and she helped us out, and, well, you know what happened after that."
"Yeah I do." Rae ran her hands through her hair, "I'm sorry, guys, but this is too much to take in." She felt herself begin to fight her emotions, and she began to lose perspective on where she was.
"Rae, Rae, look at me." It was Alex who was speaking to her.
"I'm ok, Alex, I just don't know which way is up right now."
"Come on, I want you back in bed, no arguments." He gently helped her to her feet and guided her round and into bed. As she lay down she saw him get his stethoscope out and begin to listen to her breathing.
"Alex, check the baby, please."
"I will, don't worry, every time I check you I'll be checking him or her too." Soon he stood up straight again. "It's ok, I think you're about eight weeks pregnant. But I'll do another scan tomorrow to make sure. I'll keep a very close eye on you and your baby. It hasn't had an ideal first two months but we can make up for that in the last seven, can't we?" He looked at her and saw that she was only half listening to him. "Rae, are you ok?"
"I think I need to just lie here and try and digest everything that you have told me. Do you mind?"
"Of course not, Honey, but I'll stay with you. I've been sittin' with Jesse so I guess I can cope with the two, sorry, the three of you." Jo smiled at her friend and moved closer to her. She saw Rae hold her arms out to her and then they were hugging, and Jo let some of the tears she had been holding back fall. "Oh, Rae, I have been so worried for you."
"I know, I knew everybody would be looking for me, but sometimes that just didn't register, and other times I just felt that nobody would ever find me no matter how hard they looked... Texas, can you let me talk to Alex, just for a moment?" Rae stopped talking and waited. Steve and Jo took the hint and they both quietly left the room.
"What is it Rae?"
"Alex, he… he raped me when I was there… I don't know how many times, but I was awake when… when he did it to me… at least twice… will that harm the baby?"
Alex looked at her, he could see that she was trying so hard to keep her tears inside her and his heart went out to her. "No, Honey, your baby would have been protected in the womb. Unless he was very violent with you, which I know he wasn't, it should be something that only you have to get over, not your baby. But I'll have to run some tests on you. Serious tests, but they can wait a little while."
"How do you know that it wasn't violent? It felt violent to me." Rae couldn't even think about other tests right now, she would have to try to remember to ask about them later.
"When you arrived here I examined you, thoroughly. Rae, physically you will be ok, you will recover. Maybe violent was the wrong word to use, I know he was violent towards you, but he didn't hurt you badly enough for it to damage your baby."
"Thank you, Alex, I don't think you've ever called me honey before." She smiled at him as she saw him blush.
"I'm sorry, it just came out."
"Alex, don't worry, you're my friend as well as my doctor, I can do with all the kind words I can get at the moment." A yawn escaped her then and she rubbed her eyes. "I have so many other things I have to talk about, but I am so tired right now that I can't concentrate on them, can you ask Texas to come stay with me, Alex, just till I fall asleep? Then she can move back over to Jesse's side of the room, he needs her more than I do."
Alex wasn't so sure about that, but he wasn't going to argue. "I'll go and get her."
Steve and Jo had moved slightly away from the officer on duty as they left the room and Steve had sat down and placed his head in his hands.
"Steve? Honey, you need to get some rest. You aren't recovered yourself yet."
"I'll be all right. But I'm not so sure about Rae. How is she going to cope with all this? She was too calm while we were talking to her, but there were all sorts of emotions just under the surface, and if she loses control what is it gonna do to the baby?"
"I can't answer your questions, an' I know you can't either. We are just going to have to hang in there an' be there for her whenever she wants us. They are both gonna need everything we can give them to get over this." Jo stopped talking and looked up as Alex came out of the room.
"Jo, can you go and sit with her again? She'll be asleep in a few minutes, but she said that Jesse needs you too."
"Of course. Steve, darlin', I would suggest that you call your dad an' then together you can go an' get some of that food you love so much. Then we can swap places an' I can try it as well." With that she kissed him gently on the cheek and moved back into the room that housed both Rae and Jesse.
Rae was sitting up with her eyes staring at her fiancée. "Texas, do you think he will ever wake up? This baby needs a daddy, and I want him back, I can't imagine my life without him, to never see him smile at me again, or not to hear his voice …" Her eyes began to fill with tears and Jo moved quickly over to her.
"Ok, now, you need to shut your eyes, an' let your body take over. You an' your little one need to rest, an' I am gonna make sure that you do just that."
"Yes, mom. Texas, thank you … for staying with him …" Rae's voice was already getting slower, and her eyes began to close. Jo sighed; she didn't want to have to go through a morning…Lord, is it still the mornin?'… like this one ever again, not for anything or anybody. She leant her head back in the seat she was in and closed her own eyes. She could tell that Rae had things she wanted to tell her, and she would listen, but she knew that her friend needed to be a little stronger before she began her story.
Bernice Levington had been thinking all morning about how she was going to get to that little tramp in the hospital. She had checked the morning paper and there had been an announcement about her discovery, and a statement saying that she was in no danger, and that another report would be released in a day or two. She knew that was no good for her, and so she had been planning ever since.
She had phoned Marlene's son Chucky and he was coming over any time now. She didn't drive herself, that was a man's job, and so he would take her to the hospital. She had what she needed to finish off a chore she should have dealt with before her beloved son had gone to jail the first time, and she knew that this time she would not fail.
Rae had woken up feeling very weak and ill about an hour after she had gone to sleep, and she had found Texas fast asleep next to her. She smiled; she guessed that not many of her friends had got much sleep over the last few days. She knew why she felt sick, and so she had quietly got out of bed and, leaving a note on the bed she had opened the door to her room. There was a policewoman just outside and she had nearly given her a heart attack when she had tapped her on the shoulder.
"Shhh, I don't want to wake Texas. Do you know if Lieutenant Sloan is still in the hospital?"
"Yes, Ma'am, I believe he's in the cafeteria." The policewoman smiled, she had eaten there earlier, and she now definitely didn't believe the rumours that the detective liked the food.
"Good, because that's where I would like to be too. I haven't had anything to eat since breakfast time yesterday. Could you ask him to come and get me, I know he won't let me go down on my own."
"Yes, straight away." The officer put a call through on her radio, and Rae sat on a chair in the hallway, impatiently waiting for him to come to her.
Steve walked down the hallway towards his partner; he could see her talking to the uniformed policewoman who had been assigned to guard her. This time he knew that there would be no problems, Officer Neville was a God fearing, highly ambitious woman, and Steve was sure that she would regard this as a high profile assignment.
Rae stood up as Steve came down the corridor. "Rae, you should be in bed. I've had a word with the chef and she will send you up a meal in about ten minutes."
Rae went to protest but she looked at her partner's face first, and she recognised the look. There was no way he was going to let her out of her room, so she got up and turned and went back towards her bed. Jo began to stir as she heard the door open.
"Rae, what are you doing gettin' out of bed?"
"I wanted to get something to eat. But Steve won't let me leave the room, so I am going to eat here." Rae looked over at him as he stood in the doorway, she had a question to ask him, but she had a sinking feeling that she knew the answer already. "What did you order for me?"
Steve smiled. It had been an easy decision; they'd had two of his favourites on today. "Macaroni and cheese."
Rae got back into her bed and tried to ignore the fact that even the mention of her lunch made her stomach roll. "Oh, thank you." Her words came out weakly, and Steve looked at her with concern.
"Rae, are you all right?"
"Yeah, but I don't think the baby likes macaroni cheese."
At that moment the door opened and a trolley was rolled in. There were two plates on the top shelf, and as Rae made herself comfortable to eat her lunch the unmistakable smell wafted her way.
Steve looked over at the lady from the cafeteria. "Thanks, can you give one serving to Detective Yeager, and the other to Miss Walters please." She gave one plate to Rae, and then she pushed the bed tray across her and watched as she put the plate down in front of her.
"And you are going to sit and watch me eat every mouthful aren't you?"
"Oh, yeah, and I have another plateful for Jo." Steve smiled as the second plate was handed over. "Thank you." The woman pushed the tray out of the room and then Steve sat in the chair next to Jesse's bed and watched them.
"Ok, if you eat it I will." Rae smiled, for some reason the whole lunch thing had made her want to laugh. "You know I haven't eaten this stuff since I was a child, and I can't say I had planned to try it again until I was in my dotage."
Jo looked at her friend, and smiled as she repeated something she had said earlier. "God, girl I've missed you."
Rae's eyes misted over as she saw her best friend and her partner, and Jesse lying so still behind Steve. She knew whatever happened next that she and Jesse would have support from those they loved the most, and in the end that was all that mattered.
When Rae had finished her lunch she looked over at Steve. "Where are Mark and Amanda? Are they here in the hospital?"
"They are, but Amanda has the results of a drive by shooting at a shopping mall to deal with, and Dad, well he feels so bad about Jesse, that he didn't want to come until you asked to see him."
"No, Steve, he mustn't feel that way. If I ask you, then will he come and see me?"
"Yeah, I'm sure he will, do you want Jo to call him?"
Jo saw Rae nod and so she went over to the phone on the wall and punched in the number for the switchboard. "Doctor Sloan, please…" Steve and Rae watched as Jo listened carefully "Ok, could you have him paged to room 2998" Jo turned to speak to them. "He isn't answerin' so I am gonna have him paged… Oh, I see, well if you could leave a message for him, in fact if someone could get the message to him in there I am sure he will feel much better… Ok, just tell him that Rae would like to see him when he is free… I will, thank you." Jo turned back then and smiled. He is in the OR at the moment, but he will be back soon."
"Steve, can I sit with Jesse for a while? I feel ok, very achy and bruised, but that is all. Please."
"Honey, of course you can. Do you want Jo and me to leave, we can come back in a little while?"
"Yes, please, if you wouldn't mind. Officer Neville is outside the door, and I promise I won't leave the room." Rae smiled and watched the couple as they left, then she slowly climbed out of bed, carefully pulled on the pyjamas that Texas had bought for her, and moved across to Jesse's bedside. Every step hurt her a lot more than she would admit to anyone, but she had to be with Jesse. She sat there for a long while, not knowing what to say. Then she reached out and took his hand in hers.
"Jess, it's me, Rae. Steve found me and Levington is in jail again. It's over, really over this time. He won't ever get free, not after all this. But Jesse, I need you to come back to me, our baby needs you. Please, Honey, open your eyes, even if it is just for a second. Please."
Rae watched his face intently, but there was no movement, no recognition of any kind that she was sitting there. Her eyes scanned the machines next to the bed. She had no idea what they all meant, but she knew that they were bad news. She guessed that she would have to wait for all the toxins from the tablets to leave Jesse's system before he woke up, but she had no idea how long that would take. Gradually sleep took her over again, and her head rested softly on the bed beside Jesse's prone form, soon there was no sound in the room except the gentle hisses and clicks from the ventilator that kept Jesse alive, and the soft breathing of Rae as she slept next to him.
Jo and Steve sat in the doctor's lounge for just over an hour quietly enjoying each other's company. They were very worried about both Jesse and Rae, but at least they were both still alive, and more to the point now all their friends knew where they were. They felt cheered by that, and as they sat they talked softly about the future.
"I never did ask you how you got on with your x-ray the other day." Jo looked guiltily at Steve as she spoke.
"Oh, sorry, didn't I tell you? Alex said that they have begun to heal, but that I will have to keep the casts on for a good while, and that I will have to have extensive physiotherapy on them before I can go back to work. It looks like Rae, Jesse and I will all be on sick leave for a long time yet."
"Oh, I think I can cope with that. Especially if I get to help you with your exercises. I can think of all sorts of things to suggest you do with your newly freed fingers!" Jo winked at him as she spoke.
The door opened then and Mark came in. He looked tired but not as despondent as he had. "I got your message, Jo, does she really want to see me? I knew she was conscious, and I have to admit I did come up and sit outside the door for a little while, just so I could hear how she was."
It was Steve who answered, and he was glad that he had been right. "Dad, I told you she wouldn't blame you for anything, and she doesn't. She wants to see you as soon as she can. She needs her friends there for her right now, and you are one of her closest."
"Thank you, Son. I guess she could wait a little while longer just so I can have a shower and get cleaned up?"
"Yeah, I will just finish my coffee and then I'll go up and tell her. Jo, sweetie, you have been sitting with either Jesse or Rae for hours, why don't you go home, and get some rest in a proper bed?"
"I might just take you up on that. I will sleep for a few hours an' then I'll get Michael to drive me back. Thank you, Steve, I'll see you later." She kissed him with a tender passion on his lips and Steve felt her fingers run through his hair. There had been hardly any physical contact between them over the past few days, and she felt him begin to respond to her. "Mm, keep that up an' you'll have to come with me."
Jo kissed Mark on the cheek and then she left the room, Steve stood in the doorway and watched her go. He saw people passing in the hallway, and for the first time in days he actually took in what was going on. There was a female priest at the ER reception and as he looked the other way down the hall he could see a cleaner beginning to mop a floor. Life was going on, and at last he was back in it.
Bernice Levington had found out what room Detective Yeager was in. Detective, not a job for the wife of a son of hers. Most unsuitable for any woman, but it explained a lot about how unable she had been to adhere to her Phil's rules of the house. She walked into the elevator and patted her cassocks, feeling the hard steel of her weapon beneath them.
She walked along the corridor and saw a uniformed officer outside the door of the room she needed to enter. Drawing herself up to her full height she approached the policewoman.
"Excuse me, my child, but I have been asked to come and sit with a patient in this room." She showed the woman the card she had obtained at the reception desk, pleading a weakened memory as the reason she needed to have the number written on an official tag.
"Of course, I'll just call down and get you cleared, then you can stay as long…" Officer Neville didn't get the rest of her sentence out before she was struck across the back of the head with a gun butt.
Bernice Levington pulled the officer into the room across the hallway, which was very conveniently empty. Then she returned to room 2998. She slowly opened the door and looked inside. She could see that woman, asleep with her hand in that of another man. Disgraceful. She moved over to her and jabbed the gun into her neck.
Rae awoke with a start as she suddenly felt something against her throat. She turned in a panic and looked into the eyes of Bernice Levington. "You, what are you doing here?"
"Get up and move over there." She indicated with the gun and Rae willingly moved away from Jesse, she didn't want anything more to happen to him.
Steve sat back down on the sofa with his drink, but his mind was whirring. Something was wrong, suddenly he thought about the woman priest. He had no idea why but he knew that he should be very worried about the priest. Levington's mother is a priest. He was up and out of the room in a flash. He raced to the elevator, but seeing that there were already people waiting for it he bashed through the door to the stairwell and ran up that way instead.
Rae couldn't believe that her nightmare wasn't over. "Why are you doing this? You have done nothing wrong, it's your son who's the fruitcake."
Phillip's mama spoke as if Rae had uttered nothing. "I should have gotten rid of you when he first laid eyes on you. I knew a female police officer was trouble; you should be content to work in the home, to look after a man, not go out into the world. Well now you and him," She indicated with her gun and Rae's heart almost stopped as she thought the gun would go off. "You will join the other tramps he has set his heart on. He has only one woman in his life, and soon he will realise that it is his mama."
Rae moved slowly away from the woman, trying to get towards the door, so that she could get outside. She knew that the cop must be gone from there, but if she could get as far away from Jesse as possible, then it wouldn't matter so much what happened to her.
Steve came hurtling out into Rae's hallway, and could see straightaway that the officer was gone from Rae's room. He slowed to a walk and, cursing his inability to carry a weapon, moved towards the door to 2998. He could see through the glass that the priest had a gun pointed at Rae and he knew as he got to the doorway that she was about to fire. He pushed the door open, knowing what would happen to Rae as he did so. The handle caught her in the back and she staggered out of the line of fire, just as the gun went off. Steve felt a burning pain in his shoulder, but he carried on, his adrenalin alone carrying him forwards. He crashed into the priest, and collapsed over her. Hearing Rae scream his name as he did so.