Roger caught his shoulders and steadied Gregory back against the head of the bed. Handing the glass of water, he tried not to look at the stricken look on Sean's face. "How are you feeling?"

Gregory took a moment to consider the question and Sean was quietly grateful again that Olivia wasn't here to see him struggle with the question. "Like Frankenstein's monster."

The humor surprised Sean nearly as much as Roger's chuckling. "I was wondering if you'd remember that. Okay, harder question. Who's this handsome young man next to me?"

Gregory reached out and took Sean's hand, smiling softly. "My son."

"Good." Roger pulled up a chair and sat in it backwards, resting his arms on the back. "Do you know where you are?"

Gregory coughed again and a trickle of water ran down his chin as he fumbled with his cup. Sean started to reach for it but Roger shook his head. Whispering out of the corner of his mouth, "It's just water. Let him realize it's there."

After a moment or two, he did much to Sean's relief. His father wiped clumsily at his chin and went back to Roger's question. "Room's too big to be that clinic. South Bay General."

Roger mimed adding a point to a scoreboard. "Correct. Who are you and what do you do for a living?"

"This says I'm Gregory Richards." Gregory pretended to read his name off his armband and Roger rolled his eyes. "I rule the town with an iron fist. May I see my wife now? She must be worried sick about me."

"Mom's in Roger's office, I'll go get her-" Sean jumped to his feet but Roger held him off.

"Tell me about your wife." He asked softly, not willing to risk Olivia's disappointment. "What's her name?"

Sean paused in front of the doorway, his conscious mind insisted that Roger was doing the right thing, but he didn't want to face a world where his father wasn't who he was supposed to be. Gregory was infallible. It was part of being him.

"You have to be joking-" Gregory started with a touch of annoyance. Roger just shook his head and waited. "She's the love of my life." He explained through a grimace as he realized he was in a hospital gown. "Alex and I-"

Sean couldn't contain his shock and even in his confused state his father read it all over his face.

"What is it? Is she all right?" Watching the concern on Gregory's face was unnerving. It was worse to listen to him ask for a dead woman and seem utterly unable to remember his real wife. "Sean, where's your mother?"

Sean turned to Roger, looking slightly helpless. "She's asleep dad. In Roger's office."

"Why's she asleep? Isn't it the middle of the day?" Gregory examined the clock on the wall and gave Roger a critical look. "Did you let her stay up all night?"

Roger put his hands in his pockets and resigned himself. Sean was having trouble looking at his father, but he met Gregory's gaze head-on. "I sedated her." He put a hand on Sean's shoulder and regretted having to admit this in front of him. "I was worried about her. If anything happened to you-" The seriousness of Roger's steely green eyes betrayed how close a call it had been. "The stress might have put her in danger. I wasn't going to let her go through that."

"Thank you." Gregory replied softly, his mind caught up in the real possibility that he had been on the brink of death. They sat in collective silence for awhile, Sean wanted to scream at his father that his wife's name was Olivia. That he loved her more than anything. Roger waited to see if the hint got through to Gregory.

Fidgeting with his hands did it. Touching his wedding band finally flashed an image of the smiling face that had put it there. "Olivia-"

Sean jumped in surprise as relief washed warmly over him.

"She's pregnant. That's why you sedated her."

Grabbing his father's hand suddenly Sean fought the sting of his eyes. "When's she due?" His eyes begged his father to return. "How surprised were you when you found out she was pregnant?"

His father had to pause a moment, as if listening to a voice in the back of his mind that was feeding him the answers. "March. Our baby's due in March."

Roger smiled, like a teacher with a prized student. "That's right. Olivia's due in March."

"Olivia..." The word rolled over Gregory's tongue and Sean could see him struggling to remember. It was awful. His parents were finally back together. Finally happy for awhile but now thanks to his sister his father was struggling to remember her name. "Liv."

Sean backed away, deciding that Roger could handle his father as he fled to the hallway. The door clicked shut behind him and he stood in there, lost in the empty beige corridor. He was alone and the weight of it collapsed onto his shoulders. Roger was coaching his father. Reminding him that it had been his anniversary, that Olivia had just turned forty-three last week.

Gregory had taken her shopping, driven all the way to Beverly Hills and spent the whole weekend going from store to store with her in hand. His letter on it was a rather droll commentary, but his mother's letter was so excited it nearly leapt off the page. That excitement had been in her voice when she called to ask him when he was coming home. Something was definitely different with them. In a way he envied his younger brother. He was coming into an entirely different world. His parents would be loving and supportive of each other.

Maybe things would be different for Caitlin if his parents had gotten along when he was younger. Maybe she'd be better. He shuddered thinking about it. He'd tried to avoid it, focusing on his father's recovery and on making sure his mother and the baby were all right. She'd tried to kill him. Caitlin had tried to kill their father and nearly succeeded. He wandered down to the lounge and dropped into a chair. He was too tired to cry.

A woman cleared his voice politely and drew his attention. "We have a lot to talk about."

Too tired to be surprised that she was talking to him, Sean turned and gaped at her. She was beauty in its most dangerous form and he was utterly entranced. Sean had met beautiful women before. His mother was lovely, Annie was dangerous but gorgeous. His friends used to joke that Caitlin was hot. Tiffany had been pretty, but no woman had ever looked like her and spoken to him directly.

And she was waiting. Her long dark hair was thicker than his mother's but it was tightly bound back to her head. Her eyes were dark and the hand she moved away from her face revealed dark red stain on her lips. "I know you've been here all night, would you care to shower and change before we talk?" Her words had a lilt, an accent he didn't quite recognized. She stood and reached for his elbow. "We do have quite a lot to discuss."

The accent was Italian, he realized as she led him to the elevator. Getting out of the damn hospital was so gratifying that he didn't care where she was leading him. She opened the door on a pristine black car with tinted windows. "After you Mr. Richards."

Sean started, he'd never thought of himself as "Mr. Richards". He stared dumbly at her as she held open the door. "Who are you?"

"A friend of your family." She nodded to the driver and got in next to him. "A family that is much larger and more complex than you have been told."

The car went to the Oceanview instead of his house. She explained the police were still finishing their work in the crime scene. "It's too crowded in your house for the conversation we need to have." She straightened her hat, a dark wool fedora, and stepped out of the car as it came to a stop in front of the hotel.

She crossed to open his door for him, treatment Sean was entirely unaccustomed too. He reached for her wrist, trying to stop her from opening the door to the hotel as well, but he stopped when he realized her hands were encased in tight black leather gloves. She gave him the tiniest of smiles and led him up to the penthouse. Seating him at the table, she ducked into the kitchen.

"Open the folder on the table in front of you." She ordered as he moved aside a neat pile of clothes from the chair without realizing they were his size.

She returned with fresh coffee, cream and sugar and a pastry. "First is Cole St. John. Jewel thief, con artist and known associate of the Deschanel syndicate. He disguised himself as Julian Deschanel to date your sister, but-" She flipped over to the next few photographs. Cole with black hair, Cole with brown hair and glasses, Cole with his arm around Caitlin's lower back.

"We discovered after some digging that Cole St. John is actually Cole Deschanel. The son of one Armando James Deschanel Junior. AJ- who is now here in Sunset Beach."

Sean took a long sip of his coffee. "Why tell me?"

She turned the pictures over and moved on. "The Deschanel jewels are worth slightly over three million American dollars in today's jewelry market and around one point three million if they are broken up and sold as stones." Her coffee was black, and she drank it without waiting for it to cool. "However, it seems that the jewels were never his real objective. He spent more time trying to hurt your mother than procuring the jewels."

"I still don't know why you're telling me this-" Sean wondering with growing frustration.

Tapping the table drew his attention back to the folder and she waiting patiently for him to calm down. "Now we move to Italy. Raspuglia is a small village in the hills south of Florence. Your father's cousin, Tribuno Riccidari lives there with his family. Your family."

"Dad doesn't have any family." Sean began to correct her as he looked over the maps of Italy. "He's never talked about them."

"Mr Richards-" She began and softened her voice as she recognized the child behind his eyes. "Sean, your grandfather was part of a great and noble family. He turned his back on them and came to America where he married an American woman and had a son. Your father. It took your father's family sometime to find him, and when they did he was a angry, lonely young man desperately in need of a family." She pulled herself up on the table and rested her feet on the chair next to him. "Family is everything."

"Your father was introduced to his family when he was older than you, and we had planned to give you more time to come into your own before involving you in the family business, but certain events made it impossible to delay your introduction." She shut the folder and straightened her skirt as she crossed her legs.

"You are part of one of an old and powerful family, one that takes care of its' own." She refilled her cup and gave him a look that resembled pity. "Your sister committed a crime against the entire family when she attacked your father. A crime that must be punished."

Sean's cup rattled against the table as he set it down in a hurry. "The police will find Caitlin."

She shook her head sadly, removing her hat and setting it on the table at her side. "That I rather doubt. if Caitlin learned well from Cole she'll be nearly impossible to find."

"But she has what she wanted." Sean pushed his chair away from the table, trying to foce his tired mind to make sense of the situation. "She wanted the jewels, just like Cole did."

"After the last attack on your mother, your father became convinced that she needed to be protected, at all costs. He arranged for Cole's existence to be terminated."

Sean took another step back, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Dad had him killed?"

"He protected your mother and your unborn brother."

Still shaking his head, Sean stared out at the sea through the plate glass window. "No."

"Caitlin may spend the rest of her life in seclusion. Or she might return tomorrow and try to finish what she started. She was in love and love does foolish things to a woman's heart." She slid off the table and joined him at the window. "Next time she might not be after your father."

"She wouldn't-" Sean insisted without believing what he was saying. "She couldn't."

"Can you take that chance?"

He slammed a fist against the window, feeling the pain run up his arm as the glass held steady. "Caitlin wouldn't hurt the baby. How could she? He's her brother." Smashing a vase on the coffee table behind him went better. The glass beads instead tumbled in a rush out over the floor. His stomach felt cold, like a solid lump of lead.

"Gregory was her father." She finished softly. "He may still never recover. He was dead for over two minutes. His mind could be irreparably damaged." She moved her foot and sent a new group of beads rolling across the smooth tile floor. "And your sister claimed to love him."

Wondering if he was going to throw up, Sean held his ground as best he could. "I can't."

"Caitlin is your sister, it's your decision to make."

"I can't." He repeated as firmly as he could. "Don't you see why I can't?"

She sighed heavily and walked carefully through the mess to the table. Shutting the folder she picked up her cellular phone. With a push of a button it was on. She turned her back to him politely. "Ask Dr. Baxter to wake Mrs. Richards... I know we didn't intend to involve her-"

Crunching as Sean crossed the floor, the glass beads rolled free of his shoes. "Don't wake my mother."

"Excuse me." She covered the cell and turned back to him patiently. "We have a lead on your sister now. We may not in a few hours. My orders are to do what I have to do to protect the family."

"Please don't wake her." Sean stared into her eyes, looking for some kind of absolution he'd never find. "You know where Caitlin is?"

She nodded curtly, holding the phone to her chest.

"Do it." Sean whispered so softly that he barely heard it. He swallowed the lump in his throat and felt his chest go as cold as his stomach. He cleared his throat. "Keep my mother safe."

"I'll call you back." She hung up the phone and set it neatly on the table before giving him her full attention. "Are you certain?"

"I want my mother to be safe." Sean whispered with a voice fifty years too old for his face. "I don't want to know how, just make it quick."

She brushed his shoulder with her gloved hand and pointed him towards the bathroom. "Go take a shower, change clothes. The driver will take you back to the hospital."

"Promise me Caitlin won't be afraid." Sean begged with hollow eyes.

"She won't be afraid." She picked up her cellular phone and headed for the door. Sean took a tentative step towards the bathroom, and as soon as she was out of the apartment, he threw up. He'd made his choice and unlike Caitlin he would have to live with it a very long time.