"Bailey, there's a mail carrier out here. Says that there's a package addressed to Nicole."

Immediately Bailey had an agent call the field office in Omaha to request assistance. There was just no way in hell that anyone should be sending packages to Nicole or anyone else for that matter. The label was handwritten in neat, block letters, addressed to Nicole Hillsdale, M.D., along with the complete address of the farm house, rural route number and all.

Nicole had still been in her room when the delivery van arrived, and curiosity got the better of her so she came downstairs to see what was going on. Terrified when she heard that a package had been delivered there addressed to her, Bailey and the rest of the team had reassured her that everything would be okay and that they would get to the bottom of it but she refused to take their advice and go back to her room to rest.

The mail carrier was, in fact, just a mail carrier, and package tracking showed that the package had been brought into the local office there in town the day before to be delivered. Satisfied, the poor man was allowed to leave while Nicole paced the kitchen. "I swear, I haven't been in contact with anyone," she said, and John pulled her into a friendly hug.

"It's okay, Nicole. We all know that you wouldn't do something like that. Just relax, there's nothing to worry about."

"Someone knows that I'm here! Someone out there knows the exact address of this place, which is more than even I know!" she shrieked as she pushed John away.

"I'm sorry, that was a stupid thing to say."

"All right kids, let's all just calm down." Grace, the voice of reason, came into the kitchen to try and keep peace.

"Why is this happening? You --" she turned on John, "--promised me that the firehouse was the safest place that there was, but it wasn't so we came here and now...now I'm getting packages sent to me here when I don't even know where here is!"

"We don't know how this happened, but we won't let anything happen to you. I promise you that."

"That's what you said when you took me to the firehouse instead of letting me be in my own place. I don't believe anything you people say. I just want to go home."

"Nicole," John started, but she turned on him again.

"I WANT TO GO HOME!" she screamed.

"Well so do I!" Grace yelled. "I didn't ask for this!"

"I didn't ask for it either, and I sure as hell never wanted it! So let's just end this right now! I'm leaving and I'm going home." Nicole stormed out of the kitchen and straight for the door leading to the porch and the mystery package that was sitting there.

Before anyone could react she had thrown the door open and was outside, grabbing at the package and trying to open it. "Stop her!" Bailey yelled even as the agents on the porch were grabbing her and pulling her away.

"It's my package, let me open it! I want to know what the son of a bitch sent me! God damned you, let me go!"

She was fighting harder than any of them had been prepared for, kicking and clawing and nearly getting the upper hand against the agents who were trying to keep her from ripping the package open.

"Nicole!" It was James, with Rebecca right behind him, standing just outside the door, and his voice startled her enough that she stopped fighting.

Two of the agents got Nicole down on the ground, infuriating Bailey. "Get off of her!" he yelled. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

The sound of Bailey yelling made the two men quickly get up. Nicole, however, remaining unmoving.

"Nicole?" Bailey asked, moving towards her to kneel beside her.

"What did you do to her?" John snarled at the two agents as he led James and Rebecca to Nicole.

"Honey, talk to us. What's wrong?" Rebecca asked, kneeling opposite Bailey.

"Do I need to call for an ambulance?" John asked from behind Rebecca.

"No," Nicole finally said.

"You okay?"

"Never better."

"Is anything broken?"

"How the hell should I know?" She tried to get up but James put his hand on her shoulder.

"Just sit there and let me check you out. Bailey, can we get a little space?"

"All right, everybody back to your assigned posts. You two," Bailey pointed to the two agents who had tackled Nicole, "inside now! We're going to have a nice chat with your local field office about your next assignment."

"John?"

"I'm right here, Nicole. You're safe, I promise."

"How much trouble do you think I'm in?"

"You're going to have to do worse than this if you want to get into trouble."

"I thought maybe you'd be angry with me."

"Nope."

"Help me up then."

"Nicole, let me check you out," James said, but she waved him off.

"I'm fine. Stop poking at me."

James sighed but let John help her up. Jake had stayed close by and he came over when she let go of John's hand. "Can we at least get you inside?" he quietly asked as she brushed off her clothes.

"You ready to ask for a reassignment yet?" she asked when he opened the door and motioned her inside.

"Are you kidding? This assignment is a piece of cake. No way am I asking for a reassignment."

"I guess John was right, I'll just have to try harder," she said with a little laugh, but then she started to cry and he took her in his arms.

Somehow I doubt Bailey is going to yell at me for this, he thought to himself as he held her until she stopped trembling. "It's okay. We're here, and we're not going to let anything bad happen to you," he told her. Cautiously he looked to see John's reaction, but John just nodded his head and Jake knew that he had done the right thing. "Do you want to go up to your room and lie down for a while?"

"I don't want to be alone."

"Shh, you won't be alone. I'll stay, and I'm betting John and Sam and anyone else that you want will stay with you."

"Nicole, I am so sorry," Grace said when Nicole finally came inside. "I never should have yelled at you like that, and I was wrong."

"It's all right. Don't give it another thought, okay? Just promise that you'll let me know what's in the box when you get it open. It is my package, after all."

"I will, honey. You just try to relax. No one is going to hurt you."

"Maybe not physically..."

"You're part of the family now, and that means that we will close ranks around you and protect you on all fronts. Get some rest."

"Yes, Momma Grace." Looking around, she frowned. "Where's Sam?"

"She wanted to be sure that Angel and Chloe are okay," John said, "but I'll tell her to come up and sit with us after we get you settled in."

"No, that's okay. She needs to be with her daughter. God knows none of this is fair to Chloe."

"Chloe is just fine, so don't worry about her. Come on, let's get you up to your room."


After half an hour, Nicole said that she wanted to get some sleep so Rebecca and James stayed with her while the others returned to figuring out what was in the package. The local office had sent their bomb squad to the farmhouse to x-ray the package. Nothing electronic was found, so Bailey cautiously cut the package tape with a box cutter and pulled the flaps open.

When nothing happened, they all relaxed a bit as Bailey reached in to see what was inside the box. It was filled with packing peanuts, but towards the bottom there were several loose photos.

"Bailey?" Sam asked when she saw her boss turn a ghastly shade of white.

"Come on Bailey, I promised Nicole that I'd tell her what is in the package so share with the rest of us," Grace said.

"Here," he told her, handing the pictures to Grace. "See for yourself."

Grace finally lowered her eyes to look at the images that Bailey had handed her. The pictures were all of Nicole in her bedroom. Nicole getting dressed, Nicole sitting on her bed, Nicole talking with John, Nicole sleeping... "How did he get these?"

"All right, show us Grace. What has Jack done this time?"

"John, I don't think..." Before she could finish the sentence John had snatched the pictures out of her hand.

"He was here? How the hell could he have been close enough to take these pictures?" What if it's one of the agents assigned by the local office. It could be any of the agents that aren't part of the VCTF. Jake Carter, he was there in the firehouse and he's been here, so it could even be him. When John got to the picture of him and Nicole together, he handed the pictures to Sam. "How do we tell her? How do we tell Nicole that this person not only knows where she is, he took pictures of her in her room here?"

"We don't," Bailey said firmly. "Not yet, anyway. We need to figure out how someone could have taken these pictures first, so we can assure her that it won't happen again."

"I'm going to check on her," John said. "I have to be sure she's okay."


Sam went up with him, and he knocked on her door. "John," Rebecca said quietly, "is something wrong? Do you know what was in the package?"

"Yes. It was some pictures." He was able to see that Nicole was sleeping and turned questioning eyes on Rebecca.

"James gave her something to help her sleep. He's in his room calling the local pharmacy to get a prescription filled for her. She's all right, John."

"I don't want to disturb her, so..."

"You aren't disturbing her. Come on in, you need to see for yourself that she's really okay. Those must have been some pictures to have upset you like this."

"The pictures were of Nicole...in this room."

"But how? This place is crawling with security."

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out."

"John?" Nicole suddenly asked, barely able to keep her eyes open as she looked at him, still mostly asleep.

"Hey, how you feeling?"

"Sleepy."

"Then go back to sleep."

"No, I don't want to. Every time I go to sleep I see...them."

"What if Sam and I stay here with you? We won't let anything bad happen to you, I promise."

"Sam is here?"

"I'm here, honey," Sam said, entering the room. "You should go back to sleep."

"You'll stay?"

"We'll both stay right here and keep you safe."


Bailey had sent the two agents that tackled Nicole back to their local office; their supervisor had not been particularly happy to learn what they had done. "At least I don't have to worry about those two," he told Grace as they sat together.

"But we still have no idea how anyone could have taken those pictures."

"Jake is going through every second of surveillance video from the camera that is under the eave of Nicole's window."

"Something tells me he won't find a thing."

"It's that optimism of yours that I love about you."

"George, you have anything for us?" Grace asked when he came into the living room.

"No. I tapped into a satellite to get a better view of the area, but there is no where that someone could have hidden to take those photos. Even assuming that a very high powered zoom lens was used, there's no place that would have given that clear of a view. Jake is still going through the video footage but so far there's no sign of anyone other than agents hanging around the property, and none of them pulled out a camera and started taking pictures. By the way, are we sure that it was Jack who sent the photos?"

"Oh yes, there's no doubt about it. There was a message left on the back of one of the pictures, of course using Jack's trademark 'black light' method, and the strokes of each letter matches Jack's perfectly."

"Why didn't you tell me about the message before?" Bailey demanded. "Grace, this is important!"

"I thought that we should get the whole team together for this one."

"Sam and John are still with Nicole. Rebecca came down to tell me that she woke up and asked John and Sam to stay with her while she sleeps. I pray to god this doesn't cause a setback for her."

"She's stronger than you give her credit for, Bailey. Of course this will cause her to have a setback, but she'll rebound from it,"

"I hope you're right, George."

"Of course he's right. George is always right, aren't you?" Grace said.

"Yeah, listen, I'm going to see if I can drag Jake away from the videos for a while. He's really taking this hard, Bailey, so if you could perhaps find it in you to tell him that he is not solely responsible for Jack somehow getting those pictures..."

"Wait. First, Grace, tell me what the message said."

Grace closed her eyes as though trying to gather the strength to repeat the words she had discovered. Finally, she spoke, her voice quiet.

"Sweet dreams, Princess."

"What?"

"That's what the message said, Bailey. It said 'Sweet dreams, Princess'."

"That son of a bitch...he's been listening too."

"Any idea what the message means?" George asked.

"It's Jack's way of letting me know that this is about me and Nicole, not about Sam."

"So I guess we just have to figure out what we do with this information." Grace stood up and headed for the kitchen. "The only other thing I can tell you about those photos is that they were printed out on a printer, not taken to a photo lab. The office in Denver has a photo expert, and she's coming out here to examine the photos and see if they have been digitally altered in any way, but it doesn't look like they were."

"Can't hurt to cover all bases. I'd better talk to Jake."

"Bailey?"

"Yes, Grace?"

"When you're giving him the 'this wasn't your fault' speech, try listening to it yourself, okay?"

"Yes, Momma Grace."