I know that these updates are few and far between but please have patience as I am busy and stressed out from school. This is for Kelly and Marcia who celebrated their birthdays yesterday. It's not a happy chapter but it's an update which I said wouldn't happen for another Lough of months :P. I hope they like this.

Thank you all for your reviews and comments.

Disclaimer – I don't any OC character.

"That's it, that's it."

"Come on mom, you can do it."

Her eyes continued to flutter underneath her eyelids.

Then suddenly.

Her eyes flew open.

Frantically her eyes circled her surroundings, again and again as she tried to make sense of where she was.

'This isn't outside' she thought frightened. Her breathing became accelerated. She didn't understand what was going on. People were calling her name, they were saying her name. Then suddenly she made out two faces in front of her.

"Kirsten?" one asked softly with a touch of delight, "Kirsten do you know who I am? Do you know where you are?"

Frightened, she tried to hide her face and push herself back further into the mattress of her hospital bed but she couldn't.

"Mom? Mom, it's Seth," the second voice added, "Mom."

"Seth, go get the doctor and tell him that she's awake," Sandy commanded as he continued to try to calm down his wife.

Seth flew out the door and sprinted down the quiet corridor in search of Doctor Walker. Meanwhile, Sandy held onto Kirsten's hand as his heart pumped at a hundred miles a minute. 'Thank God she's awake' he repeated over and over.

She continued to struggle with the atmosphere of the private room and the harsh fluorescent colours of the flowers that decorated the room hurt her eyes along with the fluorescent lights of the hospital. Kirsten raised her arm up over her eyes to block out the light as it certainly didn't lead to anywhere; it wasn't the light that guided her down to the end of the tunnel. Noticing her agitation to the bright light, Sandy moved away from her side momentarily to turn the intensity down so that she could bear it.

He looked back at her.

After he had let go of her hand, she curled herself up into a protective ball on her side facing away from him. Her hands were curled up by her face and her knees were drawn up into her chest where she rested her head on them. He could hear that her breathing was shallow. It pained him to see her like this, so defensive and scared.

'Doesn't she know where she is? Doesn't she know who I am?' he thought.

Slowly, he made his way towards her. Slowly, he made his way around the side of the bed so that he could see her face. And bit by bit, he lowered himself down so that he was eye level with her. But when Sandy came down, Kirsten moved her face further into her self-imposed ball all the while shaking.

Was she cold? No, because she was under the blankets.

Was she scared? Why would she be scared, she's safe here?

"Kirsten?" he tried but it only served to push her further back into her cocoon.

Slowly, Sandy allowed his hand to float on the air as it inched towards her. His fingers trembled as they moved forward.

"Honey," Sandy whispered before his fingers touched her exposed hand.

Before he could register what was happening, Kirsten had burst out frantically. She screamed in fear as she flung her arms out to banish his hand while she moved off the bed to the floor beneath. Taking a defensive posture she looked around her almost as if trying to determine where the high-pitched noises were coming from.

"Honey, it's me."

Kirsten saw the door and thought that she could make it there before him but as she moved towards it, two people came in through it.

"Mrs. Cohen," one stranger said as he calmly approached her.

Looking at the other figure, she recognized him as the other person who was with her when she woke up. Kirsten looked from one stranger to the next frantically before backing herself into a corner where she sat down, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth while banging her head lightly off the concrete wall.

"Mom, please don't do that," Seth tried as she knelt down in from her to comfort her. But as he reached out to make her stop, she lashed out at him wildly.

"Seth, don't," Sandy warned, "step back, she's scared."

Seth did as he was told.

"But why, she shouldn't be scared, we're her family," he debated.

"Yes but we don't know what she had been subjected to mentally but we can see what they physically did to her," Sandy answered.

"Doctor Walker can't you do anything? Look at her, she's hurting herself."

"She really should be in her bed due to her ribs but I don't know what to do in this situation because if we move closer she'll lash out and if she moves too vigorously she'll do more harm to herself than good. I think it would be best to call in a psychiatrist to see if he can get her to stop. Mr. Cohen, what caused her to get up and head for the door when we came in?" the doctor asked.

"She had curled herself up into a ball when I lowered to lights as she was holding her arm up in front of her eyes. So I want back over to her to see how she was and when I touched her she just went bizerk and jumped off of the bed."

Just as they were about to continue discussing the next course of action, Ryan came by the window carrying Scarlett in his arms and entered the room. Seeing the three males and an empty bed, Ryan stood confused at the threshold of the door as Scarlett played with Whit.

"What's going on, where's Kirsten?" he asked.

Doctor Walker stepped aside and upon looking down, he saw a bruised and battered Kirsten in a small ball while rocking back and forth against the cold wall. Ryan was surprised to see that she was awake but was bewildered by her actions. He motioned forward but all three men stopped him dead.

"Ryan, don't," they all said softly yet firmly.

"Why not?"

"She's frightened and any interaction can cause her to harm herself further," Doctor Walker clarified.

"So what -are we just gonna stand here and wait until she cracks her head open?"

"No," Sandy replied.

"Doctor Walker said he'd call a psychiatrist to see if he can make her stop."

Ryan looked at Kirsten again and noticed that she had stopped. Now she was lying on the floor alongside the wall.

"I'm going to get a psyche consult," Doctor Walker said before leaving the room, "make sure to keep her calm."

"We will, thank you."

With that, three Cohen men and two Cohen women where left alone in a sterile and less than comfortable room.

"What do we do now?" Seth asked uncomfortably.

"I have no idea Seth."

"I think we should tell the others that she's awake but not fit to see anyone," Ryan suggested.

"Yeh ok."

They all headed for the door but once they closed it they looked back at the broken mother and wife on the floor.

"We can't leave her alone," Sandy protested, "I'll stay with her and you guys go on."

"Urm ok, are you sure?"

"Yeh, go. I'll be fine and so will your mom."

Hesitantly, Seth, Ryan and Scarlett moved away down the blank corridor back to where the rest of the family was waiting. Once there they delivered the awaited news.

Sandy gradually stepped back into the room. He paused after closing the door as he looked out of the glass into the world beyond. He wished for the real Kirsten to come past the window and tell him that he's got the wrong room or he wished that he would turn around and she would be awake and lying on the bed. Leaning his head against the cool glass, he turned around and looked for Kirsten.

She was still curled up on the floor.

On the opposite side of the room, he lowered himself down to the floor and leaned up against the wall. He rested his forehead into his palm as his thoughts tried to collect themselves. His mind replayed the seconds in which she burst out. In a flurry of motion, she had swatted his hand. Sandy could see the fear in her eyes as his hand touched her.

'God, what she must have been through' he thought.

Her physical wounds may be on the long winding and hard road to recovery but her mental recovery was a different story. The path that that recovery would take could not be seen. It was going to be a very long recovery.

Sandy remembered when they had been told about her after she came out of surgery.

'Mr. Cohen?' a voice called.

"Yes?"

"Hi, I'm Doctor Mark Walker, I was the attending physician on your wife Kirsten," he introduced.

"Yes, is she ok?"

"Mr. Cohen, there is no easy way to answer that question, but the only way that I can answer that is that she is alive, in a stable condition and resting comfortably in ICU."

All Sandy could do was simply nod.

"Can we see her?" he managed to stammer.

"Not at the moment, but in a few hours as these hours are the critical ones for her. We believe that she had been outside for a long time and considering the extent of her injuries, the weather would not have been good for her body or her immune system. "

"I see."

Then he remembered one evening when he had privately asked how the doctor personally believed her recovery was going. Doctor Walker had rhymed off his usually medical jargon that didn't help much but then he mentioned her injuries.

Internal bleeding.

Cracked ribs.

Bruises.

Deep bruises. Lacerations. Burns. Cuts. Concussion. Vaginal tearing.

Sandy's heart stopped beating at the mention of the last one.

That could only mean one thing.

She had been raped.

Repeatedly raped.

"Is she pregnant?" Sandy stuttered.

"No she isn't. Allof these injuries are months old with the most recent aged at about 3 months so she hasn't been abused since then which is most likely when she escaped," he answered, "and we believe that these men were infertile so their sperm would not have caused her to get pregnant. But their treatment of your wife has caused her body great damage and it would be unlikely that she could ever conceive again."

Sandy was dumbfounded at this. His beautiful, talented and magnificent wife had been repeatedly raped and abused simply for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Standing still he could hear her screams of agony as they raped her, he could hear her cries and he could feel her soul disappearing.

Sitting across from her, he could see the fallen angel in front of her. She is choking back her tears and the men who ruined her life continue to reign happily in the world outside without giving a second thought to the woman in this hospital room.

"Kirsten I don't know if you can understand me and I don't know if you know who I am but I am here for you . . . I am here to look after you and to help you because you are who I love more than anything in this world. I'm here whenever you need me. I'll be here for ever; I'm not leaving you . . . because I love you."

He was waiting for one precious sign.

Ta-da new chapter. Savour it because it'll be a while before I update again. I'm sorry for not updating much but I hope you understand that it's not intentionally and simply due to school obligations. Rock on.