"Jack?" Summer approached him slowly, unsure of exactly what to say at a time like this. Jack's feelings for her mother were complicated to say the least. Mere months ago, she'd taken advantage of that very fact to try and push the two of them back together again. Her motives weren't entirely pure of course, but that didn't change the fact that Jack hadn't been difficult at all to convince. She could see the pain in his eyes as he turned towards her. A part of him would always love her mother, no matter how many times, and in how many she'd hurt him.

"Thank you for being here," she said quietly. "I know it will mean a lot to Mom if …"

He reached, letting his hand rest on her shoulder. "When," he corrected. "When she wakes up, and she will, Summer. She's going to wake up and she's going to be just fine. She's going to be able to answer all of our questions and this entire nightmare will just end." He gestured towards a small row of chairs situated in a more secluded area of the waiting room. "I saw you talking to Rey with Nick," he said as she took a seat next to him.

Summer nodded. "He won't really tell us anything," she muttered, anger barely cutting through the anguish in her voice. "He wants all of this information from us, but he doesn't want to tell us anything."

"It's an ongoing investigation, honey. They have to do it this way. I'm sure once Phyllis can explain what happened, it'll all make more sense." Jack swallowed hard past the words that seemed to catch in his throat. He wanted to believe them as they left his lips. With everything in him, he needed to hope that this entire nightmare was all a giant misunderstanding, but something inside him, something that seemed to gnaw at the very core of him whispered a much darker truth.

"So you think it was an accident?" Her voice held a slight lilt of hope as she let her eyes widen a bit to look into his comforting gaze. "Rey seemed so certain."

"I just think we should wait before jumping to any sort of conclusion. Your mother is …" He paused, carefully choosing his words. "Your mom can make things kind of complicated and sometimes that can make it hard to know exactly what's what. I just think we should wait until we can talk to her and ask her about what went on."

"What if?" She didn't want to say it, didn't want to even think it, but she couldn't stop the thoughts that kept pushing into her brain involuntarily. "What if we can't ask her," she nearly whispered, her tone so soft it was as if she was afraid being heard would speak it into being.

"Don't think that way," Jack said quickly. "Your mother has come through much worse than this. Remember the coma and the clinic. All of those doctors, all of the experts. They all said the same thing. We all hoped and prayed and held on to hope as long and we could, but one by one, we all eventually had to accept that …" His voice nearly broke as he remembered back to that time in his life, the guilt he felt for what he'd done still living within him. "But you never did," he reminded her. "You never gave up on her. You always believed she could come back, and she did. So you find that belief again. You keep believing in her the same way you did back then and I know she'll prove you right."

"Hey." Billy's voice rang out through the room, its frantic, stressed tone a sharp contrast to Jack's gentle assurance. "The doctor's coming out."

"Hi Mariah." Nick leaned against the cool wall, letting his eyes close as he heard the young woman's voice on the other line. "I'm at the hospital with Summer, but I was just calling to see if you'd heard from Sharon by any chance." He held his breath, hoping against hope for good news, for anything better than the worst possible set of circumstances he feared could be true.

"No, I haven't," she admitted. "And Faith is asking for her."

His stomach lurched as the breath he'd been holding slowly left his lips. He could hear the sound of a door closing in the background before Mariah's words began again.

"Sorry," she said quietly. "I wanted to step outside so Faith wouldn't hear me. I'm actually getting kind of worried. She's not answering her cell and I know she's upset, but I would think by now she would at least be worrying about Faith and how she was reacting to all of this. I just …" She stopped, realizing for the first time that he had been virtually silent. "Nick," she called out, ensuring he was still connected.

"Yeah," he said, unable to keep the tension from his voice. "I'm here. I was hoping maybe she would have called you or that you might have been able to at least get her on her cell. I've tried her, but I wouldn't be surprised that she wouldn't take my call." His hand gripped the back of his neck, the stress having settled there in large unmovable knots. "Listen," he said hesitantly, "I .. uh …"

Mariah glanced back through the windows of the front door, glad to see Faith coloring at the coffee table. "What?" she questioned. The stress in his voice was easy to detect. It made sense that he'd be upset given the drastic difference in how today was supposed to go and how today had ended, but this was something more. "Nick, what's going on?"

The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes deepened as he winced at the question. "I .. I need you to do something for me if you can."

"Nick, I told you, I don't know where she …"

"I know," he interrupted. "I know you don't know where Sharon is, and that's not what this is about. I need you to get a list together of everyone that you know of that was at the church today. Wedding party, guest list, caterers, church officials, anyone that was there. If you can do that for me and e-mail it to me, I'd really appreciate it. As soon as you can, please."

"I …I mean, yeah, I can do that, but I don't understand. How is that going to help you with anything?"

"It's not for me," Nick admitted. "The police … they need it for the investigation."

Mariah reached for the handle of the door, needing something to steady her suddenly wobbly frame. "What investigation?" she asked, the moisture instantly vanishing from her mouth.

Even without being there, he could clearly see the look on her face. It was the same look that reflected back at him in the pane glass windows as he spoke into the phone. Denial, disbelief, hope, and fear, all mixed into a stunned sort of stare that you simply couldn't shake.

"Phyllis' accident," he said softly, "They don't think it was an accident after all."