Hey again! Thanks for all your reviews, nice to see that most of you like
the story! Well, then I'm gonna go on with the next part, we're in the
present again. Huge thanks to Brain, for a sweet little card and please let
Bonn stay standing, we still need it! I definitly spent too much time with
you as this chapter shows. Never mind, vom-Stuhl-kippen vor!!
All disclaimers apply.
Dr Jesse Travis moaned slightly. It was the third Aspirin he was taking today, the third in less than five hours to be exact. Aware of the fact that it certainly didn't make the best impression if doctors swallowed one pill after another during their shifts, he had gone into the restroom and used masses of water, however, only a little of it to bring the headache- killer down his gullet and more of it to squirt it into his pale, worn-out looking face, hoping that it would wash away some of the dark circles that framed his eyes. He couldn't remember that he had ever felt so hung-over ever since he had graduated from highschool. Deciding that there was definitly still too much blood in his coffee system, he finally headed out of the bathroom for the lounge, only to find two equally lamentable sights in there.
Lieutenant Steve Sloan and intern Dr Alex Martin had the best reasons for looking the way they did. After all the two of them had just made a horrible experience. "Is it me or has that coffee machine never been this loud until today?", groaned the intern, sinking back in one of the chairs while he put two filled mugs onto the table on front of them.
"Just hand some of the stuff over here!", ordered Steve and by that the second the mug was already pushed over to him. He sipped once, twice, then closed his eyes and rubbed one hand over his face.
"Hey!", sounded Jesse's weak voice from the entrance of the lounge. The young doctor made his way to the coffee machine, poured some for himself and settled next to the other men on a chair, sighingly. "How are you?", he inquired. Watching his friends, his doctor-mode had kicked in faster than he could prevent it.
Shortly distracted from his own head, which surely was about as huge as a balloon, Steve shot his friend a sharp glare. "Pardon me?!"
A short gleeful smile hushed over Jesse's face, then he grimaced as he was reminded that smiling hurt. "Uh...forget it. Just kinda job illness...you know". He waved away his remark.
"I see...", replied Steve. "But is there a funnier job than being able to run around with syringes in your hand, tormenting people with stitching them up, not to mention my beloved I'm-a-doctor-speeches..."
"I really hate to destroy your illusions,", Jesse cut in now, "but, you see, that oath I swore makes it kinda boring most of the time." He paused, considering the last point his friend had had which was really good one as he suddenly came to realize cynically. "Though I've gotta admitt that those speeches are really something to live for...."
Both men smiled sarcastically. Those wicked discussions were often a result of them being cranky and not really in the mood of talking anyway. But just sitting around without fooling around was a term that seemed to be unknown to both of them.
"Now what a surprise!", a sudden voice startled the three guys, especially Jesse who recognised it immediatly. Brandon Dawn, hospital administrator and widely known pain in the ass, slowly walked over to them, scrutinisizing each of them with a wryly amused grin. "Dr Travis, you're my man!", he declared with threat in his tone that even Jesse understood clearly.
"Oh oh...", he mumbled sensing trouble behind those words.
"Oh oh doesn't about cover it!", replied Dawn, wearing a cool smile on his lips. "Unless you have a good excuse for skipping the staff meeting, which was by the way three hours ago, again?"
Jesse remained silent, knowing that it was the best he could do. He hadn't really skipped the staff-meeting, though. Simply forgotten it, but he somehow had the feeling that this excuse wouldn't help him out of the misery.
So Dawn waited desparetly for an answer. After a while of gaining silence, he took a deep angry breath and grinned bittersweetly. "Had thought something like that. So then let me give you the information that you're supposed to be at the reception desk in about sixty minutes to welcome your new intern."
"My new what?!"
"Intern...", Dawn repeated calmly and as the doctor's eyes widened in disbelief, he explained furtherly. "You know, I don't get along very well with you and in my opinion you're still far too young to handle a responsibility like leading the ER, nevertheless I've gotta admitt that you are one of the best doctors this hospital has and it would be a shame if I wouldn't let our students participate in your knowledge. So I made the suggestion that you will take care of Dr. Smith' intern. Dr Smith had a surfing accident last week, so..."
"Yeah, spare me the details!", Jesse cut in, being a passionate surfer himself and neither he wanted to be confronted with the nasty injuries that a rock at the wrong place in the water could cause nor he thought he could bear the administrator's voice only a few seconds longer. Otherwise, Jesse was sure, his head would have exploded. "I'm gonna be there in one hour, I promise!", Right now, he had promised everything, only to keep Brandon Dawn from opening his mouth once again.
"I hope so!", closed Dawn the discussion and left the room.
Quietness. Wow. Three men sighed in relief. By now they couldn't even be described as men, more likely they were three walking lacks of sleep with heads that each felt as they'd explode in no time.
Though the sight was truly whelming up tears in her, Dr Amanda Bentley felt that it were tears of plain amusement which she could also witness in Mark Sloan's mischievous grin as they entered the lounge. "See them suffering!", she stated merely, watching the wincing reactions.
The groaning and muffled swears the two of them earned made them smile even more. "That must have been a great night at Bob's!", Mark assumed, surpressing a giggle if only half-heartedly.
"Yeah!", Steve replied sarcastically. "It was terrific...almost no guests which meant loads of beer for us..."
"I think we exaggerated a bit...", mumbled Alex weakly.
"Don't say...", Amanda added, smiling brightly at the three of them.
They bowed their heads and blushed. It was really emberassing. Of course, they hadn't went into the bar with the intention to empty their beer stock, but things had been awfully slow yesterday and after nine o'clock the last guest had left. It had been too early to close up already, but there was nothing else to do anymore, so Alex, Steve and Jesse had just sat together and talked, thereby drinking definitly more than it was good for them as they had realized far too late.
Mark grinned. "Well, actually I was planning to give you a lecture about the damage alcohol can cause, but since you're already suffering from your heads and stomachs..."
"And backs...", Jesse added, noticing too late that he had manoeverd himself into a position which would bring the emberassment to its limits.
Mark and Amanda frowned immediatly, while Steve and Alex, in despite of their headaches broke into resounding laughter.
"Backs?", inquired Mark, slightly concerned, but more than that curious.
Steve giggled. "Jess pulled a great stunt yesterday...", he explained, seeing Jesse burrying his face in his hands.
"Noo!", the young doctor pleaded.
"He's right, that was really cool!", Alex now gave his opinion which was completely unwanted...by Jesse at least.
"I hate you, too, guys!", Jesse mumbled and grimaced while his gaze dropped.
Steve, however, feeling very delighted by his friend's pure emberrassment, had the two excited listeners on his site. "You remember that one Bonanza episode? The one in which Landon, totally drunk, tips over with his chair?"
"You're asking me that?! I must have watched that scene about a million times...your mother used to love it!", Mark laughed out.
Steve pointed at Jesse. "Meet new little Joe!", he announced, grinning broadly.
"Ouch!", Mark commented, feeling sorry for Jesse who not only seemed to suffer from lower back pain but also almost matched the color of a genetically alterned tomato. Nevertheless also the older doctor could hardly fight his sense of good old slapstick humor mixing with his pitying expression.
Hearing them giggling, Jesse made one last attempt to save at least some of his pride. "Thanks for reminding me why I never liked that show..."
"Take it easy", said Alex, between two gigglings, "I've never seen better slapstick before!"
And again the lounge echoed of laughter. Jesse had had enough for one morning. Pain, dizziness and gleeful friends were simply too much for today. So he gulped the remains of his getting cold coffee and got up slowly. "Well, Adam and Hoss, as much as I'd love to stay with you and celebrate the let's-tease-poor-hung-over-doctors-in-charge-day, I think I've gotta go and and see how the wild wild west is doing without me...see ya later, guys!"
By that he was off. The four remaining people watched him leaving and pressed their lips together to make themselves stop laughing finally.
"You think he's mad with us?", Amanda asked, simling wryly though.
Steve shook his head "Naaa...", and messaged his right temple with his index finger. "If he hasn't become angry with us for the last three years, it'd be a weird moment to start with it now..."
The other's agreed with silent nods.
"Talking about it, Adam, have you been looking for anything in particular here? Apart from Aspirin and coffee...", Mark now adressed his own flesh and blood, who, as he presumed, deserved some nicely-meant teasing as well.
Steve was again torn out of his suffering state of a stabbing headache that replayed in a very grim expression on his usually only stern looking face. "Huh? Oh, haha, very funny, indeed, dad!", was the first thing to slip out of his mouth, which was, as he noticed moodly, not really explaining the intention that had lead him here in the first place.
Sensing her chance on some gentle teasing, Amanda used the silence that filled the room while Mark was too busy with smiling at his son in mock waiting calmness.
"Well, the lieutenant was actually requesting an autopsy report, b..."
"That's right, Amanda", he commented with a grateful glance at her, "At least one loyal person left in that hospital..."
"...but I threw him out of the lab because I was worried that he might would have scared the bodies to life with his appereance...", she finished her sentence, her whole face smirking.
His eyes narrowed. "That's so funny, you know!", not even having finished the sentence, he had got up from his chair and moved towards the door. "Well, I'm gonna sit onto my horse and take a ride through the prairie...", he stated, halfly out of the room.
"Hey, lonesome cowboy....Adam!", Mark called after him and watched his son turning around to throw him one of his I'm-gonna-laugh-later-then-looks. When he had earned exactly that, he waved with the file in his hand. "You might wann take your autopsy report with you to the sheriff's office!"
"Oh!", Steve scratched his head and bowed it a little a the same time. Quickly he weaseled back to his father, took the file and made his way across the room again, joined by the faint humming of the Bonanza theme that Mark and Amanda weren't able to surpress in all their gleefullness.
Adam...sorry, Steve fled as fast as he could.
Michael Potts casted his watch a nervous glance, the millionth in about ten minutes. Together with three other new interns he had been waiting in the entrance hall of the Community General for at least twenty minutes, yet, none of their new supervisors had requested the honour of turning up.
Of course, Michael and the other students had been there far too early in order to prevent being critizised for their inpunctuality, so every minute they had to wait was in fact one minute adding to the about two hours they had been waiting before.
The minutes passed like years and with every second gone Potts stomach became more and more queasy. He drew another heavy breath and watched his friends who seemed to feel equally uneasy, then took in the surroundings again, the long and steril corridors, the medical journals on the tables next to chairs for the waiting people, the nurses that passed them by and who eyed them in stady curious attention. Michael knew that they were checking them over, making a kind of a stocklist in their minds. He wasn't bothered by the thought of that, though. He had already done about the same and come to a satisfying result. He knew that he had already caught their attention. He had played football at high school, therefore he was still rather fit and even through a lot of rough games he had managed to keep his even face, his bright smile, his small straight nose and his brown eyes in an untouched shape.
"Hey, I think they're coming!", suddenly screamed an extremely nervous guy, called Sam Davis, and pointed towards a group of about five or six men, dressed in scrubs who came walking along the corridor. Indeed, they were coming. Chatting and smiling, they headed towards the small group of fidget students, a certain causility in their body language as they came to stand in front of them and started introducing themselves.
Michael suddenly found himself standing next to a considerably smaller man with blond hair and blue eyes who reached out his hand, grinning friendly. "Hi, I'm Dr Travis...", he said, his neck strechting slightly to meet the student face to face. Potts shook the offered hand and scrutinisized the young man who more likely looked like a med student himself, more than he, Michael, did probably.
"Michael Potts...hi!"
Jesse forced himself to make a relaxed and good mooded impression, but currently found that was a hard thing to do if your head was killing you and you hadn't swallowed any pain killers for over an hour. The young student in front of him, who was one hell of inches taller than him, seemed not more, neither less nervous than Jesse had been on his first day here. Puzzeled looks that were casted to him again and again at any ever so small event, slightly sweaty pale skin and a hand running through the hair every second that they weren't needed anywhere else, were some of the clear symptoms for healthy jumpiness of which some students had far too much, others far too less. Both didn't appear to be Michael's problem.
It was not much later when Jesse had shown Michael around in the ER, advised him how to fill in a chart that others were still able to read it. "Just don't scribble too much, otherwise they're never gonna leave you alone with the charts...", Jesse informed the students, not seeing the nurse who had built up next to him.
"Urm, Dr Travis...I'm looking for a Mrs Moover, you admitted earlier...but she doesn't seem to exist..", she asked shyly.
Jesse frowned and took the chart, she was holding in her hands. "Oh...it's Mrs Hoover, that's an H..."
She raised her eyebrow at him. "Good to know..." Then she walked away, smiling.
Jesse scrachted his head and blushed slightly, while Potts couldn't help but grinning. "I see...", he remarked dryly. If there had been any kind of awe in his eyes before, it had totally vanished by now. The atmosphere of slow going hospital routine was suddenly interrupted by a strechter, being wheeled in fast by two paramedics. Jesse forgot the awkward moment instantly and hurried to the side of the unconscious boy who lay on it. "What have we got?", he asked, inwardly shuddering as he saw the little kid loosing a lot of blood through a huge fracture ond the head.
"Male, about 3 years old, probably broken scull... they're bringing the parents in, too, they are in shock!", informed him one of the paramedics.
Jesse nodded. "Okay, Trauma one. X-ray of the head and spine, just to make sure. Make and EEG and I want a speacialist down here as soon as possible, Dr Germann should be on call...Potts, you take care of the parents together with Nancy!"
"But I wanna hel...", Michael started arguing, but he never came to finish the sentence as Jesse cut in fastly.
"I don't have time arguing with you, got what I said?"
"Yeah...", Michael nodded and saw the resident turning around and rushing into the trauma room.
"How did that happen, anyway?", inquired Jesse, carefully probing the boy's forehead.
"A thrown candlestick hit him...", answered the EMT, not being able to hide the disgust at such a thing in his tone.
"A what?", Jesse almost screamed in disbelieve against the loud noise, not being entirely sure if he had heard wrongly. But he forgot his question by the time he had asked it because of he was distracted by a faint alarming beeping of one of the monitors.
"You know, is it just me or are you here at any time I pass this part of the hospital?", Dr Amanda Bentley inquired as she found Steve leaning against the reception desk. However, she declared that question as rethorical as she send another one directly after it. "How's your head doing?"
"Stopped hurting once I figured out that I just mustn't watch anything fast- moving...", he informed her, his face only barely lightened compared to some hours earlier when she'd last seen him.
"Uhu...which means you mustn't watch anything that's faster than..."
"Snails", he answered, smiling wryly.
"Lovely", she remarked and then smacked him friendly. "You still haven't told me why you're here."
"Probably because you never gave me a chance...", he replied, kiddingly, but went on before she had had any time to complain. "I'm not here voluntarily, though. After the autopsy report you gave me earlier and the investigations we did pretty much left no doubt that it was suicide we're dealing with, Chief Masters thought that it was nice idea that I attend a refresher course in arresting and reading rights...", Steve mumbled bitterly, still mourning for his lost afternoon off duty.
That was the time, the door of the elevator slid open and Jesse exited, his blue scrubs practically soaked by sweat. Wiping some more water from his forehead, he approached his friends. "Hey!", he greeted them, sighing in exhaust.
"How is the boy?", Steve required, earning a confused glance from his friends.
"Coma...how do you know..."
Steve pointed over to the waiting room, where a man and woman, both in the middle thirties had sunk into two chairs. Jesse recognised them, he had seen them earlier, shortly before he had brought Jimmy, the little boy, into the OR. The couple were Mr and Mrs Harris, the boy's parents. Sitting there, the two didn't talk to each other, not even looked at each other. It was only now that Jesse and Amanda noticed the two officers that stood in the waiting room, hardly making the attempt of being decent in the way they had built up next to the two broken persons.
The doctors casted the lieutenant a questioning glance.
Steve drew a deep breath. "Steve, I'm gonna arrest that father as soon as you have told him how his son is..appearently it was him who threw a candlestick after the kid. Well, actually he threw it after his wife in a fight who happened to have her child in her arms."
Jesse and Amanda gasped for air. "Oh my God..."
Jesse was the first to regain his speech, still he felt slightly nausiatic as he said. "Okay then, let's go..."
He went over to the waiting room, considering what to say as he did so often seconds before he would really have to present the facts to thsoe worried people. Steve followed him, but kept distance because he wanted Jesse to handle the talking.
As Mrs Harris saw the man in scrubs walking towards her, she jumped up, causing the two officers to rush to her side, but Steve simply shook his head and so they let go of her instantly.
"Doktor...how is Jimmy! Please, is he okay?", she demanded to know and also Mr Harris, who had remained in his chair, unmoving, lifted his head.
Jesse bit on his lip. "Your son...", he started slowly, knowing the impact of the following words, "is in a coma. His injuries were very bad..."
"But it's only a matter of time until he wakes up, isn't it?", she asked, directly.
Jesse almost couldn't bring himself to say the words. It seemed as though even the walls were listening to what he had to say. "I'm afraid, no. See, the candlestick broke his scull, we were hardly able to stabelize him, right now, to be honest, it looks very very bad..." Dr Travis had never been a person to lie at people. The extremest thing he was able to was to conceal things and that was, what he did right now. He didn't lose a word about the fact that there was practically no chance left for little Jimmy to wake up again. The machines were keeping him alive, but his brain wasn't able to work anymore. But Jesse sensed that the poor woman had enough to deal with right now.
Indeed, she pressed her hands on her face and started crying bitterly, having to sit down because she was shaking so much. Between her sobs, they could hear her muttering. "What have you done? What the by God have you done?" She was clearly adressing her husband, who now lifted his head.
Mr Harris got up. Slowly, very slowly, he left his chair, standing upright now. He stared at the people who surrounded him, faced each of them once, the two officers and Steve, who had moved away a bit, his wife and Jesse at last. "Nothing...", he mumbled absent-mindedly. "I haven't done anything."
He focussed on the young doctor, his expression suddenly becoming furious. Faster than anyone could see it happening, he had a grib on Jesse's shirt and shook him hard. "You're lying!", he screamed. "I didn't do anything to my son. I love my son!"
Jesse was too shocked to even be able to defend himself. He simply could feel how the man's fingers dig into the textil of his shirts, tightening it so much that he was barely able to breath. Still choking for air the grib loosened as fast as he had felt it on his collarbone, instead a violent push now sent him flying threw the whole room, he was only stopped by the wall that his back hit finally. Groaning at the sharp pain that shot through his spine that made him unable to get back to his feet, Jesse instinctively cowered to protect himself from any more brutality giving vent on him.
However, there wasn't more to come. Mr Harris had been caught by the guards who, after their first seconds of surprise, seemed to have found out what they were actually there for. For the two of them it was not a hard thing to do.
"You're lying!", it still sounded through the corridors, every angonized scream followed by a "Tom, please, stop that!" Mrs Harris was now crying so heavily that she wasn't even able to speak anymore.
Also Steve had been totally caught by surprise at the sudden violent out- break, that he could only react when his friend had already ended up lying on the floor. The only thing he could do was to obstruct Harris from approaching Jesse once more and force him into the guards arms, who handcuffed Harris and took him in custody.
In the meanwhile also Amanda, who had witnessed the ordeal in plain shock, had reached the waiting room and crouched down next to Jesse, whose first two attempts to sit up himself had failed since he was still seeing stars.
"Jess, are you alright? Look at me...", she gently helped him sit up and put her palms on his cheeks to make him gaze at her. "Can you see me? Are you in pain?", she inquired worriedly, while he, though still feeling dizzy and his heart racing, already tried to writh out of her firm grib. Finally she let at least go of his face, but still didn't allow him to get up .
"I'm okay...really...ouch...", he flinched slightly as he moved, struggeling to free from her and stand up.
"You're stating the obvious, pal!", Steve joked half-heartedly as he bent down next to Jesse, softly patting his friend's shoulder.
Jesse chuckled wryly, but grew earnest again as he watched the still sobbing Mrs Harris being lead away by a nurse and the handcuffed Mr Harris being dragged away by the guards into the opposite direction.
Steve meant to see some kind of fear in his buddy's eyes as his gaze followed his attacker. "Don't worry, Jess. That man won't see the light of day too soon again!"
Jesse nodded remorsefully. "I still feel sorry for him!"
All disclaimers apply.
Dr Jesse Travis moaned slightly. It was the third Aspirin he was taking today, the third in less than five hours to be exact. Aware of the fact that it certainly didn't make the best impression if doctors swallowed one pill after another during their shifts, he had gone into the restroom and used masses of water, however, only a little of it to bring the headache- killer down his gullet and more of it to squirt it into his pale, worn-out looking face, hoping that it would wash away some of the dark circles that framed his eyes. He couldn't remember that he had ever felt so hung-over ever since he had graduated from highschool. Deciding that there was definitly still too much blood in his coffee system, he finally headed out of the bathroom for the lounge, only to find two equally lamentable sights in there.
Lieutenant Steve Sloan and intern Dr Alex Martin had the best reasons for looking the way they did. After all the two of them had just made a horrible experience. "Is it me or has that coffee machine never been this loud until today?", groaned the intern, sinking back in one of the chairs while he put two filled mugs onto the table on front of them.
"Just hand some of the stuff over here!", ordered Steve and by that the second the mug was already pushed over to him. He sipped once, twice, then closed his eyes and rubbed one hand over his face.
"Hey!", sounded Jesse's weak voice from the entrance of the lounge. The young doctor made his way to the coffee machine, poured some for himself and settled next to the other men on a chair, sighingly. "How are you?", he inquired. Watching his friends, his doctor-mode had kicked in faster than he could prevent it.
Shortly distracted from his own head, which surely was about as huge as a balloon, Steve shot his friend a sharp glare. "Pardon me?!"
A short gleeful smile hushed over Jesse's face, then he grimaced as he was reminded that smiling hurt. "Uh...forget it. Just kinda job illness...you know". He waved away his remark.
"I see...", replied Steve. "But is there a funnier job than being able to run around with syringes in your hand, tormenting people with stitching them up, not to mention my beloved I'm-a-doctor-speeches..."
"I really hate to destroy your illusions,", Jesse cut in now, "but, you see, that oath I swore makes it kinda boring most of the time." He paused, considering the last point his friend had had which was really good one as he suddenly came to realize cynically. "Though I've gotta admitt that those speeches are really something to live for...."
Both men smiled sarcastically. Those wicked discussions were often a result of them being cranky and not really in the mood of talking anyway. But just sitting around without fooling around was a term that seemed to be unknown to both of them.
"Now what a surprise!", a sudden voice startled the three guys, especially Jesse who recognised it immediatly. Brandon Dawn, hospital administrator and widely known pain in the ass, slowly walked over to them, scrutinisizing each of them with a wryly amused grin. "Dr Travis, you're my man!", he declared with threat in his tone that even Jesse understood clearly.
"Oh oh...", he mumbled sensing trouble behind those words.
"Oh oh doesn't about cover it!", replied Dawn, wearing a cool smile on his lips. "Unless you have a good excuse for skipping the staff meeting, which was by the way three hours ago, again?"
Jesse remained silent, knowing that it was the best he could do. He hadn't really skipped the staff-meeting, though. Simply forgotten it, but he somehow had the feeling that this excuse wouldn't help him out of the misery.
So Dawn waited desparetly for an answer. After a while of gaining silence, he took a deep angry breath and grinned bittersweetly. "Had thought something like that. So then let me give you the information that you're supposed to be at the reception desk in about sixty minutes to welcome your new intern."
"My new what?!"
"Intern...", Dawn repeated calmly and as the doctor's eyes widened in disbelief, he explained furtherly. "You know, I don't get along very well with you and in my opinion you're still far too young to handle a responsibility like leading the ER, nevertheless I've gotta admitt that you are one of the best doctors this hospital has and it would be a shame if I wouldn't let our students participate in your knowledge. So I made the suggestion that you will take care of Dr. Smith' intern. Dr Smith had a surfing accident last week, so..."
"Yeah, spare me the details!", Jesse cut in, being a passionate surfer himself and neither he wanted to be confronted with the nasty injuries that a rock at the wrong place in the water could cause nor he thought he could bear the administrator's voice only a few seconds longer. Otherwise, Jesse was sure, his head would have exploded. "I'm gonna be there in one hour, I promise!", Right now, he had promised everything, only to keep Brandon Dawn from opening his mouth once again.
"I hope so!", closed Dawn the discussion and left the room.
Quietness. Wow. Three men sighed in relief. By now they couldn't even be described as men, more likely they were three walking lacks of sleep with heads that each felt as they'd explode in no time.
Though the sight was truly whelming up tears in her, Dr Amanda Bentley felt that it were tears of plain amusement which she could also witness in Mark Sloan's mischievous grin as they entered the lounge. "See them suffering!", she stated merely, watching the wincing reactions.
The groaning and muffled swears the two of them earned made them smile even more. "That must have been a great night at Bob's!", Mark assumed, surpressing a giggle if only half-heartedly.
"Yeah!", Steve replied sarcastically. "It was terrific...almost no guests which meant loads of beer for us..."
"I think we exaggerated a bit...", mumbled Alex weakly.
"Don't say...", Amanda added, smiling brightly at the three of them.
They bowed their heads and blushed. It was really emberassing. Of course, they hadn't went into the bar with the intention to empty their beer stock, but things had been awfully slow yesterday and after nine o'clock the last guest had left. It had been too early to close up already, but there was nothing else to do anymore, so Alex, Steve and Jesse had just sat together and talked, thereby drinking definitly more than it was good for them as they had realized far too late.
Mark grinned. "Well, actually I was planning to give you a lecture about the damage alcohol can cause, but since you're already suffering from your heads and stomachs..."
"And backs...", Jesse added, noticing too late that he had manoeverd himself into a position which would bring the emberassment to its limits.
Mark and Amanda frowned immediatly, while Steve and Alex, in despite of their headaches broke into resounding laughter.
"Backs?", inquired Mark, slightly concerned, but more than that curious.
Steve giggled. "Jess pulled a great stunt yesterday...", he explained, seeing Jesse burrying his face in his hands.
"Noo!", the young doctor pleaded.
"He's right, that was really cool!", Alex now gave his opinion which was completely unwanted...by Jesse at least.
"I hate you, too, guys!", Jesse mumbled and grimaced while his gaze dropped.
Steve, however, feeling very delighted by his friend's pure emberrassment, had the two excited listeners on his site. "You remember that one Bonanza episode? The one in which Landon, totally drunk, tips over with his chair?"
"You're asking me that?! I must have watched that scene about a million times...your mother used to love it!", Mark laughed out.
Steve pointed at Jesse. "Meet new little Joe!", he announced, grinning broadly.
"Ouch!", Mark commented, feeling sorry for Jesse who not only seemed to suffer from lower back pain but also almost matched the color of a genetically alterned tomato. Nevertheless also the older doctor could hardly fight his sense of good old slapstick humor mixing with his pitying expression.
Hearing them giggling, Jesse made one last attempt to save at least some of his pride. "Thanks for reminding me why I never liked that show..."
"Take it easy", said Alex, between two gigglings, "I've never seen better slapstick before!"
And again the lounge echoed of laughter. Jesse had had enough for one morning. Pain, dizziness and gleeful friends were simply too much for today. So he gulped the remains of his getting cold coffee and got up slowly. "Well, Adam and Hoss, as much as I'd love to stay with you and celebrate the let's-tease-poor-hung-over-doctors-in-charge-day, I think I've gotta go and and see how the wild wild west is doing without me...see ya later, guys!"
By that he was off. The four remaining people watched him leaving and pressed their lips together to make themselves stop laughing finally.
"You think he's mad with us?", Amanda asked, simling wryly though.
Steve shook his head "Naaa...", and messaged his right temple with his index finger. "If he hasn't become angry with us for the last three years, it'd be a weird moment to start with it now..."
The other's agreed with silent nods.
"Talking about it, Adam, have you been looking for anything in particular here? Apart from Aspirin and coffee...", Mark now adressed his own flesh and blood, who, as he presumed, deserved some nicely-meant teasing as well.
Steve was again torn out of his suffering state of a stabbing headache that replayed in a very grim expression on his usually only stern looking face. "Huh? Oh, haha, very funny, indeed, dad!", was the first thing to slip out of his mouth, which was, as he noticed moodly, not really explaining the intention that had lead him here in the first place.
Sensing her chance on some gentle teasing, Amanda used the silence that filled the room while Mark was too busy with smiling at his son in mock waiting calmness.
"Well, the lieutenant was actually requesting an autopsy report, b..."
"That's right, Amanda", he commented with a grateful glance at her, "At least one loyal person left in that hospital..."
"...but I threw him out of the lab because I was worried that he might would have scared the bodies to life with his appereance...", she finished her sentence, her whole face smirking.
His eyes narrowed. "That's so funny, you know!", not even having finished the sentence, he had got up from his chair and moved towards the door. "Well, I'm gonna sit onto my horse and take a ride through the prairie...", he stated, halfly out of the room.
"Hey, lonesome cowboy....Adam!", Mark called after him and watched his son turning around to throw him one of his I'm-gonna-laugh-later-then-looks. When he had earned exactly that, he waved with the file in his hand. "You might wann take your autopsy report with you to the sheriff's office!"
"Oh!", Steve scratched his head and bowed it a little a the same time. Quickly he weaseled back to his father, took the file and made his way across the room again, joined by the faint humming of the Bonanza theme that Mark and Amanda weren't able to surpress in all their gleefullness.
Adam...sorry, Steve fled as fast as he could.
Michael Potts casted his watch a nervous glance, the millionth in about ten minutes. Together with three other new interns he had been waiting in the entrance hall of the Community General for at least twenty minutes, yet, none of their new supervisors had requested the honour of turning up.
Of course, Michael and the other students had been there far too early in order to prevent being critizised for their inpunctuality, so every minute they had to wait was in fact one minute adding to the about two hours they had been waiting before.
The minutes passed like years and with every second gone Potts stomach became more and more queasy. He drew another heavy breath and watched his friends who seemed to feel equally uneasy, then took in the surroundings again, the long and steril corridors, the medical journals on the tables next to chairs for the waiting people, the nurses that passed them by and who eyed them in stady curious attention. Michael knew that they were checking them over, making a kind of a stocklist in their minds. He wasn't bothered by the thought of that, though. He had already done about the same and come to a satisfying result. He knew that he had already caught their attention. He had played football at high school, therefore he was still rather fit and even through a lot of rough games he had managed to keep his even face, his bright smile, his small straight nose and his brown eyes in an untouched shape.
"Hey, I think they're coming!", suddenly screamed an extremely nervous guy, called Sam Davis, and pointed towards a group of about five or six men, dressed in scrubs who came walking along the corridor. Indeed, they were coming. Chatting and smiling, they headed towards the small group of fidget students, a certain causility in their body language as they came to stand in front of them and started introducing themselves.
Michael suddenly found himself standing next to a considerably smaller man with blond hair and blue eyes who reached out his hand, grinning friendly. "Hi, I'm Dr Travis...", he said, his neck strechting slightly to meet the student face to face. Potts shook the offered hand and scrutinisized the young man who more likely looked like a med student himself, more than he, Michael, did probably.
"Michael Potts...hi!"
Jesse forced himself to make a relaxed and good mooded impression, but currently found that was a hard thing to do if your head was killing you and you hadn't swallowed any pain killers for over an hour. The young student in front of him, who was one hell of inches taller than him, seemed not more, neither less nervous than Jesse had been on his first day here. Puzzeled looks that were casted to him again and again at any ever so small event, slightly sweaty pale skin and a hand running through the hair every second that they weren't needed anywhere else, were some of the clear symptoms for healthy jumpiness of which some students had far too much, others far too less. Both didn't appear to be Michael's problem.
It was not much later when Jesse had shown Michael around in the ER, advised him how to fill in a chart that others were still able to read it. "Just don't scribble too much, otherwise they're never gonna leave you alone with the charts...", Jesse informed the students, not seeing the nurse who had built up next to him.
"Urm, Dr Travis...I'm looking for a Mrs Moover, you admitted earlier...but she doesn't seem to exist..", she asked shyly.
Jesse frowned and took the chart, she was holding in her hands. "Oh...it's Mrs Hoover, that's an H..."
She raised her eyebrow at him. "Good to know..." Then she walked away, smiling.
Jesse scrachted his head and blushed slightly, while Potts couldn't help but grinning. "I see...", he remarked dryly. If there had been any kind of awe in his eyes before, it had totally vanished by now. The atmosphere of slow going hospital routine was suddenly interrupted by a strechter, being wheeled in fast by two paramedics. Jesse forgot the awkward moment instantly and hurried to the side of the unconscious boy who lay on it. "What have we got?", he asked, inwardly shuddering as he saw the little kid loosing a lot of blood through a huge fracture ond the head.
"Male, about 3 years old, probably broken scull... they're bringing the parents in, too, they are in shock!", informed him one of the paramedics.
Jesse nodded. "Okay, Trauma one. X-ray of the head and spine, just to make sure. Make and EEG and I want a speacialist down here as soon as possible, Dr Germann should be on call...Potts, you take care of the parents together with Nancy!"
"But I wanna hel...", Michael started arguing, but he never came to finish the sentence as Jesse cut in fastly.
"I don't have time arguing with you, got what I said?"
"Yeah...", Michael nodded and saw the resident turning around and rushing into the trauma room.
"How did that happen, anyway?", inquired Jesse, carefully probing the boy's forehead.
"A thrown candlestick hit him...", answered the EMT, not being able to hide the disgust at such a thing in his tone.
"A what?", Jesse almost screamed in disbelieve against the loud noise, not being entirely sure if he had heard wrongly. But he forgot his question by the time he had asked it because of he was distracted by a faint alarming beeping of one of the monitors.
"You know, is it just me or are you here at any time I pass this part of the hospital?", Dr Amanda Bentley inquired as she found Steve leaning against the reception desk. However, she declared that question as rethorical as she send another one directly after it. "How's your head doing?"
"Stopped hurting once I figured out that I just mustn't watch anything fast- moving...", he informed her, his face only barely lightened compared to some hours earlier when she'd last seen him.
"Uhu...which means you mustn't watch anything that's faster than..."
"Snails", he answered, smiling wryly.
"Lovely", she remarked and then smacked him friendly. "You still haven't told me why you're here."
"Probably because you never gave me a chance...", he replied, kiddingly, but went on before she had had any time to complain. "I'm not here voluntarily, though. After the autopsy report you gave me earlier and the investigations we did pretty much left no doubt that it was suicide we're dealing with, Chief Masters thought that it was nice idea that I attend a refresher course in arresting and reading rights...", Steve mumbled bitterly, still mourning for his lost afternoon off duty.
That was the time, the door of the elevator slid open and Jesse exited, his blue scrubs practically soaked by sweat. Wiping some more water from his forehead, he approached his friends. "Hey!", he greeted them, sighing in exhaust.
"How is the boy?", Steve required, earning a confused glance from his friends.
"Coma...how do you know..."
Steve pointed over to the waiting room, where a man and woman, both in the middle thirties had sunk into two chairs. Jesse recognised them, he had seen them earlier, shortly before he had brought Jimmy, the little boy, into the OR. The couple were Mr and Mrs Harris, the boy's parents. Sitting there, the two didn't talk to each other, not even looked at each other. It was only now that Jesse and Amanda noticed the two officers that stood in the waiting room, hardly making the attempt of being decent in the way they had built up next to the two broken persons.
The doctors casted the lieutenant a questioning glance.
Steve drew a deep breath. "Steve, I'm gonna arrest that father as soon as you have told him how his son is..appearently it was him who threw a candlestick after the kid. Well, actually he threw it after his wife in a fight who happened to have her child in her arms."
Jesse and Amanda gasped for air. "Oh my God..."
Jesse was the first to regain his speech, still he felt slightly nausiatic as he said. "Okay then, let's go..."
He went over to the waiting room, considering what to say as he did so often seconds before he would really have to present the facts to thsoe worried people. Steve followed him, but kept distance because he wanted Jesse to handle the talking.
As Mrs Harris saw the man in scrubs walking towards her, she jumped up, causing the two officers to rush to her side, but Steve simply shook his head and so they let go of her instantly.
"Doktor...how is Jimmy! Please, is he okay?", she demanded to know and also Mr Harris, who had remained in his chair, unmoving, lifted his head.
Jesse bit on his lip. "Your son...", he started slowly, knowing the impact of the following words, "is in a coma. His injuries were very bad..."
"But it's only a matter of time until he wakes up, isn't it?", she asked, directly.
Jesse almost couldn't bring himself to say the words. It seemed as though even the walls were listening to what he had to say. "I'm afraid, no. See, the candlestick broke his scull, we were hardly able to stabelize him, right now, to be honest, it looks very very bad..." Dr Travis had never been a person to lie at people. The extremest thing he was able to was to conceal things and that was, what he did right now. He didn't lose a word about the fact that there was practically no chance left for little Jimmy to wake up again. The machines were keeping him alive, but his brain wasn't able to work anymore. But Jesse sensed that the poor woman had enough to deal with right now.
Indeed, she pressed her hands on her face and started crying bitterly, having to sit down because she was shaking so much. Between her sobs, they could hear her muttering. "What have you done? What the by God have you done?" She was clearly adressing her husband, who now lifted his head.
Mr Harris got up. Slowly, very slowly, he left his chair, standing upright now. He stared at the people who surrounded him, faced each of them once, the two officers and Steve, who had moved away a bit, his wife and Jesse at last. "Nothing...", he mumbled absent-mindedly. "I haven't done anything."
He focussed on the young doctor, his expression suddenly becoming furious. Faster than anyone could see it happening, he had a grib on Jesse's shirt and shook him hard. "You're lying!", he screamed. "I didn't do anything to my son. I love my son!"
Jesse was too shocked to even be able to defend himself. He simply could feel how the man's fingers dig into the textil of his shirts, tightening it so much that he was barely able to breath. Still choking for air the grib loosened as fast as he had felt it on his collarbone, instead a violent push now sent him flying threw the whole room, he was only stopped by the wall that his back hit finally. Groaning at the sharp pain that shot through his spine that made him unable to get back to his feet, Jesse instinctively cowered to protect himself from any more brutality giving vent on him.
However, there wasn't more to come. Mr Harris had been caught by the guards who, after their first seconds of surprise, seemed to have found out what they were actually there for. For the two of them it was not a hard thing to do.
"You're lying!", it still sounded through the corridors, every angonized scream followed by a "Tom, please, stop that!" Mrs Harris was now crying so heavily that she wasn't even able to speak anymore.
Also Steve had been totally caught by surprise at the sudden violent out- break, that he could only react when his friend had already ended up lying on the floor. The only thing he could do was to obstruct Harris from approaching Jesse once more and force him into the guards arms, who handcuffed Harris and took him in custody.
In the meanwhile also Amanda, who had witnessed the ordeal in plain shock, had reached the waiting room and crouched down next to Jesse, whose first two attempts to sit up himself had failed since he was still seeing stars.
"Jess, are you alright? Look at me...", she gently helped him sit up and put her palms on his cheeks to make him gaze at her. "Can you see me? Are you in pain?", she inquired worriedly, while he, though still feeling dizzy and his heart racing, already tried to writh out of her firm grib. Finally she let at least go of his face, but still didn't allow him to get up .
"I'm okay...really...ouch...", he flinched slightly as he moved, struggeling to free from her and stand up.
"You're stating the obvious, pal!", Steve joked half-heartedly as he bent down next to Jesse, softly patting his friend's shoulder.
Jesse chuckled wryly, but grew earnest again as he watched the still sobbing Mrs Harris being lead away by a nurse and the handcuffed Mr Harris being dragged away by the guards into the opposite direction.
Steve meant to see some kind of fear in his buddy's eyes as his gaze followed his attacker. "Don't worry, Jess. That man won't see the light of day too soon again!"
Jesse nodded remorsefully. "I still feel sorry for him!"