Back from the place with no net I am!
And here it is the chapter in which ... Oh yeah, right, read for yourself!
By the way: Fruitloops!!!! Yeah, you know, kid, don´t ya? MISS YA!!!! But, hey, stop hitting that poor boy! He´s sick! *sigh* And ... COME BACK SOON!!!!
Thanks for the reviews, guys. I´m SO glad you like this stuff! (Don´t awww me, I´m really touched! Honestly!) Thankyou!
Disclaimer, yaddah, yaddah, blah, blah ... I don´t even own the name "Hapgood", it´s from "Anyone can whistle". Still, Oak and the Harveys are all mine (Exchange hallucinations against cute ER-doctor! Anyone?)
Enjoy the cookies!
Shube: "You won´t let those 49 lunics ...
Nurse Apple: "NOT THAT word! Nor any word like it! Cookies, Shube, that´s what my
patients are! Cookies from the Cookie Jar!"
("Anyone Can Whistle")
Night-shifts were always frustrating. Even if they were quiet or successfull in any way, it was still a bizarr, depressing feeling to step out of the building, exhausted, beat, dead-tired, and to twinkle into the bright morning son.
It always felt upside down, and Jesse grew even more exhausted by the mere sight of the daylight.
Today - today he didn´t feel exhausted. He felt out of order.
He was scared of every corner he had to turn around, every room he had to enter, every lift he had to use, every time he had to open his eyes.
Death had reached the safe ground of his mind, and inpolite as it was, it had settled there, spreading on each one of his nerves, manipulating his senses to make them smell blood that wasn´t there, hear moans that weren´t made.
As a doctor, Jesse Travis had seen a lot of dead people. Some who´d died mercyfully quiet in their sleep, other who´d bled to death on his examination table. He´d seen eyes which had closed in expectation of relief and release, and others which had grown wide in unbearable terror at the realization of death towering them, covering them, grabbing them, taking them. Too fast to allow their eyes to close.
Oh yes, Jesse knew death, he´d faught against him in many ways, he´d braced himself over the years. He could bear to see the terror it brought, the ugliness that accompanied it sometimes.
Yet, he couldn´t bear to see disfigured bodies lying everywhere he stepped, everywhere he looked. It was so bizarr, if this had been a movie, he´d have laughed. But it was his reality, unreal as it was, still, he saw corpses lying in the restrooms, the examination rooms, on tables, on chairs, in lifts, huddled in corners ... Where he went, death followed him as though it made fun of the poor doctor who´d dared to pick up a fight against it.
Jesse had tried everything over the entire shift. Ignore them. But how could he ignore the terrible smell, the shrieking yells of dying men? Keep his humor as he had with the Crabtrees and the others, but how could he joke about the unbearable sights, the sounds, the smell? Hide in a restroom, desperately clutching his head to not have to see them. But still there was the smell, there was the sense of death.
No way out. There was no way out.
Dr. Travis could feel his eyes becoming hunted. As Dillards.
Still he managed to get more or less by when it came to his job. His tactics still worked, and fortunately it was a quiet night with only two real emergencies and otherwise rather trival wounds. But even sucturing a cut thumb could be torture when a dead boy was sitting on the other side of the patient´s bed ...
He made a break in the empty Doctor´s Lounge around six, when he suddenly heard a faint noise from outside the room. A child´s sobs he found when straining to hear it, and stepping outside to look, he spotted Sarah next to the door. She was huddled against the wall, her little face hidden in her hands which rested on her knees.
Checking for any witnesses, Jesse bent down to her.
"Sarah," he whispered. "Honey, what´s wrong?"
"They´re dead," the child answered, not looking up at him. "They´re all dead."
"Yeah, I know." Gently, he stroke her soft hair.
"Why?"
"Dunno." He checked once more, and sat down next to her, drawing her into a comforting hug. "Come here, kid. C´mon, stop crying, hm? It´s okay."
"I´m scared," she whispered into his ear.
"You don´t have to be. They´re not real. `sides, I´m with you."
Frowning innocently, she glanced up at him. "You´re not scared?"
"No," he lied and hugged her tighter. "None of this scares me."
Behind the corner, only a few metres away from the scenery, a deep frown grow on a hidden figure´s forehead.
Jesses shift was over, yet the ordeal was not. It seemed as though death didn´t plan on leaving it´s new victim so soon, and it´s terrible faces followed the young man all the way to the parking lot, where he sacked against a wall in pure desperation, closing his eyes.
"Stop," he whispered faintly and slid down to the ground. "Please, stop."
"It won´t," a stern voice broke into his pleas.
Opening his eyes, Jesse found himself looking up at Oak. There was pity in her eyes. Anger, too. Guilt. And fear.
But Jesse saw none of this. "Leave me alone," he murmured and came to his feet.
"I can see it in your eyes, Jesse. You´re ..."
"Oak! I don´t wanna hear this! Which part of my brain do I have to have removed to make you go away?! Ah ... I didn´t mean that the way it came out, so don´t give me any "I succeed!"-yells here, `kay? Bye!"
She followed him as he continued his way. "Oh yeah, I see you´re still managing, Dr. Travis," she teased angrily. "Still not afraid?"
At his sudden stop, she laughed an ugly, low laugh. "Did you really think this would be it? Accept the little girl and everything´s fine? You can´t possibly be that naive, doctor! Hey, when was the last time you saw a happy lunatic, huh?"
His hand was around her throat too fast for both of them to wonder how it´d got there. Surprise gave way to fear on one and pure fury on the other side.
"What´re you ..." the womam chocked and caughed horasely. "What´re you doing?"
"This is all your fault!" he shouted at her and tightened his grib. "You keep saying I mustn´t be afraid and I mustn´t accept it and all this stuff, but I see clearly now, Oak. You´re the problem!"
"Jesse," Oak croaked. She was on her knees now, her fingers tried desperately to get a grib on Jesse´s hand still wrapped around her throat. "Don´t ..."
"You´ve been a pain in the ass ever since I saw you for the very first time, and I´m not gonna listen to you anymore! You hear me? I´m not afraid of you!"
"Please ..." she begged faintly.
"Oh please now, Oak?" he replied wickedly. "You´re not afraid, are ya? I should have ..."
"You can´t!" she called out in a chocked cry. "I´m ... not real!"
Confused, he stared at her. At his hand holding her. And as if he´d suddenly realized he held a poisened frog, he let her go, almost throwing her away from him.
She sat where she landed, rubbing her throat, caughing.
Shocked, Jesse´s gaze wandered back to his hands. They were trembling now. His cut one hurt from the tight grib.
"Jesse," Oak caughed.
But he didn´t listen. She was not real. Would he have let her go if she´d been real?
He´d wanted to hurt her. He´d wanted to stop being afraid.
"Jesse ..."
He turned and ran to his car.
His head pounded against the pillow. His heart hammered against the blanket. The dead man´s finger knocked against the wall.
Jesse lay in his bed, blanket touching his nose, and squeezed his eyes shut. Still, the smell alone killed him.
The dead man had awaited him in his bedroom, when he´d finally come home and stumbled on his bed. There´d been only few times he´d needed a good ... day´s sleep as bad as today. Even in his car there´d been a dead woman sitting on the back seat, her head had lolled from one side to another in a scarry rhythm.
He´d been terrified the whole ride long, but he was beyond terror now. This was his apartment, his bedroom, his bed. Dead guy or not, he needed sleep.
But it wasn´t that easy. Once his eyes had closed and he´d fought the urge to keep them open to stare at the body in the corner, said body had started to produce noises. Moans at first, then the knocking.
"D´you think that´s scarry?" Jesse said, his eyes still closed. "You ever watched "Poltergeist"? Now, that was scarry! "The Frighteners"? "Haunted Hill"? Hell, "Caspar" was scarrier than y ... Aaaah!" he yelled as he opened his eyes slightly to suddenly find the corpse right next to him on the bed.
Within a split second, he was out of the bed, actually falling out of it and jumping to his feet and away from the bed.
"That was so unfair!" he panted. "You can´t pretend to be dead, and then move! Didn´t they tell you that once you´re dead you mustn´t move ever again?!"
Somebody had obviously told him that he wasn´t allowed to speak.
"Okay, fine, you keep the bed, I take the sofa. And don´t follow me!"
Trembling, the doctor swayed over to his living-room, only to find the sofa already occupied.
"Oh, you gotta be kidding! Out! All of you!"
But they´d learnt about the not moving part, as it seemed.
"Can´t you understand?" Jesse pleaded, tears were whelming up in his eyes. If out of fear, exhaustion, or simply everything, he couldn´t tell. He didn´t even notice it as they finally fell down his cheeks.
"I´m tired! I need to sleep! I´ve to go to work again in a few hours, and I can´t keep anything up when I´m tired! They´ll find out and then they´ll lock me away. And they´ll kill you. But I guess that´s not really a threat to you people, huh?" he laughed, crying.
"What am I gonna do?" he sobbed and sank down to the ground, hugging his knees like a child. "What am I gonna do? Please go. Please."
"Why´re you crying?" Sarah asked and looked down at him.
"I´m not," he sobbed.
"Yes, you are," she stated casually and placed her tiny hand on his head. "You´re scared, aren´t you?"
"Oh Sarah." Once more he pulled her into a hug.
"Can´t you make them go away?" she asked.
"No," he whispered. "I can´t." A faint sob escaped him as he hugged the little girl tighter. "I can´t, kid."
"Your friends could."
"I´ve no friends."
Finally, Jesse decided that since he couldn´t sleep, anyway, he didn´t want to spent his free time with a bunch of dead guys, too, and drove off to "BBQ Bob´s". Maybe there was even some sleep to catch there.
He loved the place. At time it felt more like home than his own apartment. He knew every table, every chair, and he felt in order there. Satisfied. He was never exhausted at the "BBQ Bob´s", but felt as though on vacation there.
It was the perfect counterpart to the hospital. It was only a small station in people´s life, more or less unimportant. Not like the hospital, where their lives were often changed in incredible ways. "BBQ Bob´s" was just a place and out of that reason Jesse loved it as much as he did.
He parked his car and the two corpses sitting on the back seats across the bar in a side street, and was just about to cross the street, when he spotted two familiar figures studying the little building still being marked with red plastic tape.
Surprised, he approached them and even forgot his usual carefulness.
"Shay, Faith."
"Jesse!" Faith greeted him and grinned. "Hey! How´s it going? Still crazy? Oh, how thoughtless of me. Since you can see us, you must still ..."
"Stop babbling, wife!" Shay ordered and offered Jesse his hand who shook it, smiling. "Jesse, how´re you? You look terrible."
"Ah, thanks. You look great, but I wouldn´t let you get sick then, would I? What ... ahm ... what´re you doing here?"
"Taking a look at the shop you told us about," Shay answered and turned to look at "Moriaty´s". The sign was still there. Jesse felt his mouth go dry.
"Why?" he asked earnestly.
Frowning, Faith grinned and lightly slapped his shoulder. "Because we´re still looking for a shop, stupid. Don´t you listen to your hosts?"
"But you ... You can´t buy a shop. You´re ..."
"Shhh," Faith hushed him down, looking around suspiciously. "someone might hear you. They´re probably full of prejudices against Harveys. One mustn´t tell everything to those business-men, you know?"
Tired, Jesse rubbed his eyes. "Oh god, why am I talking to you?"
"`cause we´re nice," Faith grinned at him. "Nice people."
He didn´t know why, but all of a sudden he got angry. Furious.
"Nice people, oh yeah!" he sneered. "Like you said the other day, Faith, huh? "What´s there to be afraid of? We´re nice people. We´re just going to visit you from time to time!" Yaddah, yaddah! And now? How nice is everything now? How very nice are the people I see in my bedroom, in my car?!"
"It´s not my fault you´re a doctor and thereby have doctor-hallucinations, Jesse!" Faith replied slowly.
"Doctor hallucinations?!" Jesse repeated scornfully. "Veteran-hallucination would be more precise I think! I want this to stop!"
But he stopped himself when he suddenly noticed he´d made a threatening step forward and was now standing nose to nose to Faith Crabtree who stared at him in fear.
"Jesse," Shay said and gently, but firmly drew him away from his wife, "calm down."
"You need help," Faith agreed and stroke his cheek. "God, you look terrible."
"I already said that."
"It´s more true when I say it."
"Wha ... That doesn´t make any sense, Faith!"
"Oh no?! I would never tell anyone that he looks terrible if it wasn´t true!"
"But I would?"
"You´re telling me every morning. - And don´t say what you wanna say right now, ´cause ... Jesse?"
The doctor didn´t look back, but continued his way back to his car. Shay´s and Faith´s calls followed him till he was on the road again.
"Hey Mark," Amanda greeted her friend when he entered "BBQ Bob´s" and approached the table she and Steve sat on. "You look tired."
He yawned for an answer.
"He is," Steve translated with a smile. "He´s been up all night."
"Night-shift?" Amanda asked pityfully.
"Nope. Spying on Jesse," Steve answered and stood to get his dad a cup of coffee.
Before Amanda could even open her mouth to verbalize her confused look, Mark raised a hand. "Guilty as charged. Well, I ... followed him over his shift and ... I think I found the reason for his strange behaviour."
"The one he told us or another one?" Steve asked dryly and placed a steaming cup in front of his father.
Accepting it gratefully, Mark smiled sadly. "Another one," he said and Steve nodded.
"I knew it. He´s in trouble, right?"
"Oh yes. - But not what you think."
Now concern showed in Amanda eyes. "What is it?"
Drawing in a deep breath, Mark braced himself before saying clearly: "He´s seeing people."
"What?!" a simultanious half-yell escaped the others, though they quieted instantly at the guest´s startled looks. "What?"
"I know it´s hard to believe, but ..."
"Not really," Steve interrupted.
Though he chuckled slightly, Mark knew this was not going to be easy. "I mean it, Steve. I saw him talking to people who were not there several times. The last time was a minute ago. Outside on the street, in front of your late friend´s shop. He was yelling at someone named Faith."
All color emerged from Steve´s face at the mention of Mrs Crabtree´s name. "That´s his neighbor," he said softly. "She was on the phone the other day. Here."
"Steve?" his father asked frowning as Steve´s gaze wandered over to the phone.
"I-it didn´t ring, you know? I didn´t hear it ringing, but still Jesse picked it up and he talked to Faith about ... I don´t remember. He´d been invited over for dinner to them. I thought I just hadn´t heard it."
"You hadn´t," Mark nodded. "`cause the phone didn´t ring. It was a hallucination."
"Oh god," Amanda said as her memory also kicked in. "I heard him talk to someone the day he told me about the burglary. He was answering someone in his polite Jesse-tone, you know."
Mark smiled.
"But I couldn´t hear anyone asking questions, and then I bumped into Jesse, and he said, there´d been an insucrance agent who´d gone on his nerves. You think ..."
"An hallucination."
"And when I found him sitting on the steps outside ..." Steve started, but trailed off as another thought hit him. "And in the kitchen ..."
"Yes," Mark sighed. "That must have been pretty scarry for him. First ... you," he smiled, "and then ... Steve, you said he got startled twice, didn´t you?"
"Yeah, once when I approached him, and on the floor when I was treating his hand. - He was staring ... behind me. Then he ran outside. He told me he´d had a nightmare and that he´d just snapped out of it."
"Well, sort of," Mark said. "I think that was when he found out."
"Found out?" Amanda repeated. "You think he knows?"
Mark nodded earnestly. "Oh yes, he knows. And he knows that we´ll find out eventually. But he´s so scared of us, he´s trying to keep a normal surface up." He laughed slightly at the memory of the last shift. "He used us to get by unnoticed. He let me take a look at patients to find out wether they´re real."
"That´s why he didn´t want to work here yesterday," Steve said to no one in particular. "He was afraid he wouldn´t manage to ..."
"Oh god," Mark laughed in sympathy. "Must be pretty hard to serve in a bar when you don´t know who´s real and who isn´t."
"Yeah," Steve nodded half-heartedly and looked around as though someone would start a strike the next second. "Still he did it ..."
"Don´t worry." Assuringly, Mark patted his son´s arm. "If he managed to do this as well as he did at the hospital, it wasn´t that bad. He probably didn´t serve one or two guests, but you guys would be very unlucky if of all people these would have been journalists."
"Sarcasm not appreciated," Steve murmured, still looking around for known faces.
"More important than the bar is Jesse," Amanda stated firmly. "What´re we gonna do about all this? We can´t just go and ask him, can we?"
Thinking, Mark shook his head. "No. He would probably deny it, anyway. And then - I think he´s far too afraid of us to trust us."
"Why would he be afraid?" Amanda asked. "We want to help him. We´re his friends, he knows that."
"I guess he thinks we´ll lock him away. Admit him to a looney bin and ... Dunno."
"Ahm, Dad, I don´t wanna sound cruel or anything, but ... that´s exactly what we´re gonna do, right?"
The following silence could have splatted down a grown-up cow.
"He´s sick," Mark stated finally. "He needs help. In a ... medical way. It´s not only that he´s talking to some fitional friends, I think there´s more. He´s pretty scared of something. Something terrible he´s seeing. We have to help him before it could be too ... late."
"So, how do we get him to admit that he´s insane?" Steve asked.wryly. "´cause, if he doesn´t, you´ll have to send him to a cook ... you know, against his will. And that ..."
" ... will lead to him losing his majority. He´d be fired and might never be allowed to work as a doctor again," Amanda concluded.
"Of course we won´t do that," Mark said. "I could never do that to Jesse. No, we´ll do what we always do."
"Which is?"
"Being clever," the older doctor grinned. "We´ll trick him."
"How?" the other two asked.
"I have a plan." With that, Mark Sloan stood and left the bar.
Steve and Amanda stared after him then at each other.
"Great. A plan."
Since his apartment was crowded with dead people and he couldn´t stand the sight of his hallucinations getting all excited about their new shop, Jesse had decided to spent the spare time before his shift started again working at the hospital.
There, dead people and the smell of blood wasn´t as irritating as at home, anyway. But exhausted he was, desperate.
Despair was not new to him, and he´d had dealt with it before. He was no one to give up easily, he was - though few would have thought that of him - a fighter in a way. He´d made it through many hard situations, he´d made it through everything life had placed in his way to make him stumble ...
Yet, he couldn´t imagine to make it this time.
Tired, hopeless, he sank down on the sofa in the empty Doctor´s Lounge and hid his face in his hands, trying to blank out everything around him.
But he could hear them moaning.
How long did he sit there till somebody finally entered the room, breaking in the silence? Hours? Minutes? He couldn´t tell. He only knew that he felt even more tired when he lifted his head to look up at Amanda, smiling down at him in sympathy.
"Hey Jesse. Were you at home at all? You look tired."
"I ... ah, I had some paper-work to work off," he smiled and quickly swept a hand over his face as if to clean it from the shadows of despair.
"Ah," she nodded. "I see. But you´re done now, yeah?"
"Ahm ..." Glancing at his watch, Jesse nodded. " Yeah. Done. Ah, Amanda, did you ..."
He stopped himself, when a tall, dark-haird man entered the Lounge, looking directly at him. He was wearing a grey suit tie, matching strikingly grey eyes which were set above a long, thin nose, also matching long, thin lips.
"Dr. Travis," the man announced Jesse in a deep, clear-cut voice. "I´d like to talk to you."
He had a clear British accent, and Amanda gave absolutely no sign of having noticed him.
"Jesse?" she asked instead.
Deciding that since Amanda obviously couldn´t see the Englishman, he shouldn´t, either, Jesse blinked and smiled at her. "Sorry, I got distracted here. I wanted to ask if you´ve done the autopsie on Dillard yet."
Frowning, Amanda bent her head to one side. "That the man who shot himself?"
"Yes," Jesse nodded. "And his nephew."
"Ah. Yeah, now I remember. No, I haven´t got permission yet. I think I´ll get it by tomorrow morning. Why? D´you think there´s something special about him?"
"Maybe," Jesse muttered, but shook his head with a smile when his gaze met hers. "No. No, probably not. I was just ... He was my patient, you know. I just wanted to make sure that I ... didn´t fail to notice anything."
"Dr. Travis. I really think we two should talk," the Englishman said. He´d never left his place next to the young doctor and was still looking down at him, with an almost frightening intensity.
Still, Jesse ignored him as best as he could.
"I´m sure there was nothing to be noticed," Amanda said comfortingly. "Such things happen, Jesse. There was no way you could have forseen that."
"Oh yeah," he grinned bitterly. "Such thing keep happening, alright."
"Dr. Travis ..."
"Will you please," Jesse cut the Englishman off inpatiently, but turned to Amanda fast enough to not risk seeming suspicious, "keep me posted on Dillard?"
"Sure."
"Thanks."
"Dr. Trav ..."
"I gotta go now. My shift starts ... soon." With that, he hurried outside.
Jesse didn´t see the Englishman again till late afternoon, when he entered the Doctor´s Lounge for a break.
It was not that he´d gotten used to the dead people, but dead-tired, he couldn´t think ahead. He treated a patient, another one, like a robot. He couldn´t bring himself to even smile at them or chatter with the nurses. He walked from room to room as if walking through a nightmare. There was no hope of waking up. There was no hope of whatsoever.
All there was was fear. And it wouldn´t go away.
What to do?
Keep on moving.
What to do?
Keep on working.
Keep on ... keep on ... keep on ...
He didn ´t even manage to smile when he greeted the Sloans and Amanda in the Doctor´s Lounge. With a deep sigh he sank onto a chair next to Amanda and rubbed a hand over his eyes.
"Well, doctor," Mark said good-humoredly, "you should consider spending your free time sleeping next time."
"I will," Jesse smiled tiredly. "Believe me. I´ll probably fall asleep within the next four hours, anyway."
"Hopefully not while you´re driving," Steve teased. "Or dooing the books in "BBQ Bob´s"."
"Oh gawd, was that today?" Jesse groaned.
"Nope. Kidding."
"That´s not funny!"
"Dr. Travis," a voice called over Steve´s reply and soon afterwards, the Englishman´s tall figure stepped in range of sight. He entered the room and came to a halt next to the door. "We need to talk."
"Jess," Steve announced him, smiling slightly confusedly. "Hey, you heard me?"
"Wha ... I, uh, sure," Jesse answered and turned to face him again. None of his friends paid any attention towards the stranger. Proof enough for the Englishman´s composition, the young doctor decided and ignored the man´s following requests.
"So?" Steve asked and raised his brows in expectation of an answer.
"Ah ..." Jesse stuttered, since he hadn´t heard the question.
"Something wrong?" Mark asked now.
Alarmed, Jesse shook his head. "No, I ..."
"Dr. Travis."
"I ..."
"Dr. Travis ..."
"Excuse me."
Under his friends´ worried glances, Jesse rushed to his feet and outside, were he leant against the wall, closing his eyes, drawing in deep, calming breaths.
Don´t give up now, he ordered himself. You can do this. You can ...
Hi eyes flew open when he suddenly heard the Englishman´s voice coming out of the Doctor´s Lounge. And then Mark´s. Answering.
Answering?
Slowly Jesse pushed himself off the wall and stepped back into the room, staring in disbelief at what he saw.
The stranger had taken the seat he, Jesse, had sat on before, and looked up at him in union with Amanda, Steve and Mark.
"What the hell ...?" Jesse whispered.
A short pause passed, before Mark raised a hand to point at the Englishman and said calmly: "Jesse, I want you to meet Dr. Hapgood. He´s a psychiatrist from the "Apple Memorial Hospital". He´d like to ask you a few questions."
"Dr. Travis," the stranger, Dr. Hapgood, nodded politely.
Steve bowed his head. But Jesse had seen the guilt flashing through his eyes.
"This is a set-up," he stated in fright. "You tricked me."
"Yes," Mark nodded. "Yes, Jess, we did."
"You ... you set me up. Like I was ... Like you do with ..." His voice faded.
"Jesse, please ..." Amanda started, but didn´t know what to say.
"No one meant any harm, Dr. Travis," Dr. Hapgood said in a calm, clear voice. "Your friends believe you need help and they called me, because I can help you."
"Help," Jesse sneered.
"Yes, Jesse, we ..." Mark said, but was cut short by Jesse´s angry yell.
"I don´t need your help! I don´t need you! You set me up!"
"We had to. You´d have den..."
"You tricked me!" Jesse yelled and backed away when Steve stood to calm him down. "Don´t come near me!"
"Jess ..."
"No, I said!" he shouted and backed away even more, hitting the wall behind him. From there he reached for the door, while Steve raised his hands as if showing he wasn´t armed.
The others just kept looking at the bizarr scene, not knowing what to do.
"Jess," Steve said calmingly, desperately, "please don´t do this."
"You´re sick, doctor," Hapgood stated firmly, ignoring the other´s gazes frowning at his tone. "You have to be treated properly. Now you know that, right?"
The frightened man hesitated, but after a while nodded softly. "Yeah," he whispered. "I know."
"You´re having hallucinations," Hapgood continued. "Hallucinations which scare you."
Again, Jesse nodded, but pressed himself against the wall even more when Steve attempted to touch his shoulder comfortingly.
"Yes, I know," Hapgood said. "We all scare you, too. But you know that we´re right. You´re a doctor. You know that illnesses can be healed - if the patient co-operates."
"This is different," Jesse shot back angrily, but calm as his friends noticed with relief and astonishment. "I don´t trick my patients. I don´t lock them up. I don´t ..." He swallowed another harsh sentence as if he knew he´d hurt his friends by saying it, then looked up at them, betrayal written all over his face.
"You just want to get rid of me, don´t you? You want to admit me to some cookie jar so that you´ll never have to think of me again! You want to leave me alone with them!" he was shouting now, his hands clenching to fists, as his friends watched in shock.
"Them?" Hapgood asked gently, raising his brows in interest. "Who are them, doctor?"
"They´re all around," Jesse replied, his gaze darting away from Hapgood into several directions. "I can smell them," he added in a chocked whisper. "I can hear them moaning. Oh god," he begged faintly, adressing no one, "please stop. Just ... stop." Covering his ears, he slid down the wall into a huddled position and closed his eyes.
While Hapgood sighed slightly as he looked down at his patient, Steve, Amanda and Mark exchanged horrified glances. How long had this been going on? How long had Jesse pretended to be slightly distressed by Shay Zeesley´s death, but had been haunted by terrible hallucinations?
"Jesse," Amanda said ever so softly and made a tentative step towards her friend, only to be stopped by a gentle movement of Hapgood´s hand, followed by a slight shaking of his head.
Though he didn´t dare to touch his broken friend, Steve couldn´t bear towering above him, looking down at him, and so he crouched down beside him. Instantly, the younger man flinched violently, his eyes flew open.
"Sorry, I ..." Steve hastened to say and jumped back to his feet again. Jesse had fallen backwards and was now sitting with his hands steading him behind his back, looking up at the detective, terrified.
A short silence followed, before a nervous laugh broke it. "Look at me," Jesse stated scornfully, but laughing. His blue eyes were bright, beyond tears. Beyond hope.
"I hit the wall the other day," the young doctor said and lifted a shaking hand. "See? There. Like Dillard. I don´t even know ...why." He laughed out again. "I wanted to feel in control again. But I´m not." He bowed his head bitterly. "I´m not managing anymore. I´m afraid."
No one replied a thing, they kept on staring him talking to no one in particular. Finally, he swallowed hard as if to brace himself and whispered, without looking up at them: "Help me. Please."
Relief washed through all of them.
"Yes." Mark was the first one to speak, sounding almost happy at this request. "Yes, Jesse, we´ll help you. I promise."
An almost grateful smile started to spread on Jesse´s lips, when he suddenly turned to look outside the window to the hallway.
"Dr. Travis?" Hapgood asked, alarmed. When Jesse didn´t react, but started to get to his feet, the psychiatrist mentioned Steve to cover the door quickly.
"Sarah," Jesse mumbled and reached for the door, but was stopped by Steve´s huge figure stepping in his way. Startled, the smaller mann stumbled back, all trust as faintly as it had been, fading away from his eyes.
"Who are you seeing there?" Hapgood asked calmly.
But the moment was gone. Suspiscious, Jesse turned to cast a despising look on the Englishman. "Let me go."
Before anyone could say a thing, Dr. Hapgood firmly shook his head. "No."
"You can´t do this. I´m a ..."
"Who are you seeing outside, doctor?" Hapgood interrupted him.
Jesse´s eyes narrowed. "Why do you want to know?"
Hapgood smiled innocently. "Why don´t you want to tell me?"
"You might hurt her."
"Why would I?"
Jesse opened his mouth to reply, but caught a glance from Mark, and quickly closed it again. His gaze grew even more distrustive, paranoid. "Let me go," he said again, almost threatening.
"Let me go!" he yelled as no one reacted. He even turned to face Steve, but once again backed away in fear, though the detective´s eyes were bright with sympathy and shock.
"Jesse, please ..." Amanda started, but was once more interrupted by Hapgood´s raising hand. "No use in trying, Dr. Bentley," he said calmly, without taking his look of his patient, who was growing more agitated every second.
"Dr. Travis, I´m going to give you a slight sedative now. So that we can get you to the "Apple Memorial" where we two will finally talk. Do you understand?"
"No shots," Jesse said warningly and lifted his hands in defeat.
"I don´t think you´ll go with us without one," Hapgood said friendly. "In that case, I don´t trust you. Besides, you will feel better afterwards. Believe me."
"No shots," the younger man repeated fiercly and backed away from the psychiatrist, who´d produced a syringe from a table. But as he tried to flee, Jesse only bumped in Steve, who gently, but firmly got hold of his arm.
"No! Let me go!"
"Jess ..."
But Hapgood had already injected the needle into Jesse´s arm, and almost instantly, the young man grew quiet. He swayed slightly when Steve released his arm, so that the detective steadied him again.
"How´re you feeling?" Hapgood asked as he opened the door and helped Steve maneuver the drugged doctor outside onto the hallway.
"Dizzy," Jesse replied drowsily.
"Under this circumstances," Hapgood said and pushed the button for the lift, "dizzy is good."
"Sarah," Jesse mumbled, frowning. "Where´s ... Sarah?"
"Don´t worry," Hapgood assured him. They entered the lift. "Sarah´s gone home. She´s fine."
"She was scared of you," Jesse stated. His eyes started to close. "I´ve to tell her that ..."
"Oh, watch out!"
But Hapgood wouldn´t have needed to call out, Steve had already been prepared to catch his friend, as he slumped against him, the drug kicking in with full, though obviously unexpected force.
Casting an apologetic glance on the sleeping doctor, Hapgood sighed. "I´m not good with drugs."
"Well, since you gave him too much of whatever," Steve growled, "you should be the one carrying him."
"Beg your pardon? You´re twice my size. Besides, he´s your friend. Ah, there we are," he stated happily as the doors opened. "Come on, detective, follow me."
"I was against this plan from the very beginning," Steve muttered under his breath, but obeyed, anyway.
And here it is the chapter in which ... Oh yeah, right, read for yourself!
By the way: Fruitloops!!!! Yeah, you know, kid, don´t ya? MISS YA!!!! But, hey, stop hitting that poor boy! He´s sick! *sigh* And ... COME BACK SOON!!!!
Thanks for the reviews, guys. I´m SO glad you like this stuff! (Don´t awww me, I´m really touched! Honestly!) Thankyou!
Disclaimer, yaddah, yaddah, blah, blah ... I don´t even own the name "Hapgood", it´s from "Anyone can whistle". Still, Oak and the Harveys are all mine (Exchange hallucinations against cute ER-doctor! Anyone?)
Enjoy the cookies!
Shube: "You won´t let those 49 lunics ...
Nurse Apple: "NOT THAT word! Nor any word like it! Cookies, Shube, that´s what my
patients are! Cookies from the Cookie Jar!"
("Anyone Can Whistle")
Night-shifts were always frustrating. Even if they were quiet or successfull in any way, it was still a bizarr, depressing feeling to step out of the building, exhausted, beat, dead-tired, and to twinkle into the bright morning son.
It always felt upside down, and Jesse grew even more exhausted by the mere sight of the daylight.
Today - today he didn´t feel exhausted. He felt out of order.
He was scared of every corner he had to turn around, every room he had to enter, every lift he had to use, every time he had to open his eyes.
Death had reached the safe ground of his mind, and inpolite as it was, it had settled there, spreading on each one of his nerves, manipulating his senses to make them smell blood that wasn´t there, hear moans that weren´t made.
As a doctor, Jesse Travis had seen a lot of dead people. Some who´d died mercyfully quiet in their sleep, other who´d bled to death on his examination table. He´d seen eyes which had closed in expectation of relief and release, and others which had grown wide in unbearable terror at the realization of death towering them, covering them, grabbing them, taking them. Too fast to allow their eyes to close.
Oh yes, Jesse knew death, he´d faught against him in many ways, he´d braced himself over the years. He could bear to see the terror it brought, the ugliness that accompanied it sometimes.
Yet, he couldn´t bear to see disfigured bodies lying everywhere he stepped, everywhere he looked. It was so bizarr, if this had been a movie, he´d have laughed. But it was his reality, unreal as it was, still, he saw corpses lying in the restrooms, the examination rooms, on tables, on chairs, in lifts, huddled in corners ... Where he went, death followed him as though it made fun of the poor doctor who´d dared to pick up a fight against it.
Jesse had tried everything over the entire shift. Ignore them. But how could he ignore the terrible smell, the shrieking yells of dying men? Keep his humor as he had with the Crabtrees and the others, but how could he joke about the unbearable sights, the sounds, the smell? Hide in a restroom, desperately clutching his head to not have to see them. But still there was the smell, there was the sense of death.
No way out. There was no way out.
Dr. Travis could feel his eyes becoming hunted. As Dillards.
Still he managed to get more or less by when it came to his job. His tactics still worked, and fortunately it was a quiet night with only two real emergencies and otherwise rather trival wounds. But even sucturing a cut thumb could be torture when a dead boy was sitting on the other side of the patient´s bed ...
He made a break in the empty Doctor´s Lounge around six, when he suddenly heard a faint noise from outside the room. A child´s sobs he found when straining to hear it, and stepping outside to look, he spotted Sarah next to the door. She was huddled against the wall, her little face hidden in her hands which rested on her knees.
Checking for any witnesses, Jesse bent down to her.
"Sarah," he whispered. "Honey, what´s wrong?"
"They´re dead," the child answered, not looking up at him. "They´re all dead."
"Yeah, I know." Gently, he stroke her soft hair.
"Why?"
"Dunno." He checked once more, and sat down next to her, drawing her into a comforting hug. "Come here, kid. C´mon, stop crying, hm? It´s okay."
"I´m scared," she whispered into his ear.
"You don´t have to be. They´re not real. `sides, I´m with you."
Frowning innocently, she glanced up at him. "You´re not scared?"
"No," he lied and hugged her tighter. "None of this scares me."
Behind the corner, only a few metres away from the scenery, a deep frown grow on a hidden figure´s forehead.
Jesses shift was over, yet the ordeal was not. It seemed as though death didn´t plan on leaving it´s new victim so soon, and it´s terrible faces followed the young man all the way to the parking lot, where he sacked against a wall in pure desperation, closing his eyes.
"Stop," he whispered faintly and slid down to the ground. "Please, stop."
"It won´t," a stern voice broke into his pleas.
Opening his eyes, Jesse found himself looking up at Oak. There was pity in her eyes. Anger, too. Guilt. And fear.
But Jesse saw none of this. "Leave me alone," he murmured and came to his feet.
"I can see it in your eyes, Jesse. You´re ..."
"Oak! I don´t wanna hear this! Which part of my brain do I have to have removed to make you go away?! Ah ... I didn´t mean that the way it came out, so don´t give me any "I succeed!"-yells here, `kay? Bye!"
She followed him as he continued his way. "Oh yeah, I see you´re still managing, Dr. Travis," she teased angrily. "Still not afraid?"
At his sudden stop, she laughed an ugly, low laugh. "Did you really think this would be it? Accept the little girl and everything´s fine? You can´t possibly be that naive, doctor! Hey, when was the last time you saw a happy lunatic, huh?"
His hand was around her throat too fast for both of them to wonder how it´d got there. Surprise gave way to fear on one and pure fury on the other side.
"What´re you ..." the womam chocked and caughed horasely. "What´re you doing?"
"This is all your fault!" he shouted at her and tightened his grib. "You keep saying I mustn´t be afraid and I mustn´t accept it and all this stuff, but I see clearly now, Oak. You´re the problem!"
"Jesse," Oak croaked. She was on her knees now, her fingers tried desperately to get a grib on Jesse´s hand still wrapped around her throat. "Don´t ..."
"You´ve been a pain in the ass ever since I saw you for the very first time, and I´m not gonna listen to you anymore! You hear me? I´m not afraid of you!"
"Please ..." she begged faintly.
"Oh please now, Oak?" he replied wickedly. "You´re not afraid, are ya? I should have ..."
"You can´t!" she called out in a chocked cry. "I´m ... not real!"
Confused, he stared at her. At his hand holding her. And as if he´d suddenly realized he held a poisened frog, he let her go, almost throwing her away from him.
She sat where she landed, rubbing her throat, caughing.
Shocked, Jesse´s gaze wandered back to his hands. They were trembling now. His cut one hurt from the tight grib.
"Jesse," Oak caughed.
But he didn´t listen. She was not real. Would he have let her go if she´d been real?
He´d wanted to hurt her. He´d wanted to stop being afraid.
"Jesse ..."
He turned and ran to his car.
His head pounded against the pillow. His heart hammered against the blanket. The dead man´s finger knocked against the wall.
Jesse lay in his bed, blanket touching his nose, and squeezed his eyes shut. Still, the smell alone killed him.
The dead man had awaited him in his bedroom, when he´d finally come home and stumbled on his bed. There´d been only few times he´d needed a good ... day´s sleep as bad as today. Even in his car there´d been a dead woman sitting on the back seat, her head had lolled from one side to another in a scarry rhythm.
He´d been terrified the whole ride long, but he was beyond terror now. This was his apartment, his bedroom, his bed. Dead guy or not, he needed sleep.
But it wasn´t that easy. Once his eyes had closed and he´d fought the urge to keep them open to stare at the body in the corner, said body had started to produce noises. Moans at first, then the knocking.
"D´you think that´s scarry?" Jesse said, his eyes still closed. "You ever watched "Poltergeist"? Now, that was scarry! "The Frighteners"? "Haunted Hill"? Hell, "Caspar" was scarrier than y ... Aaaah!" he yelled as he opened his eyes slightly to suddenly find the corpse right next to him on the bed.
Within a split second, he was out of the bed, actually falling out of it and jumping to his feet and away from the bed.
"That was so unfair!" he panted. "You can´t pretend to be dead, and then move! Didn´t they tell you that once you´re dead you mustn´t move ever again?!"
Somebody had obviously told him that he wasn´t allowed to speak.
"Okay, fine, you keep the bed, I take the sofa. And don´t follow me!"
Trembling, the doctor swayed over to his living-room, only to find the sofa already occupied.
"Oh, you gotta be kidding! Out! All of you!"
But they´d learnt about the not moving part, as it seemed.
"Can´t you understand?" Jesse pleaded, tears were whelming up in his eyes. If out of fear, exhaustion, or simply everything, he couldn´t tell. He didn´t even notice it as they finally fell down his cheeks.
"I´m tired! I need to sleep! I´ve to go to work again in a few hours, and I can´t keep anything up when I´m tired! They´ll find out and then they´ll lock me away. And they´ll kill you. But I guess that´s not really a threat to you people, huh?" he laughed, crying.
"What am I gonna do?" he sobbed and sank down to the ground, hugging his knees like a child. "What am I gonna do? Please go. Please."
"Why´re you crying?" Sarah asked and looked down at him.
"I´m not," he sobbed.
"Yes, you are," she stated casually and placed her tiny hand on his head. "You´re scared, aren´t you?"
"Oh Sarah." Once more he pulled her into a hug.
"Can´t you make them go away?" she asked.
"No," he whispered. "I can´t." A faint sob escaped him as he hugged the little girl tighter. "I can´t, kid."
"Your friends could."
"I´ve no friends."
Finally, Jesse decided that since he couldn´t sleep, anyway, he didn´t want to spent his free time with a bunch of dead guys, too, and drove off to "BBQ Bob´s". Maybe there was even some sleep to catch there.
He loved the place. At time it felt more like home than his own apartment. He knew every table, every chair, and he felt in order there. Satisfied. He was never exhausted at the "BBQ Bob´s", but felt as though on vacation there.
It was the perfect counterpart to the hospital. It was only a small station in people´s life, more or less unimportant. Not like the hospital, where their lives were often changed in incredible ways. "BBQ Bob´s" was just a place and out of that reason Jesse loved it as much as he did.
He parked his car and the two corpses sitting on the back seats across the bar in a side street, and was just about to cross the street, when he spotted two familiar figures studying the little building still being marked with red plastic tape.
Surprised, he approached them and even forgot his usual carefulness.
"Shay, Faith."
"Jesse!" Faith greeted him and grinned. "Hey! How´s it going? Still crazy? Oh, how thoughtless of me. Since you can see us, you must still ..."
"Stop babbling, wife!" Shay ordered and offered Jesse his hand who shook it, smiling. "Jesse, how´re you? You look terrible."
"Ah, thanks. You look great, but I wouldn´t let you get sick then, would I? What ... ahm ... what´re you doing here?"
"Taking a look at the shop you told us about," Shay answered and turned to look at "Moriaty´s". The sign was still there. Jesse felt his mouth go dry.
"Why?" he asked earnestly.
Frowning, Faith grinned and lightly slapped his shoulder. "Because we´re still looking for a shop, stupid. Don´t you listen to your hosts?"
"But you ... You can´t buy a shop. You´re ..."
"Shhh," Faith hushed him down, looking around suspiciously. "someone might hear you. They´re probably full of prejudices against Harveys. One mustn´t tell everything to those business-men, you know?"
Tired, Jesse rubbed his eyes. "Oh god, why am I talking to you?"
"`cause we´re nice," Faith grinned at him. "Nice people."
He didn´t know why, but all of a sudden he got angry. Furious.
"Nice people, oh yeah!" he sneered. "Like you said the other day, Faith, huh? "What´s there to be afraid of? We´re nice people. We´re just going to visit you from time to time!" Yaddah, yaddah! And now? How nice is everything now? How very nice are the people I see in my bedroom, in my car?!"
"It´s not my fault you´re a doctor and thereby have doctor-hallucinations, Jesse!" Faith replied slowly.
"Doctor hallucinations?!" Jesse repeated scornfully. "Veteran-hallucination would be more precise I think! I want this to stop!"
But he stopped himself when he suddenly noticed he´d made a threatening step forward and was now standing nose to nose to Faith Crabtree who stared at him in fear.
"Jesse," Shay said and gently, but firmly drew him away from his wife, "calm down."
"You need help," Faith agreed and stroke his cheek. "God, you look terrible."
"I already said that."
"It´s more true when I say it."
"Wha ... That doesn´t make any sense, Faith!"
"Oh no?! I would never tell anyone that he looks terrible if it wasn´t true!"
"But I would?"
"You´re telling me every morning. - And don´t say what you wanna say right now, ´cause ... Jesse?"
The doctor didn´t look back, but continued his way back to his car. Shay´s and Faith´s calls followed him till he was on the road again.
"Hey Mark," Amanda greeted her friend when he entered "BBQ Bob´s" and approached the table she and Steve sat on. "You look tired."
He yawned for an answer.
"He is," Steve translated with a smile. "He´s been up all night."
"Night-shift?" Amanda asked pityfully.
"Nope. Spying on Jesse," Steve answered and stood to get his dad a cup of coffee.
Before Amanda could even open her mouth to verbalize her confused look, Mark raised a hand. "Guilty as charged. Well, I ... followed him over his shift and ... I think I found the reason for his strange behaviour."
"The one he told us or another one?" Steve asked dryly and placed a steaming cup in front of his father.
Accepting it gratefully, Mark smiled sadly. "Another one," he said and Steve nodded.
"I knew it. He´s in trouble, right?"
"Oh yes. - But not what you think."
Now concern showed in Amanda eyes. "What is it?"
Drawing in a deep breath, Mark braced himself before saying clearly: "He´s seeing people."
"What?!" a simultanious half-yell escaped the others, though they quieted instantly at the guest´s startled looks. "What?"
"I know it´s hard to believe, but ..."
"Not really," Steve interrupted.
Though he chuckled slightly, Mark knew this was not going to be easy. "I mean it, Steve. I saw him talking to people who were not there several times. The last time was a minute ago. Outside on the street, in front of your late friend´s shop. He was yelling at someone named Faith."
All color emerged from Steve´s face at the mention of Mrs Crabtree´s name. "That´s his neighbor," he said softly. "She was on the phone the other day. Here."
"Steve?" his father asked frowning as Steve´s gaze wandered over to the phone.
"I-it didn´t ring, you know? I didn´t hear it ringing, but still Jesse picked it up and he talked to Faith about ... I don´t remember. He´d been invited over for dinner to them. I thought I just hadn´t heard it."
"You hadn´t," Mark nodded. "`cause the phone didn´t ring. It was a hallucination."
"Oh god," Amanda said as her memory also kicked in. "I heard him talk to someone the day he told me about the burglary. He was answering someone in his polite Jesse-tone, you know."
Mark smiled.
"But I couldn´t hear anyone asking questions, and then I bumped into Jesse, and he said, there´d been an insucrance agent who´d gone on his nerves. You think ..."
"An hallucination."
"And when I found him sitting on the steps outside ..." Steve started, but trailed off as another thought hit him. "And in the kitchen ..."
"Yes," Mark sighed. "That must have been pretty scarry for him. First ... you," he smiled, "and then ... Steve, you said he got startled twice, didn´t you?"
"Yeah, once when I approached him, and on the floor when I was treating his hand. - He was staring ... behind me. Then he ran outside. He told me he´d had a nightmare and that he´d just snapped out of it."
"Well, sort of," Mark said. "I think that was when he found out."
"Found out?" Amanda repeated. "You think he knows?"
Mark nodded earnestly. "Oh yes, he knows. And he knows that we´ll find out eventually. But he´s so scared of us, he´s trying to keep a normal surface up." He laughed slightly at the memory of the last shift. "He used us to get by unnoticed. He let me take a look at patients to find out wether they´re real."
"That´s why he didn´t want to work here yesterday," Steve said to no one in particular. "He was afraid he wouldn´t manage to ..."
"Oh god," Mark laughed in sympathy. "Must be pretty hard to serve in a bar when you don´t know who´s real and who isn´t."
"Yeah," Steve nodded half-heartedly and looked around as though someone would start a strike the next second. "Still he did it ..."
"Don´t worry." Assuringly, Mark patted his son´s arm. "If he managed to do this as well as he did at the hospital, it wasn´t that bad. He probably didn´t serve one or two guests, but you guys would be very unlucky if of all people these would have been journalists."
"Sarcasm not appreciated," Steve murmured, still looking around for known faces.
"More important than the bar is Jesse," Amanda stated firmly. "What´re we gonna do about all this? We can´t just go and ask him, can we?"
Thinking, Mark shook his head. "No. He would probably deny it, anyway. And then - I think he´s far too afraid of us to trust us."
"Why would he be afraid?" Amanda asked. "We want to help him. We´re his friends, he knows that."
"I guess he thinks we´ll lock him away. Admit him to a looney bin and ... Dunno."
"Ahm, Dad, I don´t wanna sound cruel or anything, but ... that´s exactly what we´re gonna do, right?"
The following silence could have splatted down a grown-up cow.
"He´s sick," Mark stated finally. "He needs help. In a ... medical way. It´s not only that he´s talking to some fitional friends, I think there´s more. He´s pretty scared of something. Something terrible he´s seeing. We have to help him before it could be too ... late."
"So, how do we get him to admit that he´s insane?" Steve asked.wryly. "´cause, if he doesn´t, you´ll have to send him to a cook ... you know, against his will. And that ..."
" ... will lead to him losing his majority. He´d be fired and might never be allowed to work as a doctor again," Amanda concluded.
"Of course we won´t do that," Mark said. "I could never do that to Jesse. No, we´ll do what we always do."
"Which is?"
"Being clever," the older doctor grinned. "We´ll trick him."
"How?" the other two asked.
"I have a plan." With that, Mark Sloan stood and left the bar.
Steve and Amanda stared after him then at each other.
"Great. A plan."
Since his apartment was crowded with dead people and he couldn´t stand the sight of his hallucinations getting all excited about their new shop, Jesse had decided to spent the spare time before his shift started again working at the hospital.
There, dead people and the smell of blood wasn´t as irritating as at home, anyway. But exhausted he was, desperate.
Despair was not new to him, and he´d had dealt with it before. He was no one to give up easily, he was - though few would have thought that of him - a fighter in a way. He´d made it through many hard situations, he´d made it through everything life had placed in his way to make him stumble ...
Yet, he couldn´t imagine to make it this time.
Tired, hopeless, he sank down on the sofa in the empty Doctor´s Lounge and hid his face in his hands, trying to blank out everything around him.
But he could hear them moaning.
How long did he sit there till somebody finally entered the room, breaking in the silence? Hours? Minutes? He couldn´t tell. He only knew that he felt even more tired when he lifted his head to look up at Amanda, smiling down at him in sympathy.
"Hey Jesse. Were you at home at all? You look tired."
"I ... ah, I had some paper-work to work off," he smiled and quickly swept a hand over his face as if to clean it from the shadows of despair.
"Ah," she nodded. "I see. But you´re done now, yeah?"
"Ahm ..." Glancing at his watch, Jesse nodded. " Yeah. Done. Ah, Amanda, did you ..."
He stopped himself, when a tall, dark-haird man entered the Lounge, looking directly at him. He was wearing a grey suit tie, matching strikingly grey eyes which were set above a long, thin nose, also matching long, thin lips.
"Dr. Travis," the man announced Jesse in a deep, clear-cut voice. "I´d like to talk to you."
He had a clear British accent, and Amanda gave absolutely no sign of having noticed him.
"Jesse?" she asked instead.
Deciding that since Amanda obviously couldn´t see the Englishman, he shouldn´t, either, Jesse blinked and smiled at her. "Sorry, I got distracted here. I wanted to ask if you´ve done the autopsie on Dillard yet."
Frowning, Amanda bent her head to one side. "That the man who shot himself?"
"Yes," Jesse nodded. "And his nephew."
"Ah. Yeah, now I remember. No, I haven´t got permission yet. I think I´ll get it by tomorrow morning. Why? D´you think there´s something special about him?"
"Maybe," Jesse muttered, but shook his head with a smile when his gaze met hers. "No. No, probably not. I was just ... He was my patient, you know. I just wanted to make sure that I ... didn´t fail to notice anything."
"Dr. Travis. I really think we two should talk," the Englishman said. He´d never left his place next to the young doctor and was still looking down at him, with an almost frightening intensity.
Still, Jesse ignored him as best as he could.
"I´m sure there was nothing to be noticed," Amanda said comfortingly. "Such things happen, Jesse. There was no way you could have forseen that."
"Oh yeah," he grinned bitterly. "Such thing keep happening, alright."
"Dr. Travis ..."
"Will you please," Jesse cut the Englishman off inpatiently, but turned to Amanda fast enough to not risk seeming suspicious, "keep me posted on Dillard?"
"Sure."
"Thanks."
"Dr. Trav ..."
"I gotta go now. My shift starts ... soon." With that, he hurried outside.
Jesse didn´t see the Englishman again till late afternoon, when he entered the Doctor´s Lounge for a break.
It was not that he´d gotten used to the dead people, but dead-tired, he couldn´t think ahead. He treated a patient, another one, like a robot. He couldn´t bring himself to even smile at them or chatter with the nurses. He walked from room to room as if walking through a nightmare. There was no hope of waking up. There was no hope of whatsoever.
All there was was fear. And it wouldn´t go away.
What to do?
Keep on moving.
What to do?
Keep on working.
Keep on ... keep on ... keep on ...
He didn ´t even manage to smile when he greeted the Sloans and Amanda in the Doctor´s Lounge. With a deep sigh he sank onto a chair next to Amanda and rubbed a hand over his eyes.
"Well, doctor," Mark said good-humoredly, "you should consider spending your free time sleeping next time."
"I will," Jesse smiled tiredly. "Believe me. I´ll probably fall asleep within the next four hours, anyway."
"Hopefully not while you´re driving," Steve teased. "Or dooing the books in "BBQ Bob´s"."
"Oh gawd, was that today?" Jesse groaned.
"Nope. Kidding."
"That´s not funny!"
"Dr. Travis," a voice called over Steve´s reply and soon afterwards, the Englishman´s tall figure stepped in range of sight. He entered the room and came to a halt next to the door. "We need to talk."
"Jess," Steve announced him, smiling slightly confusedly. "Hey, you heard me?"
"Wha ... I, uh, sure," Jesse answered and turned to face him again. None of his friends paid any attention towards the stranger. Proof enough for the Englishman´s composition, the young doctor decided and ignored the man´s following requests.
"So?" Steve asked and raised his brows in expectation of an answer.
"Ah ..." Jesse stuttered, since he hadn´t heard the question.
"Something wrong?" Mark asked now.
Alarmed, Jesse shook his head. "No, I ..."
"Dr. Travis."
"I ..."
"Dr. Travis ..."
"Excuse me."
Under his friends´ worried glances, Jesse rushed to his feet and outside, were he leant against the wall, closing his eyes, drawing in deep, calming breaths.
Don´t give up now, he ordered himself. You can do this. You can ...
Hi eyes flew open when he suddenly heard the Englishman´s voice coming out of the Doctor´s Lounge. And then Mark´s. Answering.
Answering?
Slowly Jesse pushed himself off the wall and stepped back into the room, staring in disbelief at what he saw.
The stranger had taken the seat he, Jesse, had sat on before, and looked up at him in union with Amanda, Steve and Mark.
"What the hell ...?" Jesse whispered.
A short pause passed, before Mark raised a hand to point at the Englishman and said calmly: "Jesse, I want you to meet Dr. Hapgood. He´s a psychiatrist from the "Apple Memorial Hospital". He´d like to ask you a few questions."
"Dr. Travis," the stranger, Dr. Hapgood, nodded politely.
Steve bowed his head. But Jesse had seen the guilt flashing through his eyes.
"This is a set-up," he stated in fright. "You tricked me."
"Yes," Mark nodded. "Yes, Jess, we did."
"You ... you set me up. Like I was ... Like you do with ..." His voice faded.
"Jesse, please ..." Amanda started, but didn´t know what to say.
"No one meant any harm, Dr. Travis," Dr. Hapgood said in a calm, clear voice. "Your friends believe you need help and they called me, because I can help you."
"Help," Jesse sneered.
"Yes, Jesse, we ..." Mark said, but was cut short by Jesse´s angry yell.
"I don´t need your help! I don´t need you! You set me up!"
"We had to. You´d have den..."
"You tricked me!" Jesse yelled and backed away when Steve stood to calm him down. "Don´t come near me!"
"Jess ..."
"No, I said!" he shouted and backed away even more, hitting the wall behind him. From there he reached for the door, while Steve raised his hands as if showing he wasn´t armed.
The others just kept looking at the bizarr scene, not knowing what to do.
"Jess," Steve said calmingly, desperately, "please don´t do this."
"You´re sick, doctor," Hapgood stated firmly, ignoring the other´s gazes frowning at his tone. "You have to be treated properly. Now you know that, right?"
The frightened man hesitated, but after a while nodded softly. "Yeah," he whispered. "I know."
"You´re having hallucinations," Hapgood continued. "Hallucinations which scare you."
Again, Jesse nodded, but pressed himself against the wall even more when Steve attempted to touch his shoulder comfortingly.
"Yes, I know," Hapgood said. "We all scare you, too. But you know that we´re right. You´re a doctor. You know that illnesses can be healed - if the patient co-operates."
"This is different," Jesse shot back angrily, but calm as his friends noticed with relief and astonishment. "I don´t trick my patients. I don´t lock them up. I don´t ..." He swallowed another harsh sentence as if he knew he´d hurt his friends by saying it, then looked up at them, betrayal written all over his face.
"You just want to get rid of me, don´t you? You want to admit me to some cookie jar so that you´ll never have to think of me again! You want to leave me alone with them!" he was shouting now, his hands clenching to fists, as his friends watched in shock.
"Them?" Hapgood asked gently, raising his brows in interest. "Who are them, doctor?"
"They´re all around," Jesse replied, his gaze darting away from Hapgood into several directions. "I can smell them," he added in a chocked whisper. "I can hear them moaning. Oh god," he begged faintly, adressing no one, "please stop. Just ... stop." Covering his ears, he slid down the wall into a huddled position and closed his eyes.
While Hapgood sighed slightly as he looked down at his patient, Steve, Amanda and Mark exchanged horrified glances. How long had this been going on? How long had Jesse pretended to be slightly distressed by Shay Zeesley´s death, but had been haunted by terrible hallucinations?
"Jesse," Amanda said ever so softly and made a tentative step towards her friend, only to be stopped by a gentle movement of Hapgood´s hand, followed by a slight shaking of his head.
Though he didn´t dare to touch his broken friend, Steve couldn´t bear towering above him, looking down at him, and so he crouched down beside him. Instantly, the younger man flinched violently, his eyes flew open.
"Sorry, I ..." Steve hastened to say and jumped back to his feet again. Jesse had fallen backwards and was now sitting with his hands steading him behind his back, looking up at the detective, terrified.
A short silence followed, before a nervous laugh broke it. "Look at me," Jesse stated scornfully, but laughing. His blue eyes were bright, beyond tears. Beyond hope.
"I hit the wall the other day," the young doctor said and lifted a shaking hand. "See? There. Like Dillard. I don´t even know ...why." He laughed out again. "I wanted to feel in control again. But I´m not." He bowed his head bitterly. "I´m not managing anymore. I´m afraid."
No one replied a thing, they kept on staring him talking to no one in particular. Finally, he swallowed hard as if to brace himself and whispered, without looking up at them: "Help me. Please."
Relief washed through all of them.
"Yes." Mark was the first one to speak, sounding almost happy at this request. "Yes, Jesse, we´ll help you. I promise."
An almost grateful smile started to spread on Jesse´s lips, when he suddenly turned to look outside the window to the hallway.
"Dr. Travis?" Hapgood asked, alarmed. When Jesse didn´t react, but started to get to his feet, the psychiatrist mentioned Steve to cover the door quickly.
"Sarah," Jesse mumbled and reached for the door, but was stopped by Steve´s huge figure stepping in his way. Startled, the smaller mann stumbled back, all trust as faintly as it had been, fading away from his eyes.
"Who are you seeing there?" Hapgood asked calmly.
But the moment was gone. Suspiscious, Jesse turned to cast a despising look on the Englishman. "Let me go."
Before anyone could say a thing, Dr. Hapgood firmly shook his head. "No."
"You can´t do this. I´m a ..."
"Who are you seeing outside, doctor?" Hapgood interrupted him.
Jesse´s eyes narrowed. "Why do you want to know?"
Hapgood smiled innocently. "Why don´t you want to tell me?"
"You might hurt her."
"Why would I?"
Jesse opened his mouth to reply, but caught a glance from Mark, and quickly closed it again. His gaze grew even more distrustive, paranoid. "Let me go," he said again, almost threatening.
"Let me go!" he yelled as no one reacted. He even turned to face Steve, but once again backed away in fear, though the detective´s eyes were bright with sympathy and shock.
"Jesse, please ..." Amanda started, but was once more interrupted by Hapgood´s raising hand. "No use in trying, Dr. Bentley," he said calmly, without taking his look of his patient, who was growing more agitated every second.
"Dr. Travis, I´m going to give you a slight sedative now. So that we can get you to the "Apple Memorial" where we two will finally talk. Do you understand?"
"No shots," Jesse said warningly and lifted his hands in defeat.
"I don´t think you´ll go with us without one," Hapgood said friendly. "In that case, I don´t trust you. Besides, you will feel better afterwards. Believe me."
"No shots," the younger man repeated fiercly and backed away from the psychiatrist, who´d produced a syringe from a table. But as he tried to flee, Jesse only bumped in Steve, who gently, but firmly got hold of his arm.
"No! Let me go!"
"Jess ..."
But Hapgood had already injected the needle into Jesse´s arm, and almost instantly, the young man grew quiet. He swayed slightly when Steve released his arm, so that the detective steadied him again.
"How´re you feeling?" Hapgood asked as he opened the door and helped Steve maneuver the drugged doctor outside onto the hallway.
"Dizzy," Jesse replied drowsily.
"Under this circumstances," Hapgood said and pushed the button for the lift, "dizzy is good."
"Sarah," Jesse mumbled, frowning. "Where´s ... Sarah?"
"Don´t worry," Hapgood assured him. They entered the lift. "Sarah´s gone home. She´s fine."
"She was scared of you," Jesse stated. His eyes started to close. "I´ve to tell her that ..."
"Oh, watch out!"
But Hapgood wouldn´t have needed to call out, Steve had already been prepared to catch his friend, as he slumped against him, the drug kicking in with full, though obviously unexpected force.
Casting an apologetic glance on the sleeping doctor, Hapgood sighed. "I´m not good with drugs."
"Well, since you gave him too much of whatever," Steve growled, "you should be the one carrying him."
"Beg your pardon? You´re twice my size. Besides, he´s your friend. Ah, there we are," he stated happily as the doors opened. "Come on, detective, follow me."
"I was against this plan from the very beginning," Steve muttered under his breath, but obeyed, anyway.