Hi there! I´m back!
Thanks for the reviews, you guys are really kind!
More is soon to come. I promise.
Disclaimers still the same.
"Okay, where is he?"
Steve Sloan, trained detective, literally winced at the deep, angry voice of his father, and for two seconds, he shrunk to the sice of a five-year- old, thinking about ways to explain his behaving - till it sank in, that it wasn´t him that anger was focused on, but Jesse.
Now free to be the all understanding and protecting elder brother, he blinked inncoently at his father and motioned him to sit down at the bar.
"I sent him home an hour ago," he answered. "Believe me, it was the safest thing to do. He nearly passed out over the dishes."
Mark Sloan cast his (older) son a frustrated look, and shook his head.
"I don´t get this. This is not at all like Jesse. To call in sick cause of a hangover."
"Well," Steve objected, while pouring his father a cup of coffee, "he was sick when I called you. All over the floor, I might add."
But Mark wasn´t up to jokes. Again, he shook his head in paternal disbelief.
Feeling awkwardly reminded of all the times he´d protected his sister against their father´s wrath, Steve placed the steaming cup of coffee in front of the older man and shrugged.
"Everybody´s acting out-of-character sometimes, dad. Today Jesse did. It´s no big deal. And you know he´ll be harder on himself than we both could be."
Since he knew his son was right, but was still far too angry to just let it be, Mark nodded and unconsciously took a sip of his coffee. He didn´t even realize Steve had put it there without being asked for it.
"Still, I´ll have to talk to him about this. It´s not okay to let yourself down like that! Especially not for a doctor. And ..."
"Hey, why´re you yelling at me, I didn´t do it!"
"I´m practicing. You know how hard it is to yell at Jesse."
"Oh. Yeah. Go on."
"Naw," Mark winked. "Now I lost the rythm."
He sighed deeply. "Steve ... This is just because of what happened over the last two days, right? Nothing to... worry about. Right?"
"Right," Steve assured him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"`sides, he´s an adult, dad. He´s got the right to deal with situations the way he likes it."
Mark frowned, thought about it, frowned again, and finally cast his son a sceptical look.
"Yeah, right," Steve gave in, throwing his hands in the air while turning to look after the ribs, "who am I trying to kid?"
"That´s what I was wondering about, too!" his father called after him.
The dwarfs were happy as can be, marching along, humming their joyful tune, torturing their victim all the way to neverneverland and back.
"Please go out of my brain, please!" Jesse whimpered, when there was nothing else left to do, but to whimper.
He´d taken as many pain-killers as could knock-out a grown-up cow, and had sit tight on his sofa for about 45 minutes, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to focus on something other than the throbbing pain in his head.
There was only one thing he hadn´t tried: self-decaptivation.
And he was very much about to try it, when the doorbell sent his agony on a whole new level.
"Coming," he cried out, "please don´t ring again!"
Though it wouldn´t have made a difference to his own calling out, he thought while dragging himself over to the door.
The man in front of it almost yelped in surprise when the door was opened. Jesse followed his gaze towards his finger, which rested on the doorbell.
"I wasn´t about to, I swear!" the guy said, raising his hands as if held at gun-point.
Jesse simply stared. "Hu ... Who are you?"
"Crabtree," the man introduced himself, and hold out his hand. "I´m your new neighbour."
In the abscence of any alternatives, Jesse continued staring at the man, but somehow manged to lift his hand high enough to be shaken.
"Travis," he then murmured. "Jesse Travis. Ahm ... d´you need anything or ...?"
"No," Crabtree laughed out, obviously embarrassed, "no ... I ... it´s ..."
He looked over his shoulder as if to make sure they weren´t spyed on, then bend over to whisper: "It´s my wife Faith. She saw you enter your apartment this afternoon, and she says you looked ill. Therefor she made this", he handed the completely confused man a tubberware-box filled with what smelled like chicken-soup, "and ordered me to give it to you."
Somewhere up there with his dwarfes, Jesse knew he should say "thank you", but he found he couldn´t come up with anything but staring.
"Ah ..." he finally managed.
"She´s crazy, I know. She probably poisened your food, so that she could make you chicken-soup and we´d get to know our new neighbours. She´s ..."
"Seamus!" an angry voice called out, followed by the owner of it, which happened to be a beautiful, dark-haired woman, who came to a halt next to her husband, looking as though she´d hit him right there.
Jesse blinked. "Your name is Seamus?"
"Yeah, why ...?"
"Will you please accept my apologies for my husband," Mrs Crabtree interrupted Seamus, spitting out the last word.
"He can´t be blamed for being the rude - oh, wait, he can!"
And she shot him a look which inclined that he would be blamed for it when they were alone.
The young doctor couldn´t help but chuckle. Images of himself and Susan came to his mind, and he smiled warmly at the couple.
"This is very nice of you, Mrs Crabtree," he said to draw her attention back on him and off her husband who thanked him with a silent look.
"I really appreciate this. I bet your soup´s delicious."
"Oh, it´s nothing," Faith winked. "You looked that horrible, it was my obligation to do something about it."
"Honey, c´mon, Mr. Travis surely wants to have a little rest now, and ..."
"Isn´t your girl-friend in to look after you?" Faith asked, ignoring her husband´s pleas and nudges.
Seamus Crabtree rolled his eyes, Jesse smiled.
Though these people were only a little older than he was, he felt like he´d been visited by his grand-parents.
"I don´t have one," he answered, and his smile even brightened at Mrs Crabtree´s unbelieving frown.
"You can´t be serious," she said at last and looked at her husband as if this was all his fault. "Shay, he doesn´t have a girl-friend."
"You like her?" Seamus pointed towards his wife, but couldn´t offer her to his new neighbour before an elbow connected with his ribs.
"Seamus Crabtree! - He always embarrasses me in front of strangers."
"That´s why she married me," he added, laying one arm around her and placing a gentle kiss on her temple.
"Of course not," she winked and leaned herself against his torso. "It was his money."
By now Jesse laughed, confused, but somewhat drawn towards the comforting warmth the couple seemed to radiate.
"So, Mr. Travis," Faith said and freed herself from her husband´s grip. "Actually we came to invite you for dinner for tomorrow evening. As my husband told you before insulting his loving wife, we just moved here, and we´d be most happy to make some new aquaintances."
"I´d love to," Jesse replied, honestly pleased. "Thanks. And it´s Jesse."
"Faith," she said and reached out to shake his offered hand. "And the village idiot," she pointed over her shoulder.
"We met," Jesse replied, earning one praising and one irritated look.
"You know, honey, I like him, you can go now," Faith joked.
"Oh yeah? Back into the house, woman!" Seamus ordered jokingly, mentioning towards their entry. "Prepare my food!"
"Yes, my lord. - See you tomorrow, Jesse."
"I´m looking forward to it. Bye," he winked.
Faith entered their apartment, and a faint "Mommy!" could be heard, before she closed the door shut.
"That was my son David," Seamus explained at Jesse´s questioning look.
"He´s five years old and is afraid to go back to sleep now, cause he secretly watched "Freddy Krueger" while we were talking to you."
Jesse grinned. "Hey, this guy is scarry. I´ve been afraid of him ever since I saw the first movie."
"Me, too," Shay nodded. "That´s why I´m going to stay here untill ..."
"You can come in now, Shay," Faith interrupted him by opening the door slightly. "I turned the tv off."
"Right there, honey! - See you tomorrow, Jesse."
"Yeah, see ya, Seamus," Jesse smiled and watched the man enter his apartment.
"Call me Shay," he said and closed the door.
The young doctor couldn´t help his smile fading at this. Still he felt strangely better when he was in his apartment again, the steaming box of soup in hands.
"Nice people," he mumbled while placing the box in his fridge (he had no intention of putting anything in his stomach that day).
"Completely nuts, but nice."
He was just about to lay down on the sofa, when the doorbell rang again.
What now?
"I have spoons, you kn ..." he called out, but was hushed down by the frightening figure of Mark Sloan standing in his doorway as if to block a way to flee. " ... ow," he finished, his voice fading, til there was a mere whisper left to queek out:
"Hi Mark."
"Don´t hi-mark-me, Jesse," the older man growled and closed the door behind him. "I´m not here to be hi-marked."
Jesse´s head dropped immediately and he nodded.
Mark opened his mouth to start yelling at the miserable young man, but out came a sigh of frustration.
"Jess, turn around, I can´t yell at you when you look like that."
Jesse didn´t hear him, he was about to do all the work on his own.
"Mark, I´m sorry. Really sorry! I know what I´ve done was completely irresponsible and stupid and dangerous and dumb and ..."
"Yeah, okay," Mark winked, angry at himself for not being able to be mad at the kid.
"You´re right, it was. So - how´s your head?"
"Huh?"
"Looks to me like you´re mad enough at yourself for the two of us, so let´s forget about this. How´s your head?"
"There are dwarfs working in it."
Now he was chuckling! Inwardly shaking his head at himself, Mark nodded in amusement.
"I bet there are."
"Listen, Mark, I´m really sorry. I promise this won´t happen again. Never."
"I know," the older doctor said and was surprised to find out that he was convinced of that.
"I´m just worried about you, Jesse, that´s all. I want to make sure that when you have a problem, you don´t get drunk in BBQ Bob´s, but come to me instead."
"I don´t have a problem," Jesse replied, looking up on his friend in a mixture of awe and gratefulness.
"I don´t even remember why I drove there. I didn´t eat anything over the entire day, you know. Guess it wasn´t that hard to get drunk."
Mark studyied him hard, till Jesse couldn´t stand his gaze anymore and looked down at the floor.
"That´s what I thought," Mark smiled. But tried to look angry again, when Jesse smiled back.
"Don´t smile at me, young man. I´m not done, yet."
"Uh ... sure, sir," Jesse said hastily, eyes down again.
"You´re going to work off the hours you missed on your day off, you understand me?"
"Yeah, sure," Jesse nodded. He´d intended to do that, anyway, and he was pretty sure Mark knew that.
Why am I feeling like a kid being punished by a parent? And why does it feel great? he mused.
"Good." Mark nodded forcefully and cast his young friend another strict look. "And now go to bed, you´ll have to work early tomorrow."
"`kay," Jess mumbled and turned for his bedroom instantly.
Mark watched him enter it with a smile and let himself out.
I still have it in me, he grinned all the way back to his car.
Though the sickness had gone, the dwarfs hadn´t, when Jesse showed up to work the next morning. He´d taken a few pain-killers against them, but felt like they wouldn´t be convinced to leave that easy.
"Okay, you guys, if it´s a fight you want ..."
"Hi Jess."
"Uh ... hi," he spun around to face Amanda´s amused smile. "Amanda! Morning! How are you?"
"Great," she replied, a wicked grin spreading on her lips. "Why are you talking to yourself?"
"I wasn´t ..." he started, but gave in in no time, due to his headache, he supposed.
"I was talking to my dwarfs."
"Your dwarfs," she repeated.
"Yeah, they´re in my head."
"I always knew that."
"No," he tried desperately, "they´re causing my headache, y´know? They´re ..."
"Yeahp, everything you say, Jess," she cut him short, patting a hand against his shoulder.
"I´m gonna go to my lab now and talk to some sane people there. See ya."
"But ..."
He was about to run after he, when he noticed a girl in one of the examination rooms, sitting there on an examination table all alone. His attention being drawn off Amanda accusing him of being crazy immeadiately, he headed for the room and entered with a smile.
"Hiya," he greeted the kid friendlyly.
She couldn´t be older than six or seven. Long blond hair fell freely over her small shoulders, and she presented him with a sweet smile.
"Hi."
"I´m Dr. Travis. What´s your name?"
"Sarah."
"Sarah. Is your mom with you?"
"She´s down the hall to look for a doctor," the girl replied.
She didn´t seem as though she was in pain or seriously ill.
"Well, I´m a doctor," Jesse stated with a smile. "So she can stop looking. What´s your last name?"
"Shem."
"Okay, Sarah, I´ll be right back, I´m just going to tell your mom that you found a doctor on your own, `kay?"
After having earned a happy nod, Jesse left the room to check the hallway, but there was no woman to be seen there.
He decided to let her been called back by the speakers then, and reentered Sarah´s room.
"Have you heard that?" he asked her while sitting down next to the bed. "That will tell your mom to come back here. So - while we wait for her, can you tell me what´s wrong?"
"I fainted."
"Really?" he asked, an alarm-bell starting to ring in his head at this. "When?"
"This morning. I was dressing for kindergarten, and then mommy was there and said we´ve to go the hospital."
"You were dressing?" he asked and gently checked the reaction of her eyes with a light.
"Do you remember seeing stars or feeling sick before you fainted?"
"No." She focused on the light interestedly and touched it once he stopped his examination.
Smiling, he let her play with it and sat back on his chair.
"D´you hit your head lately? Sarah?"
"No," she replied without hesitating.
This was strange. He checked the girl´s pulse to find it normal and steady, and glanced outside the window for her mother. It was about time that she reacted to the announcement.
"Listen, Sarah, I´m going to send a nurse to take some of your blood, while I look for your mom again, `kay? There´ll be someone with you in no time, I promise."
But she didn´t seem to be frightened by the prospects of being left alone in an examination room, anyway.
Deciding that this was definately a strange kid, Jesse left the room, and looked out for a nurse to ask for the blood test, when Mark Sloan approached him, smiling brightly.
"Morning, Jesse. How´re you feeling?"
"Hi Mark. Great. Hey, you´ve seen a woman round here who was searching for someone to take a look at her daughter? No, wait, if you´ve seen her, she would´ve asked you to take a look at her daughter, wouldn´t she?"
"Probably," Mark nodded, though he didn´t have aclue what the young man was rumbling about.
"Jesse - can I help you?"
"Actually, yes," Jesse replied gratefully and mentioned Mark to follow him towards Sarah Shem´s room.
"The patient´s about six years old,and she fain ..."
His voice faded once they´ve reached the room. It was empty.
"I don´t get this," Jesse mumbled as he checked the room quickly before looking up at Mark, who stood in the entry.
"I left her here a minute ago."
"Maybe her mother returned," Mark suggessted, but was met by a sceptical look.
"And left with her? Why´d she do that? I had her called in here over the speakers, she knew I was here."
"Maybe she changed her mind."
"But ..."
"It´s her choice, Jesse. I´m sure she´ll come back if she thinks it necessary. What condition was the girl in?"
"She was fine. That´s why I wanted to ask for your opinion. She said she fainted this morning, but showed no sign of a concussion or illness or whatsoever."
"See. That´s what she probably told her mother when she got back, and they left. Nothing to worry about, I´m sure."
"I left for one minute," Jesse bursted out and ran a hand through his hair.
"They´d have to be ... beamed to get outta here that fast!"
"Jess, calm down. There´s a perfectly sensible explanation for this. Why´re you so agitated about it?"
The young doctor looked at him and let out a deep sigh.
"Dunno. Sorry. Guess, it´s the dwarfs still hammering in my head."
As if to underline this statement, he rubbed a hand over his eyes, squeezing them shut for a second.
Nodding with sympathy, Mark patted his arm fatherly, before he left the room.
"Go get yourself some coffee, Jess. You´re dwarfs will be leaving soon."
"I hope so," Jesse mumbled and followed him.
"Hi Amanda," Jesse greeted the pathologist when he entered her lab around noon.
"Oh, hey Jesse. How´re your dwarfs?"
"Great," he replied frustradedly, unconsciously lifting a hand to his temple.
"They´re the only workers who´d go on strike for more work!"
"They´ve founded an union yet?"
Joking, he held his ears shut. "Don´t lettem hear this, they might take it as a suggestion."
Amanda laughed at him making a face at the thought, but became serious, when the twinkle in his eyes vanished at his request.
"You have Shay Zeesley´s blood results? I need them to ... marked it "done"," he concluded with a bitter smile.
"Yes, I have them here," she replied, sympathy shown in her voice, and bent over her desk to get them for him.
"I´ve also finished with Maron Pinter, though there is something awkward about ...Jesse?" she asked as she turned and saw him stare out of the window to the hall with a frown on his face.
"Huh?" he asked, startled, and looked back to her. "I´m sorry, Amanda. You were saying...?"
"Is everything allright? You look like you´ve seen a ghost."
"No, I ... D´you know it when you see somebody you remember out of a dream?"
Her worry vanished, and she nodded with mock understanding.
"Oh, like in a déjà-vu, you mean?"
"Yeah, like ... That´s so funny, Amanda."
"Gee, your dwarfs make you grumpy, he?"
"I´m sorry. What was it you said about Pinter?"
"Ahm, nothing," she winked, for she wasn´t even sure herself what she´d found out. Not yet.
"I´ve to run a few more tests on it. How´s Mrs Zeesley?"
"Oh, she´s gone home. I called her this morning, and she seemed fine. Well ... you know, "fine"."
Amanda nodded. Yeah, she knew.
"She´s starting a therapy."
"That´s good."
"Yeah, guess it is," he agreed, his gaze locked with the floor once more.
"I ... uh ... I´ve to go. There´s this severe headache in Two, who needs to be treated, so ... Oh, yeah, the resluts, thanks. See ya."
With that he left, leaving Amanda wondering if he himself was the severe headache who´d take a nap in Two for the next few hours.
Thanks for the reviews, you guys are really kind!
More is soon to come. I promise.
Disclaimers still the same.
"Okay, where is he?"
Steve Sloan, trained detective, literally winced at the deep, angry voice of his father, and for two seconds, he shrunk to the sice of a five-year- old, thinking about ways to explain his behaving - till it sank in, that it wasn´t him that anger was focused on, but Jesse.
Now free to be the all understanding and protecting elder brother, he blinked inncoently at his father and motioned him to sit down at the bar.
"I sent him home an hour ago," he answered. "Believe me, it was the safest thing to do. He nearly passed out over the dishes."
Mark Sloan cast his (older) son a frustrated look, and shook his head.
"I don´t get this. This is not at all like Jesse. To call in sick cause of a hangover."
"Well," Steve objected, while pouring his father a cup of coffee, "he was sick when I called you. All over the floor, I might add."
But Mark wasn´t up to jokes. Again, he shook his head in paternal disbelief.
Feeling awkwardly reminded of all the times he´d protected his sister against their father´s wrath, Steve placed the steaming cup of coffee in front of the older man and shrugged.
"Everybody´s acting out-of-character sometimes, dad. Today Jesse did. It´s no big deal. And you know he´ll be harder on himself than we both could be."
Since he knew his son was right, but was still far too angry to just let it be, Mark nodded and unconsciously took a sip of his coffee. He didn´t even realize Steve had put it there without being asked for it.
"Still, I´ll have to talk to him about this. It´s not okay to let yourself down like that! Especially not for a doctor. And ..."
"Hey, why´re you yelling at me, I didn´t do it!"
"I´m practicing. You know how hard it is to yell at Jesse."
"Oh. Yeah. Go on."
"Naw," Mark winked. "Now I lost the rythm."
He sighed deeply. "Steve ... This is just because of what happened over the last two days, right? Nothing to... worry about. Right?"
"Right," Steve assured him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.
"`sides, he´s an adult, dad. He´s got the right to deal with situations the way he likes it."
Mark frowned, thought about it, frowned again, and finally cast his son a sceptical look.
"Yeah, right," Steve gave in, throwing his hands in the air while turning to look after the ribs, "who am I trying to kid?"
"That´s what I was wondering about, too!" his father called after him.
The dwarfs were happy as can be, marching along, humming their joyful tune, torturing their victim all the way to neverneverland and back.
"Please go out of my brain, please!" Jesse whimpered, when there was nothing else left to do, but to whimper.
He´d taken as many pain-killers as could knock-out a grown-up cow, and had sit tight on his sofa for about 45 minutes, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to focus on something other than the throbbing pain in his head.
There was only one thing he hadn´t tried: self-decaptivation.
And he was very much about to try it, when the doorbell sent his agony on a whole new level.
"Coming," he cried out, "please don´t ring again!"
Though it wouldn´t have made a difference to his own calling out, he thought while dragging himself over to the door.
The man in front of it almost yelped in surprise when the door was opened. Jesse followed his gaze towards his finger, which rested on the doorbell.
"I wasn´t about to, I swear!" the guy said, raising his hands as if held at gun-point.
Jesse simply stared. "Hu ... Who are you?"
"Crabtree," the man introduced himself, and hold out his hand. "I´m your new neighbour."
In the abscence of any alternatives, Jesse continued staring at the man, but somehow manged to lift his hand high enough to be shaken.
"Travis," he then murmured. "Jesse Travis. Ahm ... d´you need anything or ...?"
"No," Crabtree laughed out, obviously embarrassed, "no ... I ... it´s ..."
He looked over his shoulder as if to make sure they weren´t spyed on, then bend over to whisper: "It´s my wife Faith. She saw you enter your apartment this afternoon, and she says you looked ill. Therefor she made this", he handed the completely confused man a tubberware-box filled with what smelled like chicken-soup, "and ordered me to give it to you."
Somewhere up there with his dwarfes, Jesse knew he should say "thank you", but he found he couldn´t come up with anything but staring.
"Ah ..." he finally managed.
"She´s crazy, I know. She probably poisened your food, so that she could make you chicken-soup and we´d get to know our new neighbours. She´s ..."
"Seamus!" an angry voice called out, followed by the owner of it, which happened to be a beautiful, dark-haired woman, who came to a halt next to her husband, looking as though she´d hit him right there.
Jesse blinked. "Your name is Seamus?"
"Yeah, why ...?"
"Will you please accept my apologies for my husband," Mrs Crabtree interrupted Seamus, spitting out the last word.
"He can´t be blamed for being the rude - oh, wait, he can!"
And she shot him a look which inclined that he would be blamed for it when they were alone.
The young doctor couldn´t help but chuckle. Images of himself and Susan came to his mind, and he smiled warmly at the couple.
"This is very nice of you, Mrs Crabtree," he said to draw her attention back on him and off her husband who thanked him with a silent look.
"I really appreciate this. I bet your soup´s delicious."
"Oh, it´s nothing," Faith winked. "You looked that horrible, it was my obligation to do something about it."
"Honey, c´mon, Mr. Travis surely wants to have a little rest now, and ..."
"Isn´t your girl-friend in to look after you?" Faith asked, ignoring her husband´s pleas and nudges.
Seamus Crabtree rolled his eyes, Jesse smiled.
Though these people were only a little older than he was, he felt like he´d been visited by his grand-parents.
"I don´t have one," he answered, and his smile even brightened at Mrs Crabtree´s unbelieving frown.
"You can´t be serious," she said at last and looked at her husband as if this was all his fault. "Shay, he doesn´t have a girl-friend."
"You like her?" Seamus pointed towards his wife, but couldn´t offer her to his new neighbour before an elbow connected with his ribs.
"Seamus Crabtree! - He always embarrasses me in front of strangers."
"That´s why she married me," he added, laying one arm around her and placing a gentle kiss on her temple.
"Of course not," she winked and leaned herself against his torso. "It was his money."
By now Jesse laughed, confused, but somewhat drawn towards the comforting warmth the couple seemed to radiate.
"So, Mr. Travis," Faith said and freed herself from her husband´s grip. "Actually we came to invite you for dinner for tomorrow evening. As my husband told you before insulting his loving wife, we just moved here, and we´d be most happy to make some new aquaintances."
"I´d love to," Jesse replied, honestly pleased. "Thanks. And it´s Jesse."
"Faith," she said and reached out to shake his offered hand. "And the village idiot," she pointed over her shoulder.
"We met," Jesse replied, earning one praising and one irritated look.
"You know, honey, I like him, you can go now," Faith joked.
"Oh yeah? Back into the house, woman!" Seamus ordered jokingly, mentioning towards their entry. "Prepare my food!"
"Yes, my lord. - See you tomorrow, Jesse."
"I´m looking forward to it. Bye," he winked.
Faith entered their apartment, and a faint "Mommy!" could be heard, before she closed the door shut.
"That was my son David," Seamus explained at Jesse´s questioning look.
"He´s five years old and is afraid to go back to sleep now, cause he secretly watched "Freddy Krueger" while we were talking to you."
Jesse grinned. "Hey, this guy is scarry. I´ve been afraid of him ever since I saw the first movie."
"Me, too," Shay nodded. "That´s why I´m going to stay here untill ..."
"You can come in now, Shay," Faith interrupted him by opening the door slightly. "I turned the tv off."
"Right there, honey! - See you tomorrow, Jesse."
"Yeah, see ya, Seamus," Jesse smiled and watched the man enter his apartment.
"Call me Shay," he said and closed the door.
The young doctor couldn´t help his smile fading at this. Still he felt strangely better when he was in his apartment again, the steaming box of soup in hands.
"Nice people," he mumbled while placing the box in his fridge (he had no intention of putting anything in his stomach that day).
"Completely nuts, but nice."
He was just about to lay down on the sofa, when the doorbell rang again.
What now?
"I have spoons, you kn ..." he called out, but was hushed down by the frightening figure of Mark Sloan standing in his doorway as if to block a way to flee. " ... ow," he finished, his voice fading, til there was a mere whisper left to queek out:
"Hi Mark."
"Don´t hi-mark-me, Jesse," the older man growled and closed the door behind him. "I´m not here to be hi-marked."
Jesse´s head dropped immediately and he nodded.
Mark opened his mouth to start yelling at the miserable young man, but out came a sigh of frustration.
"Jess, turn around, I can´t yell at you when you look like that."
Jesse didn´t hear him, he was about to do all the work on his own.
"Mark, I´m sorry. Really sorry! I know what I´ve done was completely irresponsible and stupid and dangerous and dumb and ..."
"Yeah, okay," Mark winked, angry at himself for not being able to be mad at the kid.
"You´re right, it was. So - how´s your head?"
"Huh?"
"Looks to me like you´re mad enough at yourself for the two of us, so let´s forget about this. How´s your head?"
"There are dwarfs working in it."
Now he was chuckling! Inwardly shaking his head at himself, Mark nodded in amusement.
"I bet there are."
"Listen, Mark, I´m really sorry. I promise this won´t happen again. Never."
"I know," the older doctor said and was surprised to find out that he was convinced of that.
"I´m just worried about you, Jesse, that´s all. I want to make sure that when you have a problem, you don´t get drunk in BBQ Bob´s, but come to me instead."
"I don´t have a problem," Jesse replied, looking up on his friend in a mixture of awe and gratefulness.
"I don´t even remember why I drove there. I didn´t eat anything over the entire day, you know. Guess it wasn´t that hard to get drunk."
Mark studyied him hard, till Jesse couldn´t stand his gaze anymore and looked down at the floor.
"That´s what I thought," Mark smiled. But tried to look angry again, when Jesse smiled back.
"Don´t smile at me, young man. I´m not done, yet."
"Uh ... sure, sir," Jesse said hastily, eyes down again.
"You´re going to work off the hours you missed on your day off, you understand me?"
"Yeah, sure," Jesse nodded. He´d intended to do that, anyway, and he was pretty sure Mark knew that.
Why am I feeling like a kid being punished by a parent? And why does it feel great? he mused.
"Good." Mark nodded forcefully and cast his young friend another strict look. "And now go to bed, you´ll have to work early tomorrow."
"`kay," Jess mumbled and turned for his bedroom instantly.
Mark watched him enter it with a smile and let himself out.
I still have it in me, he grinned all the way back to his car.
Though the sickness had gone, the dwarfs hadn´t, when Jesse showed up to work the next morning. He´d taken a few pain-killers against them, but felt like they wouldn´t be convinced to leave that easy.
"Okay, you guys, if it´s a fight you want ..."
"Hi Jess."
"Uh ... hi," he spun around to face Amanda´s amused smile. "Amanda! Morning! How are you?"
"Great," she replied, a wicked grin spreading on her lips. "Why are you talking to yourself?"
"I wasn´t ..." he started, but gave in in no time, due to his headache, he supposed.
"I was talking to my dwarfs."
"Your dwarfs," she repeated.
"Yeah, they´re in my head."
"I always knew that."
"No," he tried desperately, "they´re causing my headache, y´know? They´re ..."
"Yeahp, everything you say, Jess," she cut him short, patting a hand against his shoulder.
"I´m gonna go to my lab now and talk to some sane people there. See ya."
"But ..."
He was about to run after he, when he noticed a girl in one of the examination rooms, sitting there on an examination table all alone. His attention being drawn off Amanda accusing him of being crazy immeadiately, he headed for the room and entered with a smile.
"Hiya," he greeted the kid friendlyly.
She couldn´t be older than six or seven. Long blond hair fell freely over her small shoulders, and she presented him with a sweet smile.
"Hi."
"I´m Dr. Travis. What´s your name?"
"Sarah."
"Sarah. Is your mom with you?"
"She´s down the hall to look for a doctor," the girl replied.
She didn´t seem as though she was in pain or seriously ill.
"Well, I´m a doctor," Jesse stated with a smile. "So she can stop looking. What´s your last name?"
"Shem."
"Okay, Sarah, I´ll be right back, I´m just going to tell your mom that you found a doctor on your own, `kay?"
After having earned a happy nod, Jesse left the room to check the hallway, but there was no woman to be seen there.
He decided to let her been called back by the speakers then, and reentered Sarah´s room.
"Have you heard that?" he asked her while sitting down next to the bed. "That will tell your mom to come back here. So - while we wait for her, can you tell me what´s wrong?"
"I fainted."
"Really?" he asked, an alarm-bell starting to ring in his head at this. "When?"
"This morning. I was dressing for kindergarten, and then mommy was there and said we´ve to go the hospital."
"You were dressing?" he asked and gently checked the reaction of her eyes with a light.
"Do you remember seeing stars or feeling sick before you fainted?"
"No." She focused on the light interestedly and touched it once he stopped his examination.
Smiling, he let her play with it and sat back on his chair.
"D´you hit your head lately? Sarah?"
"No," she replied without hesitating.
This was strange. He checked the girl´s pulse to find it normal and steady, and glanced outside the window for her mother. It was about time that she reacted to the announcement.
"Listen, Sarah, I´m going to send a nurse to take some of your blood, while I look for your mom again, `kay? There´ll be someone with you in no time, I promise."
But she didn´t seem to be frightened by the prospects of being left alone in an examination room, anyway.
Deciding that this was definately a strange kid, Jesse left the room, and looked out for a nurse to ask for the blood test, when Mark Sloan approached him, smiling brightly.
"Morning, Jesse. How´re you feeling?"
"Hi Mark. Great. Hey, you´ve seen a woman round here who was searching for someone to take a look at her daughter? No, wait, if you´ve seen her, she would´ve asked you to take a look at her daughter, wouldn´t she?"
"Probably," Mark nodded, though he didn´t have aclue what the young man was rumbling about.
"Jesse - can I help you?"
"Actually, yes," Jesse replied gratefully and mentioned Mark to follow him towards Sarah Shem´s room.
"The patient´s about six years old,and she fain ..."
His voice faded once they´ve reached the room. It was empty.
"I don´t get this," Jesse mumbled as he checked the room quickly before looking up at Mark, who stood in the entry.
"I left her here a minute ago."
"Maybe her mother returned," Mark suggessted, but was met by a sceptical look.
"And left with her? Why´d she do that? I had her called in here over the speakers, she knew I was here."
"Maybe she changed her mind."
"But ..."
"It´s her choice, Jesse. I´m sure she´ll come back if she thinks it necessary. What condition was the girl in?"
"She was fine. That´s why I wanted to ask for your opinion. She said she fainted this morning, but showed no sign of a concussion or illness or whatsoever."
"See. That´s what she probably told her mother when she got back, and they left. Nothing to worry about, I´m sure."
"I left for one minute," Jesse bursted out and ran a hand through his hair.
"They´d have to be ... beamed to get outta here that fast!"
"Jess, calm down. There´s a perfectly sensible explanation for this. Why´re you so agitated about it?"
The young doctor looked at him and let out a deep sigh.
"Dunno. Sorry. Guess, it´s the dwarfs still hammering in my head."
As if to underline this statement, he rubbed a hand over his eyes, squeezing them shut for a second.
Nodding with sympathy, Mark patted his arm fatherly, before he left the room.
"Go get yourself some coffee, Jess. You´re dwarfs will be leaving soon."
"I hope so," Jesse mumbled and followed him.
"Hi Amanda," Jesse greeted the pathologist when he entered her lab around noon.
"Oh, hey Jesse. How´re your dwarfs?"
"Great," he replied frustradedly, unconsciously lifting a hand to his temple.
"They´re the only workers who´d go on strike for more work!"
"They´ve founded an union yet?"
Joking, he held his ears shut. "Don´t lettem hear this, they might take it as a suggestion."
Amanda laughed at him making a face at the thought, but became serious, when the twinkle in his eyes vanished at his request.
"You have Shay Zeesley´s blood results? I need them to ... marked it "done"," he concluded with a bitter smile.
"Yes, I have them here," she replied, sympathy shown in her voice, and bent over her desk to get them for him.
"I´ve also finished with Maron Pinter, though there is something awkward about ...Jesse?" she asked as she turned and saw him stare out of the window to the hall with a frown on his face.
"Huh?" he asked, startled, and looked back to her. "I´m sorry, Amanda. You were saying...?"
"Is everything allright? You look like you´ve seen a ghost."
"No, I ... D´you know it when you see somebody you remember out of a dream?"
Her worry vanished, and she nodded with mock understanding.
"Oh, like in a déjà-vu, you mean?"
"Yeah, like ... That´s so funny, Amanda."
"Gee, your dwarfs make you grumpy, he?"
"I´m sorry. What was it you said about Pinter?"
"Ahm, nothing," she winked, for she wasn´t even sure herself what she´d found out. Not yet.
"I´ve to run a few more tests on it. How´s Mrs Zeesley?"
"Oh, she´s gone home. I called her this morning, and she seemed fine. Well ... you know, "fine"."
Amanda nodded. Yeah, she knew.
"She´s starting a therapy."
"That´s good."
"Yeah, guess it is," he agreed, his gaze locked with the floor once more.
"I ... uh ... I´ve to go. There´s this severe headache in Two, who needs to be treated, so ... Oh, yeah, the resluts, thanks. See ya."
With that he left, leaving Amanda wondering if he himself was the severe headache who´d take a nap in Two for the next few hours.