Many many apologies for this so so late update! I kind of lost my way a little with this, but have picked it up again...now i'm ready to get updating frequently again! Sorry for being so bad! Hope you enjoy! :-)

What was that smell? Conscious thoughts slowly seeped their way back into Kris's awareness along with a strong smell of disinfectant, as she lay on her back on a bed. Kris wrinkled her nose at the invasive sour odour. She opened her eyes a little, not liking the bright light in the room. Her head and her nose hurt like hell, but at that precise moment, she didn't know why. She allowed her eyes to adjust, and travel a little over her new surroundings. Then a calming familiar voice said her name, somewhere to the right of her. She turned her head, wincing as the pain increased by about twenty percent with the movement.

"It's alright Kris, I'm here. You're okay." Kelly said softly, and increased the pressure a little as she sat by her colleague and held her arm. Kris wasn't even aware of the pressure. She cleared her throat to speak. But Kelly beat her to it.

"What are you doing here, Kris?" Kelly enquired gently. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?" Kelly's tone was not accusatory or judgemental, but Kris still felt surprised at the question, even as she was gathering her thoughts and memories, and trying to piece together the last few hours.

"I - I…" Kris began.

"I'm sorry!" Kelly interrupted again. "I've just been so worried seeing you in here like this. You were found outside the gates, beaten… oh Kris look at you…" Kelly looked at Kris's nose covered in a compress, saw the dark hue of bruising forming and spreading under Kris's eyes and winced inside at the thought of the blows Kris must have taken.

"Who did this? What happened, can you remember?" She rubbed Kris's arm kindly, so relieved that Kris was awake. Kris looked at Kelly, her blue eyes giving away the confusion behind them.

"Not much right now…" Kris managed to say. She kept her eyes on Kelly, not wanting to lose sight of her friend for a moment.

Kelly sighed. "I'm sorry Kris - it's okay. Don't worry." She smiled at her friend and smoothed away Kris's blond hair from her eyes. "You just rest, okay?" Kelly removed her light supportive grip on Kris's arm and looked back over her shoulder at the infirmary doors, expecting their reunion to be interrupted by someone. Kris reached out to Kelly with her own hand and clutched hold of Kelly's arm.

"Don't go…just yet, huh?" Kris muttered, trying to keep her eyes open. Her eyelids suddenly felt like they had taken on a mind of their own and were determined to close and shut off her best means of knowing that Kelly was indeed right beside her. Seeing is believing, right? She reasoned. Now that she had found Kelly, she wasn't about to let her go again.

Kelly looked back to Kris and grimaced at the state she was in. A broken nose, bruised ribs, concussion. It could have been worse, she supposed, but Kelly just hated to see Kris hurt. She felt so protective of her. Jill trusted Kelly and Sabrina to keep an eye on their youngest angel. Kelly felt a pang of guilt. Had she done the wrong thing in trying to go this alone? She thought back to Bosley's visit. Should she have left then? Kris certainly wouldn't have ended up in this state if she had. Kelly shook her head. No use. Done now. Move on. Kris made a pained sound as she shifted position. She was obviously making a huge effort to stay awake, she realised. Kris was breathing hard and clutching at the cover on her cot.

"Hey, hey Kris, shh, it's okay honey, I'm here!" Kelly soothed. "I'm not going anywhere, I've been given permission to stay with you." Kelly smiled and brushed again at Kris's hair, trying to calm her agitated friend.

"Go back to sleep now alright? I'll be here when you wake up." Kelly tried to re-assure Kris. But Kris was not re-assured. She looked Kelly in the eye, as much as she could.

"Kelly, I thought… we'd lost you…" She whispered. Her head and nose hurt so much, but she needed Kelly to know how much she'd been missed. Kris's scrutinising gaze told Kelly all she needed to know. Kelly's single-mindedness had caused her friends unnecessary anguish, and that wasn't acceptable. Kelly lowered her own gaze back to Kris's arm and took in the bruises and scrapes…evidence of the struggle she'd put up.

"Kris I am sorry. I never meant for anyone to get hurt. I was trying to keep you all from danger."

The thought that Sabrina had also been a target of violence left Kelly cold. She saw Kris manage a feeble smile and felt admiration for Jill's' plucky younger sibling. Then the smile vanished and a dark shadow seemed to pass over Kris's features - as if she'd just remembered something that she wished she hadn't.

"Kris, what is it? Bosley told me about Sabrina - is she…okay?"

Kelly was not naïve, she'd seen this look on Kris's face a few times now. She knew it meant trouble. Kris turned her head back to centre, and stared up at the cracked and badly maintained ceiling, not knowing how to tell Kelly the details about Sabrina. It was Kris's turn to sigh.

"Kris?" Kelly prodded, knowing that Kris had something to say.

Silence.

Kelly frowned. "Kris, c'mon - how bad is Bri?" She felt more and more anxious as she stared at Kris, waiting for her to open up. Kris turned her head to face Kelly again, and saw Kris's face etched with her own anxiety.

"Oh Kelly, Bri's pretty bad…" Kris managed to say through a tight throat.

Kelly's eyes widened.

Kelly's mind suddenly raced with all kinds of possibilities as to how Bri could've gotten into this particular trouble anyway. She looked at Kris's broken nose and suddenly thought back to her unexpected visit to Alexandra Limardo. Her icy request echoed in Kelly's mind : "I do not wish for your pity, Miss Garrett - I wish for my daughters killer to be brought to me!"

Her heart skipped a beat. Mrs Limardo was now even more ruthless even as she currently struggled in her grief. Had she underestimated that ruthlessness? And what else had she underestimated?

"Okay Kris, " Kelly began softly. She badly wanted to know about Sabrina, but saw how much Kris was struggling to keep awake. "Just take it easy. Look, why don't you get some rest and tell me…"

Kris's grip tightened a little on Kelly's arm.

"No, you need to know…"

Kelly cursed inwardly, fearful for Bri. "Okay, just take a deep breath… and tell me what you can."

Brother Marcus was back in his office, flipping a pen around his fingers. He had faced his chair away from the door and towards a small window in the opposite wall. As he sat and looked through this window, at the trees and sky and the flurrying of birds on branches, he wondered again what it was he had tried to accomplish here. He thought back to his initial plans twelve years ago to open this sanctuary - his sanctuary. Back then, all he actually wanted to do was help lost sheep to find the lord and give them shelter. Girls in particular. Women are always soft targets for sinful mankind. Markow smirked at his own gravitated piety back at that time. How ridiculous he had been to think that anyone would be even grateful - most girls just up and left soon enough and had drifted back to their old ways. A few stayed longer but eventually grew tired of all the chores and spent a lot of time complaining at him, when all he was trying to do was help. He had become bitter at their disloyalty. Markow grimaced. Disloyal. Just like his wife. Who took his beautiful daughter away from him after he refused to fight in World War Two. He had never seen them again. He stopped twisting the pen in his grip and closed his fist around it, old feelings of hurt, betrayal and hatred resurfacing and consuming all reason once more. Memories of his forced labour and the help he gave to the mentally ill during the war also surfaced. He wondered for the thousandth time if any of those patients had ever been grateful to him. Some had been generally docile and too drugged up to give him much notice or bother, but a few had been spiteful and violent, despite their medication. It had been hard, lonely, sometimes fearful and mostly unrewarding work and all he had ever thought about - all he ever needed was to get back to his wife and daughter. That was what kept him going from day to day. And the letters that came from his wife. But even they became less and less frequent over the years. Then they stopped. And Markow had felt utterly abandoned.

Finally, quite a while after the war, he was released from his labour and he made his way back home with some trepidation, yet also having no doubt at all that his family would at home, waiting for his long, long overdue arrival.

His head shaking at the ever crushingly painful memories, Markow now was lost in the avalanche. The empty house. The empty wardrobes. The empty cupboards. Missing furniture and personal items. A neighbour from down the street laughing derisively at him, goading him with gut-punching remarks about how his wife had left him and how it was all his fault - he had got what he deserved. After all, America had taken him in and that was how he repaid his new country…by refusing to fight for his adopted country? He remembered the exact word that man had used to describe 'his kind'…despicable.

The pen in Markow's grasp snapped in two, part of it falling onto the floor. How he had then suddenly wanted to grab that man and snap him in two. This man, with his nice family, his nice house, a decent job…even a car… had the audacity to judge someone from a country where utter inconceivable evil had ruled. Where nothing was ever likely to be normal again…quite possibly ever.

Markow had lost no time in going to San Francisco, to his wife's parents place, to try to reconcile them all. But they had shut the door in his face and told them that she and his child had moved on and he would never find them. Again, agonising remarks had been fired at him over his total lack of responsibility towards their daughter and child, how he had let them down so harshly, how they wished she had never set eyes on him.

Markow stood abruptly, his rage at boiling point. He was breathing hard and taking in big gulps of air. His logic told him to calm down - it was all in the past. But his emotions were now running riot. A small snarl escaped his lips and he lurched towards the window and slammed both fists sideways into the glass with such force, that it shattered. He grunted, and stepped back, all fight quickly dissipating as he saw the damage he had done both to the glass, and his hands. He stood for a minute, examining with some little interest, the deep gashes to the sides of his hands. Then he let them drop bleeding to his sides, overwhelmed by feelings of shame, as he felt the afternoon breeze on his face and heard the birds he had sub-consciously been staring at some moments before, twitter their alarm as they abandoned their perches in fright.

The infirmary was silent once more as Kris had drifted quickly off to sleep after updating Kelly on Sabrina's condition. Kelly continued to feel cold inside, as these details sunk in. She looked at Kris, thankful she was out of it for a while. She needed rest. Kelly bowed her head over her arms, then looked around as the infirmary door opened. She was very surprised to see Brother Marcus's right hand man, hooded, standing just inside the room, as the door swung back and clunked quietly shut. Kelly stood up and faced him across the room.

"Oh hello there, brother…" Kelly couldn't remember his name - or even if he'd told her his name. She spread a palm towards him.

"Uh, can I help you, brother?"

The brother looked across at her with an unflinching gaze, then came toward Kelly. She felt uneasy, and prepared herself discreetly for any kind of assault. When he drew close, she spoke up again.

"Is there anything wrong? You know I don't think I've ruffled any more feathers since you pulled me out of the basement… and thank you for that, by the way!"

She smiled, and waited.

The brother looked over at Kris then pulled his hood down to reveal a closely shaven head of ginger hair. Kelly looked at him closely. Were the brothers required to cut their hair that short or was it personal choice? It seemed to suit him anyway - he had an open, honest face and he was fairly good looking. Maybe in his early thirties.

"I don't think the appearance of this young lady here, is any kind of coincidence… or accident." He said, gesturing towards Kris and snapping Kelly out of her inquisitive thinking.

Kelly was taken aback. "Uh, oh! Why do you say that?"

"Because you two know each other." He answered, gazing directly into Kelly's eyes, as if searching for answers, Kelly realised. She held his gaze. She read his body language and decided he wasn't here for violence. He had released her from the cellar after all. He must have had a reason. Was he here to help again? Could she trust him? She decided to see what he knew.

"And if I do know her - what of it? We're not doing anything wrong by being here. This is a sanctuary, remember?"

The man smiled then, at Kelly's wily comment.

"Look, sister Garrett - Kelly," He emphasized her forename. "Like I say, I really don't think your presences here are any accident. I've come to warn you to back off. Stay out of business that doesn't concern you, and you won't get hurt."

Kelly smiled politely. "Well that sounds more like a threat, to me, than a warning… are you a threat, brother….?" She let the name tag query hang.

The man studied Kelly for a moment, seeming to make a decision. He then sighed, looked over his shoulder at the doors then turned back to Kelly. He leaned closer and spoke in a low tone.

"I'm a Federal Agent. Agent Reardon, and I've been working here undercover for two years. I know you are small time investigators and you both are messing up my investigation here, and I am telling you, Miss Garrett, and your friend… to back off."

Kelly heard the authority in the agents voice and yet realised she couldn't immediately obey that authority.

Kelly sighed herself, then and decided it was in both their best interests to be honest with him. "Hey agent Reardon, I didn't come here willingly you know!" She whispered back. She then explained further.

"I was kidnapped by Alexandra Limardo and brought here to investigate matters surrounding her daughters death. I don't know exactly what's going on here…yet… but if I don't come out of here with some kind of result for Mrs Limardo, she is not going to be very happy … with any of us. Do you catch my drift, agent?"

Agent Reardon frowned. He knew the Limardo connection but hadn't bargained on this turn in events.

" I see." He looked Kelly over.

"Aren't you kinda young to be in this game?" He said, taking Kelly by surprise again.

"Aren't you kinda young yourself?" Kelly countered, unabashed.

Reardon smiled wider. "Okay. Point taken." He then grew serious again.

"Okay Miss Garrett, I can get you both out of here and arrange protection for you…"

Kelly stopped him dead.

"No way." She folded her arms to emphasize her response.

"You what?" Reardon looked a little surprised himself. People on the law's side didn't usually refuse to co-operate with the FBI.

"We are not about to start going into hiding from the mafia. We got involved in this indirectly, okay - but involved we are." Kelly levelled Reardon with her most wilful gaze. "And involved we are staying. I also have personal reasons for this."

Reardon began to protest but Kelly cut him off again.

"Look, why don't we just work together? We can share a lot of information - you can get what you want and so can we. Brother Marcus - Markow Petrescow is a very dangerous man. We can help you with him."

Reardon blinked, surprised again by this young investigator in front of him. She was obviously very serious about her job and had also been doing her homework. He didn't really need their help but guessed it wouldn't hurt to have extra eyes and ears. He shrugged his shoulders and nodded.

"Okay, but you will listen and do exactly what I say. Or you're both out of here."