Disclaimer: All still apply.

SOMETHING TO PROVE

(PART THIRTEEN)

"Jesse, I don't know if you can hear me. I can only pray that you can, because what I've got to say is really, really important." Amanda was unable to keep the tears out of her voice. "You were wrong, Jess. So very, very wrong. We love you, you know? And we never, not for one minute, believed what that girl accused you of."

She took hold of her friend's hand, seeking some response, but finding none. His condition was deteriorating.

"I don't know what you saw, what you thought you saw, in my eyes when I was at your apartment, but I promise you, it wasn't judgement, it wasn't disbelief. Maybe it was fear. I was so worried about you. And now... Jesse, honey, now I've hurt you even more and you don't know how sorry I am."

She reached up with one hand to gently stroke the side of his face, usually so alive and animated, now as still as death.

"Jesse, please. You have to come back to us. I don't know how I could live with myself if you don't." Her voice descended into a whisper. "Please, Jess."

*****

Mark almost cried off meeting with the Flynn's the next morning. He needed to be with Jesse, to ensure that his dear friend was going to be alright, but he knew that either Steve or Amanda would be there in his absence.

Besides, he also needed to ensure that nothing like this would happen again. With a heavy heart, Mark approached the Boardroom, trying to maintain a professional exterior, whilst his true feelings for the Flynn family were bordering on sheer hatred.

Mark Sloan was not a man who hated easily, he was too compassionate by nature, but when he thought of what those people had put Jesse through, and all for the sake of money...

He had to cut that thought off before it could go any further. Otherwise, he would never make it through this meeting without losing his temper and that would be of no use to anybody.

As he neared his destination, he found Mick Donovan waiting for him.

"I've waited such a long time for this," the schoolteacher said, softly. "Now I'm here, I'm not quite sure what I want to say."

"Just speak from your heart, Mr. Donovan. Whatever happens, you've already done more than enough. You've helped Jesse to..." He trailed off. He had been about to say to get his life back, but he didn't know if that were true any more.

"How is he?" Donovan asked, noticing the older man's distress. Jesse's accident had been the talk of the hospital and the teacher had overheard enough to know that the young man's condition was grave.

"No change." Mark's answer was short, abrupt. "We should go in."

*****

Before Jesse had been hurt, it had been Mark's intention to have Mick Donovan wait outside, then make a dramatic entrance, to wipe the smirk from Eric Flynn's face. Now though, he no longer had the heart for such theatre. He just wanted the meeting to be over with, to send those scavengers packing and get back to what his important in life. Namely, his vigil at Jesse's bedside.

But still, whether intentional or not, Donovan's entrance into the Boardroom did have a dramatic effect on the entire Flynn family. Eric's face went completely white, while Rebecca's jaw dropped so low that it was almost comical. However, Melissa's reaction was the most telling.

"Mr. Donovan," she whispered, her eyes filling with tears as she stared at him in disbelief.

Mr. Donovan. The girl's former teacher had shared with Mark some of the details of what Melissa had written in her diary about him. She would certainly not have addressed him so formally, had any of them been true. She'd spoken to him like a child would speak to their teacher.

The Flynn's never had a case after that and everyone in the room knew it. While Eric had tried to bluff and bluster, for all he was worth, that's all it was. Even his own lawyer soon stopped trying to help him.

In what had to be the shortest Board meeting in history, the Flynn's began to make their excuses and seek a hasty retreat.

And that was when Mark stepped in. He was determined that Jesse wasn't going to have suffered so terribly for nothing. He would not just sit back and let this reprehensible family simply move to another city and try and spread their poison there. It was going to stop. Now. And he was the man to stop it.

"Sit down," he barked, allowing his anger to surface for a brief moment.

The three of them reacted to the command in his voice and sank back down into the chairs they had so hurriedly vacated.

"Don't think for a minute that I am going to let you get away with this," he began, fixing each of them in turn with an icy blue glare. "You have broken the law. You have tried to sully the name of one of the finest young doctors that I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. You have attempted to obtain money by deception."

His gaze settled on the now subdued face of Eric Flynn.

"And somebody has been abusing your daughter."

*****

Steve had taken Amanda's place at Jesse's bedside. He had forced the young pathologist to go home, to see her boys and to get some much-needed rest. She had complied, albeit reluctantly, swearing that she was too worried to even consider being able to sleep. But the exhaustion on her face had told a different story.

The detective sat in silence, studying his friend for a long moment. It was difficult for him to know what to say at the best of times. And this was hardly the best of times.

Guilt nagged away at him, despite what Amanda had said about blame. He constantly replayed the events of that day in his head. The way he had originally argued with his dad about the need for someone to call round at Jesse's, wasting those precious minutes that might have enabled him to arrive in time to stop his friend driving off like that.

And the way he had driven at too sedate a pace, not feeling the urgency to put his siren on and obeying every traffic law along the way.

The chance to have prevented this from happening had lain very much with him and he had failed. Now that failure might cost his best friend his life.

"Jesse..." his voice cracked and he cleared his throat before trying again. "Jess, please. You have to wake up. Just give me some sign, huh? Let me know you're listening?"

Steve's tortured eyes roamed over the young man's face, looking for even the slightest hint of movement, but there was none.

*****

"Come with me. I want to show you something."

There was something in Mark's voice that told the Flynn family this was an invitation they could not refuse. Meekly, they followed the distinguished doctor from the Boardroom and through the corridors of the hospital.

Mark walked slightly ahead of them, not offering any explanation, not speaking to them at all. He had finally learnt the truth behind their twisted accusations and it was a truth that had sickened him.

He could only look on the family as leeches, totally without morals or scruples, and prepared to do literally anything to get what they wanted. He had seen some shocking sights in his time, heard some terrible stories, but what this family had done had shaken him to his very core. And just for the sake of money.

Well, he was not going to let it happen again. There was no point in trying to appeal to their better nature, he was convinced that they didn't have a better nature. But he was hoping that they did have a conscience.

The small group came to a stop outside Jesse's room. Mark closed his eyes briefly as he saw his son, sitting with his head bowed, at the young doctor's bedside.

"Fifty thousand dollars," he said quietly, not looking at any of them. "That's what you were after, isn't it?"

He shook his head, plunging his hands deep into his pockets, then stepped to one side to allow the Flynn's to see into the room.

"Fifty thousand dollars," he said again. "Is that worth a man's life? A man who did nothing wrong and was only trying to help?"

"Jesse?" Melissa's voice was filled with tears and she reached a trembling hand towards the glass.

"I want you to remember this the next time you think about doing something so deplorable," Mark went on, ignoring her tears. "You drove him to this. He thought that he was going to lose his job, his friends, the respect that we all have for him. All because you wanted to line your own pockets."

"We didn't mean..." Rebecca sounded genuinely remorseful, but Mark interrupted her harshly.

"I don't care what you meant. This is what you did," he snapped. "I just wanted

you to know that you might have killed a man, as surely as if you'd been driving the truck that hit him. Now get the Hell out of my hospital."

Mark didn't watch them leave. He turned back and looked into Jesse's room. The scenario had hardly changed at all. The only difference was that there were now tears on his son's cheeks.

TO BE CONTINUED...