A/N: We deserve a summer of John suffering. If ABCD and ME won't give it to us, we'll just have to get it for ourselves. To everyone on the Yahoo fiction group. You are all inspiring!

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All the words he'd never said and all those he did jumble around in his tired mind.

It's been days, but he can't sleep more than a cat nap on his leather couch. He can't eat more than a protein bar and sip bottomless cups of coffee. He knows his men and women are doing their best with what little clues they'd got, but he still yells at them. Demanding the impossible and praying for a miracle.

People keep coming into his office to tell him to rest. To step back. Telling him he is losing perspective. That he isn't going to be any good to Natalie if his body shuts down.

The irony of it all is that Natalie would never have done that. She would have brought him a meal from Rodi's and wordlessly left it for him. He would have eaten it without even noticing it was there until it was gone. Then he would have thanked her as she was leaving him a pillow and blanket.

But Natalie isn't here, which was why he won't rest. Not until he finds her and destroys the bastard that dared to steal her away from him. He doesn't know why yet, but he knows this had gotten personal. He knows the killer had gone after Natalie before, but something had changed and he had gone after both Natalie and Evangeline forcing John to choose which one to save. Then the bastard had taken the one he had picked first. Natalie. In truth, the only choice was admitting that there was no choice. If Natalie was in danger, he saved her. And the killer now knew that for certain.

He told Evangeline and her mother that it was training and that it meant nothing who he got to first. That wasn't completely true, not in the end. He went towards Evangeline because she was furthest from the door, but he had to look back at Natalie. To make sure she was all right. To see her flaming red hair again. She wasn't, she had passed out. That should have cemented it. All his training told him to save the one who could walk away themselves first, But he couldn't take the chance. He couldn't hold himself back from Natalie.

She was breathing and warm when he took her down and laid her on the floor. She was alive under his skin. Then he looked up and remembered his job, the other woman he cared about. Now, she was in trouble. Evangeline was struggling with consciousness and he tried to get her fully back so she could walk. He couldn't carry them both. Help would be coming. Then he saw Bo out of the corner of his eye, but somehow he didn't see Natalie being taken.

John slammed his empty mug on the desk and rubbed his eyes.

There had to be two now. Maybe one of them had killed the Love Crew and had made the two attempts on Natalie. Now, the other was playing another game. One outside the book.

John scribbled something on the white pad on his desk.

Maybe the killer was pissed because he saved Natalie from the arrow?

Maybe they were working together. One of the killers was at Llanfair taking Natalie and the other at The Palace for Evangeline. How else had the killer known where to send Rex's stupid note? John continued to think it through for the hundredth time.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with John, directly, but was about Natalie. Which brought John right back to Ron Walsh. He was the only man who Natalie was dating at the same time she was engaging in her determined campaign for John.

And Natalie would have let Ron walk right up to Llanfair while she was getting in her car.

John tossed his pen down on the desk.

The problem was connecting Ron directly to anything. Security at Llanfair never saw him and his fingerprints weren't found. He hadn't admitted to anything when questioned.

Or maybe it wasn't personal and the killer was just baiting the cops by taking the Commissioner's niece and assistant?

Or maybe it had something to do with whoever took Cristian in the first place and wanted Tico and Antonio dead?

Natalie was just too intimately connected with practically everyone in Llanview and there was no evidence to rule anything or anyone out. Marcie's book was as good a ruse as anything in the beginning. So were Marcie's journals, which had been stolen from her father's house in Jersey. She had talked about them in the media as the inspiration for her novel.

John stood up and pressed his forehead against the window. He toyed with his overgrown facial hair and tried really hard to remember the feel of her against him. Her scent. Her laugh. They were getting harder and harder to imagine. He was afraid that once those memories were gone she would be too. She would be gone a week in a few hours and the odds were she was dead.

John's fist connected with the window sill. He would not believe that. He couldn't. The old wound in his stomach was aching, reminding him of what it would be like if he could never argue with her again.

Why the hell was this happening to her?

"John!"

Michael's strident call finally penetrated John's tortured thoughts.

"What?" John turned around. He didn't bother to hide the tears in his eyes.

"You look like shit, man."

John shrugged and rubbed his burning eyes.

"Please come back to the hotel with me and get some sleep and food."

John dropped his hand and looked at his brother and then down at his desk. Michael was probably right. His mind was too sluggish to make sense of anything right now. He couldn't even muster up a heated protest.

"Mom is coming to Llanview tomorrow."

"Mom?"

"She's worried about you and about Natalie."

"Yeah, me too." John's whisper reached his brother's ears.

Michael moved forward and put his hand on John's arm. "Come on. Let's go."

John nodded, shrugged off Michael's grasp and walked out of his office of his own accord.