Chapter 2

Within just a few hours, the patient who had promised her doctor full compliance with his insistence on bed rest as a condition of leaving the hospital early...was not being very compliant. She had taken a nap (with only a slight amount of protest) but when Steve was in the kitchen getting Becca's dinner ready, he came out to find his (very stubborn) wife sitting in the easy chair with a huge smile on her face.

''Look!'' she crowed, before he could chide her. ''My feet are UP!'' Indeed, they were resting on the ottoman but it still meant she'd broken her promise to stay in bed. It was exactly at that moment that the doorbell rang.

Mark and Michael unexpectedly were on the stoop - and for Jaime there was no time to make her way back into the bedroom. She was caught. ''I'm not even going to ask,'' Mark told the Austins, shaking his head as he seated himself in the living room. (He knew Michael would have plenty to say - and by rights, as Jaime's doctor he was the one who should say it.)

''I'll go,'' Jaime offered, rising slowly to her feet. ''I'm going...''

''Sit down,'' Michael told her sternly. ''Do you know I have half a mind to put you right back in the hospital?''

''Don't you think you're being a little rough on her?'' Steve asked gently.

''And you,'' Michael said, turning to Steve, ''just a couple of hours into this and you couldn't get her to stay in bed?''

Steve's own physical pain was just strong enough to light his temper. ''Now wait a minute!'' he practically snarled. ''First, I didn't know she was out here until I just came from the kitchen and she was sitting there. But second, I really don't think you need to be coming in here and jumping all over her!''

''It's...what...'' Jaime put in, ''maybe ten or twelve steps from the bed to this chair...''

''Ten or twelve steps you took all alone, with no one helping or even watching you!'' Michael snapped. ''Maybe Rudy was right; maybe I did release you to early!''

''Rudy...said that?'' Jaime was floored.

''Of course he did. And I stuck up for you. Told him how much more comfortable you'd be in your own home, and that you could be trusted to stay on bed rest! Looks like I was wrong.''

''Ease up, Michael,'' Steve warned, moving behind Jaime's chair like a guard dog. In the nursery, Becca began to cry. ''She's hungry,'' Steve stated, ''but I don't want you browbeating my wife while I feed her. Got it?''

Finally, Mark had to step in. ''Nobody's going to browbeat anyone here. We can all have a quiet discussion. You too, Steve; bring Becca's high chair in here and we'll all talk calmly like adults. After all, we all only have Jaime's best interests at heart...right? And I'll go and get Becca.''

Everyone was quiet while Steve brought out the high chair and a small, sectioned dish of carrots and rice cereal. The baby's presence brought everyone's anger (and tone of voice) down by at least several notches...before anyone could become any more cantankerous and say something they didn't mean and couldn't take back.

''I let Jaime come home from the hospital sooner than Rudy would have,'' Michael admitted, ''because I knew how important it was to both of you that Becca spends her time at home, instead of in a hospital environment and with nurses half the time. I also know how tired of being a 'patient' Jaime has become...and I can keep a close enough eye on her here now - as long as she can stay compliant with what I ask her to do. And for now, that means staying in bed. Period. If she cannot do that, I have no choice but to put her back into an environment she doesn't want to be in, to ensure she receives the proper rest and care. And Steve,'' Michael was quick to add, ''that doesn't mean I'm saying you aren't caring for her properly. You have your hands quite full here and it's admirable that you're even willing to try this...but if Jaime can't follow even the simplest directions, if she does things like walk down the hallway on her own when she's barely even been allowed on her feet yet...it could just be too dangerous.''

Michael nodded to Mark. He'd said his piece.

''Steve?'' Mark said quietly.

Steve was getting to be an old hand at these sorts of sessions (although not usually with Michael). ''Michael,'' he started out, ''I know you're looking out for Jaime's best interests and I appreciate that. I'm sorry that she - so far - hasn't seemed to be doing what she'd promised. But I have faith in her. She doesn't want to be back in the hospital any more than we want to put her there -''

''NO hospital!'' Jaime interjected. ''And...sitting right here...by the way.'' Everyone in the room could hear her speech become halting and jerky, the way it still did when she was upset or overtired. ''I'll stay...in bed. I will! I...promise. Just wanted...to help feed Becca.''

''Maybe for now, Becca could eat in your bedroom and you'd still be able to help,'' Mark suggested.

It was a start.

In his bed (in the locked ward at Clayton Memorial), Russ was turning everything over in his mind for what seemed like the 10,704th time. He accepted mind control as a fact. He knew it had happened to him in the past because he fully remembered turning Oscar over to Grant Kingsley - at gunpoint. He knew that at that moment - and when he'd shot Jaime - his hands and his actions hadn't been his own. What he hadn't told anyone yet because he was still processing it himself was that he had also fully regained the memories from the night of the shooting. When he closed his eyes, he could picture himself staring coldly into Jaime's face...and then shooting her in the head. How in the hell do I process that, much less actually face her again? he wondered...as sleep refused to come and give him refuge.