Persecutory Complex

Jesse stepped cautiously into the rundown house. Someone had boarded up the windows years ago, and with good reason: The place looked about as safe as Sampoong Department Store, only less attractive. The grass grew to calf length, although the weight of the individual stalks forced them to bow. In all fairness, though, weeds made up most of the lawn.

He sidestepped a large hole in the small porch after making his way through the overgrown fence's gate and along the similarly wild sidewalk path. Finally within, the interior looked no better. The best thing that could be said about it was that the dirt distracted from the cracks, holes, and missing key pieces of architecture, like support beams.

His hands shook, his heart beat wildly, and if he weren't dehydrated, he would have sweat profusely. Jesse's mind chastised him for his stupidity and warned him to go back to the safety of the prison where, at least, if he got beaten senseless, someone might condescend to give him basic triage. But he persevered, because he would rather die clearing his name than live like he had been. Actually, the thought of dying seemed very nearly appealing.

Being careful not to step on the obscenely large dead fly right in his path, Jesse moved quietly around the expansive first floor, finding nothing except dirt, dust, dead insects, and code violations in room after room.

He eventually made his way up the stairs, testing each step carefully before applying his whole weight to it. On the second floor he found an empty room, an empty room, an empty room, an empty room, a bathroom, an empty room, an empty room, an empty room, and a room that stripped him of his breath and impressed the gravity of the situation on him.

"Holy cow," he whispered, turning in a slow circle to look at all the pictures of him on the walls. An impressive-looking computer and some other gadgets sat on a desk in the corner, surrounded by the strewn containers from various fast food establishments and—ooh. Heath wrappers. He loved Heath bars.

Tearing himself from thoughts of food that once seemed important a lifetime ago, Jess settled his gaze on an armoire shoved into the corner. Stupefied, the young doctor moved in its direction and opened the doors. He gasped and stepped back, perhaps afraid that the contents might consume him.

"Oh, wow," he breathed, inching forward. "I am in the Twilight Zone."

He reached out and touched a blond wig reminiscent of his own hair. His hands fell down to caress a black stethoscope and the lab coat it rested on. The glimmer of laminate caught his eyes and he turned over an ID card to find…that it belonged to him.

"The coat on the left is what I wore when I shot Dr. Sloan."

Jesse jumped and spun 180 degrees to face the gentleman in the doorway. He had a gun, a bag, and a look of supreme satisfaction.

"What is going on?" Jesse demanded breathlessly, stepping back and bumping into the armoire.

"You don't know? You don't remember me? Bruce Gilchrist? Or my wife?"

Jess shook his head, which made the room spin a little. Once his surroundings settled, he looked at the very vaguely familiar man: About his height and weight, but maybe a decade and a half older. Although he held his gun steady and gazed composedly at the doctor, his eyes didn't match the façade; they were hateful and hungry for retribution of some kind. This man wasn't entirely sane.

"I've spent six months planning this and you've spent two weeks living it and you don't know who I am? You can't even guess?"

"I'm a little overwhelmed at the moment! Just cut through the crap and tell me what's going on!"

"Your powers of deduction are abysmal. Allow me to simplify: You're responsible for my wife's agonizing death. Therefore, I have made your life a nightmare. I set up the whole molestation thing—don't worry, though, "Lily" is actually an actress, as is her "mother," and Mrs. Orła-Bukowska, who kept you occupied. I would never hurt anyone sexually, though I don't put that past you. I shot Dr. Sloan. I bought your plane ticket, packed your bags, and made that phone call about the gas leak. I even went the extra step and put child pornography and a fake journal on your computer. I've spent the last six months photographing you, watching you, listening to you, taping you, mimicking you, and framing you. Never mess with a computer special effects artist, Dr. Travis, because we can make anything look, sound, and feel real." The man sounded terribly proud of himself. He viewed his revenge as exquisite both in planning and execution. Had he known everyone better, his ability to fool the Sloans and Amanda would have given him excellent cause to brag.

"But…why?" He still couldn't remember Mrs. Gilchrist. Given all the patients he saw, it was nearly impossible to recall one from seven months ago. "What on Earth could I have possibly done—"

"You don't even remember? We came in because she was having stomach pain and you diagnosed her with ovarian cancer—I mean, not that day, but a little later. You told her she didn't really have a chance, but offered some new wonder drug as a possibility."

The sun rose in Jesse's mind and he finally remembered everything. Mrs. Gilchrist, a sweet and amiable woman just entering her forties, had come in with classic symptoms of ovarian cancer. Jess ran the usual diagnostics and discovered stage three malignant tumors and, essentially, Mrs. Gilchrist's death sentence. It pained him to look into her warm, crow-footed eyes and tell her. When they begged him for some help—some hope—he harkened back to a discussion only days before with a pharmaceutical rep. She'd touted some new cancer treatment that, when combined with radiation and chemotherapy, improved the chances of recovery.

Unfortunately, the medication also significantly intensified the side effects of the traditional treatments. Jesse told them of this before sending them to a gynecological oncologist, who implemented the suggestion at once. The poor woman suffered agony for two months before succumbing to death's mercy. Not even morphine could alleviate her misery. Shortly thereafter, the general consensus among physicians was that the harm outweighed the benefit. The drug company promptly pulled Sylomax off the market.

"I tried to tell you," Jesse implored.

"You didn't say it would be that bad."

"None of us knew it would be that bad."

Bruce advanced on his quarry. "Y'know that loneliness—that despair—that you've been feeling since this began?"

Jesse merely nodded; no words could describe the anguish he'd felt for the past two weeks. He had never felt so broken. Not from his mother. Not from his father. Never during his entire childhood or adolescence. Not until his friends had turned their backs on him.

"Well, that is how I've felt every single day since you killed Lauren. Every morning, I wake up to find her half of the bed empty. And every night, I lay down without her beside me. This," he screamed, waving his gun around the room, to emphasize Jesse's whole situation, "is barely even a taste of what my life has been like."

The man's face grew slightly wistful. "We were high school sweethearts, y'know. We married right after graduation and I never even thought about looking at another woman. In college, when other guys went out to party with the sorority girls, I knew I had the perfect woman waiting for me at home. I had her. I had her!"

Jess knew this would not end well. "What do you want from me? You've already taken everything I have."

"Not quite everything. Lauren wasn't just my love and hope and happiness—she was my life. So I want yours. That's why I brought this bag. I have—let me see here—handcuffs, a syringe, and strychnine. I had to do a lot of research to find the most painful poison out there that I could fairly easily get my hands on; strychnine's a doozey. I read that the constant convulsions alone can cause death by exhaustion, assuming you don't asphyxiate first."

"I know how it works."

"Lovely. Now sit in the chair by the desk and put your hands behind it."

Jesse walked slowly, contemplating his method of escape. He couldn't fight very readily given the previous night's injuries, but death by strychnine sounded horrendous. He needed something heavy. He sat down. He got an idea.

As soon as Bruce kneeled down to cuff Jesse to the chair, the doctor bolted up with the seat in his hands and broke it against his assailant's body. Well, he didn't actually break it, but that had been his intent. Jess reached down for the gun, cried out in pain as his shoulder protested, then picked up the pistol with his other hand. He dashed out of the room and headed in the direction of the stairs, conscious of the footsteps behind him. Just as he got to the door, he heard what must have been Bruce's spare gun go off behind him and miss. Gritting through the constant stabbing in his ribcage, Jess exited and prayed for a miracle.

Jesse made it to the middle of the path that led from the gate to the porch. When Steve appeared at the gate, the doctor stopped right in his tracks. He couldn't go any further, and a glance over his shoulder told him he couldn't retreat. So there he stood, the most pathetic and endangered Monkey in the Middle.

"Put down your weapons!" Steve yelled to Jesse and Bruce.

"Steve, he wants to kill me!"

"I don't blame him; I'd put a bullet in you myself if I could." He said it so venomously that Jess had to struggle to hold back tears. His friend really wanted him dead.

No! Jesse thought angrily. Don't think of him as your friend! He's not your friend anymore; you don't have friends.

"He molested my daughter, officer!"

"I did not! Just go in there and you'll see that this man has been stalking me for six months. He's got a room full of surveillance equipment and pictures. Go in there and see that I'm telling the truth."

"He deserves to die!" Bruce screamed, never taking his aim off Jesse. The two men stared at each other, although Jess kept his gun at his side. Steve might hate him; he might want him dead; but Steve didn't break rules and would never allow him to get shot.

While each man stood stock-still, waging his own personal, internal battles, backup arrived. And in that singular moment, as footsteps and voices approached, all thinking stopped.

Jesse pivoted to try and ascertain the source of the noise; Steve reacted with his training and shot the younger man in the stomach. Perhaps he didn't aim to kill because he still felt fraternal feelings for the doctor; maybe he chose the stomach because that's where Mark got shot.

Mr. Gilchrist, acting on his own instinct, fired twice at Jesse's back mere thousandths of a second after the cop. Steve, hearing the second report, lifted his gun and shot Bruce in the chest.

Time ceased.

It took Jesse a moment to register getting shot. The incident reminded him of falling down the stairs in second grade. His elementary form just lay at the bottom of the staircase, dazed, before he started screaming. He'd bitten right through his bottom lip back then and, as Jesse fell to his knees, he noticed this time that, just like nineteen years ago, his mouth filled up with blood. It dribbled from the corners of his lips and matched the bright red that now drenched the front and back of Ken Foley's nice Oxford shirt. He vaguely registered three intense burning sensations and—what were those emotions? Shock? Sadness? Fear? …Relief?

The last thought Jess had before collapsing face first into the cement, was how no amount of dry-cleaning would get out the stains.

A/N: Was that a good cliffhanger? Thanks for the reviews. I beseech all of you to please leave constructive reviews for me. They're so important! Again, thanks a lot. –your humble author