She looked up from her hands and across Alex to see Luka, his eyes cast downward at the floor as he absentmindedly scuffed the toe of his shoe across the tile. He lifted his hand and dragged it across his stubble darkening his chin, his fingertips raking against the pokey hair that he'd failed to have time to shave earlier that morning and was now paying the price. He slowly looked up at his wife, not knowing that she'd been staring at him, and he pursed his lips together.

"I'm sorry," he didn't know why he was apologizing, but he just figured that nothing would fit better at that moment than an apology. He watched her as her hand found its way to play with the hairs at the back of Alex's head, and he suddenly felt guilty for neglecting to grab a chair on their way into the room. "It took longer than I expected to get him into a room."

He reached up slowly and scratched his temple, wincing slightly as his nail dragged down the side of his face while he attempted to hide his pain. She wondered if he had hurt himself, or maybe if someone else had hurt which she highly doubted, and that made her narrow her eyes in his direction. She didn't know what was going on, and part of her didn't care to find out.

"What the hell happened to your face?"

She looked at his troubled and broken appearance, wondering if she'd ever touch him again for fear that she'd break him. It was almost unbelievable to think that a woman as tiny and frail as she was would be afraid to break a man as broad and consuming as him. How could she go on thinking that she'd break the man that she loved?

"It's nothing, Sam. Don't worry about it," he shrugged nonchalantly as she shook her head at the suggestion of her not worry about her husband, "I'll be fine."

He looked at her, the pain in his eyes trying to lie his way into complete and total oblivion, and outwardly cringed at the sight of him. She had about a thousand questions begin to run through her head, and not one question was one that wouldn't make her heart ache. It was an unfair trade.

She had a question and she got hit in the chest.

Was he unhappy with her? Did he not love her like he promised her he always would? She remembered that just the day before he had been asking her the same questions, and it was a strain on their marriage to think that the other didn't want to be in it. All she wanted was to be married to him, and that surprised even her.

She was caught off guard when he warily reached across Alex and gently grabbed her upper arm, holding it as he moved around the table. He pressed his chest into her shoulder as he stood behind her, offering Alex a smile that held a slight glint in it. She was confused, and she gently shook her head with a raised eyebrow as she looked at her son.

She couldn't fathom why her husband had suddenly changed his emotions from angry to pleased, and it sent a whirlwind of a tornado shooting through her mind. Of course, his hands were cold against her skin and it made her body shiver until the point that she almost forgot why the three of them were sitting in that room. But her eyes suddenly snapped to a wider pose, and she stepped away from her husband as she reached out to touch her son.

He was her main concern. He always had been and he always would be.

"Your hand feeling any better, baby?"

She reached up and brushed her fingers down the back of her son's head, eliciting a quiet sigh to escape from his lips. He was tired and in pain, she could read that much on his face, and there wasn't anyway he was going to feel any better until someone pumped some drugs into his tired body. It was almost a random question; after all, her husband was barely offering her the time of day.

Luka took a hard step towards the door, prepared to take charge of his ER in the first place and to wreck a little havoc, just when the door opened and a rather tall man with his eyes cast downward stepped into the room. Who was this doctor? He wasn't one of Luka's doctors, unless it was an overnighter that Kerry had shipped in.

"I'm Dr. Rogers," the man practically groaned when he looked up and saw a large Alex on the table, disappointed that he'd been stuck with yet another child, "it seems that the scan Chuny ran won't be back until early in the morning and I really hate the idea of casting your hand without certainty of where the problem is…"

"Just put a cast on it," Luka shrugged, giving the young doctor a stern glare.

"With all due respect, Dr. Kovac, you're not his father and aren't declared to make decisions."

"I am his father, Dr. Rogers. I'm paying this hospital bill and I'm his primary physician. You are in my ER and until I say otherwise you are to follow my orders if and when they are given to you," Luka's face was turning red as he took a heavy step towards the doctor, who leaned backwards haphazardly, and Luka's blood seemed to boil. He'd had a rough night, and he was sure that he was going to lose control. "Now, put a cast on his hand."

Dr. Rogers hesitated, his eyes drifting respectively towards Sam as she did her best to ignore her husband's hard stare, and he pursed his lips together. He was waiting for something, almost any kind of control to take place from his chief doctor's wife, and his hand clutched tighter and tighter around the clipboard. He could point out a man in search of power and one who normally thrived on his power, and he couldn't seem to find it in this man giving him a command.

Sam nodded as she slowly sat beside her son, rubbing her forehead in slight exasperation at the anger in her husband's tone. She reached out and grabbed Luka by the belt loop, gently tugging him toward her by the waist as she shook her head. She didn't know whether she wanted to kill him at the moment, or if she was craving to feel his touch, but either way she was desperate for some kind of contact.

Dr. Rogers nodded as he slowly left the room, the boy's parents failing to acknowledge his existence but failing to care himself. He glanced to his mother to see her nearly begging for a touch that he couldn't give her; sure, he could make her happy, but not the same way that Luka could. Alex was slowly learning what his parents had was special, different, regardless of how they seemed to fail to get along at moments.

Luka turned slightly under his wife's touch, and he smoothed tired fingertips across her back as he sighed inwardly. His legs were tired, his arms were heavy, and his body was shaking from the inside out from his uncertainty of where the night had gone. His mind wasn't even in the place that he was – he'd left it somewhere else where he knew he wouldn't bother looking.

"I'm sorry," the words were accompanied with a tired sigh and a low moan as he seemed to nuzzle his face into her hair, searching for a comfort or an understanding. He knew that she was confused by him, she was angry with him, and she was crazy over him – and he wanted to reach out to cure her desperation for any kind of touch from him. "Tonight should have never happened – none of it. I love you, Sam."

He seemed breathless as his breath escaped from his lips and gently into her ear.

She was distracted though. She didn't know how to tell him what she'd kept deep inside of her throughout the entire night. She wanted to hate him and to hate herself all at the same time.

"I don't think I can handle this ever again – having a child and knowing what it's like to never be there because of her mother. It breaks my heart and I can't control myself when I get like that. I don't know what I'd do if that were to ever happen again."

And she stopped. Her body stopped. Her breathing stopped. Her heart stopped.

How could she tell him now?