"Dr. Miller!" Rex called as he caught sight of her walking out of her office.

She stopped and looked at him in surprise. "Yes?"

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" he asked then taking a look around he added, "preferably in your office?"

She nodded, "Of course." She led him back to her office; Rex noticed that she seemed to look around as if she wanted to make sure they weren't being watched. When they entered her office she quickly shut the door behind them. "So is this about-?"

"The little research project I've been working on for you?" he finished, "no. I was hoping we could talk about John McBain."

He saw fear spark in her eyes which she quickly tried to cover with blankness. "Well I'm not one of his doctors," she said, "but I can check-"

"But you were the one who ordered that medication that caused the interaction with the anesthesia," he said.

"Oh," she said, "that."

"Yeah," he said, "that."

"I feel just terrible about that," she fumbled, "I-"

"The thing that confused me," he continued, "Is that I could have sworn I was in your office talking to you at the time."

"There must be some kind of mix up," she said numbly.

"Yeah," he said, "Like someone forged your signature on the chart."

She hesitated and for a moment he thought she was close to confessing something, but she shook her head. "You don't know what you're talking about, Rex."

"You're right," he admitted, "I don't. That's why I'm trying to get you to tell me."

"Look," she said, "it's been a long week—I have a lot on my mind. I made a mistake."

"So you gave the wrong medication and wrote the wrong time on the chart?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, trying to sound firm but not quite managing.

"One problem," he said, "Patient's brother's a doctor. He said judging by the time John's heart stopped and the amount of the medication in his system it had to have been administered while you and I were talking."

"Rex!" she said, a note of desperation creeping into her voice, "leave this alone."

"Why?" he asked.

"Look whatever happened, it's over now," she pleaded, "Lieutenant McBain is going to be all right and he's safe now-"

"That's right," Rex said slowly, "you asked Bo to put a guard on his room. Why'd you do that?"

Paige pretended to look through some papers on her desk, "It's standard procedure when we have police officers in here. Just in case anyone had a grudge against him-"

"When Bo was in here after Statesville he didn't have a guard," Rex pointed out, "I would think if Chief of Detectives warrants one then the Commissioner-"

"Look I don't have to explain myself to you!" she said, an angry edge growing in her voice.

"You're right," he nodded, "but until you do I'm just gonna keep asking. I can be a real pain in the ass when I want to."

"Why does this even matter to you?" she asked with a wild look in her eyes.

"Same reason you have me tracking down your son," he said, "because family's important. And regardless of how I feel about McBain he's pretty important to my sister, and I can't let her look into this alone."

Paige's expression softened and she was silent a moment while the anger, but not the desperation seeped away from her face. "You're sister—I heard—there's a rumor going around the hospital that she's pregnant. Is it true?"

"Yeah," he said, "but try not to spread it around."

"She needs to be careful," Paige said pursing her lips, "you need to find a way to get her to drop this."

"What do you mean she needs to be careful?" Rex asked, concerned by the ominous tone of her words, "Is Natalie in danger? If you know anything-"

"I don't," she said sharply, "just… you have no idea what's going on. Drop this!"

"Dr. Miller-" Rex protested as she pushed past him to the office door.

"I have to go," she said through a shallow breath, "I'm late to a staff meeting."

"Wait!" he said but she had fled the office before he could stop her. He watched her hurry down the hall knowing he couldn't afford the kind of scene that chasing her would cause.

Michael glared at the snack machine that had just eaten his dollar bill. He contemplated shaking it in the hopes that the candy bar hanging from one of the coils would fall, but knowing his luck he'd be caught by one of his supervisors. Sighing he decided this was the nutrition gods reminding him that he needed more vegetables in his diet. He turned to walk back to the waiting area when he heard a woman's voice say his name.

"Evangeline?" he said turning around, "Hey, how's it going?"

"I should be asking you that," she said, "What's going on?"

He shrugged, "Johnny's the same. Test results look good though."

"Well I guess that's something," she said thoughtfully. "So I talked to Natalie and Rex last night-"

"They told me," he said.

"So…?" she said in a low voice.

"So?" he echoed.

"So what's going on?" she said, "Have you found out anything?"

He studied her for a moment, unsure if he should really talk to her about this. "No," he said.

"Okay," she nodded, "what now?"

"What do you mean?" he asked, though he suspected he knew.

"Come on, Michael," she said, "I know you guys are trying to figure out who's behind this. I want to help."

"I don't know," he said trying to walk away, she followed.

"Michael, you don't think I had anything to do with this, do you? Because-"

"No," he shook his head, "It's just… look you need to talk to Natalie, she's really the one running this whole thing."

Evangeline snorted, "Yeah, I'm sure Natalie's real eager to talk to me. Get me involved."

"Hey," he said, "she was one of the first to be convinced that you didn't have anything to do with this."

"But we're a long way from friends," she said. "Look, I want to help, but I'd just as soon stay under Natalie's radar. Just please give me something to do."

Michael cast her a sideways look, "You know where Cristian Vega was the night John was shot?"

A look of irritation washed over her face, "Does Natalie think Cristian did this? That's unbelievable I never should have told her-"

"Easy," Michael said putting his hands on her shoulders, "Natalie doesn't think Cristian did this. In fact, she was pretty emphatic he didn't. But I'd like to make sure."

"You can't possibly believe-" she started before Michael cut her off with a motion of his hand.

"Evangeline," he said in a low but serious tone, "my brother is in a coma. Someone has tried to kill him twice in the last thirty-six hours. I'm not in a position to ignore any possible leads no matter how crazy you think they are."

Looking somewhat sheepish she said, "Okay, you're right. I'd probably be the same way if it was my sister. I'll talk to Cristian, see what I can find out."

"Thanks," Michael said with half a smile, "by the way, how is your sister doing?"

Evangeline seemed confused by the question. "Okay," she said, "her new job at BE's keeping her pretty busy, I never see her these days. Why?"

Michael trusted Evangeline, but he knew letting her know they suspected her sister in this would be a bad idea. "No reason," he said, "just haven't seen her in a while."

Tilting her head slightly to the side she gave him a curious look, as though she didn't quite believe him but she didn't say anything. "Well I'll tell you what Cristian says, but Michael, please keep in mind that not many people have alibis for 2:30 in the morning."

"I will," he said, "but try not to let him know why you're asking."

"Not sure how I'm going to do that," she said, "but I'll try. And let me know if there's anything else I can do."

"Will do," he agreed as he turned to walk back to where his mother was waiting.

Natalie tried not to let her eyes stray to the bandage on the side of John's head. Part of her was getting used to seeing him this way and the other part of her hated that fact. There was no reason to get used to this, she told herself, it wouldn't last for long. "They say I'm supposed to keep talking to you," she said, brushing the hair back from the left side of his forehead. "The problem is I'm running out of things to say. Everyone always talks about you being quiet, but I guess I never realized how much you usually say until you weren't saying anything at all. You know I woke up in the middle of the night last night, and I could swear you were in the room with me. Pretty crazy, huh?"

She raised his hand to her lips and kissed it. "I was thinking when you wake up, once the doctor says it's okay, you and I should go away. Somewhere neither of us has been where no one knows us. Like… I don't know, Boise or Milwaukee or… Siberia, I don't care. Some place we can really get away from everything."

She looked down at his motionless form praying for him to move. To give her some sign. "Come on," she whispered, feeling her voice start to crack again, "you woke up for me once before. Please. Let me see those blue eyes again." She paused and waited. Hoping with every once of energy she had that her words would have the desired effect. He didn't move. She leaned down and kissed his hand again. "I love you, John," she whispered through tears.

Natalie couldn't hear him no matter how loud he screamed. No matter how hard he reached to wipe away her tears she was too far away. This was getting really frustrating. He couldn't even remember how he got there in the first place…

A phone call. Late at night, he was almost asleep. A woman's voice, garbled by tears. A drive through town, still disoriented, groggy, but he couldn't wait. Then a flash of light, almost simultaneous with burning on the side of his head.

He needed to tell Natalie. This and so much more. A thousand other things he should have said a long time ago. He thought before that he couldn't say them, but now he was starting to appreciate the difference between "couldn't" and "wouldn't". And if he could have moved his arm he would have smacked himself for it.

Spencer glared at his cell phone when he saw the number on the caller ID. "You shouldn't be calling me," he said as a greeting.

"They're asking questions," she said, sounding desperate.

"Of course they're asking questions," he said, "did you really think they wouldn't?"

"I think they know something," she said.

"They think they know something," he hissed. "They don't have any proof because there isn't any proof to have. So keep your mouth shut and keep acting innocent and this will all go away."

"But-"

"And don't call me again," he said firmly, "I'll call you when I need to talk to you."

He closed the phone and dropped it back in his pocket. This was going to work, he assured himself as he watched a shaky looking Natalie Buchanan switch places at John McBain's bedside with her uncle. Maybe not quite as planned, he thought to himself, but this was going to work.

"There you are," Rex said as he saw a somewhat dazed Natalie walking down the hall.

"Yeah," she said, "I was sitting with John."

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded, holding back the tears that were pricking at her eyes. "It's just hard seeing him like that."

Rex put an arm around her, pulling her into a half hug. "Hang in there," he said, "he's gonna be okay. McBain's too stubborn to go out that easily."

Natalie tried to force a smile at his comment. "Did you talk to Dr. Miller?" she asked.

"Yeah," he said pensively.

"And?"

"Well she definitely knows something," he said, "what, I don't know. And…"

"What?" Natalie asked when he trailed off, "There's more? What else did she say?"

He hesitated, knowing full well Natalie wouldn't react to this the way he wanted her too, "She seems to think you're in danger."

"Well that was the point of the plan, wasn't it?" she asked without flinching.

"Yeah," he sighed, "I know, I just… now that it's a reality I'm questioning the wisdom of going along with you on this one."

"The wisdom of going along with me is that I'm going to keep looking for who did this until I find them, whether you're with me or not," she said, "this way you can keep an eye on me."

He shook his head and wondered if he could stop her by locking her in a closet somewhere. Michael approached them at that moment looking somewhat out of breath. "Hey guys, I'm glad I caught you," he said.

"What's up?" Natalie asked, "Is it John?"

"No," he said, "well, sorta, in a round about way I guess. I just talked to someone from the hospital in AC. I couldn't get them to release the records of the surgeon who worked on dad but I happened to get a nurse on the phone that knew him. She said that the whole thing was really weird."

"How so?" Rex asked.

"Well she said that before that night he had a perfect record, but that actually something strange happened a couple weeks before my dad died. Apparently he got mugged and after that he just started acting different."

"Drinking?" Natalie asked.

Michael shook his head. "Jumpy, nervous. But as far as she knew he never drank before that night. She said she never quite believed it really happened."

"What does that mean?" Natalie asked, wrinkling her forehead.

"I don't know," he said, "but I don't think I'm going to get any more information out of them. Not over the phone anyway and I don't want to leave my mom or John right now."

"I could run up there," Rex offered.

"Would you?" Natalie asked.

"Yeah," he nodded, "it's not that far and he's right, it's a lot easier to get info out of people when you're actually in their faces."

"Thank you," Natalie said hugging him tightly, "be careful. Let us know as soon as you find anything out."

"Will do," he said as she pulled away. Turning to Michael he said, "Do me a favor and watch out for her okay."

"I'll be fine," Natalie groaned.

"I'll keep her in line," Michael agreed throwing an arm playfully over her shoulder.

"No one can do that," Rex assured him, "but if you keep her out of mortal danger I'll be happy."

Natalie rolled her eyes but smiled slightly.

Natalie stood gazing at the bank of candles in the chapel, dressed in a somber blue suit, her arms wrapped protectively around the bundle in her arms. His mother approached and put a hand on her shoulder. "How are you?" she asked.

"I'm okay," Natalie said through misty eyes, "I just wish John could be here."

"I'm sure he does too," she said, "and you know he is here. In your heart. And in this little one too." She lightly touched the nose of her sleeping grandchild. John tried to tell them that he was there. More than in their hearts he was standing beside them, but no one seemed to notice. And then as he had come to expect, the scene faded.

She was back again. If she ever really left in the first place. She didn't seem to do anything, just hover there. And yet her very presence seemed to be a threat. It wasn't so much as what she represented. So strange how things changed; once upon a time looking up and seeing her standing by his bed would have made him feel very differently.

So why did he want so badly to run now?

To be continued.