The laws of destiny rendered Pam's promise an empty one.

The apartment door blew wide open and Cliff practically skipped across the threshold, as he carolled; "Honey, I'm home." These days, the former workaholic had become a notorious clock-watcher and scrambled to return home at the earliest opportunity for that extra minute with his son. Sue Ellen descended a step-ladder with paintbrush in hand and welcomed him with a sweet kiss on the cheek. "Oh, hello."

Cliff reeled her in for a more romantic embrace and Sue Ellen whispered, "Hello to you, too. How was your day?"

"Ah, a whole load of blah-blah-blah," he mimicked the wheal-and-deal office talk that often induced a yawn from Sue Ellen. Try as she did - and she did try hard - Sue Ellen simply could not muster any interest in the oil business. "I don't want to talk about work," Cliff had already discarded his briefcase and wrapped both arms around her waist. "How are you, pretty lady?"

Sue Ellen bit her bottom lip. Shortly after she had fled Southfork, Cliff had showered her with promises and beseeched a second chance - and, in her most vulnerable state, she afforded him one. To his credit, he had proven himself not only a man of his word but exceeded all expectation. Sure, there wasn't the passion and fire she had with J.R. and sometimes she pondered what-could-have-been with Dusty but neither compared to the love for her boys. "I am absolutely filthy," she declared, as she showcased the dried paint splattered carelessly on her clothes and skin. "Would you mind if I hop in the shower?"

"Go ahead," Cliff assured her with a wave of his hand, "How's my little man?"

"In a sour mood all day; I think he may have a temperature." Sue Ellen nonchalantly remarked, as she reached for her bathrobe and wandered into the bathroom. "I called Dr. Walters but he didn't seem concerned." Aaron was fifteen months old and they were obsessive about his health. While the neurofibromatosis had not reared its head yet, there was the fear that it seemed inevitable. The initial paranoia had been unbearable. Whenever Aaron cried, or suffered disturbed sleep, or loss of appetite, Sue Ellen feared the worst. It was one of the reasons she so easily allowed Cliff benefit of the doubt for his dishonesty - he had only done so, to spare her the daily terrors he experienced.

Cliff popped his head into the nursery and Sue Ellen could practically hear his dopey smile. "Did you miss your daddy?" Sue Ellen listened from afar as Cliff conversed with Aaron, who offered little input, and she smiled with the warmest of hearts; Cliff Barnes was a natural at fatherhood.

"SUE ELLEN - "

Cliff's cries disturbed her first solitary moment of the day and Sue Ellen shut the shower off, in response to his audible panic.

The timespan between the moment her foot hit the floor to their arrival at the hospital was indecipherable but Sue Ellen's hair was still wet. Doctors and nurses swarmed them upon arrival and Cliff carefully positioned an unsettled Aaron onto the stretcher which had been wheeled toward them. "Please help my son," he implored, as they hastily whisked Aaron into the trauma unit.

"Cliff…" Sue Ellen softly whispered his name, in an unanswered plea for emotional and physical support.

Wrapped up in his own turbulent emotion, her cry for him was mute. Cliff ran one hand over his hair and muttered to himself, "I need to call Pam." There would be little his sister could do but her ever-rational presence calmed him; the Barnes family always rallied the troops well in times of crisis - they had plenty experience, after all. Inexplicably, he wandered in the opposite direction to the payphone set and brusquely explained himself, "I need some air first." The room started to feel as if all the air had been sucked out of it and Cliff hurried beyond the automatic double-doors they had previously burst into.

Alone, in every sense of the word, a sickness started to rise from Sue Ellen's stomach. An icy chill ran down her spine, partially due to the damp patch at the back of the loose-fit blouse she had thrown on and the residue water that trickled downward. She forced herself to dial the private number for Southfork, her once-upon-a-time home. With little hesitation, a familiarly pompous Texan voice answered the phone. "Ya, hello?" It rendered her breathlessly silent, as he always had done. Her shallow breaths were barely audible but must have deterred any intention to end what, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be a prank call. "Hello?" His impatience increased, for sure, and Sue Ellen quivered another breath into the mouthpiece clutched in both hands.

"J.R.," her lips trembled her husbands name.

"Sue Ellen?" Genuine concern infiltrated his tone and it was kindest, most-cordial way he had spoken his wife's name in months. His family naturally paused their own discussion at the dinner table and listened for the conversation. J.R. swivelled his back to eyes that pried and lowered his voice, "Are you alright?" There was a distinct vulnerability in her voice and he couldn't deny it worried him.

"Mrs. Barnes," a healthcare assistant incorrectly beckoned blindly from the nearby nurses station.

"Sue Ellen?" J.R. repeated her name before the line fell dead.