Disclaimer: As you know, all of the recognizable characters, locals, locations belong to CBS incorporated. Adrianna and the very bad song in this chapter belong to me. Enjoy!

After the emotional breakdown Adrianna kept to herself. She stayed away from Michaela, staying in the barn taking care of the horses. She also found time to explore the frontier and found an area less than a mile away where she practiced warrior skills. She thought that it was good to get back to the routine that she had as an assassin. It was a way to get back in physical shape. She was coming back one day thinking that Michaela was going to be there struggling at some type of chore but she was not. She was not even there. Where could she be? Wondered Adrianna as she got out of her freedom fighter exercise clothes and a slim black dress that had frizzes on the bottom, grabbing a horse that she bought from the local freedom fighter tribe.

She came in town stopping at the screams that she heard in Charlotte's boarding house. She jumped off her horse and ran into the boarding house. She finally came to a room upstairs and there was Charlotte, Michaela and a pregnant woman all sweaty. Adrianna widened her eyes.

"We have a patient?"

Michaela nodded her head and Adrianna went up to the patient and tried to cool her with a wet cloth. She tried to smile at her and she came to the realization that this was the woman who she accidentally splashed mud on. She tried to say she was sorry but Adrianna shook her head.

"It doesn't matter; you just concentrate on giving birth." She smiled and swore that the woman had a tear fall from her face.

Adrianna looked at Michaela and Charlotte. She looked very serious.

"What is wrong here?"

"The baby will not come out." Answered Michaela. Adrianna looked alarmed; she could tell that this was not a normal birth and that some serious injury could occur.

Michaela had already gave her the ether and was about to perform a cesarean section. Charlotte did not think it was a good idea, but Adrianna calmed her as Michaela performed the operation.

"This happens sometimes. Michaela will make an incision and take out the baby through her abdomen. It's ok, Michaela is a great surgeon."

It seemed to calm down Charlotte a little.

When the baby was out, Adrianna noticed that it wasn't breathing and went to it.

"This baby is not breathing. I want you to massage the windpipe!" Charlotte did as she was told, but there was no difference, the baby was still not breathing.

"Oi! Charlotte I knew this is going to sound weird, but I want you to take the baby and hold it upside down by its heels. Then I want you to slap him."

Charlotte looked at her strangely. Michaela nodded saying that Adrianna was correct. She did as Adrianna told and soon enough the baby started to cry. They all gave a grateful laugh. Adrianna was very happy herself and she started to cry a little. She then went to Charlotte and gave her a grateful look.

"Charlotte, can I bring her the baby?"

Charlotte smiled and handed her the baby. She went to the mother who was called Emily and handed her the baby. She smiled and gladly took her son. She looked at Adrianna with a very grateful smile.

"If I was you, I would have never done this. Thank you doctor. You are good person."

Adrianna had tears falling from her face, never being treated like this in her life. A white person was kind and considerate to her. That rarely happened to her.

One would think that an event like that would sway people to understanding that Adrianna and Michaela were good doctors. Of course in typical white man fashion, they didn't care. Adrianna was mad, but knew that there was nothing that she could do. She continued to keep to herself and practice new fighting styles. As the months passed Adrianna wondered if they would go home, if this was just a farce staying here. She did like it here, but her money was running out, she needed to do something. One day she decided to venture into town, taking the last remaining amount of her money to buy some food. Before she even came there, she saw Michaela going to the boarding house, her hand on her left cheek. She followed Michaela and she went in to talk to Charlotte.

By the time she came in Michaela told Charlotte that she had pulled her tooth. Charlotte and Adrianna had both said "what!" in unison. Adrianna walked up to Michaela and had a strange look on her face.

"Jake Slicker said it had to go." She said calmly, still holding her hand to her cheek.

Adrianna smirked, wondering if Michaela had truly lost her mind. The conditions were certainly hot.

"What were you thinking?" asked Adrianna.

Michaela just ignored Adrianna, pacing the room. Charlotte looked like she realized something.

"There was nothing wrong with your tooth was it?" she asked.

Michaela answered no and turned around and answered yes. She looked at Charlotte and Adrianna like she was sorry. Charlotte then scolded her, "You ought to be ashamed! Letting that bully yank a perfectly good tooth out of your head!"

Adrianna smirked knowing that this was a brilliant but painful idea. She went to Michaela and hugged her smiling.

"Michaela. I wondered if you were insane. When I saw you coming out of that white man's barber shop, I could tell that you had given into his primitive ways of so-called doctoring. I know that heat causes many people to act irrational, killing sometimes. Now as I think about it, I must applaud you in your bravery. I would never go to that incompetent barber!" Adrianna started to laugh.

Michaela looked at her like she was crazy. Charlotte was laughing herself.

"It did take guts, and a man cannot ignore that!"

The subject soon changed to love when Michaela asked Charlotte about her dead husband. Adrianna found a seat herself, out of the way, worried that this was going to be a hard moment for her. She looked at Michaela, sipping tea with a sad look on her face.

"He didn't, as far as I know, he's alive and kicking somewhere." She answered. Adrianna was surprised, she would have never known, and she had the composure of a widow. Michaela asked the question that Adrianna wanted to know.

"But everyone calls you Widow Cooper?"

"Well…that's the town folks way of being nice and polite." She started to cook something, but Adrianna did not know what it was because she was so surprised at what she had said. Her husband was still alive out in the world. She wanted to know more about this man.

"We had a farm over there in Topeka. It took us four years to get that thing going. Then one day, he just up and sold it, he didn't even ask me! He just came in one morning and said 'We're going mining for some gold up in Pike's Peak!'" She came closer to the two women when she said the last statement.

Michaela shook her head and started to tell her story. "My fiancée never once mentioned the war. Until he came to dinner wearing an officers' uniform and announced that he was leaving in two days."

Michaela scoffed and said, "Two days!"

Both women soon looked at Adrianna, silently asking about her chances with love. She looked at them both, silently answering by getting up.

"You both have stories about men that put them in a bad light. I have a story myself, a story about a man that I was in love with. About a relationship that ended in sadness." Adrianna sat down, looking out in the distance at nothing.

"My encounter with love was different from yours. When me and my little sister left our orphanage and lived with my mother's family, it was a big adjustment. I found myself overwhelmed with it all. I tried to delve myself in training. It didn't work out. That was until I met Jasón. He was best friends with my cousin Antonio. He was from a poor family that was taken in when his mother died. When I met him, we both found that we had a lot in common. One was that we were poor in our hearts and so we forged a bond. We became best friends and I told him my deepest and darkest secrets. He was the only person I was ever close to." Adrianna stopped and looked at the older women. They both looked at her and gave her a sad smile.

"So what happened?" asked Charlotte. As she said that Adrianna sat up and abruptly went to the window.

She looked around at them with an anguished look on her face. "He was charged with the murder of my uncle. He killed him and tried to sway the government to pass laws to protect less fortunate people. He tried to take over the country, upset with the way that poor people were treated by everyone. It wasn't my uncle's fault but he blamed him anyway. He was charged with treason and murder and sent to a jail house in the Santis country. All you need to know about that jail is that it's torture and he would never get out. I will never see him again…" Adrianna trailed off and tried to feign a smile, it didn't work.

The other women smiled and gave her a small hug. She smiled.

"Men! You can't be dependant on them!" Charlotte said exasperated. She then took a white cloth that she was holding and put it in a pitcher full of water.

"When that mine went bust…Huh! My husband, he lost his good sense! He just up and disappeared." She went over to Michaela and continued to tell her story.

"…With my money sock!" Adrianna could not believe it. This man was someone who took advantage of her.

Michaela apologized as did Adrianna. Charlotte said that what was done is done and they kept it to that.

Michaela talked about her relationship with her fiancée, but Adrianna had had enough. When she thought of Jasón, she always felt sad. She was in love with him and through the two years that she trained to become an assassin they became closer. Adrianna did not lie about the events that had happened; she just never told them that she was an assassin. She walked out of the boarding house and didn't feel like being treated like nothing, so she decided that it was best to go home and read that telegraph that her sister had given her so long ago.

As she went onto her horse and thought about Jasón. When she left and went to her first assignment she told him that she would see him again and they would marry. She didn't know what he was going to do. She didn't know that that last goodbye kiss was going to be the last and that she was never going to see him again.

She went home and took off her boots and sat down on her bed. The telegraph was a little crinkled and still had the blood stains from when Santis cut her. She wasn't sure why she didn't read it before, she was probably saying hello. She just missed her sister so much that she wanted to wait for that exact moment. This was it. She then started to read it.

"You miss me huh? You want to see me. There is not much that I can say here in the limited space that I have. Reply back when you start to make sense. (Not that you have before.) weir uaad fhfgnv eioreu oiru ewoi must mean something interesting."

Adrianna smirked remembering the time that the telegraph was given. Her fight with the telegraph man that she soon realized was named Horace Bing must have sent something weird. The only thing that was intelligible was the address of the place it was to be sent to.

Time went by so slow at this place. Adrianna realized that a month had gone by in which they both did not get one patient. She started to have a routine of working out and meditating. She also spent time at the local freedom fighter tribe, learning from others. They did not like the white man and would not allow her to practice medicine and were not that considerate with her. The only time that she did not get treated badly was when the leader/chief was there. She blamed it on Santis, especially when one day she caught her smiling at her.

Adrianna felt anger boiling inside her and wanted to confront her, but she didn't want to give into violence, she just left. After that moment, she left and spent a lot of time alone; the only time in that month that she ventured out was to reply to her sister's telegraph. Unlike the previous time, there was no fight and Horace still did not ask for money.

After a while Adrianna got used to the loneliness but one day she decided to venture into town. She was walking by the blacksmiths when she overheard him and Michaela talking. According to him, there was going to be a new doctor. She felt anger boiling inside her. It didn't seem fair. Whenever she was away from the whites, she always was at her most dangerous. She would not follow the silent rules of a woman staying out of business. Michaela was on her horse and saw Adrianna.

"I think that it's time that we talk to this supposed reverend." Adrianna said and Michaela shook her head, too angry to think.

They both rode over to the church where it looked like a quilting bee was showing a quilt that they had supposedly made. Adrianna was so angry that she didn't even know what Michaela was saying at first.

She got off her horse and walked to the reverend who stated that Michaela being a doctor was a matter of opinion. Adrianna was so angry that she grabbed him by the shoulder and turned him around.

"What the hell is your problem? You think that Michaela and I are not doctors because we're women? WE BOTH WENT TO SCHOOL TO STUDY MEDICINE! We know how to treat illnesses and perform surgeries. Does that stupid barber know how to do that? How many years of medical school did he go through. You call yourself a reverend? You are not a man of the church! You treat those around you with disrespect! You are a demon!"

Adrianna then walked away angry. The reverend and the other women were so surprised that they were speechless. Adrianna was about to get on her horse when she saw Brian yell to them both. He said that Charlotte was bitten by a rattlesnake.

Adrianna stared at Michaela for a split second before running with Brian. Her latest conditioning caused her to run pretty fast and not get tired for about four or five minutes. She then decided to pick up Brian and got a little tired when she ran to the boarding house to find Charlotte at the bed, exhausted. Adrianna checked her pulse and realized that it was weak, she also could see where the bite occurred and it didn't look good. Soon the reverend and Michaela came and she told them of her condition.

"Her pulse is weakening, her breathing is labored, and she looks to have a fever. She must have been bitten quite a while ago, look at the area of entry. I don't know if administrating an anti-poison medicine will work." Michaela ignored Adrianna and gave the children instructions. Adrianna felt very hurt and sat back.

Matthew brought some water and Colleen some pillows. As the reverend put up her blanket, Adrianna swallowed her pride and took Brian into her lap and found a cloth that she dipped into the bucket of water. She then put it all over her face, trying to cool her down.

"Ok Michaela, start making that drug. You are just wasting time. Don't argue with me either. If that gives you hope, then do it. ¡Señora Cooper, ahora es el tiempo a dice adiós a sus hijos!" Adriana was so upset and saddened that she forgot that she was speaking Spanish. She breathed for a second and decided that it was best not to say what she had said in English. It would just upset the children. Instead she laid back and started to sing a song that her mother used to sing to her. It would always calm her.

No llore mi amor,

yo estoy aquí para usted.

Cuándo usted se siente triste,

yo le haré feliz.

Cuándo usted es dolido,

yo lo haré mejor.

Usted es mi amor,

y siempre será.

As she was singing Charlotte started to talk confused about where she was. Michaela gave Colleen something for her to drink. She passed out briefly before drinking and Colleen got upset. Michaela checked her pulse and could tell that it was deteriorating. She gave Michaela one last request: to take care of her children. Michaela did not know that much about children and told her that much. Michaela promised and so Charlotte made her last requests. Soon enough Michaela started to make the anti-poison medicine, but it was too late because that was when she passed out and death took over her.

The reverend stopped her and Adrianna looked at Michaela with the look of sadness that she seemed to always have on her face. She took Brian off her lap, knowing that he would want to hug his mother. It of course happened, the tears fell, the sadness enveloped.

Adrianna sat up, tears in her eyes. She knew how it felt to see some die, someone who you loved die. Forever in her head, she would see her mother on the floor, naked, all covered with blood and her father unrecognizable. In a way it was sadder to not see any blood, because it made it look like they were alive and way easier to deny. That was how she first thought about Alejandra, who only had a gun shot in her head. The way she was lying, Adrianna had then thought that she was just sleeping.

Whether or not she and the children wanted to believe it, she was dead….

In case you wanted the translation to that song…

Don't cry my love,

I am here for you.

When you feel sad,

I will make you happy.

When you are hurt,

I will make it better.

You are my love,

and will always be.

I am not a very good poet, but it sounds great in Spanish!

Also the translation to the sentence that Adri says is: Mrs. Cooper, now is the time to say goodbye to your children! As you can tell, she was trying not to upset them by translating it.

Also, if you are fluent in Spanish then I am sorry. I am not that good at Spanish, but good enough to smack together a few sentences and use