Hey ya, hope you've had a nice Christmas with loadsa presents and stuff and
now we can all go one writing happily. I really appreciated your reviews,
they made me grown inches (and bet that's necessary! *g*)
This is for Brain, for a great present (Haddock rules!), for the theory that male actors really have a tough time acting in some places. ("Now that's really amazing...very well done..."), for discvovering that there are some many good people on earth and for Leered which is an amazing story, no matter what you think because you stories are always great!! Basta! (Waaaaatschen, yeah!!)
This is for Anna, for The Bus Pics (ain't we all a bit...you know?), for being a great friend all the time and for being a bit addicted to this stuff.
This is for Reggie for being a great writer and a lovely kid and for the nice previews I get from you! (Love them!)
And, of course, this is also for the rest of you who encouraged me so much with reviews and mails and who were and still are so patient with me, my English and my ideas.
All disclaimers apply. I don't own the song "I'm with you", it was sung and published by Avril Lavigne on her album "Let Go" in 2002.
I'm standing on a bridge
I'm waiting in the dark
I thought that you'd be here by now
There's nothing but rain
No footsteps on the ground
I'm listening but there's no sound
Isn't anyone trying to find me
Won't somebody come to take me home
It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won't you take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are but I
I'm with you
I'm looking for a place
I'm searching for a face
Is anybody here I know
Cause nothing's going right
And everything's a mess
And no one likes to be alone...
---------------------------------------------
Mark had been putting up with his old coffee machine that didn't seem to have any intention to pour out some of the liquid it was actually meant to produce. The major fight had been going on since Steve had left. That was Mark Sloan. He always needed something to do, especially when he was waiting for something of high importance for him. Right now he had to admitt that he we was nervous and addingly rather impatient. Keeping his mind off things he couldn't change anyway was a good way to cope with them.
He didn't look up immediately when he heard a door being closed. He was only relieved that it wasn't slammed. Slammed doors were always a bad sign.
Jesse shut the door as quietly as he could. He didn't know why he was scared of making any noise entering the house, he simply felt that it wasn't his right to disturb this seeming peace. It wasn't even his right to be here and that was what bothered him most of all. Mark had been there for him, always, no matter what and he had shouted at him, blamed him for being able to understand...hell, what had he been thinking?
As he had told Steve earlier Jesse hadn't been thinking anything at all and as he sadly had to face, that had happened to him quite often lately. It was really time to wake up.
"Hey", he said unsurely and remained next to the dining room table from where he could see Mark standing a the kitchen counter. The older doctor into the otherone's eyes, calm and waiting as always. Mark knew exactly what he was waiting for. So Steve had have luck or maybe even more than that.
Jesse was chewing on his lip. He didn't know where he should start. There were so many things he simply wanted to apologize for and on the other hand he believed it wasn't as easy as that. He was responsible for what he had said and only an apology, even a honest one, wouldn't be able to take those things back. "I'm sorry...awfully sorry...", the words had slipped out of his mouth before he could think of some more weighty ones. "I...I...didn't mean to shout at you or to blame you or whatever...I just wanted to get rid of my anger somehow...oh God, I could kick myself...", by the time he said that Jesse hit his fist onto the table and cursed slightly as his knuckles stroke the hard wood. Then he pulled himself together and went on, "Listen, I'm sorry for the mess I caused, I'm sorry because I behaved the way I did towards you, Amanda and Steve and probably everyone else I met in the past days...including that stupid Brandon Dawn...I know that you were only trying to help me, I have known it from the moment you threw me out of the trauma room...I just...", Jesse noticed horrorfiedly, that his voice faided slowly and was impending to be drowned by suddenly upcoming sobs.
Also Mark had noticed that and as much as he hated it to see his friend crying, he was relieved that Jesse finally seemed to trust him again. Nevertheless he most likely wanted to start crying himself as he watched how the young doctor sank onto a chair and burried his face in his hands. Mark sighed and walked over to his friend who sat on that wooden chair and cowered and cried quietly.
When he was approaching Jesse, Mark heard muffled voice from behind the fingers which were already dropping of tears. "You know, I just thought I could cope with that alone..." Jesse removed his fingers from his eyes to face the man he admired so much, the man who had taught him so much, in medical way and otherwise. The way he looked at the older doctor was even enough to shock an experienced man like Mark Sloan beyond believe. He couldn't remember that he had ever seen Jesse like this. With red framed eyes, water covered face and words coming out of his mouth that really hurt Mark more than anything else than Jesse had said before. What Jesse had said before had been spoken in rage, in a state that wasn't to be understood rationally, but right now was talking in the pure awareness of what was happening to him. "...but I failed, Mark..."
It was something like a confession. A simple confession, contenting everything that Jesse regretted so much.
Mark shook his head and put one hand on his friend's quivering shoulder. "No, Jess, you didn't! It's as easy as that...you haven't failed!"
It were exactly those words that were making their rounds in Jesse's hands some hours later when he walked through the corridors of the CGH, heading for the ICU. Still he wasn't too sure about Mark's answer. The feeling in his stomach that was trying to convince him that he should turn around had grown stronger all time he was going.
As he had left the the lounge, where he had refused Mark's offer to join him, as he had entered and exited the elevator, as he had greeted some passing by nurses friendly and as he had hidded behind a corner to be not discovered by Brandon Dawn, who the last person he wanted to have a little chat with now, all his way the fear he felt had turned his stomach around and practically taken him the air to breath.
He sorta knew what would be awaiting him. It was not the first victim of a car accident that he would get to see, but it was most certainly he was going to see that caused him to shiver so badly that he clenched the finger hard in the pockets of his scrubs to pretend a calm distance that was usually expected from a good doctor like him.
'Good doctor' was term that had often appeared recently, between Mark's words and Steve's, the thoughts of things connected to a good doctor, which he had ever heard from his time at Medical School until the "ER" eppis he had watched half-asleep on the couch in the doctor's lounge, continued stalking his mind. 'Good doctors keep distance', 'Good doctors stay cool in every situation, 'Good doctors realize when they can't handle a situation emotinally and ask someone else to take over...' Last mentioned had turned out to be his absolute favorite. As far as Jesse could remember that one was from one of his professors at Med School, a small man with eyes like a snake who only turned out to be a human being once a student had filled some 45 % Whiskey into his coffee mug.
Jesse chuckled sarcastically and then called himself to order. Oh great, he was going nuts.
By the time he said 'Hi' to the nurse in charge of the ICU and was himself greeted with a friendly 'Hi, Doctor Travis!', he secretly wondered if he was really a doctor right now that he was walking quietly along the corridor of this dead-silent area. For the first time in years he realized that smell of formaldehyde, antibiotics, a sterile small of hospital that you hated first it touched your nose and never would notice again once you were used to it. To Jesse it felt as though he had lost his 'doctor' by the moment he opened the door to the room which had windows to the corridor, but those were covered by closed Venetain blinds. He was a visitor, a layman who was scared of this simply because he couldn't understand it.
Closing the door behind him, Jesse took a deep breath and made a step forward. He stared at the bed where there was lying Susan. Tubes and wires connected her body to the machines that were beeping next to her and giving her the support she needed to be alive right now. She had lost weight and color and her closed eye lids were shimmering in a weird sick blue.
Jesse felt his heart pounding against his ribs. She looked so helpless, not that cute helplessness that guys normally about girls, but that awful helplessness, one of the kind that made you feel helpless yourself. For a moment he only wanted to throw up, puk that sorrow just out of his body like some wrong food his body was defending against. But the only thing he did was drawing a deep breath and writh himself out of his frozen posture in which he had remained close to the door as though he was about to run away.
He wouldn't run away. Not this time. This time he was stuck in the situation and had to deal with it, he couldn't just grab his jacket and leave her like he had done it about one year ago. He didn't feel guilty for what he had done then. But he felt that he owed her something now. Even if it was only this. Even if it was only being here. She needed him and, as he had to admitt to himself, he needed her, too, somehow.
When Jesse sat down at the edge of the bed, he only could remember the good times they had shared. What they had been through together. Maybe Susan could also remember. As he took her hand, he noticed how cold it was, how lifeless, how pale compared to his. He felt so stupid. How had it ever occured to him that for the two of them all this was play of dignity, revenge, of hurting each other?
He remained like this for ages, holding her hand, simply thinking of so many things, trying to sort the chaos in his head, the memories, the present and still some of the 'good doctors, bad doctors' terms. And he recalled one of the advices Mark had given him earlier. "Talk to her. You never know what people hear..."
By the time Jesse had found his tongue, his eyes were getting wet again. What if it was all for nothing? If she had already...died? He hadn't wanted to think of that possibilty, but he wasn't able to prevent it. 'A patient is clinically dead when there are no noticible...', the definition for death he had learned at Med school stroke his mind.
He squeezed her hand slightly and felt tears whelming up in him again. "I'm here, Susan. I'm sorry it took me so long, but I'm here..."
For him this wasn't and had never been a matter of medical terms. It was a matter of faith you put in people. And right now he didn't have much of a choice than to hope and to fear. He knew better feelings than that. Steve had been right, he hated to lose control. Depending on an unknown destiny was like....wasn't like anything, was only cruel. It was even worse than depending on persons...though at the moment those two things very deeply connected in Jesse's opinion. Yet, the only thing he had to rely on...
When Dr Travis left the ICU several hours later, he was wrapped up in some kind of a trance. He had practically been thrown out by the head nurse and from what she had said, that he should get something to eat and a few hours of sleep, he could guess very well what kind of impression he might gave right now. He had spent the past few hours in all stages of moods, from being happy about a memory that popped up in his mind while talking, along merciless disillusionment when getting no respond, down to deepest despair as often as he realized that he maybe would never be able to get a respond again. All that had been so unreal, so far away from earth on the one hand, so damn realistic and close to the unfair life on the other hand.
The first nurse that gave him a chart to sign was like fingers that were snapped in front of his eyes. Doctor-mode was kicking in again and along with it the strong need of coffee. Before entering the lounge Mark had caught up his friend. "Hey, how are you?", he inquired.
Jesse swayed his head. "Have felt better...", he mumbled and tried to smile at the older man.
The other one nodded understandingly. "You should get some rest. You look exhausted..."
"I'd already be happy with a cup of coffee..."
"There we have something in common, my friend..."
They both smiled slyly and headed for the lounge where they were quite surprised to find Steve and Johnny, sitting at a table where they had spread police files all over. The two of them turned around when the two doctors entered.
Steve looked up at Jesse, who poured some coffee in two mugs, and waited until his friend had sat down. "Jess...", he said calmly, "I really don't want to upset you, but you need to answer me some questions..."
TO BE CONTINUED
Hey again! I know this is going pretty slow, please don't beat me! I'm really doing what I can though it's neither good nor useful. Hope you enjoy this a bit, though!
This is for Brain, for a great present (Haddock rules!), for the theory that male actors really have a tough time acting in some places. ("Now that's really amazing...very well done..."), for discvovering that there are some many good people on earth and for Leered which is an amazing story, no matter what you think because you stories are always great!! Basta! (Waaaaatschen, yeah!!)
This is for Anna, for The Bus Pics (ain't we all a bit...you know?), for being a great friend all the time and for being a bit addicted to this stuff.
This is for Reggie for being a great writer and a lovely kid and for the nice previews I get from you! (Love them!)
And, of course, this is also for the rest of you who encouraged me so much with reviews and mails and who were and still are so patient with me, my English and my ideas.
All disclaimers apply. I don't own the song "I'm with you", it was sung and published by Avril Lavigne on her album "Let Go" in 2002.
I'm standing on a bridge
I'm waiting in the dark
I thought that you'd be here by now
There's nothing but rain
No footsteps on the ground
I'm listening but there's no sound
Isn't anyone trying to find me
Won't somebody come to take me home
It's a damn cold night
Trying to figure out this life
Won't you take me by the hand
Take me somewhere new
I don't know who you are but I
I'm with you
I'm looking for a place
I'm searching for a face
Is anybody here I know
Cause nothing's going right
And everything's a mess
And no one likes to be alone...
---------------------------------------------
Mark had been putting up with his old coffee machine that didn't seem to have any intention to pour out some of the liquid it was actually meant to produce. The major fight had been going on since Steve had left. That was Mark Sloan. He always needed something to do, especially when he was waiting for something of high importance for him. Right now he had to admitt that he we was nervous and addingly rather impatient. Keeping his mind off things he couldn't change anyway was a good way to cope with them.
He didn't look up immediately when he heard a door being closed. He was only relieved that it wasn't slammed. Slammed doors were always a bad sign.
Jesse shut the door as quietly as he could. He didn't know why he was scared of making any noise entering the house, he simply felt that it wasn't his right to disturb this seeming peace. It wasn't even his right to be here and that was what bothered him most of all. Mark had been there for him, always, no matter what and he had shouted at him, blamed him for being able to understand...hell, what had he been thinking?
As he had told Steve earlier Jesse hadn't been thinking anything at all and as he sadly had to face, that had happened to him quite often lately. It was really time to wake up.
"Hey", he said unsurely and remained next to the dining room table from where he could see Mark standing a the kitchen counter. The older doctor into the otherone's eyes, calm and waiting as always. Mark knew exactly what he was waiting for. So Steve had have luck or maybe even more than that.
Jesse was chewing on his lip. He didn't know where he should start. There were so many things he simply wanted to apologize for and on the other hand he believed it wasn't as easy as that. He was responsible for what he had said and only an apology, even a honest one, wouldn't be able to take those things back. "I'm sorry...awfully sorry...", the words had slipped out of his mouth before he could think of some more weighty ones. "I...I...didn't mean to shout at you or to blame you or whatever...I just wanted to get rid of my anger somehow...oh God, I could kick myself...", by the time he said that Jesse hit his fist onto the table and cursed slightly as his knuckles stroke the hard wood. Then he pulled himself together and went on, "Listen, I'm sorry for the mess I caused, I'm sorry because I behaved the way I did towards you, Amanda and Steve and probably everyone else I met in the past days...including that stupid Brandon Dawn...I know that you were only trying to help me, I have known it from the moment you threw me out of the trauma room...I just...", Jesse noticed horrorfiedly, that his voice faided slowly and was impending to be drowned by suddenly upcoming sobs.
Also Mark had noticed that and as much as he hated it to see his friend crying, he was relieved that Jesse finally seemed to trust him again. Nevertheless he most likely wanted to start crying himself as he watched how the young doctor sank onto a chair and burried his face in his hands. Mark sighed and walked over to his friend who sat on that wooden chair and cowered and cried quietly.
When he was approaching Jesse, Mark heard muffled voice from behind the fingers which were already dropping of tears. "You know, I just thought I could cope with that alone..." Jesse removed his fingers from his eyes to face the man he admired so much, the man who had taught him so much, in medical way and otherwise. The way he looked at the older doctor was even enough to shock an experienced man like Mark Sloan beyond believe. He couldn't remember that he had ever seen Jesse like this. With red framed eyes, water covered face and words coming out of his mouth that really hurt Mark more than anything else than Jesse had said before. What Jesse had said before had been spoken in rage, in a state that wasn't to be understood rationally, but right now was talking in the pure awareness of what was happening to him. "...but I failed, Mark..."
It was something like a confession. A simple confession, contenting everything that Jesse regretted so much.
Mark shook his head and put one hand on his friend's quivering shoulder. "No, Jess, you didn't! It's as easy as that...you haven't failed!"
It were exactly those words that were making their rounds in Jesse's hands some hours later when he walked through the corridors of the CGH, heading for the ICU. Still he wasn't too sure about Mark's answer. The feeling in his stomach that was trying to convince him that he should turn around had grown stronger all time he was going.
As he had left the the lounge, where he had refused Mark's offer to join him, as he had entered and exited the elevator, as he had greeted some passing by nurses friendly and as he had hidded behind a corner to be not discovered by Brandon Dawn, who the last person he wanted to have a little chat with now, all his way the fear he felt had turned his stomach around and practically taken him the air to breath.
He sorta knew what would be awaiting him. It was not the first victim of a car accident that he would get to see, but it was most certainly he was going to see that caused him to shiver so badly that he clenched the finger hard in the pockets of his scrubs to pretend a calm distance that was usually expected from a good doctor like him.
'Good doctor' was term that had often appeared recently, between Mark's words and Steve's, the thoughts of things connected to a good doctor, which he had ever heard from his time at Medical School until the "ER" eppis he had watched half-asleep on the couch in the doctor's lounge, continued stalking his mind. 'Good doctors keep distance', 'Good doctors stay cool in every situation, 'Good doctors realize when they can't handle a situation emotinally and ask someone else to take over...' Last mentioned had turned out to be his absolute favorite. As far as Jesse could remember that one was from one of his professors at Med School, a small man with eyes like a snake who only turned out to be a human being once a student had filled some 45 % Whiskey into his coffee mug.
Jesse chuckled sarcastically and then called himself to order. Oh great, he was going nuts.
By the time he said 'Hi' to the nurse in charge of the ICU and was himself greeted with a friendly 'Hi, Doctor Travis!', he secretly wondered if he was really a doctor right now that he was walking quietly along the corridor of this dead-silent area. For the first time in years he realized that smell of formaldehyde, antibiotics, a sterile small of hospital that you hated first it touched your nose and never would notice again once you were used to it. To Jesse it felt as though he had lost his 'doctor' by the moment he opened the door to the room which had windows to the corridor, but those were covered by closed Venetain blinds. He was a visitor, a layman who was scared of this simply because he couldn't understand it.
Closing the door behind him, Jesse took a deep breath and made a step forward. He stared at the bed where there was lying Susan. Tubes and wires connected her body to the machines that were beeping next to her and giving her the support she needed to be alive right now. She had lost weight and color and her closed eye lids were shimmering in a weird sick blue.
Jesse felt his heart pounding against his ribs. She looked so helpless, not that cute helplessness that guys normally about girls, but that awful helplessness, one of the kind that made you feel helpless yourself. For a moment he only wanted to throw up, puk that sorrow just out of his body like some wrong food his body was defending against. But the only thing he did was drawing a deep breath and writh himself out of his frozen posture in which he had remained close to the door as though he was about to run away.
He wouldn't run away. Not this time. This time he was stuck in the situation and had to deal with it, he couldn't just grab his jacket and leave her like he had done it about one year ago. He didn't feel guilty for what he had done then. But he felt that he owed her something now. Even if it was only this. Even if it was only being here. She needed him and, as he had to admitt to himself, he needed her, too, somehow.
When Jesse sat down at the edge of the bed, he only could remember the good times they had shared. What they had been through together. Maybe Susan could also remember. As he took her hand, he noticed how cold it was, how lifeless, how pale compared to his. He felt so stupid. How had it ever occured to him that for the two of them all this was play of dignity, revenge, of hurting each other?
He remained like this for ages, holding her hand, simply thinking of so many things, trying to sort the chaos in his head, the memories, the present and still some of the 'good doctors, bad doctors' terms. And he recalled one of the advices Mark had given him earlier. "Talk to her. You never know what people hear..."
By the time Jesse had found his tongue, his eyes were getting wet again. What if it was all for nothing? If she had already...died? He hadn't wanted to think of that possibilty, but he wasn't able to prevent it. 'A patient is clinically dead when there are no noticible...', the definition for death he had learned at Med school stroke his mind.
He squeezed her hand slightly and felt tears whelming up in him again. "I'm here, Susan. I'm sorry it took me so long, but I'm here..."
For him this wasn't and had never been a matter of medical terms. It was a matter of faith you put in people. And right now he didn't have much of a choice than to hope and to fear. He knew better feelings than that. Steve had been right, he hated to lose control. Depending on an unknown destiny was like....wasn't like anything, was only cruel. It was even worse than depending on persons...though at the moment those two things very deeply connected in Jesse's opinion. Yet, the only thing he had to rely on...
When Dr Travis left the ICU several hours later, he was wrapped up in some kind of a trance. He had practically been thrown out by the head nurse and from what she had said, that he should get something to eat and a few hours of sleep, he could guess very well what kind of impression he might gave right now. He had spent the past few hours in all stages of moods, from being happy about a memory that popped up in his mind while talking, along merciless disillusionment when getting no respond, down to deepest despair as often as he realized that he maybe would never be able to get a respond again. All that had been so unreal, so far away from earth on the one hand, so damn realistic and close to the unfair life on the other hand.
The first nurse that gave him a chart to sign was like fingers that were snapped in front of his eyes. Doctor-mode was kicking in again and along with it the strong need of coffee. Before entering the lounge Mark had caught up his friend. "Hey, how are you?", he inquired.
Jesse swayed his head. "Have felt better...", he mumbled and tried to smile at the older man.
The other one nodded understandingly. "You should get some rest. You look exhausted..."
"I'd already be happy with a cup of coffee..."
"There we have something in common, my friend..."
They both smiled slyly and headed for the lounge where they were quite surprised to find Steve and Johnny, sitting at a table where they had spread police files all over. The two of them turned around when the two doctors entered.
Steve looked up at Jesse, who poured some coffee in two mugs, and waited until his friend had sat down. "Jess...", he said calmly, "I really don't want to upset you, but you need to answer me some questions..."
TO BE CONTINUED
Hey again! I know this is going pretty slow, please don't beat me! I'm really doing what I can though it's neither good nor useful. Hope you enjoy this a bit, though!