'Don't take it personally, Moise.'

'Well we have stressful jobs, we do stressful all the time.' Moise frowned, cracked his knuckles as he sat in the lounge with Ed, Raf and Dottie; the rest of Team One had gone to raid the Tim Hortons in the hospital cafeteria. 'Why wouldn't they believe we'd show up, be there for them?'

'Because Winnie understands that the world goes on even when a personal crisis happens, and they both were expecting us to be on shift with a visit once it was done.' Ed rubbed his hand over his shiny pate, closed his eyes. 'She doesn't want us putting ourselves at risk with Holloran or Toth or the rest of the brass because of her.'

'That's stupid, we put ourselves at risk each day for one another, Winnie included.'

'Winnie is going through a lot, her mind isn't really thinking straight.'

'Yeah, I know what that's like,' Moise sighed. 'Still not really a hundred percent used to using the phrase I'm divorced on myself.'

'Mo, it's only been two and a half months, you'll need more time than that. Pain like Rachel caused you doesn't vanish overnight,' Dottie pointed out to him. 'Why put that much pressure on yourself?'

'Hey, we found six cups of coffee, a hot chocolate and a peppermint tea, some toasty breakfast sandwiches and bagels and a whole lot of Timbits.' Raf, Jules and Leah appeared in the doorway, the former holding three boxes of mini-doughnuts and the latter with two full trays of take-away cups in varying sizes. 'Any word yet from Winnie and Spike?'

'We'll probably see them any minute now,' Dottie replied, taking the tea for Raf and a double-double decaf for herself. 'Pietr's going into pre-op soon, which means neither of them have probably eaten this morning, Aaron either.'

'Did we get enough? Maybe we should have gotten some of those BLT subs.' Leah frowned in an rare show of self-doubt.

'I think we'll have a good amount of stuff for the to pick from, and if they don't like it we'll find them something else,' Jules decided. 'Like pasta or pirogi or whatever.'

'One thing at a time. Spike said it is going to be a long day, so we need to get in marathon mode, like when we are on patrol shifts,' Raf said, taking a sip of his tea.

'I was thinking, too, about their moving day. We should help them and get the house ready for the truck if their time is going to be divided between Pietr and work, I doubt either of them is interested in packing up their lives to go into their new house.'

'They would be the type to say it can wait and then rush at the last minute since they've got other people who matter more to worry about,' Jules agreed, snagging a honey-cruller Timbit from the box nearest her. 'They care about everyone around them and now it's time to pay it back to them.'

'We'll need to...' Ed trailed off as Winnie and Spike entered with Aaron and Rachel. 'So, he's off?'

'Shannie is taking him down now, and Gabriella's in the bathroom. Is that coffee?' Rachel made a beeline for the Tim's spread, grabbing as well one of the toasted bagels with cream cheese. 'I haven't been able to eat hardly at all the last few days, and I want to but it just...it feels selfish, like you're sick in bed I'm going to enjoy a Big Mac.'

'Not at all,' Winnie reassured her, then sent Spike a beaming smile. 'A very wise man told me that if I don't keep my energy up for my loved ones who are sick I won't be of any use at all. So looking after yourself means you can take better care of Pietr and Aaron.'

'Aw, come on, don't make him a sissy-boy, it'll make cracking on the new kid so much harder to enjoy!' Moise playfully whined and patted the cushion on the couch next to him in invitation. 'You hang over here, I'll protect you from the mama bear.'

'Thanks. Are there sour cream Timbits?'

'There are every kind of Timbit.'

'Win, you hungry?' Dottie poked in the bags, grabbed one. 'Here. Pretzel bun, bacon with chicken salad. Eat.'

'I'm not sure if I can hold anything just yet.'

'Then eat slowly.'

'Oh it could be so easy to make a bad joke with that one,' Ed chuckled, then reached into the kit he'd brought with him and pulled out a box. 'Who's up for keeping the skills sharp?'

'SRU-Clue?' Leah let out a chuckle. 'Where did you get this?'

'Clarke had it made for me at Christmas. Issy is getting into board games and she is trying to understand what Daddy does,' Ed explained, nudging aside the boxes of Timbits and other wrapped snacks and setting out the playing surface. 'It's like Clue only with more choose your own adventure elements.'

'Sounds like fun,' Spike agreed, and Winnie nodded as she took a sizeable bite from her pretzel-wich. 'And failing that we can listen to the spring training game from Florida. Toronto's been having some strong games so far.'

'That's not their problem, the problem is keeping the momentum going once July rolls around,' Aaron pointed out around a mouthful of pastry which he washed down with a decaf mocha. 'Can I be Officer Hammet?'

'No I wanna be Hammet, you can be Chandler and Winnie gets to be Christie.'

'This SRU team is based on famous mystery writers?' Dottie grinned. 'I like this game already. Who gets to be Fleming?'

'We'll take turns,' Spike decided, glancing up at the clock. Nine-forty-eight. 'It's going to be a long day.'

The wait was hell. It was tempting to go over and rip the clock that seemed to mock them all off the wall bracket but fortunately they were ale to tune it out with each other's help. They played board games - apparently Ed had come camp-prepared - and card games, they listened to the baseball game, they read on their tablets and tried to think of other ways to pass the time.

And they waited.

'It feels like it's been too long,' Rachel sighed; she glanced at the Chinese food they'd ordered and that Raf and Dottie had kindly picked up along with some salad and bread-sticks. It smelled great and she'd thankfully been able to poke away at it in bits and bites. 'When was the last time Shannie came to update us?'

'I don't remember, I'm trying to avoid the clock,' Spike replied. 'It does us no good to stare and watch it. I do enough of that at work, I don't wanna bring that home.'

'If there was something to tell, we'd know, she'd come and tell us,' Dottie reassured them, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. 'I sincerely doubt that she'd be the type to just leaving us hanging when she knows we want an-'

'Sis.'

All heads turned to see Shannie at the doorway of the lounge, her expression one of neutral calm as she still wore the protective surgical gown but no mask. Too calm, Winnie thought, she was too calm and so shakily, she got to her feet. 'Shannie, what is it?'

'There's been a complication with Dad's surgery.'

'What kind of complication?' Rachel went pale as flour.

She sighed, dragged off her scrub cap decorated with maple leaves. 'The tumour is trying to attach itself to his lung.'

'But...but I thought Francis said there was no spread, no evidence of met...whatever it is.'

'It was missed because it's trying to attach directly beneath where the tumour was found in his chest. Layered,' she explained, then made a fist with her right hand and put her left palm in front of it. 'You can see my left hand is covering my right but you can't tell what condition my right hand is in, right?'

'Correct.'

'That's what happened with Dad's tumour. It wasn't seen until excision began and... and Baladeva is doing a micro wedge resection. Wedge is usually done when the patient has lung cancer but since this is to prevent a spread, we wouldn't be taking out a portion of his lung but a piece of the infected tissue.'

'Okay, so um, what does that mean, Shan?'

'It means the surgery is going to take longer than initially anticipated, as well the recovery time, but we- Baladeva is treating it this aggressively to give Dad the best post-surgical condition possible so that the chemo will be even more effective once he cleared by Francis and Baladeva.' Shannie turned away briefly, but no one missed her swiping at her eyes. 'I need to get back, I don't want him alone in there.'

'Shannie take a moment,' Spike suggested, and Shannie shook her head fiercely.

'No, I can't give in yet, I...I can't.'

Winnie said nothing at first, just wrapped her arms around her sister; she felt Shannie resist a little , then shudder once as she gave in just a little. 'Daddy loves you, he wouldn't want you to be alone either. And you're not, you have us,' she whispered.

'Mm-hmm. I'll buy the pizza.'

'I want to finish story time with him.'

'How far into the case is Sherlock?'

'Oh no Sherlock, we're reading The Godfather. It's his favourite, and I've never read it before, it's making things easier.' Shannie took a deep breath, patted Winnie's shoulder. 'I'll be back soon with an update.'

She headed back down the hallway, to the elevator for the OR floor and into the scrub room for Baladeva's surgery on her father. Normally Shannie would have been craning her neck as she scrubbed her hands in the wash-room, straining to see the condition of the patient and the stages of progress. Today though, she kept her eyes focused on her hands, scrubbing and scrubbing until she was ready to go back in. When she did, and the nurse tied on her gown, added her gloves she ignored all the work being done beyond the separating blue curtain and saw only her father's face. They'd used a smaller gauge breathing tube so for the moment Shannie let herself believe he was sucking on the fluid-plastic straw of a Camel-Bak. He'd always favoured using those over water-bottles when they'd gone on mountain-biking trips.

'Dad, I know it's a little while away but I've heard in Italy, there are some really pretty bike tours through wineries and, um, we could go and see the ruins of Pompeii in Naples, maybe a game at the football stadium. I'd like that and...and Aaron would too.' Shannie stroked his forehead. 'I know it's about Winnie and Spike getting married but...but maybe we can carve out a little time for some family stuff. I'd really love that.'