Enough of the action-filled chapters... back to GA...

As Teddy unlocked the door to her apartment, her hands were still shaking.
Owen had finally sent her home, after she had almost fucked up in the OR. She had been way too tired to start operating anyway. It had been a reckless decision to stay there, just because she thought she couldn't bear the silence at home and didn't want to leave Audrey alone.

In the afternoon, the burning ship had been towed to the harbor of Port Angeles, twenty miles north of Seattle. They seemed to have some engine problems which didn't allow to cross the Pacific Ocean without repairing things first.

No word of Jack. Had he survived on that burning vessel at all? Nobody knew, and finally she was thinking that nobody would ever know.

Audrey had implored Heller to send somebody to that ship, to help him, but he had officially declined. The Chinese, he said, would never agree to a prisoner exchange again if they'd snatch the people back who they had given to them before. His hands were tied.

Behind his back, they all shook their heads. He didn't want to help Jack, everyone knew that.
Teddy realized that even Audrey was slowly giving up on trying to persuade him. But she was confined to her room, and there was not much what she could do.
There had been no report of the coastguard. They hadn't found any body in the sea.

She had called all other hospitals in the area. Nobody who'd fit Jack's description had been delivered to any of them.

She switched on the light and went to her bedroom. Tiredly she collapsed onto the bed, the first time after she'd left it on the morning before, after sleeping here with Jack.
She found the grey T-shirt that he'd been wearing – one of Henry's – and the sweatpants on the chair next to the bed. They had a magical pull on her. When she tiredly got up again, reminding herself that she should change into her pajamas, she couldn't help but put that grey T-shirt on which Jack had been wearing the night before.

It smelled like him.
No, it smelled like Henry.

God, she missed them both.
For a while, Teddy lay in bed, asking herself if she had gone completely crazy. There was no sense in denying that she'd fallen in love with Jack over the course of the past week. And yet she was facing his girlfriend that he'd always been talking about and who was so madly in love with… She had watched him go into a certain death for her, even helped him!
It was plain silly to envy Audrey. Being with him was only trouble. Whoever was after him would always threaten his loved ones as well. That was why Heller was so protective of Audrey and why he wished to get rid of Jack for once and for all. She should be glad that his heart belonged to Audrey and not to her. But nevertheless, he had already torn her into these troubles, knee deep.

Cuddling into the shirt and into the sheets where they both had spent their nights, she finally fell asleep.
And she didn't realize that her mobile phone, which she had switched to mute, rang, some hours later.

In the morning, she saw what she had missed: thirteen missed calls, most of them from work. Two more from Christina, one from Derek Shepherd.

She jumped out of bed, calling back, while she was already putting on her clothes, without even bothering to make the bed or breakfast.

A patient had been delivered to the hospital in the night, strong hypothermia.
She didn't dare ask if it was Jack, although that was the only question in her mind as she raced to the hospital.

She ran all the way, to the locker room and change into her scrubs, and the whole way from there to the intensive care unit. As she pushed the door open, she found DoD agents standing at one of the doors to one of the rooms. Her wildest thoughts got confirmed in an instant.
She was so out of breath from running that she couldn't have spoken a word.
Owen and Christina just came out of the room.

When he found her standing there, he rushed over to her, pushing her back out of the ward. "You shouldn't be here, Teddy."

"I have 13 missed calls on my phone, Owen, I came here as fast as I could!", she almost shouted.

"They were wrong to call you, they didn't know that I had sent you home.", he explained, trying to push her further away.
As he grabbed her arms, pushing her backwards, she saw that underneath his white coat, he wore a holster and a gun at his belt.

"Owen!", she called out his name in shock. "What are you doing?", she shouted, staring at the gun at his belt.

"I am protecting us all here, especially you!", he hissed, backing her against the wall. "The guy who threatened you yesterday night is in there. Heller's men brougt him here. I couldn't do anything against it. I would have thrown him out, Teddy", he said, almost apologetically, "but his shape was just too bad."

Teddy froze as she heard that. She looked past Owen, over at the doors to the ward.

"Teddy, calm down, he won't do anything to you.", he tried to soothe her, because he saw how torn she suddenly was. He was still a major of the armed forces, in the back of his mind, and he definitely was allowed to carry that gun on him.

"What's wrong with him?", she stammered, even though was highly suspicious to ask that.

"Strong hypothermia and several other superficial wounds.", Owen said, hoping that his diagnosis would calm her down, "You're safe, Teddy. This time that guy won't be able to get up and run. And I'll make sure he's no threat to anyone. Everything's already coordinated with the guys from DoD."

She was still shocked to see him carrying a gun. The last time she'd seen him armed was in Baghdad, years ago. It suddenly felt like the war had caught up with them again.
"Why did they call me then?"

"Christina wanted to reach you, she wanted to do a bypass and warm his blood externally to keep him alive.", he tried to explain, "She didn't know that it was that guy and she didn't know about yesterday night."

Teddy couldn't have cared less about what he or Christina knew or didn't know. "Did she do it?"

"No", he shook his head, "The DoD agents ordered that no invasive techniques to be used. They wanted to keep him at least somehow transportable."

"Why do they order what we should do?!", she almost shouted, "Are we the doctors or are they?!"

"Relax, Christina had it under control. He's almost back at 90°F and there were no complications yet." He sighed, adding, "And even if there were…" he didn't finish that sentence. The head of trauma surgery should not say anything like if my patient dies I'm quite okay with it.

"Okay…", she silently breathed, walking a few steps away from him, "She can call me if she needs anything", she added and left him back alone.

Walking down the corridor, she knew that he would guard her 'from Jack'. Owen would always be around, keeping her from seeing him, because he was worried about her. And there was no way in which she could persuade him to let her through to Jack.

She couldn't help picture Christina, working on him.
But she could picture her just so well, telling her that he hadn't made it, like she had told her, only five weeks ago, after losing Henry. He's dead, she pictured her, saying, Jack is dead, to speak the magical words aloud. She wiped the tears from her eyes that had unwillingly started to flow.
And right now she prayed that Christina wouldn't lose another one of the men she loved.

She had refreshed her make-up and waited until the cried-out eyes had gone away, before she dared to go over to Audrey. Heller was here, and she couldn't allow him to get suspicious about her. What should she tell him, anyway? I cried because I worry about your worst enemy?

At least until she closed the door to Audrey's room, she held up her façade.

She had fooled Heller into believing that everything was okay as usual, but she couldn't fool Audrey. She saw it in the very first moment, that something was wrong, and that it could only have to do with Jack.

Audrey jumped out of bed and ran over to her.

"He's here.", Teddy breathed

"Alive?"

She nodded her head, slighty.

"Does dad know? He didn't tell me anything."

"His men brought him here." Teddy took a deep breath. "There were two guards watching his room, but I saw on the way here that now they're gone."

Audrey started pacing up and down in the room. The DoD agents had brought him here, but not to free him. Probably they only wanted to make sure that he couldn't flee from the Chinese – even if it meant presenting him to Cheng on a silver plate again.
"You said that the agents left?", she asked. "When?"

"I don't know. Could be twenty minutes, could be an hour."

"They've left their posts so the Chinese can caputre him back.", she spoke it out loud what they both were thinking. "I can't let that happen."

The two women stared at each other.

"I don't know how to stop that from happening.", Teddy silently began, feeling endlessly sorry for saying it, "My boss here won't even let me go anywhere near him, because he still believes that he has to protect me from the men who abducted me. I can't give any orders to bring him away, to surgery, or to some other room or to another hospital…"

"Then I have to get him out.", Audrey cut off Teddy's excuses on why she couldn't help him. "I'm not going to lose him another time, after all we've been through."
It hurt her to say these words, "If you ever loved him, then you have to help me now."

Teddy froze, as she heard that. "What…?"

Audrey slowly came closer. "You are too worried.", she began, "You wouldn't cry for a simple patient, or would you?", she breathed, "You fooled anyone around here, making them believe you cry because you're afraid of him. But you can't hide it from me. I've watched you for days now." She didn't really expect an answer, but yet she stood there as if she was waiting for one. Or at least an explanation. Or an apology?

"He only talked about you.", Teddy stammered, feeling threatened by the woman in front of her.

"Did that hurt you?"

Teddy wanted to rip the door open and run away. Yes. It had hurt her, a lot. Lying in his arms, knowing that he was only waiting to return to another woman. She didn't want to be here, she didn't want to have that conversation.
But as she reached for the door handle, Audrey stopped her from doing it. "I know that you care about him, Dr. Altman", she whispered, "You don't even know what they are going to do to him when he falls into their hands again."

"As a matter of fact, I know.", she hissed back, "He lay on my OR table when he came here, and it didn't look nice what I saw." She never thought that she would say that, but this all was getting too much for her. She was standing between so many fronts, she had lied to so many people already, she couldn't put her head above the parapet any longer for him. "But I risked too much already, for nothing. I risked my job and my career when I decided not to let him die out on the streets!"

"Love makes us do the stupidest things", Audrey commented, still thinking about how they could help him. "Will he survive it if I bring him away from here?"

"Now that's a stupid thing." Teddy wanted to make an end to this conversation. Right now. She turned around to leave.

"Dr. Altman", Audrey called her back, "I just have to walk out there and tell my father about you and Jack."

Angrily Teddy turned around. She had never thought that she could be harsh or rough to a patient, but her feelings slowly started to overwhelm her. "Really?", she hissed, storming over to her. "What about if I tell your father what you told me? That you voluntarily handed yourself over to the Chinese just so the US government would agree to this exchange? That your plans would have tricked our government into losing their most valuable source of information?" Heated like she was, she wanted to keep going, even though she already saw that she had reached her goal, frightening Audrey to the bone. "They'd put you in jail for treason."

For a while, they stood in the room, looking at each other, knowing that they could both bring each other into deepest trouble.
They had both risked a lot just to help Jack.

Teddy pushed herself away from the wall and went a few steps, over to the windows. "How could I have ever been so stupid", she said in a low voice, slightly shaking her head.

"Because you know it was the right thing to do." Audrey came over, watching her back. "You knew he would have died if you had followed the rules."

Teddy still shook her head. How could she only risk so much for a man who'd give her nothing in return but problems? Threatening her life? Tearing her into some agency-matters?
She had silently fallen in love with him, even though he gave her nothing in return.

"If you turn your back on him now, he's gonna die.", Audrey silently spoke, "I saw the news about the ship. They will make him pay, they will keep him alive, they can prolong his suffering for years, if they want to."

A cold shiver ran down Teddy's spine. She had seen the wounds all over his body. Of course she knew what they were gonna do to him.

"If you ever felt something for him, then don't turn your back on him now.", Audrey repeated, and she repeated her question, "Will he survive it if I take him away from here?"

Slowly, Teddy turned around. "I don't know. He was brought here with severe hypothermia, probably he did jump off that ship, into the ice cold water, before it reached the port. He's in ICU, I don't even know if he's conscious at all. If you stress him too much, he could have a heart attack right away."

Audrey thought for a few moments, before she made her decision. "I'm willing to take that risk.", she said, "Give me your white coat."

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Please R&R... what do you think about these two women, fighting over Jack?