I hope this helps to give you all a little more insight into what Lisa is dealing with and that was the only part of this chapter that I knew for certain about and the meeting between Zoe, Jesse and Noelle just came out. I'm really excited for the next chapter as it'll be a few weeks later and I'm bringing in Lavon and Wade, I've got part of it already figured out, so hopefully I'll have another chapter up for you all tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Zoe looked over the file that lay on her desk. Turning patients away was never fun, but as it was she had more patients then she could handle at the moment, she was stretched really thin, her own personal life gone as she spent nearly ever hour of the day at the hospital as it was. Not only had she checked everything she could out on Noelle she had found the next best doctor for her. Saying no had never been fun, all she wanted was the best for each child that came across her path, but at this point she had no choice in the matter, she couldn't take her on.

She had been so lost in paper work and phone calls that when she heard the knock on her door, she had jumped slightly standing up. She gave her company a smile and motioned them to come into her office.

"I really appreciate this," Jesse told her, sitting down across from her desk, Noelle staying right against her father. Zoe nodded, sitting back down.

"I'm afraid that I don't have good news for you," Zoe started to say. "I've looked through everything I have on your daughter, but," she was saying when he had cut her off.

"I'm sure that you have more on your hands than you can handle and I know asking you to take on Noelle isn't going to help any, but I've looked and did my research on this and I know that you're the best doctor for the case, Dr. Hart. I'm begging you here," he pleaded with her.

Zoe sighed, leaning forward, her eyes going to the scared little girl in her father's arms. "Why me?" She asked, looking back at Jesse. "I'm not any better than any other doctor here."

"But you are, Dr. Hart. I'm sure all the rest of the doctors are amazing at their jobs but you stand out the most. You don't see the kids as anything other than kids that want to get better and be normal, you let them feel like that, you don't treat them like patients but like they're normal kids. You spend all this time with them and you're their friend, Dr. Hart," he explained getting a hint of a smile to cross her face.

"You really did do your research on me didn't you?" She asked with a small laugh.

Jesse suddenly became embarrassed about that fact, but he couldn't help it, he wanted the best chance for his daughter to make it out of this healthy and he really felt like the doctor sitting in front of him was his daughter's best chance at that. He also understood if she couldn't do it and he'd be okay with being referred to a different doctor.

"I love my daughter, Dr. Hart. I had to start with the best, I can understand if taking her on is going to be too much for you."

Zoe heard everything that Jesse was telling her and her option to refer them to a different doctor was dwindling away. She did want to talk to Jesse without Noelle on top of him and she wanted to talk to Noelle without Jesse being right there.

"Noelle sweetie, do you like to color?" Zoe asked in a soft voice, looking at the little girl to see her nod slightly. "Listening to grown-ups talk is kind of boring," she said, getting up. "I have princess coloring books or even superhero coloring books if you want one of those," she suggested, holding her hand out for the little girl.

Noelle looked up at her daddy, Jesse nodded his head. Noelle slowly got off her dad's lap and took the few steps to where Zoe was standing at. Placing her little hand in Zoe's she let the doctor lead her over to where the coloring books were at. "Do you have Batman?" Noelle asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

Zoe smiled pulling out the coloring book filled with Batman. "He's my favorite too," Zoe told her, placing the tub of color crayons on the table next to her. "And at any time you feel scared you can look up and see that your Daddy is right there," Zoe told her pointing to where Jesse sat. Noelle looked at her daddy getting a small wave from him. Zoe waited until Noelle had found a page to start coloring on before walking back over to her desk. "Does anyone in your family have a history with cancer?" Zoe asked getting straight to the point.

"No," Jesse told her. "But it does on her Mom's side of the family," Jesse sighed.

"I was wondering about that. Most the time both parents come in. I commend you if you're a single father," Zoe told him.

"I guess now I will be," Jesse sighed under his breath. "If things would've been different Lisa would've been here, but as a little girl she watched her twin sister go through the very same thing Noelle is going through and it wasn't good for her, it wrecked her childhood and scarred her for life," Jesse started to say, needing to tell Zoe everything that way she'd have a better understanding on what they were dealing with. "And about 10 years after that when she was 18 and starting to getting to better after losing her sister years before hand she sat by and watched her grandpa die from colon cancer," he explained. "It was hard on her then and when we found out that Noelle had Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia it was the final straw, she thought things were fixed," he added on. He had thought things with his girlfriend had gotten better, that she had been getting the help she needed, but it only proved that he had been wrong. He hated that she had just left the way she had, but at the same time he knew it was something that needed to be done for her own health.

It was a few months after Noelle had been born that Jesse had questioned his girlfriend on why she didn't have a better bond with their daughter. "It's not because I don't love her, because I love her so much, but I'm having trouble getting close to her because of my past. I can't lose someone I love, Jesse. I don't know if it'll happen but I'm trying to protect her. If I don't build a bond like you have with her than if anything does happen with me, she won't be as heartbroken, I know how that feels and I could never let that happen to her. I'm trying to do the best for her," Lisa explained sadly, watching the baby in her boyfriend's arm sleep. "I'm going to be her Mother and do right by her, but I can't let myself get as close as you are with her, not after everything, I know it's something you won't understand, but I can't help it, Jesse." She had been right, he didn't understand it.

"That must have been hard," Zoe said bringing Jesse back from his thoughts, searching her desk for some papers. Over the years she had seen it ruin families and she hated that it worked out that way, that they weren't strong enough to cope with everything. She would have thought that they would be able to lean on each other in times like this and with some they had. But to see a mother walk away before the hardest parts even came up was truly heartbreaking, but with everything that Lisa had went through growing up, she could understand to an extant on why she walked away. "I can't guarantee you anything, but fill out these papers while I have a chat with your daughter," Zoe told him, handing him a small stack of papers.

"My daddy is Batman," Noelle said, when Zoe sat down next to her. For this little meeting with Noelle, Zoe wanted to get a feel for the little girl when she wasn't in Jesse's arms.

"He is," Zoe questioned, grabbing a color crayon to color on a blank piece of paper. Noelle nodded her head. "You love your Daddy, don't you?" She questioned the little girl.

"Uh-huh," Noelle replied, her eyes never leaving the coloring page. "Are you going to make me better?"

"I'm going to try," Zoe replied. If she moved a few things around and took an extra hour from her already dwindling personal life she could make room for Noelle, it was going to be a challenge but it was a challenge she was up for. "Is that okay with you?"

"I guess so," Noelle replied with a shrug of her shoulders. "Are you a superhero?"

"I've never thought about it," Zoe replied. "You did a good job with your picture," Zoe said, seeing that she was finished with it. "Do you want to keep it?" Noelle nodded her head. Zoe smiled and tore the page from the book and handed it to her. Noelle took it and ran over to her daddy to hand him the picture she had just colored. "This isn't going to be easy for anyone and at anytime I feel like I can't do my best, I will refer you to a different doctor," Zoe told them walking to her office door. "While you're here let's get a few things set up and taken care of."

"Thank you for this, Dr. Hart," Jesse told her. Zoe gave him a smile and followed him out the door. She was hoping that she was doing the right thing here and that in a few months time she wouldn't regret that she had developed a soft spot for these two.