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More Than Eyes Alone Can See	By : Psnoo17 Category: M through R > Once Upon A Time In Mexico Views: 1450 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time in Mexico, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-More Than Eyes Alone Can See
- 2-2
- 3-3
- 4-4
- 5-5
- 6-6
- 7-7
- 8-8
- 9-9
- 10-10
- 11-11
- 12-12
- 13-14
- 14-15
- 15-16
- 16-17
- 17-18
- 18-19
- 19-20
- 20-Index of Quotes
- 2
- 3
- 4
&;That�s going to be painful to clean. She looked around for her supplies, and then
remembered that they were all located next to her patient�s bed.
She walked out of
the bathroom in capris and bra, stripping off her rubber gloves as she
went. Kneeling down, she rummaged until
she found what she wanted. Some gentle
yet highly antibacterial soap, several large gauze pads, and burn ointment. Before returning to the bathroom, she checked
in on her patient. He was
unconscious. Or at least she assumed he
was since he didn�t respond to her gentle probing of any of his wounds, so she
was ready to leave well enough alone.
She wanted to be angry with him, but had better sense than that. She was the one who had given him the gun in
the first place. Stupid idea. I�ll not be trying
that again.

*************************************

Hours later, Tess
was woken up by the mumbled protests of her patient. She had finished cleaning and tending to his eyes
two or three hours ago, a procedure that he had stayed unconscious for. Shortly after
that, she had set up and IV and then drawn a pint of her own blood to use as a
transfusion for him. That had been
decided as soon as she had been able to search through the pockets of his
jeans. His wallet had been in his back
pocket, and while it was not surprisingly short on personal information such as
names, addresses, phone numbers, or anything else, it did have a medical care
card which listed his blood type, height, weight, and any known allergies or
medical conditions.
Now she was tired
from blood loss herself, but she knew it was more important to get blood into
him than it was to keep it in herself. If all went well, she�d be able to repeat the
process once more in 48 hours. After
that, he�d either have to make do without, or she�d have to contact a woman she
knew who worked for the hospital. She�d
rather not dot jut just quite yet. It
might rouse suspicions that she�d prefer to avoid for the time being.
Sands was restless
in his dreams, apparently reliving the recent traumas of his life. His hands were searching for something, the
only part of his body moving. The rest
seemed to be locked in place by whatever was oppressing his dreams.
Tess wasn�t sure of
what to do. She hated to have to witness
anyone in such physical or mental pain.
If it were anyone else, she�d take their hand and sit by their side for
the rest of the night, but something about this stranger made that seem
childish. But surely �s b�s better than nothing.
She moved over to
the bed where she had managed to elevate Sands into a semi-sitting position by
using every single pillow in her house.
His sunglasses were back on his face, sitting over a layer of gauze, his
countenance still free of blood after several hours, which encouraged her. She cautiously moved onto the bed, sitting on
the edge, facing the same way he was.
When he didn�t wake up, didn�t acknowledge her presence in any way, Tess
let out the breath she had been holding.
Carefully, she slid her hand across the blankets until his questing hand
found it.
For a second it
recoiled, and noises came from his throat.
Once again she held her breath � if he awoke and attacked her before
remembering who she was it was likely he�d manage to kill her before coming to
his senses. They may have been the same
height, but he was undoubtedly stronger than she was.
Her fears were
unbased in this instant, however. A
second after recoiling, his hand darted forward and grabbed hers, tightening
almost painfully around it. She could
feel her fingers tingling, but she ignored them. Her patient was actually relaxing, as if the
contact she had initiated was acting as a lifeline back to reality, and now
that he had found it, he could rest.
�I would wish you
sweet dreams, but I think that it would be better to wish you no dreams at
all.� She sighed. �Sleep while you can, get back your
strength. We can�t stay here forever.�

*************************************

In her dreams she was eight again, and in
the midst of being punished. This time
the cause had been getting a 98% on a geography quiz. Nothing less than perfection was accepted by
the man who controlled her life.
Anything else was a failure, and failure was weakness, and weakness was
not tolerated.
She had been blindfolded for the past two
weeks, her eyes shut off from light for the entire time. She tensed as she felt the hands behind her
loosening the knot on the scarf tied over her eyes. From past experience, Teresa knew that the
first few minutes were going to be incredibly painful, the outside world of the
noonday sun reflecting brilliantly off the white limestone courtyard just
another reminder that her life depended entirely on the mercy of her father. She contained a scream as the light hit her
eyes, knowing that if she let out a single sound, she�d be whipped until she
had no voice left.
�You�ve disappointed me again, Teresa
Adame.� Her squinting eyes sought and
found the source of her father�s voice.
He was the one dark spot in a sea of blinding glare. His hair was dark, his skin dark from the
sun, his eyes so dark a blue as to be nearly black. She was convinced that he was just as dark
inside as he was outside. �I�ve given
you back your sight and yet you cower and squint like a peasant child.� She heard giggles from her half-sister,
standing nearby to witness the event.
Even two years younger, the girl had their father�s complete support in
a way that Tess couldn�t imagine. But
then again, she was legitimate and Tess was not.
Straightening her posture, Tess whispered, �I�m
sorry, Father. I�ll do better next
time.�
It was as useless now to protest that the tutor had never taught her the
rest of the material on the test. It
didn�t matter. Excuses were not
wanted. She was expected to have known
anyway.
�Yes, you are. I can�t imagine what I was thinking when I
took that whore�s word that you were my child.
Look at your sister, even two years younger and she pleases me more in a
day than you have in your entire life.
Lazy, stupid, selfish.� The words
weren�t new, but they still stung and struck and clung with a physical
presence, tearing at her heart and mind.
�This time, though, this time your errors have affected someone
else.� She didn�t understand until she
heard the pleas of her tutor coming closer to the group.
No, I don�t want to watch this
again. I�m sorry I didn�t do better
then. But I learned my lesson, I
did. Don�t make me see this, she pleaded with her dream to let her
go. For a moment she thought she had
swayed it, that it was going to release her.
Instead the setting changed. She
could tell that she was now an adult, but she was still at the house that had
been the cartel�s base in her childhood.
Was still in that hated courtyard.
And the screams, the pleas, they were still
ringing off the stone. Looking around
she saw her father, his face wrapped in medical gauze, his hand resting on the
shoulder of her half-sister who was still six years old, still grinning,
delighted that Tess was in trouble.
�See what you�ve done now, Teresa
Adame. See the suffering you could have
prevented.� Tess obeyed the voice and stepped forward, her body moving without her
having to direct it. Or maybe it was the
dream that shifted around her and made walking unnecessary. Whatever the means, she found herself staring
at the back of a black clothed surgeon.
He was operating on a man strapped to a table. The blinding light made it difficult to see
for a moment, but as she squinted she saw the victim. It was the man she had supposedly helped the
day before.
�Your fault, Teresa. If you had stayed I would have let you drug
him into unconsciousness. I would have
let you remove his eyes properly. But
you ran, and he suffered.�

*************************************

Tess woke in a cold
sweat, her side burning, her face wet with tears, and her patient still
blessedly asleep. She squinted, light
from the rising sun coming in through her bedroom window and blinding her. Not
again, she thought. She couldn�t
deal with the dreams right now. She had
enough to deal with at the moment without having to relive the most hellish
parts of her childhood.
Missed sleep isn�t even the worst part of it
all, she mused as she walked to the bathroom. The
worst part is how dirty I feel in the morning.
And I can�t even shower, not with this burn on my side. She tried to keep her mind from remembering
what had really happened that day when she was eight. Maybe
by tomorrow I can take a shower. That
would be nice. It wasn�t
working. Pictures of blood and echoes of
dying screams were running though her mind.
Tess gritted her
teeth and tried to focus on other matters.
Should I go for a jog this
morning, or not? She looked at her
patient and was reminded of her dream. No. I don�t think it�s a very good idea to leave
him alone quite yet. Besides, I don�t
know if the fighting is over yet.
Surely it was. Cul�acan had a
decent police force. They must have
quelled the fighting by now.
The memory was
rebelling against her control. With
undeniable violence it forced it�s way to the front of
her mind. She felt her body slam against
the wall as the memory took control of her psyche.
The tutor hadn�t known what or whom she was
dealing with when she had taken this job.
Failure was not just laid at the feet of the student, but at the feet of
the teacher as well. What couldn�t be
done to a child being raised for a single purpose could be done to someone as
expendable as a tutor. Tess was made to
watch as the woman was beaten within an inch of her life and was then
executed. All because she had taken more
time to befriend an unloved child than she took to drill places and dates into
her head.
Tess had thrown up at the sight of a
friend�s blood showing with dramatic contrast on the white cobbles of the
courtyard. She was slapped hard enough
to bruise both eyes and then sentenced to two weeks of bread and water meals
for an unsuitable display of sentiment.
The next day she was forced to again don the hated blindfold. Hated because all she could see against the
velvety blackness of the material was her teacher�s broken body lying like an
abomination in the sun, green grass and stately trees presenting a mocking
backdrop to the scene.
Young Tess decided that no one should ever
again suffer for her mistakes.

*************************************

The memory let her
go. She stood leaning against the wall,
slowly realizing that the rising sun was warming her, giving comfort she hadn�t
known from her so-called family. In the
back of her mind she could feel other memories and nightmares stirring,
encouraged by the success one of their number had had in escaping her control. No. Not again.
Not until I can afford it.
Tess raced into the
bathroom, urgency making her movements quick and precise the same way they were
when she was performing surgery. Opening
the mirror door to her medicine cabinet, she grabbed the injection of dopamine
inhibitor she always kept prepared. It
came in a gun-like applicator, one that held several dosages. Quickly she pressed the apparatus up to her
upper thigh and pulled the trigger. She
felt a pinch as the needle injected the medication into her body.
Rubbing the slight
hurt, she slid down the wall to sit on the floor and waited for the drug to
quiet the rebellion fermenting in her mind.

*************************************

Trapped. He was trapped. The lack of light was pressing all the air
from his chest, weighing down his arms and legs, slowing his mind, curdling his
wits. But it did nothing to dampen his
hearing.
The voices. They were going to drive him out of his mind,
which by now might be a relief. Anything
to make the voices shut the hell up. He
couldn�t even identify half of them or what they were saying. But against the audio background provided by
the incomprehensible murmurs were other, clearer voices.
Those were the ones
he would have given anything to ignore, to silence. Accusing voices, pleading voices. Voices raised in anger, shaking with fear and
pain, letting out a last surprised gasp before dying. Mocking voices, condemning voices, voices
taunting the great Sands who now found his every strength, every tactic, every defense bound as tightly as his sight.
And then, rising
above all the other voices came his own, the voice that had ultimately betrayed
him. He heard himself explaining his
entire plan to Ajedrez, heard himself explaining the glitches in his plan to
the higher-ups. Heard himself
talking, walking himself through his self-proclaimed, fool-proof plan. And
what if the planner is a fool? Heard
his voice tinged with desperation and madness after emerging from the cartel�s
lair. How he hated that voice.
He couldn�t take it
anymore. If he listened any longer, he�d
awake to find himself babbling nightmares and nonsense. But how did he wake up?
Open
your eyes Sheldon. The madness
in his voice was mocking him again. Oh,
wait, you can�t, can you? Poor
Sheldon. Can�t wake up, can�t open his
eyes. Stuck with me for company. Come play with me, Sheldon. Poor, poor, weak, helpless, stupid, Sheldon. He felt a cool hand gently stoking his brow
and heard the soft, mournful voice of a woman saying,
�No tardes,
Muerte, que muero; Do not linger, Death, for I am dying;
ven porque
viva contigo; come so I may live with you;
qui�reme,
pues que te quiero, love me, because I love you . . . .
Sands woke with a
start only to find more darkness.

*************************************

It was the third
hour after dawn by the time Sands awoke.
Tess had used that time well, having changed the dressings on not only
her wound, but on most of her patient�s as well. She had left his face alone, wanting some of
the sensitivity to go down before she tended it. Or perhaps she was waiting for the rest of
the drugs to work their way through his system so she could give him more
effective painkillers. He should have awoken at least once by
now. There couldn�t have been that much
of the drug in his system or he never would have passed out in the first place. Even with her doubts though, she decided it
was best for him to sleep, to perhaps find some peace in unconsciousness.
She took his pulse,
blood pressure, and temperature. While
his blood pressure was a bit lower than she would have like to see it, it was
within acceptable limits for a man who had been wounded as severely and who had
lost as much blood as he had. However,
his temperature had her a bit concerned.
It was hovering around 99.0 degrees, which was high for a man who by all
rights should still be chilled by shock.
She�d have to watch him closely to make sure he didn�t develop any
infections or a temperature.
All this had only
taken an hour or so, but she had done a bit of cleaning, had washed his clothes
and set them out to dry. Se�or, are you well?� He
started coughing when he tried to reply, his throat and vocal chords too dry to
make any sound. She reached for the
water bottle by her bedside, �Here, drink some water, it�ll help.� He held out a hand and she placed the bottle
in front of it.

*************************************

Sands drank from
the bottle gratefully. Anything that would
stop the coughs, stop the pain exploding in his head each time his lungs forced
air out his throat. The water didn�t
taste as if it were straight from the tap � it was free of the chemicals pumped
into the city�s water supply. Despite
those chemicals, he had avoided drinking any of the tap water here. Yes, he had gotten the required shots before
coming out here, but he didn�t want to take any unnecessary risks.
Right. No unnecessary risks. Though he was awake, the voice still mocked
him, although not as loudly. Willing
himself to concentrate on something else, he lowered the bottle from his lips
and asked his doctor, �Is that how you break bad news
to all your patients, or am I a special case?�
If he could have
seen Tess, he would have seen her blush, abashed at being caught at what she
considered a childish pastime.
�No.� The word got
caught in her throat; Sands heard her clear it.
Trying again, she said, �No. I
was simply passing time until you woke up.�
He heard her approach the bed again, her steps hesitant as if she saw
him as a wounded animal who would lash out at her at the slighted provocation
or opportunity. He liked that idea, that
even lying down in a bed he was still dangerous.
Tess saw the man
smirk and knew it was because of her hesitance.
Gathering her courage she quickened her step, taking the now empty
bottle from his hand. Turning to throw
it in the wastebasket she said, �You should lie down again. You�re still weak after losing so much blood
yesterday. I doubt your body has
recovered.�
Damn the girl, she
was right. He could feel the pain taking
prominence in his mind, drowning out the last echoes of that voice that haunted
the darkness that now surrounded him waking and sleeping. While he no longer had to try to ignore that
voice, he now wanted to take his mind off the pain. �What was that poem you were reciting?�
�Umm . . . that was
part of �Dos Canciones� by Jorge Manrique.
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More Than Eyes Alone Can See