Jeff tapped his foot impatiently. Mark had been in surgery for an hour now and he was getting more and more worried by the second. "Something's gone wrong."

Mickie sighed. "Jeff, these things take a long time. You just have to be patient."

"But--"

"You know, you're not making things any easier for me kid," Glenn snapped.

Jeff looked down. He wasn't trying to make Glenn feel bad. It was just that he was so scared and he hated that everybody was just sitting there and not saying anything about it. Even Randy was off in his own little world. It was frustrating the hell out of him.

"So did you get that X thing taken care of?" Lillian asked. It was obvious she was just trying to make small talk.

Randy shrugged. "It's being investigated. It doesn't help that we don't know his real name and there's no return address on the letters."

"Well generally stalkers don't want you to know who or where they are until they want you to," Morrison added helpfully.

Jeff sighed. He didn't want to talk about X. He was sick and tired of talking about X. He tapped his foot impatiently, trying to will time to go faster.

"Jeff, don't you have your PSP with you?" Phil finally asked almost ten minutes later.

"It's in the car."

"Well can't you go get it? That tapping is really starting to drive me nuts."

Randy glared at Phil. "He doesn't have to get it if he doesn't want to."

"No, I'll get it," Jeff mumbled. "I need some air anyway." He got up and left before Randy could say anything else. He shoved his hands deep inside his pockets. Maybe playing with his PSP would take his mind off of how fucking slow time seemed to be going. Honestly, if he hadn't checked everybody else's watches, he could have sworn the clock in the waiting room was broken.

He opened the back door and grabbed his bag that was sitting on the floor. After several minutes of digging, he found what he needed. He threw the bag back on the floor and was backing up so he could close the door when he ran into something. Actually, it was someone, and it definitely wasn't a good someone.

"Hello Jeff," Tomko said. That little pleasantry contained a whole lot of menace in it.

Jeff gulped. "What are you doing here?"

Tomko smirked before violently pushing Jeff into the car. Jeff quickly tried to bail out the other door but Tomko was on him in an instant. They struggled for a minute, but Tomko ultimately got Jeff pinned down.

"Get off of me!" Jeff yelled. He looked around desperately. They were in a middle of a crowded hospital parking lot in broad daylight. There had to be somebody around that could help him.

"I think you and I have some business to discuss," Tomko said.

"What business?"

"Adam and Christian. One's dead and the other is in jail and you're responsible for both of those things. But since the law won't deal with you, it looks like I'm going to have to do it."

Jeff's eyes widened. This couldn't be happening. Not again. He struggled wildly but he knew it was useless. Tomko was much bigger and stronger than he was. There was no way he was getting out of this.

The door by Jeff's head opened. "Get the hell off him!" Randy yelled as he delivered a punch right to Tomko's face. This knocked Tomko enough off balance to allow Jeff to scoot out from underneath the big man and latch on to Randy.

"You little fucker," Tomko growled. He looked up at Randy, who was shielding Jeff protectively. "I'm gonna--"

He didn't get to finish that sentence. The other passenger's door opened and somebody easily dragged Tomko out of the car. Randy and Jeff ran around to the other side to get a better look at what was going on. A man, smaller than Tomko, but a couple inches taller than Jeff and Randy was kicking the crap out of Christian's former problem solver. He was scrawny, and he had a mess of long black hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in months. He also had a tattoo on the side of his face.

It was a giant, black X.

Jeff held on to Randy tightly. "Why did you follow me out here?" he asked quietly.

"I had a bad feeling," Randy replied. "I thought if X was still following us, he would take you as soon as you were alone. I wasn't really expecting to see Tomko." He frowned as X continued his assault on Tomko. "I wasn't really expecting to see this either."

X looked up and stared directly into Jeff's eyes. Jeff immediately took a step back. There was something wrong with the man's eyes. They lacked any form of sanity. Oh great, he's probably crazier than we thought.

Randy stepped directly in front of Jeff so he couldn't see X's eyes anymore. "X, as much as we appreciate you kicking the shit out of Tomko, you need to stop following us. This shit isn't funny anymore.

X seemed to disagree. He started laughing insanely, sending shivers up Jeff's spine. "Randy," Jeff whispered.

Randy grabbed Jeff's arm and quickly got them back inside the hospital. He was obviously just as spooked as Jeff was. "That was way too much," he muttered.

The doctor was just walking away from the others by the time they got back in there. "He's okay!" Cody said happily. "Mark's okay!" He and the others were too busy celebrating to notice the looks on Jeff's and Randy's faces.

Jeff sighed in relief. At least something good came out of today. "We can't tell the others what happened," he whispered to Randy as they all headed up to Mark's room. "They don't need anything spoiling the moment right now."

Randy nodded. "Okay, but you're staying at my side as much as humanly possible. What just happened in that parking lot can't happen again. We might not get so lucky next time."

And that was the part that scared Jeff the most.