"So did you actually get to talk to her?" Marc asked with the notion Jack has lost his mind completely this time.

"No. But I heard her talking to someone else." He turned to Marc with hope in his eyes for the first time in months. "She said she still loves me."

"Jack…" The red head's heart ached for his best friend. How was he ever going to get over this girl if he wouldn't stop talking about her, thinking about her, hearing her voice when clearly it wasn't her? "Jack…you need to take some time off. Go somewhere. Get out of here."

"What?" Jack turned away from the box of pizza sitting on the stove and handed Marc his share.

"You need a vacation. Go to Vegas, gamble a little and have some really hot sex with a girl twice as pretty as Kate was." He took the plate but grabbed Jack's wrist. "You need to forget."

"Marc, I don't need to forget. I need to find her. I know she's out there somewhere and I can't stand knowing that she's just to proud to come back."

The other man just hung his head. Jack really thought he heard this girl on the phone and deep down he could convince him that he was probably sleep deprived and was hallucinating the whole thing.

"You know I'll do anything for you, Jack. You're like a brother to me. That's why I was best man at your wedding. That's why you'll be mine if I can ever find a girl shorter than me that can still play basketball and beat me at Trivial Pursuit. But I'm not going to help you find someone that doesn't want to be found." Jack sat down at the island across from his friend with a disappointed face.

"If you're my brother than you should know that I wouldn't be looking for Kate if she didn't want to be found." He took a bite of pizza like it was no big deal. Almost like they weren't talking about the girl that meant more to him than his own life. "Kate is so different from everyone else. She helps me cook and waits up for me when I work late. And I don't mind eating vegetarian meals for her." His voice was wistful and his eyes far away, in a better time and place.

"That doesn't mean anything Jack. It just means you're infatuated." Mark took a rude slurp of his diet coke.

"She knows everything on my iPod,"

"Everything?" Mark's eyes went wide.

"Everything." Jack nodded. "And I know that guys aren't supposed to talk like this but the sex is just…"

"I get it. It's good. But I've had great sex with lots of girls. That doesn't mean I want to marry them."

"But it's not just sex with Kate. We make love. That's the difference. That's why I can't let her go. That's why I know she meant what she said on the phone."

Marc shook his head for the millionth time during their conversation trying desperately to understand Jack's need for this girl that ripped his heart out.

"If you guys make love than why did she leave?" Jack was quiet, not out of defeat but thoughtfulness. "You know I wouldn't try to make this miserable if I didn't want you to see that life is still going on without her. You still have a job and a best friend. You will meet more girls, girls that are not like Kate. Girls that want to have fun and be casual. Girls that don't have so much baggage that they can't commit to more than two months of a relationship at a time." Jack still didn't say anything and Marc bit into his second slice of pizza, a victorious look in his eye. He was sure that Jack could understand that logic. After all, he was a logic kind of guy.

"I think that's why she left." The spinal surgeon looked up to see his red headed buddy sigh and hang his head. "Marc, she's tried to tell me something on more than one occasion. I think I always interrupted her." Jack stood up and started pacing around the kitchen, excited by his new epiphany.

"Like what?" Marc still sat eating his late dinner.

"I don't know, but I had to be important if she never told me." He went back to all of their late night conversations, collecting evidence as he went. "She never talked about her parents, we always talked about mine."

"Maybe because your dad is a giant obstacle in your life?"

"Aren't most children's parents' giant obstacles in their lives?" That brought a pang to Jack's chest thinking of his own child that would come sooner than he anticipated. It worried him to think he would be an obstacle in his son or daughters life someday.

"So you think she has something going on with her parents?"

"You don't think they hurt her or anything, do you?"

"Jack, how many abused patients have you had? Does Kate fit any of that?" He offered trying to help Jack answer his own question.

"I don't know. We never delve into it. She doesn't need me like most abused children do…" He thought a moment longer. "She has an irrational fear of hospitals."

"How does that play into anything? Is her dad a doctor or something?"

"I don't know…I really don't know anything about her family. Just that she grew up in Iowa."

"Iowa!? Seriously?" Marc chuckled never having thought of Kate has a down home kind of girl.

"I know. That's what I said." He did another circle around the room and stopped. "There was an incident the first time we went to the hospital. We ran into this guy from peds and he like…grabbed her and started yelling at her. Called her Amy? He told me she's not who I think she is."

"Sounds creepy." Marc carried his now empty plate to retrieve more pizza. If Jack wasn't eating it, he was.

"It was. And later that night she told me that he was right."

"I'm sorry about yesterday." She said it so quietly she wasn't sure if Jack had heard it or not due to his lack of response. Then he stirred, loosening his grip around her waist.

"You don't have say anything."

"Yes I do." She nodded to no one. "I'm sorry that…"

"That what? That some guy practically attacked you? You have nothing to be sorry about." His voice was soothing despite the seriousness of their conversation.

"No. I'm not sorry for that. I'm sorry that he was right."

"What was he right about?" Jack asked cautiously.

"He was right about me not being the person you think I am." Her heart beat hard with fear and anticipation. Rolling over to face the man in bed with her swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

He looked tired. The kind of tired that makes everyone look older than they really are, the kind that makes your heart break for them.

She couldn't do it. She was going to tell him everything and let him decide whether or not he still wanted her. She was going to lay all of the cards on the table, but after looking at his face, she couldn't do it.

"What are you talking about, Katie?" He called her Katie, just adding another crack to her already injured heart.

Thanking God that it was to dark for him to see the tears in her eyes; she smiled a small smile and said, "I don't know. I guess I'm just scared, you know?"

He nodded. "Me too. But don't worry. We have plenty of time to do whatever we want to do before things get crazy around here." Jack laughed just a little after that.

"Yeah. You're right." Feeling her heart sink lower in her chest than it ever had she closed her eyes to sleep.

"My God. She was going to tell me something horrible and I didn't let her." Jack sat back down on his stool tired and guilty.

Marc was quiet. Maybe there was way more to this girl than met the eye. Maybe she actually ran away for a reason. Maybe she ran away from the cops that were walking up to Jack's front door.

"Hey, Jack. You have visitors." He said simply.

000

"It's fine. You go to work. I'll catch a bus home." He looked at her was worried eyes. "Sawyer…go." She shut the door to his car and started walking toward the clinic for her 28 week check up. She was so much bigger than she thought she'd be, having to cradle herself when she walked now. She still didn't waddle which was a blessing. Kate wouldn't allow herself to waddle.

She pushed hard on the front door and was welcomed by the familiar sterile smell of the place and the sounds of babies and young children.

It never failed to put a smile on her face to think of sitting in this waiting room with her son on her knee.

But her smile quickly faded as she saw two county cops talking to Amy at the front desk. She leaned over to a man waiting against the nearest wall.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know but someone said something about a convict?" He went back to his palm pilot.

That's all she needed to hear before the adrenaline took over and she quickly but nonchalantly exited the building never to return.

She didn't stop shaking until she had reached the nearest bus station. Now would be the time to run but she couldn't with the baby coming in only two months and Sawyer…

Kate knew she couldn't leave Sawyer without a word, even if he did know about her situation.

The bus pulled up just in time, she climbed aboard and chose a seat in the back. She leaned into the seat and took deep calming breaths, her arms wrapped around her one and only important possession.

It would be so easy to leave. To walk away from everything but she just couldn't.

All she knew was that the law had found her Klamath Falls and she was scared for her freedom for the first time since she could remember.