Agape

As Jesse unpacked his items, he tried to take a deep breath of the crisp air, but had to stop when it felt like a couple of little men were hurtling pickaxes at his chest. Still, everything looked amazing! The little cabin rested next to stream, about eight feet in width and four feet deep.

He couldn't see anyone or hear anything except the sound of the stream and various forest creatures. Absolutely perfect. Idyllic. Paradise.

Carefully, Jesse unloaded his duffel bag and supplies. He knew, medically, that he shouldn't have left the hospital. He'd suffered three gunshot wounds and various other injuries. If he'd been his own patient, he would have stapled himself to the bed. But Jess had a willpower everyone seemed to underestimate and he would not leave this paradise unless there was somewhere better to go.

A couple of birds called to one another from their respective trees.

"D'you see that human?" Bird A asked Bird B.

"Yeah. Awfully goofy- looking things, those humans are. No feathers, no fur, no scales, and no exoskeleton. How do they get on?"

Bird A shrugged her wings.

These two birds spied on their new human neighbor over the next couple weeks. They watched him wash in the cold stream and then go inside to try and get warm. He always seemed a little cold, except when he took brisk hikes for hours on end. He tried to chop wood once, but quickly dropped the axe and grabbed his chest. He didn't fish, per se, but instead used a net to hold a fish in place while he looked at it, then quickly released the creature, his curiosity satisfied. He spent a lot of time wandering the massive property's edge and watching others. These activities seemed to satisfy him, although Birds A and B couldn't understand why he never picked up any bugs to eat or gathered twigs for his nest. Stupid humans; they seemed wholly incapable of providing for themselves.

"He seems sad," Squirrel N commented to the birds while he foraged around. Squirrel knew more about humans that Bird A or Bird B. He liked to work people for food in the heavily populated areas. "Maybe he's sick or has fleas. Does he do anything except walk around?"

"Sometimes I see him sitting with paper and a pencil, but he only stares into space. Not long ago, I saw him standing for hours with a knife, just looking at it. Then he walked back in and didn't come out until morning."

"He cleans a lot. He puts a book in front of his face from time to time, but I don't think he reads it."

"His expression never changes. In fact, you know who he looks like? He looks like Deer F after that hunter killed him."

"He doesn't look like Deer F! He doesn't even have a tail!"

Bird B rolled her eyes. "I'm not saying that he looks like a deer! I'm saying his expression looks like that of a dead deer. Really, Bird A, I'm not daft."

Squirrel N found a pleasant little nut and stashed it in his mouth. "Does he do any hunting?"

"Not a bit. In fact, I saw him herd a spider from the cabin out onto the porch—he didn't even step on it! It tasted delicious."

"Maybe I should take him a nut." Squirrel considered this and weighed the pros and cons. "No, I need them all. I think I'll go up and ask for a treat. That always makes the human children happy."

"You just want a cookie, Squirrel N."

"I need all I can get for this winter, you know." He scampered down the tree. "Be seeing you!"

"Bye!" Birds A and B called down.

On the open porch, Jesse gazed despondently at the pad of paper in his hand. It was blank. He thought that, maybe, if he could just free write, he might be able to sort through the jumble of emotions that necrotized his whole being. Unable to chop them, he kicked hunks of wood as hard as he could and felt anger so powerful it drove the pain in his body from his mind. He hiked over hills and past streams, kicking up fallen leaves and disturbing indignant fauna, all the while feeling such self-loathing that, at one point, he contemplated ending it all with a knife. For hours, he stood outside the cabin, carefully balancing the blade in his palm, trying to work up the nerve and shed his reservations. Finally, when the light had faded, he shuffled back inside, defeated.

Jess looked up and saw a squirrel approaching. The animal crept forward, warily eyeing the doctor. It made him want to laugh a little; then it made him want to cry. This animal feared being hunted and killed.

Jesse could relate.

The squirrel stopped about five feet away from the porch's bottom step and sat on its haunches. Its gaze bore into the human's and it turned on all its charm. Suddenly, Jesse couldn't resist getting up, going inside, and fetching the peanut butter and a stick. He scooped out a big portion and slowly, tentatively handed the stick to the squirrel.

He felt a major thrill watching the small creature manically consume the peanut butter, holding the stick with its paws. It devoured the food as quickly as possible, afraid perhaps, that Jesse would suddenly snatch it back and then inflict injury. Once the squirrel finished, it ran into the fading daylight and out of sight.

He watched the critter retreat and found himself overwhelmed by its existence. He considered how it lived alone and then died alone. His chest grew a little tight and suddenly his eyes began to smart a bit. His lip quivered ever so slightly.

Jesse burst into uncontrollable sobs.

He cried so hard that he couldn't seem to breathe and the lump in his throat felt about the same size as a kumquat. After a couple minutes, he actually fell on his back from his sitting position and curled into a ball. His weeping echoed in the forest and caught the attention of the various wildlife.

He hadn't cried since the short spell on his couch. He wept for his loneliness and lost life, for his physical pain and his mental anguish. He replayed the last eight weeks and grieved over every day. He cried until his head ached and he couldn't think coherently enough to remember why he was crying.

Totally exhausted, Jess fell sound asleep on the porch.

Jesse suddenly heard the first four notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. When he opened his eyes, he found himself sitting at the table in the cabin. The room was freezing! He tried to control the shivering, but it wracked him mercilessly.

The notes repeated themselves. Dum dum dum DUM.

Jess realized the sound was from someone knocking at the front door. Amazed that anybody could get two different musical notes from a door, he moved in its direction and turned the knob.

"Hello," the man on the other side greeted calmly. He stood a respectful distance from the door, having obviously knocked, then stepped back. His manner displayed a patient and gentle countenance, despite the suit and tie. The doctor's forehead creased. A suit and tie? In the middle of a forest?

"Are you lost?"

"No, but thanks for asking. May I come in?"

"Come in?" Jesse balked. "I don't even know you!"

The man smiled and bowed his head in acquiescence. "Of course. I'm Gabe Agape. I'm here to see you on the matter of your life."

Jesse's mouth dropped open a little as he attempted to assimilate this information. Without knowing why, he stepped aside dumbly and allowed Mr. Agape into the room. The suited gentleman nodded approvingly as he surveyed the cabin. "Very nice," he commented before sitting down at the head of the table. "Won't you join me?" he asked, motioning at the chair at the table's foot.

"What's going on?" Jess asked as he seated himself. Had he really just let an oddly dressed, complete stranger into his residence in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere?

"That is an excellent question, Dr. Travis. And before you start interrupting me and wanting to know how I know your name, let's just say I'm privy to a lot of normally classified information in your head."

"Am I dreaming?" Jesse demanded.

Gabe chuckled faintly. "Am I dreaming," he repeated. "Yes, you're dreaming. I mean, I just knocked with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. I can guarantee the Becks didn't install that feature. But the all-important question is, as you asked, "What's going on?" I'm here because, at the moment, nothing's going on; at least not where you're concerned.

"Oh, Jesse," Gabe drawled sadly, cutting right through the doctor's heart with two words. This man in his dream seemed to know so much of Jesse's pain—to feel it, even. Yet he possessed a certain unbiased perspective that Jess lacked.

"What do you want?" Gabe asked.

Jesse stared sadly at the floor, his tired eyes wide with tears. "To die," he cried softly.

"If you wanted to die, you'd already be dead. You've had numerous opportunities. And if you were meant to die," the stranger stated strongly, "I can guarantee we wouldn't be having this conversation. "Now, what do you want?"

"This to never have happened!"

Gabe looked down at the table and sighed. This wasn't going particularly well. "What do you want, barring what is simply not going to happen?"

Jesse brought his hands up and grasped his head in frustration. What did he want? What did he want? To be left alone? No! He'd had enough of that over the past two months. He needed companionship, friendship—love. "I want to be loved again," he finally admitted in a hoarse whisper. "I have family. I have friends. But I never had anybody as close to me as Amanda, Mark, and Steve. Family has to love you, but they don't have to like you. Friends have to like you, but they don't have to love you. They did both. And then…they stopped. I just want to go back to the way things were before."

Gabe Agape smiled tenderly. "And so your solution is to hide here?"

"I can't just pretend like nothing happened!" Jesse yelled. "Steve shot me, Amanda disowned me, and Mark never believed me! They—"

"Were as manipulated as you."

That instantly quieted Jesse's rant. He knew this, of course, but it was different to hear somebody say it out loud. Gabe continued, "You know that Steve is very protective of his father. They have the kind of bond that most fathers and sons can only dream of. I think you know that if anybody—Amanda included—had been set up like you, they would have faced a similar wrath. And, naturally, Amanda has the responsibility to protect her son and put him first; that's a parent's job. She can't sidestep that. Not for you. Not for Steve. Not for Mark. As for Mark, can you really blame him for being so expertly manipulated? He probably would have begun to suspect the truth if Bruce hadn't shot him.

"You were the most horrifically and painfully hurt in this whole ordeal. But you weren't the only one."

Jesse looked up from his hands. "What can I do? I can't just go back and act like everything is okay. Nothing is okay. Things will never go back to the way they were."

"Perhaps not, but you haven't got any hope here. You'll never find the love you're looking for without others; you'll never be at peace until you forgive and embrace them." Gabe looked down at his watch and exhaled heavily. "You had better wake up now. You're still outside and your core temperature's already down to 91 degrees. Get inside and start a fire; it won't be too difficult. And for Heaven's sake, get some medical care; you've been misusing your already abused body from the moment all this started. Oh, and see to some therapy, won't you? Don't go with Dr. Parsons, though; man, what a weirdo."

As soon as the last word left Gabe's lips, he vanished. A moment later, Jesse awoke on the porch, colder than he'd ever felt in his whole life (and he'd lived through power outages caused by ice storms). Groggy, slow, and shaky, Jess stumbled inside and groped around for a flashlight. As he set about starting a fire and bundling up in the large, down comforter from the master bed, he contemplated the significance of his dream.

Leave his exile and forgive? Go back and get help? Repair himself and his relationships? They all sounded so logical and necessary, but a part of him struggled against the wonderful advice. He didn't particularly want to forgive, even though he recognized his anger as misplaced and purposeless. Quite honestly, he wanted to punish Steve, Mark, and Amanda by denying them his friendship. Besides, he felt safe, if not happy, at the cabin.

A thought occurred to him as he stared sadly at the fire that kept trying, and failing, to climb up the stack: He was carrying on Bruce Gilchrist's work and doing a great job of it. His actions not only punished his friends, but himself, too.

As the fire's warmth lulled him into sleep, he finally decided, with a heavy heart, to give his life—and the people in it—another chance. If he didn't, he knew, he would have to die, since it would mean his heart already had.

A/N: 293 viewed last chapter. Twenty have the story on alert. Seven reviewed. C'mon, guys! I need to know what you think! I especially want to know for this chapter. Too corny? Too short? Help me out here, please. Many, many thanks to those who reviewed. –your humble author.