Hiya! Yeah, I promised to speed it up a little, didn´t I?
Hope, you´re still enjoying it and thanks for the reviews.
Disclaimers still the same (What a shocker!)
And as to my quoting-obligations:
"My fear is my concern."
( Lawrence in "Lawrence of Arabia")
"Where am I?"
He looked around. A white room. A bed, a few feet away on a wall. A window. High above the bed. Sunbeams on the wall, but dark it was, that room, dark and cold.
He shivered.
"We want to help you, Jesse," a deep, calming voice answered.
He wasn´t alone. Mark, Steve and Amanda were standing next to the bed, focusing him.
And there were his parents, too. Far away, in the distance, they stood, seemingly small. The room had widened.
"I don´t need help," he replied.
"Your son," he heard his mother´s voice over a loudspeaker.
Suddenly, Mark Sloan at his side. A firm hand on his shoulder.
"You are sick, Jesse."
Though he tried to, Jesse couldn´t meet his gaze. Like there was nothing to be met. Way up above his head.
"You think that I´m crazy!"
"Well, in this case," Mark said casually, "sick is crazy, my friend."
As everybody in the room except Jesse laughed, the older doctor produced a syringe.
Jesse´s eyes widened in fear. Steve now attempted to approach the smaller man.
Amanda had vanished.
"No!" Jesse screamed and ran. The door was locked.
"Don´t come near me!"
"You´re afraid, Jesse Travis."
At the sudden sound of Oak´s voice, Jesse spun around. She was standing a little distanced to Mark, blocking the way to his parents. Dwarfs were pacing behind her, humming a tune he knew from his childhood.
"Yes, I am afraid," he shouted at her, and when he looked back, Steve had already gotten hold of his arms to drag him to the bed.
"Let go off me!" Jesse cried in terror, but his struggles remained uncuccessfully. With unbelievable ease Steve forced the smaller man´s hands into the restrains on the bed, till Jesse couldn´t move an inch.
"No!" he protested, but was hushed down by Mark, who came nearer, the syringe till in hands, prepared to use it on the terrified patient.
"Shh, Jesse," he soothed, "be gratefull for the simple things in life. This won´t hurt a bit, for example."
"No, don´t! You can´t do ..."
"Hush, stupid," Sarah Shem whispered right into his ear. "You´ll wake `em all up."
With a jerk, Jesse found himself upright in bed, panting heavily, still being hold tight by the shock of his dream.
He could feel his heart trying to break out of his shivering body, and his hands were cramped around the blanket. Sleep was still having the better of him then consciousness, but his wide eyes were focusing now, on the darkness in which shillouettes seemed to move.
As his head cleared slowly, he found the origin of some vague, throbbing pain in his hand, and staring at a small bloodied spot on the bandage, he recalled the incident that had let to his injury.
At last that hadn´t been a dream, he thought wryly. And his sly smile grew even more bitter, since he could make out a small figure in the darkness now, waving slightly at him, before turning to leave the room.
He strained to listen to Sarah´s footsteps on the stairs, but stopped himself in fury. There were no footsteps. He was listening to his own hallucination.
Roughly, he put his hands onto his ears, ignoring the pain it caused. His blood roared in his ears; he closed his eyes to concentrate on that. It was real. He was real.
Like in a movie, all the places where he´d seen Sarah showed in his mind. He recalled her sudden disappearance at the hospital and how Steve had almost bumped into her at "BBQ Bob´s". The other time she´d run away from Steve. She´d been afraid of him, it had seemed.
Now Jesse knew why. Steve hadn´t seen her. She´d probably been afraid of being found out an hallucination.
"Awww, come on!" he whispered to himself and fell back on the bed, taking his hands off his ears. "She doesn´t want to be found out ... That´s crazy, Dr. Travis!"
He laughed faintly at himself, but stopped once his words sank in properly. Actually, it was crazy. It was about as crazy as a person could get.
Could get? Could be! How long did he have this? How many people he knew where ... like Sarah?
In panic, he tried to recall every man or woman he´d ever talked to alone, without any of his friends knowing him or her. His friends ... No, that couldn´t ...
He jumped out of bed - he just had to move - and stood there, staring back at where he´d lay, again gasping in fear.
"This isn´t happening!" he told himself.
He was about to add another reassuring thing to say, but suddenly found himself dressing in a hurry, his fearful gaze never leaving the bed. Glimpses of his dream travelled through his mind, mixing with reality in there.
"Don´t become afraid of people," Oak had told him.
But what could you do when your friends would lock you up in a looney bin once they found out who you really were? What could you do if they tied you down like Mrs Reed once they would have found out? What could be more frightening than ... people?
There was nothing he had to be afraid of but people!
And nothing that could save him but fear.
It took a while till he finally reached his building. Eventually a cab drove by and even stopped for him to enter. Exhausted, Jesse almost fell asleep in the car. He would never have imagined it to be that arduous to creep outside a house. Back home in his last highschool days, he´d been used to it, but then he´d never been really afraid of his mother ...
Now he was safe, home, away from his friends,who suddenly seemed the most dangerous people in the world just because they knew him. Those who knew him would find out eventually. And he couldn´t let that happen.
So though relieved enough to finally control his trembling hands, he was still tensed and agitated when he unlocked the door to his apartment.
Where to go?
What to do?
"Jesse! Finally!"
He jumped that high, he´d probably hit the ceiling if he´d been tall enough.
"Shay!" he stated shakily, once he was able to again. "Faith! Wha ...?"
"We were worried about you," Faith answered, and stood to approach and hug him in a greeting gesture. "Where´ve you been?"
"I ..." He couldn´t find the words. Again, as so often in the last days, he could only stare. This was becoming one irritating habit.
"Wow, what happened?" Seamus Crabtree asked. He, too, had come nearer now, and noticed a bruise from the fall on Jesse´s face. In the meantime, Faith had closed the door and gently shoved the confused doctor towards the sofa.
"I ... What ... What´re you doing here?" Jesse managed to demand at last. He was beginning to feel very, very pissed with the situation. "How did you get in?"
"We were worried," Faith replied, and frowned. "Sorry for caring about you!"
"Worried!" Jesse sneered.
"Yes," Shay nodded. "You didn´t come home all night. You see, we waited, because we wanted to talk to you about this shop you know."
"Yeah," Faith agreed and went to stand next to her husband. " "Moriaty´s"."
It was so clear. He should have seen it before.
"Mori ...," he repeated in a chocked whisper. His feet stepped back, slowly, his tongue swallowed dryly ... He knew, but his body reacted delayedly.
"Jesse, you okay?" Shay asked and exchanged a concerned gaze with his wife. "You look like you´ve seen a ..."
"Ghost," Jesse concluded with a grim smile. "A ghost, Shay?"
"Jess, what´s wrong?" Faith asked, fear in her voice.
"You ..." A short nervous laugh escaped him. "You´re ... not real. You´re like her."
"Jesse?"
"You´re not real," he repeated, convinced. "Are you?"
Unimpressed, Faith sat down on the sofa, the look she presented him with was calm, as if she was about to talk to a child.
"What do you think?" she asked friendlyly.
He draw in a deep breath. "I think you are not real. You are here, because I see you. Actually, I´m talking to pure air this moment."
"So?" Shay asked and sat down next to his wife. "Pure air, huh? But still you´re talking to us, aren´t you?"
"But you´re just a hallucination!"
"So?"
" "So"?! I´m crazy!"
"Well, that´s hardly news," Faith teased.
"This is not funny!!!" Jesse shouted at her, but turned away in a hurry a second later. "Oh my, now I´m arguing with a hallucination! Why is it even someone who´s not there makes fun of me?!"
"Jesse," Shay said comfortingly, "look at me."
Desperate, the doctor obeyed. Since he was seeing this guy, why not listen to him?
"You´re crazy," Shay said. "No doubt about that, but ..."
"Oh great, the white rabbit tells me I´m crazy. I´m lost, oh, scratch that, I´m all over lost - I´m dead."
"But," Shay continued, ignoring Jesse´s frustrated outburst, "I don´t get how that makes us unreal."
"Huh?"
"He´s right, you know," Faith cut in. "Why do we have to be unreal, just because you are crazy? Don´t you think that a little ... arrogant?"
"Huh?!"
"What makes you so damn certain that you´re real?" Faith demanded provokingly.
There was a short, unbelieving silence, before the young doctor threw his hands in the air.
"What?! Are you crazy?! I. Am. Not. Unreal! You get that? You´re Harveys, not me!"
"But you´re crazy," Shay pointed out.
"And you´re unreal! Seems to me neither of us is very convincing on this point."
"Actually, we both are," Faith disagreed. "See, Jesse, what makes you think you´re a real person?"
"That´s a crazy question, Faith! What ..."
"You´re one to talk."
"Okay, fine! I have parents! I have a job! I have a life! I even had a girl- friend once! I have friends! And - most importantly - I have hallucinations! Guess, that makes me very real!"
"There´s no need to yell at me."
"Oh yeah? I figured that if I yell loud enough you may go out of my head!!!"
"Oh great, doctor," Faith growled, "keep on the shouting to wake up the whole building and make them take you to a nice, white place where ..."
"Don´t listen to her," Shay interrupted his wife, "she´s not real."
Resigning, Jesse let his head fall down into his hands. "Oh gawd," he moaned, "this can´t be happning! Why do I have to get hallucinations who think they´re funny?!"
"Jess, listen," Shay tried again. "Faith is right. You said you´re real, because you have friends and parents and so on. People, in short. You have people who know you and that makes you real, right?"
"Hm-hm."
"So? You see us. You hear us. You can even," he placed a comforting hand on Jesse´s shoulder, "feel us."
Doubtfull, Jesse lifted his head to look at the man. "Your point being?"
"Why do all these facts make you a real person, but not us?"
Silence.
"Good point," Jesse admitted, adding after a moment´s thought: "I didn´t know I could be that clever. And since you´re my hallucinaton, it must be me who´s figured this out, eh?"
"Then why don´t you believe yourself?"
"Hm ... Cause I´m ... insane?"
"No, Jesse," Faith objected. She also stood, again walking to her husband´s side, and smiled at her producer. "You´re just afraid."
There was no denying that, so he remained silent.
"Don´t be," Faith contined and reached out to softly stroke his cheek. "What´s there to be afraid of? We´re nice people, aren´t we? We won´t do you any harm. We´ll just come visit you from time to time. Invite you over for dinner," she grinned as Shay shuddered at the thought of her food.
"We´re your friends, Jesse. Doesn´t that make us pretty real?"
Surprised, the doctor found his fear had gone. The doubts had gone. The smile he felt on his lips was honest and clear, bright and happy.
"Yeah," he answered calmly. "Yeah, I guess it does."
Proudly, Shay nudged his friend´s shoulder, grinning. "Now that wasn´t so hard, was it? You know, Faith, we should be going. The poor man needs sleep. Finding out about the own insanity tends to exhaust one, you know."
Faith laughed, placed a gentle kiss on Jesse´s cheek and left the house, followed by her husband, who waved at the doctor good-humoredly.
"See ya, pal."
"In my mind," Jesse replied, and smiled at the awkward thought.
Shay shrugged, before closing the door behind him. "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."
For the first time ever, Jesse walked to the hospital. Well, he started to, anyway. Since it´d take him one and a half hour to get there by foot, he´d evetually grab a cab on the way, he figured.
Yet, he actually enjoyed the exercise. It was doing him good, he had to think about nothing else but placing one foot after the other, and the air was clearing ...
... his lungs, he laughed after a chocking fit was finally gone. `kay, it wasn´t the cleanest air on earth, but it was the air of his city. His life, which he loved. And he´d never allow it to be taken away from him.
Not even by his own mental condition.
A triumphant grin spread on his face, now that he´d made a final decision. He would have to work on it, sure, but then life never was easy. One always had to struggle for it to be good, and he was willing to keep up doing so.
Therefor he had to make a plan, work out strategies. He had no idea how long this had been going on unnoticedly. Maybe he´d been insane all his life. Maybe he never had this friend named Bobby in forth grade. He´d never introduced him to his parents ...
But maybe something had just gone wrong lately. Up there inside his head. Maybe the illness had been waiting to show itself.
However, there was no point in guessing around, now that he´d found out, he had to live with it. And he would.
His friends hadn´t found out yet, he was sure about that. Steve was a little worried, okay, but it was most unlikely that he would think his friend to be a lunatic.
Actually, all his friends would have a hard time believing that. Maybe it would be easier than he thought ...
"Dr. Travis."
"Oak!" he greeted the small woman who approached him from the other side of the road. But then he frowned. Oak. When had he seen Oak over the last few days? In the parking lot. In the hospital. Alone.
And what kind of a name was Oak?
"You´re walking to the hospital?" she asked casually while joining him.
"Yeah, I have some thinking to do," he answered innocently.
"So?"
"Yes. About ... you actually."
"Me?" A sudden shadow settled on her face. "Why me?"
"I wonder wether you´re real, you know."
"Oh?" She smiled grimly. "Do women really fall for that line?"
"See, there´s the humor. All of you people have that. Shouldn´t be surprised, then, should I? I mean, hey, I´m a witty guy."
"You don´t think I´m real?"she asked and stopped.
"Convince me otherwise."
"Why would I?"
"The others didn´t like to be called unreal." He shrugged. "But maybe I´m accepting it now."
"You are?" Oak demanded interestedly, and made a step forward to look into his eyes. "Yes, maybe you really are."
"Oh, and you´re probably glad to hear that I´m not afraid anymore," he grinned.
The slight smile on her lips faded, she stepped back again.
"You´ve not been afraid, yet, Jesse." Carefully, she reached out to touch his temple. "Maybe you shouldn´t accept it."
He frowned, feeling a well-known shade of fear crawling down his spine, but before he could ask her what that was supposed to mean, she turned and ran.
A few moments he stared after her, then shrugged and continued his walk.
"There have to be inpolite Harveys, too, I guess."
Crazy or not, Jesse Travis definitely still knew himself, he stated amusedly when he was sitting in a cab half an hour later.
Besides, everything he´d wanted to figure out while hiking through town, he´d figured out. There was no way he´d walk an inch more than he had to.
He wasn´t that much of a walker, he´d to admit.
"Lazy," a high voice next to him suddenly announced.
But maybe it was because of him getting used to it, that he didn´t jump, but simply turned his head to meet the little girl´s teasing smile.
"You´re one to talk," he said, not caring if the driver heard him. He was after all a cab driver in LA - he´d probably been shocked if his passenger wasn´t talking to himself ...
"I´m driving to work, you´re just driving around. `sides, you´ll never have to grow up, anyway."
The girl shrugged. "I like it," she said, then smiled brightly and sweetly at him. "Thanks for letting me in."
"Oh, did I?"
She nodded earnestly.
"Well, then, you´re welcome, I suppose."
Grinning, she placed a small hand on his bandaged one. It didn´t hurt, actually, it felt good, as if easing some of the pain away.
"I like you," she stated as she had before at "BBQ Bob´s."
This time, his smile was honest. "You know what, Sarah Shem? I like you, too. D´you want me to take you some place in particular?"
Softly, she shook her head. "No."
"Didn´t think so."
They drove on in silence, and after a short while, he put a hand on her head to stroke her hair. It felt soft and real.
"ER, sir?" the driver asked. He´d paid no attention towards the man´s dialoge with himself.
"Oh, here already? Yeah, I just get out here. Thanks."
Searching for his money, Jesse took his hand away from Sarah´s head and bent over to pay the driver, when suddenly ...
"You okay, sir?" the driver asked, not interested, but out of a reflex.
"Y-yes," Jesse hastened to reply and crawl out of the car.
Shrugging, the driver drove off, the little girl on the backseat turned to wave goodbye.
Sweet little girl, this one. Nice people, his hallucinations. But still - just for a second, Jesse had seen a dead man´s eyes in the rearview-mirror. A terribly disfigured face, bloodied, rotten.
Shaking off the image, the doctor turned away and entered the hospital.
You´ve not been afraid, yet.
Maybe not, he thought, but he wasn´t going to be. This was just a matter of discipline. A matter of self-control.
Inside Community General Hospital, the three real people in JesseTravis´ life were worried beyond mercy .
"I checked everywhere," Steve stated at the fifth request by Amanda to call "BBQ Bob´s". "Believe me, will ya?"
"Everywhere?! Here, "BBQ Bob´s" and his place?! That´s everywhere?!"
"It´s Jesse," Steve shot back defensively. "He´s these three places, you know that. What d´you want me to do, call the cops?"
"I´m sorry, Steve, but I´m just ..."
"Hey, I´m worried, too, `kay?! You didn´t see him last night, but I did! I´ve never seen him so ..."
"... terrified, yeah. We heard you the first time," his father interrupted him calmingly. "We don´t doubt your story. It´s just that ... Why would he be scared of you?"
"Don´t ask me!"Steve yelled frustratedly and threw his arms in the air as if he couldn´t bear to not underline his words physically.
"Why would he fall down the stairs? Why would he hide a head injury? Jesse of all people! You know how he is about pity!"
Mark and Amanda exchanged glances.
"Yes, we know," Mark finally said. "So what do you think? That he´s really in some kinda trouble?"
Suddenly Steve who´d stood with his back towards the others, thereby facing the window of the Doctor´s Lounge, tensed.
"Oh yeah, he´ll be," he hissed.
Confused, Mark and Amanda followed his look outside where the object of their concern was just leaving the lift.
Before either of them could say a thing, Steve had bounced out of the room, furious.
"Jesse!" he yelled, and the smaller man turned to ...
"One "Oh hey, Steve!" from you and I´ll forget myself!"
"Ahm ..." Jesse made and fell silent. He seemed to be a little relieved, though, once he´d spotted the other two members of his team approaching the scenery. It didn´t seem to be a wise thing to face Steve alone right now.
"Where the hell´ve you been?!" Steve demanded, but didn´t give anyone time for an answer. "What did you think to stroll out into the night like that?! D´you imagine how worried we all were?! After the stunt you pulled in the kitchen, I thought you ..."
"Steve," his father finally cut in calmingly, and even made an attempt to step between the smal, humble figure of the resident and his towering son.
"It might give us some answers if you could let him answer at all."
"But I wanna yell at him!"
"You can continue doing that afterwards, okay?"
Grumbling, Steve closed his mouth shut and crossed his arms on his breast.
Risiking a glance, Jesse lifted his head just an inch to look at his friends.
"So, Jess," Mark asked now, obviously as angry as his son, but definitely in more control, "you may explain now where you spent the night."
It took the young doctor a second before he realized he actually had permission to speak.
"Home," he said in a very small voice.
That was about as far as he could get.
"Home?!" Steve exploded. "How the hell did you get home, your car´s still here?!!"
"I ... took a cab."
"Why on earth did you go home?! And don´t tell me you sleep-walked!"
"Oh ..." Jesse laughed nervously. "That ... Y´know, I ... ah ... I had some thinking to do about some ... stuff, and I thought I´d better do it at ..."
"We´d better go into the Doctor´s Lounge," Steve suddenly interrupted his stuttering friend, without looking at anyone in particular, "because the volume I´m going to reach will probably wake up the whole building."
"Hey!" Jesse protested bravely. "You´re being unfair! I had a very bad dream yesterday and I wanted to be at home! Why can´t you understand that?"
"I would if you weren´t lying!" Steve shouted back. "And that wasn´t just a dream, Jess, you know that! You were scared of me! I ..."
"Gee, why would anyone be scared of you?" Jesse shot back sarcastically.
Following the doctor´s gaze, Steve noticed that he´d made an almost threatening step towards him.
"He does have a point there, son."
"You stay out of this!"
"Oh no, I´m not, I´m ..."
A sudden movement caught their attention, and the Sloans only had time to turn and see Amanda gently shoving Jesse into the Doctor´s Lounge, closing the door behind them.
Exchanging a typical Sloan-look, father and son came nearer to see Jesse sitting down on the sofa and Amanda stroking his shoulder comfortingly.
"D´you think we should go in?" Steve finally asked.
"If you promise to lay down the yelling."
"I´ll try."
"Maybe you should try biting on a pillow," his father advised and entered the room.
Grumbling once more, Steve followed.
"So," Amanda greeted them cooly, "are you interested in hearing the truth at last?"
Being confronted with Jesse´s sick-puppy-look almost got Steve on the edge of screaming again, but he swallowed the urge bravely and sat down across the sofa, prepared to listen.
"Please," he gestured.
Drawing in a deep breath, Jesse inwardly braced himself, then started, without looking into anyone´s eyes:
"I know I acted out of character over the last few days,and I apologize. I never meant to worry you, it´s just that ever since Shay Zeesley was murdered, I keep on ... having these nightmares and I can´t concentrate on my work and stuff. I don´t sleep, you know, and I guess that makes me kinda cranky and ... Well, then there was this patient of mine, Mrs Reeds, and the break in at my apartment and ..."
He sighed deeply and now looked up to meet their eyes. It almost hurt to lie at them, he found. He could see clearly now just how much they cared about him. Still he couldn´t tell them, could he? Images of his dream flashed through his mind, answering that question in an instant.
"I know," he continued, confirmed about his decision, "I should have told you before, but ..." He smiled faintly. "You know me, right? I´ve to fall down the stairs to get some sense."
"Or cut your hand," Steve said earnestly. "You scared the hell outta me there, you know that, Jess?"
"Yeah," the doctor sighed and bowed his head. "I´m sorry."
"Well,"Amanda said and again placed a hand on his shoulder. "At least you´ve told us now, so that we can help you."
"Oh, I ... I don´t think that´ll be necessary. Thanks, but as I said I ... had some thinking to do back home and ... I think I´ve finally come to terms with ... everything," he finished with a wry smile.
"Still you know that you can always ask us for help," Amanda reminded gently. "Don´t you?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I know. Thank you." He lifted his head to look at each one them, actually grateful. "I really appreciate this."
"Anytime," Mark smiled, clearly relieved, and even Steve couldn´t help but smile.
"You´re one pain in the ass, Jess."
"Yeah, love ya, too," Jesse grinned and stood. "But I think I´ve to go back to work now. Looks like I´ve got a patient out there."
There really appeared a guy wandering around outside the room, sickly pale and obviously disoriented.
As Jesse wondered why no nurse seemed to intend to help the poor man, a confused "Where?" coming from Mark behind him answered the question.
The patient wasn´t real. And as though he´d suddenly found out for himself, he turned around the next corner to vanish.
Jesse closed his eyes for a moment. This was going to be one hard shift ...
"Ah ... must have been a visitor," he tried to safe what could be saved. "Still, I better check. Thanks again."
With that, he left, trembling slightly as the shock of his first almost disastrous experience of his new life-style slackened.
"Jesse!" Steve´s voice called after him when he´d almost reached the corner.
"Yes!" He actually spun around, tensing again. His smile was nervous, though he tried his best to keep a grib on himself. "What?"
"I was wondering if ..." the detective started, but interrupted himself and after a moment´s thought stepped closer. "You know, we never went to a funeral or anything. For Shay," he added. "And I thought maybe we could ... dunno ... say our own goodbyes some time. It´s the least we should do."
"Oh. Yeah. Absolutely."
"Great. How `bout tonight at "BBQ Bob´s"?"
"Okay," Jesse nodded and smiled. "If you don´t just lure me into a trap to keep on yelling at me ..."
"Craps, now you got me," Steve joked. "However, your bartender skills may soothe me down."
"I´ll bring the milk," the young doctor laughed and was about to add another wisecrack, when he spotted a woman entering the ER, pressing a towell on an obviously injured hand.
It was time to show he´d learned ...
"Ah, you know, I´d love to keep up this nonsense, but - you see that woman over there?"
"Ah ... yes," Steve answered after he´d turned to look in the direction Jesse pointed.
Yes? Great. Thanks!
"See? I´ve got a patient. See ya tonight," he waved and hurried over to the woman, feeling actually proud of himself.
It was just a matter of discipline.
And how much disciple one needed to keep the cleverness up all day, Jesse thought when the end of his shift finally became a point in timeline he could actually think of being existent ... somewhere.
He´d spent most of his energy to figure out who of his patients was real over the entire day and was totally beat when he at last found the time for a much needed break in the Doctor´s Lounge.
Mark Sloan had had to make a lot of second opinions on Jesse´s patients this day, for it was a pretty good sign of a person´s existance if Mark could see them, too.
But of course that couldn´t be the tactics to be used on every patient he treated; the older doctor might get suspicious eventually when more than two of Jesse´s patients left before he reached them.
There were other ways, though, as Jesse learned pretty quickly. Nurses for example could easily be sent to rooms and didn´t do anything but report that there´d been no one in there. They would only think he´d mixed up the room numbers.
And of course you could always sent a patient into an already taken room to check out their reactions.
If there were any, the doctor only needed to go in, apologize and show one of them into another room.
Yes, he more or less managed to get by very well, but he had to concentrate on both, his job and tactics, which was exhausting, to say the least.
"Hey," Amanda´s voice pulled him out of a pure worn-out nap. "How´s it going?"
"Ahm ... great," he smiled tiredly and laughed at her doubtfull gaze. "Convincing like a politician, am I not?"
"Pretty much so, yes. Your dwarfs still at work? You looked whacked."
"I´ve been whacked. And yes, there´re no notifications of illness among my dwarfs, no sir!"
"You should get some rest," she suggested friendlyly and sat down across him. "You know, if they don´t lay down their work soon, we may have to remove them operatively."
"That would include paid vacation, wouldn´t it?"
"Oh yeah! And a dozen doctors who´d kill to write an essay `bout it. "First successfull separation of dwarfs from their host" ..."
"They wouldn´t kill `em, would they?!" he called out in mock shock.
"No, but maybe you."
"I wouldn´t know the difference," he groaned, rubbing his eyes.
"Okay, just once: Awwwwww," Amanda teased, ontly to become the target of a scowl.
"I really do have a bad headache!"
"And I really do pity you," she smiled amusedly, "but just untill ..." She glanced at her watch. "... now. Your shift´s over, Jesse. Go home and get some sleep."
"I can´t. I promised Steve to meet him at "BBQ Bob´s"."
"You know, by entertaining them, you´ll never get rid of your dwarfs."
Good point, Jesse thought as he entered "BBQ Bob´s" shortly afterwards.
Even driving wasn´t easy anymore, for now he felt the awkward sensation of pure self-distrust. If he saw people, couldn´t it be possible that he imagined cars, too? Maybe even buildings ...
"Oh yeah - does Venice really exist?"
Pushing the sarcasm aside, he called out for Steve, looking forward to a nice, quiet evening with a couple of drinks and his friend. It seemed an eternity that he´d enjoyed something like that.
Steve greeted him from somewhere in the kitchen where he was busy cleaning up a self-caused mess, and Jesse turned around the bar to help him, when the phone rang.
About to pick it up, he froze. Faith had called him once. And Faith wasn´t real.
Eying the phone with awe, he stepped away from it like it was cursed. He couldn´t be sure wether ...
"Jess! Since you´re not in here helping me, you could at least pick up the damn phone!"
But when the doctor picked up the receiver, only the dialling tone answered.
Frustrated, he hang up again. He was so tired, he didn´t know if he could hold this up any longer.
"Who was that?" Steve asked when he emerged from the kitchen a few minutes later.
"Ahm ... wrong number."
"Really? How did he figure that out since you didn´t tell him our name?"
"Okay, I was too slow, alright?"
"What a surprise."
"I had to ... tie my shoe," Jesse concluded a firmly started defens lamely. At steve´s look, he hastened to add: "You promised not to yell at me!"
"I said I might rethink it if ..."
"I brought the milk."
As if satisfied, Steve raised his hands and sat down on the other side of the bar. "Hey, did I yell?"
There it was again, the silence of two friends, Steve found himself stating happyly as he watched his business-partner prepare White Russians. He´d actually missed it, he admitted to himself.
And so happy to have it back he was, that he didn´t notice the slight change, the almost invisible damage it had taken.
Finally, they lifted their glasses in a moment of thought.
"To Shay," Jesse said.
"To Shay," Steve repeated. And they drank to the late shop-owner.
"Hey," Steve asked sarcastically, "you locked the door, right?"
Smiling bitterly, Jesse nodded. "Course. Wouldn´t want some strange freaks come in here, would we?"
"No! They might try to get something to eat then. And we´re closed."
"Absolutely! Closed!"
Their gazes met - and both smiles faded.
"Oh, I miss him," Steve sighed. "I know we barely knew him and stuff, but ..."
"Feels like we were about to know him, right," Jesse nodded. "I miss him, too."
"Columbo," Steve laughed softly at the memory and shook his head. "Freak."
"D´you know what happened to his shop?" Jesse asked.
"No. Guess it´s still crowded by forensics. Why?"
"Oh, just my neigh ..." He stopped suddenly, feeling caught. Actually embarrassed, he looked away. "Nothing. Just ... interested."
Mistaking Jesse´s hesitation for his inability to cope with Shay´s death, Steve felt discomfort growing inside him. He´d never been good at being of much help or support in situations like this, and though he´d loved to ease his friend´s pain, he wasn´t sure he could.
Lost in self-accusions for being the rude, emotionless cop, he almost jumped when the phone rang again. After the first fright, he was grateful for it, though.
Jesse jumped, too, but out of another reason. Shooting a glance at Steve to check if he could trust his senses on this one, he hurried to pick up quickly.
" "BBQ Bob´s", we´re ... Oh. Mandy. Sure. - Yeah, you don´t sound too good, too. - Course. - No, it´ll be okay, don´t worry. Yeah, you rest. - Remember: Lots of fluids. - Sure. Bye.
"Mandy calls in sick for tomorrow," he told Steve as he hang up.
"What?! Why didn´t you say no?"
"Because she sounded sick. What´s the problem?"
"Ryan called in sick this morning. That leaves no one here for the work."
"This mor ... Why didn´t you tell me?"
"I forgot."
"Forgot?!"
"I was too busy looking for you!" Steve shot back in self-defens.
"You didn´t tell me once you´ve found me, either!"
"Then I had to yell at you, remember?"
"Oh great!" Jesse ran a hand through his towsled hair. "So what´re we gonna do now?"
"I´ve to work tomorrow. You?"
"Ah ..." Oh no!
" "Ah"? I take that as a "no"," Steve decided. "Then the bar´s all yours, pal."
Oh no, no, no, no, no!!!
In the hospital he could keep up his strategy, but it´d never work in a bar where no one would indirectly help him to get by. He wouldn´t know who to serve and who not ...
"I have a night-shift," he objected, and it was even true, though he´d have nothing against some work at the "BBQ Bob´s", too, under normal circumstances.
"Great, then you´re free on the day-shift. I might be able to take over around five or so."
"No! You don´t understand," Jesse called out in panic. "I ... ah ... I need to rest before my shift begins."
"Since when?"
"Since I have a concussion!"
"Jesse, I can´t! I´ve to work! You remember me having a real job? Yeah, I´ve to go there, too, from time to time. So please - and I might add that I don´t have to say please here - at least try to serve tomorrow despite your concussion, will ya?"
"No."
"What you mean "no"?! No as in "yes", I hope."
"No, no as in "no". I won´t. Call in sick and I´ll ... help you."
"Wha ... Jess, I know I´m just the cop here, but ... Are you nuts? I can´t call in sick at the station to work here! `sides - where´s the problem? You worked here before night-shifts before. And don´t give me that concussion- argument! Since you managed to do your job today just fine, it has lost it´s persuasive power."
"Please," Jesse begged, forgetting about discipline. Nothing Steve would think of him could be as horrible as having to serve the next day.
"No," Steve answered, laughing slightly nervously while he studyied his friend with awe. "You don´t actually mean this, do you? And no sick-puppy- look, you know it´s not working on me!"
Frustrated, Jesse sighed and looked down. There was no way he would be able to persuade the detective otherwise. Hell, Steve was even right!
"Okay, I´ll do it."
"Of course you will," Steve said in mock surprise and sipped at his drink.
Silence settled above the scenery, things were heading back to normal.
"We couldn´t just, like, close the place, could we?"
"Jesse!!!"
If he´d knew just how right he´d been about the difficulty of his task, he´d closed for the entire day, no matter what Steve would say.
"Oh ... Mission Impossible," he whined from inside the kitchen, observing with growing disquiety how a crowd of people rushed into "BBQ Bob´s" around noon. This was horrible. It was the apocalypse all rolled out just for him.
"Okay, Jesse, don´t panic, you can do this. No problem."
"No problem," Sarah agreed next to him and grinned. "I want milk."
"Oh yeah, sure, kid, go and ... drink as much milk as you can, `kay? I can´t play with you right now, I´m busy."
Disappointed, the little girl strolled off.
"Oh, hey, Sarah? - D´you couldn´t by any chance go out there and tell me who´s like you and who´s ... Never mind," he winked. "Go get your milk. If you need me, just appear right in front of me."
"Okay," she sang and happyly skipped along.
"I´ve to stop getting paternal over my hallucinations," Jesse said under his breath and after bracing himself, entered the bar, prepared to give his best.
It was not impossible, but very, very hard, he found out. He had to pay attention to every single reaction he could make out among the other guests when he approached a table. He had to ignore the mostly unnaturally loud protests of the "Harveys" not being served. He had to think of a lot of tricks quickly, and once a decsion had been made, he had to deal with the consequences.
In fact, it was pretty much like the work at the ER. Fortunately, for it was probably the reason why he managed it quite well.
A few mistakes happened, but all in all he only served one man in a suit and tie who wasn´t there, and no one would have found out, if Jesse hadn´t jump when the man after having paid chose to vanish in the air instead of using the door ...
A nice incident, a shade of hope in all the hard work was the young couple who hadn´t been one in the first place. But having spotted the nice looking teenage boy in the right and the unbearable innocently blinking teenage girl in the left corner, Jesse decided - not without given humor - to try some new tactics, by placing a glass of cola in front of each one of the test-persons and announce it to be from the other one. Since they saw, noticed and eventually smiled at each other, he could be sure they both were as real as teenagers could be.
That strategy was used a lot that afternoon, not always leaving to the desired result, but never failing to do it´s purpose.
Around four the bar emptied a little, much to Jesse´s relief. He was beat. Though finding time enough to sit down behind the bar, he couldn´t risk his attention to slacken. He´d to catch every single movement or word that could give a hint about a person´s existance.
Wow, what a hard job! Do people actually do this to earn their mon ... Oh, no, I forgot, it´s just me being ... nuts.
"Dr. Travis."
Tired beyond jumpiness, Jesse looked aside to grin at Oak, who´d approached the bar without him having noticed her. That was not a good sign, he decided earnestly, but found it actually refreshing to talk to a person he simply knew not to be real.
"Oak," he greeted her quietly as to not draw attention to him talking to himself. "Hey, how are you?"
"Not being served."
"No, you got that wrong. See, you´re supposed to be on my side here `kay? So lay down the jokes, I´m not up to it. `sides if anyone finds out about you people they´ll throw you out of this cosy head of mine. And you don´t want that to happen, do ya?"
"I understand," she nodded. "Your managing all of this pretty well. I didn´t think you would."
Frowning in mock hurt, he gave her a little surrendering gesture. "What are you, my inferiority complex? You´re the one they sent to talk me into suicide?"
"Is that what you think?"
"I´m too tired to think right now. Actually I´m too busy, too, so, Oak, why don´t you go in there and join the little girl with the milk, huh? You should talk to her, anyway, she likes me."
A soft smiled rushed over her featúres, but just for a second, then her usual slightly sad, cool appearance took over again.
" `nother time. I think I´ll take a seat just here and watch you ... managing."
Jesse rubbed his eyes and yawned. "Yeah, sure, whatever you want. You´re welcome."
"Thank you. Jesse, I think you´ve a customer over there."
"Oh? Naw," Jesse winked, "did you see that tie?! Definitely a Harvey. But don´t let this get you down, Oak, some people have it and others don´t."
With that he emerged from behind the bar to another table. Though concentrating on his task, he couldn´t help but freeze - just for a split second - in midstep as he heard Oak laugh loudly behind him.
"Congratulations, Dr. Travis, you´re the most tired looking person I´ve ever seen."
"Yeah, Mark, hi to you, too."
"Oh, grumpy, aren´t we?" Mark teased, but presented his more or less sleep- walking resident with a reassuring smile. "Don´t worry, you just have ... eight hours to face now untill you finally can go to sleep."
"Did I miss the part where I did something to deserve this or can I just not recall it?"
"Lack of sleep can cause slight amnesia, doctor. Look it out when you get home."
"Hm. I´m not going to say another word before I didn´t have coffee."
"I´m sorry, but that´ll have to wait. You have a patient, doctor. And I am going home. Good night."
"Mark!" Jesse protested, staring at the chart in his hand in disbelief.
But mercy had left Jesse´s world a long time ago. Still, before Mark Sloan could shoot back a last teasing reply, the doors were banged open and a patient on a stratcher was hurried in, parademics surrounding him.
"What you got?" Jesse asked, doctor-mode taking over immediately. Mark, too, ran along with the stratcher into a free room.
"Man, white, mid-thirties, shot himself in the head with a rifle," a female parademic answered hastily and literally jumped away to not block the doctor´s way.
"Too late," was all Mark could state after a moment. "He´s dead."
"Oh yeah?" the female parademic asked coldly. "What a loss. The little boy he also shot was right behind us. They´re bringing him in in a minute. If he´s not dead, too."
"Little boy?" Jesse repeated.
"Yes, that scumbag shot his twelve-year-old nephew and then himself."
Silence grabbed the two doctors like a ice-cold hand as they exchanged a glance full of sympathy for ... no one and everyone. For the boy, the poor man, the world. What to say in a moment of such truth?
What to think except ...
"Oh my god!"
"Jesse?"
"Th-that´s my patient! That´s ..." Shocked, Jesse stared at the dead man´s torn face, cruelly disfigured, but still recognizable as it was.
"Calm down, Jess, there´ll be another one in a few moments," Mark said seemingly hard, but inside feeling his heart reach out for his young friend.
"No, you don´t understand! It´s Dillard! The guy who smashed his hand and ran when I tried to ... Oh god, I can´t believe he ..." His head jerked up as panic rushed through his body. "Oh god, oh god ..." he whispered, his eyes wide in fear as suddenly a picture was forming in his mind, a picture so bizarr and horrible like nothing he´d ever imagined. And he felt it, too. Felt what Dillard must have felt when ...
"He was afraid of him," the young doctor whispered, clearly terrified. "Afraid of the kid. He was so afraid that ..."
His hand rushed to his mouth, as the urge to wretch grabbed him, and within a second he was out of the room, ignoring Mark´s calls behind him.
You´ve not been afraid, yet.
"Stop that!" Jesse yelled and grabbed his head with both hands, wincing as his still sore one ached from the pressure.
"I´m not afraid!"
But he was. Afraid of what he would see once he left the restroom. Afraid of a dead boy´s body lying on a table next to his killer´s, his uncle´s ... Afraid of Dillard´s hunted eyes, hunting him in the darkness of his mind from where there was no way out. No back door to escape it.
Afraid of himself.
"I´m not afraid!" he shouted and without thinking, out of pure fury, hit the wall with an unconsciously made fist hard.
It hurt. It felt in control.
He hit the wall again. Now, even a little spot of sticky wetness could be seen on the cement. A proof of his ...
... insanity. As if the very human color had cleared his head, Jesse lifted his hand to study his knuckles, were the skin had burst open and the blood had emerged from. It had been his good hand.
The one with which he´d tried to clean Dillard´s wound the other day ...
"Oh no," the doctor laughed nervously. "Oh no, I´m not ... going there. Wrong. You hear me?!" He called out for no one. "I´m not afraid of anyone! I´m not hitting walls or shooting relatives! I´m a doctor! I´m different!"
Convinced and in control again, he looked back at his image in the mirror - and flinched when he saw a dead, motionless, ugly face behind his own. Dried blood covered the man´s sickly blue skin, and his mouth had dropped open. The eyes were the worst, still open, almost staring back at Jesse, but dead and black and rotten.
Slowly, carefully, Jesse turned to -nothing. No dead guy in the restroom.
"Just in my head," he growled under his breath and splashed water in his face to shake off every image his mind could think of.
Later that shift, Mark Sloan entered the Doctor´s Lounge to find his young friend sitting on the sofa, his head bowed. A miserable small figure. Like a lost puppy, the elder doctor thought and winced slightly in sympathy.
"Hey Jesse," he said softly and sat down next to him. "Feeling better?"
"Yeah. I´m sorry, Mark," Jesse said honestly, but without looking up at his boss. "I really are. I freaked out. Won´t happen again."
"`sokay," Mark winked, and patted the doctor´s shoulder gently. "Every resident has the right to ... "freak out" I think five or six times during his first five years. Of course the exact number is regulated by the bureaucrats, I can look it out for you some time. But I think you´re nowhere near the limit, yet."
Still staring at the floor, Jesse chuckled. It felt good to see him do that, Mark thought. It was such a typical Jesse-gesture, one missed it after a short while.
"`sides he was your patient. It´s only natural that you felt responsable. Which you are not," he added, stressing every word of the sentence.
"Hm. - The boy, did he make it?"
"Oh, yes. Got hit on the shoulder, the poor kid, and lost a lot of blood, but it wasn´t as bad as we thought. He probably lost consciousness immediately which made Dillard believe he was dead. The little fellow was lucky."
"Lucky," Jesse sneered.
"Yes," Mark nodded earnestly. "He could have been dead."
"Still, he should have been not put through this at all," Jesse said, finally lifting his head to cast his boss and friend a desperate look full of guilt. "And I should have known."
"How?"
"He was my patient! I treated him and I talked to him and I noticed that he was on the edge of a nervous breakdown! I should have let him checked out by Thorman immediately! I should have tied him to bed or whatever ... drug him ... just to keep him away from his ..." He sighed deeply. "I should have helped him."
"There was no way you could have forseen that, Jesse," Mark assured him. "You´re only a doctor, doctor. You can´t save everybody."
No kidding! I can´t even save myself!
Once again, Mark was witness of one of those loathed Jesse-smiles as the younger doctor nodded bitterly and secretly wiped away a single tear.
"That´s not what a doctor wants to hear, huh? There should be a law against people dying in a hospital. It´s so thoughtless of them!"
Though he laughed in sympathy, Mark couldn´t bring himself to leave the young man just now and they remained silent for a little while. Two doctors after a patient´s death.
Finally the older one of them had to stiffle a yawn and glancing at his watch, stood. "I´ve to get some sleep. In a few hours my shift starts."
"Yeah, course, you better be ..." Jesse started, but hushed down in an instant as his gaze wandered outside the room, where another dead man lay. Equally rotten and scaring as the one in the restroom, but standing in front of the window, looking directly at him.
Jese could feel how all color emerged from his face.
"Jesse?" Mark asked concernedly and followed the other one´s gaze outside, where nothing could be seen. "Jess, are you alright?"
"Sure," Jesse managed to chocke out. "Fine. Great. But you really need to get home and take a ... nap," he finished his sentence in a whisper, for another corpse had appeared out of nowhere, in the Lounge this time.
"And I should be checking on the patients," Jesse hastened to say, but couldn´t help staring at the body lying sprawled on one of the tables.
Again, Mark followed his gaze and saw a table.
"You sure you´re alright?"
Jesse didn´t hear him. He was too busy fighting the hysteria slowly crawl up his body, while he took a step over another corpse on the floor as casually as he could. As he reached the door, he opened it while smiling brightly at Mark. He wasn´t prepared for the bloodied mess lying curled up in front of the door and jumped at the horrible sight.
Now he could hear them, too. Moaning, whimpering ...
Oh god, what is this?
He only found that he was still standing in the entry, staring at the corpse, when he felt Mark´s hand gently ruttling his shoulder.
"Jesse? What´s the matter?" the older doctor asked and tried to look directly at him, but somehow the younger man´s gaze drifted off as if drawn into several directions. He was trembling slightly and a light shade of sweat appeared on his forehead.
"I ... uh ..." Jesse stumbled and swallowed at the appearance of yet another unbearable sight. "Gotta go. See ya, Mark. Goodnight."
With that he almost ran down the hallway,trying to avoid looking anywhere but right ahead.
He wasn´t aware that he was followed by a suspicious look. A look that was used to catch what it wanted to catch. And that saw what it wanted to see. Even if it wasn´t real.
"Maybe no dwarfs," Mark quietly told himself as he entered the lift. "But rabbits."
Hope, you´re still enjoying it and thanks for the reviews.
Disclaimers still the same (What a shocker!)
And as to my quoting-obligations:
"My fear is my concern."
( Lawrence in "Lawrence of Arabia")
"Where am I?"
He looked around. A white room. A bed, a few feet away on a wall. A window. High above the bed. Sunbeams on the wall, but dark it was, that room, dark and cold.
He shivered.
"We want to help you, Jesse," a deep, calming voice answered.
He wasn´t alone. Mark, Steve and Amanda were standing next to the bed, focusing him.
And there were his parents, too. Far away, in the distance, they stood, seemingly small. The room had widened.
"I don´t need help," he replied.
"Your son," he heard his mother´s voice over a loudspeaker.
Suddenly, Mark Sloan at his side. A firm hand on his shoulder.
"You are sick, Jesse."
Though he tried to, Jesse couldn´t meet his gaze. Like there was nothing to be met. Way up above his head.
"You think that I´m crazy!"
"Well, in this case," Mark said casually, "sick is crazy, my friend."
As everybody in the room except Jesse laughed, the older doctor produced a syringe.
Jesse´s eyes widened in fear. Steve now attempted to approach the smaller man.
Amanda had vanished.
"No!" Jesse screamed and ran. The door was locked.
"Don´t come near me!"
"You´re afraid, Jesse Travis."
At the sudden sound of Oak´s voice, Jesse spun around. She was standing a little distanced to Mark, blocking the way to his parents. Dwarfs were pacing behind her, humming a tune he knew from his childhood.
"Yes, I am afraid," he shouted at her, and when he looked back, Steve had already gotten hold of his arms to drag him to the bed.
"Let go off me!" Jesse cried in terror, but his struggles remained uncuccessfully. With unbelievable ease Steve forced the smaller man´s hands into the restrains on the bed, till Jesse couldn´t move an inch.
"No!" he protested, but was hushed down by Mark, who came nearer, the syringe till in hands, prepared to use it on the terrified patient.
"Shh, Jesse," he soothed, "be gratefull for the simple things in life. This won´t hurt a bit, for example."
"No, don´t! You can´t do ..."
"Hush, stupid," Sarah Shem whispered right into his ear. "You´ll wake `em all up."
With a jerk, Jesse found himself upright in bed, panting heavily, still being hold tight by the shock of his dream.
He could feel his heart trying to break out of his shivering body, and his hands were cramped around the blanket. Sleep was still having the better of him then consciousness, but his wide eyes were focusing now, on the darkness in which shillouettes seemed to move.
As his head cleared slowly, he found the origin of some vague, throbbing pain in his hand, and staring at a small bloodied spot on the bandage, he recalled the incident that had let to his injury.
At last that hadn´t been a dream, he thought wryly. And his sly smile grew even more bitter, since he could make out a small figure in the darkness now, waving slightly at him, before turning to leave the room.
He strained to listen to Sarah´s footsteps on the stairs, but stopped himself in fury. There were no footsteps. He was listening to his own hallucination.
Roughly, he put his hands onto his ears, ignoring the pain it caused. His blood roared in his ears; he closed his eyes to concentrate on that. It was real. He was real.
Like in a movie, all the places where he´d seen Sarah showed in his mind. He recalled her sudden disappearance at the hospital and how Steve had almost bumped into her at "BBQ Bob´s". The other time she´d run away from Steve. She´d been afraid of him, it had seemed.
Now Jesse knew why. Steve hadn´t seen her. She´d probably been afraid of being found out an hallucination.
"Awww, come on!" he whispered to himself and fell back on the bed, taking his hands off his ears. "She doesn´t want to be found out ... That´s crazy, Dr. Travis!"
He laughed faintly at himself, but stopped once his words sank in properly. Actually, it was crazy. It was about as crazy as a person could get.
Could get? Could be! How long did he have this? How many people he knew where ... like Sarah?
In panic, he tried to recall every man or woman he´d ever talked to alone, without any of his friends knowing him or her. His friends ... No, that couldn´t ...
He jumped out of bed - he just had to move - and stood there, staring back at where he´d lay, again gasping in fear.
"This isn´t happening!" he told himself.
He was about to add another reassuring thing to say, but suddenly found himself dressing in a hurry, his fearful gaze never leaving the bed. Glimpses of his dream travelled through his mind, mixing with reality in there.
"Don´t become afraid of people," Oak had told him.
But what could you do when your friends would lock you up in a looney bin once they found out who you really were? What could you do if they tied you down like Mrs Reed once they would have found out? What could be more frightening than ... people?
There was nothing he had to be afraid of but people!
And nothing that could save him but fear.
It took a while till he finally reached his building. Eventually a cab drove by and even stopped for him to enter. Exhausted, Jesse almost fell asleep in the car. He would never have imagined it to be that arduous to creep outside a house. Back home in his last highschool days, he´d been used to it, but then he´d never been really afraid of his mother ...
Now he was safe, home, away from his friends,who suddenly seemed the most dangerous people in the world just because they knew him. Those who knew him would find out eventually. And he couldn´t let that happen.
So though relieved enough to finally control his trembling hands, he was still tensed and agitated when he unlocked the door to his apartment.
Where to go?
What to do?
"Jesse! Finally!"
He jumped that high, he´d probably hit the ceiling if he´d been tall enough.
"Shay!" he stated shakily, once he was able to again. "Faith! Wha ...?"
"We were worried about you," Faith answered, and stood to approach and hug him in a greeting gesture. "Where´ve you been?"
"I ..." He couldn´t find the words. Again, as so often in the last days, he could only stare. This was becoming one irritating habit.
"Wow, what happened?" Seamus Crabtree asked. He, too, had come nearer now, and noticed a bruise from the fall on Jesse´s face. In the meantime, Faith had closed the door and gently shoved the confused doctor towards the sofa.
"I ... What ... What´re you doing here?" Jesse managed to demand at last. He was beginning to feel very, very pissed with the situation. "How did you get in?"
"We were worried," Faith replied, and frowned. "Sorry for caring about you!"
"Worried!" Jesse sneered.
"Yes," Shay nodded. "You didn´t come home all night. You see, we waited, because we wanted to talk to you about this shop you know."
"Yeah," Faith agreed and went to stand next to her husband. " "Moriaty´s"."
It was so clear. He should have seen it before.
"Mori ...," he repeated in a chocked whisper. His feet stepped back, slowly, his tongue swallowed dryly ... He knew, but his body reacted delayedly.
"Jesse, you okay?" Shay asked and exchanged a concerned gaze with his wife. "You look like you´ve seen a ..."
"Ghost," Jesse concluded with a grim smile. "A ghost, Shay?"
"Jess, what´s wrong?" Faith asked, fear in her voice.
"You ..." A short nervous laugh escaped him. "You´re ... not real. You´re like her."
"Jesse?"
"You´re not real," he repeated, convinced. "Are you?"
Unimpressed, Faith sat down on the sofa, the look she presented him with was calm, as if she was about to talk to a child.
"What do you think?" she asked friendlyly.
He draw in a deep breath. "I think you are not real. You are here, because I see you. Actually, I´m talking to pure air this moment."
"So?" Shay asked and sat down next to his wife. "Pure air, huh? But still you´re talking to us, aren´t you?"
"But you´re just a hallucination!"
"So?"
" "So"?! I´m crazy!"
"Well, that´s hardly news," Faith teased.
"This is not funny!!!" Jesse shouted at her, but turned away in a hurry a second later. "Oh my, now I´m arguing with a hallucination! Why is it even someone who´s not there makes fun of me?!"
"Jesse," Shay said comfortingly, "look at me."
Desperate, the doctor obeyed. Since he was seeing this guy, why not listen to him?
"You´re crazy," Shay said. "No doubt about that, but ..."
"Oh great, the white rabbit tells me I´m crazy. I´m lost, oh, scratch that, I´m all over lost - I´m dead."
"But," Shay continued, ignoring Jesse´s frustrated outburst, "I don´t get how that makes us unreal."
"Huh?"
"He´s right, you know," Faith cut in. "Why do we have to be unreal, just because you are crazy? Don´t you think that a little ... arrogant?"
"Huh?!"
"What makes you so damn certain that you´re real?" Faith demanded provokingly.
There was a short, unbelieving silence, before the young doctor threw his hands in the air.
"What?! Are you crazy?! I. Am. Not. Unreal! You get that? You´re Harveys, not me!"
"But you´re crazy," Shay pointed out.
"And you´re unreal! Seems to me neither of us is very convincing on this point."
"Actually, we both are," Faith disagreed. "See, Jesse, what makes you think you´re a real person?"
"That´s a crazy question, Faith! What ..."
"You´re one to talk."
"Okay, fine! I have parents! I have a job! I have a life! I even had a girl- friend once! I have friends! And - most importantly - I have hallucinations! Guess, that makes me very real!"
"There´s no need to yell at me."
"Oh yeah? I figured that if I yell loud enough you may go out of my head!!!"
"Oh great, doctor," Faith growled, "keep on the shouting to wake up the whole building and make them take you to a nice, white place where ..."
"Don´t listen to her," Shay interrupted his wife, "she´s not real."
Resigning, Jesse let his head fall down into his hands. "Oh gawd," he moaned, "this can´t be happning! Why do I have to get hallucinations who think they´re funny?!"
"Jess, listen," Shay tried again. "Faith is right. You said you´re real, because you have friends and parents and so on. People, in short. You have people who know you and that makes you real, right?"
"Hm-hm."
"So? You see us. You hear us. You can even," he placed a comforting hand on Jesse´s shoulder, "feel us."
Doubtfull, Jesse lifted his head to look at the man. "Your point being?"
"Why do all these facts make you a real person, but not us?"
Silence.
"Good point," Jesse admitted, adding after a moment´s thought: "I didn´t know I could be that clever. And since you´re my hallucinaton, it must be me who´s figured this out, eh?"
"Then why don´t you believe yourself?"
"Hm ... Cause I´m ... insane?"
"No, Jesse," Faith objected. She also stood, again walking to her husband´s side, and smiled at her producer. "You´re just afraid."
There was no denying that, so he remained silent.
"Don´t be," Faith contined and reached out to softly stroke his cheek. "What´s there to be afraid of? We´re nice people, aren´t we? We won´t do you any harm. We´ll just come visit you from time to time. Invite you over for dinner," she grinned as Shay shuddered at the thought of her food.
"We´re your friends, Jesse. Doesn´t that make us pretty real?"
Surprised, the doctor found his fear had gone. The doubts had gone. The smile he felt on his lips was honest and clear, bright and happy.
"Yeah," he answered calmly. "Yeah, I guess it does."
Proudly, Shay nudged his friend´s shoulder, grinning. "Now that wasn´t so hard, was it? You know, Faith, we should be going. The poor man needs sleep. Finding out about the own insanity tends to exhaust one, you know."
Faith laughed, placed a gentle kiss on Jesse´s cheek and left the house, followed by her husband, who waved at the doctor good-humoredly.
"See ya, pal."
"In my mind," Jesse replied, and smiled at the awkward thought.
Shay shrugged, before closing the door behind him. "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt."
For the first time ever, Jesse walked to the hospital. Well, he started to, anyway. Since it´d take him one and a half hour to get there by foot, he´d evetually grab a cab on the way, he figured.
Yet, he actually enjoyed the exercise. It was doing him good, he had to think about nothing else but placing one foot after the other, and the air was clearing ...
... his lungs, he laughed after a chocking fit was finally gone. `kay, it wasn´t the cleanest air on earth, but it was the air of his city. His life, which he loved. And he´d never allow it to be taken away from him.
Not even by his own mental condition.
A triumphant grin spread on his face, now that he´d made a final decision. He would have to work on it, sure, but then life never was easy. One always had to struggle for it to be good, and he was willing to keep up doing so.
Therefor he had to make a plan, work out strategies. He had no idea how long this had been going on unnoticedly. Maybe he´d been insane all his life. Maybe he never had this friend named Bobby in forth grade. He´d never introduced him to his parents ...
But maybe something had just gone wrong lately. Up there inside his head. Maybe the illness had been waiting to show itself.
However, there was no point in guessing around, now that he´d found out, he had to live with it. And he would.
His friends hadn´t found out yet, he was sure about that. Steve was a little worried, okay, but it was most unlikely that he would think his friend to be a lunatic.
Actually, all his friends would have a hard time believing that. Maybe it would be easier than he thought ...
"Dr. Travis."
"Oak!" he greeted the small woman who approached him from the other side of the road. But then he frowned. Oak. When had he seen Oak over the last few days? In the parking lot. In the hospital. Alone.
And what kind of a name was Oak?
"You´re walking to the hospital?" she asked casually while joining him.
"Yeah, I have some thinking to do," he answered innocently.
"So?"
"Yes. About ... you actually."
"Me?" A sudden shadow settled on her face. "Why me?"
"I wonder wether you´re real, you know."
"Oh?" She smiled grimly. "Do women really fall for that line?"
"See, there´s the humor. All of you people have that. Shouldn´t be surprised, then, should I? I mean, hey, I´m a witty guy."
"You don´t think I´m real?"she asked and stopped.
"Convince me otherwise."
"Why would I?"
"The others didn´t like to be called unreal." He shrugged. "But maybe I´m accepting it now."
"You are?" Oak demanded interestedly, and made a step forward to look into his eyes. "Yes, maybe you really are."
"Oh, and you´re probably glad to hear that I´m not afraid anymore," he grinned.
The slight smile on her lips faded, she stepped back again.
"You´ve not been afraid, yet, Jesse." Carefully, she reached out to touch his temple. "Maybe you shouldn´t accept it."
He frowned, feeling a well-known shade of fear crawling down his spine, but before he could ask her what that was supposed to mean, she turned and ran.
A few moments he stared after her, then shrugged and continued his walk.
"There have to be inpolite Harveys, too, I guess."
Crazy or not, Jesse Travis definitely still knew himself, he stated amusedly when he was sitting in a cab half an hour later.
Besides, everything he´d wanted to figure out while hiking through town, he´d figured out. There was no way he´d walk an inch more than he had to.
He wasn´t that much of a walker, he´d to admit.
"Lazy," a high voice next to him suddenly announced.
But maybe it was because of him getting used to it, that he didn´t jump, but simply turned his head to meet the little girl´s teasing smile.
"You´re one to talk," he said, not caring if the driver heard him. He was after all a cab driver in LA - he´d probably been shocked if his passenger wasn´t talking to himself ...
"I´m driving to work, you´re just driving around. `sides, you´ll never have to grow up, anyway."
The girl shrugged. "I like it," she said, then smiled brightly and sweetly at him. "Thanks for letting me in."
"Oh, did I?"
She nodded earnestly.
"Well, then, you´re welcome, I suppose."
Grinning, she placed a small hand on his bandaged one. It didn´t hurt, actually, it felt good, as if easing some of the pain away.
"I like you," she stated as she had before at "BBQ Bob´s."
This time, his smile was honest. "You know what, Sarah Shem? I like you, too. D´you want me to take you some place in particular?"
Softly, she shook her head. "No."
"Didn´t think so."
They drove on in silence, and after a short while, he put a hand on her head to stroke her hair. It felt soft and real.
"ER, sir?" the driver asked. He´d paid no attention towards the man´s dialoge with himself.
"Oh, here already? Yeah, I just get out here. Thanks."
Searching for his money, Jesse took his hand away from Sarah´s head and bent over to pay the driver, when suddenly ...
"You okay, sir?" the driver asked, not interested, but out of a reflex.
"Y-yes," Jesse hastened to reply and crawl out of the car.
Shrugging, the driver drove off, the little girl on the backseat turned to wave goodbye.
Sweet little girl, this one. Nice people, his hallucinations. But still - just for a second, Jesse had seen a dead man´s eyes in the rearview-mirror. A terribly disfigured face, bloodied, rotten.
Shaking off the image, the doctor turned away and entered the hospital.
You´ve not been afraid, yet.
Maybe not, he thought, but he wasn´t going to be. This was just a matter of discipline. A matter of self-control.
Inside Community General Hospital, the three real people in JesseTravis´ life were worried beyond mercy .
"I checked everywhere," Steve stated at the fifth request by Amanda to call "BBQ Bob´s". "Believe me, will ya?"
"Everywhere?! Here, "BBQ Bob´s" and his place?! That´s everywhere?!"
"It´s Jesse," Steve shot back defensively. "He´s these three places, you know that. What d´you want me to do, call the cops?"
"I´m sorry, Steve, but I´m just ..."
"Hey, I´m worried, too, `kay?! You didn´t see him last night, but I did! I´ve never seen him so ..."
"... terrified, yeah. We heard you the first time," his father interrupted him calmingly. "We don´t doubt your story. It´s just that ... Why would he be scared of you?"
"Don´t ask me!"Steve yelled frustratedly and threw his arms in the air as if he couldn´t bear to not underline his words physically.
"Why would he fall down the stairs? Why would he hide a head injury? Jesse of all people! You know how he is about pity!"
Mark and Amanda exchanged glances.
"Yes, we know," Mark finally said. "So what do you think? That he´s really in some kinda trouble?"
Suddenly Steve who´d stood with his back towards the others, thereby facing the window of the Doctor´s Lounge, tensed.
"Oh yeah, he´ll be," he hissed.
Confused, Mark and Amanda followed his look outside where the object of their concern was just leaving the lift.
Before either of them could say a thing, Steve had bounced out of the room, furious.
"Jesse!" he yelled, and the smaller man turned to ...
"One "Oh hey, Steve!" from you and I´ll forget myself!"
"Ahm ..." Jesse made and fell silent. He seemed to be a little relieved, though, once he´d spotted the other two members of his team approaching the scenery. It didn´t seem to be a wise thing to face Steve alone right now.
"Where the hell´ve you been?!" Steve demanded, but didn´t give anyone time for an answer. "What did you think to stroll out into the night like that?! D´you imagine how worried we all were?! After the stunt you pulled in the kitchen, I thought you ..."
"Steve," his father finally cut in calmingly, and even made an attempt to step between the smal, humble figure of the resident and his towering son.
"It might give us some answers if you could let him answer at all."
"But I wanna yell at him!"
"You can continue doing that afterwards, okay?"
Grumbling, Steve closed his mouth shut and crossed his arms on his breast.
Risiking a glance, Jesse lifted his head just an inch to look at his friends.
"So, Jess," Mark asked now, obviously as angry as his son, but definitely in more control, "you may explain now where you spent the night."
It took the young doctor a second before he realized he actually had permission to speak.
"Home," he said in a very small voice.
That was about as far as he could get.
"Home?!" Steve exploded. "How the hell did you get home, your car´s still here?!!"
"I ... took a cab."
"Why on earth did you go home?! And don´t tell me you sleep-walked!"
"Oh ..." Jesse laughed nervously. "That ... Y´know, I ... ah ... I had some thinking to do about some ... stuff, and I thought I´d better do it at ..."
"We´d better go into the Doctor´s Lounge," Steve suddenly interrupted his stuttering friend, without looking at anyone in particular, "because the volume I´m going to reach will probably wake up the whole building."
"Hey!" Jesse protested bravely. "You´re being unfair! I had a very bad dream yesterday and I wanted to be at home! Why can´t you understand that?"
"I would if you weren´t lying!" Steve shouted back. "And that wasn´t just a dream, Jess, you know that! You were scared of me! I ..."
"Gee, why would anyone be scared of you?" Jesse shot back sarcastically.
Following the doctor´s gaze, Steve noticed that he´d made an almost threatening step towards him.
"He does have a point there, son."
"You stay out of this!"
"Oh no, I´m not, I´m ..."
A sudden movement caught their attention, and the Sloans only had time to turn and see Amanda gently shoving Jesse into the Doctor´s Lounge, closing the door behind them.
Exchanging a typical Sloan-look, father and son came nearer to see Jesse sitting down on the sofa and Amanda stroking his shoulder comfortingly.
"D´you think we should go in?" Steve finally asked.
"If you promise to lay down the yelling."
"I´ll try."
"Maybe you should try biting on a pillow," his father advised and entered the room.
Grumbling once more, Steve followed.
"So," Amanda greeted them cooly, "are you interested in hearing the truth at last?"
Being confronted with Jesse´s sick-puppy-look almost got Steve on the edge of screaming again, but he swallowed the urge bravely and sat down across the sofa, prepared to listen.
"Please," he gestured.
Drawing in a deep breath, Jesse inwardly braced himself, then started, without looking into anyone´s eyes:
"I know I acted out of character over the last few days,and I apologize. I never meant to worry you, it´s just that ever since Shay Zeesley was murdered, I keep on ... having these nightmares and I can´t concentrate on my work and stuff. I don´t sleep, you know, and I guess that makes me kinda cranky and ... Well, then there was this patient of mine, Mrs Reeds, and the break in at my apartment and ..."
He sighed deeply and now looked up to meet their eyes. It almost hurt to lie at them, he found. He could see clearly now just how much they cared about him. Still he couldn´t tell them, could he? Images of his dream flashed through his mind, answering that question in an instant.
"I know," he continued, confirmed about his decision, "I should have told you before, but ..." He smiled faintly. "You know me, right? I´ve to fall down the stairs to get some sense."
"Or cut your hand," Steve said earnestly. "You scared the hell outta me there, you know that, Jess?"
"Yeah," the doctor sighed and bowed his head. "I´m sorry."
"Well,"Amanda said and again placed a hand on his shoulder. "At least you´ve told us now, so that we can help you."
"Oh, I ... I don´t think that´ll be necessary. Thanks, but as I said I ... had some thinking to do back home and ... I think I´ve finally come to terms with ... everything," he finished with a wry smile.
"Still you know that you can always ask us for help," Amanda reminded gently. "Don´t you?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I know. Thank you." He lifted his head to look at each one them, actually grateful. "I really appreciate this."
"Anytime," Mark smiled, clearly relieved, and even Steve couldn´t help but smile.
"You´re one pain in the ass, Jess."
"Yeah, love ya, too," Jesse grinned and stood. "But I think I´ve to go back to work now. Looks like I´ve got a patient out there."
There really appeared a guy wandering around outside the room, sickly pale and obviously disoriented.
As Jesse wondered why no nurse seemed to intend to help the poor man, a confused "Where?" coming from Mark behind him answered the question.
The patient wasn´t real. And as though he´d suddenly found out for himself, he turned around the next corner to vanish.
Jesse closed his eyes for a moment. This was going to be one hard shift ...
"Ah ... must have been a visitor," he tried to safe what could be saved. "Still, I better check. Thanks again."
With that, he left, trembling slightly as the shock of his first almost disastrous experience of his new life-style slackened.
"Jesse!" Steve´s voice called after him when he´d almost reached the corner.
"Yes!" He actually spun around, tensing again. His smile was nervous, though he tried his best to keep a grib on himself. "What?"
"I was wondering if ..." the detective started, but interrupted himself and after a moment´s thought stepped closer. "You know, we never went to a funeral or anything. For Shay," he added. "And I thought maybe we could ... dunno ... say our own goodbyes some time. It´s the least we should do."
"Oh. Yeah. Absolutely."
"Great. How `bout tonight at "BBQ Bob´s"?"
"Okay," Jesse nodded and smiled. "If you don´t just lure me into a trap to keep on yelling at me ..."
"Craps, now you got me," Steve joked. "However, your bartender skills may soothe me down."
"I´ll bring the milk," the young doctor laughed and was about to add another wisecrack, when he spotted a woman entering the ER, pressing a towell on an obviously injured hand.
It was time to show he´d learned ...
"Ah, you know, I´d love to keep up this nonsense, but - you see that woman over there?"
"Ah ... yes," Steve answered after he´d turned to look in the direction Jesse pointed.
Yes? Great. Thanks!
"See? I´ve got a patient. See ya tonight," he waved and hurried over to the woman, feeling actually proud of himself.
It was just a matter of discipline.
And how much disciple one needed to keep the cleverness up all day, Jesse thought when the end of his shift finally became a point in timeline he could actually think of being existent ... somewhere.
He´d spent most of his energy to figure out who of his patients was real over the entire day and was totally beat when he at last found the time for a much needed break in the Doctor´s Lounge.
Mark Sloan had had to make a lot of second opinions on Jesse´s patients this day, for it was a pretty good sign of a person´s existance if Mark could see them, too.
But of course that couldn´t be the tactics to be used on every patient he treated; the older doctor might get suspicious eventually when more than two of Jesse´s patients left before he reached them.
There were other ways, though, as Jesse learned pretty quickly. Nurses for example could easily be sent to rooms and didn´t do anything but report that there´d been no one in there. They would only think he´d mixed up the room numbers.
And of course you could always sent a patient into an already taken room to check out their reactions.
If there were any, the doctor only needed to go in, apologize and show one of them into another room.
Yes, he more or less managed to get by very well, but he had to concentrate on both, his job and tactics, which was exhausting, to say the least.
"Hey," Amanda´s voice pulled him out of a pure worn-out nap. "How´s it going?"
"Ahm ... great," he smiled tiredly and laughed at her doubtfull gaze. "Convincing like a politician, am I not?"
"Pretty much so, yes. Your dwarfs still at work? You looked whacked."
"I´ve been whacked. And yes, there´re no notifications of illness among my dwarfs, no sir!"
"You should get some rest," she suggested friendlyly and sat down across him. "You know, if they don´t lay down their work soon, we may have to remove them operatively."
"That would include paid vacation, wouldn´t it?"
"Oh yeah! And a dozen doctors who´d kill to write an essay `bout it. "First successfull separation of dwarfs from their host" ..."
"They wouldn´t kill `em, would they?!" he called out in mock shock.
"No, but maybe you."
"I wouldn´t know the difference," he groaned, rubbing his eyes.
"Okay, just once: Awwwwww," Amanda teased, ontly to become the target of a scowl.
"I really do have a bad headache!"
"And I really do pity you," she smiled amusedly, "but just untill ..." She glanced at her watch. "... now. Your shift´s over, Jesse. Go home and get some sleep."
"I can´t. I promised Steve to meet him at "BBQ Bob´s"."
"You know, by entertaining them, you´ll never get rid of your dwarfs."
Good point, Jesse thought as he entered "BBQ Bob´s" shortly afterwards.
Even driving wasn´t easy anymore, for now he felt the awkward sensation of pure self-distrust. If he saw people, couldn´t it be possible that he imagined cars, too? Maybe even buildings ...
"Oh yeah - does Venice really exist?"
Pushing the sarcasm aside, he called out for Steve, looking forward to a nice, quiet evening with a couple of drinks and his friend. It seemed an eternity that he´d enjoyed something like that.
Steve greeted him from somewhere in the kitchen where he was busy cleaning up a self-caused mess, and Jesse turned around the bar to help him, when the phone rang.
About to pick it up, he froze. Faith had called him once. And Faith wasn´t real.
Eying the phone with awe, he stepped away from it like it was cursed. He couldn´t be sure wether ...
"Jess! Since you´re not in here helping me, you could at least pick up the damn phone!"
But when the doctor picked up the receiver, only the dialling tone answered.
Frustrated, he hang up again. He was so tired, he didn´t know if he could hold this up any longer.
"Who was that?" Steve asked when he emerged from the kitchen a few minutes later.
"Ahm ... wrong number."
"Really? How did he figure that out since you didn´t tell him our name?"
"Okay, I was too slow, alright?"
"What a surprise."
"I had to ... tie my shoe," Jesse concluded a firmly started defens lamely. At steve´s look, he hastened to add: "You promised not to yell at me!"
"I said I might rethink it if ..."
"I brought the milk."
As if satisfied, Steve raised his hands and sat down on the other side of the bar. "Hey, did I yell?"
There it was again, the silence of two friends, Steve found himself stating happyly as he watched his business-partner prepare White Russians. He´d actually missed it, he admitted to himself.
And so happy to have it back he was, that he didn´t notice the slight change, the almost invisible damage it had taken.
Finally, they lifted their glasses in a moment of thought.
"To Shay," Jesse said.
"To Shay," Steve repeated. And they drank to the late shop-owner.
"Hey," Steve asked sarcastically, "you locked the door, right?"
Smiling bitterly, Jesse nodded. "Course. Wouldn´t want some strange freaks come in here, would we?"
"No! They might try to get something to eat then. And we´re closed."
"Absolutely! Closed!"
Their gazes met - and both smiles faded.
"Oh, I miss him," Steve sighed. "I know we barely knew him and stuff, but ..."
"Feels like we were about to know him, right," Jesse nodded. "I miss him, too."
"Columbo," Steve laughed softly at the memory and shook his head. "Freak."
"D´you know what happened to his shop?" Jesse asked.
"No. Guess it´s still crowded by forensics. Why?"
"Oh, just my neigh ..." He stopped suddenly, feeling caught. Actually embarrassed, he looked away. "Nothing. Just ... interested."
Mistaking Jesse´s hesitation for his inability to cope with Shay´s death, Steve felt discomfort growing inside him. He´d never been good at being of much help or support in situations like this, and though he´d loved to ease his friend´s pain, he wasn´t sure he could.
Lost in self-accusions for being the rude, emotionless cop, he almost jumped when the phone rang again. After the first fright, he was grateful for it, though.
Jesse jumped, too, but out of another reason. Shooting a glance at Steve to check if he could trust his senses on this one, he hurried to pick up quickly.
" "BBQ Bob´s", we´re ... Oh. Mandy. Sure. - Yeah, you don´t sound too good, too. - Course. - No, it´ll be okay, don´t worry. Yeah, you rest. - Remember: Lots of fluids. - Sure. Bye.
"Mandy calls in sick for tomorrow," he told Steve as he hang up.
"What?! Why didn´t you say no?"
"Because she sounded sick. What´s the problem?"
"Ryan called in sick this morning. That leaves no one here for the work."
"This mor ... Why didn´t you tell me?"
"I forgot."
"Forgot?!"
"I was too busy looking for you!" Steve shot back in self-defens.
"You didn´t tell me once you´ve found me, either!"
"Then I had to yell at you, remember?"
"Oh great!" Jesse ran a hand through his towsled hair. "So what´re we gonna do now?"
"I´ve to work tomorrow. You?"
"Ah ..." Oh no!
" "Ah"? I take that as a "no"," Steve decided. "Then the bar´s all yours, pal."
Oh no, no, no, no, no!!!
In the hospital he could keep up his strategy, but it´d never work in a bar where no one would indirectly help him to get by. He wouldn´t know who to serve and who not ...
"I have a night-shift," he objected, and it was even true, though he´d have nothing against some work at the "BBQ Bob´s", too, under normal circumstances.
"Great, then you´re free on the day-shift. I might be able to take over around five or so."
"No! You don´t understand," Jesse called out in panic. "I ... ah ... I need to rest before my shift begins."
"Since when?"
"Since I have a concussion!"
"Jesse, I can´t! I´ve to work! You remember me having a real job? Yeah, I´ve to go there, too, from time to time. So please - and I might add that I don´t have to say please here - at least try to serve tomorrow despite your concussion, will ya?"
"No."
"What you mean "no"?! No as in "yes", I hope."
"No, no as in "no". I won´t. Call in sick and I´ll ... help you."
"Wha ... Jess, I know I´m just the cop here, but ... Are you nuts? I can´t call in sick at the station to work here! `sides - where´s the problem? You worked here before night-shifts before. And don´t give me that concussion- argument! Since you managed to do your job today just fine, it has lost it´s persuasive power."
"Please," Jesse begged, forgetting about discipline. Nothing Steve would think of him could be as horrible as having to serve the next day.
"No," Steve answered, laughing slightly nervously while he studyied his friend with awe. "You don´t actually mean this, do you? And no sick-puppy- look, you know it´s not working on me!"
Frustrated, Jesse sighed and looked down. There was no way he would be able to persuade the detective otherwise. Hell, Steve was even right!
"Okay, I´ll do it."
"Of course you will," Steve said in mock surprise and sipped at his drink.
Silence settled above the scenery, things were heading back to normal.
"We couldn´t just, like, close the place, could we?"
"Jesse!!!"
If he´d knew just how right he´d been about the difficulty of his task, he´d closed for the entire day, no matter what Steve would say.
"Oh ... Mission Impossible," he whined from inside the kitchen, observing with growing disquiety how a crowd of people rushed into "BBQ Bob´s" around noon. This was horrible. It was the apocalypse all rolled out just for him.
"Okay, Jesse, don´t panic, you can do this. No problem."
"No problem," Sarah agreed next to him and grinned. "I want milk."
"Oh yeah, sure, kid, go and ... drink as much milk as you can, `kay? I can´t play with you right now, I´m busy."
Disappointed, the little girl strolled off.
"Oh, hey, Sarah? - D´you couldn´t by any chance go out there and tell me who´s like you and who´s ... Never mind," he winked. "Go get your milk. If you need me, just appear right in front of me."
"Okay," she sang and happyly skipped along.
"I´ve to stop getting paternal over my hallucinations," Jesse said under his breath and after bracing himself, entered the bar, prepared to give his best.
It was not impossible, but very, very hard, he found out. He had to pay attention to every single reaction he could make out among the other guests when he approached a table. He had to ignore the mostly unnaturally loud protests of the "Harveys" not being served. He had to think of a lot of tricks quickly, and once a decsion had been made, he had to deal with the consequences.
In fact, it was pretty much like the work at the ER. Fortunately, for it was probably the reason why he managed it quite well.
A few mistakes happened, but all in all he only served one man in a suit and tie who wasn´t there, and no one would have found out, if Jesse hadn´t jump when the man after having paid chose to vanish in the air instead of using the door ...
A nice incident, a shade of hope in all the hard work was the young couple who hadn´t been one in the first place. But having spotted the nice looking teenage boy in the right and the unbearable innocently blinking teenage girl in the left corner, Jesse decided - not without given humor - to try some new tactics, by placing a glass of cola in front of each one of the test-persons and announce it to be from the other one. Since they saw, noticed and eventually smiled at each other, he could be sure they both were as real as teenagers could be.
That strategy was used a lot that afternoon, not always leaving to the desired result, but never failing to do it´s purpose.
Around four the bar emptied a little, much to Jesse´s relief. He was beat. Though finding time enough to sit down behind the bar, he couldn´t risk his attention to slacken. He´d to catch every single movement or word that could give a hint about a person´s existance.
Wow, what a hard job! Do people actually do this to earn their mon ... Oh, no, I forgot, it´s just me being ... nuts.
"Dr. Travis."
Tired beyond jumpiness, Jesse looked aside to grin at Oak, who´d approached the bar without him having noticed her. That was not a good sign, he decided earnestly, but found it actually refreshing to talk to a person he simply knew not to be real.
"Oak," he greeted her quietly as to not draw attention to him talking to himself. "Hey, how are you?"
"Not being served."
"No, you got that wrong. See, you´re supposed to be on my side here `kay? So lay down the jokes, I´m not up to it. `sides if anyone finds out about you people they´ll throw you out of this cosy head of mine. And you don´t want that to happen, do ya?"
"I understand," she nodded. "Your managing all of this pretty well. I didn´t think you would."
Frowning in mock hurt, he gave her a little surrendering gesture. "What are you, my inferiority complex? You´re the one they sent to talk me into suicide?"
"Is that what you think?"
"I´m too tired to think right now. Actually I´m too busy, too, so, Oak, why don´t you go in there and join the little girl with the milk, huh? You should talk to her, anyway, she likes me."
A soft smiled rushed over her featúres, but just for a second, then her usual slightly sad, cool appearance took over again.
" `nother time. I think I´ll take a seat just here and watch you ... managing."
Jesse rubbed his eyes and yawned. "Yeah, sure, whatever you want. You´re welcome."
"Thank you. Jesse, I think you´ve a customer over there."
"Oh? Naw," Jesse winked, "did you see that tie?! Definitely a Harvey. But don´t let this get you down, Oak, some people have it and others don´t."
With that he emerged from behind the bar to another table. Though concentrating on his task, he couldn´t help but freeze - just for a split second - in midstep as he heard Oak laugh loudly behind him.
"Congratulations, Dr. Travis, you´re the most tired looking person I´ve ever seen."
"Yeah, Mark, hi to you, too."
"Oh, grumpy, aren´t we?" Mark teased, but presented his more or less sleep- walking resident with a reassuring smile. "Don´t worry, you just have ... eight hours to face now untill you finally can go to sleep."
"Did I miss the part where I did something to deserve this or can I just not recall it?"
"Lack of sleep can cause slight amnesia, doctor. Look it out when you get home."
"Hm. I´m not going to say another word before I didn´t have coffee."
"I´m sorry, but that´ll have to wait. You have a patient, doctor. And I am going home. Good night."
"Mark!" Jesse protested, staring at the chart in his hand in disbelief.
But mercy had left Jesse´s world a long time ago. Still, before Mark Sloan could shoot back a last teasing reply, the doors were banged open and a patient on a stratcher was hurried in, parademics surrounding him.
"What you got?" Jesse asked, doctor-mode taking over immediately. Mark, too, ran along with the stratcher into a free room.
"Man, white, mid-thirties, shot himself in the head with a rifle," a female parademic answered hastily and literally jumped away to not block the doctor´s way.
"Too late," was all Mark could state after a moment. "He´s dead."
"Oh yeah?" the female parademic asked coldly. "What a loss. The little boy he also shot was right behind us. They´re bringing him in in a minute. If he´s not dead, too."
"Little boy?" Jesse repeated.
"Yes, that scumbag shot his twelve-year-old nephew and then himself."
Silence grabbed the two doctors like a ice-cold hand as they exchanged a glance full of sympathy for ... no one and everyone. For the boy, the poor man, the world. What to say in a moment of such truth?
What to think except ...
"Oh my god!"
"Jesse?"
"Th-that´s my patient! That´s ..." Shocked, Jesse stared at the dead man´s torn face, cruelly disfigured, but still recognizable as it was.
"Calm down, Jess, there´ll be another one in a few moments," Mark said seemingly hard, but inside feeling his heart reach out for his young friend.
"No, you don´t understand! It´s Dillard! The guy who smashed his hand and ran when I tried to ... Oh god, I can´t believe he ..." His head jerked up as panic rushed through his body. "Oh god, oh god ..." he whispered, his eyes wide in fear as suddenly a picture was forming in his mind, a picture so bizarr and horrible like nothing he´d ever imagined. And he felt it, too. Felt what Dillard must have felt when ...
"He was afraid of him," the young doctor whispered, clearly terrified. "Afraid of the kid. He was so afraid that ..."
His hand rushed to his mouth, as the urge to wretch grabbed him, and within a second he was out of the room, ignoring Mark´s calls behind him.
You´ve not been afraid, yet.
"Stop that!" Jesse yelled and grabbed his head with both hands, wincing as his still sore one ached from the pressure.
"I´m not afraid!"
But he was. Afraid of what he would see once he left the restroom. Afraid of a dead boy´s body lying on a table next to his killer´s, his uncle´s ... Afraid of Dillard´s hunted eyes, hunting him in the darkness of his mind from where there was no way out. No back door to escape it.
Afraid of himself.
"I´m not afraid!" he shouted and without thinking, out of pure fury, hit the wall with an unconsciously made fist hard.
It hurt. It felt in control.
He hit the wall again. Now, even a little spot of sticky wetness could be seen on the cement. A proof of his ...
... insanity. As if the very human color had cleared his head, Jesse lifted his hand to study his knuckles, were the skin had burst open and the blood had emerged from. It had been his good hand.
The one with which he´d tried to clean Dillard´s wound the other day ...
"Oh no," the doctor laughed nervously. "Oh no, I´m not ... going there. Wrong. You hear me?!" He called out for no one. "I´m not afraid of anyone! I´m not hitting walls or shooting relatives! I´m a doctor! I´m different!"
Convinced and in control again, he looked back at his image in the mirror - and flinched when he saw a dead, motionless, ugly face behind his own. Dried blood covered the man´s sickly blue skin, and his mouth had dropped open. The eyes were the worst, still open, almost staring back at Jesse, but dead and black and rotten.
Slowly, carefully, Jesse turned to -nothing. No dead guy in the restroom.
"Just in my head," he growled under his breath and splashed water in his face to shake off every image his mind could think of.
Later that shift, Mark Sloan entered the Doctor´s Lounge to find his young friend sitting on the sofa, his head bowed. A miserable small figure. Like a lost puppy, the elder doctor thought and winced slightly in sympathy.
"Hey Jesse," he said softly and sat down next to him. "Feeling better?"
"Yeah. I´m sorry, Mark," Jesse said honestly, but without looking up at his boss. "I really are. I freaked out. Won´t happen again."
"`sokay," Mark winked, and patted the doctor´s shoulder gently. "Every resident has the right to ... "freak out" I think five or six times during his first five years. Of course the exact number is regulated by the bureaucrats, I can look it out for you some time. But I think you´re nowhere near the limit, yet."
Still staring at the floor, Jesse chuckled. It felt good to see him do that, Mark thought. It was such a typical Jesse-gesture, one missed it after a short while.
"`sides he was your patient. It´s only natural that you felt responsable. Which you are not," he added, stressing every word of the sentence.
"Hm. - The boy, did he make it?"
"Oh, yes. Got hit on the shoulder, the poor kid, and lost a lot of blood, but it wasn´t as bad as we thought. He probably lost consciousness immediately which made Dillard believe he was dead. The little fellow was lucky."
"Lucky," Jesse sneered.
"Yes," Mark nodded earnestly. "He could have been dead."
"Still, he should have been not put through this at all," Jesse said, finally lifting his head to cast his boss and friend a desperate look full of guilt. "And I should have known."
"How?"
"He was my patient! I treated him and I talked to him and I noticed that he was on the edge of a nervous breakdown! I should have let him checked out by Thorman immediately! I should have tied him to bed or whatever ... drug him ... just to keep him away from his ..." He sighed deeply. "I should have helped him."
"There was no way you could have forseen that, Jesse," Mark assured him. "You´re only a doctor, doctor. You can´t save everybody."
No kidding! I can´t even save myself!
Once again, Mark was witness of one of those loathed Jesse-smiles as the younger doctor nodded bitterly and secretly wiped away a single tear.
"That´s not what a doctor wants to hear, huh? There should be a law against people dying in a hospital. It´s so thoughtless of them!"
Though he laughed in sympathy, Mark couldn´t bring himself to leave the young man just now and they remained silent for a little while. Two doctors after a patient´s death.
Finally the older one of them had to stiffle a yawn and glancing at his watch, stood. "I´ve to get some sleep. In a few hours my shift starts."
"Yeah, course, you better be ..." Jesse started, but hushed down in an instant as his gaze wandered outside the room, where another dead man lay. Equally rotten and scaring as the one in the restroom, but standing in front of the window, looking directly at him.
Jese could feel how all color emerged from his face.
"Jesse?" Mark asked concernedly and followed the other one´s gaze outside, where nothing could be seen. "Jess, are you alright?"
"Sure," Jesse managed to chocke out. "Fine. Great. But you really need to get home and take a ... nap," he finished his sentence in a whisper, for another corpse had appeared out of nowhere, in the Lounge this time.
"And I should be checking on the patients," Jesse hastened to say, but couldn´t help staring at the body lying sprawled on one of the tables.
Again, Mark followed his gaze and saw a table.
"You sure you´re alright?"
Jesse didn´t hear him. He was too busy fighting the hysteria slowly crawl up his body, while he took a step over another corpse on the floor as casually as he could. As he reached the door, he opened it while smiling brightly at Mark. He wasn´t prepared for the bloodied mess lying curled up in front of the door and jumped at the horrible sight.
Now he could hear them, too. Moaning, whimpering ...
Oh god, what is this?
He only found that he was still standing in the entry, staring at the corpse, when he felt Mark´s hand gently ruttling his shoulder.
"Jesse? What´s the matter?" the older doctor asked and tried to look directly at him, but somehow the younger man´s gaze drifted off as if drawn into several directions. He was trembling slightly and a light shade of sweat appeared on his forehead.
"I ... uh ..." Jesse stumbled and swallowed at the appearance of yet another unbearable sight. "Gotta go. See ya, Mark. Goodnight."
With that he almost ran down the hallway,trying to avoid looking anywhere but right ahead.
He wasn´t aware that he was followed by a suspicious look. A look that was used to catch what it wanted to catch. And that saw what it wanted to see. Even if it wasn´t real.
"Maybe no dwarfs," Mark quietly told himself as he entered the lift. "But rabbits."