this is a shorter chapter... longer ones are to follow! I promise

After one and a half days off, Teddy came back to work on Wednesday evening for another night shift. As soon as she entered the building, she felt the urge to look how Jack was doing. She had withstood the temptation to call the station and ask for over 36 hours – but only because she knew that rumors would get going… another one without health insurance, wow, was she developing a pattern…
She'd had enough of those rumors the last time. So therefore, she swore to keep this private, that she was interested how this man was. She had her reasons why she was interested - and they were nowhere romantic but professional. She had never seen a patient with such severe injuries who only wanted to get out of hospital again. The thought of these two agents who had been here, asking for him still made her shudder. And last but not least, she guessed that she still was the only one to know his real name.

Silently she changed her clothes and made her way to the ward. Owen was already there.
She stepped in front of the whiteboard to see what her day would bring, acting like she wouldn't care. If she kept it up for ten more minutes, she thought, she might be able to look 'normal' when she'd routinely check on him.

Owen came over. "Did you hear it already?", he asked.

"Hi.", she started, secretly fearing the worst – had he died? Developed a sepsis, inner bleedings,…? "Heard what?" She glanced at the other whiteboard where the names of the patients were. Room 512, where he'd been was no occupied by somebody else.

"Our John Doe disappeared.", Owen said, angrily.

Teddy wanted to ask 'how' – but she realized how inappropriate that would be. What would Owen think if she asked him 'was he taken away or kidnapped?'.
"When?", she just asked.

"Yesterday night.", Owen growled. He was angry at that man, after they'd had him in the operating room for eight hours and another three days in ICU. "I mean… it's really not a problem if somebody has no health insurance, but couldn't he at least have given us his name so that we get part of the costs reimbursed by the state funds?"

Damnit, I know his name, Teddy thought. She wouldn't tell him, no. She followed Owen over to the counter. "How is this possible, he got two fresh gunshot wounds, how could he walk out of here?"

He shrugged. "I don't know."

"Any trace?"

He shook his head. "No. Let's just forget it, maybe he's living on the streets somewhere around here… then he'll be back in a few days anyway, most likely in a black bag." He handed her another patient's file. "Could you have a look at that for me?"

Sure, she absent-mindedly answered and took the file, leafing through the pages to make Owen think she was working.
But instead, her mind was racing. Should she have helped him? He had begged her for help to get out of here and it had been such a nonsense idea for her that she hadn't thought for one second to actually help him. She should have known better, that if she didn't help him, he would eventually get out of here on his own.

Teddy sighed and went over to her post box. Just the usual stuff, a few results from blood tests and laboratory findings. In between them was a sheet of paper, it belonged to a patient's file.
She took it to put it back into the file where it was obviously missing, when she read the person's name. That was a sheet of paper out of his file. One from the end, with almost no important information on it. It was a consent form, to be signed by relatives. No wonder why nobody had filled it out.

She stepped aside and hid it in the other patient's file, as she turned it around.

I took the rest.

I O U

J

It didn't look like he'd been in any hurry to write this. That he had left her a note at all somehow even comforted her. He hadn't been taken by anyone.
But still, he was in severe danger to be out there somewhere in his state.

Teddy folded the sheet and put it into her pocket. She hoped that these hadn't been his last words.