Chapter 3

Leaving Community General later that day having, barely, on a couple of occasions, managed to avoid Mark, Jesse drove home. Usually the view from his compact deck soothed him after a long, stressful day but today there was to be no mental respite. All Jesse could think about was the view that Steve would eventually not be able to see. Absentmindedly he wandered into the kitchen, made himself a strong coffee and sat down on his sofa.

An hour later the coffee, now stone cold, sat congealing in the mug where Jesse had forgotten it. The light outside was fading and Jesse sat in the gathering gloom, a look of complete abstraction on his face. It was only two, sharp and very loud raps on his front door that brought him back to the present. He stood up and carefully made his way across the darkened room, pausing only to switch the light on. He opened the door and immediately wished he hadn't for standing there was Steve and, to Jesse's practised eye, he looked angrier than he had ever seen him before.

Pushing past Jesse, Steve strode into the centre of the room and span on his heels to face his friend, placing his hands on his hips. It was, Jesse silently acknowledged, a magnificent sight but one that he would far rather been directed at someone else.

"Hi, Steve," he said in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner.

"What the hell are you playing at?" Steve thundered.

"What do you mean?" Jesse tried his most innocent tone which, unfortunately for him, only served to enrage Steve further.

"You are thinking of leaving LA? You are going to work with your mom? What the hell is going on, Jess?" Steve's voice grew louder with each succeeding sentence.

Looking into his friend's face, Jesse sighed and walked past Steve to stand in front of the window, staring out onto the sunset which was spreading gently across the horizon.

"It's my fault," he whispered.

"What is?" Steve asked, knowing full well what the answer was going to be.

 However, even he was shocked by the anguish he saw in Jesse's eyes when he finally turned to face him.

"I spoke to Jonathan Harper the other day," Jesse responded, by way of explanation, "and he told me…. told me that……"

"I'm going blind," Steve finished the sentence for him.

"Steve!" Jesse was surprised at the baldness of Steve's statement.

Ignoring his friend's surprise, Steve went straight to the heart of the matter, "So how do you figure that what's happening to me is your fault?"

"You aren't serious?" Jesse was incredulous.

"Jess," Steve's tone was terse, "my sense of humour is taking a vacation at the moment, of course I am serious."

"Jonathan told me that the accident you had when you were helping me make my bookcase was what started all this. If I hadn't coerced you into helping me that day, if I hadn't had that accident and pulled you down with me………….."Jesse's voice tailed off again.

"Jess, if I hadn't been with you I could have been run over by a stolen car or a bus. Yes, I know it's cliché, but it is true. I can't pretend that I am not totally freaked out by what is happening to me, but the furthest thing from my mind is blaming you for it. I don't know how things are going to pan out in the future, but I do know that I will need as many friends as I can get. I can't afford to lose my best one through his mistaken sense of guilt."

"I'm your best friend?"  Steve couldn't help but smile at the surprise in Jesse's voice.

Reaching out and dragging him under his arm, Steve ruffled Jesse's hair until it stuck up in all directions. Pulling himself free, Jesse smiled his first smile of the day and said, "Coffee?"

Ten minutes later the two men were sat on bar stools in Jesse's kitchen drinking their coffee.

"Steve?" Jesse spoke into the companionable silence.

"Yes?"

"Did you really mean it?"

"Mean what?" Steve asked.

"That you don't blame me," knowing that Steve would never lie to him about something as important as this, Jesse was relieved.

"Of course I don't, Jess." Steve replied.

"Why aren't you angry?" Jesse replied, "If it were me I'd want to scream."

"Jess, I am too busy being terrified to feel angry." Steve began, "I can't honestly say that I won't get angry at some point but, at the moment, no I'm more scared than anything else."

"So what happens now?" Jesse asked.

"Well, I went to see Captain Newman today and, until I have been seen by the force doctor, I have been taken off of front line duty."

"What then?" Jesse queried, knowing full well what that decision would have meant to Steve.

"Who knows, Jess?" Steve replied, "Jonathan tells me that I need to have bi-monthly appointments with him to monitor the situation but I suspect that the best thing for me to do is to carry on as normal until something changes."

"Do you think you will be able to remain on the force?"

"I wish I knew the answer to that, Jess," Steve responded, "I guess that will be something to discuss when I see the doctor. Until then…  I am deskbound."

For a couple of minutes, Jesse was silent then he said, "Steve, can I ask you ....you know, about your sight?"

"Ask away," Steve said.

"What ….er….what is…" Jesse waved his hands in the general direction of Steve.

"How bad is it?" Steve supplied, "At the moment straight lines are looking wavy and colours are a little off."

"That's it?" Jesses was surprised, in his mind he had Steve two days away from a white stick and a guide dog.

"Seems weird, huh?" Steve said, "Two insignificant symptoms which mean that I will eventually be legally blind."

"Will you have any sight at all?" Jesse wasn't sure if he was asking the right questions, but he needed to know. So far, he had been far too busy feeling guilty to do what he would normally do, which was research things for himself.

Steve frowned a little in surprise at Jesse's question, he was normally a mine of information on all subjects, but he continued, "Apparently my peripheral vision will be there, but the central part of my sight will be fuzzy."

"Is there any treatment?" Jesse was on a roll now and the questions were coming thick and fast.

"Yeah, a photo-something laser thing," Steve said.

"Very lucid, Steve," Jesse quipped.

"Yeah, I know," Steve replied.

"Will it cure it?"

"No, Jess, there is no cure but, apparently, that could slow the progression down."

"You don't sound terribly keen," Jesse picked up on the doubt in Steve's voice.

"You're right, Jess, I'm not," Steve began, "I need to get a lot more information from Jonathan about it but if all it can do is slow things down, then I am not so sure."

"But anything that would help you has to be a good thing," Jess protested.

"I'm not saying that you're wrong, Jesse, and it may be that it would be right for some people. All I am saying is that if, once I get all the information, I decide not to go for it then I need for everyone to accept that."

"I think you might get an argument from Mark, Steve," Jesse commented wryly.

"Perhaps," Steve answered, "but in the end it's my sight and I'm the one that will be making the decisions."

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Amanda had not been able to fully concentrate on her work all afternoon; her thoughts had been on Mark and Steve. Also, if she was being honest, she was angry that, yet again she seemed to be out of the loop. She knew that there was something big going on and she planned to get to the bottom of it so, as soon as her shift was over she drove straight to the beach house. Getting out of her car, Amanda trod purposefully up the red brick steps. Ringing the doorbell, she stood impatiently tapping her foot on the ground.

Mark beamed as he saw Amanda on the other side of the front door; he was always pleased to see her. His smile faded a little, however, as he perceived the look on her face. It didn't take a genius to figure out that Dr. Amanda Bentley was seriously displeased.

"Amanda," Mark exclaimed, "what a lovely surprise!"

"May I come in, Mark?" she asked, with every intention of doing so whatever Mark may say.

"Of course, Sweetheart," Mark stood back, allowing her to pass, "would you like a coffee?"

"What I would like," retorted Amanda, reaching the lounge and turning to face Mark, "is to know what is going on? Jesse saying that he is going to leave Community General, you leaving me standing in the middle of your office. Something is happening, Mark, and I want to know what it is."

Mark had known, when he had left Amanda in his office, that she was going to want to know why and he had asked Steve's permission to talk to her.

"Sit down, Amanda," he said.

Amanda sat, a little knot of fear tying itself in the pit of her stomach.

"It's about Steve," he began, sitting down next to her.

The little knot suddenly became very large as Amanda said, "Is he ill?"

"There is something," Mark began.

"Is he dying?" was Amanda's next question.

"Oh, Honey, no," Mark was quick to allay that particular fear, placing a comforting, and protecting, arm around her shoulders and pulling her to him.

"Oh, thank God." Amanda breathed, "What is it?"

"Do you remember about eighteen months ago he had an accident when he and Jesse were making that bookcase?"

"Yes," Amanda answered, not quite seeing where this was going.

"Well, apparently, the blow to the head did more damage than we originally thought. It has caused some damage to Steve's retina, more specifically damage to the macula."

Amanda, whilst an exceptionally bright woman, was not an expert on the eye.

"So what can be done?" she wanted to know.

"Unfortunately there isn't anything," Mark replied.

For a moment Amanda was silent, she did not initially comprehend the full significance of Mark's statement. Then, comprehension dawned and tears came, unbidden, to her eyes.

"Do you mean that Steve is going to lose his sight?" the tears which had threatened before, now spilled over running, unheeded down Amanda's face.

"I'm afraid so, Honey." Mark replied, "Although he will retain some peripheral vision, he will be classed as legally blind."

"How's Steve taking it?" Amanda, like everyone else, knew just how Steve felt about being ill.

"Remarkably well, actually," surprise showed itself in Mark's tone, "he is scared, I am too, but by and large he seems to be okay."

"Is he being the brave cop'?" Amanda spoke from experience.

"I don't think so," Mark replied, "I suspect it's more that it hasn't really hit home yet."

"Mmmm," murmured Amanda, "So we all need to keep an eye out for when he is liable to blow."

"Very true," smiled Mark.

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Driving home later that evening, Steve reflected on his conversation with Jesse. He hoped that he had managed to convince him that all this, here Steve mentally waved a hand at his eyes, wasn't Jesse's fault and that he wanted him to stay. He knew that things were going to be hard over the next few months, or however long it took, and he also knew that without friends it would be a damn sight harder. Steve was, by and large, a very self sufficient individual but it occurred to him that it might not be a bad idea to start looking into what sort of help, specifically practical help, was out there for him to tap into.

As he turned into his drive, Steve smiled to himself. He knew that everyone was expecting him to feel very frustrated and to blow his stack at someone but the funny thing was that he didn't feel like that at all. Yeah, he was scared when he thought about what the future held, a future that was going be diametrically opposed to the one he'd imagined for himself, but there was an odd calmness inside of him and it was that which for the moment was keeping him going.