Chapter One

Jaime refused to be denied a place in the ambulance, and rode to the hospital at their daughter's side. Steve stayed behind with the other four children until Mrs. Drake from next door arrived to care for them. It pained him to leave them while they were so distraught, but he knew his place was at his wife's side; Jaime needed him, and so did Lauren.

Steve found Jaime already in the ICU cubicle, her chair pulled up right beside the bed. Lauren's face was almost as white as the gauze that swathed her head. She was so still and silent that she barely seemed alive. Jaime was holding one small hand in both of her own. When Steve placed a gentle hand on her shoulder, she rose to her feet and buried her face in his chest, her entire body trembling from the intense effort it was taking not to cry.

"It's ok to cry, Sweetheart," he told her softly. "I've got you."

"No," Jaime whispered. "If she can hear us, I don't want her to hear that..." She and Steve clung to each other until the doctor appeared in the cubicle doorway. Anxiously, they joined him out in the hall.

"I wish I had better news for you," he began in a gentle but very grim voice. "The car that hit your daughter was traveling at a high rate of speed. She suffered a broken left arm and leg in the initial impact, and it appears she was thrown into the air." He hesitated, seeing Jaime's already-fragile emotional state, but Steve held her tightly and motioned for the doctor to continue. "I believe she may have landed on her head."

"Oh, my God," Jaime cried, collapsing in Steve's arms.

"We haven't found any fractures to her skull, but the blow was severe. The probability of brain damage is very high. I'm so sorry."

"Will she live?" Steve managed to choke out.

"I don't know. If she wakes up in the next 24 hours, the chances are much better, but if not...I just don't know."

- - - - - -

Just after midnight, Jim and Helen arrived from California to care for the children. Jaime and Steve remained together at their daughter's side until, first thing the next morning, she was wheeled – still unconscious – downstairs for more x-rays and tests.

Jaime stared in shock at the now-empty bed. "Steve, what happened?" she asked, overwhelmed by the enormity of the situation.

"James said Crystal picked up the Frisbee and tried to throw it," he told her, very quietly. "Jenna ran after it, right out into the street, and Lauren..." he had to choke back his own emotions, "Lauren pushed her out of the way."

"What about the driver?" Jaime whispered.

"The car never stopped, Sweetheart." He smoothed her hair in another gesture of comfort, and felt her trembling body lean closer. "James got a plate number."

"He...did?"

"I gave it to Oscar. We'll catch the creep – I promise."

"What if the driver was someone out to hurt us?" Her mind reeled with the possibility.

"We should know something soon," he assured her.

"If this happened to Lauren because of us, because of what we do, I'm done. No – we are done."

"Jaime -"

"We'll take the kids and just disappear. Timbuktu, Siberia – I don't care where we have to go, as long as the kids are safe. We really should think about that anyway, you know -"

Steve put a gentle finger to her lips. He knew she was beyond exhaustion (so was he), and in no shape to make any kind of decision about the future. "Why don't we wait and see what Oscar has to say first?" he suggested in his most soothing voice.

As if on cue, Oscar appeared in the doorway, looking as though he hadn't slept any more than the Austins. He was just in time to hear the tail end of Jaime's diatribe:

"Well, whoever it is, when they find him...I'm gonna kill him!" Jaime sobbed. Huddled in Steve's arms and visibly shaking, she hardly looked threatening, but the pure animosity in her voice startled even the unflappable Oscar. He quickly decided his news should wait until he could get Steve alone, or until he could have Rudy standing by – with a sedative.

- - - - - -

Jaime and Steve sat with Lauren throughout the day and into the evening, wishing they could will some of their own physical strength into her tiny, battered body. When their emotions got to be too much to hold in, they took turns ducking into a room Rudy the staff had made available, across the hall, to shed tears of grief and fear for their daughter's future. There was no movement, no response from Lauren, throughout that longest of all nights.

Sometimes one single sound – or the lack of it – can tear your world to shreds.

- - - - - -