A/N: Okay guys, here is the next chapter. Admittedly Suze doesn't come across so great, but hey, we all make mistakes.. lol.. please tell me what you think!

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Beep Beep Beep.

That was the first thing I heard when I came to. I had no clue what was going on. I just knew I felt really disoriented and was aching with pain.

I tried to open my eyes, and my lids responded by slowly pulling themselves apart like they were attached with drying superglue.

I was in a hospital room; Jesse was sitting beside me in a chair he'd pulled up to the bed. He was sound asleep with my hand held tightly in his and his head resting on the bed.

I assessed the situation briefly, my left wrist was in a cast and the pale skin on my arms looked like a peach after it'd been dropped down a couple flights of stairs. I must have moved more than I thought because Jesse groaned and then sat up, rubbing his eyes.

He quickly noticed that I was staring at him and immediately became more alert,

"Susannah, nombre de Dios. How are you feeling?"

I gave him a weak smile,

"I'm okay." My verbal attempt to convince him I wasn't on the brink of death wasn't as successful as I had hoped it would be due to the fact that my voice sounded like someone had rubbed sand paper against my vocal chords, which for worried boyfriends is never the most assuring thing.

He handed me the glass of water that was sitting on the fake wooden beside table and I took a big gulp, savoring the feeling as the cool liquid slid down my parched throat.

"Querida," he said in his low, silky voice as he brushed my hair back from my forehead "what happened?"

Well I knew this had been coming, there was no way that Jesse was going to witness me stumbling into our apartment with an assortment of injuries, blacking out and then having to be taken to the hospital without some sort of explanation. But the truth was, I really liked it when he called me Querida, and I knew that when I told him the truth he'd probably but really pissed off at me. And there would be a serious lacking of endearing terms on his part.

"I-erm- Uhhh…" I said intelligently, stalling as long as I could, trying to put the situation into the best terms so that Jesse wouldn't have as much of a melt down about it.

Lucky for me, as I was searching my momentarily useless brain for a viable explanation, the doctor walked into the room,

"Suze, it's very nice to see you awake. How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay." I said, "How are you doing Mark?"

Jesse had met Mark when we had moved out to the east coast the year after I had graduated from high school. At the time Jesse had been unsure about whether or not he really wanted to be a doctor and was in a pretty dark place; Mark had helped him out by letting Jesse shadow him around the E.R. After that, Jesse was back to himself and decided to attend the medical school he had been accepted into.

"Thanks for staying around tonight with Susannah," Jesse said, "I know you were just leaving when we came in. I just, really appreciate it."

Mark was a really nice guy and had never had an issue with doing a favour for friends; his brilliant blue eyes sparkled from his six foot frame as he smiled at me and Jesse, his blonde hair was getting longer, much different from the close-cut hair style he usually stuck with

"Not a problem, besides, you know how I am. Nothing is done right unless I am doing it. I had to make sure Suze was getting the best medical care."

We all smiled and then lapsed into a slightly awkward silence, I could tell Mark needed to say something but at the same time I could see that he felt really uncomfortable about it.

He pulled up a chair that was sitting against the wall and sat down in it,

"Suze, while we were doing our examination we found that your wrist was broken, as I'm sure you've noticed, you have a mild concussion and some serious bruising."

"Yea," I said with a laugh that sounded Barbie fake even to my own ears, "I had quite the fall."

I could tell Mark had something he'd been hoping I would say, judging by his expression I knew that my answer wasn't it. He rubbed his now very tired eyes and then fixed those eyes with mine in a rather intense stare,

"A lot of the bruises around your throat and arms were hand shaped." The room was absolutely silent for a couple moments before Mark spoke again, "so I need to ask you, do you want to speak to a social services worker?"

My mouth fell open. I knew exactly what he was thinking,

"Mark! How could you believe for one second that Jesse did this to me?! You know him! Jesse would never hurt me."

Jesse squeezed my hand,

"Querida, it's alright. He's just doing his job."

"No." I said angrily, "this is absolutely ridiculous! Mark, you are Jesse's best friend, and you honestly think that he would beat me and then carry me into the emergency room?"

"All I know." Mark said, "Is that someone did this to you Suze. I wasn't saying that Jesse did it; all I am doing is giving you the opportunity to talk to someone about it."

I could see Mark's point, and I had listened to Jesse, I knew he was only doing his job, but the idea of someone thinking that Jesse would hurt me in any way shape or form made me really angry.

"Thank you for all of your help, Mark. But I am ready to go home. If I could just have my clothes and get out of this hospital gown, I will be completely ready to sign the proper forms."

"Susannah –"Jesse started,

"Suze, if you're leaving, know it is against medical recommendations. I think you'd do well to stay the night and talk to someone in the morning." Mark said to me

"What I would do well with," I said, "is to be in my own bed and to not have to talk to a social worker who thinks that my boyfriend has anger management issues and is taking them out on me. That is what I would do well with. I love you dearly Mark and appreciate everything you've done for us, but I'm going home, so either you help me find my clothes and get me those papers to sign, or I'm going home in this hospital gown and damn the paperwork."

Jesse and Mark shared one of those infuriating all knowing looks that guys sometimes pass between each other, the one that says 'yea she's being crazy, but let's go along with it so that we don't' cause a scene and have to break out the sedative." Normally it would've made me cranky and I would have demanded to know what was going on, but under the circumstances, I just wanted out of the hospital so that I could have a one on one conversation with Jesse in our own home.

In just over an hour I had put on my ripped and bloody clothes, signed the release forms, and was now standing in the elevator that was taking Jesse and I up to our floor.

"Talk about being back at square one." I muttered to myself

"Did you say something Querida?"

"Nah, never mind me, I'm just really ready to curl up in our bed."

I looked up at Jesse's face, which I noticed was completely void of expression, he does that when he is trying to keep an emotion or thought from me,

"What 'cha thinking?" I asked

His eyebrows, which matched his hair the colour of the darkest ink, knitted together and the elevation dinged as we reached our floor. Instead of answering my question, Jesse gently guided me out of the elevation and onto our floor, walking down the hall, unlocking our door and walking into the apartment.

The shiny mahogany wood of the floor had a couple of blood drops on it, I would be sure that those were cleaned up, housing in New York was far from cheap, but Jesse and I had saved up a lot of money (not to mention more than a little help from my parents) and bought a decent sized apartment.

I started towards the kitchen to get myself a glass of much needed water when Jesse's voice came across the room,

"Susannah," he said in a voice that sounded exhausted, "is Mark right, did a – did a man do this to you?"

Now, before you start yelling and telling me I'm a horrible person that needs to be more honest with the man I love, let me tell you. I agree a hundred percent.

Have you ever been in a situation, like when you were younger and you did something you absolutely knew you should have never done, and it went badly? Well was kind of the situation I was in, but fast-forward a couple of years. I knew in my heart that I should tell Jesse that I had been a gargantuan idiot and gone after the ghost myself and gotten my ass whopped.

But at the same time I knew Jesse would be furious with me, in one of our more recent arguments, he had said that my "frequent and insatiable urge" to put myself in "mortal danger" was what was going to end our relationship. In telling the truth I would have been in major trouble so I instead took the route where the only person to blame was the stranger that I blamed the incident on,
"I went out to get some milk," I said as I turned around to face him, my hands shaking slightly out of nervousness and hatred of myself, I knew I shouldn't have been doing what I was about to do, "and I know I should have taken the main roads because you're always lecturing me about how I'm not invincible and bad things happen in ally ways in the middle of the night. I- I was grabbed from behind. And that's pretty much the last thing I remember. And when I woke up I was on the ground and I some how made it home."

By the end of my story I was staring at the ground, I couldn't even look him in the eye. I was such a terrible person; I didn't deserve a boyfriend like Jesse, perfect and caring.

He made his way swiftly across the floor and was holding me in his arms before I had even noticed he'd moved,

"Querida," He said as he kissed me gently, "let's get you into bed, what do you say?"

A short time later I lay in our bed with his arms wrapped around me, I was thinking about a plan of action, this would probably blow over in a couple of days, I'd just need to act normally for him to just let it all go.

This thought calmed me a bit and I let the tempting tug of exhaustion pull me into a deep sleep with the hope for my ability to fix this comforting me.

If I thought this was going to be easy, I could not have been more wrong.