A/N: Thanks to Spookymulder1 for editing chapter 1 slightly (nothing big) and betaing this chapter.
Note: This is the chapter where the fic earns its PG-13 rating for language. Just a warning.
Enjoy! Feedback, as always, is appreciated but never demanded.
Get out while you can
Baby I'm pouring quick sand
And sinking is all I have planned
-Aimee Mann, "Humpty Dumpty"
Jesse loved to get of bed when it was still dark, so it was impossible to tell whether it was still night or the dawn of a new day. It was refreshing to take in the brisk, cold morning air while running past pitch-black neighborhoods, arriving back home when the first streaks of the sun began to appear on top of the black sky. He loved the feeling of being alone in his own world, where he could just run forever, freeing his mind from his problems and troubles he experienced during the day.
He didn't use his runs as times to actually think about anything, like most people thought he did. Jesse ran because he felt like running, and because it felt good to clear his head and just keep moving forward.
It was a Wednesday morning, the air more chilly than usual, stinging Jesse's throat when he swallowed. Out of breath, he entered the apartment he had been sharing with Amelia for three weeks now. She moved in with him a week after he begun seeing Liz.
Dr. Goodman insisted that they were making 'progress', but Jesse wasn't so sure. They always did the same thing each week - Jesse would sink back into the cushions of the sofa and answer her questions with a 'yes' or 'no' if it was possible (and if it wasn't, the 'yes's or 'no's would be substituted with a brief, unelaborated statement instead). And then she would look at him, her eyebrows raised well above the rims of her tortoise-shell glasses, and scribble something on her notepad.
But now, as he entered the shower, he let his mind turn away from Elizabeth and move onto other matters. He had only been taken once after the incident, about two days after he began seeing Dr. Goodman. After that, he had been left alone, to live in fear, always waiting for the next time when he would be taken.
He turned off the water and dried himself with his towel, pulling on some clean clothes and entering the kitchen. To his surprise, a few rays of sunlight were already beginning to peek through the window in the kitchen, where Amelia was sitting at the table and reading the paper. I must've run longer than I thought, he thought to himself, walking over to the sink to pour himself a glass of water.
"Morning." Amelia said, putting down the paper and taking a bite out of her bagel.
"Morning." He responded. "You're up early."
"It's ten to seven, and I have to be in early today."
Jesse filled his glass with water from the sink and turned off the faucet, taking a sip from the tall glass. "Sounds like fun." He said with a smirk.
Amelia sighed and shoved the rest of the bagel into her mouth, washing it down with a gulp of coffee. "Don't forget, you have an appointment with Dr. Goodman today." She said when she finished chewing before picking up her purse and slinging it over her shoulder. Jesse sighed and set the glass on the plastic countertop next to the sink. Amelia turned away from the door and went back over to Jesse, giving him a brief hug.
"It's all for the best," She said. "She's really helping you."
"Yeah, I guess so." Jesse replied reluctantly. Amelia grinned and gave him a kiss on the cheek before walking back out of the door, calling over her shoulder, "See you tonight!"
The door closed with a click that seemed to echo in the empty apartment, and suddenly Jesse felt very much alone.
Elizabeth Goodman tapped the steering wheel of her car impatiently, glancing at her watch every other minute. Being stuck in traffic jams had become a daily routine for her, but at least it gave her time to clear her head and think.
Right now she was thinking about her latest enigma, Jesse Keys. He had remained stubborn and uncooperative, only confirming her beliefs that he had something he didn't want her to know. Something said by a colleague back in college came to mind, about how in the world of safecracking, there were "easy cracks and difficult cracks, but no impossible cracks, and the same applies to people."
Jesse was undoubtedly both her most difficult safe to crack as well as the most intriguing. He was a welcome change from her usual batch of patients - lonely housewives who were experiencing depression, rebellious teenagers sent to her by parents constantly hoping it was 'just a phase', and most recently, war vets who were so shaken by the war that they rarely slept or ate, always coming to her in a constant state of paranoia and fear.
But Jesse was different - affected but not shaken by the war, using disguises and reclusiveness as his means of defense against the world. And the fact that he was hiding something from her (something big, she could tell) made her want to pry even deeper past the surface and discover just what it was.
Gradually the traffic began to dissolve as she made the turn onto the street where her office resided, preparing to console some overweight, chain-smoking stay-at-home mother who had already had at least one box of donuts before coming to her.
Liz pulled into the parking lot and switched off the ignition with a sigh.
Jesse already had three cups of coffee and was starting on his fourth. He had grown restless sometime after noon, which was when he had turned off the television and began to pace in circles around the apartment, draining cups of coffee like a thirsty athlete would drain water after a particularly exhausting game.
He was bored. He didn't feel like watching TV, didn't feel like listening to music, didn't feel like reading. His mind couldn't stay on one subject for too long or he would grow impatient.
The phone rang with clarity so great that it seemed to vibrate in Jesse's ears, shattering the silence in the apartment. His arm nearly knocked over the phone when he tried to pick up the receiver, but he managed to push it back onto the table where it rested and place the receiver next to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Jesse?" Amelia said, frantic.
"Yeah?" He replied.
"Thank God - I left my wallet on the coffee table." Jesse poked his head through the doorway leading from the kitchen to the living room and could clearly see the worn leather wallet resting on the table. "Could you bring it over here please? I would come back to get it myself, but I'm kind of busy - " She broke off her sentence and muttered some words to someone else, something that sounded like hang on, I'll be there in a second!
"Yeah, I'll be there." He said, relieved that he actually had something to do now. The caffeine was beginning to wear off, and he was starting to feel a little lightheaded from deprivation of water.
"Thank you so much," came Amelia's voice. "I'm kind of busy - new patient - but I'll be at the desk."
"OK."
"Love you - bye." The line went dead with a little click. Jesse placed the receiver back in the cradle before pocketing Amelia's wallet. He quickly drained a glass of water to keep him from dehydrating, then he headed out the door.
The bus ride to the hospital was quicker than Jesse had imagined it was going to be, although he guessed most people were working on Wednesday afternoons. He got off the bus in front of the hospital, remembering vaguely the last time he was here, when he had stumbled up these very same steps, drugs running through his veins very much like he suspected the caffeine was now.
The front of the hospital was bustling, a new patient being wheeled in. He entered and found Amelia standing behind the reception desk, chewing on the end of her pen nervously. Jesse approached her and handed over the wallet, which she quickly placed in her purse.
"Thank you so much,"
she said, sighing. "This
guy's not going to make it."
"What
happened?" Jesse asked,
eyeing the group of doctors that had surrounded the bed, a sea of white coats
leaning over something hidden from Jesse in the room across the hall.
"Drug overdose," Amelia said grimly.
The machine the patient was hooked up to began to beep more furiously, the beeps slowly merging into one long and continuous, piercing noise. The cluster of doctors eventually began to dissipate, leaving one doctor behind to turn off the machine making the horrible noise and cover the dead man's face with a sheet. He then followed the rest of the doctors, abandoning the quiet room that was bustling with noise not two minutes ago.
Jesse began to walk over to the man, despite Amelia's protests. He was overcome by curiosity, and he gingerly lifted up one of the corners of the sheet and peeled it back.
Chad's face was eerily white under the glow of the fluorescent lights, his eyes closed as if he were peacefully resting. Jesse's stomach did a triple somersault as he thought that could have been me. Another hour and I would have been the one lying on the table, with Chad staring down at me.
Fate just loves to screw with you, Jesse.
Amelia approached Jesse, his stomach still queasy. He half-expected Chad to open his eyes and sit up with a grin saying, "Hey, man, you still owe me." But he lay still on the table, his chest unmoving and his face unnervingly pale.
Amelia laid her hand cautiously on Jesse's shoulder, speaking softly in his ear. "Did you know him?'
Jesse turned his face from the sight of the man on the table and gazed at Amelia, who was looking at Chad. "Sort of."
She gave his shoulder and encouraging squeeze. "I'm sorry." She said, her voice but a half-whisper.
Jesse reached out for the sheet and pulled it back over Chad's face, covering it from his sight. He stared at it a moment longer, then turned and walked out the door of the hospital, his fists curled into balls and jammed in his hoodie's pockets. Amelia watched him go, his back turned to her as he walked quickly down the stairs. She glanced once more at the body underneath the sheet and then returned to the desk.
All Jesse could see in his head was Chad in his apartment, telling him to get clean.
Get clean, Jesse. Go somewhere, find a nice girl, settle down.
It felt like years since he had seen him last, even though it had only been a matter of weeks. But for some reason Jesse was shaken by his death. Maybe it was the image he kept having of Chad with his arm around Amelia, staring down at Jesse, covered with a white sheet, saying I told you to get clean. You fucked it up big time, man.
He was halfway down Fourth Street before his brain registered where his feet were taking him. Just down the road was the complex where Elizabeth's office resided. He halted for a minute, wondering why he had instinctively started towards her office, the one place he dreaded going to the most. Glancing at his watch, he started moving again. It was quarter to four, and for some reason, he felt as though she was the only one who would really listen to him. All he needed to do right now was talk.
Elizabeth let her mind drift for a moment before she reprimanded herself and jerked herself back to reality. Can't let your mind wander, she thought, before turning her attention back to the large woman on the couch describing to her the various food-related escapades she had ventured on during the previous week. To be quite honest, though, she had lost interest somewhere around Friday's donut binge, and she was secretly counting down the minutes until Jesse arrived. 14 minutes and counting. . .
The time crawled by until eventually the egg timer on Elizabeth's desk made a small ding! Mrs. McClearny was quickly ushered out of her office, followed into the living room by Dr. Goodman herself.
"See you next week!" She called, her voice filled with mock cheerfulness. Turning around, she was surprised to see Jesse Keys sitting in a chair in the corner of the waiting room, unconsciously flipping through an outdated, torn copy of Newsweek. Upon seeing her, he rose. Liz beckoned him into her office and followed him in there.
"You seem eager today." Said Elizabeth as she got settled behind her desk. Jesse sunk into the couch, suddenly wondering why he had come. He blamed it on the caffeine, its effects having worn off at least fifteen minutes ago, for instinctively pointing him in this direction. Sure, he needed someone to talk to, but Liz? In Jesse's opinion, having a PhD didn't make you any more certified to talk to people than having a whisk made you a five-star chef. He simply shrugged.
"So… how've you been doing?" The notepad flipped open to a new page, her pen poised over it expectantly.
"Fine, I guess." He let his eyes wander around the office, feeling inexplicably trapped in the study. Feeling the frustration he always felt when unwillingly paying a visit to Dr. Goodman, he bit his lip in an attempt to quell the urge to somehow express his anger.
"You look a little pale."
"I'm fine."
Tough cracks and easy cracks, but no impossible cracks. "Are you sure?"
"Yes." His voice took on a hostile tone.
"Have you been under any stress late - "
His anger and frustration grew too great and rose up out of him before he could stop it. "I said I'm fine. Isn't that good enough for you?"
"Jesse - "
"All right. I'll say what you want me to say." He stood up abruptly, standing in front of her gesturing wildly. "No, I'm not all right. I just stood in a hospital and watched my friend die right I front of my fucking eyes. I'm being forced to go see a psychiatrist, so I can talk to a complete stranger about my life."
Dr. Goodman sat silently, watching Jesse as he continued on his tangent, now pacing in front of the couch, his eyes filled with rage and his voice laced with venom.
"I'm just tired of all this shit. I'm tired of wasting my life just waiting to be taken. Man, I'm tired of being taken." He barked a short, humorless laugh. "And don't say you know how I feel, because you fucking don't. No one does."
"If you would just sit down, Jesse, we - "
"We could what? Sit here and ask pointless questions for an hour? So I can give you my money and you can go spend it on something nice for yourself?"
Elizabeth sat still, speechless.
"Or maybe I could just talk to you about my life and everything I'm going through, and you can pretend you know me. But what the hell is that going to change?"
He stood there for a moment, silent, before falling back onto the couch and burying his head in his hands, exhausted.
Behind the polished wooden desk Elizabeth still sat, quietly staring at him. The pen and notepad lay off to one side as she patiently waited for the storm to calm, creating a long and awkward silence.
"Jesse?" She asked quietly.
Jesse raised his head up from his hands and grinned at her. "Guess this classifies me as crazy once and for all, huh?"
"I don't think you're crazy." Elizabeth said with such force that Jesse was inclined to believe her. "What was it you said… about being 'taken'?"
He opened his mouth and then shut it just as quickly. Remember what happened last time you told someone? They locked you up and killed your old man. "It's nothing."
"Jesse," began Elizabeth, placing the pen and notepad in the top drawer of her desk and folding her arms on the top, "anything that's said here stays here. You know that, right?"
He nodded, cautious. She's a psychiatrist. She's not going to go to the government. "It's just… I haven't told anyone for a while." He swallowed. "And it may take a while."
"I don't have any other appointments this afternoon."
Jesse Keys ran his hand through his hair and leaned forward, clasping his hands and resting his chin on them, placing his elbows on his slightly spread apart legs. Gradually he sat up and looked Elizabeth in the eye. And then he began to speak.
"My father, Russell Keys, was in World War II…"
