Chapter Four

Each phone call Oscar received built upon the one before and added up to a picture that confirmed his suspicions as well as his worst fears. Rudy returned to his office to find his friend bending paper clips into pretzel shapes and scattering them across the desk.

"Oscar?"

"Close the door, please. Rudy, you are not going to believe this..."

Down the hall in room four, Jaime had also spent the morning on the phone, trying to reach Steve. On her first try, she reached his machine. "Steve," she spoke into the machine, willing him to pick up. "It's me. I...really need to talk to you. I love you, and I am so sorry. Please -" Jaime's heart quickened when she heard the receiver being picked up on the other end. "Steve?" Her heart sank lower than before as it was placed back in its cradle with a very resolute click. She re-rang the number over and over, but he had disconnected the machine. After about an hour, it no longer rang; she got an hour and a half of busy signals. According to the operator, his phone was off the hook.

Oscar found her there, her lunch tray pushed aside, still trying to reach Steve. Dejectedly, she hung up the phone. "Oscar, you're got that look again. Did something happen to Steve?"

"I haven't heard from him, but I do need to talk to you." Jaime waited. "I wasn't exactly honest with you today. Jaime, I walked in on you this morning. Steve was right behind me, but he didn't see anything. I told him you were sleeping."

"Then how -"

"He already suspected something might be happening, but I told him."

"You -"

"Babe, I'm so sorry..."

"You did the right thing, Oscar."

"Excuse me?"

"What I did was wrong," Jaime told him. "What you did...wasn't." Jaime's eyes grew wide and started to tear again. Silently, his face an expressionless mask, Steve had entered the room. Oscar gave an encouraging smile to each of them and quickly left, closing the door to give them some privacy.

Halfway down the hall, Oscar passed Sam, who was heading toward room four. "She doesn't want to see you," Oscar said bluntly. "But I do - now."

Jaime was finding she could barely look at Steve. The anger he radiated - and more than that, the hurt - was palpable, almost visible in the air. "I'm so glad you came back. Steve, I -"

"Jaime, you need to understand something," he said, taking a chair and moving it a distance from her bed before sitting down. "I'm here, but I'm not 'back'. I'll listen to what you have to say, but to be honest, I don't know if it can make any difference."

"That's more than I really deserve, I guess. Steve, you don't know how much I wish this hadn't happened -"

"Makes two of us."

"I'd give anything in the world if I could just take it all back. I hurt the one person who deserved it the least, and I will never forgive myself for that."

"Jaime...do you love him?"

"I don't even know him!"

"Then how did this happen?"

"I don't know. When he stopped Michael from...what he was gonna do, I was so relieved and grateful -"

"And in shock," Steve added.

"I hugged him - for comfort and out of relief, and he must have misread that."

"Or taken advantage of it."

"When he came here to the hospital, I was talking to him about you, about what happened to you, and I didn't realize he was holding me or that I was responding to it until it had already happened."

"Had the sedatives even worn off yet?"

"Don't make excuses for me; I don't deserve that. I have to take the blame, too, Steve - I didn't exactly fight him off."

"You were more vulnerable than you realize, and in physical and emotional shock. You were looking for comfort and he gave you passion instead."

"Steve," she said, unable to hold the tears back any longer, "I'm more sorry than I could ever tell you...I love you...so much. I always will. I...I don't want to lose you."

Steve got out of the chair and moved to her side, clutching her hand tenderly and tightly at the same time. "I don't want that either," he told her softly. "I love you with every fiber of my being. Maybe, when you get out of here, we could take some time away, just the two of us, to see if we can patch this up and make it float again."

"I'd like that." They smiled at each other - tentatively, but it was a start.

At the same time, another confrontation was taking place in Rudy's office. Oscar and Rudy were both boring holes through Sam with their eyes. Oscar got right to the point.

"Who are you?"

"Excuse me?"
"You heard me. I spoke with Harvard and Bellevue this morning; neither one has ever even heard of you. Matter of fact, you don't even have a birth certificate. Sam Argus does not exist!"

"Are you even a doctor?" Rudy asked.

"Yes - I'm really a doctor. And I did go to Harvard and Bellevue. But you're right - I'm not Sam Argus. My name is Sam Goldman.