The rain was pounding down as so often it did in Florida. Kelly heard nothing but it beating against the rubble above and surrounding three sides of her. It was splashing up from the edge of the broken floor, now probably about three feet from where she lay. She'd shoved herself back against the wall of debris under the coffee table as far as she dared, not wanting to dislodge it in any way.

But you didn't need to be a professor of physics to be aware of a few facts that each passing second forced Kelly to face. First, heavy rain like this tended to move things that weren't tightly held down. Second, she had a who-knew-how-high mountain of debris covering her little bubble of life; debris that wasn't tightly held down by anything but gravity at this point. And third, there was a gigantic hole way too close to her, where at this very moment that pounding rain was eroding more and more dirt, sand and whatever else comprised the sides of the hole, away.

So either the debris would become soaked, and therefore heavy, and break the coffee table – crushing Kelly in the process – or the sinkhole would edge nearer and nearer to the part of her house's foundation still standing, and welcome it – and Kelly – into its dark and deadly embrace.

Neither scenario boded well for her survival.

She was starting to get cold, and her head was just one massive ache. No throbbing, at least, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt like a bitch.

For the past half-hour, Kelly's mind had tried to figure herself a way out of this. She thought maybe she could scoot to the edge of the coffee table – the edge of the floor of the house – and peek up and over to see just how high the debris above her was. If the entire second floor had collapsed, there could either be a mountain, way too tall and unstable for her to climb, or a good amount of it could've already tumbled into the sinkhole.

Which may have left very little for her to climb over. Maybe she could make it if that was the case. Only probably was, she was too damn scared to move toward the precipice. Too afraid that if she did, her weight would be the tipping point that would send her and that section of the floor, careening into the abyss.

Or even if she did work up the nerve to have a look, and decided she could try to climb up and over to get away from the immediate danger, what if her hands and feet dislodged bits of rubble on the way up, sending her falling to her death anyway?

If only she had her cell phone with her. Then at least she could try to call for help. Hell, she'd even try for International Rescue, because there was still some slim chance that they were operating even with four of them in the hospital.

Of all the luck, to be caught in two earthquakes inside a week, and to need rescuing both times. She thought she must've done something a little wrong in a previous life to find herself in such a situation. The thing she didn't understand – because she had remembered this much from her high school and college science classes – was how there'd been earthquakes in Miami at all. She knew that earthquakes had been felt in Florida before, but not since 2006 when one had hit in the Gulf of Mexico. And that was twenty-eight years ago!

What in the world would make the passive side of the North American tectonic plate move so violently as to cause this sort of damage? The fact that this chasm had opened up next to her home seemed to support there being something wildly wrong underground, but without the ability to see how far down the hole went, or what might be at the bottom of it, there was no way to even speculate whether it truly was a sinkhole, or whether it was Mother Earth actually cracking at the seams.

It sure felt like the latter to Kelly.

But that was where her geology knowledge ended, and it was making her head hurt speculating about it anyway. The ache seemed to be getting worse, and while it was dark and the rain made even the lightning-illuminated world outside her bubble fuzzy, she also felt like her vision itself wasn't quite right.

Maybe if she just stayed still where she was, and closed her eyes for a little bit, someone would show up to help her. She had no idea how much of Miami was in the same boat as her own house. Maybe not many others had been affected. Maybe firefighters just couldn't get into her neighborhood because of the hole, or fallen homes or something. They'd come. Someone would.

So Kelly let her eyes drift shut, and tried to stop thinking about how badly her head was hurting now.

God, it hurt so much.

How she wished she was back in that beautiful prairie with King, Julie and Scott, talking about everything and nothing, without a thing wrong…with no headache…with no impending death.

She sighed, and let herself float away on the image of herself and Scott whole…uninjured…and happy.


"What's it say?" Virgil asked when Jeff lifted the pad away from the bed after Scott's hand stopped moving.

Scott reopened his eyes, which were now trained on his father, as Jeff brokenly read the messy scrawl out loud. "Virg…Kelly in danger…have to save her…I won't l…wait, what does this say? L…live? Live…without her."

"Kelly's in danger?" Virgil repeated.

Scott's eyes snapped to his, then he blinked once.

"How do you know?"

No reaction.

"Who's Kelly?" Jeff asked.

Virgil looked up at their father. "She's one of the two women Scott was trapped in the bank vault with," he replied carefully, remembering there were two people in the room who didn't know they were International Rescue.

"And he thinks she's in danger?" Jeff asked. "Didn't International Rescue get her out of there along with Scott?"

Of course, as a 'regular' person, Virgil wouldn't know the answer to that, so for the benefit of Nurse Juanita and Dr. Acton, he just shrugged one shoulder, hoping his eyes conveyed to Jeff that yes, they had indeed brought Kelly to safety.

Jeff frowned when Scott gestured toward the pad, waving it in as though he wanted to write more. So Jeff swiped his hand across the screen to erase what Scott had already written, and placed the pad under his hand on the bed again.

"I don't get it, though. If she was rescued along with Scott, then why does Scott think-?" Jeff stopped, sharing a look with Virgil.

He knew his dad had just put two and two together. Kelly: a rescued victim in Miami. Miami: they'd just seen on NTBS not half-an-hour earlier, that it'd been flattened by a second quake.

"Kelly," Juanita said, and everyone turned to look at her but Scott, who had begun to write on the pad again. "Funny, I interviewed a cousin of yours by that name as a potential donor for Scott."

Virgil felt his eyes get big and round.

"Cousin?" Jeff asked. "There isn't a Tracy cousin named Kelly that I'm aware of."

Juanita frowned. "She said she was a fourth cousin of Scott's. Said she didn't want the family to be told she was being tested, because it was only for a 'just in case' since Scott's brothers had already been found to be organ matches."

"Redhead?" Virgil managed to squeak out, realizing this was rapidly going downhill. Pretty soon he'd have to fess up to Jeff about breaking one of IR's sacred rules. Then he froze. Brothers. Kelly had been talking to him as he was coming out of anesthesia. She'd called John and Gordon his brothers.

Oh, my God. She knew. He forced himself to remain calm as Juanita nodded. "Yeah, five-four, red hair, porcelain complexion. Very nice, soft-spoken."

"Are you telling me that someone—" Jeff cut himself off. He couldn't rant about someone they'd rescued following them to the Cleveland Clinic. Not with Acton and Juanita standing right there.

"Do you know if she's still here?" Virgil asked the nurse.

"No, I honestly don't. Although, when I tried to find her to let her know the results of her tests, Dr. Gimball, the psychologist you both met who performs the psych analysis for potential donors, said she mentioned she'd be returning home as soon as the tests were over. When I tried her cell phone, it went to voice mail. She hasn't called back yet."

"She went back to Miami," Virgil breathed, and then yelped when Scott grabbed his forearm in a vice-like grip. "What the hell?"

Scott was holding up the pad, waving it around. When Jeff took it from him, Scott dropped the stylus, which clattered to the floor.

"What's it say, Dad?"

Reading again, squinting a little to try and make out the badly-written words, Jeff replied, "Kelly dying. If…she die…dies, then…I die. Save her…save me."

Virgil felt like all the blood had drained out of his body. A chill swept over him. "Is this about her talking to you when you were hurt in the vault?" he asked, leaning as close to Scott as he could from his seated position. Because honestly, he couldn't think of what the hell else Scott would be on about where she was concerned.

One blink confirmed it.

"How can she save you?" Jeff asked. "Do you mean through organ donation?" He looked across at Juanita. "Was she a match for anything he needs?"

Juanita's mouth opened…closed…opened again. "I'm sorry, Mr. Tracy, but if she's not actually part of your family, I…I can't disclose her results."

"She's right," Dr. Acton said. "If you're telling us this woman's not related, then her results are completely confidential to her."

Scott squeezed Virgil's arm and gave two blinks.

"It's not about the organs, is it," Virgil said, and it wasn't a question, but Scott answered anyway.

Two blinks.

"Then what is it about?" Jeff asked.

Scott's eyes flitted to Acton and Juanita. Jeff followed the look. "Could you please give us a moment?"

"I don't know, I think you need to leave. His BP is rising," Acton replied, looking at the monitor next to Jeff near the head of the bed.

"Please, Doctor," Virgil said when Scott's nails dug into his forearm. "Just a few minutes, and then we'll go."

Acton sighed. "All right, but I'm watching that monitor from the other side of the glass, and if his BP goes up any more, I'm kicking you out."

"Understood," Jeff replied.

They waited until Juanita and Acton were gone, the door shut behind them.

"Scott, we got Kelly out of the vault. The other woman scrambled out as soon as we broke through, and Gordon took Kelly to the paramedics. She only had some bumps and scrapes," Virgil explained. "By the time we extracted you and got you to Two, both of them had already been taken away in an ambulance to be checked out at a local hospital."

Scott managed to shake his head 'no,' even though the movement was minute.

"How do you know she's in danger?" Virgil asked, feeling his father's eyes boring holes into his skull.

Scott's hand waved in the air again like he was writing. Jeff stooped, picked the stylus up off the floor and swiped the previous writing off the face of the pad. He gave Scott the stylus and placed the pad on the bed again.

"Virgil, what the hell is going on here?" Jeff asked, voice held calm and even. But Virgil knew that tone. "Who is this Kelly and why was she here, being tested to donate organs to Scott, under the pretense of being his cousin?"

Swallowing and closing his eyes briefly as Scott started writing again, Virgil decided he had to come clean. "When we broke through into the vault, we found Kelly curled up directly in front of Scott, holding his hand, with their foreheads plastered together. Scott was barely alive, and Kelly was speaking to him, whispering, telling him some sort of story about…I don't know, riding horses or something."

Jeff looked at him like he was insane.

"When she realized we were there, she got up and moved away, but didn't want to let go of his hand. We told her she had to get out of there or we wouldn't be able to extract Scott from the rebar stuck in his side." Now Virgil met his father's eyes. "Next thing I know, I'm standing out front here getting some air, and up pulls a cab with her in it. Kelly said she'd felt compelled to come here and see Scott. She didn't even know why, but begged me to let her talk to him again. She'd traveled all night to make it."

"How the hell did she even know Scott was here?" Jeff bellowed as much as he could at a whispered volume. "Do you realize that she probably knows who he is? Who we all are?"

Virg bit his lip and looked down at Scott, who'd stopped writing and was looking right at him. "I don't know how she knew Scott was here," he lied, because above all, Virgil Tracy had never been a snitch, and wasn't about to rat Gordon out for having been the one who told her. "But I made sure you were nowhere around when I let her in to see Scott."

"That's why Gordon was so insistent that I leave his room that night, wasn't it?" Jeff growled, and Virgil chanced a look up at him. "He was in on this with you, squirreling that woman into Scott's room, getting me out of there so I wouldn't know! What the hell are you playing at? What is our cardinal rule, Virgil, what the hell were you thinking?" And yeah, Jeff was pretty much yelling now.

"I didn't ask for Gordon's help getting you out of there so you wouldn't find out, Dad," Virgil whispered fiercely. "I asked for you to be gotten away from Scott so Kelly wouldn't figure out our identities! Dammit, Scott improved after Kelly spent time with him; he was able to go for surgery after that!"

"And you were asleep when I came down to tell you the doctors wanted to speak to us in the conference room, so how the hell do you know what she did or didn't discover about us? I have to find out what Juanita and the doctors told her. She may very well know something she shouldn't. She could be out there right now telling the world who we are!" He finished by raising his arm and pointing off into the ether.

"She could just as well be dead," Virgil replied quietly, and Scott flinched, his breathing starting to sound ragged.

"Son?" Jeff said, all concern now directed down at the man on the bed. "I'm sorry, Scott, calm down. I didn't mean to upset you."

"What'd he write?" Virgil asked.

Jeff spared his second eldest a glare, but dutifully picked the pad up off the bed. "He wrote, let's see…he wrote, 'she's going to die, she's hurt…IR save…bring her here…or I'll die.' That's all it says."

"Why, Scott?" Virgil asked, pulling his arm out of Scott's weakening grip and grabbing hold of his hand tightly. "How is it that if she dies, you'll die? We don't understand."

Scott's hold on his hand grew weaker by the second. Virg glanced up at the monitor. "Shit, his blood pressure's going up." He looked back down into Scott's eyes, getting out of the chair and onto his feet so he could lean right over him, be directly above him, force Scott to look at nothing but him. "I know you can't speak and you're hurting, but you need to relax so you don't flatline on me again, bro, okay? Listen to me: International Rescue isn't operating right now. We can't with four of us down. There's no way we can go to Miami to try and find Kelly or any other people who need help."

Scott blinked rapidly. To try and calm him, Virgil placed his right hand along the side of Scott's face. "Listen to me. If you need new organs, and Kelly's a viable donor, the hospital will call her. They have her contact info since she registered as a donor for you. She'll be able to give you organs if need be."

Scott blinked twice, head shaking 'no,' only this time more violently, which had to be wreaking havoc with his throat thanks to the wide ventilator tube down it. Virgil couldn't imagine how much that movement had hurt, raked up Scott's trachea.

Scott waved his right hand and Jeff swiped the words off the pad again, this time not even having time to place the pad on the bed before Scott was scribbling like mad with the stylus. Virgil could see the pad as Scott wrote, and with each subsequent barely-legible word, he felt his stomach tie itself into tighter and tighter knots.

Lifeline

Jeff was craning his neck around to see the face of the computer pad as well, a scowl firmly embedded on his face.

Kelly in danger

Scott's left hand squeezed Virgil's with what appeared to be all the strength he had left as the stylus faltered in the middle of him writing:

I know I will die

And when the last words came, it sealed within Virgil's mind what he was going to do…whether his doctors, his father or anyone else approved, or not.

If you don't save K…

With that, the stylus dropped from Scott's hand as it fell back to the bed. His eyes rolled back into his head and alarms started going off all around them. He went completely slack, hand no longer holding Virgil's at all.

"Okay, that's it, out!" Dr. Acton exclaimed as he, Juanita and Dr. Anderson rushed into the room. "Now, please, or you'll kill him!"

Virgil turned, skirted around the hover chair and shuffled as fast as he could through the room door. Jeff was right behind him, computer pad still in-hand. Everyone in the hall, every single member of their family, watched helplessly through the glass wall as the doctors and nurse, and two more nurses who charged in, struggled to lower Scott's blood pressure and stabilize him.

Leaning heavily on the wall, his right hand against its smooth surface the only thing that was keeping him standing, Virgil turned to look at Jeff. "I'm going to Miami," he said. "I have to find her."

"Are you crazy?" Jeff countered. "Look at him, he's barely alive! You can't tell me that trying to find some woman he rescued there before is going to keep him alive better than the best surgeons in the country can!"

Virgil felt woozy. So woozy. He watched as Kyrano approached, stopping when he was standing in between the men. "Jeff," Kyrano said softly. "What's going on?"

But Jeff clamped his mouth shut, folded his arms over his chest and looked back to watch what the medical staff was doing to his son, rather than answer his old friend.

"One of the women whose life Scott saved came here to see him," Virgil replied, and Kyrano turned to face him. "Now he's saying she's in danger, and that if she dies, he'll die."

Virgil forgot for a moment how Not Right he was feeling when Kyrano's face changed from curiosity to comprehension. "That must be the woman I saw not far from his room."

"What?" Jeff asked, moving around so he was next to Virgil, in Kyrano's line of sight. "You saw her? You knew who she was?"

"No," Kyrano replied, shaking his head. "I didn't know who she was, exactly, but…I recognized her on some level, I think. Recognized…something within her, something in her eyes. I felt she was important, though in that moment we were so concerned about Scott, I didn't have time to dwell on it." He looked at Virgil carefully. "She had red hair, and green eyes."

"Yes," Virg nodded. "That's her. That's Kelly."

Kyrano looked thoughtfully at him for a few seconds more, then back to Jeff. "I know you have always had difficulty believing in the things I believe in," he said softly, "but perhaps there is something to what Scott believes."

The look on Jeff's face told anyone watching precisely what he thought about that particular idea.

"Whether it's true or not," Tin-Tin said as she and Ruth drew nearer, "if Scott became that agitated over the matter," and here, she indicated where the doctors were only just managing to get Scott's BP closer to normal with a nod of her head, "then whether it's true that this Kelly can save him or not is irrelevant."

"That's right," Kyrano added. "Because if Scott believes she's the only way he'll live, then it may become true whether it actually is true or not."

"You're not making any sense, Kyrano," Jeff growled, arms defensively back in place over his chest. "None of you are."

"Dad," Virgil said, trying to stand a little more upright, but being reminded rather urgently by his body that the painkillers were wearing off really fast, "Kelly works in Miami, she lives in Miami. And they just had a second earthquake that flattened the damn city. If she went back home like she told the psychologist she was going to, that means she might've been there when it struck."

"Which means she could already be dead," John observed from his hover chair, "if not injured."

Jeff turned to look at him. "Don't tell me you of all people are buying this hocus-pocus."

John shrugged. "What's it hurt to bring her back here? If Scott thinks she can make him better, then all she can do is make him better, whether it has any basis in actual fact or not."

"That's not the point!" Jeff whispered fiercely, trying like hell to keep from being overheard. "If she knows our identities, then our entire operation has been compromised! And if she doesn't already know, by some miracle, then bringing her back here to see all of us is a risk we cannot take!"

Virgil swallowed hard, wondering if his next question might get him a fist to the jaw in spite of his post-surgical state. He looked Jeff in the eye and asked anyway. "Are you willing to let Scott die just to keep International Rescue alive?"

And you could have heard a pin drop.

But the answer, when it came from his father, wasn't in the form of a punch or even a glare.

Instead, Jeff's shoulders slumped forward, like the weight of everything had finally caught up to him and was crushing him. Virgil pulled away from the glass wall and placed his hand on Jeff's shoulder. He saw Gordon and John carefully getting to their feet behind their dad. They shuffled forward, and Jeff turned his head to look at them.

"Dad, you know, I'm not sure I buy that Kelly could save Scott's life medically or in any other way," Gordon said. "But I'm the one who let it slip where we were taking Scott. It's my fault she knew he'd be here, so it's my fault if IR's been compromised. But quite honestly, if Scott dies?" Gordon shrugged, shook his head, looked away. "If he dies, I don't know that I'd want to do this anymore anyway."

Jeff closed his eyes, looked back at where the nurses and doctors were moving much more slowly now, not so frantically. The Life Sign monitor at Scott's bedside showed numbers and rhythms that seemed steady enough, and once more, Scott appeared to be asleep.

"Dad," Alan said, speaking up on the matter for the first time, "I think we should try to find her for Scott. She's important to him." He swallowed hard and took Tin-Tin's hand. "I know the feeling."

Tin-Tin turned a surprised face Alan's way as he blushed.

Virgil couldn't fathom what was going through his dad's mind right now. He also didn't really know how he felt about Scott's insistence that Kelly's life needed to be saved. How would Scott even know she was in danger? The only possibility there, something that Virgil couldn't quite bring himself to buy, let alone figure out, was some sort of psychic connection, like Kyrano had once said he somehow shared with his half-brother. Only that way could a man lying near death in Cleveland, Ohio, possibly know that a relative stranger in Miami, Florida, was in danger.

And if that was the case…if there was some sort of connection between Kelly and Scott for whatever reason, whether pre-ordained or because of whatever Kelly had done to keep him alive in that vault until his brothers had gotten there…then maybe Scott had been right. Maybe he did need Kelly alive in order to keep himself alive.

The only thing now was whether Jeff could put aside his lifelong disbelief of anything he couldn't explain with science or see with his own eyes. If he could make himself believe just enough to make the impossible happen. To make sure Kelly stayed alive.

The alternative of Scott dying – whether because there was a true need for Kelly's presence, or whether Scott just believed that in his mind – was simply not an option.

As Virgil watched Jeff work through his own thoughts, emotions clearly on display via his facial expressions, he thought he saw their father coming to the exact same conclusion.