A/N: WARNING – sad themes ahead.

When Cora goes into surgery Emma has to pretend to be her cousin – what bad news does she receive? Lewis begins to panic and feels something is wrong, but can't place what it is. Could it be related to the news that Emma has gotten? Read, enjoy, review!

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"We have to stabilize her; she's lost a lot of blood – she's about to hit a stage IV hemorrhage."

"What happened to this girl?!"

"We don't know – her friends are saying they had a boating accident, she and the other kid got banged up pretty bad."

"This was no boating accident, not like anything I've seen anyhow…" The doctor muttered, creasing his eyebrows as he examined the girl on the table, briefly scanning her body starting at her head. When he reached her hands he muttered, "Something went through both hands; the x-rays show a clean snap in one of the metacarpal bones – something cut straight through it…" He watched as the nurses frantically cut away the bloodied articles of clothes from Cora's body and began a blood transfusion. He raised his eyebrows upon seeing the wound at the front of the girl's chest and paused for a moment, confused, "Gun-shot wound?"

"That's what it looks like, Dr. Miller."

"From the size of this hole, this thing should have gone all the way through! There's no exit wound – have we recovered the bullet yet?!"

"…There wasn't one."

"What do you mean, 'there wasn't one'?!" He exclaimed, speaking more to himself than to the nurse as he quickly began cleaning the still bleeding wound with strong, pungent alcohol, "God, this is strange… Mary, get another surgeon in here to work on her hands. I need to close up this wound - I need stitching wire, now." He demanded quietly, holding out his hand as he hovered over the girl on the table. In another second, a nurse had placed the materials in his hand. However, she cleared her throat quietly and spoke up.

"Dr. Miller…"

"What is it?"

"I think we've got another problem…" The nurse trailed off and held up Cora's dark navy jeans that they had just cut off of her. The front of them was covered in a large, fresh bloodstain. The doctor froze a little and sighed sadly, knowing what he was looking at.

"That's not from another injury, is it," He stated. It wasn't a question. He stared down at the young unconscious female and frowned slightly.

"No, sir… It… it looks like she's miscarried from the blood loss."

"From the stress on her body from this 'accident' as well. As if she hadn't been through enough," He mumbled softly, beginning the complicated process of stitching up the gun-shot wound, carefully wiping the wound between stitches with the alcohol, "Have the tests run and find out how far along she was. We'll do all we can here and then we'll have to inform her family when she's out of surgery," He ordered, and within another second the nurse was off on her task and the second surgeon had entered the room and began prepping the young girl's hands. The doctor sighed sadly, watching the other surgeon for a brief moment before returning to his own task, glancing at the unresponsive girl's face, then letting his eyes trail to her hands, strange chest-wound and then down at her rather flat stomach. It was evident at first glance that she couldn't have been very far along, but after all she'd been through – wherever she'd been – to live through it and then lose a child was heartbreaking; but then again, he had to wonder if the girl had even known that she was pregnant in the first place. His lips twitched into a sad frown beneath his mask and he continued stitching the wound carefully, mumbling softly, "Poor kid… What happened to you out there?"

-

Emma

"How long has it been?"

I checked my watch before replying. I sighed a little when I realized the time-lapse.

"It's going on almost two hours, now, Lewis." I said quietly from the chair I had pulled up next to his bed. Rikki was in here with me; Nate and Cleo had gone to grab coffee while they waited outside. I sank back into the chair, exhausted. I was grateful that most of us managed to escape that yacht unscathed, but I knew I looked like a mess anyway. At this point, even I didn't care, and while I was glad that we'd gotten Lewis to the hospital in time, now we had another friend to worry for.

"Something doesn't feel right. There's something wrong; it shouldn't have taken this long…" Lewis muttered. At his insistence, we had helped him sit up in his bed. However, we'd tried and failed at getting him to rest, but we had known that we would. At this point, we were doing about all we could to keep him in the bed so that he wouldn't rip his stitches out. But even I had to admit that something felt wrong. I glanced at Rikki, who looked just as nervous as I felt: the feeling was mutual after all.

"Try to relax. I'm sure she's fine and we'll get news any minute," I gave him a reassuring smile and leaned forward in my chair a little. I was hoping to calm him down even a little bit – having Cora's empathy ability would be a big help right now – but the way that I felt inside was making it hard. He hardly glanced at me anyway; his eyes were glued to the open doorway.

After another minute, Cleo appeared quickly in the doorway.

"Guys, Cora's doctor's coming out – come on!" She squeaked, whispering almost as if no one was supposed to hear her, then was gone. I looked at Rikki, who looked back at me and then at Lewis who looked like he had every intention of trying to get out of bed. I opened my mouth to speak, but Rikki's voice cut me off before I even had the chance.

"You're not going anywhere, McCartney – we'll tell you everything, promise. Besides, you've only got your hospital gown and let's be frank; I never want to see what's hidden under those sheets." She grumbled, sliding out of her perch by the windowsill and stalking towards the door. I smirked a little and watched Lewis's face turn bright red.

"Don't worry, Lewis. We'll be back." I smiled politely and tried to stifle a laugh as Rikki and I left the room. Her comment had lifted my spirit a bit, but the second we reached the waiting room I felt my heart start to throb again. We sat down in our chairs, joining Cleo and Nate and after a few seconds a tall middle-aged man in scrubs and a white jacket joined us.

"Hello – I'm assuming you must be Cora's friends?" He asked us. We nodded.

"That's us," Cleo began, "Is she all right?" When she asked, I immediately tried to read the doctor's reaction. It's a habit, wanting to see if I'm right or not as soon as possible, but something really did feel wrong and I knew now that I wasn't the only one who could feel it. I saw him sigh a little, but he pushed a smile onto his face: he pushed. Something is up.

"Well, it's nice to see you all here for both of your friends. I'm Dr. Miller; I'm your friend Cora's primary physician. Cora…" He trailed off for a second and I could tell that he was trying to find words. This made me even more nervous than I already was, "She was in very bad shape and it will be some time before she recovers. When we got her into surgery she was on the bordering on a Class IV hemorrhage; that means we would have lost her in as little as another minute or two. I don't know where you all were or what kind of accident this was – I don't even understand how she managed to get here alive," He went on, and it was clear from his voice that he was confused and even a little upset, "She's in recovery now, but we can't let any visitors in for quite some time. We'll let you know as soon as we put her into a room in the intensive care unit," He paused and looked at us; I looked around at everyone's faces and the look on each of them was the same; guilt, worry. But then he spoke again, "There are matters that should be discussed with her family – have you contacted them?"

Uh-oh. I shot a quick look at Cleo and Rikki; if we told him the truth, it would sound even worse – 'oh, sorry doctor, her entire family is dead. Also, we can't really tell you how she got those injuries or where we were. Whoops!' Definitely out of the question. Before I even realized what I was doing, I quickly stood up, earning a few sets of raised eyebrows from my friends. I gave them a discreet look and looked up at Dr. Miller.

"She's my cousin." I blurted out quickly. Dr. Miller looked surprised, and rightfully so. I paused for a second. "She's adopted." I added. I really hoped that I was a better liar than I thought, but Dr. Miller nodded and led me down the hall to another empty waiting room.

"Miss…"

"Emma." I said. Just in case, I didn't want to give my last name. He seemed to accept it and nodded.

"All right then, Emma. Look… I know that something weird is going on. I've seen about a thousand gunshot wounds in my 20 years as a doctor – Cora was shot, I have no doubt in my mind. But, the hole only goes about two-thirds of the way through her chest – the bullet never exited, and yet there was no bullet to remove. There is no way you all could have removed it on your own, and I know that. It's quite apparent to me that there is a reason you all aren't telling us the whole story, and we cannot force you to; however, if you and your friends are in trouble then I'm urging you to contact the police. Somebody shot and stabbed your cousin and your other friend. To be perfectly honest, when I said she would have been dead in a minute or so, the truth was that she should have been dead already – I have no idea how she survived. I don't know what happened out there, but… if the police need to be involved, I sincerely hope that you…" He trailed off. I gulped a little. He did know something strange was going on, but he thankfully wasn't pressing for more.

"It's being taken care of, Dr. Miller."

"As long as you're certain that it is…" He started, and then his face went so stony that it made my chest tighten and I instantly got nervous again, "There's more. Emma, I'm sorry to tell you, but… Cora miscarried during her surgery. She lost a lot of blood; her body had been through a lot and her internal systems had begun to shut down. I'm sorry to drop this on you, but please understand that it's really better in situations like this that a family member delivers the news to the mother."

I froze and immediately felt every ounce of color drain from my face. Had I heard him correctly? I couldn't believe what I had thought that I'd heard, but the instinct in my gut that had known something was wrong was screaming that this man was telling me the truth; that this was what we had been feeling uneasy about. I felt a little dizzy and my chest felt tight; two blows hit me at once, and the surprise and the sadness were overwhelming. Not only had I just found out that Cora had been pregnant, but she'd lost the baby, too?

"Cora… Cora was pregnant? What… how… How long?!"

"I'm so sorry, dear; she was. And not very far along, only about 6 or 7 weeks now."

"Oh… oh my god..."

"I don't know if she's got a boyfriend or not who you think may have been the father, but you may want to contact him as well when you contact the rest of your family. I'm sorry for your loss; I'll have someone come and let you know as soon as we can let you in to see your cousin."

I barely even felt myself nod, but in another second Dr. Miller was gone again and I was left sitting in the empty waiting room alone. I stared straight ahead and realized my hands were shaking a little bit. My mind was moving in about a million different directions. What was I supposed to do? What was I supposed to say to the others, and more over, what was I going to say to Cora and Lewis?! I couldn't even imagine what would happen. I hadn't had any idea that Cora was pregnant and I knew that none of the others knew either. Those kinds of secrets don't get kept among us! I immediately wondered if Lewis had known, and then something that made my heart jump sadly clicked in my mind: had Cora even known? I thought back to a few hours earlier when she and Rikki had come back to shore on the lifeboat with Lewis, Nate and Zane. When I had first seen her it was clear that something was wrong, but it wasn't until Rikki explained what she had seen on our way to the hospital that I fully understood – Cora had sucked Lewis's injury away from him and taken it into herself. I gulped quietly, but thought hard. I knew that Cora loved Lewis and would do anything for him, as this proved, but there was no way that she would put her own child at risk by giving herself an injury like that. I felt my body shudder hard and I bit my lip as I realized what this meant: she hadn't known she was pregnant.

The back of my hand swept across my eyes before I even realized that I had been crying. This was horrible. The responsible side of me considered telling her, but inside I had already resolved what to do: I wouldn't mention the miscarriage. Finding out about this would literally kill her, I have not one ounce of doubt in my mind, and we couldn't lose her after all of this. I pursed my lips together and unclenched my hands, standing up. This would be a secret that I would have to hold on to; I couldn't risk letting the others know. I sighed and wiped my eyes again, pulling myself together and returned to my friends.

Lewis

It feels like it's been way too long since the girls left the room to go hear from Cora's doctor. I can't shake the feeling that something is wrong – call me a pessimist, but it just didn't feel right and I started to feel myself panic.

I frowned and pushed myself up a little higher in the bed, trying to peek out into the hallway – bad idea. The second I leaned forward and inch I could feel the pain start to jab into my back.

"Gah…" Frustrated, I sat back but lifted my head every few seconds impatiently. The medicine they had given me for the pain didn't eliminate it entirely, but thankfully the injury was really only giving me problems when I moved. I sighed and felt my jaw clench and my throat immediately went dry when I realized the reason why I could feel the pain from it all of a sudden, whereas when I'd woken up, I couldn't; why the shot that had gone all the way through my chest and gone out through my back was now only a few inches deep – why I was still alive. I let out another frustrated groan. I wish I could have stopped her. I couldn't remember much, but I remembered the incredible relief I felt after I had been shot when the pain was suddenly gone. I remembered looking up and seeing Cora staring down at me, and I had immediately known where the pain had gone. At the time I had wanted to scream for her to stop, but my body hadn't had the energy left for the words. I had tried shaking my head, but I just remember her watching me, not moving, not speaking. Everything had gone black and I couldn't see, but I remembered the strange sensation of the fresh wound slowly stitching itself together layer by layer. I hadn't had any idea of what that was at the time, but a few hours ago when I had woken up and found Cora bleeding I knew what had happened: the girl I loved was bleeding to death for me. My jaw clenched again. I couldn't lose her; not again.

It had been several minutes now and even though I could see them down the hall, they were too far for me to hear what the doctor was saying. I had seen him lead Emma even further down the hall a minute or so ago, but she was back now – he was gone. My heart was thudding in my chest and my stomach felt like ice – something was wrong, I just knew it. I felt hollow inside, like some huge part of me had been taken away. The feeling terrified me.

I groaned. Come on guys, did you forget about me? I'M STILL HERE, YANNO, just saying… Finally, I saw them start to walk back towards my room. I sat up a little more.

"Is she okay?!" I blurted out before they had even gotten through the door. I saw Emma fidget.

"You really shouldn't be sitting up like that Lewis - you're going to rip your stitches out, then you'll be stuck here even longer." She muttered; ever the responsible one. I ignored her, but looked at her face – she looked nervous, which made me nervous. Then I looked around at everyone else's expressions, and everyone else looked relieved. I brushed off my concern with Emma's look and looked at Cleo, knowing that my best friend would give me answers.

"She made it out of surgery and they put her in recovery for right now," She started. I sat up a little more but she started talking again, "But, they're not letting anyone in to see her just yet – not until they put her in an ICU room."

I paused. Something still felt very, very wrong, and I had the distinct feeling that I wasn't being told everything. I looked around at everyone and then I remembered that the doctor had taken Emma somewhere.

"Emma! What did her doctor say to you?"

"Um… I told him I was her cousin. He told me that I should contact the rest of her family and let them know what had happened. We couldn't tell him that her whole family was dead, it would sound really, really suspicious." She said. She looked at the floor the entire time, and I sighed. If that was it, then that was it. But something still didn't feel right, and I had no idea what it could have been.

"There's one more thing, Lewis…" Cleo started. I picked my head up quickly – maybe this was what I had been waiting for? Rikki immediately crushed my curiosity.

"Cleo called your mom." She said with a smirk, and then hurried out of the room. My eyes bulged.

"Cleo, you didn't!" I groaned loudly. I looked up and her face had gone bright red, embarrassed. She opened her mouth to speak but I heard another familiar voice out in the hall before she could.

"Where's my son; what happened to him?!"

Uh oh. That would be mom. I glared daggers up at Cleo and in that second she and everyone else bolted out of the room. Great. Not that I don't love her, but now I had to deal with mom freaking out…

Best day ever.

-

My mom finally left after I managed to convince her that I was really going to be fine… even though it took about 6 or 7 hours. It was a pretty elaborate cover-story, but she seemed to buy it. Apparently I seem like the type who would go fishing no matter what, even during a hurricane, and get myself maimed as a result. While I don't know if that's necessarily a desirable trait, it kept mom from knowing the truth.

She freaked out again once she learned that Cora was also in the hospital and in much worse condition than I was, of course nobody was about to tell her why. However, it proved to be pretty useful in the hours that she was here, because while I still wasn't allowed to get out of bed, mom would go out of the room every hour or so for a few minutes and poke around at the nurses to see if anyone could update her about Cora's condition. I honestly didn't think it would work, but just before she left it paid off!

"They told me they've put her in an ICU room a little while ago, sweetheart; she's resting, but they said she'll be just fine."

I sat up a little higher and my head picked up.

"Really? You're sure?" I felt my eyebrows go up skeptically, "How did you get them to tell you about her?" I asked. Mom smirked and picked up her purse, then planted a huge kiss on my forehead.

"I told them that I was her boyfriend's mom," She shrugged a little and I blinked – why had that worked? I thought hospitals were more secretive about patients than that, not that I was complaining… "I'll be back tomorrow, sweetheart. Get some rest all right? I love you!"

"Sure, mom. See you tomorrow – love ya." I replied, and in another minute she had left the room.

I sat there for a minute by myself, thinking. I knew that no one was allowed to see Cora yet, but the gears in my head had already started turning. I knew that she had to be in a lot of pain and that alone killed me to know; it was definitely contributing to the hollow feeling I'd had all day. But hearing that she was all right and would be fine was helping me a little. I was sad, but felt a smirk creep onto my face anyway: I might not have had any powers that could take her pain away or take back the wound that she had taken from me – though I wish I did – but I did know of one thing that did help her with pain.

Water.

I began to put my idea together in my head quickly, but I would need the help of Cleo, Emma, Rikki, Nate and Ash to keep Cora's nurses distracted for a little while. I sighed and cursed Linda Denman for what she had done to us. A part of me was a little nervous that she hadn't died; she was like a human cockroach that couldn't be killed. There would be time to worry about that bitch soon enough, but I couldn't worry too much about her at this second. If she was alive, I hoped that wherever she was, she was having the most miserable experience that a person could have. God knows she would deserve it. And if she were dead, well then, I hoped that she was burning in hell.

I let my eyes slip over to the clock on the wall. It was 8:30 at night and visiting hours were over, so my friends would have been gone by now. I smirked a little, resolved. I didn't have magic, but I was going help in the best way that I knew how.

And all I had to do was wait until the morning.

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A/N: Can Emma keep her secret or does the burden of it get to be too much? Have Dr. Denman and her men survived the split of the yacht? Find out in chapter 15! Until then, review and take care everyone.