Chapter Two

Colorado Springs, Clinic

It had turned nine o'clock in the morning and Michaela was sitting at her desk in her clinic. Brian had gone to school one hour ago. It was his last year of school in Colorado Springs. Soon he would have to decide whether he wanted to attend a college or whether he wanted to train for an occupation somewhere closer to home. The possibility that he eventually would become a journalist was surely huge. After all, he helped Dorothy Jennings to bring out the 'Gazette' every week and was doing a very fine job.

How fast had he grown up! After all, it had not been that long ago that he had asked Michaela if he could call her 'Ma' on her very first Christmas' Eve in Colorado.. Michaela was proud of Brian but at the same time she couldn't help feeling the loss of her youngest boy.

And Colleen! She was married to Andrew for some weeks now and had gone to Philadelphia with him to attend Medical College. Michaela missed her eldest daughter very much.

Matthew, however, had stayed in Colorado Springs had plans to study law in Denver very soon. Nevertheless, he would be spending his weekends here in Colorado Springs, where he had made himself comfortable. Michaela had to smile at the thought that the otherwise so grown-up Matthew would probably never get away from his hometown. His heart was simply home here and for that Michaela was very glad.

And then her little angel Katie! As more days went by, she more and more became the sunshine of her family. She learned new words and things daily and soon she would be pestering her parents with questions. She was so sweet and pretty with her blond, curly hair, her beaming white baby smile and the brown eyes that always looked attentively and questioningly at the world. The little one slept upstairs in one of the recovery rooms. Although it was quite late at morning the little one still slept tiredly in her little bed and was not being heard or seen. Michaela had put her there when she, shortly after her arrival in the clinic, had noted, that Katie had been tired after all and not been in the mood to play all morning.

Actually, on this quiet Friday morning Michaela had intended to finally work on the actualization of her patients' files. However, she just couldn't bring herself to do it. Her thoughts jumbled in her head and constantly wandered to one certain person. Blushing, she couldn't stop thinking of their heated encounter in the early morning. The passionate embraces, the synchronous movements and hot kisses which caused their respective breaths to stagnate and suspend heart beats for seconds, the sweet sighs and whispered affirmations of love. Every time they came together was different, but always as overpowering for both of them as it had been on their first time. After all those years Michaela could finally admit to herself that not only her deep, endless love caused her to crave Sully's body so burningly, but also an undeniable physical desire of wanting to have Sully close to her. The fact that they loved each other so much only strengthened that feeling all the more and made everything even more perfect. Michaela knew that Sully felt just the same about her. Often, he had told her and thousands of times he had proven it with his actions...

A loud shout of agony let Michaela stop in her reveries and yanked her back into the present.

"Arrrrgh! Damnit!"

The shout resembling that of an injured animal reverberated in the rooms of the Gold Nugget and could be heard loud and clear all across the street through the open windows. Startled, Michaela jumped up, however, quickly collected her wits while briefly checking whether everything was ready in the clinic for a patient. Preparing herself emotionally for an emergency, she already heard heavy steps on the porch. In a hurry, the door was pushed open and Michaela could see who was needing her help.

"Hank! What's happened?"

"Sorry ta bother, Doc, but I had a little acc'dent!"

Hank had wrapped a dishtowel he was usually using at the bar of his establishment around his arm. His face distorted with pain, he pressed his arm close to his chest and Michaela immediately saw that the once white-colored cotton cloth was slowly taking on the color of bloody red. Being accustomed by now to the not-so-sanitary ways of the west and just a little furrowing her brows at the soiled towel, Michaela immediately was by his side

"How's this happened, Hank?", she asked once again. "Here, sit down!"

With that, she pressed him down on the examination table.

"Aaaw, Michaela. T'was so stupid. I can't tell ya or an'one else."

Nevertheless, as he got Michaela's austere look as she warily tried to unwrap the dishtowel, Hank continued. "I's jus' cleain' up yesterday's mess in the Nugget."

Mischievously, he grinned at Michaela. "Tried to pick up and clamp b'tween my arms as many whiskey glasses as I could, but..."

"Ouch, Michaela, that hurts!... But some stupid, strayin' cat's decided ta be runnin' through me legs and gave me a jump. Bloody critter! Took hold too hard. Few glasses split on me, direct in me arms and I think, my chest 's also got somethin'... Blood sprayed everywhere, I tell ya!"

In the meantime, Michaela had taken the cloth and finally saw the whole magnitude of Hanks wounds.

"Yes, Hank. This doesn't look too good. There's a quite deep cut on your wrist. I will have to sew it up, probably with a few stitches. Indeed, I must clean it of all the blood from the wound first and then check whether there are more splinters in it. If you could raise your arm over your head please, so that the wound stops to bleed. Can you do that?"

Hank only nodded and obliged.

"Should I help you to take off your shirt, so that I can have a look at your chest?", Michaela asked.

Despite his pain, Hank was all smiles by now. "Whoa, Doc! If I'd known that I've got to injure myself to death so's ya say this to me, I'd have done it years ago!"

As a result, Michaela unconsciously grinned slightly back, blushing, and thought. 'Typically Hank. Bleeding on my floor, but still in the mood for a silly joke and immoderate exaggerations.'

With her help and his healthy hand, both had soon stripped Hank off of his blood-soaked shirt, so that Michaela could examine him thoroughly. "It doesn't seem to be so bad here on your torso, Hank. There are several scratches that will probably be hurting, but they aren't very deep. I'll bandage them later, so that the cuts don't scratch on your garments. At first, I will tend to your arm."

With that, she got her sewing utensils and everything necessary for local narcosis. Conscientiously and focused, she concentrated on her work. She tried to sew the stitches as narrowly as possible so that the scar would become as invisible as possible later on.

Silently, from the side, Hank secretly admired this elegant, but combative woman whom he had already more than once quarreled and clashed with in serious conflicts. Unfortunately for him, most of those times he had arisen from those discussions as a loser. Problem was that if Michaela, just like now, had devoted herself to a goal, she appeared to steer her whole concentration and willpower, her whole fighter's mind on this one task which she had to master at the moment. This, in Hanks eyes, made her the great doctor she was. However, he'd rather drink a glass of dishwater than to admit that to her!

Just on time, as Michaela had sewed the last stitch and checked her work once again, her concentrated expression suddenly changed considerably and Hank became witness to a spectacle he, to his point, never had the chance of seeing. Her face lost all color and almost horrified, she looked up at him with big eyes.

"S'it so bad, Michaela? Will I die?", the barkeep tried to joke.

But Michaela only shook her head before she ran out of the surgery with one hand clamped over her mouth. It lasted a few minutes in which a more and more worried Hank had to endure quiet gagging sounds from the adjoining room.

Shortly after, still pale and somehow weak on her knees, Michaela appeared in the doorframe again.

"I must apologize, Hank," she quietly started, but he interrupted. "Michaela, ain't ya well? Maybe ya should go lie down, Doc?"

"No. I'm feeling better now."

Resolutely, she shook her head and some color swept back into her pretty face.

"It seems I've become a little sick. But I'm feeling better now."

"Really!", she determined on Hanks skeptical face.

With that, she came forward to finish her work and wrap a comfortable bandage around Hank's arm. She was just beginning to wrap a tight bandage around the scratches on Hank's chest as she was - quite neutrally - thinking about how a man like Hank, who so obviously had wallowed in all vices of this world, could possess such a divine body and not - so had proven his actions – even care about it, when Hank began anew.

"Ya know, Doc. 's much as I like havin' ya here around me," he hinted on how Michaela just embraced him narrowly in order to wrap the bandage around his torso, "but I was thinkin' it'd be real better if ya allow yarself a little break. Go home."

On her protesting expression, he added. "There's a traveler over there in the Nugget, a doctor. Dr. Graham or somethin' like that. Wants to visit his brother. In Frisco, I think. Well, anyway, he could fill in for ya at emergencies, couldn't he? Then ya can..."

"Hank, I'm really touched by your concerns for my health. But I am really fine now!"

Decidedly, as she was ridding herself of her soiled apron, she walked to the medicine cabinet in order to pick out some painkillers for the next days. While she was rummaging around there, Hank looked at her very closely. But he didn't dare saying anything in order to not endanger their freshly blossomed friendship. That moment, Hank was struck once again at how pretty she was. And because he was a man who used to enjoy beautiful things, now he also didn't look the other way. According to the weather, she wore a light, pale yellow blouse set off with white lace trimmings and a bright skirt. Her long hair flowed airily down her back in cascades. Only the strands which always threatened to fall in her face were twisted back in a small braid. The incoming light made her hair shine gloriously and Hank found her now, as she bore such a decided expression, even more beautiful.

Michaela was just taking a bottle from the medicine cabinet to decipher its contents on the label. When she held the bottle in front of her eyes, the Latin letters all at once commenced to dance before her eyes. She had to close her eyes, but when she opened them again, the writing became even more and more fuzzy. Michaela became dizzy. Everything in her head started to spin and suddenly everything went black.

Hank just had the wits to react fast enough. When he saw that Michaela had obviously visual difficulties and became a little wobbly he'd started to worry even more. When she began to sway however, he had swiftly jumped up preventively and hurried to her for help. Thus, he was able to catch her in the last second of her fall to the floor, even if clumsily with only one arm, and prevent her from hitting the hard ground.

"Hell, that's a pretty cattle o' fish now!", Hank exclaimed, snorting, picking her up.

It wasn't quite easy for Hank, to carry Michaela with his one healthy arm in one of the recovery rooms on the upper floor of the clinic, even as she was a relatively light person. But somehow, with some graphic maledictions, he managed in the end.

Upstairs, he warily laid Michaela on one of the beds, took off her boots as a precaution and laid a damp cloth, which were always ready in the sickrooms, on her forehead. He didn't have any idea what he could do more for her.

Throwing one last look at the unconscious Michaela, he rushed from the room, downstairs out on the street where of all people he almost crashed with an always startled looking, 11-year-old, Tommy Wilder.

"Hey you, boy!", Hank barked. "Get the Doc. I mean Dr. Graham. Over there in the Gold Nugget. If he ain't in there, ask someone where he's at and then bring 'im here! Did ya understand? It's an emergency!"

"Just do it!", he yelled as a scared little Wilder seemed to take roots in the street. As a result, the boy started moving and did what was asked of him.

Hank meanwhile, went back again to Michaela. He was arriving at her door when he saw her slowly fighting to open up her eyes.

"Michaela!", without thinking, he hurried to her side and held her hand in his. "It's me, Hank. How ya doin'?"

"Hank? Where...?", Michaela stammered.

"Ya're here at the clinic. We been downstairs. You've fixed me up, do ya remember? Then ya suddenly fainted. I brought ya in here. Doctor will be here in a minute."

"Brought me upstairs?", Michaela whispered. Then, however, more lively she sat up. "But Hank! Your arm! The sutures could tear."

"Oh," he declined, "not with a flyweight like ya."

Michaela sank back into the cushions. "In any case, I thank you, Hank. Again." Michaela had to remember how she had been saved by Hank, after being shot by this lunatic downstairs in the clinic. "You are unbelievable, Hank!" Actually, she meant that after all those years that they both now knew each other, she still at times didn't know what to think of him. Once he seemed concerned for her, the next moment he shouted at her.

But he joked with an unequivocal blink in his eyes. "I tried to make this clear to ya all this time, but still ya had to go and marry this half savage."

Even Michaela had to laugh at this, for she knew he didn't mean it as it sounded. And her giggle illuminated her whole face. But Hank saw something else in it. A certain sparkle in her eyes that hadn't been there before. It made him think and his expression became more serious again.

"Now, Michaela. I really worry about ya. Ya're pukin' all over the place. Simply for no reason in the world ya're fallin' to the ground at my feet...," taken aback, he paused when thunder struck him. Grinning, he looked at Michaela. "Or do ya know somthin' what we don't?"

Piercingly and curiously, he gazed at Michaela, causing her to turn beet red. All at once, she knew what he was thinking. But she needed a few seconds to organize her own confused thoughts. Then, she suddenly realized that the fact she had not dared to hope or to believe up to now, was indeed, most probably true!

With unmistakably beaming eyes she looked at Hank. "It could be... It's possible...," she whispered and now, because she had said it loud and clear, she was overpowered herself.

"Ya're pregnant?", Hank asked loudly and grinning.

Michaela looked at him with huge eyes. "Hush, I said it was possible... Oh well, everything fits together...But Hank! Why do you know that? Does it already show?"

Uncertainly, she looked down at herself. However, Hank laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder.

"Why, no! But as ya're sayin', everythin' fits tagether... Oh well, in my business one must learn ta pay attention to such women things with one's girls. Other way ya can shut the place down immediately."

On Michaela's shocked face, he continued. "But I have ta admit. Beside yours, I've never witnessed some joyful reaction to those news and I need ta say that, for a change, that's somethin' quite... hmph... interestin'... Does the happy father already know?"

"Hank! I'm not sure yet myself... That is, until just now I didn't know it...," she faltered.

"Michaela," reassuringly he touched her. "I think ya and me already know the truth and I congratulate. Ya'll see this doc will...", in a raised voice "whenever he finally decides to show up here" in a gentler manner "confirm our suspicion. And ya don't haveta be afraid. I'll tell no soul."

As if on clue, a disheveled Dr. Graham finally came rushing into the recovery room.

"Up here you are! I have been looking for you everywhere. Are you the emergency, Miss?", he directed his gaze to Michaela.

She had to grin involuntarily and also Hank couldn't hold back an amused grunt at the sight of the doctor. Indeed, Dr. Maurice Graham was possibly in his end-fifties. However, he was looking as lanky and clumsy as a 20-year-old. His hair tussled and the buttons of his shirt made up in the wrong holes, he looked like freshly chased out of his bed, which probably was the truth. Still, he had a friendly face and looked somehow trust-worthy.

"Hmph yeah, Dr. Graham," Hank answered in Michaela's place. "I been callin' for ya because Dr. Quinn here's got some problems.", stretching the "Dr. Quinn"... "Hmph, I let ya two be now."

With that, he sheepishly winked to Michaela, moved out quickly and closed the door behind him in order to gobackn to the Gold Nugget. However, the last words he still could hear were. "You are Dr. Quinn? Why, what an immense joy to finally get to know you personally! I have been already told so much about you by some of our mutual colleagues. Today, I wanted pay my respects to you, this afternoon indeed. But, if you will pardon my saying so, I must confess, I am surprised very much. Really, very much indeed. I would never have thought that behind this name, behind this excellent reputation, there would be hidden such a pretty face. I..."

Hank laughingly shook his head. If this doctor was only half as good and quick in doctoring as in talking, Michaela'd certainly be better in no time at all.