DONE!!! Yeah! Double-Yeah! I´m done!!! What a feeling! And, yeah, I know,
it took me some time again, but ... Ah, it´s my computer´s fault! Sue him!
`kay, time to say goodbye now, I guess. So, THANK YOU, you were so great with the reviews and all! I really, really, REALLY appreciated your great support, it was so much fun writing for you guys!
Last special Double-Yeah thanks and Obst-greetings to StrangePenguin, my own private blooper-detective! Love you and your great work, kid! Keep it up! (By the way - last commercial break for "I owe you that"! Check it out! End of break.)
Disclaimers still the same, don´t own anyone (Craps!), which might be better for some people´s health, anyway ...
"The opposite of left is right
The opposite of right is wrong.
So anything that´s left
Is wrong."
( "Anyone can whistle")
Awake. That he knew. He was awake.Or at least he believed he was. He could feel his eyes closed, cold breezes on his skin.
Awkward, frightening it was, though, for he had absolutely no idea of what to expect. Where he should be was as much the question as where was he.
Confusion. Dark, cloud-like confusion hang heavily over his head, pushing it further down, till he could feel his forehead touch his knees.
He tried, but he couldn´t open his eyes. Yet, he could see.
"Oh no," he groaned in desperate frustration, when the interpretation of the images reached his mind. "Not you. You were told to go! Get lost! The mortuary is closed!"
But they didn´t go. Obviously they had used his temporary weakness to sneak inside his head. And now they stared at him from the wrong side of it.
Great, he thought, so was that really worth it?
The sentence hadn´t been finished, when, suddenly remembering, he frowned. It? "It" that had happened before ... He´d fallen asleep. No, he´d been forced to sleep. Drugged, so that he could be ...
Ever so easy now, his eyes snapped open in shock, cause shocked he had been. Shocked. In a hospital.
And though his had hadn´t ached before, it did now as if it knew it was supposed to be considering what had been done to it earlier.
Earlier. Earlier when? Earlier where? Where was he, anyway? He could make out a blur of white, dim light in a room, a window, high up above, blue sky outside.
Trying to shake off the dizziness, he blinked repeatedly, which only led to increasing the pain in his head. He moaned, closed his eyes for a brief moment, and found it hard and painfull to reopen them.
As his senses awoke delayed to himself, he now took in more and more of his surroundings.
A moment later he noticed for the first time that he couldn´t move his hands to rub his eyes. A dull, heavy feeling avoided it, alright, aftermaths of the shock, but something else, too. He could clearly feel by now, that they were hold in place behind his back, forcefully, not without pain, too. Concentrating on it, he felt rough ropes, sharply cutting into his wrists.
That was a little rude a treatment for a hospital, wasn´t it? What sort of recovery should that be? Had he done something that irritating while out, he mused and tried hard to remember, but, of course couldn´t. But coming to think about it, or better being now in a more apropriate condition to think at all, he noticed that wherever he was had not even the slightest resemblance with the hospital.
It looked more like a cellar. Damp. Cold. Far away.
He was about to ask for anyone else being there, when a sudden movement behind him startled him. He tried to look around for it, but stopped immediately when pain shot through his head.
"It´s me," he heard a female voice call out softly behind him. "Sorry I startled you. I didn´t notice you were awake."
Before he could reply anything, though he wouldn´t have known what, he felt the ropes at his hands being tightened even more and gasped in pain.
"Oh, sorry," the voice said apologetically. "Too thight? Ah ... sorry, but I don´t think I can do anything `bout it. You´ll get used to it."
While speaking, she stood and turned around his form, so that he could see her now.
"Uh-uh," he stated, his eyes widening a little. There was a short, embarrassed pause, before he added, much calmer than he felt:
"Wow, it went wrong, huh? I´m lying in a coma, yes? Dreaming. Yeah, that´s it. I´m dreaming. And of course it´s no nice "What would the world be without me?"-dream in which I find out it would be hell on earth, no, it´s a freaked out "a Psycho-Harvey kidnaps me and ties me up in a cellar"- dream."
"You know, you´re not dreaming, aren´t you?"
"Don´t say that, Oak. I mean, hey, there are you and three dancing zombies in this room, and you´re saying it´s no dream?"
"They dance?"
"Funny doesn´t suit you now," he shot back, a nervous laugh escaping him. "You´re really real?"
"Surprise," she said without any humor in it. Frustrated even. Nervous she looked. Shy.
"Oak, this is not funny. See, I´m supposed to get healed here. There´s no place for you up here anymore. Go."
She didn´t move. And he didn´t believe his words.
"Okay, so if you´re no hallucination, but a sick psycho having used me for some highly immoral experiments, you´re of course invited to stay."
"I´m sorry," she said in a very small voice. "I´m so sorry."
He didn´t want to realize, but couldn´t help doing so.
"Sorry," he said. "You´re sorry." He paused, shocked. There was no anger in his voice, when he continued: "How? What did you do to me?"
"It´s hard to explain. It´s ... I didn´t inted to, Jesse, you gotta believe me. I really didn´t. I never wanted this to happen. None of this. I´m sorry!" she repeated firmly. "I am. I´m no monster!"
"I didn´t say you were."
"But you look at me like I was."
"Ever considered that it might be you who projects a feeling onto ..."
"Jesse!" she shouted at him, but fell a silent in an instant. "Sorry." Letting out a deep breath, she laughed slightly. "Oh god. Look at me. It´s you who ... Well, I shouldn´t be the one screaming, huh?"
"Why not? You´re the psycho."
"Just because I´m not letting you to become one," she replied. "I won´t let you do what they did. It won´t happen again because of me." Her gaze drifted off to a time she regretted. Caught in guilt, she didn´t hear him mumbling:
"They? Who ... Oh ... Pinter and Dillard. That´s why ..." Fear written all over his face, he stared up at her. "What did you do? Why them?! Why me? Why ..." He hushed down, when one of the dead people still present made a threatening step towards him. Frightened, he closed his eyes.
She didn´t notice. She hadn´t come out of the past, yet. Desperate, she bent down and grabbed the young man´s shoulders as if to cling onto them.
"I´m sorry! Believe me, Jesse! I am. I wanted to safe you. But you were too happy. You liked them, didn´t you?" She smiled at his dismay. "Yeah, you liked them. That little girl and the others. They liked their ones, too. At first, till they got scared, like you. You all get scared. And then you ... I understand it, I do. But I can´t let you do what they did. I just can´t."
"Why?" he whispered. "Why did you do this to me?"
Being eye to eye to her victim, the broken young man she had created, she couldn´t bear, and looking down, she once more assured him and herself that she was "Sorry. I´m sorry, Jesse."
With that, she stood and turned.
Confused, he looked after her, then realization dawned.
"No," he whispered in fear. "No, wait. Y-you ... You wanna kill me?"
"Yes."
Once more, he laughed out nervously, his eyes bright with fear. "Yes?! Yes as in no, right? Come on, Oak, yes is the wrong answer! It has to be "No, course not, Jess! Don´t be ridiculous! I´m a doctor! I could never ..." ...."
He flinched, when she suddenly whirled back to face him, furious. "Don´t you dare!"
"B-but it is ... what you´re plannin´ ..."
"No!" she shouted. "I´m not! What d´you think I am, a killer?!"
"Uh ..."
"I´m not! I won´t kill you! I will ... leave," she added quieter. "Just leave."
"Lea ..." he repeated, and suddenly realized the cruel, unbearable meaning of the words. "No!" he said in fear and couldn´t help his voice rising as he begged: "No! Don´t. Please. Oak! Don´t leave me here! Don´t leave me alone! Don´t leave me alone with what I see! Please! You can´t! Oak! You made me see them! You can´t leave me alone with them now!"
She didn´t answer, but stood, her back to him, her head bowed, broken as well.
And since he´d understood every word she´d said before, every desperate plea he´d seen in her eyes, the shadow of guilt so great it had washed her life away years ago, on her face, he thought he knew what to say to safe him from what he feared most.
"Don´t become afraid, huh, Oak?!" he spat at her despitefully. "Don´t let the fear rule every move you make. Yeah, you´re one to talk! You never managed, right? Never! You´re just ..."
Though it had been the plan, he still was surprised by the speed with which she managed to grab one of her high-heeled shoes and hit him with it hard across the temple.
He fled into blissfull darkness, before the pain could reach him.
"Okay, she´s not a at her apartment, and she´s not in the hospital she works at," Steve stated when he entered the Doctor´s Lounge, where Amanda had greeted him with an agitated, questioning look.
"Where´s Dad?"
"Checking out Dr. Shaugnessy," she answered and added, avoiding his gaze, " a brain surgeon. He said he couldn´t bear sitting around and doing nothing a minute longer, so he decided to ... See, if we find Jesse, we need to get that thing out of him, and ..."
"If we find him."
"I didn´t mean that I don´t believe we´ll do. I just wanted to say that ..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I´m sorry," Steve sighed and sat down on the sofa heavily, resting his head in his palms.
"We´ll find him," Amanda assured him.
"Yeah. Sure."
"Steve ..."
A deep sigh cut her off, and knowing Steve, she didn´t try to dig into it any further.
"I checked Hapgood´s test results," she said as if stating her discoveries considering a case. "He mailed them to me once he´d heard our story." She made an unconscious dramatic pause, before adding: "We were right. It´s a nano."
"What d´you figure she´ll do to him?" he asked, not looking at her, though.
"Stop him," Mark ´s voice announced from the door.
The rest of the team present turned to him, frowning.
"From doing what?" Steve asked.
"From killing himself or - more important - others. She fears he´ll end up like the others."
"But he was in a hospital," Amanda objected. "Under control. It´s illogical to ..."
"Don´t logic her," Mark said wisely. "Remember, she´s sick. She´s probably believing they would have let him go after a few more shocks or whatever. Unhealed, of course. She´s trying to safe lifes, I think. But now in order to that, she has to kill for the first time. And that is the weak spot we have to relay on."
He didn´t notice the others growing pale, till two whispered "Kill?" drew his attention back to them.
"I believe so, yes," he nodded sadly. "She thinks she has to. Though hopefully she can´t bring herself to do it just yet. She´s hesitating, I´ve no doubt about that. But eventually, she will kill Jesse."
"Oh god," Amanda breathed, and stood as if to start pacing, but just remained where she was.
"She won´t do it personally," Mark continued. "She´s a doctor, a good one, referring to her vita. I don´t think she is able of actually killing a person by pulling a trigger or stabbing him or something like that. She´ll use something from the far."
"Drugs," Steve suggested.
"For example. Anyway, we´ve to find him soon."
"I´m with you there, but where should we look? He could be anywhere."
"Hmmm ..." Mark muttered and shook his head as if in slow motion. "I don´t think so. Insanity is based on easy patterns."
"You´ve been around Hapgood too long."
"Maybe," his father nodded, clearly not listening. There was this expression on his face the rest of the team had come to respect as the sign of the lightening striking behind it.
And caring for his reputation, Mark didn´t disappoint them now, either.
"I have an idea."
This time he knew where he was. Memory slapped him right in the face the moment he was awkened by his own painfilled groans. Despite himself he felt his heart cheer out at the obvious fact that he was still alive, before he started to complain inwardly.
If his head had ached before, now it proved agony to even think. The slightest movement sent arrows and spikes through every nerve and every cell, but holding it still was no better, for he still felt a heavy dullness wrapped around his whole body, forcing his head down.
And that wasn´t even the worst part. The worst part he didn´t even find out about before he tried to open his eyes, as unwisely as it seemed.
He hadn´t need to worry about the light-filled pain awaiting him, anyway, cause his eyes could not be opened.
They were closed.
Taped close.
"Don´t leave me here with what I see," he heard his own words echoing in his ears.
"That´s not funny!" he yelled, but received no answer. "Oak!"
No response. She had gone.
"No," he whispered pleadingly and once more rose his voice to a keening cry. "Oak! Oak, please!"
It was of no use. She had left. He was alone.
"No, no, no, no, no ..."
Well, as alone as a man followed by death could be.
"You´re not real! I know you´re not real. And, hey, you know something? You shouldn´t be here! You shouldn´t be anywhere near me! I got shocked, remember? I´m healed! Okay ... I´m getting cured ... Starting to get cured ... Well, yes, I´m obviously not cured at all by now, but ..."
He flinched violently, when he felt something cold at his arm. He was still wearing his hospital clothes, white pants and a shirt, and was shivering from the cold.
But that ... Had he imagined it? Had it been the wind? Or one of them?
He could feel their presence. With every passing second, he could feel it more, hear her moans swelling up to screams.
"Stop it," he begged and shook his head, ignoring the pain this provoked. He couldn´t cover his ears, which he so desperately wanted to, and on the contrary had to keep his eyes close, so that he couldn´t see from where they were coming, where they stood, how many of them were there.
"Leave me alone!" he shrieked when one of them touched him again, ever so softly, but terrifying real as it felt.
"Oak! - Okay, not real. Jesse, calm down. This is not real. `kay you sitting here is, but they are not! Oh gawd, please, somebody help me! Oak! Come back! Please! Aaah!" Another cold breeze brushed against his cheek, and he jerked his head away, hitting something behind his back.
"Go away!" he screamed.
But they didn´t. It seemed as if they´d waited for this very moment to come. The moment they were finally allowed to rise their voices, which they now did.
"Oak!" he called out, till he couldn´t hear his own voice screaming over the dying cries of the dead.
"Dad, when this thing´s over, please lay down the psycho stuff, alright? It´s making me nervous," Steve complained while banging the door of his car shut.
Mark murmured something about his son needing vacation, and Amanda just kept on observing the building they´d just reached as if she´d never been there before.
"So,let me get this straight, or better, let me try to get this straight once more," Steve said as they prepared to cross the street. "She, Oak, will come here somwhere in the not so distanced future, because ... No, wait, I can´t get it straight, ´cause I haven´t got it, yet."
"See, that´s because you´re not a doctor. She took an oath and ..."
"C´mon, stranger things have happened than ..." Steve objected unnervedly, but was interrupted by his father saying very convincedly:
"I don´t believe she´s one of them. Remember her motive. She is obsessed by the idea of saving her brother´s life. She doesn´t want to harm anyone."
"But now she thinks she has to," Amanda said.
"Right. She has to kill Jesse."
"Okay!" Steve couldn´t help but call out angrily. "You know, that was the part I got! So," he breathed out, calming himself down, slightly embarrassed by his outburst, "because she thinks ... you know, she will come here to Jesse´s apartment, because ... Ah, nope, still not with you there."
"She needs to know it´s at least anywhere near okay to kill him," Mark stated, as he had before, twice even, on their way to Jesse´s apartment.
"I thought you said she thinks he´s dangerous," Steve said frustratedly and reached for his gun, now that they ´d reached the building Jesse lived in.
"Yes, but she made him that way."
"So, what," Steve continued arguing, while mentioned them to stay behind him, "search his place for any sign of him being a bad person?!"
"Exactly."
"That´s crazy."
"Now you got it, son," Mark said dryly.
"I did? Great."
At a wink of the detective, the team became very quiet, till they were inside and standing in front of Jesse´s apartment door.
Glancing at his father as if for checking, Steve finally knocked at the door and announced themselves.
"Dr. Reddick? This is Steve Sloan, LAPD. Please open the door."
There was no answer from the inside, not even a noise.
"Dr. Reddick! Please open the door," Steve called out again, and, when there was the same answer as before, cast a triumphant look on his father.
At Mark´s innocent lifting of one brow, Steve sighed deeply and took a step away from the door, explaining to the silence in a montonous tone that he was "going to have to kick in the door if you don´t open it yourself, which I really would hate to do, ´cause my friend will certainly sue me if I´m going to damage his beloved door, but if you force me to ..."
He almost fell forward out of pure fright, when the door suddenly opened and he was met by air - till he followed the other´s gazes down to the tiny, fragile looking person standing in front of them.
"Dr. Reddick, I assume," Mark said calmly and stepped in front of his still startled son. "I´m Dr. Mark Sloan."
"I know," she answered, her voice, though as tiny as her auter appearance, firm, in control.
"Where is he?" Mark asked.
"I can´t tell you."
A cold wave rushed through all three of them at the sound of her voice. It was the sound of failure, of death. A broken woman, she was, more important, a broken doctor. She´d given up, knowing that she couldn´t win her fight.
A decision that sentenced Jesse to death.
"I´m going to take you to the precinct," Steve said, suddenly not feeling furious anymore. The urge to grab and ruttle the woman who had sent his friend through a cruel ordeal, was flown.
There was nothing he could have say or do which could have meant anything to her. Beyond fighting with her, she finally had accepted the deep, desperate, dull hate she felt. Hating herself, yet knowing there was no way back nor out, she seemed to have stopped crying the moment she´d heard the detective´s voice outside. Now, she couldn´t cry nor beg nor apologize anymore, it was the price she had chosen to pay to free herself from her depts.
Whoever looked into her empty, wide eyes felt like crying, though, as if at least someone should do it for her.
"Let´s go," she said and outstretched her wrists.
"That won´t be necessary," Steve said, his voice sounding as if coming from the distant. "Just follow us."
Hours had passed, Steve had begged, yelled, explained, begged again.
Oak Reddick remained silent. It seemed as if one by one her human abilities had left her. She couldn´t cry anymore, couldn´t speak, how long would it take till she would just go limp at all, slipping into an unblissfull darkness of neightmares, in which she would be completely alone with herself. Nothing but her voice repeating over and over again what she had done, what she was.
"Dr. Reddick. Oak," Steve started again after a short silent pause and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. "You know this is wrong."
How many times had he said exactly the same sentence now? He couldn´t remember.
"We can help Jesse. We know what happened to him. What you did to him," he added in order to provoce her, a useless mission as he had found out earlier that evening. Yet, he couldn´t help trying it again and again and again. He´d almost fallen into a pattern, a rhythm of interrogation methods: scream, beg, argue. Scream, beg, argue. Scream, beg, argue.
He was so tired, he could bearly hold onto this order, but unconsciously he knew that the minute he would give up, he would feel responsible, as if it was him who would pull the trigger.
"Don´t you understand?" he asked, his voice rising in anger. "We can remove this thing. He doesn´t have to die. He can be healed and won´t kill anyone. He doesn´t have to die," he repeated firmly.
Oak stared at him unimpressedly.
Time to scream, Steve´s inner clock told him, and he jumped to his feat in a frustrated gesture, almost knocking over his chair. "Why does it have to be this way?! Why can´t you let him go? God, you´re supposed to be a doctor, but right now you´re nothing more than a killer. Plain and simple. And not even like the others, Dillard or Pinter or however more of them there were! They were manipulated! But you, you´re chosing to kill."
She bowed her head, but didn´t defend herself. She´d heard those words so often in her own voice, they couldn´t hurt anymore.
"And for what reason?!" Steve continued yelling furiously. "Because of what you did to him! Do you have any idea how much he suffered? Huh, do you, Oak? Did you see him huddled in a corner, too afraid to look around?! Did you see him begging for his life? - Yeah," he spat despitefull, staring down at her in faked disgust, "I believe you did."
Her head shot up, her mouth had even opened a little at that accusion, yet it vanished as fast as it had appeared.
But it had been there. In her eyes there had been defense. The detective knew he had to cling onto that.
"Did you?" he asked calmer and looked straight into her once again emptying eyes. "Hm, maybe not. Maybe my father´s right after all and you are not able of killing. Maybe you just ... brought him somewhere and found that you couldn´t do it."
Ever so slight as it was, it was there again. Pain. Defense. Hope.
"Is that what you did, yes?" Steve continued to ask in a calm, yet firm voice. "Lock him up somewhere and throw away the key? Did he see you? Talk to you? Did he find out you were real all the time? Huh? Did he know that it was you who injected him with this thing? Did he know," he added and crouched down beside her to look directly into her eyes with an intensity that sent a noticable shudder through her body, "that he is not insane, never had been? Did you tell him," he added, his voice now merely a whisper, "that he was shocked because of you?"
She swallowed, but didn´t look away. Eventually, he shrugged and stood up.
"You know, Oak," he said before he left the room for a break, "when Jesse was in hospital, he said it wasn´t that bad, like, seeing people who´re not there. He even liked them, well, a few that is. He didn´t like you," he added wickedly, "but that´s a doctor´s instinct, I guess. Hm. Well, the reason I´m telling you this is ... I wonder what you see. What you will see."
With that he left the room. Scaring emptiness full of demons remained silent behind the closed door.
And silent it was in the other room full of demons, too. After having cried so much that he was horase by now, Jesse had given it up. Ignoring them hadn´t worked, though, and he was out of options, jokes and hope when Sarah´s hand gently brushed against his drawn, cold face.
How long he´d sit there and had just begged for it to stop, no matter how, he didn´t know. It seemed as if there had never been a time without them. Never a time in which he had been free. Never a life. Never him.
"You´re crying?" Sarah asked softly after he´d jerked away from her touch.
"No," he croaked. "I´m not."
"But I can see it on your face," she objected. "There," she added and touched his cheeks.
"You´re wrong," he said. He couldn´t cry, the tears might whelm up in his eyes but had no way of getting out under the tapes. It seemed as if he´d never been able to see. Never eyes. Never beauty. Never safety.
"I´m not," the little girl stated, cleary meaning that that was that, and sat down beside him. He could feel her head against his chin. "It´s cold in here," she said. "I don´t wanna stay. When do we leave?"
"Soon."
"They ´re scaring me," she whispered into his ear and huddled up against him.
"Me too," he said. A low moan to his left made him swallow hard. "But I´m here, honey, it´s going to be okay."
"I´m afraid," she said after a short pause, her warm presence suddenly gone.
"Sarah?" he asked dreadfully and lifted his head into the direction her voice was coming from. "Honey?"
"I´m going," she stated, clearly on her way out. "You´re coming, too?"
"I can´t," he said desperately and tried the bounds without any success. "Sarah ... Please stay. Sarah?"
"Stupid," she said casually, hardly audible. "Just stand up and come. See you."
"Sarah!!!" he cried after her and had to caugh. A door banged shut. She was gone.
"Sarah! Come back! Sarah! Come back, please! They won´t hurt you, I promise! We could play something! Sarah! Play?"
But she didn´t come back. The moaning to his left got louder, he could feel a cold, cramped hand fall onto his shoulder and yelped in fright. It hurt to do so, though, and once again he had to caugh. Exhausted, he leant his head against the wall.
A scream echoed through the room.
Jesse flinched.
The hand cramped around his shoulder, suqeezing it, then went. The low thud of a body falling to the ground followed.
With all his remained strength, Jesse slammed his head against the wall. It hurt like hell and he felt even more ill than before afterwards. He didn´t lose consciousness, though.
"Aw, this sucks," he murmured, but couldn´t bring himself to try again.
As if out of disgust, sleep avoided the one who desired it so much.
"It´s no use," Steve said frustratedly and laid his head into his palms. "She won´t tell us where he is. I doubt she will ever talk again. If you want my opinion, this drove her over the edge. We lost her."
"Maybe," Amanda said sternly, "but we didn´t lose Jesse."
"I´m not so sure about that," Steve replied.
Silence followed, not even Amanda had enough strength left to yell at him for saying a thing like that. Besides, she couldn´t yell at him for speaking out what she believed, too.
"I am," Mark said convincedly. "He´s not dead yet. We still have the chance to save him. And if Oak won´t help us, we´ll find out ourselves."
"How?"
"Like we always do," he stated without any of the humor which normally accompanied that sentence. "By being clever."
This time, however, no one jumped in relieved surprise in order to get it done. The team remained where it was.
"He is alive," Mark said urgently.
"How d´you figure that?" his son asked and finally looked up. "He´s been missing for eight hours now."
"You don´t die within eight hours," Mark said. "You said yourself, that she probably just locked him up somewhere. She didn´t mention that he was hurt or ..."
"Dad, listen to me, she didn´t say anything. Okay? I don´t know if he´s hurt. I don´t know if he´s alive at all. She didn´t tell me. She didn´t talk."
"Hey," Amanda interrupted his outburst soothingly. "Mark is right. He´s alive. He has to be," she added and looked into the detective´s eyes.
"Yeah," he finally nodded, his voice sounding older all of a sudden. "Yeah, right."
"Okay," Mark stated as if glad that that was cleared out now. "So, where do we start?"
"Maybe it´s right there, but we´re missing it, cause it´s so simple," Steve said, earning questioning gazes. "I mean, maybe he´s at her place. Maybe she wants to get caught. Like, you know, like unconsciously."
"Ah ..." Mark made doubtfully, but smiled slightly at his son´s frustrated look. "Not very likely, but I´m glad you improved your psychological knowledge. - Anyway, you are probably right about one thing. It´s simple. Some place simple. Remember what stroke her about Dillard and Pinter. And Jess," he added hesitatingly. "Something that has only meaning for her. I think this is how we´ll find him. Let´s take a look at those files again."
"There," Mark stated half an hour later, pointing at a sentence in the file he held in his hands. "Greylen Reddick´s adress."
Steve frowned. "Why would she take Jesse there? She wants to safe her brother, but kill him."
"Exactly. Actually, it´s Greylen´s fault."
"Huh?"
"He can´t be cured. Can´t be safed. By accepting her guilt and killing Jesse, she also accepted that fact, I think. That´s what broke her at last," he added earnestly. "Greylen dies along with Jesse."
"Ah ... you know what," Steve said and grabbed his jacket, "I won´t even try. Let´s just go."
Greylen Reddick ´s house turned out to be a villa at the far end of the city.
"Psychology sells," Steve stated when they parked across the street.
"No kidding," Amanda nodded. "This house must be worth a fortune. Why didn´t she sell it? She didn´t use it, anyway."
"Memories, I guess," Mark said and shrugged. "Or maybe the house means ..."
"Don´t start, Dad! Let´s just hope you´re right about Jesse."
From the mere look of the inner rooms, it was obvious that theis house hadn´t seen a human being in years. Spider-webs were placed decoratively all over the furnitures, which were covered with dust, and the once beautiful walls had lost their colors and gracefullness.
"What a shame," Amanda stated when looking around. "This must have been so beautiful."
"Yeah, why don´t you make an offer? I´m sure Oak will sell it sometime soon now."
"Funny. So - where do we look first? It´s one big house."
"Right," Mark nodded, "we oughta split up. I´m going to check upstairs."
"And I´m up-upstairs,"Amanda added and pointed above their heads, where the stairs led - seemingly - to the sky. "It really is one big house, huh?"
"`kay, you do that, I´ll stay down here.
As the other two climbed up the stairs, Steve scanned the room. "Okaaay, if I was a psycho, where would I hide the little guy?" he murmured under his breath, but couldn´t betray himself over the fact that he was joking out of fear. What if they didn´t find Jesse here? Or, even worse, what if they didn´t find him alive? What if it was him who´d find him?
Shaking his head as if to clear it, he made a firm step in the direction of the hallway to start his search.
Think positive, he ordered himself. Think happy ending, Jesse fine, stuff like that. Yeah, he´s probably already waiting and will yell at you for being so damn late. Right.
As if actually believing what he thought, he fastened his steps and even called his friend´s name once. Yet, the sound of his own fear-filled voice startled him and he decided to keep his search a non-verbal one in the future.
He´d checked the kitchen and what seemed to be a small study, and was just entering the hallway again, when he noticed the door to his right, next to the house door. He hadn´t noticed it before.
The cellar.
All doubt about wether or not his friend was still alive gone, he hastened to open the door and ran down the stairs which led to an equally big cellar with several rooms.
Despite himself, he called out once more. "Jesse?"
There was no response but his feeling continuing to sent him further down into the cellar, till he reached the first door. A wine cellar.
No doctor in it.
The next one seemed to have been be Dr. Greylen´s lab in the old days, but since Jesse wasn´t in there, too, Steve didn´t bother to look.
"Come on, Jess," he muttered, when turning to the next door. "I know you´re here somewhere."
Tentatively,as if afraid of another disappointment, Steve pushed the door open - and froze.
The room was not more than a store room, that is, it had been one once, referring to the big, iron boards, which were empty now.
And there, huddled on the floor, leaning against one of the boards´ pillars, his knees drawn to his nose, his hands bound behind his back, was Jesse. He didn´t look up and had obviously not noticed Steve entering.
"Jess?" Steve asked, surprised at how small his voice sounded. It had come out as a mere whisper.
But now he could hear another noise in the room. Straining to hear, he found that it was Jesse mumbling the names of all the bones in a human´s hand. Over and over and over again.
"Jesse," Steve said, a little louder now and took a step towards his friend. He feared to startle him, the memory of Jesse scared in the kitchen still all too vivid in his mind.
"Jesse, it´s me."
The young man didn´t look up, but continued his own private lecture. A slight shiver ran through his body once, but subsided quickly.
Steve frowned. It looked as if Jesse had flinched away ever so slightly from something. Something Steve couldn´t see. As he kept on staring at his young friend in unease, realization suddenly dawned.
"Oh my ... You´re still ... Jess!" he called out and finally crouched down beside the doctor, the discovered horror urging him to gently take hold of the smaller man´s shoulders.
"Jesse, please, look up. It´s me, Steve. C´mon, it´s over now."
When there was still no response from the young man but his continued mumbles, Steve placed a hand under his friend´s chin to carefully lift his head.
"Hey, look at ..."
He stopped in midsentence and winced when he finally got a look at Jesse´s face.
A heavy bruise covered most of his right temple and also lay like a frame around the tape which kept his right eye closed.
Now that he´d felt a touch not only brushing him, but one that had actually been able to move him, Jesse had fallen silent aprubtly and swallowed hard in fear.
It took the detective a moment, though, to notice his friend´s increasing shivering.
"Jesse," he said urgently, unconsciously speaking slower and clearer than before, "it´s me, Steve. We found you. We´ll bring you back to the hospital. It´s over. We found out about Oak and everything. - Can you hear me?" he added when Jesse gave absolutely no sign of comprehension.
Instead of that, the doctor struggled slightly against Steve´s grib, and when the detective drew his hand away, bowed his head again.
"Jess?" Steve asked desperately, glancing back at the door as if waiting for help to come. He wondered wether he should leave Jesse alone to go and get his Dad. But, though he didn´t doubt he was as frightened as the young shivering man in front of him, he couldn´t bring himself to stand up and go. No way. And coming to think about it - the situation Steve Sloan couldn´t handle still had to be created!
"Listen to me!" he ordered his friend firmly. "Listen to my voice. You recognize me, don´t ya? Come on, Jess, talk to me!"
It seemed to take Jesse an eternity to finally shake his head slightly. "N- not real," he muttered, a little louder than his mumbling before, so that Steve could make out the horaseness of his voice.
"No!" the detective objected. "Real! I´m real." As if to prove it, he nudged Jesse friendly. "You felt that, didn´t you? You hear me. I´m really here."
"No," Jesse whispered pleadingly and shook his head a little harder. "Not ... this. Please not. I take back all the bad things I said about you, Caspar, `kay, but don´t do this."
Understanding, Steve winced in sympathy. His freshly found self-confidence vanished with rapid speed as he desperately tried to figure out what to do.
"No, Jess, I´m really here!" he repeated. "I know you´re hearing them and you probably can feel them, too, but they can´t do that, can they?" And out of a sudden inspiration, he tore the tape off Jesse´s left eye.
As the scream subsided, Steve stared at the tape in his hand, only just realizing what he´d just done.
"Uh ... ah ... sorry."
Still gasping from the pain, Jesse blinked once, but couldn´t clear his blurried vision. Yet, the proof had be sufficient as it seemed, because a deep frown settled on his forehead, till he ever so hopefully asked:
"St-Steve?"
"Yeah!" the detective replied happyly. "Yeah, it´s me. We found you."
"That really you?" the young man asked, overwhelming relief all too clear in his voice.
"Do I have to prove it?"
"No!" Jesse hastened to call out and made a face. "I believe you." Still, he flinched when Steve patted his shoulder assuringly.
"Sorry," they said in union, then smiled, though it was a little shaky on Jesse´s side.
"Oak ..." he started, but was interrupted by Steve.
"We know. Don´t worry, we got her. She won´t be able to harm anyone again."
To Steve´s surprise, Jesse bowed his head with a sad expression on his face. An uncomfortable silence was to begin, when, to Steve´s great relief, Mark called out for his son from above.
"I´m down here, Dad," Steve called back. "In the cellar. I found him." Turning back to Jesse, he explained: "Dad and Amanda are here, too. You scared the hell out of us all, you know," he teased and started to untie Jesse´s hands, freezing before his hands touched Jesse´s skin, though.
"I´m going to untie you now," he informed him.
"Hm," Jesse nodded uncomfortably, and couldn´t help still flinching away when he felt his friend´s hands. "I-I´m sorry," he stuttered.
"Don´t be," Steve mumbled, but found that not even he himself could believe his own words. Therefore he was once more relieved to hear his Dad´s and Amanda´s voices filling the room.
"Jesse!"
Within a second they were sitting next to him, and Mark reached out to get a better look on his abused temple.
When Jesse flinched violently at his touch, he drew away his hand instantly.
"I´m sorry," Jesse said hastily before Mark himself could apologize. "I´m ..." He laughed slightly, nervously. "I don´t know why that keeps happening."
"You don´t have to be sorry," Amanda said soothingly, but had to stop herself from touching him, too. "We found you and that´s all that matters. It´s all going to be okay now. We´ll remove this thing and ..."
"I-I´m not crazy, am I?"
"No, you´re not," Mark said assuringly. "I´m so sorry, Jesse."
"We all are," Steve added. He´d finished his task of freeing Jesse from his bounds and watched in sympathy as the smaller man slowly moved his hands, wincing in pain.
Out of a reflex, Mark reached out to take a look at Jesse´s injured wrists, but was stopped with his hand in the air by Steve giving him a talk-sign with his hand.
Understanding, Mark said: "I´m going to take a look at your wrists now, alright?"
"It´s okay," Jesse objected. "Hurts a little, but it´s okay."
When Mark took his right arm anyway, he jerked away in fear.
"Craps," he muttered when a silence of dismay followed, then outstretched his arm for Mark to look at it.
"I´m sorry. I-it´s because I can´t see anything. It´s going to be better once ..."
"Yeah, why did she do that?" Amanda asked and stopped only inches from his face which she had planed to turn for her to see the bruise on his temple. Catching a glance of Steve, she placed her hands behind her back instead.
"She wanted to prevent me from ... seeing them," Jesse explained, embarrassed. "Didn´t work."
Since none of them knew what to say, Mark decided to turn to medicine, safe ground.
"May I take a look at your right side, Jess? We´ve to get this thing off you."
"You don´t have to ask," the young man shot back, more desperately than in anger. "And you don´t have to warn me every time you touch me, okay?"
"Okay," Mark said friendly, smiling in sympathy, which he knew Jesse would hear in his voice, and gently turned the younger man´s face to the right.
Jesse flinched.
"Damn it!"
"Jesse, it´s okay. As you said, it´ll go away soon. Right now ..."
"Just tear it off, `kay? It´s far less painfull when it´s just ..."
The scream following Mark´s sudden action could have deafened a dog.
As the brutalized victim sat panting, covering his eyes with his hands, Mark turned to glance at the others apologetically.
"Sorry, I should have told you to cover your ears."
"What?" Steve asked and rubbed his ears.
"You okay, Jess?" Amanda demanded worriedly.
"Y-yeah," he replied softly, his hands still covering his face. "I guess. That was one mean thing to do," he complained and lifted his head as if to look at Mark, though he still couldn´t open his eyes.
"You said ..."
"I know what I said, but since when does it matter what I say?"
Smiling in relief when he saw Jesse´s humor starting to work again, Mark looked at the bruise now fully free to see, and winced. "We´ve to bring you to the hospital. You probably have a concussion."
"Not to mention the science-fiction-thing," Steve added.
"The what?"
"A nanobot," Amanda explained. "Oak Reddick injected you with a nanobot. Like Pinter and Dillard."
"Na ..." Jesse started confusedly, but interrupted himself when he had to flinch violently.
Since no one of the team had touched him, they exchanged worried glances.
"Okay," he gasped, "I take it that wasn´t anyone of you guys, huh?"
"No."
"Get this thing outta me fast," he whispered in telltale fear. "Please."
"How is he?"
Lifting his head at Amanda´s voice, Steve saw his dad entering the Doctor´s Lounge and quickly swept a hand over his exhausted features. He´d actually dozed off, he found surprisedly. The latest events had finally taken their toll as it seemed.
"Better," Mark answered, equally tired, and sank down next to his son on the sofa. "His vision´s clearing at last. He could make out my features for a few minutes, I think. It´ll be okay in the morning."
"That´s great news," Amanda sighed in relief.
"Yeah," Mark nodded without sounding the part. "The non-great part, though, is that he´s also still seeing ... them."
He wanted to add something else, but obviously found he couldn´t, and drew in a deep, calming breath, before he continued: "It´s horrible. He grew so frightened and agitated again that we had to sedate him."
"Oh god," Amanda whispered in despair. "Will this never end?"
"Yes, it will," Steve stated firmly. "Right, Dad? You´re gonna take this goddamn thing outta him, and everything´s goin´ to be fine again. - Right?" he repeated when there was no answer but a sad, doubtfull look.
"No. Yes. Well - we can´t actually remove it. It´s too small to see and ... We don´t know where it is."
"Ahm ... And what exactly are you gonna do then?"
"Based on what was found in Oak ´s lab, Shaugnessy believes it possible to create another nanobot himself, which will be programmed to destroy the other one and repair whatever damage had been done by it. Which we´ll have to find out about first, meaning we´ll run a lot of tests."
"How long will that take?" Steve asked dreadfully.
"Hopefully not long. A week maybe. Two. Dunno. If Jesse´s co-operating, that is. But - considering how much his condition has worsened, I´d say it´s not very likely he´s going to co-operate. I don´t think he could if he wanted to. And of course we can´t keep him sedated for a week. It´s going to be ... hard. To say the least."
Frustrated, Steve swept a hand over his face again. "Damn it!" he yelled, but apologized in an instant.
Slightly smiling in sympathy, Amanda stood up as if to make a speech. "We can´t change anything about this. But we can be there."
"I don´t think that´ll be a great comfort for him," Steve sighed and earned a surprised look from Mark. The doctor frowned, he´d never seen his son that hopeless.
"Yes it will!" he therefore objected with much more force than he´d have done otherwise and cast his son a firm glance. "If he´s seeing them, we´ll have to make sure he´s seeing us, too."
"Right," Amanda nodded. "Till he can be injected with that anti-bot, he won´t be alone. One of us will always stay with him. We´ll take turns."
"Right."
Confronted with a made decision and two very questioning expressions, Steve surrendered and even managed to smile tiredly. "You´re probably right."
"´course we are," Mark said. "We´re doctors. - I´ll take the first turn. And you two should go home and get some sleep. I´ll keep you pos ..."
"What about his parents?" Amanda interrupted him.
Mark hesitated, but finally answered: "He doesn´t want them to know about ... all this. He said he couldn´t bear dead people and his parents."
"Are you gonna call them, anyway?" Steve asked, for he knew his father pretty well.
Though he cast his son a smile for the teasing reply, Mark shook his head sadly. "No, I won´t. He doesn´t need more people to be afraid of."
As much as he cared about his best friend, Steve hated his turns. Though the young man was asleep most of the time, exhausted by the tests and the constant tension he felt, Steve hated every minute he had to spent with him. Helpless he felt, unneeded, unsensitive, guilty.
And the normally much enjoyed drabbles with his friend didn´t help much, for they were forced. Unnatural attempts of over-playing the situation they were in: Two friends in a hospital; none of the silences they shared were comfortable these days.
Sighing deeply, Steve rubbed his thumb over his eyes.
"Hey, new rule! If you fall asleep over the cards, I´m allowed to look at them," Jesse´s voice drew his attention back to the here and now which happened to be a poker game.
Opening his eyes, Steve frowned in mock annoyance. "I dozed off cause you play poker like chess."
"Naw, I´m not! We´re playing for about five minutes now and I haven´t los ... Wait, that was an insult, right?"
"Wow, if you were that bright when playing poker, you could actually bea ... Jess?" he asked alarmed when Jesse´s expression suddenly changed from amusement to fear.
"It´s nothing," the younger man winked shakily. He wanted to add another wise-crack, but had to close his eyes in fright all of a sudden. A slight shudder ran through his body.
"Y-ya know," he stuttered, trying unsuccessfully to keep up his casual tone, "I´m just letting you wi ..."
"Jesse! Stop that! Talk to me. What´re you seeing? - Damn it!" Steve burst out when there was no reply, and Jesse opened his eyes in startled surprise.
"Steve?"
"This has been going on for a whole week now, Jess! You refuse to let me help you."
"I ... no ... I-it´s ..."
"You talk to the others. Why can´t you tell me?"
"It´s not that ... I´m ... Gawd, sorry, Steve, I ... I didn´t mean to ... Don´t be mad at me."
Steve felt like crying. Considering Jesse´s expression, he looked like it, too. "Jesse, I´m not mad at you. I just wanna help you, but I get the feeling you don´t want me to ..."
"But you are!" Jesse objected hastily. "You don´t treat me like I was ... I wanna feel normal, and, well, you sorta ... I need this, I really do. You´re not, like ... Gee, don´t you wanna stop me from getting all emotional here?"
"Did you say something?" Steve asked, but couldn´t help presenting his friend with a bright grin. "Ah, Full House, by the way," he added and lay his cards down on the bed.
"Oh you can´t be serious! You´re cheating on a sick guy?!"
"Cheating?"
Before Jesse could either repeat his accusation or desperately try to talk himself out of the situation, Mark and Amanda entered the room happyly, both looking like they were about to party.
"Hey!" Amanda greeted the patient and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. "How´re you doing? Oh, don´t bother, ´cause you´ll feel much greater in a minute when we´ve told you that ..."
"Shaugnessy´s done," Mark interrupted her wickedly and grinned at her disappointed glance.
"I wanted to tell him!"
"So did I."
"He´s done?" Jesse asked uncertainly. "What you mean? Done as in done with the tests, which I´d find enough reason to cheer about, or done as in ... done," he finished the sentence slowly.
"You´ll be injected with the anti-bot tomorrow morning and then we´ll see. If it´s working, you´ll probably be released the next day."
"Uh ... that´s great, huh?" Jesse asked and tried to smile slightly, but couldn´t quite fight off the unease that accompanied the information.
"I know, it´s scarry," Amanda said sympathically, "but it´ll work, you´ll see."
"Hopefully."
"It will, trust me," she repeated firmly and ruffled his hair. "It´s all going to turn out just fine."
"Still, it feels kinda strange to ... you know ..."
"Don´t worry, we´ll stay with you all the time," Mark promised and smiled at a gratefull, yet somewhat embarrassed glance.
"Naw, that´s really nice of you and all, but ... You´ve done more than enough, I mean, I don´t know how I ..."
"Jess, what did we say about getting emotional?" Steve interrupted him.
"That you didn´t hear it."
Mark frowned slightly in amusement, but then bowed his head a little as he said: "Jesse, ahm, I never told you how sorry we all are. We ..."
"Yes, you did," Jesse replied, "and I don´t know why you did it then. You safed my life, remember?"
"Just accept it," Amanda said gently. "We´re sorry. We should have noticed. We´ll never again believe you´re insane. Never. Promise. "
Chuckling, Jesse nodded gratefully.
"Okay," Mark said after a short moment of a comfortable silence, "you wanna say goodbye to Sarah and the others?"
"Ah ..." Surprised by the question, Jesse thought about it, till an almost wise smile settled on his face. "Naw, don´t think so. I´m just gonna go to sleep now."
"Why not?" Amanda asked.
"Would seem to much like a goodbye," the young man explained.
Looking from Mark´s proud look to Amanda´s equally relieved one, Steve frowned. "Hey, wait, you understand this, don´t you?"
"I´ll explain it to you later," Mark assured his son and chuckled at Steve´s desperate look.
"Why is it even the kid understands this psycho-crab, but not me?!"
The door was open, though the sign was already turned to "closed".
First he frowned at it, but soon his expression changed into a smile, and finally he entered the bar with a casual "Hey Jess!".
Looking up from his task, the young man smiled back. "Hey Steve. What´re you doing here? It´s my turn, remember?"
"I thought you were told to go home and get some rest."
"It´s my turn."
"Ah ... ´kay, you´re the doctor, doctor. So", Steve said and glanced at the glass in front of his friend, "care to make me one of those, too?"
"Sure. Here you are," Jesse replied and produced a glass of what he was drinking. At Steve´s expression, he lifted his brows innocently. "I´m still on medication."
"Milk´s ... fine. Just fine. Thanks."
Silence settled tiredly, preparing itself for a quiet evening, till suddenly the door opened slightly.
"Ah ...Excuse me ..." a stranger´s voice announced.
"We´re closed!" the owners called out in union without looking up from their drinks.
"But I just wanted to ..."
"Closed! Out!"
"Gee, sorry I´m alive!" the poor man replied and closed the door behind him, leaving them to their much deserved, long missed silence of two friends in a bar, drinking milk.
THE END
`kay, time to say goodbye now, I guess. So, THANK YOU, you were so great with the reviews and all! I really, really, REALLY appreciated your great support, it was so much fun writing for you guys!
Last special Double-Yeah thanks and Obst-greetings to StrangePenguin, my own private blooper-detective! Love you and your great work, kid! Keep it up! (By the way - last commercial break for "I owe you that"! Check it out! End of break.)
Disclaimers still the same, don´t own anyone (Craps!), which might be better for some people´s health, anyway ...
"The opposite of left is right
The opposite of right is wrong.
So anything that´s left
Is wrong."
( "Anyone can whistle")
Awake. That he knew. He was awake.Or at least he believed he was. He could feel his eyes closed, cold breezes on his skin.
Awkward, frightening it was, though, for he had absolutely no idea of what to expect. Where he should be was as much the question as where was he.
Confusion. Dark, cloud-like confusion hang heavily over his head, pushing it further down, till he could feel his forehead touch his knees.
He tried, but he couldn´t open his eyes. Yet, he could see.
"Oh no," he groaned in desperate frustration, when the interpretation of the images reached his mind. "Not you. You were told to go! Get lost! The mortuary is closed!"
But they didn´t go. Obviously they had used his temporary weakness to sneak inside his head. And now they stared at him from the wrong side of it.
Great, he thought, so was that really worth it?
The sentence hadn´t been finished, when, suddenly remembering, he frowned. It? "It" that had happened before ... He´d fallen asleep. No, he´d been forced to sleep. Drugged, so that he could be ...
Ever so easy now, his eyes snapped open in shock, cause shocked he had been. Shocked. In a hospital.
And though his had hadn´t ached before, it did now as if it knew it was supposed to be considering what had been done to it earlier.
Earlier. Earlier when? Earlier where? Where was he, anyway? He could make out a blur of white, dim light in a room, a window, high up above, blue sky outside.
Trying to shake off the dizziness, he blinked repeatedly, which only led to increasing the pain in his head. He moaned, closed his eyes for a brief moment, and found it hard and painfull to reopen them.
As his senses awoke delayed to himself, he now took in more and more of his surroundings.
A moment later he noticed for the first time that he couldn´t move his hands to rub his eyes. A dull, heavy feeling avoided it, alright, aftermaths of the shock, but something else, too. He could clearly feel by now, that they were hold in place behind his back, forcefully, not without pain, too. Concentrating on it, he felt rough ropes, sharply cutting into his wrists.
That was a little rude a treatment for a hospital, wasn´t it? What sort of recovery should that be? Had he done something that irritating while out, he mused and tried hard to remember, but, of course couldn´t. But coming to think about it, or better being now in a more apropriate condition to think at all, he noticed that wherever he was had not even the slightest resemblance with the hospital.
It looked more like a cellar. Damp. Cold. Far away.
He was about to ask for anyone else being there, when a sudden movement behind him startled him. He tried to look around for it, but stopped immediately when pain shot through his head.
"It´s me," he heard a female voice call out softly behind him. "Sorry I startled you. I didn´t notice you were awake."
Before he could reply anything, though he wouldn´t have known what, he felt the ropes at his hands being tightened even more and gasped in pain.
"Oh, sorry," the voice said apologetically. "Too thight? Ah ... sorry, but I don´t think I can do anything `bout it. You´ll get used to it."
While speaking, she stood and turned around his form, so that he could see her now.
"Uh-uh," he stated, his eyes widening a little. There was a short, embarrassed pause, before he added, much calmer than he felt:
"Wow, it went wrong, huh? I´m lying in a coma, yes? Dreaming. Yeah, that´s it. I´m dreaming. And of course it´s no nice "What would the world be without me?"-dream in which I find out it would be hell on earth, no, it´s a freaked out "a Psycho-Harvey kidnaps me and ties me up in a cellar"- dream."
"You know, you´re not dreaming, aren´t you?"
"Don´t say that, Oak. I mean, hey, there are you and three dancing zombies in this room, and you´re saying it´s no dream?"
"They dance?"
"Funny doesn´t suit you now," he shot back, a nervous laugh escaping him. "You´re really real?"
"Surprise," she said without any humor in it. Frustrated even. Nervous she looked. Shy.
"Oak, this is not funny. See, I´m supposed to get healed here. There´s no place for you up here anymore. Go."
She didn´t move. And he didn´t believe his words.
"Okay, so if you´re no hallucination, but a sick psycho having used me for some highly immoral experiments, you´re of course invited to stay."
"I´m sorry," she said in a very small voice. "I´m so sorry."
He didn´t want to realize, but couldn´t help doing so.
"Sorry," he said. "You´re sorry." He paused, shocked. There was no anger in his voice, when he continued: "How? What did you do to me?"
"It´s hard to explain. It´s ... I didn´t inted to, Jesse, you gotta believe me. I really didn´t. I never wanted this to happen. None of this. I´m sorry!" she repeated firmly. "I am. I´m no monster!"
"I didn´t say you were."
"But you look at me like I was."
"Ever considered that it might be you who projects a feeling onto ..."
"Jesse!" she shouted at him, but fell a silent in an instant. "Sorry." Letting out a deep breath, she laughed slightly. "Oh god. Look at me. It´s you who ... Well, I shouldn´t be the one screaming, huh?"
"Why not? You´re the psycho."
"Just because I´m not letting you to become one," she replied. "I won´t let you do what they did. It won´t happen again because of me." Her gaze drifted off to a time she regretted. Caught in guilt, she didn´t hear him mumbling:
"They? Who ... Oh ... Pinter and Dillard. That´s why ..." Fear written all over his face, he stared up at her. "What did you do? Why them?! Why me? Why ..." He hushed down, when one of the dead people still present made a threatening step towards him. Frightened, he closed his eyes.
She didn´t notice. She hadn´t come out of the past, yet. Desperate, she bent down and grabbed the young man´s shoulders as if to cling onto them.
"I´m sorry! Believe me, Jesse! I am. I wanted to safe you. But you were too happy. You liked them, didn´t you?" She smiled at his dismay. "Yeah, you liked them. That little girl and the others. They liked their ones, too. At first, till they got scared, like you. You all get scared. And then you ... I understand it, I do. But I can´t let you do what they did. I just can´t."
"Why?" he whispered. "Why did you do this to me?"
Being eye to eye to her victim, the broken young man she had created, she couldn´t bear, and looking down, she once more assured him and herself that she was "Sorry. I´m sorry, Jesse."
With that, she stood and turned.
Confused, he looked after her, then realization dawned.
"No," he whispered in fear. "No, wait. Y-you ... You wanna kill me?"
"Yes."
Once more, he laughed out nervously, his eyes bright with fear. "Yes?! Yes as in no, right? Come on, Oak, yes is the wrong answer! It has to be "No, course not, Jess! Don´t be ridiculous! I´m a doctor! I could never ..." ...."
He flinched, when she suddenly whirled back to face him, furious. "Don´t you dare!"
"B-but it is ... what you´re plannin´ ..."
"No!" she shouted. "I´m not! What d´you think I am, a killer?!"
"Uh ..."
"I´m not! I won´t kill you! I will ... leave," she added quieter. "Just leave."
"Lea ..." he repeated, and suddenly realized the cruel, unbearable meaning of the words. "No!" he said in fear and couldn´t help his voice rising as he begged: "No! Don´t. Please. Oak! Don´t leave me here! Don´t leave me alone! Don´t leave me alone with what I see! Please! You can´t! Oak! You made me see them! You can´t leave me alone with them now!"
She didn´t answer, but stood, her back to him, her head bowed, broken as well.
And since he´d understood every word she´d said before, every desperate plea he´d seen in her eyes, the shadow of guilt so great it had washed her life away years ago, on her face, he thought he knew what to say to safe him from what he feared most.
"Don´t become afraid, huh, Oak?!" he spat at her despitefully. "Don´t let the fear rule every move you make. Yeah, you´re one to talk! You never managed, right? Never! You´re just ..."
Though it had been the plan, he still was surprised by the speed with which she managed to grab one of her high-heeled shoes and hit him with it hard across the temple.
He fled into blissfull darkness, before the pain could reach him.
"Okay, she´s not a at her apartment, and she´s not in the hospital she works at," Steve stated when he entered the Doctor´s Lounge, where Amanda had greeted him with an agitated, questioning look.
"Where´s Dad?"
"Checking out Dr. Shaugnessy," she answered and added, avoiding his gaze, " a brain surgeon. He said he couldn´t bear sitting around and doing nothing a minute longer, so he decided to ... See, if we find Jesse, we need to get that thing out of him, and ..."
"If we find him."
"I didn´t mean that I don´t believe we´ll do. I just wanted to say that ..."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I´m sorry," Steve sighed and sat down on the sofa heavily, resting his head in his palms.
"We´ll find him," Amanda assured him.
"Yeah. Sure."
"Steve ..."
A deep sigh cut her off, and knowing Steve, she didn´t try to dig into it any further.
"I checked Hapgood´s test results," she said as if stating her discoveries considering a case. "He mailed them to me once he´d heard our story." She made an unconscious dramatic pause, before adding: "We were right. It´s a nano."
"What d´you figure she´ll do to him?" he asked, not looking at her, though.
"Stop him," Mark ´s voice announced from the door.
The rest of the team present turned to him, frowning.
"From doing what?" Steve asked.
"From killing himself or - more important - others. She fears he´ll end up like the others."
"But he was in a hospital," Amanda objected. "Under control. It´s illogical to ..."
"Don´t logic her," Mark said wisely. "Remember, she´s sick. She´s probably believing they would have let him go after a few more shocks or whatever. Unhealed, of course. She´s trying to safe lifes, I think. But now in order to that, she has to kill for the first time. And that is the weak spot we have to relay on."
He didn´t notice the others growing pale, till two whispered "Kill?" drew his attention back to them.
"I believe so, yes," he nodded sadly. "She thinks she has to. Though hopefully she can´t bring herself to do it just yet. She´s hesitating, I´ve no doubt about that. But eventually, she will kill Jesse."
"Oh god," Amanda breathed, and stood as if to start pacing, but just remained where she was.
"She won´t do it personally," Mark continued. "She´s a doctor, a good one, referring to her vita. I don´t think she is able of actually killing a person by pulling a trigger or stabbing him or something like that. She´ll use something from the far."
"Drugs," Steve suggested.
"For example. Anyway, we´ve to find him soon."
"I´m with you there, but where should we look? He could be anywhere."
"Hmmm ..." Mark muttered and shook his head as if in slow motion. "I don´t think so. Insanity is based on easy patterns."
"You´ve been around Hapgood too long."
"Maybe," his father nodded, clearly not listening. There was this expression on his face the rest of the team had come to respect as the sign of the lightening striking behind it.
And caring for his reputation, Mark didn´t disappoint them now, either.
"I have an idea."
This time he knew where he was. Memory slapped him right in the face the moment he was awkened by his own painfilled groans. Despite himself he felt his heart cheer out at the obvious fact that he was still alive, before he started to complain inwardly.
If his head had ached before, now it proved agony to even think. The slightest movement sent arrows and spikes through every nerve and every cell, but holding it still was no better, for he still felt a heavy dullness wrapped around his whole body, forcing his head down.
And that wasn´t even the worst part. The worst part he didn´t even find out about before he tried to open his eyes, as unwisely as it seemed.
He hadn´t need to worry about the light-filled pain awaiting him, anyway, cause his eyes could not be opened.
They were closed.
Taped close.
"Don´t leave me here with what I see," he heard his own words echoing in his ears.
"That´s not funny!" he yelled, but received no answer. "Oak!"
No response. She had gone.
"No," he whispered pleadingly and once more rose his voice to a keening cry. "Oak! Oak, please!"
It was of no use. She had left. He was alone.
"No, no, no, no, no ..."
Well, as alone as a man followed by death could be.
"You´re not real! I know you´re not real. And, hey, you know something? You shouldn´t be here! You shouldn´t be anywhere near me! I got shocked, remember? I´m healed! Okay ... I´m getting cured ... Starting to get cured ... Well, yes, I´m obviously not cured at all by now, but ..."
He flinched violently, when he felt something cold at his arm. He was still wearing his hospital clothes, white pants and a shirt, and was shivering from the cold.
But that ... Had he imagined it? Had it been the wind? Or one of them?
He could feel their presence. With every passing second, he could feel it more, hear her moans swelling up to screams.
"Stop it," he begged and shook his head, ignoring the pain this provoked. He couldn´t cover his ears, which he so desperately wanted to, and on the contrary had to keep his eyes close, so that he couldn´t see from where they were coming, where they stood, how many of them were there.
"Leave me alone!" he shrieked when one of them touched him again, ever so softly, but terrifying real as it felt.
"Oak! - Okay, not real. Jesse, calm down. This is not real. `kay you sitting here is, but they are not! Oh gawd, please, somebody help me! Oak! Come back! Please! Aaah!" Another cold breeze brushed against his cheek, and he jerked his head away, hitting something behind his back.
"Go away!" he screamed.
But they didn´t. It seemed as if they´d waited for this very moment to come. The moment they were finally allowed to rise their voices, which they now did.
"Oak!" he called out, till he couldn´t hear his own voice screaming over the dying cries of the dead.
"Dad, when this thing´s over, please lay down the psycho stuff, alright? It´s making me nervous," Steve complained while banging the door of his car shut.
Mark murmured something about his son needing vacation, and Amanda just kept on observing the building they´d just reached as if she´d never been there before.
"So,let me get this straight, or better, let me try to get this straight once more," Steve said as they prepared to cross the street. "She, Oak, will come here somwhere in the not so distanced future, because ... No, wait, I can´t get it straight, ´cause I haven´t got it, yet."
"See, that´s because you´re not a doctor. She took an oath and ..."
"C´mon, stranger things have happened than ..." Steve objected unnervedly, but was interrupted by his father saying very convincedly:
"I don´t believe she´s one of them. Remember her motive. She is obsessed by the idea of saving her brother´s life. She doesn´t want to harm anyone."
"But now she thinks she has to," Amanda said.
"Right. She has to kill Jesse."
"Okay!" Steve couldn´t help but call out angrily. "You know, that was the part I got! So," he breathed out, calming himself down, slightly embarrassed by his outburst, "because she thinks ... you know, she will come here to Jesse´s apartment, because ... Ah, nope, still not with you there."
"She needs to know it´s at least anywhere near okay to kill him," Mark stated, as he had before, twice even, on their way to Jesse´s apartment.
"I thought you said she thinks he´s dangerous," Steve said frustratedly and reached for his gun, now that they ´d reached the building Jesse lived in.
"Yes, but she made him that way."
"So, what," Steve continued arguing, while mentioned them to stay behind him, "search his place for any sign of him being a bad person?!"
"Exactly."
"That´s crazy."
"Now you got it, son," Mark said dryly.
"I did? Great."
At a wink of the detective, the team became very quiet, till they were inside and standing in front of Jesse´s apartment door.
Glancing at his father as if for checking, Steve finally knocked at the door and announced themselves.
"Dr. Reddick? This is Steve Sloan, LAPD. Please open the door."
There was no answer from the inside, not even a noise.
"Dr. Reddick! Please open the door," Steve called out again, and, when there was the same answer as before, cast a triumphant look on his father.
At Mark´s innocent lifting of one brow, Steve sighed deeply and took a step away from the door, explaining to the silence in a montonous tone that he was "going to have to kick in the door if you don´t open it yourself, which I really would hate to do, ´cause my friend will certainly sue me if I´m going to damage his beloved door, but if you force me to ..."
He almost fell forward out of pure fright, when the door suddenly opened and he was met by air - till he followed the other´s gazes down to the tiny, fragile looking person standing in front of them.
"Dr. Reddick, I assume," Mark said calmly and stepped in front of his still startled son. "I´m Dr. Mark Sloan."
"I know," she answered, her voice, though as tiny as her auter appearance, firm, in control.
"Where is he?" Mark asked.
"I can´t tell you."
A cold wave rushed through all three of them at the sound of her voice. It was the sound of failure, of death. A broken woman, she was, more important, a broken doctor. She´d given up, knowing that she couldn´t win her fight.
A decision that sentenced Jesse to death.
"I´m going to take you to the precinct," Steve said, suddenly not feeling furious anymore. The urge to grab and ruttle the woman who had sent his friend through a cruel ordeal, was flown.
There was nothing he could have say or do which could have meant anything to her. Beyond fighting with her, she finally had accepted the deep, desperate, dull hate she felt. Hating herself, yet knowing there was no way back nor out, she seemed to have stopped crying the moment she´d heard the detective´s voice outside. Now, she couldn´t cry nor beg nor apologize anymore, it was the price she had chosen to pay to free herself from her depts.
Whoever looked into her empty, wide eyes felt like crying, though, as if at least someone should do it for her.
"Let´s go," she said and outstretched her wrists.
"That won´t be necessary," Steve said, his voice sounding as if coming from the distant. "Just follow us."
Hours had passed, Steve had begged, yelled, explained, begged again.
Oak Reddick remained silent. It seemed as if one by one her human abilities had left her. She couldn´t cry anymore, couldn´t speak, how long would it take till she would just go limp at all, slipping into an unblissfull darkness of neightmares, in which she would be completely alone with herself. Nothing but her voice repeating over and over again what she had done, what she was.
"Dr. Reddick. Oak," Steve started again after a short silent pause and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. "You know this is wrong."
How many times had he said exactly the same sentence now? He couldn´t remember.
"We can help Jesse. We know what happened to him. What you did to him," he added in order to provoce her, a useless mission as he had found out earlier that evening. Yet, he couldn´t help trying it again and again and again. He´d almost fallen into a pattern, a rhythm of interrogation methods: scream, beg, argue. Scream, beg, argue. Scream, beg, argue.
He was so tired, he could bearly hold onto this order, but unconsciously he knew that the minute he would give up, he would feel responsible, as if it was him who would pull the trigger.
"Don´t you understand?" he asked, his voice rising in anger. "We can remove this thing. He doesn´t have to die. He can be healed and won´t kill anyone. He doesn´t have to die," he repeated firmly.
Oak stared at him unimpressedly.
Time to scream, Steve´s inner clock told him, and he jumped to his feat in a frustrated gesture, almost knocking over his chair. "Why does it have to be this way?! Why can´t you let him go? God, you´re supposed to be a doctor, but right now you´re nothing more than a killer. Plain and simple. And not even like the others, Dillard or Pinter or however more of them there were! They were manipulated! But you, you´re chosing to kill."
She bowed her head, but didn´t defend herself. She´d heard those words so often in her own voice, they couldn´t hurt anymore.
"And for what reason?!" Steve continued yelling furiously. "Because of what you did to him! Do you have any idea how much he suffered? Huh, do you, Oak? Did you see him huddled in a corner, too afraid to look around?! Did you see him begging for his life? - Yeah," he spat despitefull, staring down at her in faked disgust, "I believe you did."
Her head shot up, her mouth had even opened a little at that accusion, yet it vanished as fast as it had appeared.
But it had been there. In her eyes there had been defense. The detective knew he had to cling onto that.
"Did you?" he asked calmer and looked straight into her once again emptying eyes. "Hm, maybe not. Maybe my father´s right after all and you are not able of killing. Maybe you just ... brought him somewhere and found that you couldn´t do it."
Ever so slight as it was, it was there again. Pain. Defense. Hope.
"Is that what you did, yes?" Steve continued to ask in a calm, yet firm voice. "Lock him up somewhere and throw away the key? Did he see you? Talk to you? Did he find out you were real all the time? Huh? Did he know that it was you who injected him with this thing? Did he know," he added and crouched down beside her to look directly into her eyes with an intensity that sent a noticable shudder through her body, "that he is not insane, never had been? Did you tell him," he added, his voice now merely a whisper, "that he was shocked because of you?"
She swallowed, but didn´t look away. Eventually, he shrugged and stood up.
"You know, Oak," he said before he left the room for a break, "when Jesse was in hospital, he said it wasn´t that bad, like, seeing people who´re not there. He even liked them, well, a few that is. He didn´t like you," he added wickedly, "but that´s a doctor´s instinct, I guess. Hm. Well, the reason I´m telling you this is ... I wonder what you see. What you will see."
With that he left the room. Scaring emptiness full of demons remained silent behind the closed door.
And silent it was in the other room full of demons, too. After having cried so much that he was horase by now, Jesse had given it up. Ignoring them hadn´t worked, though, and he was out of options, jokes and hope when Sarah´s hand gently brushed against his drawn, cold face.
How long he´d sit there and had just begged for it to stop, no matter how, he didn´t know. It seemed as if there had never been a time without them. Never a time in which he had been free. Never a life. Never him.
"You´re crying?" Sarah asked softly after he´d jerked away from her touch.
"No," he croaked. "I´m not."
"But I can see it on your face," she objected. "There," she added and touched his cheeks.
"You´re wrong," he said. He couldn´t cry, the tears might whelm up in his eyes but had no way of getting out under the tapes. It seemed as if he´d never been able to see. Never eyes. Never beauty. Never safety.
"I´m not," the little girl stated, cleary meaning that that was that, and sat down beside him. He could feel her head against his chin. "It´s cold in here," she said. "I don´t wanna stay. When do we leave?"
"Soon."
"They ´re scaring me," she whispered into his ear and huddled up against him.
"Me too," he said. A low moan to his left made him swallow hard. "But I´m here, honey, it´s going to be okay."
"I´m afraid," she said after a short pause, her warm presence suddenly gone.
"Sarah?" he asked dreadfully and lifted his head into the direction her voice was coming from. "Honey?"
"I´m going," she stated, clearly on her way out. "You´re coming, too?"
"I can´t," he said desperately and tried the bounds without any success. "Sarah ... Please stay. Sarah?"
"Stupid," she said casually, hardly audible. "Just stand up and come. See you."
"Sarah!!!" he cried after her and had to caugh. A door banged shut. She was gone.
"Sarah! Come back! Sarah! Come back, please! They won´t hurt you, I promise! We could play something! Sarah! Play?"
But she didn´t come back. The moaning to his left got louder, he could feel a cold, cramped hand fall onto his shoulder and yelped in fright. It hurt to do so, though, and once again he had to caugh. Exhausted, he leant his head against the wall.
A scream echoed through the room.
Jesse flinched.
The hand cramped around his shoulder, suqeezing it, then went. The low thud of a body falling to the ground followed.
With all his remained strength, Jesse slammed his head against the wall. It hurt like hell and he felt even more ill than before afterwards. He didn´t lose consciousness, though.
"Aw, this sucks," he murmured, but couldn´t bring himself to try again.
As if out of disgust, sleep avoided the one who desired it so much.
"It´s no use," Steve said frustratedly and laid his head into his palms. "She won´t tell us where he is. I doubt she will ever talk again. If you want my opinion, this drove her over the edge. We lost her."
"Maybe," Amanda said sternly, "but we didn´t lose Jesse."
"I´m not so sure about that," Steve replied.
Silence followed, not even Amanda had enough strength left to yell at him for saying a thing like that. Besides, she couldn´t yell at him for speaking out what she believed, too.
"I am," Mark said convincedly. "He´s not dead yet. We still have the chance to save him. And if Oak won´t help us, we´ll find out ourselves."
"How?"
"Like we always do," he stated without any of the humor which normally accompanied that sentence. "By being clever."
This time, however, no one jumped in relieved surprise in order to get it done. The team remained where it was.
"He is alive," Mark said urgently.
"How d´you figure that?" his son asked and finally looked up. "He´s been missing for eight hours now."
"You don´t die within eight hours," Mark said. "You said yourself, that she probably just locked him up somewhere. She didn´t mention that he was hurt or ..."
"Dad, listen to me, she didn´t say anything. Okay? I don´t know if he´s hurt. I don´t know if he´s alive at all. She didn´t tell me. She didn´t talk."
"Hey," Amanda interrupted his outburst soothingly. "Mark is right. He´s alive. He has to be," she added and looked into the detective´s eyes.
"Yeah," he finally nodded, his voice sounding older all of a sudden. "Yeah, right."
"Okay," Mark stated as if glad that that was cleared out now. "So, where do we start?"
"Maybe it´s right there, but we´re missing it, cause it´s so simple," Steve said, earning questioning gazes. "I mean, maybe he´s at her place. Maybe she wants to get caught. Like, you know, like unconsciously."
"Ah ..." Mark made doubtfully, but smiled slightly at his son´s frustrated look. "Not very likely, but I´m glad you improved your psychological knowledge. - Anyway, you are probably right about one thing. It´s simple. Some place simple. Remember what stroke her about Dillard and Pinter. And Jess," he added hesitatingly. "Something that has only meaning for her. I think this is how we´ll find him. Let´s take a look at those files again."
"There," Mark stated half an hour later, pointing at a sentence in the file he held in his hands. "Greylen Reddick´s adress."
Steve frowned. "Why would she take Jesse there? She wants to safe her brother, but kill him."
"Exactly. Actually, it´s Greylen´s fault."
"Huh?"
"He can´t be cured. Can´t be safed. By accepting her guilt and killing Jesse, she also accepted that fact, I think. That´s what broke her at last," he added earnestly. "Greylen dies along with Jesse."
"Ah ... you know what," Steve said and grabbed his jacket, "I won´t even try. Let´s just go."
Greylen Reddick ´s house turned out to be a villa at the far end of the city.
"Psychology sells," Steve stated when they parked across the street.
"No kidding," Amanda nodded. "This house must be worth a fortune. Why didn´t she sell it? She didn´t use it, anyway."
"Memories, I guess," Mark said and shrugged. "Or maybe the house means ..."
"Don´t start, Dad! Let´s just hope you´re right about Jesse."
From the mere look of the inner rooms, it was obvious that theis house hadn´t seen a human being in years. Spider-webs were placed decoratively all over the furnitures, which were covered with dust, and the once beautiful walls had lost their colors and gracefullness.
"What a shame," Amanda stated when looking around. "This must have been so beautiful."
"Yeah, why don´t you make an offer? I´m sure Oak will sell it sometime soon now."
"Funny. So - where do we look first? It´s one big house."
"Right," Mark nodded, "we oughta split up. I´m going to check upstairs."
"And I´m up-upstairs,"Amanda added and pointed above their heads, where the stairs led - seemingly - to the sky. "It really is one big house, huh?"
"`kay, you do that, I´ll stay down here.
As the other two climbed up the stairs, Steve scanned the room. "Okaaay, if I was a psycho, where would I hide the little guy?" he murmured under his breath, but couldn´t betray himself over the fact that he was joking out of fear. What if they didn´t find Jesse here? Or, even worse, what if they didn´t find him alive? What if it was him who´d find him?
Shaking his head as if to clear it, he made a firm step in the direction of the hallway to start his search.
Think positive, he ordered himself. Think happy ending, Jesse fine, stuff like that. Yeah, he´s probably already waiting and will yell at you for being so damn late. Right.
As if actually believing what he thought, he fastened his steps and even called his friend´s name once. Yet, the sound of his own fear-filled voice startled him and he decided to keep his search a non-verbal one in the future.
He´d checked the kitchen and what seemed to be a small study, and was just entering the hallway again, when he noticed the door to his right, next to the house door. He hadn´t noticed it before.
The cellar.
All doubt about wether or not his friend was still alive gone, he hastened to open the door and ran down the stairs which led to an equally big cellar with several rooms.
Despite himself, he called out once more. "Jesse?"
There was no response but his feeling continuing to sent him further down into the cellar, till he reached the first door. A wine cellar.
No doctor in it.
The next one seemed to have been be Dr. Greylen´s lab in the old days, but since Jesse wasn´t in there, too, Steve didn´t bother to look.
"Come on, Jess," he muttered, when turning to the next door. "I know you´re here somewhere."
Tentatively,as if afraid of another disappointment, Steve pushed the door open - and froze.
The room was not more than a store room, that is, it had been one once, referring to the big, iron boards, which were empty now.
And there, huddled on the floor, leaning against one of the boards´ pillars, his knees drawn to his nose, his hands bound behind his back, was Jesse. He didn´t look up and had obviously not noticed Steve entering.
"Jess?" Steve asked, surprised at how small his voice sounded. It had come out as a mere whisper.
But now he could hear another noise in the room. Straining to hear, he found that it was Jesse mumbling the names of all the bones in a human´s hand. Over and over and over again.
"Jesse," Steve said, a little louder now and took a step towards his friend. He feared to startle him, the memory of Jesse scared in the kitchen still all too vivid in his mind.
"Jesse, it´s me."
The young man didn´t look up, but continued his own private lecture. A slight shiver ran through his body once, but subsided quickly.
Steve frowned. It looked as if Jesse had flinched away ever so slightly from something. Something Steve couldn´t see. As he kept on staring at his young friend in unease, realization suddenly dawned.
"Oh my ... You´re still ... Jess!" he called out and finally crouched down beside the doctor, the discovered horror urging him to gently take hold of the smaller man´s shoulders.
"Jesse, please, look up. It´s me, Steve. C´mon, it´s over now."
When there was still no response from the young man but his continued mumbles, Steve placed a hand under his friend´s chin to carefully lift his head.
"Hey, look at ..."
He stopped in midsentence and winced when he finally got a look at Jesse´s face.
A heavy bruise covered most of his right temple and also lay like a frame around the tape which kept his right eye closed.
Now that he´d felt a touch not only brushing him, but one that had actually been able to move him, Jesse had fallen silent aprubtly and swallowed hard in fear.
It took the detective a moment, though, to notice his friend´s increasing shivering.
"Jesse," he said urgently, unconsciously speaking slower and clearer than before, "it´s me, Steve. We found you. We´ll bring you back to the hospital. It´s over. We found out about Oak and everything. - Can you hear me?" he added when Jesse gave absolutely no sign of comprehension.
Instead of that, the doctor struggled slightly against Steve´s grib, and when the detective drew his hand away, bowed his head again.
"Jess?" Steve asked desperately, glancing back at the door as if waiting for help to come. He wondered wether he should leave Jesse alone to go and get his Dad. But, though he didn´t doubt he was as frightened as the young shivering man in front of him, he couldn´t bring himself to stand up and go. No way. And coming to think about it - the situation Steve Sloan couldn´t handle still had to be created!
"Listen to me!" he ordered his friend firmly. "Listen to my voice. You recognize me, don´t ya? Come on, Jess, talk to me!"
It seemed to take Jesse an eternity to finally shake his head slightly. "N- not real," he muttered, a little louder than his mumbling before, so that Steve could make out the horaseness of his voice.
"No!" the detective objected. "Real! I´m real." As if to prove it, he nudged Jesse friendly. "You felt that, didn´t you? You hear me. I´m really here."
"No," Jesse whispered pleadingly and shook his head a little harder. "Not ... this. Please not. I take back all the bad things I said about you, Caspar, `kay, but don´t do this."
Understanding, Steve winced in sympathy. His freshly found self-confidence vanished with rapid speed as he desperately tried to figure out what to do.
"No, Jess, I´m really here!" he repeated. "I know you´re hearing them and you probably can feel them, too, but they can´t do that, can they?" And out of a sudden inspiration, he tore the tape off Jesse´s left eye.
As the scream subsided, Steve stared at the tape in his hand, only just realizing what he´d just done.
"Uh ... ah ... sorry."
Still gasping from the pain, Jesse blinked once, but couldn´t clear his blurried vision. Yet, the proof had be sufficient as it seemed, because a deep frown settled on his forehead, till he ever so hopefully asked:
"St-Steve?"
"Yeah!" the detective replied happyly. "Yeah, it´s me. We found you."
"That really you?" the young man asked, overwhelming relief all too clear in his voice.
"Do I have to prove it?"
"No!" Jesse hastened to call out and made a face. "I believe you." Still, he flinched when Steve patted his shoulder assuringly.
"Sorry," they said in union, then smiled, though it was a little shaky on Jesse´s side.
"Oak ..." he started, but was interrupted by Steve.
"We know. Don´t worry, we got her. She won´t be able to harm anyone again."
To Steve´s surprise, Jesse bowed his head with a sad expression on his face. An uncomfortable silence was to begin, when, to Steve´s great relief, Mark called out for his son from above.
"I´m down here, Dad," Steve called back. "In the cellar. I found him." Turning back to Jesse, he explained: "Dad and Amanda are here, too. You scared the hell out of us all, you know," he teased and started to untie Jesse´s hands, freezing before his hands touched Jesse´s skin, though.
"I´m going to untie you now," he informed him.
"Hm," Jesse nodded uncomfortably, and couldn´t help still flinching away when he felt his friend´s hands. "I-I´m sorry," he stuttered.
"Don´t be," Steve mumbled, but found that not even he himself could believe his own words. Therefore he was once more relieved to hear his Dad´s and Amanda´s voices filling the room.
"Jesse!"
Within a second they were sitting next to him, and Mark reached out to get a better look on his abused temple.
When Jesse flinched violently at his touch, he drew away his hand instantly.
"I´m sorry," Jesse said hastily before Mark himself could apologize. "I´m ..." He laughed slightly, nervously. "I don´t know why that keeps happening."
"You don´t have to be sorry," Amanda said soothingly, but had to stop herself from touching him, too. "We found you and that´s all that matters. It´s all going to be okay now. We´ll remove this thing and ..."
"I-I´m not crazy, am I?"
"No, you´re not," Mark said assuringly. "I´m so sorry, Jesse."
"We all are," Steve added. He´d finished his task of freeing Jesse from his bounds and watched in sympathy as the smaller man slowly moved his hands, wincing in pain.
Out of a reflex, Mark reached out to take a look at Jesse´s injured wrists, but was stopped with his hand in the air by Steve giving him a talk-sign with his hand.
Understanding, Mark said: "I´m going to take a look at your wrists now, alright?"
"It´s okay," Jesse objected. "Hurts a little, but it´s okay."
When Mark took his right arm anyway, he jerked away in fear.
"Craps," he muttered when a silence of dismay followed, then outstretched his arm for Mark to look at it.
"I´m sorry. I-it´s because I can´t see anything. It´s going to be better once ..."
"Yeah, why did she do that?" Amanda asked and stopped only inches from his face which she had planed to turn for her to see the bruise on his temple. Catching a glance of Steve, she placed her hands behind her back instead.
"She wanted to prevent me from ... seeing them," Jesse explained, embarrassed. "Didn´t work."
Since none of them knew what to say, Mark decided to turn to medicine, safe ground.
"May I take a look at your right side, Jess? We´ve to get this thing off you."
"You don´t have to ask," the young man shot back, more desperately than in anger. "And you don´t have to warn me every time you touch me, okay?"
"Okay," Mark said friendly, smiling in sympathy, which he knew Jesse would hear in his voice, and gently turned the younger man´s face to the right.
Jesse flinched.
"Damn it!"
"Jesse, it´s okay. As you said, it´ll go away soon. Right now ..."
"Just tear it off, `kay? It´s far less painfull when it´s just ..."
The scream following Mark´s sudden action could have deafened a dog.
As the brutalized victim sat panting, covering his eyes with his hands, Mark turned to glance at the others apologetically.
"Sorry, I should have told you to cover your ears."
"What?" Steve asked and rubbed his ears.
"You okay, Jess?" Amanda demanded worriedly.
"Y-yeah," he replied softly, his hands still covering his face. "I guess. That was one mean thing to do," he complained and lifted his head as if to look at Mark, though he still couldn´t open his eyes.
"You said ..."
"I know what I said, but since when does it matter what I say?"
Smiling in relief when he saw Jesse´s humor starting to work again, Mark looked at the bruise now fully free to see, and winced. "We´ve to bring you to the hospital. You probably have a concussion."
"Not to mention the science-fiction-thing," Steve added.
"The what?"
"A nanobot," Amanda explained. "Oak Reddick injected you with a nanobot. Like Pinter and Dillard."
"Na ..." Jesse started confusedly, but interrupted himself when he had to flinch violently.
Since no one of the team had touched him, they exchanged worried glances.
"Okay," he gasped, "I take it that wasn´t anyone of you guys, huh?"
"No."
"Get this thing outta me fast," he whispered in telltale fear. "Please."
"How is he?"
Lifting his head at Amanda´s voice, Steve saw his dad entering the Doctor´s Lounge and quickly swept a hand over his exhausted features. He´d actually dozed off, he found surprisedly. The latest events had finally taken their toll as it seemed.
"Better," Mark answered, equally tired, and sank down next to his son on the sofa. "His vision´s clearing at last. He could make out my features for a few minutes, I think. It´ll be okay in the morning."
"That´s great news," Amanda sighed in relief.
"Yeah," Mark nodded without sounding the part. "The non-great part, though, is that he´s also still seeing ... them."
He wanted to add something else, but obviously found he couldn´t, and drew in a deep, calming breath, before he continued: "It´s horrible. He grew so frightened and agitated again that we had to sedate him."
"Oh god," Amanda whispered in despair. "Will this never end?"
"Yes, it will," Steve stated firmly. "Right, Dad? You´re gonna take this goddamn thing outta him, and everything´s goin´ to be fine again. - Right?" he repeated when there was no answer but a sad, doubtfull look.
"No. Yes. Well - we can´t actually remove it. It´s too small to see and ... We don´t know where it is."
"Ahm ... And what exactly are you gonna do then?"
"Based on what was found in Oak ´s lab, Shaugnessy believes it possible to create another nanobot himself, which will be programmed to destroy the other one and repair whatever damage had been done by it. Which we´ll have to find out about first, meaning we´ll run a lot of tests."
"How long will that take?" Steve asked dreadfully.
"Hopefully not long. A week maybe. Two. Dunno. If Jesse´s co-operating, that is. But - considering how much his condition has worsened, I´d say it´s not very likely he´s going to co-operate. I don´t think he could if he wanted to. And of course we can´t keep him sedated for a week. It´s going to be ... hard. To say the least."
Frustrated, Steve swept a hand over his face again. "Damn it!" he yelled, but apologized in an instant.
Slightly smiling in sympathy, Amanda stood up as if to make a speech. "We can´t change anything about this. But we can be there."
"I don´t think that´ll be a great comfort for him," Steve sighed and earned a surprised look from Mark. The doctor frowned, he´d never seen his son that hopeless.
"Yes it will!" he therefore objected with much more force than he´d have done otherwise and cast his son a firm glance. "If he´s seeing them, we´ll have to make sure he´s seeing us, too."
"Right," Amanda nodded. "Till he can be injected with that anti-bot, he won´t be alone. One of us will always stay with him. We´ll take turns."
"Right."
Confronted with a made decision and two very questioning expressions, Steve surrendered and even managed to smile tiredly. "You´re probably right."
"´course we are," Mark said. "We´re doctors. - I´ll take the first turn. And you two should go home and get some sleep. I´ll keep you pos ..."
"What about his parents?" Amanda interrupted him.
Mark hesitated, but finally answered: "He doesn´t want them to know about ... all this. He said he couldn´t bear dead people and his parents."
"Are you gonna call them, anyway?" Steve asked, for he knew his father pretty well.
Though he cast his son a smile for the teasing reply, Mark shook his head sadly. "No, I won´t. He doesn´t need more people to be afraid of."
As much as he cared about his best friend, Steve hated his turns. Though the young man was asleep most of the time, exhausted by the tests and the constant tension he felt, Steve hated every minute he had to spent with him. Helpless he felt, unneeded, unsensitive, guilty.
And the normally much enjoyed drabbles with his friend didn´t help much, for they were forced. Unnatural attempts of over-playing the situation they were in: Two friends in a hospital; none of the silences they shared were comfortable these days.
Sighing deeply, Steve rubbed his thumb over his eyes.
"Hey, new rule! If you fall asleep over the cards, I´m allowed to look at them," Jesse´s voice drew his attention back to the here and now which happened to be a poker game.
Opening his eyes, Steve frowned in mock annoyance. "I dozed off cause you play poker like chess."
"Naw, I´m not! We´re playing for about five minutes now and I haven´t los ... Wait, that was an insult, right?"
"Wow, if you were that bright when playing poker, you could actually bea ... Jess?" he asked alarmed when Jesse´s expression suddenly changed from amusement to fear.
"It´s nothing," the younger man winked shakily. He wanted to add another wise-crack, but had to close his eyes in fright all of a sudden. A slight shudder ran through his body.
"Y-ya know," he stuttered, trying unsuccessfully to keep up his casual tone, "I´m just letting you wi ..."
"Jesse! Stop that! Talk to me. What´re you seeing? - Damn it!" Steve burst out when there was no reply, and Jesse opened his eyes in startled surprise.
"Steve?"
"This has been going on for a whole week now, Jess! You refuse to let me help you."
"I ... no ... I-it´s ..."
"You talk to the others. Why can´t you tell me?"
"It´s not that ... I´m ... Gawd, sorry, Steve, I ... I didn´t mean to ... Don´t be mad at me."
Steve felt like crying. Considering Jesse´s expression, he looked like it, too. "Jesse, I´m not mad at you. I just wanna help you, but I get the feeling you don´t want me to ..."
"But you are!" Jesse objected hastily. "You don´t treat me like I was ... I wanna feel normal, and, well, you sorta ... I need this, I really do. You´re not, like ... Gee, don´t you wanna stop me from getting all emotional here?"
"Did you say something?" Steve asked, but couldn´t help presenting his friend with a bright grin. "Ah, Full House, by the way," he added and lay his cards down on the bed.
"Oh you can´t be serious! You´re cheating on a sick guy?!"
"Cheating?"
Before Jesse could either repeat his accusation or desperately try to talk himself out of the situation, Mark and Amanda entered the room happyly, both looking like they were about to party.
"Hey!" Amanda greeted the patient and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. "How´re you doing? Oh, don´t bother, ´cause you´ll feel much greater in a minute when we´ve told you that ..."
"Shaugnessy´s done," Mark interrupted her wickedly and grinned at her disappointed glance.
"I wanted to tell him!"
"So did I."
"He´s done?" Jesse asked uncertainly. "What you mean? Done as in done with the tests, which I´d find enough reason to cheer about, or done as in ... done," he finished the sentence slowly.
"You´ll be injected with the anti-bot tomorrow morning and then we´ll see. If it´s working, you´ll probably be released the next day."
"Uh ... that´s great, huh?" Jesse asked and tried to smile slightly, but couldn´t quite fight off the unease that accompanied the information.
"I know, it´s scarry," Amanda said sympathically, "but it´ll work, you´ll see."
"Hopefully."
"It will, trust me," she repeated firmly and ruffled his hair. "It´s all going to turn out just fine."
"Still, it feels kinda strange to ... you know ..."
"Don´t worry, we´ll stay with you all the time," Mark promised and smiled at a gratefull, yet somewhat embarrassed glance.
"Naw, that´s really nice of you and all, but ... You´ve done more than enough, I mean, I don´t know how I ..."
"Jess, what did we say about getting emotional?" Steve interrupted him.
"That you didn´t hear it."
Mark frowned slightly in amusement, but then bowed his head a little as he said: "Jesse, ahm, I never told you how sorry we all are. We ..."
"Yes, you did," Jesse replied, "and I don´t know why you did it then. You safed my life, remember?"
"Just accept it," Amanda said gently. "We´re sorry. We should have noticed. We´ll never again believe you´re insane. Never. Promise. "
Chuckling, Jesse nodded gratefully.
"Okay," Mark said after a short moment of a comfortable silence, "you wanna say goodbye to Sarah and the others?"
"Ah ..." Surprised by the question, Jesse thought about it, till an almost wise smile settled on his face. "Naw, don´t think so. I´m just gonna go to sleep now."
"Why not?" Amanda asked.
"Would seem to much like a goodbye," the young man explained.
Looking from Mark´s proud look to Amanda´s equally relieved one, Steve frowned. "Hey, wait, you understand this, don´t you?"
"I´ll explain it to you later," Mark assured his son and chuckled at Steve´s desperate look.
"Why is it even the kid understands this psycho-crab, but not me?!"
The door was open, though the sign was already turned to "closed".
First he frowned at it, but soon his expression changed into a smile, and finally he entered the bar with a casual "Hey Jess!".
Looking up from his task, the young man smiled back. "Hey Steve. What´re you doing here? It´s my turn, remember?"
"I thought you were told to go home and get some rest."
"It´s my turn."
"Ah ... ´kay, you´re the doctor, doctor. So", Steve said and glanced at the glass in front of his friend, "care to make me one of those, too?"
"Sure. Here you are," Jesse replied and produced a glass of what he was drinking. At Steve´s expression, he lifted his brows innocently. "I´m still on medication."
"Milk´s ... fine. Just fine. Thanks."
Silence settled tiredly, preparing itself for a quiet evening, till suddenly the door opened slightly.
"Ah ...Excuse me ..." a stranger´s voice announced.
"We´re closed!" the owners called out in union without looking up from their drinks.
"But I just wanted to ..."
"Closed! Out!"
"Gee, sorry I´m alive!" the poor man replied and closed the door behind him, leaving them to their much deserved, long missed silence of two friends in a bar, drinking milk.
THE END