As Noah came back into the room, everyone turned to look at him except -- Sam, who kept his eyes focused on Catherine's still form with a look of total despair written all over his face.
"Sam?" Noah hurried over, putting a hand on the older marshal's shoulder, pain running through him as well. Something, there had to have been something that he could have done to prevent this. "Sam, it's okay. Priest made a mistake. He was here for someone else, not Catherine."
"He wasn't...." Sam looked up at Noah for a moment, a small glimmer of hope suddenly igniting in his eyes. Then, as if she knew that Sam needed some sort of sign, Catherine's hand twitched in his grasp, weakly squeezing his large fingers as if to say, 'I'm okay, Sam. I'm not dead.' "Cath?" He turned to her once more, leaning over the bed and pressing a kiss against her warm forehead. 'Please, please let....'
"He was supposed to be here for Fred Johnson," Noah said with a shake of his head, glad to see Sam rebounding to his usual self -- well, almost his usual self. "You would think that even Father Murphy would have caught on that something was wrong after being called 23 times in two and a half years."
"Well, why wasn't he doing his job and giving the Johnson guy last rites instead of wandering in here and...." Cosmo shook his head, the panic of the last few minutes slowly fading. Nothing could happen to Catherine, they couldn't lose her. If they did, it would be all his fault.
"He accidentally put on Sister's glasses. I'm suprised he actually was able to see well enough to make it over here." Noah looked down at Sam once more, relieved to see that look of despair had now totally vanished. That, that was something he had never expected to see on Sam's face. Was this what Sam had gone through when they thought he was dead? He quickly shoved that thought away, not wanting to think of his friends in that much pain, as he took a seat at Catherine's side once more. This was going to be okay. That's all he was going to let himself think about. This was going to be okay and they were going to be a family again, just like before. He reached out slowly, gently touching the bit of skin on Catherine's cheek not covered with tape, caressing the skin of the woman he thought of as his mother. She was going to get better. She had to.
Just then, her eyelids slowly twitched, as if in response to Noah's touch, her hand moving slightly once more in Sam's grasp.
"Baby?" Sam whispered as he leaned over her, wanting to be as close as possible, wanting to make sure that she would know that he was there.
Her eyelids twitched once more and then a third time before they slowly, slowly slid open. Her eyes had a kind of dazed look in them as she stared up at the gathered marshals but there was a kind of strength as well as she looked slowly at each of them, obviously alert and aware, her other hand grasping, reaching out for Noah.
"It's okay," Noah whispered as he leaned in, laying his hand over hers, not really wanting her to move it too much and risk dislodging the monitor or something worse. "We're all right here. The whole family. Me, Sam, Cos, 'Vannah, and Bobby. No one got lost or anything. You just go back to sleep now. Everything's going to be fine."