Henry was surprised to find that the nurse was standing by Elizabeth's bedside when he returned, a syringe in one hand and the line attached to Elizabeth's neck in the other. "Everything alright, Ellie?" he asked, a cold prickle crawling up the nape of his neck, the hairs on his forearms standing on end.

She looked up, her face calm, impassive. "It's fine, just some extra medication."

Despite the softness of her tone, Henry couldn't help but feel a sense of unease. His gaze drifted to Elizabeth, trying to reassure himself with the fact that she looked the same as she had before he left. Although considering how unwell she was, it wasn't much of a comfort. "What's it for?"

"When we have to give a large volume of blood over a short time, we often give a drug known as a diuretic alongside it. It helps prevent against a side effect where the circulatory and breathing systems are overloaded from the extra volume of fluid from the blood transfusion." She gave him a small, reassuring smile, "It's normal for us to make the decision to give this medication."

Henry chewed his lower lip for a second, unsure if he wanted to know the answer to his next question. "Is Elizabeth suffering from those side effects?"

She mulled over her next words before she answered, "We can't calculate exactly how much fluid Elizabeth lost today, although we have an estimate. But even with that estimate our charts show that because of the amount of blood and fluid we've given to treat her, her fluid input is quite a bit higher than her output. We don't think she's having a reaction but she's working a little bit harder than she had to before, so we want to be cautious."

His grip tightened on his coffee cup. "What do you mean she's working harder?"

"She's needing a little bit more oxygen and she's letting the ventilator do a little bit more of the work."

"That sounds like she's worse." Henry could hear the panic in his own voice, the sharp edge of fear creeping in. To him Elizabeth looked no different, and the numbers on the screens were just that; they meant nothing to him.

"She's still stable." Ellie's voice remained calm, level. "This is precautionary."

Henry swallowed against the lump in his throat. "And if it doesn't work?"

"If things stay as they are just now, we wouldn't be worried. If she needs more support, then we have certain criteria where we would ask the medical staff for an early review." Her smile turned encouraging, "But we're not there yet."

Biting down on the inside of his cheek, Henry frowned. "So, she's still stable?" he clarified.

"She is."

Henry tried to make himself relax, but his shoulders stayed stiff, his neck muscles tense. "Ok." He gave a short shake of his head, his hand running through his hair. "I'm sorry if I sound a bit…sharp, I just…this is all…"

"Worrying and upsetting?" Ellie supplied for him.

His lips gave a brief twist. "Yeah, you could say that." He watched as she switched the syringe for one filled with saline, flushing the line clear, before twisting it away, her fingers deftly clamping that part of the line shut.

He placed his coffee cup on the bedside locker, now unable to stomach the thought of another sip, and gave a shaky sigh. Ellie nodded her head towards it. "You might want to finish that. The next few hours are going to drag, the perils of an all-nighter."

"It already feels like the longest night ever," Henry remarked, as he stepped closer to his wife's bed, his hand resting on her head, stroking her forehead with his thumb. His fingers trembled as he spoke, "Maybe I shouldn't have sent Will home."

"You all need some rest, there would have been nothing for him to do here. It was a good decision," she reassured him.

"But now she's worse."

"This is a precaution," Ellie reminded him. "And anyway, none of us have the ability to predict the future, you made the decision based on what you knew at the time."

Henry watched the rhythmic rise and fall of Elizabeth's chest, her skin warm underneath his touch. "I seem to be getting a lot of those decisions wrong today," he muttered.

Ellie had removed her gloves, turning the tap at the sink on with her elbow, her silence almost considered. The splashing of the water on the porcelain sink almost drowned out the quiet whoosh of the ventilator. There was click from the soap dispenser and as her fingers twisted together, gliding over her palms and wrists, she finally spoke. "You know very few people who end up in here start the day thinking that this is how it will end. The exception to the rule being our planned post-operative patients." She rinsed her hands, shaking the excess water back into the sink before grabbing a paper towel. "Their families are never prepared for it either. But," she threw the paper towel into the bin, the lid closing with a clunk. "There's always guilt, always questions about what they could have done to change the outcome. The answer to that is that there isn't anything they could have done. It was a cascade of decisions and chance or in some cases just sheer dumb bad luck. It's human nature to want to place blame, to find a fault in ourselves and our actions." She shrugged. "But sometimes life isn't fair and it doesn't make sense."

"So, you think I should stop trying to look for reason in this?"

"Pretty much, you won't find it. The important thing is that you're here with her, is there anything else she'd want right now than you sitting with her? Holding her hand?"

Henry considered her words. "No," he admitted after a moment. Elizabeth would want him with her, that he had no doubt about.

"Then for tonight, just focus on that."

He nodded, his hand moving from Elizabeth's head as he slowly sat down in his chair and reached for her hand again. His fingers brushed across the back of her hand before sliding underneath her palm, lifting it from the bed, pressing a kiss to her knuckles and giving another silent prayer that she was going to come back to him and that he could make all of this up to her.

Stevie woke up and was suddenly aware of the quiet sound of singing. Why was there singing? While light was flickering in, seeping underneath her still closed eyelids. She gave a soft groan and buried her face further into her pillow for a brief second as she slowly adjusted to her surroundings. It was the TV, she was in the family room, she reminded herself.

Blinking her eyes slowly open, she tilted her head back towards the TV to see characters dancing across the screen. She rolled quietly onto her side and reached for her phone to see that Jareth had sent her a text message.

At the airport, flight leaves in two hours.

See you soon.

Stevie stifled another groan, her fingers running through her hair, her fingers curling into the strands and the heel of her hand pressing against her forehead. She felt sick, her stomach churning at the thought of seeing him later, at the thought of having to make conversation. It wasn't good that this was her reaction to her fiancé's decision to come home and support her, she knew that. She lifted her phone again, typing out the beginning of a reply and discarding it, repeating this four times before she let her arm drop; giving a large sigh and letting her phone fall to the side.

"Jareth?"

Stevie twisted at the quiet whisper of her sister's voice to find that Alison was lying on her stomach, her arms folded over her pillow, her fingers picking at the packet of sweets they had hauled out of the cupboard earlier. "Yeah, how did you guess?"

Alison shrugged, looking away from the TV and rolling to face Stevie, her voice low. "Easy guess, that seems to be your new Jareth face." She popped a sweet into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. "I preferred the old one."

There was a yawn from the third makeshift bed, Jason's arms stretching up into the darkness of the room. "I dunno, it was very lovesick puppy dog," he remarked. "Made me want to vomit a little bit."

Giving a snort, Alison told him, "Considering the dopey look you get on your face when anyone mentions Piper, you have a cheek."

"I get no such look."

Stevie sighed and rolled her eyes. "You guys, I really don't want to talk about this right now."

"You sure? Now is your chance to vent," Alison offered.

"Or you know," Jason shrugged. "Text him and tell him not to bother getting on that flight."

"Jason!" Stevie gasped indignantly. "I'm not going to say that to him!"

There was a rustling of covers. "Why? You don't want him here."

Stevie chewed on her bottom lip, if it was obvious to her fifteen-year-old brother then that really wasn't a good sign. "It's not that I don't want him here," she started carefully. "It's just…" she tailed off, unable to find another explanation for her feelings. She let out a huff of air. "You're too young to get it," she finally told him after a prolonged silence.

He gave a snort at that. "Right, if you say so."

In the dancing light emanating from the TV, Stevie could see her brother folding his arms across himself and decided that it was best to just change the subject. "Have either of you had any sleep?"

Alison shook her head, reaching for another sweet. "Nope. You passed out partway through Aladdin, I'm not sure when Jason fell asleep."

"I didn't."

Alison shot a curious glance across at her brother. "You've been awake this whole time? And you let me put Mama Mia on?"

He gave a shrug. "I wasn't that bothered." He chose not to mention that he'd heard her crying and sniffling into her pillow and decided that anything was better than listening to his sister cry.

"Maybe he secretly likes it," Stevie teased.

The pillow sailed through the air, landing straight on her face with a muffled thud. "I don't like it," Jason told them. "I just know it's Ali's go to cheer up movie. So, I thought I'd let her watch it."

"Aw, Jase, that's really quite sweet of you," Alison replied.

"Don't go on about it," he groaned. "It's just like when we let Mom watch infomercials when she gets stressed. Sometimes it's easier to sit through those than deal with the alternative."

Stevie reached her hand across to tickle her brother's shoulder. "I think you're just a big softie hiding under a layer of government conspiracies and anarchism."

"Why couldn't I have had brothers?" Jason groaned, ducking out of the way of his sister's hand.

"I often wonder why Mom and Dad couldn't stop at two," Alison teased him.

"Saving the best for last," he shot back, pulling himself into a sitting position and crossing his legs, leaning back against the sofa. "What time is it anyway?"

"Almost 2am," Stevie told him, yawning as she did so.

"You heard anything from Dad?" Alison asked her.

"Nope," she shook her head. "But I figure no news is good news." She glanced across at her sister. "Right?"

"Probably," Alison conceded, sighing, and reaching for another sweet. She nudged the packet towards her siblings. "Want one?"

Jason leaned forward, grabbing a small handful, and cramming them into his mouth.

Stevie watched her brother and pointed out, "Should you both maybe lay of the sugar and try and get some sleep."

"Can't sleep," Alison mumbled.

"Me neither," Jason admitted. "Can't stop thinking about Mom." He looked upwards towards the ceiling, his nose wrinkling in thought. "You ever notice how she never really talks about Gran and Grandad?"

"I don't think she had anyone to talk to about them," Stevie remarked, chewing on the side of her thumbnail as she spoke.

"She had Uncle Will," Jason reminded her.

"I don't think he wanted to talk about it. I've never heard him mention them at all. She probably just got used to not talking about them…or maybe it hurt too much."

There were a few seconds of silence, one…two…and then, "If Mom doesn't wake up…do you think we'll do that, stop talking about her?" Alison asked, her gaze not meeting her older sister's. Instead she ran her fingers across the floor, watching the swirling motion she made, fighting back the tears she could feel starting to build up behind her eyes again. She pulled her face tight, trying not to give into that urge to cry.

Stevie chewed her bottom lip as she considered that question. It would hurt, but it would hurt more not to talk about her, to push her to one side and never mention the gaping hole left in their family. "I think we'll talk about her. In fact," her voice grew stronger, conviction sinking into her tone. "I'll make sure we do."

Despite her best attempt not to, Alison gave a sniff. "I can't believe this is happening to us."

"Me neither," Stevie admitted, twisting her engagement ring round and round on her finger. Her head hurt, a throbbing pain at the side of her temples, not helped by the way she was tensing her jaw muscles, sucking her cheeks in to try and stay calm.

Jason flopped back down onto his air mattress with a heavy sigh. "I wish I'd hugged her this morning," he finally told them, a croaky edge to his voice, his finger scratching absentmindedly at the material to the mattress.

"I didn't hug her either," Stevie told him.

"Yeah, but at least you weren't being a jerk to her."

Alison lifted her head up, her hand pushing back her dark hair when it fell like a sheet over her face. "She's probably used to us being jerks."

"Aw well, that's alright then," Jason remarked, rolling his eyes, wincing when Alison leaned across Stevie and slapped her hand against his shoulder.

"I'm trying to make you feel better," she told him.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"It's ok." She told him, a second passing before she added. "I don't think you'd feel any better even if you had hugged her. This would still suck."

"It does suck," Jason agreed.

"Well we can all hug her when she wakes up," Stevie told her younger siblings. "And promise her that we'll stop being jerks."

Jason sucked in a breath between his teeth. "And if-"

Stevie didn't let him finish. "Don't. We have to be positive. She's made it this far." She rolled onto her stomach. "Ok then, pass the sweets. If I'm going to listen to Pierce Brosnan murder some Abba, then in the absence of alcohol I'm going to need sugar.

Ellie hated 3am in the morning, it always seemed the time when the shift seemed endless, stretching ahead with the morning shift still hours away. She stifled a yawn into the sleeve of her cardigan, before shrugging it off, supressing a shiver. That was another thing, it was always freezing at this time of night, or at least she was always cold no matter how many layers she wore.

Grabbing her clipboard, she made for the bed, relieved to see that Dr McCord was now dozing in his chair, his head tilted off to one side, his wife's hand still loosely clutched in his.

She looked up towards the monitor and watched as Elizabeth's saturations flickered between 94% and 95%, she crossed her fingers and then sighed in defeat when they finally settled on the 94%. Typical, she thought. She turned the oxygen up once again.

Her blood pressure was down, but only a little bit and her heart rate was lingering around 85. Her respiratory rate was up slightly now, but the tidal volume was still lower, one positive was at least that hadn't changed. She moved round to the right side of the bed and checked the chest drain. Grabbing the stethoscope, she murmured, "Just going to have a listen to your chest now Elizabeth, this might be a bit cold." Her left side was still quiet. Ellie chewed her lip; she had that slight tug of unease again. She hated 3am she decided, and not for the first time during a night shift.

Jotting down the last of the observations, she made her way to the doorway, beckoning for Maggie, one of the floating nurses to come across. "Everything alright?" Maggie asked her.

"I'm not sure," Ellie admitted quietly. "Can you page for a review? Oxygen requirements are going up, I'm going to take some blood gases."

Maggie glanced over her shoulder into the room. "Of course. You need a hand?"

"I'll need someone to run the bloods to the analyser."

"I'll come back and get them."

Ellie turned, her foot tapping agitatedly against the floor. It wasn't that bad, she told herself again. She ran her hand through her hair, moving to the supplies trolley in the room and gathering up what she needed. The drawers rattled as she closed them and she saw Dr McCord jerk from the noise, his head drawing upright, his eyes looking over to the source of what had woken him up. "Sorry," she offered quietly.

He blinked a few times, his eyes darting between Elizabeth and Ellie. "What is it?"

"I'm going to take some blood from Elizabeth," she told him calmly. "And I've asked the doctor to come up and review her."

He ran his hand across his jaw, his stubble scraping across his palm. "The medication didn't help then?"

"She had a good response to it, so it will have helped, but it's not been enough," Ellie admitted.

"So, what next?" He asked with a pained expression.

"I've paged the doctor to come up and review her and I'm going to take some bloods. Would you like to wait in the relative's room while we do that?"

"No." Henry shook his head. "I'm not leaving her."

"Ok, but I need to you to move back from the bed. It's just that I can get into the line in Elizabeth's wrist."

"Of course." Henry jumped from his seat, stepping back from the bed to let Ellie in, watching her anxiously.

Dr Lewis Monaghan stifled a yawn as he made his way into the ICU. He had been dreading this page all night and had silently hoped he would get through the shift without being called to this particular patient.

The room was still dully light when he walked in. The Secretary's husband was standing by her bed, holding her hand, and stroking her face. He supressed a sigh, worried relatives made his job worse and it was one of the few benefits of a nightshift that they often weren't present.

Glancing at Ellie, the assigned nurse, he kept his tone low as he asked, "So. What's been happening?"

She gave him a quick look up and down. "Where's Dr Garcia?"

"Poly-trauma in the ER, everyone else is caught up down there. Three car collision."

"Ah."

He was glad she had accepted the explanation without an argument, he was under no allusion that the nursing staff were ever too pleased to see the intern lumbering up to the bedside of their patients. "So…you wanted a review."

"Yeah. Oxygen requirements are up, she was sitting at 98-99% on 30% O2, now she's holding at 95% on 50%. Spontaneous resp rate initially went down around her one-thirty turn, as did her tidal volumes. Resp rate was sixteen, went down to twelve and it's now twenty-four, but tidal volumes are only about two-hundred. BP is down, heart rate is up. Lung sounds are dull on the left hand side. Initially concerned she was in fluid overload, so we gave furosemide. There was a good result from that and she seemed to stabilise for a short time following it, but now." Ellie gave a shrug, she's going back the way."

"She could be sore."

He caught sight of the exasperated look that crossed Ellie's face before she pulled it back into a calm mask. "Doesn't explain her reduced blood pressure or the reduction in tidal volumes," she reminded him gently.

"No." He sighed. "It doesn't."

"And I'm not comfortable giving more morphine and depressing her respiratory system further."

"That's fair."

"We took some blood gases." She pressed the thin, narrow sheet of paper across to him, and not for the first time he wondered why these looked like shopping receipts, they were a nightmare to keep track of in the notes.

"PO2 is a little low, PCO2 is borderline," he murmured to himself. "Any temperature?" He asked Ellie.

"Nope."

"And her chest drain, is it swinging?"

"It is, no excessive bubbling, only minimal on exhalation or suctioning."

He rubbed at his eyes. "Chest drain is on the right side?"

"Yeah, chest sounds on the right side have been slowly improving.

"Secretions on suctioning?"

"Thin and clear."

"Ok," he gave a nod, repeating, "Ok." As he drew out some more time for him to think this all through. He glanced down at her fluid chart. "I think we get a portable chest x-ray up here and if you can take some bloods, CRP, Co-ag, FBC and a blood culture? I'll get the forms done for you."

"Ok. Do you want an anaesthetic review?"

His lips pursed momentarily. "Yeah, yeah I think that's best," he agreed. "I'll request one. Not sure when they'll get here, think they're paging some of the extra on call back in to help." In the meantime, up her to 70%. oxygen" He glanced at her. "That sound ok?"

"Yeah. You getting the chest x-ray as urgent?"

"I will, but they're also down in the ER." He looked back up at the monitors by the bed. "I'll take a listen into her chest before I go. I'll be staying up here for cover, so if anything changes, you just need to shout."

"Oh, I will," Ellie assured him, a smile tugging at her cheek. She gave him a small nudge with her shoulder. "You need to speak to her husband, he's pretty worried."

Lewis could feel the wince that pulled across his features and he resisted the urge to beg Ellie to do it for him. He could feel the tension radiating from the man and he was very aware that he had absolutely no answers for him. Still though, he stepped forward as the man turned towards him and held out his hand. "Dr McCord, I'm Dr Monaghan, I'm the intern on call in the ICU tonight."

The man took the proffered hand. "I thought it was another doctor who was covering?"

"Dr Garcia is also on call tonight but she's with another patient."

He gave a nod, accepting the explanation. "My wife, what's happening?"

Lewis swallowed nervously. "At the moment I can't say for sure. We're going to run some tests. I've arranged for some blood tests and a chest x-ray, those should give us some more insight and then we can come up with a treatment plan. I'm also going to ask anaesthetics to review the settings on the ventilator, make sure that we're best meeting her respiratory needs."

His cheek twitched and the muscles at his jaw flexed. "How long until you know what's causing this?"

"I'm not sure. I'll mark everything as urgent, but I can't give an exact time frame for you. I'm sorry, I know this is frustrating."

His eyes fluttered shut for a minute, his hand coming up to rub at his forehead as he gave a sigh. "I just want to know what's happening to my wife and that you can treat it."

"We will continue to treat her, I just can't tell you the cause yet and how we treat her may change dependant on any results."

"Ok." Henry sighed again. "Ok."

"I'm just going to have a listen to Secretary McCord's chest, is that ok?"

"Of course."

Lewis watched the man step back from the bed, one arm wrapped around himself, clutching the elbow of the opposite arm, his chin resting on that hand, and his fingers pressing against his mouth. His face was pale and pinched as he watched. Lewis listened to both lungs and gave a nod as he stepped back. He walked back over to Ellie. "Yeah, left side is definitely dull," he agreed. "Was there any trauma to that side?"

"None recorded, damage on that side was all to the ventricular apex."

Lewis nodded as looked back over to the bed. He saw Henry McCord lean over his wife, his forehead pressing to hers, could hear him whisper to her. "Come on, Babe, don't do this to me. Please don't do this."

He looked away sharply from the couple. He needed his head to stay clear, he didn't want to feel emotionally attached; that made things worse. He cleared his throat softly to get Ellie's attention. She looked up at him. "I'm just going to go and make those requests," he told her.

She nodded and went back to gathering her supplies. Lewis glanced once more at the couple in the room and despite his warning to himself, he felt a twist in his chest at the husband's obvious distress. He sighed and shook his head, taking himself back to work.

A/N: Just some of the meanings of the terms used in this chapter for anyone who is interested.

Tidal volumes: The volume of air we take into our lungs.

Chest drains should swing, where the fluid rises and falls in time with inhalation and exhalation. If they aren't then that a sign that it could be blocked. If a chest drain is bubbling then there could be a leak, but it's normal for a small amount of bubble to be present if you breathe out or cough.

PO2: Basically helps analyse how effective the lungs are at pulling oxygen in. PCO2 is the measure of carbon dioxide in the blood.

Bloods: CRP measures is a marker of inflammation and raises with infection. Co-ag is for coagulation and measures if and how well your blood is clotting.

FBC is a full blood count. Blood culture looks for bacteria in your blood.

Any and all mistakes are mine and if I've got it wrong then please feel free to tell me and I can try to adjust it :)