Okie dokey this has been a crazy week for me. This part started out very slow for me it took a while for me to finally get the feel of it but once I did it just started pouring out of me. Don't ya'll love that feeling of forcing yourself to write and then all of a sudden you hit that point where you can see it happening in your head and you don't even have to think about what to write next because your just typing the scene as it plays out? Uh my heart was beating so fast as I was writing the second half cause I could so totally see Jolie in a scene like that.

Anyway I won't spoil it for you guy's and hopefully you will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Bethany :)

She sat at her desk staring off into space with a rather odd expression on her face, dozens of people passed in front of her but she didn't seem to notice any of them.

He watched her from the doorway and he could feel himself aching inside for her. It killed him to know that he was hurting her. He wondered again for the thousandth time, since he had told her he didn't love her, if he was doing the right thing. Honestly he didn't even know what the right thing was anymore.

He had tried so hard to stay away from her ever since they first met but something always pulled him back to her side. He was powerless to resist that force, even though he had tried many times.

Now he stands there thinking about all the consequences of his many actions. Not only had he hurt Natalie but he had hurt Evangeline as well. She had genuine feelings for him and he had allowed her to devolop them knowing full well that he could never reciprocate.

Unless there was someone who could exorcise Natalie from within his heart. But, then, even if they got her out of his heart ... he doubted they would ever be able to get her out of his blood.

Natalie sat there completely unaware that she was the object of such thought's. Actually she felt totally miserable,she'd predicted earlier that today was gonna be bad and it had been. Everything had gone wrong from spilling hot coffee all over herself to accidently taking her own purse to the lost and found cause she couldn't figure out who's it was. Hell she'd even answered the phone a few time's and said "Rodi's" instead of "Llanview P.D".

And of course ... then there was John. She had probably walked an extra ten miles more than she'd had to that day just to avoid having to walk in front of his office, instead she chose the long way around the building.

Not that she was avoiding a confrontation with him it's just that the pain was still so fresh, that her heart felt like it had been stabbed anew every time she thought about him, which was at least every other minute. She didn't need any extra reminders. So she avoided everything John related. Except for earlier that morning when she'd had to deliver that file and give him some messages she hadn't seen him at all.

All of a sudden the phone rang bringing both John and Natalie out of their revelries. John straightened up from where he had been leaning on the door frame as he heard her answer the phone

"Llanview Police department. How may I help you?"

"Oh hey Todd..."

John could sense something was wrong just from the way her back stiffened and her hand moved to her mouth.

"Oh... No... I'm coming." She hung up the phone with a slam as John started forward to see what was wrong. She turned to pick up her purse and as she was getting ready to leave she noticed John standing next to her desk.

"Natalie I heard you on the phone is everything O.K?" In that moment all she could think of was what Todd had told her on the phone and she knew that she didn't have time to get into it, so she simply brushed past him without saying a word ... but not before he had seen the look of pure panic in her eyes.

And there it was. The force was back. He couldn't stop himself from following her.

Natalie arrived at the hospital in full speed, she ran into Kevin at the entrance and they walked together , more like jogged, to the elevator as fast as both of them could. Natalie stood impatiently waiting for it to reach the fourth floor, while Kevin repeatedly hit the button with the floor number on it over and over.

As soon as the doors opened they were both out and rounded the corner like it was the finish line in a race.

"Todd where is she? Is she ok? What the hell happened?" Natalie barely caught her breath before she started firing her questions.

"Woe Nat just slow down. She's with the doctor's now. They think she had a heart attack but she's still alive ... so there's hope."

"Oh my god a heart attack?" Kevin gasped, "how long before we'll know any ..." He broke off as Doctor Miller came out of the emergency room.

"Paige, How's my Mom doing."

"Hey Natalie, Well she's not doing very good right now, she is stable at the moment but we're going to have to operate within the next couple of hours to keep her that way."

"Oh my god" Kevin noticed that Natalie was starting to lose it and he took her into his arms and held her as Paige started explaining the details of the operation. Todd asked if it would be possible to see her before they took her to the operating room.

"Well she's unconscience but you are welcome to spend a moment with her." Todd and Kevin headed for Vicki's room before they noticed that Natalie wasn't with them.

"You guy's go ahead I don't think she needs to hear me crying in front of her so please just give her my love and tell here I'm here.OK?" They both hesitated before nodding and going on into her room.

Natalie was in state of pure panic everything was going wrong in her life and it was starting to become way to much for her to handle and she didn't have anyone to turn to for comfort ... not anymore.

She started walking, not sure where to, she just needed a quiet place so that she could freak out without anyone around.

John had been standing around the corner listening to the exchange between the Doctor and Natalie's family. He could tell just from Natalie's tone of voice that she was about to fall off the edge that she was precariously perched on.

He followed her as she started walking, he was pretty sure that she had no idea where she was going. But he wanted to be there for her when she stopped ... and when she broke down, which he knew was what she was about to do.

She ended up in the chapel standing next to a row of lit candles, not quite sure why she was here, it had alway's felt to her like her prayers were ignored.

She slowly walked up to the altar where there were several different denominations displayed, the virgin mary, Jesus on a cross, a jewish star ... all sitting there, miniature versions of what you would normally find in their different followers respective churches. She wasn't sure which, if any of them, represented her own non existent faith in a higher being. She ran her hand over each of them wondering what their point was it's not like they could do anything for her or her mother. They were just clay and plaster and metal. Physical things that had no place representing a spiritual realm.

The longer she stared at them the more they became the objects of her pain and her hatred, it seemed like they mocked her, taunted her saying "If only you had been a better person, if only you had been less selfish, if only you had loved more or hated less than your mother would be fine now, Cristian would have never died ... John would love you. But no you ... YOU screwed up. Everything is your fault. If only..."

And finally she couldn't take it anymore, she started sobbing as she picked up the statute of Mary and threw her across the room, next came the Jesus and the Star, she felt it fitting that they broke along with her.

Her cries became worse and she started sinking to the floor feeling complete despair.

But in the next instant she was caught up in a strong, familiar embrace. The one that had gotten her through the hardest times in her young life. She didn't know why he was there ... she didn't care. She held onto him as if he were her lifeline knowing, in fact, that he was.

He held onto her for dear life, wishing desperately that he could take her pain away, make everything better for her. But since he couldn't do that in the real world he just did what he had always done ...

He held her as close to his heart as he possibly could.

Whispering soothing words of comfort in her ear as he lightly stroked her back and prayed for God to make everything alright ... for her sake.

It took several minutes before Natalie regained control of herself and realized where she was. In the hospital chapel. In John's arm's. Her heart skipped a beat as she realized that he had followed her from the police department, that he had still been here for her in her moment of need even though he said that he didn't love her ... Wait, that's right, he didn't love her. So what the hell did he think he was doing, following her, caring about her ... Holding her!

In that moment of realization she pulled away from him. He let her go reluctantly but he could sense that she had realized the condtradiction between the word's he had spoken the night before and his actions just then. He wondered what she thought that meant. Hell he wondered what HE thought that meant.

But instead of saying anything she just looked at him, this time with a guarded expression on her face, one that she had never given him before and he knew that the wall he'd struggled so hard to build between them since the beginning, the one she'd always managed to knock down whenever it had gotten a little height to it, had finally been erected ... By her.

She turned from him and walked out of the chapel. Could it be possible that she hadn't noticed the truth in his embrace, hadn't read the words in his eyes?

She had alway's interpreted those things to mean that he did love her but he had the feeling that this time she had finally accepted his lies. This time, it seemed, she actually believed that he didn't love her.

"Well that IS what you were going for wasn't?" Yeah, he thought, it was what he'd wanted. And yet he couldn't understand why he felt like his heart had just walked out the door.

With Natalie.