Kate's next seizure woke Daniel out of a deeper sleep than he'd managed to get since the Incident. He slid off the spare bed and pressed the call button for the nurse. This time, he stayed while the Valium dragged Kate back to a medically-induced slumber. He kept a grip on her hand, and after the nurse left, insomnia took over as he waited for her to wake again.

The sky outside the window was a dark slate when Kate woke. "My head hurts," she croaked.

"You had a seizure again," Daniel said. "How do you feel?"

"Like someone set my brain on fire," she moaned, closing her eyes.

Daniel rubbed his thumb over her hand. She coughed violently, and he wished he could do more for her. "You should sleep," he said.

"Did you?" Kate asked. Her eyes searched his face for lies.

He didn't lie. He wouldn't—not now. "A few hours. After you went to sleep, I took over the other bed."

"Good. When my dad comes, will you go home for a while?"

"Why?"

"You need it."

"You want me to leave?"

"I want you to be okay." Coughs wracked Kate's petite body. "My dad'll be here," she said hoarsely. "You can go home and get some rest."

Daniel thought he might protest, but she was so adamant about taking care of him, even from her hospital bed, that he couldn't fight against her. "Okay," he said. He probably wouldn't get a wink of sleep, but he could at least get a shower and a sandwich before he came back.

Kate gave him a tired smile, but it turned quickly to a grimace.

"What's wrong?" Daniel asked.

"Nothing," Kate said. "Just a headache."

"Are you sure?" Daniel got the feeling Kate wasn't being straight with him, and that made him more worried than anything.

Kate started to nod, then squeezed Daniel's hand tightly, squinching her eyes shut and gritting her teeth. A single tear escaped from between her dark lashes, and Daniel wiped it away before it could get more than a couple of inches down her face. "I'm okay," she whispered.

"No, you're not," Daniel said firmly. "You don't have to put on a brave face for me."

"Yes, I do," she protested weakly.

Daniel reeled. Where did she get the idea that she had to be brave for him? Just because he was mentally unstable didn't mean she needed to baby him. "Please," he begged. "Not this time."

Kate closed her eyes, breathing heavily. "Hurts," she said.

"I'll call the nurse," Daniel said, reaching for the call button.

"No," Kate said through her teeth.

Daniel hesitated, then pushed the button anyway. "You need it," Daniel said. "It'll make you feel better."

By the time the nurse walked in a couple of minutes later, Kate's hair was damp with sweat, and Daniel was starting to get seriously worried. Kate's heart rate had gone up, and after a quick once-over, the nurse gave Kate a dose of morphine.

Kate relaxed slowly and drifted into slumber. Daniel sat with her until Joe showed up around eight-thirty in the morning. He was reluctant to leave, but he knew Kate would have a conniption if he was still around when she woke up, so he squeezed her hand, told her he'd be back soon, and let Joe take a shift.

The following days blurred in Daniel's mind. He and Joe and sometimes Roger took shifts sitting with Kate so she was never alone, but Daniel spent the most time with her by far, and as a result witnessed the most of her seizures, which became more frequent and more violent with every passing day.

After a week, Kate was hardly ever fully conscious. She spent her waking hours in a drugged haze, forcing grimaces and clinging limply to Daniel's hand. Her speech often slurred, and she had to make an enormous effort to enunciate. On Kate's eighth day in the hospital, Daniel insisted on taking the overnight shift, though he hadn't gone home at all that day. Kate didn't protest—not that she had the energy.

"Daniel," she said quietly, when everyone else was gone and the room was still and silent again.

"I'm here," he said, thinking she was in some kind of delirium and wanted to know he hadn't left.

"You've... been here... all day." Her speech was labored, and Daniel wanted so badly to make her better.

"You need me," he said.

Kate grimaced, the closest thing to a smile she could manage. "I need... you... to be... okay."

"I'm fine," he insisted.

"No." She paused, gathering her strength. "You're in... denial," she told him.

"What?"

Kate squeezed his hand weakly as her eyes watered. "Daniel... I'm not... gonna be... okay."

Daniel felt a prickling sensation at the corners of his eyes. "Yes, you will," he said, his voice rough. "You just have to let your body clear out the poison. You'll be fine."

"No," Kate rasped, and Daniel let himself crumple, his forehead resting on the edge of the bed. "But... you will."

"How?" Daniel asked, pleading silently with her to fight, not to give up. "I need you."

"You... have me... now."

"Don't leave," Daniel begged.

"Not... yet."

Daniel wrapped both hands around her small, frail one, lifting his head. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Sorry for being such a neurotic headcase. Sorry for not looking out. Sorry for making you take the knife. Sorry for always letting you down. He brushed a hand over her hair, then leaned over the side of the bed and kissed her lips carefully, so as not to break her. When he leaned back in the chair again, Kate coughed violently.

"Don't... be sorry," she said. "I'm... not g-gone... yet."

Daniel shushed her gently, running his fingers over her hair, her face. She looked so frail and delicate now, and Daniel could find only a few traces of the badass crime fighter he knew so well. But she was still a fighter. She could come through. She would come through. As she succumbed again to sleep, Daniel became aware of a familiar presence in the room.

"Daniel," Natalie said from the end of the bed, "I think it's time you learned to let go, don't you?"

Daniel looked up from his brown study of Kate's delicate fingers. His eyes met Natalie's, and something somewhere in his mind told him he was only staring at the air. "What?"

Natalie walked slowly around the bed and crouched next to the chair so she was looking up at him. It made him feel six years old, and he had a horrible sinking feeling he knew the sort of thing she was going to say. "You're going to have to let go of her soon," Natalie said.

Daniel adjusted his grip on Kate's hand. "She needs me."

"You know what I mean."

Daniel turned away from Natalie's too-kind face. She reminded him of other faces which had spoken similar words. He watched instead Kate's pale, gaunt face. Two weeks ago, he'd seen her come out of a sparring session with her brown hair pulled up behind her head, eyes sparkling, cheeks rosy with exertion, and a sweaty grin plastered on her face. Now he was lucky to get a weary smirk out of her. The sweat on her forehead was cold, and her hair fell limply over her shoulders. In the brief periods of her wakefulness, her eyes were lackluster in her tired face, and they haunted him while she slept.

She was sick.

No, said a horrifying part of Daniel's mind—horrifying because it was his own voice, his own conscious thought, and not just another figment of his diseased imagination. Not just sick. He felt a strange twisting deep in his chest that he hadn't felt in a long, long time.

Kate Moretti was dying, and it hurt like hell.