Here the chapter you've all been waiting for. Hope it was worth the anticipation. Sorry for the all the wrong spellings 'n' stuff, but I'm glad that you like the story, though. :) Hopefully all you guys who celebrate it have had a nice Thanksgiving! Please R&R.

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Back in their prison Steve sat leaned against the wall and listened to the sounds of darkness that surrounded him. Everything was quiet, but Jesse's ever so shallow breathing was able to fill the air with the subliminal anguish that ran through each single catch of oxygen he took. Steve had noticed some time ago that the pauses between those breaths became longer while his own heart started pounding through his chest in every second he couldn't hear the air striking his friend's teeth and causing a soft whizzing. The older man still rested his one hand on what he knew was the younger man's shoulder, but as he realized, another lump forming in his throat and wandering up his gullet, it could as well have been as stone. His skin cold and his body as good as motionless, the only thing, that seemed to save Jesse from sliding into the apathy of death, was a constant tremor, accompanying his struggles to breathe.

For once in that horrible hour Steve guessed horrorfiedly that his friend had stopped breathing totally as the background sound of a slightly thin whistle suddenly lacked. But switching on the little flash light again, Steve found that his friend had only stopped breathing through his mouth and caught his air through the nose, which looked more painful on the one hand, yet, at least more regular on the other. The lieutenant only used the penlight to glance at his watch and take notice that again five minutes had faded into the relentless nothing of time while there wasn't anything happening. Apart from that, Steve let the room remain in the blackness, partly because he wanted to spare himself the sight of his beaten friend and then because he had the feeling that Jesse's eyes always clouded with the leaden will to give in to his weakness, that was completely dominating his body at least physically, as soon as light stroke his pupills. So Steve covered the glowing with his hands as soon as he'd switched the light on and then directed the rays onto the face of his watch, careful to shield Jesse from the blinding beams by holding his arm so, that it hid the watch and only he himself could still read it.

Jesse continued to swin in a sea of hallucination and total awareness, whereby his dreams always seemed more real than dreams were supposed to be and reality itself was always locked up in a tight cloth of grayness.

In one of his feverish imaginations, the young doctor found himself standing in an endless seeming corridor, framed with doors on both sides of it. The doors were all shut, and no matter how hard Jesse tried to enter any room that might be hidden behind them, he couldn't force them open. Sometimes a door opened as soon as he had stopped trying to open it and a kid exited, quickly crossed the hall and vanished in one of the other rooms. Jesse never really recognized the child, but he had seen immediatly that he –or she, he wasn't even sure if it was boy or a girl- was carrying his watch around.

Feeling how he was slowly becoming a victim of his own impatience, Steve concentrated on a more practical challenge than to sit on the floor and cursing inwardly. Instead of that, he was keeping his promise and called Jesse or cautiously, very cautiously ruttled him as soon as he realized that his friend's expressions were overshadowed by the outward signs of what Steve believed was a nightmare. As an emotion itself, it was hard to put an finger on what it was that lay like a mask over his friend's face. Maybe it was fear. Or guilt. Confusion? All Steve could tell that it was something unsettled that continued to shake up the young man's subconsciousness while Jesse's eyelids fluttered from opening to closing and his blood covered, swollen lips moved as though he was attempting to talk to hallucinations.

Knowing that this was the sight that was expecting him, Steve was reluctant to switch on the lamp again. But during the last period of darkness, Jesse's trembling had become so hard that Steve had problems feeling the calming rising and falling of his best friend's shoulders by only touching them He couldn't help it, he needed to see something to make sure Jesse was okay. 'Well', Steve thought bitterly to himself, '"okay" as in "not dead"'.

What first sounded like the tearing noise of a squealing door in Jesse's dream, slowly transformed into a voice. Jesse moaned. This ritual was wrecking him. Drifting away, hearing someone calling him, knowing that he had to find and fight his way back to the reality, where nothing but pain and cold would hit him. And then opening his eyeslids which felt as though rocks were bound to them, sliding out of the semi-awareness back into the world where he only wanted to scream.

This time Jesse suffocated a whimper of which he had the feeling it would kill him once it had escaped him. He couldn't go on. As much as he wanted to, it was impossible. He had used all the strength he had, emotional as much as physical, starting with Jimmy Harris, that stupid fight with Mark, the involuntary reunion with his past in Minnesota, the humiliation, the self-doubts, the hits, kicks, burns, blows from Mr Harris...they had all grown bigger than him, his will...and his faith. Like the blood that trickled out of his ruptured lip, everything that kept him alive was just a rest while the main part had already gone, leaving nothing but the little voice in Jesse's head and his best friend's hand on his shoulder.

Seeing how the color of Jesse's face more and more paled, Steve's despair grew. In ten minutes the curfew Harris had set for his dad and Tanis was over. He had no idea if that was good or bad and he had the feeling that he wouldn't find out until then. Either he didn't know what would help him not losing Jesse, but he had to do something. He was losing him, he knew that, with each nuance that Jesse's skin came closer to the numb gray of the stones that surrounded them, his friend's firmly clinging will was broken slowly.

Jesse wanted to zoom out those voices, his internal one as much as the one he identified again as Steve's, he just wanted to let go. He wouldn't make it. For God's sake, he was far over being in a critical state. So why was he still here?

"Jess, you need to hang on, okay?", Steve insisted, finally deciding to leave the flashlight on.

"I can't...", Jesse heard himself responding with a hoarse whisper.

"What does that mean, you can't?! Of course, you can, we both know that!", the little voice screamed through his head.

"That's not true, I'm sure you can!...", Steve moisted his lips, but without any success. His mouth remained as dry as a sand pit. "Would be a bad moment to prove me wrong, don't you think?"

"Really, Steve, I...I...", Jesse stuttered, feeling how the layer of water seemed to double over his eyes, blurring his view. "I'm sorry..."

"Wow, you really think that I'd let you off the hook, eh?", the little voice scolded.

"What do you want? Give me a lecture?!", Jesse replied stubbornly.

"Well, maybe. That seems to be the only way to talk some sense into you!"

"What, if I don't want to listen?", Jesse asked.

"You will have to! If you want to give up on yourself, please, but you'll need to get past me for that. I know that you like to ignore me, but I'm stronger than you think!"

"Not strong enough!", Jesse objected. "Not this time. Harris has won. They've all won. I don't care anymore."

"I see...they've all won. The world's against you. No one likes you. That's why Steve is trying everything to keep you alive and Mark convinced Harris that you were innocent and by the way is even putting his own son into the shooting line. I totally agree, no one cares about you."

"That's exactly what I mean...", Jesse attempted to explain. "I only mean trouble for them. They'd be better off without me."

The little voice sighed. "Oh boy,could you finally put that childish behaviour aside?! Do you really think they'd feel better if you were dead? They're doing all this, because they like you. And they believe in you, more than you do actually. Whose opinion does count more for you, Jesse? The opinion of a lunatic guy, who is about to kill you, or your friends' ? Are you so eager to show the people, who love you, that they were mistaken putting faith in you?"

"No...", Jesse mumbled and felt ashamed.

"Then I won't say anything anymore. Give up or go on. It's your choice now."

"No!", Steve gasped as his friend was closing his eyelids. Desperately he reached for the young man's wrist, searching frantically for a pulse which he finally found. But the irregular drumming against Steve's middle and index fingers was no more but the faint idea of what had used to be Jesse's heart beat.

The lump was painfully wandering through his throat. His shoulders tensed as he noticed the salty liquid on his bottom lip. Steve hated himself for crying now, though it was only one tear, maybe two, which even made it down his cheeks before he had himself under rational control again. He wasn't supposed to be crying. He wasn't supposed to give up. Not long ago he had told Jesse that he wouldn't let him down and he had no intention to do so now.

His friend was still alive. And Steve promised himself he would never allow that the last words his best friend had ever spoken to him should be an apologise.

**************

As much as Michael's knees had been cramped while sitting next to Dr Sloan in the police car, he now guessed that they would give way among him as soon as he exited the vehicle. His wobbly legs were the only sign of him being insecure, inwardly Mike felt an odd certainess about what he wanted to do.

Maybe he had made a mistake in other people's eyes, he didn't know and it didn't matter to him anymore what others thought. He didn't regret what he had done, but neither he had wanted to broadcast it around, knowing that he would never get the chance to help other persons then. By healing them or –if there was really no other way left- helping them to die. Suffering until you're dead had no point in his opinion. Suffering was nothing anyone should have to go through and death was nothing you had to make a contract about with God. When he had sworn his oath, Mike hadn't wasted a thought about what it would be like, being confronted with those cases. All he had done was repeating a stipulation and he had realized too late that he wouldn't able to practice it. That wasn't medicine, but he only knew it since he had come to meet Mrs Harris. In the back of his mind, Mike had believed that they'd catch him someday. But not this quickly.

Mark dialled Steve's cellphone number. Secretly he hoped to hear his son's voice answering the call, but Harris had taken the phone outside with himself as he'd left his hostages in their cage of walls. Therefore, Harris was also the one to grab to the receiver, once the phone had ringed next to him on the table.

"Yeah?"

"Mr Harris, this is Dr Sloan..."

A small, yet uncomfortable smile, hushed over the man's face. He almost didn't dare to ask that question, fearing that there was really an answer to it. "Just back in time, doc, I'm impressed. Now, do you have the killer of my son."

"Yes, I have...", Mark replied straightly.

Harris gulped, all his nervosity turning his stomach around. That guy was lying. That was the only explanation. "Don't lie at me, Doc!", he snarled, finding it hard to keep the receiver calm in his trembling hands.

"I don't, Harris. You're holding my son and my best friend hostage, I wouldn't waste my time lying at you!", Mark hissed, taking deep breaths inbetween to overcome the nauseatic feeling which was paralysing his vocal cords.

The stress on "my son" echoed in the other man's ears. That was something you didn't mess with. Not your kids. That was a lesson Harris had learned so far. Again he had this feeling of being wrong. That couldn't happening. If Travis had really said the truth, if he was really innocent....No, boy, they want to fool you, they can't be right, they... "I wanna see him. Just you and him, doc. No one else!", Harris commanded.

Mark threw a look at Michael, who stood there like frozen, yet upright and determined. The older doctor sought for any kind of cruelity in his eyes, any kind of selfishness. He found none. Michael wasn't a bad man. Just too young and stupid. "Okay", Mark told Harris, hearing his blood roaring through his head. "We're coming up."

Harris had put down the receiver and insecurely stared around in the old run-down apartement. In fact, the distinctive pounding of blood through his ears gave him the adrenaline kick to make a decision. They all had to die in here. Maybe it had been a mistake to trust his lawyer, he could have known that once under pressure Barlow wouldn't risk his head for a client, but the revenge was still in the offing. No one would care about him, but all those people he was about to kill –Travis, the Sloans, that other guy- surely had friends and family, who would all get to know the feeling to deal with senseless death. The moment had come when this whole crazy world would have to pay. All those doctors who regarded themselves as healing angels in white, all the police men, "your friends and helpers", all those phonies who pretended to care to make themselves feel better.

The instable door to the small room flung open, out of the nothing, and so surprisingly fast that Steve dropped the penlight accidently. He could hear the slight cracking when the lamp burst on the floor. The rays of light that shone in from outside where different to those of the penlight, which had been bright and warm, appealing to human eyes. Compared to that the normal daylight seemed to hold a blue shade, something that made Jesse's drawn face look even more lifeless than before.

Steve gulped and eyed at his wristwatch, intuitively sensing Harris' presence behind his back, so that he was almost precisely able to say how many feet still seperated them. Just now the digital display had jumped for another minute, the minute completing the hour he had spent in a fear he had hardly ever felt in his entire life.

He didn't want to leave Jesse lying on the floor, scared that the young man's pulse would stop beating once Jesse's wrist was released from Steve's hold. But thinking of the last time, he had been in this defensive position on the floor, the lieutenant came to the conclusion that it might be a smarter move to get to his feet and present himself in his full intimidating height. Which he did.

Though he rather stumbled to his feet than getting up, Steve could overcome the swaying caused by the blackness in front of his eyes. His blood circulation obviously had been completely down, which only came to his mind when he was seeing the stars and the blurring edges in his view. On the other hand, Steve was still a sports man, knowing how to deal with first signs of physical weakness without immediatly showing it.

So he stood as hard as a rock between Harris and Jesse's hollow form, so that their kidnapper was at least –if not visibly, though- taken aback.

Harris was aiming with his gun at them, however, Steve's professionate eyes saw that he obviously had not much experience in using it. But that wasn't making anything better. From his long years knowledge Steve knew that people who had never had lessons in using a gun were the ones to cause the greatest messes with them, usually.

"Get up, we're going on a last walk!", Harris told them.

Steve heart sank. So his dad hadn't made it. All he could do now was show off time. Somehow.

"I'm already standing!", he snapped at Harris.

The man shook his head and strolled towards Jesse, though he was never near enough to sent his boot into whose ribs again. "I mean Travis!", he responded casually, raising his left brow.

Steve could practically feel each single hair in his neck standing upright as the pure thought of this stroke his mind. "You can't be serious! Look at him, does he look like he could get up?", he hissed so full of hatred of which he hadn't known that he'd be able to put it into his tone.

"Well...", Harris started to move forward, dangerously close to Jesse. "How about I will help him getting up?" By that, he reached out his hand, the brutal manner leaving no doubt to Steve that he had "helped up" Jesse like that before.

Instinctively Steve also stepped closer to block Harris way when the barrel of the gun was raised at him again. Nevertheless, the other one didn't touch Jesse. He had a better plan. "Well, if you don't want me to help him, do it yourself!", he required from the lieutenant.

Steve snorted at so much cruelity. "You must be kidding! You can do with me whatever you want, but leave him alone..."

"You don't seem to understand me, Sloan!", the safety catch was released by two slightly quivering hands. "Get him to his damn feet somehow or I'll shoot him and then you right now!"

Steve sighed. He didn't have a choice. He saw the madness sparkling in Harris' eyes, heard the need of revenge sounding in whose voice. He had to take him seriously. Turning to his friend, he wondered how he would get Jesse to his feet without torturing him far beyond the level of pain anyone could stand.

Facing the huddled body on the floor, the apathy in his friend's twisted expressions, Steve had to realize that there was no possibility. His friend looked so fragile, that there seemed to be no part of his body where you could touch without breacking him into pieces like a thin plate. The young man looked so much more dead than alive, Steve wasn't sure if he wouldn't crumble to sand as soon as he only lay one hand on him.

Jesse didn't crumble to sand, but there where times during this ordeal that Steve wished his friend would transform into something light, if possible weightless. Once while he tried to put one of Jesse's injured arms around his shoulders, the young man had slipped out of Steve's grib and the only way to prevent him from hitting the floor was from Steve's position to grasp him around his chest. "Sorry buddy!", he whispered underneath his breath as he felt Jesse's body cramping and the scream that whelmed up inside his friend's lungs, though it was never emitted since Jesse was obviously missing his strength.

Steve had forgotten how they had made it through the door and into the hallway by the time they had got there, leaded by Harris, of course. His memory of the events became sporadic from then, Mark's, however, should be very clear afterwards.

As promised, Michael and he entered the apartement alone, though having argued with Tanis about it had left its traces in the feature of a good dozen armed officers, blocking the stairway one floor down.

The moment they opened the door, they heard a soft cry, the intonation of it unmistakenly and yet oddly different to Jesse's. The scene in which Mark and Michael tripped like two laiman actors on a small stage, was one of the moments so packed with actions and reactions that they got the image of a chain of domino stones hitting the floor in a fast rythmic manner.

Following Harris out of their dark prison into their undecided fate, Steve had handled supporting his friend, somehow, with a little help from Jesse's instincts, which had probably been alerted by the the adrenaline that the constanst deadening ache was sending through whose body.

But the final step into the strangely sun-flooded room was the step going too far in any possible way for Jesse to bear. A small, tortured cry escaped him, and though it was no comparison to the thundering pain he fought against, it still continued to flicker through the air, long after the actual sound had passed away. Then Jesse broke down, collapsing onto his knees and, since his main hold was his arm around Steve's neck, thereby dragging Steve down as well.

If he hadn't had Steve as some kind of a break, the pure slump to the floor would have probably been deadly for Jesse. Being on his knees, he fell to the side where Steve's arm caught him just in time again.

Harris whirled around at the unexpected noise behind him, too fast as he should notice soon. He lost balance on his heel and stumbled. Regaining his uprightness quickly, he clenched his fingers and pulled the trigger. A shot rang out and Steve, reacting intuitively pulled Jesse into his arms, trying to protect him without putting his heavily injured chest under more strain. Then the lieutenant squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the pain he had became very accostumed to over the years doing his job.

Mark and Mike simply stared at the sight in front them which seemed too weirdly disgusting to be true, yet too damn real to be an imagination. While Mike's focus lay on Harris who scrutinized the gun is hands with a mixture of real fear and mock shame, Mark's mind was intruded by the most terrible picture he could think of, the most horrible image any father could think of.

Both of his sons, Steve and Jesse, were on the floor, the one kneeling crouchedly and altruisticly protecting the other one who lay snuggled, yet, discomforted by an obvious anguish, in the older ones arms. While the older boy pressed his eyes closed as though he was expecting anything but good to happen to him, the younger one's eyes were closed lightly, however, not peaceful, just resting in lethargy. A cape of clot blood appeared to cover them, sauced them into a dark-red, dazing color.

"Don't do that!", Michael was the first one to regain his speech. "Shoot me, if you want revenge for Jimmy."

That free confession stunned Harris as much as it did everybody else. Mike looked at the scene in a calm, reasonable way, seemingly fearing nothing.

Harris only slowly collected together what was still left of his sensible mind. "You...you really wanna die to protect Travis?", he asked, yet, having the unpleasant feeling of knowing the answer.

"He's innocent", Mike replied simply. "If you want to shoot me, shoot me. I'm the one you're looking for. I ended your son's life with an overdose of morphine. I don't regret it. I only regret that this is happening."

Harris chin dropped as he tried to read the young man's eyes. As much as he wanted to not believe him, he did. The indefinite feeling that all this had been for nothing, seemed to be acknowledged. "You....you killed him...", he repeated stupidly. "You don't regret it..."

Still calm, Mike shook his head, his eyes fixed on Harris, staring him into the ground. "If you want to shoot the man who ended your son's life, you'll have to shoot me. If you want the killer... that's you."

The earth had come to a stand-still. No one moved. Mark and Steve both didn't dare to. Steve had in the meantime opened his eyes again and noticed the bullett sticking in the ground...about one inch next to his thigh. Where it had missed a beat before, Steve's heart was now racing, taking two beats in one while he exchanged piercing looks with his father.

Harris looked down at the the gun in his hand, the same hand he had thrown the candlestick with. He had always been hot-tempered and Maggie knew how to drive him crazy with the smallest things. She hadn't been holding Jimmy the last time Harris had looked at her. But while he had grabbed after the candlestick out-ragedly, Jimmy had obviously come running to his mother. Probably he had known that they were fighting again.

"Don't make it worse, Mr Harris!", Mike reached out his hand. "Give me the gun. Or shoot me, if you want to. But those people shouldn't even be here...it's not their fault." Now there was regret in Michael's eyes. A hint of how sorry he was.

Harris was speechless. Overwhelmed. And in thoughts. He didn't even realize it, but the first wet drop on his gun-holding hand got him aware of that he was crying. For the first time in the past days, the sorrow became bigger than his rage. Slowly, very slowly, he reached the gun, almost pushed it away from his own body and on the other side a careful Mike grasped the barrel with his long fingers.

Though no sound was audible, the walls seemed to resound of relief. Seconds later Steve was on his feet and at Harris side, while Mark had taken his son's position, carefully examining his friend while he supressed the strong urge to vomit. In the bright daylight, Jesse's injuries almost had similarities with a cruel pattern. The gashed face, the cut arms, the blood-soaked shirt, all those details seemed to complete the work of a higher, mean plan. The plan you needed to break someone.

The young man winced and moaned through a blood-filled mouth, as Mark carefully put one hand onto his chest to get an idea of his breathing, while he tried to sooth Jesse. Mark had meant to hear something like "not hurt" in his friend's muttered breath, and even if it had been only imaginary, he talked furtherly in a gentle manner. "It's okay, Jess, no one's gonna hurt you. It's all over. We will help you now, you'll be fine. No one wants to hurt you. Just hang on now, okay?"

The first EMT was just setting his first foot over the door entrance, when Mark had suddenly lost Jesse's pulse.