Hey guys!
Now we´re difinzely on the insane side. Yeah, I knew you were just waiting for that ...
Okay, here´s more. Thank you so much for all the reviews, I´m really glad you like my stuff!
And specail YEAH-double-THANKS to Karen Faye and StrangePenguin (Commercial Break - Music - "Check out Strange Penguin´s new story on the net. It´s great! Obst vor!!!").
Okay, let´s get a look on our cute cookie.
"Grass is green,
Sky is blue,
False is false,
And true is true,
You´ll be you and me
To some degree.
Simple, simple, simple,
Simple as A, B, C,
Simple as One, Two Three ..."
(Anyone can whistle)
But there wasn´t much sleep to get in Two, for a bleeding women, lost somewhere deep in hysterics, awaited the tired young doctor, reaching out for him as if he was her last resort.
"Help me!" she screamed. "They´re going to test me again! Don´t let them do this to me again. Please!"
As he shot the young nurse who was trying to hold the patient down while on the same time fumbling with the restraining functions of the bed, she rolled her eyes. "What? Do I look like ET? I´m just trying to tie her down, `kay?"
"Ahm ..."
"Help me or what?" she growled at him and lifted her head, only to be smacked on the cheek by the blindly reaching out patient´s fist. "Ow! Damn!"
"Wait, I´ll ..." Jesse started and managed to get the left hand of the patient and even put the restrain on it. "Shhh," he tried to soothe her down, unsuccessfully, but that was hardly surprising. "`sokay, no one wants to hurt you."
"Oh yeah?" the nurse mumbled. She was still having a hard time forcing the patient´s other hand into the restrain.
Though Jesse shot her a reprimanding glance, he decided to not lecture her in front of the patient.
"I´ll give you a hand there."
"Yeah, that´ll be nice. - Will you stop hitting me, damnit!"
But though the woman wasn´t screaming anymore, it seemed as if she´d chosen to put the by that earned energy into her struggling, which even increased when Jesse got hold of her hand and gently, but firmly put it in the other restrain.
Now that she was completely helpless and tied down, the patient surrendered, her protests now more or less whimpers, her eyes closed.
Panting, Jesse turned to the nurse, who leaned against the wall, holding her brutalised cheek.
"What happened?"
"Hey! It wasn´t my fault!"
"I didn´t say that," he shot back, angry, because it was what he thought, actually.
"But you meant it! Okay - she got here, I tried to clean that wound," she pointed towards the still bleeding gash on the woman´s forehead, "and all of a sudden she starts to scream and thrash around, so I decided to restrain her."
He simply nodded, looking down on his patient. It tore his heart to have to tie a grown-up person to a bed.
It was the most humiliating thing he´d ever seen.
"It wasn´t my fault!" the nurse repeated, now actually shouting at him. She fell silent before his head had even rushed up.
"Sorry," she then mumbled, staring at the floor.
Jesse let a tensed silent estimate, before ordering her in his best business-tone to bring him what he needed for the treatment.
She vanished in a hurry, relieved to leave the room.
The doctor watched her rush off, and sighed. He´d never been good when it came to underline his authority.
Pushing the thought away, he concentrated on his patient.
She was still whimpering softly from time to time, her eyes suqeezed shut as if against bright light, and her muscles tensed when he gently touched her.
"Hi," he said softly to not scare her further. "I´m Dr. Travis. I´m going to suture that gash on your forehead, alright?"
She didn´t react.
"Can you tell me how you got it, Mrs ..."
He looked down on her in expectation, but again, her eyes stayed shut, as did her mouth.
"Okay. Listen, no one is going to hurt you. On the contrary, everybody here wants to help. So, I´m just gonna clean and treat your wound, and when you feel up to talk to me, I´ll listen. And when we´re finished here, you still can tell one of the nurses to give me a call, and I´ll be right back. Deal?"
No response.
"Okay," he nodded.
The nurse returned, Jesse sutured the gash and left the room without earning any sign of concsciousness from the oblivious patient.
He asked Dr. Thorman to take a look at her and headed for the Doctor´s Lounge to get some coffee.
"Hey, how´s it going?" Amanda asked, when he entered the room.
She and Mark were sitting on a table, looking up at the tired figure with unhidden amusement.
"How´re your dwarfs?"
But he wasn´t in the mood for dwarf-jokes and sank down on a chair, feeling absolutely miserable.
"I just had to tie a patient to her bed. It was awful."
He sighed, and swept a hand over his face.
"Why?" Mark asked, his smile fading.
He knew how hard it was to treat a patient that way. Yet another part of the job people never got used to.
Jesse shrugged. "Oh, the usual. She had a gash on her forehead that needed a few stitches, and she simply freaked out. Hit the nurse."
"Have you called Thorman?"
He nodded. "He said he´d come down here within the hour. I´m wondering what it was that made her freak out like that. When you come to the hospital, you expect to be examined and treated, and she obviously knew that she´d to come here because of her inury, yet ..."
He interrupted himself by shaking his head frustratedly.
"What is it these days that everybody´s goin´ nuts?! Pre-christmas?"
"Don´t get all moody about it," Amanda said comfortingly. "You did what you could do for her, the rest is off to another chapter of medicine. And there are other patients you can help, hm?"
Glancing at her, he made a face, not convinced.
"Yeah," Mark joined in, giving the young resident an encouraging smile.
"What about the little girl who fainted? Did she and her mother show up again?"
"Naw," he mumbled.
"See? Then she´s obviously feeling better."
"If so then I had nothing to do with it. She felt fine when I examined her."
"So? You know that there´s at least one little girl out there who´s feeling fine. Enjoy that thought," Mark concluded, knowing that Jesse just had to laugh at this.
He wasn´t disappointed.
"Wow, you sure know how to be grateful for the simple things in life, eh?"
The older doctor shrugged. "It´s what they´re there for."
"Yeah," Jesse nodded, still smiling, though it vanished over the next sentence.
"Still - you should have seen this woman. She seemed ... terrified. Of me," he added with a humorless grin.
"Felt ... awkward."
"Sometimes we have to do awkward things," Amanda said.
"Well, I just hope I don´t have to do that special thing again in many years," Jesse replied, and stood to help himself to a much needed cup of coffee.
"I hated it."
He was surprised to find Mark smiling proudly at this remark. "That´s good, Jesse. Be grateful for this simple thing."
The shift proved to be endless.
After another three hours of non-stop work, Jesse was dead-tired. He was also assuming by that time that his dwarfs lived on pain-killers, for their working speed increased with each pill he took.
He decided to lay down on them then and was just entering the lift to get to the Doctor´s Lounge for another coffee, when he saw her again.
She was standing half-hidden behind a plant, small, standing absolutely still, as if no one could notice her unless she moved.
Frowning, he stepped out of the lift and approached her, smiling slightly.
"Hey," he greeted her, but found that he didn´t know what to say next.
It was strange, but he had the feeling something important had to be said, something important had to be done. Yet, he couldn´t remember what it was.
"I saw you outside the lab today," he finally said, because it was true.
"I had the ... impression that you were ... following me."
She smiled, bowed her head, and looked up again, a little sad, though he couldn´t guess why.
"Do I know you?" he asked when it was clear that she wouldn´t say anthing to defend herself against his accusion.
She shook her head no.
"But you know me, don´t you?"
Nod.
"How?"
Her smile vanished, only the sadness remained, as she bent closer to him, whispering:
"Looking out for you, Jesse Travis. Try to remember that."
With that she stepped aside, heading for the lift.
"Wait," he called after her, but didn´t make any attempt to held her back.
"What ... what´s your name?"
"Oak," she replied. The door closed slowly, she was gone.
Unable to figure out what that was all about, he continued standing next to the plant, confused.
The deep, calm voice of Dr. Thorman finally draw him back to the here and now.
"Dr. Travis. I just finished off the paper-work to hospitalize Mrs Reed."
Starled, Jesse blinked, then frowned questioningly.
"Ah ... sorry. Who?"
"Mrs Reed, your patient," Thorman replied, and smiled.
He was a friendly man and smiled a lot. Jesse sort of liked him, though he kept his distance. He didn´t trust shrinks in general. Never had.
"Oh, yes. How is she?"
"Asleep. We had to sedate her after her last ... outburst. I´m on my way calling her husband. Looks like she´ll be our guest for a little while."
A slight shudder ran along Jesse´s spine at the thought of that poor woman being Thorman´s "guest". The image of her lying on the bed, unable to move, whimpering in fear, swept through his mind.
The smile he presented Thorman with was forced, tensed.
"Don´t give me that kinda look, kid," Thorman said good-humoredly, placing a big, warm hand on the younger man´s shoulder.
"I know exactly what you´re thinking, and believe me, it´s not true."
"Uh ..." Jesse stuttered. For a bizarr second he wondered if psychiatrists could actually read minds.
"This poor woman needs our help, and that´s what we´re going to do: help her. Our jobs are not as different as you think them."
"I don´t ..." Jesse started, but hushed, when he noticed that he was about to lie to the man. He smiled excusingly, feeling like he´d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Thorman laughed softly, and took his hand off Jesse´s shoulder to stash it in his pockett.
"People get sick, kid. Physical or otherwise, and it´s our job to help them heal themselfes. That´s what all doctor´s do. The only difference is that whilst you´re touching their bodies, I´m touching their souls."
Jesse felt his mouth twist at that. Maybe he did like the man after all.
"That´s nice," he said honestly.
"It´s true. And I have yet another truth for you, kid," Thorman added after a second´s though. Suddenly he grew very serious, and bent a little down to the smaller man, looking him right into the eye, as he said:
"Everybody gets sick some time. One way or the other."
At Jesse´s confused frown, he lifted himself up again, his smile returning, as he gave the young man a final pat on the shoulder and headed for the lift.
"Think about it."
Again, Jesse stood where he´d been left, confused.
He thought about it.
Surprised, he noticed that it scared him. A lot.
Shaking his head as if to clear it from the shrink´s words, he finally got to the lift himself, ready for another emergency to be cared about. Anythink to distract him.
Finally, finally his shift ended. And even though the dwarfs obviously had different working hours than he, he felt slightly better when he drove off CG, heading for "BBQ Bob´s", where the waitress had called in sick the morning, so that he and Steve had to take over her shift.
"Hey Jess," Steve greeted him as he entered the bar, which wasn´t much crowded at this early time in the day.
"How´re you ..." he started to ask, but was cut short by a defensive hand raising up.
"Please. Don´t. Ask. `kay? I´m fine, my dwarfs are fine, everything´s shiny. So why don´t we just skip the "How´re you?"-thing and just sit here enjoying our task of ... What happened to the napkins?"
"I ordered a new color. You like them?" Steve asked proudly while his business-partner studyied a strangely folded blue napkin lying on the bar.
"Ahm ... yeah, sure, but ... You´re doing origami now?" he held up the napkin, smiling in confused amusement.
His friend shrugged. "I was bored."
"So you decided to dog-shape the napkins?"
"It´s a cat."
"Oh. Well, then ... I thought I´d have to wow you, but if this is supposed to be a cat ..."
"Hey! Who´d ever seen a dog with such ears? You wouldn´t know a cat if it threw a mouse into ..."
Laughing, Jesse answered the phone next to him, which had started to ring during Steve´s self-defens.
"BBQ Bob´s - oh, hey, Faith. Yeah, it´s Jesse. How´d you know I´m ... Oh, I see," he grinned wickedly, while his friend studyied him with clear confusion written all over his face.
"Yeah, `kay, I´ll forget. Promise. Ooookay ... See ya."
Still grinning brightly, he put down the phone, then met the questioning look of his friend.
"My new neighbors. They invited me over for today when I met them yesterday evening, and now I know what it will be. Poor Faith just wanted to order something ..."
He giggled at the recall of Faith Crabtree verbally blushing on the phone when she discovered that her guest worked at the place she planned to order the food from.
Steve, though, didn´t join his amusement. He simply continued staring.
"What?" Jesse asked, still laughing. "Steve?"
The detective opened his mouth, closed it. Finally he asked: "Jess ... how ... how did you know ...? The phone didn´t even ring once," he said as if he´d to tell himself. "How did you know somebody was calling?"
"What you mean it didn´t ring?" Jesse asked, his smile changing slightly. "Is something wrong with your ears? It rang five times."
Rolling his eyes, he turned to enter the kitchen, calling back: "Don´t bother, just because I have dwarfs doesn´t mean I´m an easy target now!"
Steve stared after him, then at the phone. Unconsciously scratching his left ear, he shrugged.
He was about to grab his jackett, when his young friend returned from the kitchen, handing him a just folded napkin.
"And this," he stated, "is a cat."
Making a face, the detective studyied the thing, and layed it on the bar next to the dog-shaped one.
"Nooo - it´s a napkin, Jess," he teased. "I´m alyways telling you you´re working too hard."
"Bla, bla, bla."
Hiding a grin, Steve nodded mockingly serious. "Ow - that hurt."
"I´m thinking of a reply, `kay?! Gimme time."
"Don´t bother. I gotta be back at the station."
Grabbing his jackett, he headed for the door. "Oh, hey, Jess, wanna come over to watch the game when you´re done here?"
"Dinner with my neighbors," Jesse replied, letting it sound like a question.
"Ah, right," Steve nodded, hitting his forehead. "Forgot. ´kay, see ya."
"Yeahp." He turned to reenter the kitchen, when he noticed a small girl enter the bar when Steve left it.
The detective almost bumped into her, but didn´t seem to notice as he went along without even turning to look at her.
Because such behaviour was so unlike his friend, Jesse remained, frowning for a second, till something oddly familiar stroke him about the girl, who was by now sitting down on a table, grabbing the card with her small hands.
"Sarah?" the doctor asked, and she lifted her head.
"Hey, I´m Dr. Travis, remember? We met in the hospital this morning."
"Oh. Yeah," she replied and smiled. "I told my mom you were coming back, but she wouldn´t stay."
"So I noticed," he said, returning the smile, but glanced back to the door. "Where´s you mom now?"
"At home."
Again, the alarm prepared to start ringing in Jesse´s head, as he now sat down on the other side of the table.
"You came here alone? Does your mom know you´re here?"
"No. I was hungry," the child stated as if that explained everything.
Jesse couldn´t help but laugh at this, nervously, though.
"What? Wait a moment, you ran away from home?"
"No, stupid," she grinned forbearingly. "I´m just hungry. I´m going back after I´ve eaten. I´d never run away. I´m six years old."
"Ahm ..." the doctor stuttered, finding that he didn´t know what to say.
"Do you work here?" Sarah asked when he didn´t say anything other than "ahm".
"Sort of."
"D´you have milk here?"
"Ah ... sure. I´m going to get you some. Sarah - you want me to call your mom? Tell her you´re here?"
"No, thanks," she replied politely, shaking her head. "Just the milk."
"But I´m sure she´ll worry about you."
"She´s probably still asleep," the child said. "It´s okay."
"`kay."
When he was back in the kitchen, he instantly headed for the phone.
Two minutes later he was trying to keep the woman on ther other side from hanging up on him.
"No, Shem. With an h. Yes. I don´t know! Somewhere near "BBQ Bob´s". - What you mean, there´re no Shems near here? I have a little girl sitting in the other room who claims to have come here on her own. I don´t think she took the bus. - Hey, it´s not my problem, either, but I tend to worry when ... I know you´re busy, cause it´s me who´s keeping you busy at the moment! - No, it´s your job to ... Hello? Damn it!"
Frustrated, he hang up and ran a hand through his hair. He was about to give it another try, when he heard the door fall close outside.
Driven by a sudden feeling, he rushed outside to find Sarah gone.
The only other guest, a young man in a suit, who stood to leave, eyed him with awe.
"Did she leave?" Jesse asked him, while gazing outside the front door. Unsuccessfully, though. There was no sign of the girl.
"Who?" the man asked.
"The little girl," Jesse replied unpatiently. "Who was sitting on the table back there."
The man raised his brows at him, then laughed and stepped outside the door which Jesse still held open.
"Yeah, sure. She left together with the big white rabbit," he mumbled. "Looney toon."
Jesse stared after him, not believing the whole world.
"Has everybody gone crazy?" he asked himself loudly when he closed the door.
Strange, he thought when he was driving home later the evening, he never thought of following the girl.
One bite of what Faith had tried to prepare herself after the embarrassing incident earlier that day, gave Jesse the idea why she´d wanted to order something in the first place.
"This is really great," he lied, while making a mental note to throw away the chicken-soup still resting in his fridge once he got home.
"Really?" the cook asked gratefully.
"Don´t push him too hard," Seamus said, before Jesse had to answer. "He has no wife, he´s not trained in lieing."
"No, really, it´s great," Jesse hurried to say, fearing a fight, but was surprised by Faith´s amused reaction.
"We don´t want him to stay alone, now, do we?" she asked, smiling like an old woman, wisely, wittyly.
"See? He has to learn how to lie properly. You´d to learn it, too, right?"
"Ahm ... no, I really like this ..."
"Oh, you can stop it now," Faith winked, laying down her own fork and knive, while turning to her little son, who hadn´t touched his plate once.
"David, honey, go get the phone, please."
Obviously this was the magic word. The kid flew off his chair into another room, followed by the echo of his happy cry "Pizza!" as he stormed along to fullfill his important task.
Relieved, Shay shoved his plate away.
"Finally," he sighed, casting Jesse an apologizing look. "I´m sorry we´d to put you through this, but she thought she could make a good impression, you know. As if you hadn´t already met her."
Jesse watched in growing amusement Shay placing a hand on his wife´s, who was definately preparing to shoot back, but was interrupted by her son´s phone-delivery.
Pizza was ordered, to everybody´s clear relief.
"She´s the worst cook in the whole state," Shay told his guest, but corrected himself after a second´s thought. "Skip that - in the whole country."
"Oh yeah, but you should try Shay´s famous ... food," Faith countered. "We´d to move here because our last neighbor did."
Jesse laughed. "I´m not that much of a cook, either," he said comfortingly.
"You´re not?" Faith frowned. "I thought with you working at this place ..."
"Oh. No. I´m ... folding the napkins. - I run it actually, together with a friend of mine. But we don´t work there all the time, we have other jobs. "Real" jobs," he added with a smile.
"Actually I´m a doctor."
"Really?" Faith asked, surprised. "Wow. That´s what I thought you are when I saw you yesterday."
"Ah? Cause I looked ill?"
"Exactly," she grinned.
"Thought so," he grinned back. "What do you two do?"
"Dunno yet," Shay answered. "We had a little shop down in Maine, but Faith wanted to move somewhere warm and nice ..."
"It wasn´t like that," Mrs Crabtree objected, hitting her husband´s arm lightly.
"I just want David to become a Hollywood-star, that´s all," she said seriously.
"Yeah, right, and now we´re here and ... we´ll see. We´ll probably open another shop. Till David can pay the rent. And I´m only good with books actually. There´s hardly anything else we want to do."
Jesse´s laughing subsided noticably at Shay´s last sentences, and he felt a very cold shudder along his spine when he asked:
"Y-you had a book-shop?"
"Yeah," Faith nodded and frowned at his reaction. "What is it, you had bad experiences with books?"
"No, just ..." he started, then out of politness smiled at the joke, before growing serious again. "Wh-what was it called, your shop?"
" "David´s heritage"," the child answered, grinning at his parents, who both nodded proudly.
"That was before Faith decided that he´d become a star," Shay explained. "We´ll have to think of another name next time."
" "Moriaty´s"," Jesse said, but hushed instantly, shocked. He didn´t know why he´d said it in the first place.
"Pardon?" Faith asked.
" "Moriaty´s" is a book-shop across our bar," he told them. "It´s ... I think it´s going to be sold."
"Why?"
"The owner died a few days ago," he replied, looking down. "I don´t think his wife will keep it."
"Wow, that sounds promising," Faith said, taking her husband´s hand.
"Yeah, it does," Shay agreed. "And I like the name, too. Don´t you? "Moriaty´s". Hm. I always liked him better than Holmes, you know."
"I´m not going to call our shop after a bad guy, Seamus. No way. We´re calling it "Shop across BBQ Bob´s", and that´s it. Right, Jess ... Jesse? Are you alright?"
"Huh?" Jesse asked, risen from his thoughts. "I´m sorry, I was ..."
"Pizza!" David´s happy cry interrupted him, followed by the doorbell.
"Dinner´s ready at last," Shay stated happyly as he placed a gentle kiss on his wife´s forehead before heading for the door.
It was late that night when Jesse woke from a stange noise coming from his living-room.
He´d been sound asleep, having spent a few very entertaining, nevertheless exhausting hours at the Crabtree-residence.
He´d listened to Faith and Shay´s loveable and lovingly teasings, and he had brought David to bed, for the child had insisted on him telling him all the names of the bones in a human hand.
"He´s very interested in ... everything," Shay ´d told his young guest when he´d left the kid´s room quietly.
"He sure is in medicine," Jesse´d agreed. "Maybe he´d like to become a doctor one day."
"On TV."
"Hey!" Shay´d hold his hands up in defense at Jesse´s wry look after Faith´s remark.
"Don´t look at me. I´m not going to quarrel with her about the kid´s future."
"Why not?"
"Survival instinct."
And now, the young doctor was back in his own apartment, again hearing a noise from outside the room.
Still sleepy, he reached for the light and crawled out of bed.
His bedroom door was slightly open as usual. Carefully, he pushed it open a little further - and froze, stunned.
What greeted him in his living-room was the tallest, darkest figure he´d ever seen. Though human it did look, the doctor instantly sensed that it ... wasn´t.
It had no face, a black hole looked back at him; actually it had nothing whatsoever on it that could have led to the assumption, that a man had dressed in black - it was black.
A human-shaped hole.
Unable to move or even breathe, Jesse simply starred at it, terror rushing through his veins.
He knew that he should do something, call for help, try to reach the door, anything, but he couldn´t bring himself to do it.
He could only stare. Unbelieving. Terrified.
It was only when the figure finally made what seemed to be a step, but had more in common with a sliding motion, towards him, that he jerked aside.
A cry of terror escaped him, followed by a sickening thud, when his head collided with the door frame behind him.
Pain exploded in the land of the dwarfs, and their owner slumped down to the ground, unable to break his fall.
Despite his struggling mind, he quickly drifted off to oblivion.
"Finally," a familiar voice awaited him on the other side of the darkness. Then, a little closer to his ears: "Jesse? Jesse, can you hear me?"
"Hm," he mumbled softly, his eyes fluttering open with some difficulties.
The throbbing pain in his head sent out orders of ist own, including that his eyes had no permission to open.
"C´mon, Jesse, wake up."
As he finally complied, groaning, lifting a weak, feeble hand towards his eyes to gently squezze them shut again, he decided to listen to the pain´s order in the future.
Bright light stabbed into his brain like little knives, welcomed by the dwarfs, who´d obviously used his abscence of mind to reorganize themselves.
"Woah," he heard the voice again when tried to sit up. "Easy. Quite a bump you got there."
Stars exploded in front of his eyes, when a mercyless hand without any warning touched a sore spot on the back of his head.
He couldn´t help gasp out in pain, his eyes flew open despite their orders, meeting Seamus Crabtree´s astonished gaze.
"Oh, sorry. Did that hurt?"
It took Jesse some time before he managed to squeeze out an answer, which consisted of a lame "yes" instead of what he´d really wanted to yell at Shay.
"Yeah, looks like it does," Shay nodded, reaching out again.
Jesse flinched away.
"Shay! - Where am I?"
"On your sofa," Seamus replied,concern showing in his eyes.
"We heard you scream, and I came over to find your door open. You were lying on the floor, unconscious. What happened?"
"Dunno," Jesse replied, now carefully probing at his bump himself, while he swept his look over his apartment.
"There was a noise and ... someone. I think someone broke in."
"You were attacked?"
"No," Jesse shook his head and moaned once more when recieving pain´s orders to not shake the head.
"No, I ... hit it on the door frame. I think. I ... tried to get away from it, and ..."
"It?" Shay repeated, and frowned. "What you mean?"
"The thing, it ..." Jesse stopped, confused. He clearly saw the black figure in his mind, but it couldn´t be real, could it? He´d hit his head, he shouldn´t trust his memory on this.
"What?"
"It ... didn´t look human, Shay. It was ... dunno. Tall. And ... black."
"Well, Jess, tall ..." Shay teased him gently.
"No, I mean it was really tall. You´d have thought it tall, too!"
"Yeah, sure," Shay soothed, and smiled assuringly.
"Still, you hit your head real hard there. Your mind his playing tricks on you now, don´t you think? I´m sure it was a burglar. Hm?"
"Right," Jesse nodded, rubbing a hand over his face. "You´re right. It probably was."
He winced when his fingers touched another sore spot on his left temble, where even something slightly wet could be felt.
"You´re a little bruised there, too," Shay explained, pushing Jesse´s fingers away from the small wound.
"But nothing serious there. I´m more worried `bout your head. Maybe you´ve a concussion. We should call a doctor or get you to the hospital."
Suddenly dead-tired, probably out of a reflex because someone had said "hospital", Jesse winked.
"I´m a doctor, Shay. And in a few hours I´ll be at the hospital, anyway. `sides I don´t think I have a concussion, just dwarfs, and I´d rather go back to sleep now."
"You sure?"
Smiling, the doctor nodded. "Positive. Thanks for everything, but I´ll better let you go back to sleep, too, now."
"I could stay if you want me to," Shay offered. "Make sure you don´t die in your sleep or stuff."
"Gee, that´s so nice, Shay," Jesse replied dryly, and stood to let his neighbor out. "If I´m starting to feel like dying, I´ll give you a call."
"Yeah, you do that," Shay nodded and stepped outside, but turned once more before Jesse could close the door.
"And you´re really sure about this?"
A tired nod was all he got.
"Okay. But don´t tell Faith I left you in that condition. Or you´ll have to make sure it won´t be me dying ... Get some rest. See you tomorrow."
"Night, Shay."
Alone, Jesse turned and headed back to his bedroom, where he sat down on his bed, head in hands.
"Okay, you dwarfs, I know you hired that guy. You´re all under arrest. Up against the brain wall."
Awaiting their surrender, he fell back, sound asleep, before his head had touched the pillow.
Now we´re difinzely on the insane side. Yeah, I knew you were just waiting for that ...
Okay, here´s more. Thank you so much for all the reviews, I´m really glad you like my stuff!
And specail YEAH-double-THANKS to Karen Faye and StrangePenguin (Commercial Break - Music - "Check out Strange Penguin´s new story on the net. It´s great! Obst vor!!!").
Okay, let´s get a look on our cute cookie.
"Grass is green,
Sky is blue,
False is false,
And true is true,
You´ll be you and me
To some degree.
Simple, simple, simple,
Simple as A, B, C,
Simple as One, Two Three ..."
(Anyone can whistle)
But there wasn´t much sleep to get in Two, for a bleeding women, lost somewhere deep in hysterics, awaited the tired young doctor, reaching out for him as if he was her last resort.
"Help me!" she screamed. "They´re going to test me again! Don´t let them do this to me again. Please!"
As he shot the young nurse who was trying to hold the patient down while on the same time fumbling with the restraining functions of the bed, she rolled her eyes. "What? Do I look like ET? I´m just trying to tie her down, `kay?"
"Ahm ..."
"Help me or what?" she growled at him and lifted her head, only to be smacked on the cheek by the blindly reaching out patient´s fist. "Ow! Damn!"
"Wait, I´ll ..." Jesse started and managed to get the left hand of the patient and even put the restrain on it. "Shhh," he tried to soothe her down, unsuccessfully, but that was hardly surprising. "`sokay, no one wants to hurt you."
"Oh yeah?" the nurse mumbled. She was still having a hard time forcing the patient´s other hand into the restrain.
Though Jesse shot her a reprimanding glance, he decided to not lecture her in front of the patient.
"I´ll give you a hand there."
"Yeah, that´ll be nice. - Will you stop hitting me, damnit!"
But though the woman wasn´t screaming anymore, it seemed as if she´d chosen to put the by that earned energy into her struggling, which even increased when Jesse got hold of her hand and gently, but firmly put it in the other restrain.
Now that she was completely helpless and tied down, the patient surrendered, her protests now more or less whimpers, her eyes closed.
Panting, Jesse turned to the nurse, who leaned against the wall, holding her brutalised cheek.
"What happened?"
"Hey! It wasn´t my fault!"
"I didn´t say that," he shot back, angry, because it was what he thought, actually.
"But you meant it! Okay - she got here, I tried to clean that wound," she pointed towards the still bleeding gash on the woman´s forehead, "and all of a sudden she starts to scream and thrash around, so I decided to restrain her."
He simply nodded, looking down on his patient. It tore his heart to have to tie a grown-up person to a bed.
It was the most humiliating thing he´d ever seen.
"It wasn´t my fault!" the nurse repeated, now actually shouting at him. She fell silent before his head had even rushed up.
"Sorry," she then mumbled, staring at the floor.
Jesse let a tensed silent estimate, before ordering her in his best business-tone to bring him what he needed for the treatment.
She vanished in a hurry, relieved to leave the room.
The doctor watched her rush off, and sighed. He´d never been good when it came to underline his authority.
Pushing the thought away, he concentrated on his patient.
She was still whimpering softly from time to time, her eyes suqeezed shut as if against bright light, and her muscles tensed when he gently touched her.
"Hi," he said softly to not scare her further. "I´m Dr. Travis. I´m going to suture that gash on your forehead, alright?"
She didn´t react.
"Can you tell me how you got it, Mrs ..."
He looked down on her in expectation, but again, her eyes stayed shut, as did her mouth.
"Okay. Listen, no one is going to hurt you. On the contrary, everybody here wants to help. So, I´m just gonna clean and treat your wound, and when you feel up to talk to me, I´ll listen. And when we´re finished here, you still can tell one of the nurses to give me a call, and I´ll be right back. Deal?"
No response.
"Okay," he nodded.
The nurse returned, Jesse sutured the gash and left the room without earning any sign of concsciousness from the oblivious patient.
He asked Dr. Thorman to take a look at her and headed for the Doctor´s Lounge to get some coffee.
"Hey, how´s it going?" Amanda asked, when he entered the room.
She and Mark were sitting on a table, looking up at the tired figure with unhidden amusement.
"How´re your dwarfs?"
But he wasn´t in the mood for dwarf-jokes and sank down on a chair, feeling absolutely miserable.
"I just had to tie a patient to her bed. It was awful."
He sighed, and swept a hand over his face.
"Why?" Mark asked, his smile fading.
He knew how hard it was to treat a patient that way. Yet another part of the job people never got used to.
Jesse shrugged. "Oh, the usual. She had a gash on her forehead that needed a few stitches, and she simply freaked out. Hit the nurse."
"Have you called Thorman?"
He nodded. "He said he´d come down here within the hour. I´m wondering what it was that made her freak out like that. When you come to the hospital, you expect to be examined and treated, and she obviously knew that she´d to come here because of her inury, yet ..."
He interrupted himself by shaking his head frustratedly.
"What is it these days that everybody´s goin´ nuts?! Pre-christmas?"
"Don´t get all moody about it," Amanda said comfortingly. "You did what you could do for her, the rest is off to another chapter of medicine. And there are other patients you can help, hm?"
Glancing at her, he made a face, not convinced.
"Yeah," Mark joined in, giving the young resident an encouraging smile.
"What about the little girl who fainted? Did she and her mother show up again?"
"Naw," he mumbled.
"See? Then she´s obviously feeling better."
"If so then I had nothing to do with it. She felt fine when I examined her."
"So? You know that there´s at least one little girl out there who´s feeling fine. Enjoy that thought," Mark concluded, knowing that Jesse just had to laugh at this.
He wasn´t disappointed.
"Wow, you sure know how to be grateful for the simple things in life, eh?"
The older doctor shrugged. "It´s what they´re there for."
"Yeah," Jesse nodded, still smiling, though it vanished over the next sentence.
"Still - you should have seen this woman. She seemed ... terrified. Of me," he added with a humorless grin.
"Felt ... awkward."
"Sometimes we have to do awkward things," Amanda said.
"Well, I just hope I don´t have to do that special thing again in many years," Jesse replied, and stood to help himself to a much needed cup of coffee.
"I hated it."
He was surprised to find Mark smiling proudly at this remark. "That´s good, Jesse. Be grateful for this simple thing."
The shift proved to be endless.
After another three hours of non-stop work, Jesse was dead-tired. He was also assuming by that time that his dwarfs lived on pain-killers, for their working speed increased with each pill he took.
He decided to lay down on them then and was just entering the lift to get to the Doctor´s Lounge for another coffee, when he saw her again.
She was standing half-hidden behind a plant, small, standing absolutely still, as if no one could notice her unless she moved.
Frowning, he stepped out of the lift and approached her, smiling slightly.
"Hey," he greeted her, but found that he didn´t know what to say next.
It was strange, but he had the feeling something important had to be said, something important had to be done. Yet, he couldn´t remember what it was.
"I saw you outside the lab today," he finally said, because it was true.
"I had the ... impression that you were ... following me."
She smiled, bowed her head, and looked up again, a little sad, though he couldn´t guess why.
"Do I know you?" he asked when it was clear that she wouldn´t say anthing to defend herself against his accusion.
She shook her head no.
"But you know me, don´t you?"
Nod.
"How?"
Her smile vanished, only the sadness remained, as she bent closer to him, whispering:
"Looking out for you, Jesse Travis. Try to remember that."
With that she stepped aside, heading for the lift.
"Wait," he called after her, but didn´t make any attempt to held her back.
"What ... what´s your name?"
"Oak," she replied. The door closed slowly, she was gone.
Unable to figure out what that was all about, he continued standing next to the plant, confused.
The deep, calm voice of Dr. Thorman finally draw him back to the here and now.
"Dr. Travis. I just finished off the paper-work to hospitalize Mrs Reed."
Starled, Jesse blinked, then frowned questioningly.
"Ah ... sorry. Who?"
"Mrs Reed, your patient," Thorman replied, and smiled.
He was a friendly man and smiled a lot. Jesse sort of liked him, though he kept his distance. He didn´t trust shrinks in general. Never had.
"Oh, yes. How is she?"
"Asleep. We had to sedate her after her last ... outburst. I´m on my way calling her husband. Looks like she´ll be our guest for a little while."
A slight shudder ran along Jesse´s spine at the thought of that poor woman being Thorman´s "guest". The image of her lying on the bed, unable to move, whimpering in fear, swept through his mind.
The smile he presented Thorman with was forced, tensed.
"Don´t give me that kinda look, kid," Thorman said good-humoredly, placing a big, warm hand on the younger man´s shoulder.
"I know exactly what you´re thinking, and believe me, it´s not true."
"Uh ..." Jesse stuttered. For a bizarr second he wondered if psychiatrists could actually read minds.
"This poor woman needs our help, and that´s what we´re going to do: help her. Our jobs are not as different as you think them."
"I don´t ..." Jesse started, but hushed, when he noticed that he was about to lie to the man. He smiled excusingly, feeling like he´d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Thorman laughed softly, and took his hand off Jesse´s shoulder to stash it in his pockett.
"People get sick, kid. Physical or otherwise, and it´s our job to help them heal themselfes. That´s what all doctor´s do. The only difference is that whilst you´re touching their bodies, I´m touching their souls."
Jesse felt his mouth twist at that. Maybe he did like the man after all.
"That´s nice," he said honestly.
"It´s true. And I have yet another truth for you, kid," Thorman added after a second´s though. Suddenly he grew very serious, and bent a little down to the smaller man, looking him right into the eye, as he said:
"Everybody gets sick some time. One way or the other."
At Jesse´s confused frown, he lifted himself up again, his smile returning, as he gave the young man a final pat on the shoulder and headed for the lift.
"Think about it."
Again, Jesse stood where he´d been left, confused.
He thought about it.
Surprised, he noticed that it scared him. A lot.
Shaking his head as if to clear it from the shrink´s words, he finally got to the lift himself, ready for another emergency to be cared about. Anythink to distract him.
Finally, finally his shift ended. And even though the dwarfs obviously had different working hours than he, he felt slightly better when he drove off CG, heading for "BBQ Bob´s", where the waitress had called in sick the morning, so that he and Steve had to take over her shift.
"Hey Jess," Steve greeted him as he entered the bar, which wasn´t much crowded at this early time in the day.
"How´re you ..." he started to ask, but was cut short by a defensive hand raising up.
"Please. Don´t. Ask. `kay? I´m fine, my dwarfs are fine, everything´s shiny. So why don´t we just skip the "How´re you?"-thing and just sit here enjoying our task of ... What happened to the napkins?"
"I ordered a new color. You like them?" Steve asked proudly while his business-partner studyied a strangely folded blue napkin lying on the bar.
"Ahm ... yeah, sure, but ... You´re doing origami now?" he held up the napkin, smiling in confused amusement.
His friend shrugged. "I was bored."
"So you decided to dog-shape the napkins?"
"It´s a cat."
"Oh. Well, then ... I thought I´d have to wow you, but if this is supposed to be a cat ..."
"Hey! Who´d ever seen a dog with such ears? You wouldn´t know a cat if it threw a mouse into ..."
Laughing, Jesse answered the phone next to him, which had started to ring during Steve´s self-defens.
"BBQ Bob´s - oh, hey, Faith. Yeah, it´s Jesse. How´d you know I´m ... Oh, I see," he grinned wickedly, while his friend studyied him with clear confusion written all over his face.
"Yeah, `kay, I´ll forget. Promise. Ooookay ... See ya."
Still grinning brightly, he put down the phone, then met the questioning look of his friend.
"My new neighbors. They invited me over for today when I met them yesterday evening, and now I know what it will be. Poor Faith just wanted to order something ..."
He giggled at the recall of Faith Crabtree verbally blushing on the phone when she discovered that her guest worked at the place she planned to order the food from.
Steve, though, didn´t join his amusement. He simply continued staring.
"What?" Jesse asked, still laughing. "Steve?"
The detective opened his mouth, closed it. Finally he asked: "Jess ... how ... how did you know ...? The phone didn´t even ring once," he said as if he´d to tell himself. "How did you know somebody was calling?"
"What you mean it didn´t ring?" Jesse asked, his smile changing slightly. "Is something wrong with your ears? It rang five times."
Rolling his eyes, he turned to enter the kitchen, calling back: "Don´t bother, just because I have dwarfs doesn´t mean I´m an easy target now!"
Steve stared after him, then at the phone. Unconsciously scratching his left ear, he shrugged.
He was about to grab his jackett, when his young friend returned from the kitchen, handing him a just folded napkin.
"And this," he stated, "is a cat."
Making a face, the detective studyied the thing, and layed it on the bar next to the dog-shaped one.
"Nooo - it´s a napkin, Jess," he teased. "I´m alyways telling you you´re working too hard."
"Bla, bla, bla."
Hiding a grin, Steve nodded mockingly serious. "Ow - that hurt."
"I´m thinking of a reply, `kay?! Gimme time."
"Don´t bother. I gotta be back at the station."
Grabbing his jackett, he headed for the door. "Oh, hey, Jess, wanna come over to watch the game when you´re done here?"
"Dinner with my neighbors," Jesse replied, letting it sound like a question.
"Ah, right," Steve nodded, hitting his forehead. "Forgot. ´kay, see ya."
"Yeahp." He turned to reenter the kitchen, when he noticed a small girl enter the bar when Steve left it.
The detective almost bumped into her, but didn´t seem to notice as he went along without even turning to look at her.
Because such behaviour was so unlike his friend, Jesse remained, frowning for a second, till something oddly familiar stroke him about the girl, who was by now sitting down on a table, grabbing the card with her small hands.
"Sarah?" the doctor asked, and she lifted her head.
"Hey, I´m Dr. Travis, remember? We met in the hospital this morning."
"Oh. Yeah," she replied and smiled. "I told my mom you were coming back, but she wouldn´t stay."
"So I noticed," he said, returning the smile, but glanced back to the door. "Where´s you mom now?"
"At home."
Again, the alarm prepared to start ringing in Jesse´s head, as he now sat down on the other side of the table.
"You came here alone? Does your mom know you´re here?"
"No. I was hungry," the child stated as if that explained everything.
Jesse couldn´t help but laugh at this, nervously, though.
"What? Wait a moment, you ran away from home?"
"No, stupid," she grinned forbearingly. "I´m just hungry. I´m going back after I´ve eaten. I´d never run away. I´m six years old."
"Ahm ..." the doctor stuttered, finding that he didn´t know what to say.
"Do you work here?" Sarah asked when he didn´t say anything other than "ahm".
"Sort of."
"D´you have milk here?"
"Ah ... sure. I´m going to get you some. Sarah - you want me to call your mom? Tell her you´re here?"
"No, thanks," she replied politely, shaking her head. "Just the milk."
"But I´m sure she´ll worry about you."
"She´s probably still asleep," the child said. "It´s okay."
"`kay."
When he was back in the kitchen, he instantly headed for the phone.
Two minutes later he was trying to keep the woman on ther other side from hanging up on him.
"No, Shem. With an h. Yes. I don´t know! Somewhere near "BBQ Bob´s". - What you mean, there´re no Shems near here? I have a little girl sitting in the other room who claims to have come here on her own. I don´t think she took the bus. - Hey, it´s not my problem, either, but I tend to worry when ... I know you´re busy, cause it´s me who´s keeping you busy at the moment! - No, it´s your job to ... Hello? Damn it!"
Frustrated, he hang up and ran a hand through his hair. He was about to give it another try, when he heard the door fall close outside.
Driven by a sudden feeling, he rushed outside to find Sarah gone.
The only other guest, a young man in a suit, who stood to leave, eyed him with awe.
"Did she leave?" Jesse asked him, while gazing outside the front door. Unsuccessfully, though. There was no sign of the girl.
"Who?" the man asked.
"The little girl," Jesse replied unpatiently. "Who was sitting on the table back there."
The man raised his brows at him, then laughed and stepped outside the door which Jesse still held open.
"Yeah, sure. She left together with the big white rabbit," he mumbled. "Looney toon."
Jesse stared after him, not believing the whole world.
"Has everybody gone crazy?" he asked himself loudly when he closed the door.
Strange, he thought when he was driving home later the evening, he never thought of following the girl.
One bite of what Faith had tried to prepare herself after the embarrassing incident earlier that day, gave Jesse the idea why she´d wanted to order something in the first place.
"This is really great," he lied, while making a mental note to throw away the chicken-soup still resting in his fridge once he got home.
"Really?" the cook asked gratefully.
"Don´t push him too hard," Seamus said, before Jesse had to answer. "He has no wife, he´s not trained in lieing."
"No, really, it´s great," Jesse hurried to say, fearing a fight, but was surprised by Faith´s amused reaction.
"We don´t want him to stay alone, now, do we?" she asked, smiling like an old woman, wisely, wittyly.
"See? He has to learn how to lie properly. You´d to learn it, too, right?"
"Ahm ... no, I really like this ..."
"Oh, you can stop it now," Faith winked, laying down her own fork and knive, while turning to her little son, who hadn´t touched his plate once.
"David, honey, go get the phone, please."
Obviously this was the magic word. The kid flew off his chair into another room, followed by the echo of his happy cry "Pizza!" as he stormed along to fullfill his important task.
Relieved, Shay shoved his plate away.
"Finally," he sighed, casting Jesse an apologizing look. "I´m sorry we´d to put you through this, but she thought she could make a good impression, you know. As if you hadn´t already met her."
Jesse watched in growing amusement Shay placing a hand on his wife´s, who was definately preparing to shoot back, but was interrupted by her son´s phone-delivery.
Pizza was ordered, to everybody´s clear relief.
"She´s the worst cook in the whole state," Shay told his guest, but corrected himself after a second´s thought. "Skip that - in the whole country."
"Oh yeah, but you should try Shay´s famous ... food," Faith countered. "We´d to move here because our last neighbor did."
Jesse laughed. "I´m not that much of a cook, either," he said comfortingly.
"You´re not?" Faith frowned. "I thought with you working at this place ..."
"Oh. No. I´m ... folding the napkins. - I run it actually, together with a friend of mine. But we don´t work there all the time, we have other jobs. "Real" jobs," he added with a smile.
"Actually I´m a doctor."
"Really?" Faith asked, surprised. "Wow. That´s what I thought you are when I saw you yesterday."
"Ah? Cause I looked ill?"
"Exactly," she grinned.
"Thought so," he grinned back. "What do you two do?"
"Dunno yet," Shay answered. "We had a little shop down in Maine, but Faith wanted to move somewhere warm and nice ..."
"It wasn´t like that," Mrs Crabtree objected, hitting her husband´s arm lightly.
"I just want David to become a Hollywood-star, that´s all," she said seriously.
"Yeah, right, and now we´re here and ... we´ll see. We´ll probably open another shop. Till David can pay the rent. And I´m only good with books actually. There´s hardly anything else we want to do."
Jesse´s laughing subsided noticably at Shay´s last sentences, and he felt a very cold shudder along his spine when he asked:
"Y-you had a book-shop?"
"Yeah," Faith nodded and frowned at his reaction. "What is it, you had bad experiences with books?"
"No, just ..." he started, then out of politness smiled at the joke, before growing serious again. "Wh-what was it called, your shop?"
" "David´s heritage"," the child answered, grinning at his parents, who both nodded proudly.
"That was before Faith decided that he´d become a star," Shay explained. "We´ll have to think of another name next time."
" "Moriaty´s"," Jesse said, but hushed instantly, shocked. He didn´t know why he´d said it in the first place.
"Pardon?" Faith asked.
" "Moriaty´s" is a book-shop across our bar," he told them. "It´s ... I think it´s going to be sold."
"Why?"
"The owner died a few days ago," he replied, looking down. "I don´t think his wife will keep it."
"Wow, that sounds promising," Faith said, taking her husband´s hand.
"Yeah, it does," Shay agreed. "And I like the name, too. Don´t you? "Moriaty´s". Hm. I always liked him better than Holmes, you know."
"I´m not going to call our shop after a bad guy, Seamus. No way. We´re calling it "Shop across BBQ Bob´s", and that´s it. Right, Jess ... Jesse? Are you alright?"
"Huh?" Jesse asked, risen from his thoughts. "I´m sorry, I was ..."
"Pizza!" David´s happy cry interrupted him, followed by the doorbell.
"Dinner´s ready at last," Shay stated happyly as he placed a gentle kiss on his wife´s forehead before heading for the door.
It was late that night when Jesse woke from a stange noise coming from his living-room.
He´d been sound asleep, having spent a few very entertaining, nevertheless exhausting hours at the Crabtree-residence.
He´d listened to Faith and Shay´s loveable and lovingly teasings, and he had brought David to bed, for the child had insisted on him telling him all the names of the bones in a human hand.
"He´s very interested in ... everything," Shay ´d told his young guest when he´d left the kid´s room quietly.
"He sure is in medicine," Jesse´d agreed. "Maybe he´d like to become a doctor one day."
"On TV."
"Hey!" Shay´d hold his hands up in defense at Jesse´s wry look after Faith´s remark.
"Don´t look at me. I´m not going to quarrel with her about the kid´s future."
"Why not?"
"Survival instinct."
And now, the young doctor was back in his own apartment, again hearing a noise from outside the room.
Still sleepy, he reached for the light and crawled out of bed.
His bedroom door was slightly open as usual. Carefully, he pushed it open a little further - and froze, stunned.
What greeted him in his living-room was the tallest, darkest figure he´d ever seen. Though human it did look, the doctor instantly sensed that it ... wasn´t.
It had no face, a black hole looked back at him; actually it had nothing whatsoever on it that could have led to the assumption, that a man had dressed in black - it was black.
A human-shaped hole.
Unable to move or even breathe, Jesse simply starred at it, terror rushing through his veins.
He knew that he should do something, call for help, try to reach the door, anything, but he couldn´t bring himself to do it.
He could only stare. Unbelieving. Terrified.
It was only when the figure finally made what seemed to be a step, but had more in common with a sliding motion, towards him, that he jerked aside.
A cry of terror escaped him, followed by a sickening thud, when his head collided with the door frame behind him.
Pain exploded in the land of the dwarfs, and their owner slumped down to the ground, unable to break his fall.
Despite his struggling mind, he quickly drifted off to oblivion.
"Finally," a familiar voice awaited him on the other side of the darkness. Then, a little closer to his ears: "Jesse? Jesse, can you hear me?"
"Hm," he mumbled softly, his eyes fluttering open with some difficulties.
The throbbing pain in his head sent out orders of ist own, including that his eyes had no permission to open.
"C´mon, Jesse, wake up."
As he finally complied, groaning, lifting a weak, feeble hand towards his eyes to gently squezze them shut again, he decided to listen to the pain´s order in the future.
Bright light stabbed into his brain like little knives, welcomed by the dwarfs, who´d obviously used his abscence of mind to reorganize themselves.
"Woah," he heard the voice again when tried to sit up. "Easy. Quite a bump you got there."
Stars exploded in front of his eyes, when a mercyless hand without any warning touched a sore spot on the back of his head.
He couldn´t help gasp out in pain, his eyes flew open despite their orders, meeting Seamus Crabtree´s astonished gaze.
"Oh, sorry. Did that hurt?"
It took Jesse some time before he managed to squeeze out an answer, which consisted of a lame "yes" instead of what he´d really wanted to yell at Shay.
"Yeah, looks like it does," Shay nodded, reaching out again.
Jesse flinched away.
"Shay! - Where am I?"
"On your sofa," Seamus replied,concern showing in his eyes.
"We heard you scream, and I came over to find your door open. You were lying on the floor, unconscious. What happened?"
"Dunno," Jesse replied, now carefully probing at his bump himself, while he swept his look over his apartment.
"There was a noise and ... someone. I think someone broke in."
"You were attacked?"
"No," Jesse shook his head and moaned once more when recieving pain´s orders to not shake the head.
"No, I ... hit it on the door frame. I think. I ... tried to get away from it, and ..."
"It?" Shay repeated, and frowned. "What you mean?"
"The thing, it ..." Jesse stopped, confused. He clearly saw the black figure in his mind, but it couldn´t be real, could it? He´d hit his head, he shouldn´t trust his memory on this.
"What?"
"It ... didn´t look human, Shay. It was ... dunno. Tall. And ... black."
"Well, Jess, tall ..." Shay teased him gently.
"No, I mean it was really tall. You´d have thought it tall, too!"
"Yeah, sure," Shay soothed, and smiled assuringly.
"Still, you hit your head real hard there. Your mind his playing tricks on you now, don´t you think? I´m sure it was a burglar. Hm?"
"Right," Jesse nodded, rubbing a hand over his face. "You´re right. It probably was."
He winced when his fingers touched another sore spot on his left temble, where even something slightly wet could be felt.
"You´re a little bruised there, too," Shay explained, pushing Jesse´s fingers away from the small wound.
"But nothing serious there. I´m more worried `bout your head. Maybe you´ve a concussion. We should call a doctor or get you to the hospital."
Suddenly dead-tired, probably out of a reflex because someone had said "hospital", Jesse winked.
"I´m a doctor, Shay. And in a few hours I´ll be at the hospital, anyway. `sides I don´t think I have a concussion, just dwarfs, and I´d rather go back to sleep now."
"You sure?"
Smiling, the doctor nodded. "Positive. Thanks for everything, but I´ll better let you go back to sleep, too, now."
"I could stay if you want me to," Shay offered. "Make sure you don´t die in your sleep or stuff."
"Gee, that´s so nice, Shay," Jesse replied dryly, and stood to let his neighbor out. "If I´m starting to feel like dying, I´ll give you a call."
"Yeah, you do that," Shay nodded and stepped outside, but turned once more before Jesse could close the door.
"And you´re really sure about this?"
A tired nod was all he got.
"Okay. But don´t tell Faith I left you in that condition. Or you´ll have to make sure it won´t be me dying ... Get some rest. See you tomorrow."
"Night, Shay."
Alone, Jesse turned and headed back to his bedroom, where he sat down on his bed, head in hands.
"Okay, you dwarfs, I know you hired that guy. You´re all under arrest. Up against the brain wall."
Awaiting their surrender, he fell back, sound asleep, before his head had touched the pillow.