Heyyyyyylooo, I'm still alive! So here is my new chapter. All disclaimners
apply. The song "Mine" isn't mine *g*, but belongs to Savage Garden.
Special thanks to Regina for being so damn patient with me!
Special thanks to Wuemsel for great discussions about short stuff and for loadsa commercial breaks that I'm really gonna miss! (and for not beating me up because my recorder forgot the giggling! Next time, I promise)
And a great thanks to Anna, I dunno what I would without you, tall stuff! And always remember: Queuing! (who cares about the spelling, u know what I mean!!)
Now this is for all of you who have had the patience to read this. I really appreciate your reviews and thank you so much for the support! I hope you're still enjoying the story, please keep reviewing, I just love your feedback!
I wait in the darkness
Frozen winds surround my face.
In the cover of darkness I can make believe it's you.
I feel you like the rain, I feel you like a storm cloud
building in my heart.
....
A hand brushes by my love. A smile fuels steel inferno
You don't have to die to leave my world.
Stand still and you've departed.
It seems I'm not on your mind
I'm just wasting my time.
I'm just a fool to believe
In the death of the night can you feel me inside?
I wish that you could conceive
....
Won't you leave me in the darkness
Take away all my pride and dignity that's burning inside
...
---------------------------------
Jesse pushed open the doors of the emergency exit and stumbled outside. I didn't know how he had managed to run down all those stairs without falling even once. Maybe he had because it actually didn't matter to him if he would fall and break his neck. There had never been many things in his life which did really matter to him, but until now life itself had mostly been part of those. He had a job, he had friends, he had a life...but nothing of that did matter right now and also hadn't done a few minutes ago.
He panted and grabbed the wobbly banister that hemed the stairs which leaded down to the small park next to the hospital. As he felt the cold steel between his fingers, Jesse noticed how warm his own hands had become and when he put one hand onto his cheek he felt that his face was burning, too. It seemed as though all that bottled up emotions had warmed up his body and were running through his veins like a scaring, bitter tasting drug.
Jesse shook his head, closed his eyes, opened them again. "So much for keeping your emotions to yourself!", he blamed himself loudlessly, still trying to get what he had just done. He had shouted at his supervisor, he had behaved completely stupidly and...oh my god, he had done it again....
Realization kicked in, directly into the young doctor's stomach, so hard that he struggled to keep himself on his feet. He had to face it, he had behaved completely irresponsibly again. Mr Miller had seemed so furious at the end that Jesse didn't want to imagine what he could possibly do to his wife. What if...only thinking of that made nausea crawl up his body. If anything happended to Mandy Miller, it would be his fault.
The sun shone through the treetops of the oaks that were planted in park, it drew shadows on his face and on the badly jointed, clinically white walls behind him. The light was still bright, but the air was vaporous, it made one feel numb and sleepy. The doctor, who was standing in front of the big hospital building, looked lost and still clenched his fingers seemingly subconsciously around the steel of the banister. His shoulders were tensed, his breaths shuddered and irregular and his incisors drilled into the inside of his lip until it was bleeding and a strong bitter taste of blood touched his tongue.
Finally Jesse gave it up. He had to face that he was just too weak, the voice in his his mind which kept telling him that one order "Don't dare to cry!" fainted slowly.
All he heard now were his memories, Susan's voice, when she spoke, when she laughed, when she cried, when she yelled at him. All he felt were the joy when her lips had touched his, the warmth when they had giggled together, the regrets because he had hurt her and let himself being hurt by her and the pain that tore his heart in two, now that he realised how much he loved her and that he would maybe never get that chance to tell her that.
His eyes became wet and tears started to roll down his cheeks, and though they were dried immediatly by the sun beams, they still left salty remains on his face. First sobs broke free and uncovered his bloody lips. No matter how hard he tried to wipe the tears away with his arms, new ones were streaming down his face again and again. A grown-up man who was crying silently like a small child and also felt like one right now, so he stood there for some time as though the world had stopped turning.
Then Jesse was able to breath in deeply for the first time and to wipe the water from his face, from his eyelids and eyelashs to see clearly. He didn't feel much better than before, just emptier, but in a good way, he wasn't angry any more, he was just sad.
Still he didn't want go back inside, especially since he could imagine how he looked like now with swollen eyes and red, wet glossing face.
So he just remained waiting there, for a miracle, for someone to wake him up from this nightmare, for someone to tell him an answer to all those questions.
What he hadn't waited for was a sharp smell that struck his nose now. He needed a few moments to realize the cloth that was pressed onto his nose and mouth by a strong hand coming from behind him. The attacker obviously had sneaked up at him and calculated that Jesse in his totally desolate shape wouldn't notice him. He had counted rightly. Jesse was completely caught by surprise as he was forced to breath in the chloroform.
He knew that he had no chance. He was not in the state of defending against that guy successfully, aftermaths from his breakdown still showed in little sobs that forced him to take deep breaths.
The attacker felt the body of the much shorter man slowly getting weaker in his arms. The muscles stopped cramping and the doctor gradually lost his balance and couldn't hold his upper body erect anymore. When unconcussiousness had finally gained the upper hand of the man in scrubs the man behind him pulled his arm away and Jesse landed hard on the floor.
He didn't struggle and fight anymore, but since people are always heavier and more unwieldly when they are unconcussious, the attacker had still some trouble to drag the limp body away. Probably that was the reason why he didn't notice that something had slipped out of Jesse's pocket.
The attacker just sneered amusedly. Now the play had begun.
"I can't believe he did that!" said Mark Sloan, completely stunned by Amanda's description of the event earlier.
"I neither would if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!", replied Amanda as they walked into the doctor lounge together. "I mean, probably he was right, probably that man really beats his wife, but as doctor with so much experience he should know that yelling at those people doesn't help anybody."
"I doubt that he doesn't know it..." Mark took a sip from his coffee winced because it was still too hot. "Maybe he just...forgot it..."
"He seemed to forget a lot lately", muttered Amanda and when Mark gave her a slightly reproachful look, she bowed her head. "I worry about him, Mark, it just makes me so furious that he doesn't talk to us. After all he should know by now that we're his friends, I want to help him..."
Mark nodded understandingly. "I know, Amanda, I also worry about Jesse. And the worst thing is that it was my mistake not to talk to him when there was still a chance that he would also talk to me..."
"Mark, it's not your fault that he doesn't want to talk to anybody. Oh God, if he actually knows what he is doing? I most likely wanted to grab him and shake him as long as he talks to me..." the pathologist threw her arms into the air in despair. "How do you that, Mark? How can you be so patient?"
Mark hesitated to give an answer. Was he really patient? He didn't feel patient, he felt awfully worried and as soon as he met Jesse he would make him talk to him, no matter how good his excuses would be that time. God, he really had fatherly feelings about him. Thinking about that Mark could finally bring himself to answer Amanda's question:"Long years of experience..."
Amanda glanced at him, admitting that Mark had a good point. Steve and Jesse quite similar when it came to their own feelings. When you knew how to handle the one you could also handle the other one. But what caused that fear to talk, that deep sarcasm that made both men hard to understand at a some point? Was it shame? Amanda didn't want to start a psychological discussion, but she secretly wondered if she would ever understand it.
"It's pride..." said Mark suddenly as though he had been reading her thoughts. Sometimes his knowledge of human nature was almost scaring.
Maybe he would have had explained that theory, but the moment was disturbed by a completely distraught hospital administrator who was waddeling into the lounge by now.
"Dr Stone, we've gotta talk!", Brandon Dawn said importantly and tried to look determinedly.
"Sloan but never mind..." corrected Mark again and sighed deeply. He knew what he would have to bear now and he didn't like it.
"Sloan, ok with me..." Dawn spoke outragedly and didn't excuse for his mistake as always. He was having other problems. "Do you know where I can find Dr Travis?"
Mark shook his head, secretly relieved that he didn't even have to lie to spare Jesse Dawn's unsensitive remarks.
"Too bad! If you see him, tell him that I wanna talk to him immediatly!"
"Okay, I will."
"I'm sure you heard about what happened earlier!"
"Yeah, I believe, I did!"
"Well, tell him that he should better have a very very good explanation for his behaviour or else..." Dawn was at a loss of words, but he was the only one who didn't like that situation.
"Yeah, I will, Mr Dawn...don't you have a conference or something like that?" Mark asked hopefully.
Dawn looked at his watch. "Oh yeah, I'm already late!" with those words he hurried off.
Mark and Amanda rolled their eyes at the short, but annoying appereance of the new administrator. Knowingly they gave each other a look. Mark chuckled. "I'd better go and find Jesse before Dawn does!"
Amanda nodded and they left the doctor lounge, leaving as always two half filled mugs with going cold coffee. The pathologist headed back to the pathology lab and Mark went looking for Jesse, though he didn't have a real idea where he should search.
He finally headed to the exit to the small park behind the hospital. That was a good place for people who didn't want to be found for any reason as the door was hardly ever used and even from the parking lot you didn't have a very good look at the stairs in front of it. What shouldn't be seen mostly remained unseen there, and so did crying doctors Mark assumed. If he had known how right he was...
But when Mark stood in front of the stairs he didn't find anything. Not at all Jesse as he had hoped. He had expected a crouched person, maybe crying, maybe just starring into the emptiness of the late fall air. He had been looking for a child, a man who -now that he thought that no one could see him- was showing his true emotions. A man who would show his weakness now that he felt...save. Wasn't that weird? That people sometimes felt save when they were alone? Far away from the people they loved? Those who knew them? Maybe that was a reason why we sometimes hide from those people. You can only be hurt by people who know you. And the truth always hurts.
However, Mark had to learn that he didn't seem to know Jesse as well as he had thought. Jesse wasn't there. He actually seemed to have become invisible. He was just no where ton be found.
Mark scanned the park in its strange unreal light and considered where he should look next. He had looked everywhere. You could almost say that he had spared this place till the end. He didn't really know why. He had just been so sure to find Jesse here that he had thought he could give him some time more alone. And all the time he had been searching Mark had thought of what he would say to Jesse. He hadn't come to a final result, but since Jesse wasn't here Mark knew he would get his time to think. Where should he look next?
More or less accidently Mark glanced on the floor, but as he bent down to pick up what he had found he didn't remember why he had actually done that. Now he was holding an ID in his hands, it was passport. 'Susan Hilliard' read the stern black letters next to a picture of hers. As everyone does on passport pics also Susan's image looked pale and quite unhappy and Mark noticed sadly that the difference between the real Susan Hilliard and that lifeless and strange seeming picture was kinda small by now.
"But that doesn't make any sense!" Amanda whispered confusedly for the third time now.
She and Mark hadn't dared to settle in the lounge again, but instead stood at the reception desk where they could pretend to be busy with things which were of high importance for the budget or the efficienty as soon as Brandon Dawn showed up. The only disadvantage they had was that they had to discuss in a low voice since there was always the risk that curious nurses or interns would hear them and come to their very own interesting conclusions which the wouldn't hesitate to spread through the whole hospital.
"Of course it doesn't, but there must be a logical explanation for this...", mumbled Mark who starred again at that ID as though he had been hoping to find all answers in the scaring pale face on the picture. "How does Susan's passport reach an almost never used entrance of our hospital? And where is Jesse? I tried to page him several times, but...", he murmured, thinking heavily.
"I don't know, I only know that an ID can't walk and that we should hurry and find Jesse before he totally snaps out ..." replied Amanda impatiently.
At that moment Tom Chandler, the young paramedic, approached them slowly. "Hey Dr Sloan!", he greeted friendly.
Mark lifted his hand absent-minded. "Hi Tom! How's work going?"
"Can't complain.." Tom shrugged when he noticed the passport in Mark's hand. "How is she?", he inquired, pointing at Susan's ID.
"Who?" Mark asked surprisedly, then he noticed the direction of Tom's fingers.
"The young woman we brought in last night. Dr Travis' patient...did he know her? He seemed kinda nervous after he had seen her ID", Tom said, seeing Mark's eyes growing wide.
"You gave him this passport?", he questioned.
Tom nodded. "He asked for an ID and I gave him that. I had used it earlier to fill in the protocoll..."
"And did he give it back to you?" Mark asked.
Tom thought for a moment, then shook head convincedly. "No, I'm quite sure that he didn't. He saw it, seemed rather shocked to me and then...I think he put it into the pocket of his scrubs, but..."
Mark's and Amanda's eyes met suddenly, and both could read in the other one's eyes that they were guessing exactly the same.
"I don't like that....", mumbled Amanda. "Somehow I don't like that..."
Special thanks to Regina for being so damn patient with me!
Special thanks to Wuemsel for great discussions about short stuff and for loadsa commercial breaks that I'm really gonna miss! (and for not beating me up because my recorder forgot the giggling! Next time, I promise)
And a great thanks to Anna, I dunno what I would without you, tall stuff! And always remember: Queuing! (who cares about the spelling, u know what I mean!!)
Now this is for all of you who have had the patience to read this. I really appreciate your reviews and thank you so much for the support! I hope you're still enjoying the story, please keep reviewing, I just love your feedback!
I wait in the darkness
Frozen winds surround my face.
In the cover of darkness I can make believe it's you.
I feel you like the rain, I feel you like a storm cloud
building in my heart.
....
A hand brushes by my love. A smile fuels steel inferno
You don't have to die to leave my world.
Stand still and you've departed.
It seems I'm not on your mind
I'm just wasting my time.
I'm just a fool to believe
In the death of the night can you feel me inside?
I wish that you could conceive
....
Won't you leave me in the darkness
Take away all my pride and dignity that's burning inside
...
---------------------------------
Jesse pushed open the doors of the emergency exit and stumbled outside. I didn't know how he had managed to run down all those stairs without falling even once. Maybe he had because it actually didn't matter to him if he would fall and break his neck. There had never been many things in his life which did really matter to him, but until now life itself had mostly been part of those. He had a job, he had friends, he had a life...but nothing of that did matter right now and also hadn't done a few minutes ago.
He panted and grabbed the wobbly banister that hemed the stairs which leaded down to the small park next to the hospital. As he felt the cold steel between his fingers, Jesse noticed how warm his own hands had become and when he put one hand onto his cheek he felt that his face was burning, too. It seemed as though all that bottled up emotions had warmed up his body and were running through his veins like a scaring, bitter tasting drug.
Jesse shook his head, closed his eyes, opened them again. "So much for keeping your emotions to yourself!", he blamed himself loudlessly, still trying to get what he had just done. He had shouted at his supervisor, he had behaved completely stupidly and...oh my god, he had done it again....
Realization kicked in, directly into the young doctor's stomach, so hard that he struggled to keep himself on his feet. He had to face it, he had behaved completely irresponsibly again. Mr Miller had seemed so furious at the end that Jesse didn't want to imagine what he could possibly do to his wife. What if...only thinking of that made nausea crawl up his body. If anything happended to Mandy Miller, it would be his fault.
The sun shone through the treetops of the oaks that were planted in park, it drew shadows on his face and on the badly jointed, clinically white walls behind him. The light was still bright, but the air was vaporous, it made one feel numb and sleepy. The doctor, who was standing in front of the big hospital building, looked lost and still clenched his fingers seemingly subconsciously around the steel of the banister. His shoulders were tensed, his breaths shuddered and irregular and his incisors drilled into the inside of his lip until it was bleeding and a strong bitter taste of blood touched his tongue.
Finally Jesse gave it up. He had to face that he was just too weak, the voice in his his mind which kept telling him that one order "Don't dare to cry!" fainted slowly.
All he heard now were his memories, Susan's voice, when she spoke, when she laughed, when she cried, when she yelled at him. All he felt were the joy when her lips had touched his, the warmth when they had giggled together, the regrets because he had hurt her and let himself being hurt by her and the pain that tore his heart in two, now that he realised how much he loved her and that he would maybe never get that chance to tell her that.
His eyes became wet and tears started to roll down his cheeks, and though they were dried immediatly by the sun beams, they still left salty remains on his face. First sobs broke free and uncovered his bloody lips. No matter how hard he tried to wipe the tears away with his arms, new ones were streaming down his face again and again. A grown-up man who was crying silently like a small child and also felt like one right now, so he stood there for some time as though the world had stopped turning.
Then Jesse was able to breath in deeply for the first time and to wipe the water from his face, from his eyelids and eyelashs to see clearly. He didn't feel much better than before, just emptier, but in a good way, he wasn't angry any more, he was just sad.
Still he didn't want go back inside, especially since he could imagine how he looked like now with swollen eyes and red, wet glossing face.
So he just remained waiting there, for a miracle, for someone to wake him up from this nightmare, for someone to tell him an answer to all those questions.
What he hadn't waited for was a sharp smell that struck his nose now. He needed a few moments to realize the cloth that was pressed onto his nose and mouth by a strong hand coming from behind him. The attacker obviously had sneaked up at him and calculated that Jesse in his totally desolate shape wouldn't notice him. He had counted rightly. Jesse was completely caught by surprise as he was forced to breath in the chloroform.
He knew that he had no chance. He was not in the state of defending against that guy successfully, aftermaths from his breakdown still showed in little sobs that forced him to take deep breaths.
The attacker felt the body of the much shorter man slowly getting weaker in his arms. The muscles stopped cramping and the doctor gradually lost his balance and couldn't hold his upper body erect anymore. When unconcussiousness had finally gained the upper hand of the man in scrubs the man behind him pulled his arm away and Jesse landed hard on the floor.
He didn't struggle and fight anymore, but since people are always heavier and more unwieldly when they are unconcussious, the attacker had still some trouble to drag the limp body away. Probably that was the reason why he didn't notice that something had slipped out of Jesse's pocket.
The attacker just sneered amusedly. Now the play had begun.
"I can't believe he did that!" said Mark Sloan, completely stunned by Amanda's description of the event earlier.
"I neither would if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!", replied Amanda as they walked into the doctor lounge together. "I mean, probably he was right, probably that man really beats his wife, but as doctor with so much experience he should know that yelling at those people doesn't help anybody."
"I doubt that he doesn't know it..." Mark took a sip from his coffee winced because it was still too hot. "Maybe he just...forgot it..."
"He seemed to forget a lot lately", muttered Amanda and when Mark gave her a slightly reproachful look, she bowed her head. "I worry about him, Mark, it just makes me so furious that he doesn't talk to us. After all he should know by now that we're his friends, I want to help him..."
Mark nodded understandingly. "I know, Amanda, I also worry about Jesse. And the worst thing is that it was my mistake not to talk to him when there was still a chance that he would also talk to me..."
"Mark, it's not your fault that he doesn't want to talk to anybody. Oh God, if he actually knows what he is doing? I most likely wanted to grab him and shake him as long as he talks to me..." the pathologist threw her arms into the air in despair. "How do you that, Mark? How can you be so patient?"
Mark hesitated to give an answer. Was he really patient? He didn't feel patient, he felt awfully worried and as soon as he met Jesse he would make him talk to him, no matter how good his excuses would be that time. God, he really had fatherly feelings about him. Thinking about that Mark could finally bring himself to answer Amanda's question:"Long years of experience..."
Amanda glanced at him, admitting that Mark had a good point. Steve and Jesse quite similar when it came to their own feelings. When you knew how to handle the one you could also handle the other one. But what caused that fear to talk, that deep sarcasm that made both men hard to understand at a some point? Was it shame? Amanda didn't want to start a psychological discussion, but she secretly wondered if she would ever understand it.
"It's pride..." said Mark suddenly as though he had been reading her thoughts. Sometimes his knowledge of human nature was almost scaring.
Maybe he would have had explained that theory, but the moment was disturbed by a completely distraught hospital administrator who was waddeling into the lounge by now.
"Dr Stone, we've gotta talk!", Brandon Dawn said importantly and tried to look determinedly.
"Sloan but never mind..." corrected Mark again and sighed deeply. He knew what he would have to bear now and he didn't like it.
"Sloan, ok with me..." Dawn spoke outragedly and didn't excuse for his mistake as always. He was having other problems. "Do you know where I can find Dr Travis?"
Mark shook his head, secretly relieved that he didn't even have to lie to spare Jesse Dawn's unsensitive remarks.
"Too bad! If you see him, tell him that I wanna talk to him immediatly!"
"Okay, I will."
"I'm sure you heard about what happened earlier!"
"Yeah, I believe, I did!"
"Well, tell him that he should better have a very very good explanation for his behaviour or else..." Dawn was at a loss of words, but he was the only one who didn't like that situation.
"Yeah, I will, Mr Dawn...don't you have a conference or something like that?" Mark asked hopefully.
Dawn looked at his watch. "Oh yeah, I'm already late!" with those words he hurried off.
Mark and Amanda rolled their eyes at the short, but annoying appereance of the new administrator. Knowingly they gave each other a look. Mark chuckled. "I'd better go and find Jesse before Dawn does!"
Amanda nodded and they left the doctor lounge, leaving as always two half filled mugs with going cold coffee. The pathologist headed back to the pathology lab and Mark went looking for Jesse, though he didn't have a real idea where he should search.
He finally headed to the exit to the small park behind the hospital. That was a good place for people who didn't want to be found for any reason as the door was hardly ever used and even from the parking lot you didn't have a very good look at the stairs in front of it. What shouldn't be seen mostly remained unseen there, and so did crying doctors Mark assumed. If he had known how right he was...
But when Mark stood in front of the stairs he didn't find anything. Not at all Jesse as he had hoped. He had expected a crouched person, maybe crying, maybe just starring into the emptiness of the late fall air. He had been looking for a child, a man who -now that he thought that no one could see him- was showing his true emotions. A man who would show his weakness now that he felt...save. Wasn't that weird? That people sometimes felt save when they were alone? Far away from the people they loved? Those who knew them? Maybe that was a reason why we sometimes hide from those people. You can only be hurt by people who know you. And the truth always hurts.
However, Mark had to learn that he didn't seem to know Jesse as well as he had thought. Jesse wasn't there. He actually seemed to have become invisible. He was just no where ton be found.
Mark scanned the park in its strange unreal light and considered where he should look next. He had looked everywhere. You could almost say that he had spared this place till the end. He didn't really know why. He had just been so sure to find Jesse here that he had thought he could give him some time more alone. And all the time he had been searching Mark had thought of what he would say to Jesse. He hadn't come to a final result, but since Jesse wasn't here Mark knew he would get his time to think. Where should he look next?
More or less accidently Mark glanced on the floor, but as he bent down to pick up what he had found he didn't remember why he had actually done that. Now he was holding an ID in his hands, it was passport. 'Susan Hilliard' read the stern black letters next to a picture of hers. As everyone does on passport pics also Susan's image looked pale and quite unhappy and Mark noticed sadly that the difference between the real Susan Hilliard and that lifeless and strange seeming picture was kinda small by now.
"But that doesn't make any sense!" Amanda whispered confusedly for the third time now.
She and Mark hadn't dared to settle in the lounge again, but instead stood at the reception desk where they could pretend to be busy with things which were of high importance for the budget or the efficienty as soon as Brandon Dawn showed up. The only disadvantage they had was that they had to discuss in a low voice since there was always the risk that curious nurses or interns would hear them and come to their very own interesting conclusions which the wouldn't hesitate to spread through the whole hospital.
"Of course it doesn't, but there must be a logical explanation for this...", mumbled Mark who starred again at that ID as though he had been hoping to find all answers in the scaring pale face on the picture. "How does Susan's passport reach an almost never used entrance of our hospital? And where is Jesse? I tried to page him several times, but...", he murmured, thinking heavily.
"I don't know, I only know that an ID can't walk and that we should hurry and find Jesse before he totally snaps out ..." replied Amanda impatiently.
At that moment Tom Chandler, the young paramedic, approached them slowly. "Hey Dr Sloan!", he greeted friendly.
Mark lifted his hand absent-minded. "Hi Tom! How's work going?"
"Can't complain.." Tom shrugged when he noticed the passport in Mark's hand. "How is she?", he inquired, pointing at Susan's ID.
"Who?" Mark asked surprisedly, then he noticed the direction of Tom's fingers.
"The young woman we brought in last night. Dr Travis' patient...did he know her? He seemed kinda nervous after he had seen her ID", Tom said, seeing Mark's eyes growing wide.
"You gave him this passport?", he questioned.
Tom nodded. "He asked for an ID and I gave him that. I had used it earlier to fill in the protocoll..."
"And did he give it back to you?" Mark asked.
Tom thought for a moment, then shook head convincedly. "No, I'm quite sure that he didn't. He saw it, seemed rather shocked to me and then...I think he put it into the pocket of his scrubs, but..."
Mark's and Amanda's eyes met suddenly, and both could read in the other one's eyes that they were guessing exactly the same.
"I don't like that....", mumbled Amanda. "Somehow I don't like that..."