Inside the helicopter was surprisingly quiet. The chop of the blades faded into the background, part of the slow beep of Olivia's heart monitor and the crackle of the radio in the front. He saw her lips moving before he heard her speak. Gregory had to lean over her face to hear her.

"The baby-"

She must mean Trey. Gregory chastised himself for not telling her earlier. "Trey's fine. You're going to be with him. He's at South Bay as well."

"No- not Trey-" Her hand squirmed in his grasp. She moved her mouth again. "Our baby. Our baby."

Gregory felt his heart settle like lead in the pit of his stomach. How was he supposed to explain to her that their baby was dead. They'd lost their chance.

The flight nurse caught the odd look on his face. "She's in pretty rough shape. She probably won't remember what she's saying."

"Lie to her?" Gregory asked as the dead feeling crept up his chest.

"Keep her calm. Talk about something happy." The nurse suggested as she looked out over the dark city beneath them.

"She's probably dancing with Cole and drinking champagne." He rubbed her hand between his, coaxing the warmth back into her flesh.

"No, Caitlin's not a baby." Olivia was nearly amused. He caught the hint of a smile on her white lips. "She's safe on the ship."

"That's right sweetheart." Gregory could have kissed her for remembering that detail. "Sean's there too. He's safe."

Olivia's eyes tightened but her lids stayed tightly closed. "What about the baby? Gregory-"

He couldn't think of anything else to say. He was just going to lie but Olivia was ahead of him.

"Gregory Junior. I want to see him."

He was about to ask her what she meant, but Olivia wasn't listening to him. "I'm sorry." She whispered suddenly. "I'm so sorry-"

The nurse pushed him back against the side of the helicopter. "We're landing." The roof of South Bay was a pool of light and a huge red cross. As the helicopter came to a stop, the light flooded in and illuminated her face. Even her eyelids were nearly translucent. The skin of her face was getting gray, like the sky a moment before dawn.

He climbed out of the helicopter at her side. "You might get to see him sooner than you think." She'd been young when they lost the baby. Olivia had bounced back then. This time she was slipping from his fingers.

The doctor who met the chopper caught the tears snaking down Gregory's cheek and hanging brilliant on his chin. "Keep talking." She suggested with professional calm.

Gregory walked slowly at her side, one hand on her shoulder and the other wrapped around her fingers. "Liv- Hey-" He brushed her cheek and smiled when her eyes opened sleepily. "Kiddo, do you remember-"

She cut him off, innocently pleased with herself. "I remember the first time you called me Liv.'

"Oh really?" Trying to tease was harder than he thought.

Her lashes fluttered slowly, but she kept her eyes open. "We were just starting to see each other. You were teasing me. I said 'Gregory' sounded like a knight. A lord of a medieval castle. Sir Gregory the Gallant."

The doctor, Dr. Machida according to her nametag, handed him a stack of release forms and a pen. Gregory stayed at her side. Signing the first form as he smiled down at his ex-wife. "Then what?"

"You said 'Olivia' sounded like a queen." Her eyes twinkled even through the haze. "A noble Roman lady with perfect black curls." Olivia pretended to be scandalized. Just as she had then. "You played with my hair."

Gregory paused with the pen in his hand. The form above was one he'd seen before. When Olivia miscarried. When Sean needed brain surgery.

'In any surgical procedure the chance of a fatal incident is present.'

He met her eyes. Olivia was years away and smiling as if she didn't have a care in the world. Gregory signed his name and scratched out the date.

"You were horrified, weren't you?"

Someone took the forms and touched his shoulder. "You have a few minutes."

Olivia turned her head towards him a fraction. "I giggled. You stopped and stared at me. You got serious. 'Olivia was too proper.' You said, for me to giggle like that."

"You said there was nothing wrong with giggling. In fact, you liked how surprised I looked when you laughed." Gregory sank into the chair next to her.

"I thought nothing surprised you." Olivia's eyes slipped closed again. "But you said-"

He couldn't help finishing her sentence with her. "Liv- you surprise me. Every time I look at you."

Her fingers slipped out of his hand as her hand went limp.

"Mr. Richards. We're ready for her."

Gregory stood up, but his legs were heavy. He kissed her forehead, sealing the lines of her face into his memory. "Surprise me this time."

They wheeled her past him into the surgical ward. The door closed over the squeak of the wheels of her gurney. Gregory watched until the door went still.

"Make me wrong."

Bette held Trey to her chest and grinned in spite of everything as he snuggled against her.

"Should we take him home?" AJ asked softly as he rubbed the little boy's head. "The hospital said he's all right."

"Where does he have to go?" Bette wondered aloud as she bounced him on her knee. "His house is destroyed. His parents are trapped out there-" She pointed out to the ocean outside the window. "On the Titanic. His Grandma's in surgery."

"Gregory's a wreck." AJ took Trey from her to give her a break.

Bette reached for her styrofoam cup of weak coffee. "I've never seen him like this."

"I didn't think he could get like that." He passed Trey part of a graham cracker and the little boy started gnaw on it. "Gregory's not supposed to feel anything."

Bette finished the dregs of her coffee with a wince. "That's not true and you know it."

He knew the look in her eyes, the steel beneath her smile. "Not you too." AJ leaned back into his chair. "What is it about him?"

Sighing as she left her chair in search of more coffee, Bette poured and answered. "Passion." Turning around to AJ, she nodded to his skeptical look. "When he looks at you, you like feel you're part of something bigger than yourself. Better than you've ever been."

AJ watched the poise with which she sat down. The calm she had in the worst of circumstances was nearly as comforting as her smile.

"And don't ask me how I know. Just trust that I do." Bette finished as she blew across the top of her fresh cup of coffee.

Trey finished his cracker and tugged at AJ's hand until he was given another one. "Is it that easy to see through someone?"

"I see a lot." She dropped her shoes to the floor and pulled her feet up into her chair beneath her. "But before you ask, you just look like regret."

AJ felt her knee brush against his thigh as she got comfortable. "What do I regret?"

"That you don't have what Gregory's about to lose." Bette dug her fingers into the muscles of her forehead and tried to smile away her headache. "It doesn't matter that he's divorced, or that he's lost two children before they could even cry. You've never had that."

Her head dropped to his shoulder and warmth blossomed in his chest. "You've never opened that playboy heart of yours enough to let those feelings in. You just watch and wish you knew what he felt."

Her hand wrapped around his arm. "You have to watch Gregory experience parts of life you didn't even know about. Deeper, richer- darker emotions that you'll never have." Her fingers worked their way down to his. "And you hate him for that."

AJ returned the squeeze of her hand.

"You hate him almost as much as you hate yourself." The scalpel of her observation cut through to his heart, but she accepted it. She smiled up at him. "Gregory's life is going to hell and you envy him. You can't stop watching because he has love. He may not know what to do with it and he definitely makes a lot of mistakes."

"But he feels." Bette kissed his cheek. AJ had forgotten he even knew how to blush.

Tyus set down Trey's chart on the wreck of his make-shift desk. It was impossible. It just couldn't be true.

"Eric?" He caught the intern loaded blood samples into a cooler to be tested later. "Eric did we get a sample when you did the transfusion from Mr. to Mrs. Richards?"

The intern nodded and tried not to yawn in exhaustion. "It's in here. I tried to keep them in alphabetical order. Is something wrong?"

"Oh no." Tyus tapped the young man's shoulder and smiled warmly. "You've done a great job. Really- I would have had a hard time coping without you."

The younger man grinned foolishly. "Thanks."

Tyus winked at him. "Don't let it go to your head. I still want to see your work in lab before I pass you on to another doctor."

"Maybe after a few hours off?" Eric shut the cooler and handed him a small tube mark with 'Gregory Richards O+' in neat black marker.

"I think you're going to get a whole day." Tyus promised as he took the vial back to the little laboratory the clinic had to offer. He took a drop of blood from Gregory's vial and placed it on a slide. He removed a second drop from the little vial marked 'Trey Deschanel' and created a second slide. Shutting both vials away in small styrofoam cooler, Tyus sealed it with medical tape.

The DNA typing would have to wait until he got a better laboratory. For now all he had were his eyes and the microscope. That would have to be enough.