Charlie pulled the thick blanket over his head in a futile attempt to muffle the sound that he had woken up to for the past three weeks. It had become painfully familiar, each morning and night. It was the despairing sound of his sister softly weeping in her room as each new day began and ended without Leopold.

It had been three long and dismal weeks since Stuart had reluctantly shown up and delivered the crushing news to Kate that she would not be reunited with her husband and in reality had become a widow. It was worse, much worse than telling just any woman she had lost her husband, because it was at Kate's own hands that an impulsive act separated her from Leopold. It had been a gut-wrenching scene at the bridge and even too much for Stuart to bear. He quietly slipped away into the darkness, leaving Charlie alone to contend with his distraught sister. It was a cold, damp night and not in an area of the city that Charlie wished to be found loitering about in the shadows with a hysterical woman dressed in Victorian clothing. Kate repeatedly refused to leave the bridge; desperately believing that Leopold would soon miraculously appear to bring her back. Charlie was finally able to convince her that Leopold would want her to be safe and warm and he knew exactly where to find her. He held Kate tightly as they walked slowly and silently to the apartment building.

Joe, the night doorman greeted Kate as if she had never been gone. But as the elevator door slowly closed behind her and Charlie, Joe began rifling through his overstuffed wallet for the tattered card left by Detective Jensen. Upstairs, Charlie unlocked the apartment door, but Kate refused to step inside. She was certain that somehow her connection to Leopold would be severed forever once she crossed the threshold into her old life. As they stood in front of the open door while Charlie pleaded with his sister to walk inside, the elevator door opened. A rookie police officer responding to Joe's call arrived promptly to investigate.

"Are you Katherine McKay?" he asked, as Kate quickly turned in his direction. She was stunned by the sudden appearance of a police officer and especially one who obviously knew her name.

"What?"

"Are you Katherine McKay?" he asked again, this time his voice a bit more stern.

"Yes…..but…" he cut her off before she could ask why he wanted to know.

"You need to come with me Miss to the station house."

"For what? What have I done?"

"You haven't done anything, except apparently disappear. I need to bring you in for identification."

"What are you talking about? Is this a joke?"

"No joke, Miss. Please follow me." He was all business and Kate was not about to challenge him. She and Charlie were shown into the back of a waiting squad car and on their way to a downtown precinct house.

Whispering in the back seat, Charlie enlightened Kate about what J.J. had done and about what had transpired since she left. Kate had never considered all the ramifications of her sudden and unexplained disappearance. She was aghast at the magnitude of the river search and news coverage that her departure garnered.

"I'm so sorry Charlie. I've made a mess of everything."

"It's OK…it's going to be alright." He lied, knowing that she was most likely correct and it was going to be a mess.

"I can't do this…please don't make me do this." She begged. Kate had never even had a parking ticket and here she was in the back of a police car and about to see the inside of a police station for the first time in her life. She could not fathom facing J.J. right now, or ever for that matter. But, it was too late and had to be done. The car pulled in front of a station house she had passed so many times and never gave it a thought. She noticed that the inside door of the car had no handle or way to even open the window. It made her feel like a criminal and even more so as the rookie opened the door from the outside and escorted her into the building, holding onto the back of her arm. He checked her in at the front desk, speaking through a small hole in a glass window before being buzzed through another door and down unappealing hallway. They passed all sorts of unsavory looking characters and no one seemed fazed by her unusual clothing.

J.J. had just returned home from a late night reorganization meeting. He was greeted by a police officer waiting by his townhouse door and brought in to identify Kate. His anger at Kate had not diminished and was especially heightened since he had just come home from a tense and complex meeting which was necessitated by her actions. He waited with Detective Jensen in a harshly lit room at the end of a long wooden table. Kate felt sickened as the officer opened the door and without warning saw J.J. sitting and staring right into her eyes. She looked down and refused to make any other eye contact with him. He impulsively laughed at first sight of her strange attire.

"Geeze Kate. Where the hell were you? At a Jane Austen convention?"

JJ had been prepared to seek vengeance against his public humiliation. He wanted to disgrace Kate for betraying him in front of his peers, but he could not. She looked so pathetic and pitiful. He found himself unexpectedly struck by a feeling of sadness and sorrow for her.

"Mr. Camden, can you identify this woman?" Detective Jensen questioned.

J.J. looked at Kate, shaking his head. "Yeah…it's her."

"Can you identify her by name? This is being recorded."

"Yes..it's Kate…uh..Katherine McKay."

"Thank you Mr. Camden. You need to stay and complete some paperwork. Miss McKay, you are free to go. Just one suggestion..the next time you leave town, you really should let someone know where you are.."

Kate nodded and stood up and began to walk toward the door.

"What happened to you Kate?" J.J. called out; his voice uncharacteristically sincere with concern. He called out again….."Kate…..let me help you…"

She turned and looked at him. "I'm sorry, J.J." she said with a barely audible voice before walking out the door. She met Charlie in the hallway and they were treated to another ride home and so ended her brief run in with the law. This time, Charlie did not need to plead for her to go inside the apartment. Kate was so physically and emotionally exhausted, she did not have it in her to fight. She walked straight to her room, shut the door and he had barely seen her since. In three weeks she had not left the apartment or spoken to anyone.

Charlie could no longer stay in bed, listening to his sister's anguish. If the crying itself was not bad enough, her coughing put him over the edge. What had started as a mild and infrequent cough, soon after her return, had now become constant and alarming. She had ignored his pleas to see a doctor. Kate had rarely left her room, but he heard the door open. Charlie quickly got out of bed so he could confront her in person, before she had a chance to slip back behind the protection of her locked bedroom door. He had not gotten a really good look at her until now and was taken aback by her gaunt and pale appearance.

"Kate…you look awful. What are you trying to do to yourself?" He didn't really expect an answer, nor did he even give her a chance to provide one. "Are you trying to kill yourself or something? Are you thinking that you're going to meet Leopold up in heaven?" Charlie said as he motioned up toward the ceiling.

"What are you talking about?" Kate responded, surprised by Charlie's tone and apparent anger.

"You're obviously sick and getting sicker. Wait…listen to this." Charlie said he retrieved a piece of paper from the desk. "Yellow Fever, Cholera, Tuberculosis, Influenza, Measles, Scarlet Fever, Malaria, Diphtheria. How do those sound?"

"I don't have any of those…it's just a cough."

"How do you know? Those were all around you and they're all really bad. You don't know what you might have brought back. So…get dressed…you're going to the hospital."

Kate conceded without much of an argument. She hadn't really given her cough that much of a thought. But within the last week, she was not feeling well at all. She knew she didn't want to live without Leopold, and although in her despair she sometimes wished she had died…. she certainly did not want to. She only wanted to return to Leopold, alive and healthy.

Outside, Gracie hailed a cab and they were on the way to NYU Downtown Hospital. They waited for what seemed an eternity for Kate to be brought into an exam room. Charlie hated hospitals; the smell of them, the memories of his parents dying. They sat quietly each lost in their own thoughts; both wishing Leopold were there and wondering what he might be doing at that very moment.

...

After Kate had vanished, Leopold searched frantically in the entire area surrounding the bridge. When it was clear that she was nowhere in the vicinity, he was certain she had returned to their honeymoon suite. He ran the entire distance, fueled by the image of falling into Kate's arms as the door burst open. However, he was met with an empty room and reports from the staff that she had not been seen there since they left together earlier in the day. Overcome with grief, Leopold returned to the bridge. He sat on a bench; clutching Kate's glove in his hand, as he stared out into the darkness. He held onto one last shred of hope that Kate had not left him and if she did, she would quickly return. He waited all-night; alone and distraught.

In the weeks since Kate left, Leopold spent a seemingly excessive amount of his time near the bridge. At first, most mistook it for his passion of science and invention. But soon, those who knew him best became concerned with his seemingly odd obsession with the structure. No one knew that he sat and waited for his beloved wife to return to him. This was not the first time that Leopold waited for someone he loved to return and it awakened painful memories he had hidden away. Once again he was the little boy who sat alone on the stairs to the grand family home waiting for his adored mother to return. He had been far too young to understand the finality of death when she had died so suddenly. His father had been much too deep in mourning to pay enough attention to his heartbroken son who sat and waited day after day. A recently hired, kindly gentleman servant took it upon himself to help the young Duke understand that his mother was in heaven looking down upon him. From that moment, the bond between Leopold and the kindly gentleman Otis, was forged. But this time, Otis was unable to help the inconsolable Duke.

It was no secret in New York that the Duchess had vanished and it had been front -page news. Leopold carefully folded the paper each day and tucked it away in a drawer. He would fantasize about showing them to Kate when she returned and how they would laugh at all the fuss she had created. News traveled fast and with the advent of the transatlantic telegraph cable, news of both Leopold's nuptials as well as Kate's disappearance had quickly reached England. His Aunt had been initially quite upset over Leopold's unexpected marriage because she was not present. But she was now more upset over Kate's disappearance. Millard's wife was a smart woman and suspected her husband might have played a part in this sad development. That would explain Millard's insistence that local authorities locate Kate. For all of his bravado, Millard was devoted to his wife and vowed to her that he would find Kate. The world was a much smaller place then and no one could understand how someone could just vanish. It seemed to authorities that Kate McKay just didn't exist. Leopold was the only one who knew that they were right.

...

Back in the hospital, it took over 45 minutes before Kate was taken into an exam room. It would be another 45 minutes until Charlie was told he could see his sister.

"How is she?" he asked the nurse who had come to retrieve him.

"The doctor will speak with you." was her response; which Charlie took as that bad news awaited him.

He followed her through a maze of exam rooms until she pushed a curtain aside, where Kate lay on a gurney, covered in a blue hospital blanket. In her left arm was an IV tube, which slowly dripped some sort of mysterious fluid into her body. Charlie thought she looked so tiny and frail. The doctor introduced herself as she was jotting some notes down on a pad.

"How ya doing?" he said, walking closer to Kate. She had clearly been crying.

"Your sister has bronchitis. Her symptoms are treatable and it will run it's course within a few more weeks."

"But…what's that for?" Charlie asked, pointing to the IV.

"It's just saline, she's a bit dehydrated."

"So, that's it?"

"There is something else, but your sister asked that she share it with you." Charlie's relief that his sister was not seriously ill was fleeting. With that, the doctor and nurse vanished, leaving Charlie and Kate alone.

He wanted to prepare for the worst, although he was not sure exactly how someone did that. Kate looked off in the distance, as if in deep thought.

"Kate?"

"Well, you were right Charlie." She responded, looking him squarely in the eyes.

"Right about what?"

"I did catch something while I was there. But, it wasn't on your list…you left something out."

"Oh God…what is it?"

Kate didn't answer right away; her expression strangely caught between tears and laughter, as if she could not decide which emotion was more fitting at the time.

"Kate? What is it?"

"You're not going to believe this, but….I'm pregnant."

"You're…. what?"

"Pregnant!"

"Holy shit. But…how is it possible?"

"Well Charlie..let me explain it to you."

"I just meant…"

"I know what you meant. Well…apparently it's possible because I'm having Leopold's baby." Kate's hand instinctively caressed her belly. "I'm going back, Charlie. Once Stuart finds out…he'll help me…you'll see. He has to."

Stuart had advantageously been assigned as a visiting professor out of state for a month long assignment. He felt the timing could not have been better and was safe from being anywhere near Kate.

"Charlie…you think he'll get me back now…right?"

"Yeah…I bet he will." Charlie didn't really believe that, but he couldn't bring himself to tell her that Stuart probably would not send a pregnant woman leaping off a bridge…even if he could. Kate smiled for the first time since she returned.

" I hope it's a boy." She said, rubbing her belly. "Little Leo."

Charlie smiled at his sister. Just when he thought that life could not get more complicated, it just had.