A/N: I can't even begin to explain how busy I've been. Just Google 'volta school for the mentally challenged' and you can see what all I've been working on, augh.

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It was three days until Jackson was able to completely convince Dr Masterson and Joe that he was ready to visit Lisa. Even then, he was transported by psychiatric ambulance, completely strapped down, and watched over by two especially burly looking orderlies. Once reaching Bellevue, he was allowed to walk on his own, but the men stayed right behind him, so close that he could swear he felt them breathing on his back. Dr Masterson walked in front of them, guiding. They went through service entrances and took service elevators so they wouldn't run into anyone and didn't have as much worry that Jackson would be able to escape if he felt so inclined.

Once they entered the actual hospital and made it to the maternity ward, Jackson found himself almost regretting coming. He could tell by the looks on the faces of the doctors and nurses that every single one of them had been informed of his visit, and not a single one of them appeared to trust him in the least with the exception of the either very stern or very jaded head nurse. As Dr Masterson stopped at the nurses' station and talked to the head nurse, the men put their hands on his shoulders as though restraining him. He actively had to battle the urge to shrug them off.

'This way,' the head nurse said, coming around the desk. 'She's mostly been sleeping since she got here, but she's been awake for the last few hours. We've been trying to convince her to eat, but so far she hasn't touched anything.'

Jackson furrowed his brow as they followed the woman. 'How long has it been since she's eaten?'

'Don't worry, sir,' the nurse replied, but didn't look back at him. 'We've been giving her nutrients through her IV. It's very important that she stay healthy and hydrated so we don't have another scare like the other day.'

They came to a door and the nurse peeked in the window before pushing it open and allowing the group of men to walk past her. As she closed the door behind them, Jackson looked over at his wife's back—she was lying on her left side, her back to the door. The room was filled with the steady beep of the heart monitoring equipment, and Jackson found himself hesitating as he watched the slow drip of the fluid from the bag of her IV into the catheter.

'Mrs Rippner, your husband's here,' said the nurse, pushing past the men to go to Lisa's bed, picking up the clipboard at the end of the bed and reading the monitoring equipment before taking down some notes.

Without waiting for permission from the other men, Jackson slowly walked to the bed, moving around the nurse to come to Lisa's left side. She stared beyond him until he squatted down, looking her in the eyes. Focusing on him, she curled into herself a bit, and that made his heart ache.

'Hey Leese,' he said softly, reaching out to rub her face, but she recoiled. His hand hovered in the air for a moment before he dropped it to his side. 'Lisa, honey, I'm so sorry.'

'Let me get you a chair, Mr Rippner,' said the nurse as she put the clipboard back into the compartment at the end of the bed. There was a loud dragging noise as she brought a chair around to the other side, neither of the orderlies volunteering to help her, not that she'd allow them anyway. 'Here, if you sit, you'll be more at her level.'

He looked at her a bit sadly before sitting down and looking at Lisa, who was again avoiding his eyes. 'I'm trying very hard to get better for you.'

'You should want to get better for yourself,' she murmured coldly to him. 'Stop using me as an excuse for everything.'

Again he found himself having to fight the almost bile-like urge to reach out and retaliate against her. For a moment, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 'I've been working a lot in therapy and making a very good effort to normalise.'

Lisa made a face at his stilted speech. 'Is that what the therapist told you to say?'

It was like she was testing him, trying to draw out his angry personality, but he had convinced himself before coming that he wouldn't allow himself to be overcome by her again. If anything, he needed to put on a good show to everyone so they'd be convinced that he would be able to function in the real world. 'I'm still working on regulating everything.'

Reaching out again, he managed to take one of her hands before she could pull it away. Surprised by his fast movement, Lisa screamed and tried to push back, nearly throwing herself off of the bed. The orderlies and nurse immediately jumped forward, the men preparing themselves to intervene and the nurse keeping Lisa from toppling off.

'Lisa, please,' he said, holding tighter to her hand. 'Please, honey, please.'

'Go away!' she replied, tears running down her face as she tried to pull her hand out of his grip.

'Calm down, Mrs Rippner,' said the nurse as she rubbed Lisa's hair. 'We're not going to let him hurt you, everything's all right.'

'This might be a bad idea,' offered Dr Masterson. 'Why don't we—'

'Dr Masterson, if you don't mind, this is my patient,' responded the woman, looking back at him before returning her attention to Lisa.

Jackson was thoroughly convinced that this woman was the mythical skinny white version of Sharena, and he was loving it.

'Dr Masterson sent us a copy of your husband's chart, and he's not lying—he's making a lot of progress in therapy,' explained the nurse as she rubbed Lisa's back. 'Now just breathe.'

Still staring at Jackson, Lisa took a shaky breath and relaxed.

'It's all right Mr Rippner,' said the nurse with a smile. 'You have to understand that she's a little jumpy since she woke up. Pre-term labour leads to something that's a bit like post-traumatic stress disorder.'

He nodded to the woman before looking down at Lisa, giving her a sad smile before leaning forward and finally pressing the back of his knuckles to her face, wiping away one of the tears falling down her cheek.

'There we go, Leese,' he said as she pressed her face against his hand.

Jackson froze, his hand poised on her cheek. All at once, he realised he'd been on the other side of this. More than once, he'd been the crazy one, the one so angry and yelling, and she had come up to him, her hand pressing to his face, speaking in a soft voice to bring him back. He realised the desperation she must have felt every time he did this, longing for him to understand where she was coming from and for him to just calm down. There was an awkward misunderstanding caused by the mental and emotional gap between the two, and Jackson suddenly found himself wondering how the hell they'd stayed married for this long. If the tables had been turned, he realised the he would have left her ages ago or perhaps never have become involved with her in the first place. Who wants to be involved with a crazy person, a person who is completely unpredictable? He had a flashback to the day he left, the fight he had with Melissa. Do you think this is normal?

His face tensed, and for a suspended moment, the men from the psychiatric hospital seemed poised to jump on him and pull him away from his wife, but surprisingly, Jackson instead started crying. He took his wife's hand, pulling it to his face as he bent down, rubbing his face against it as he kissed the ends of her fingers between sobs. Lisa looked quietly at the top of his head, furrowing her brow as she bit the inside of her lip.

'It's okay, Jackson,' she murmured, but that just made him cry harder.

He scooted to the end of his seat, his forehead resting on the side of her stomach. Lisa pulled her hand out from under him, laying her hand softly on his head as she began crying too, although much quieter than Jackson. The nurse crossed her arms, trying to pretend she wasn't in the room, and after watching for a moment, Dr Masterson just walked to the door, leaving his patient behind with the others. A minute later, the nurse followed him, and even over the sound of crying and the machines, the sound of the two talking in the hallway could be heard as a low murmur.

'I'm so sorry,' he said, nuzzling against her. 'God, I love you so much.'

'Hediyeh's missing,' Lisa said, and Jackson turned his head to look at her, his face red from crying.

'What?' he asked softly.

'She's missing,' she replied in a choked voice. 'On Tuesday, Chapin called and said she never came into school.'

'Tuesday was the day...' he murmured, his fingertips pressed to her lower abdomen.

'Augustine and Lyna are working to find her,' Lisa whispered, her voice strained.

'Dammit,' he managed after staring at her. 'They've checked—?'

'Airports, train stations, harbours,' Lisa replied. 'I haven't talked to them, but Daddy has been able to keep me a little updated over the last couple of days.'

'Right, Lyna--'

Lisa immediately interrupted. 'She was able to track you.'

He sat up. 'If she was able to track me, why didn't she—'

'She's on the no-fly list,' Lisa continued. 'Everyone who could follow after you has been put on it.'

His mouth dropped open as he turned his head, rubbing her waist gently as he thought. 'Hediyeh would be on the no-fly list.'

'What?' Lisa asked, finally letting out a little laugh. 'She's eleven.'

'Poulain knows she's just crazy enough to do something.'

Lisa gaped. 'You've been keeping something from me.'

'The same day I got Augustine's birth certificate, I got a DVD,' he said, standing and then slipping into the bed with her. Their noses were just about an inch from each other when he spoke again. 'It was one of the training videos for Hezbollah, and Hediyeh was in it. She... she decapitated a man, and then just smiled at the camera and waved before going to the back of the line and cocking her AK-47. She's completely trained to be a terrorist.'

'Where would she be going then?' asked Lisa. 'Would she even know where Poulain is?'

'She'll probably go for Eleni Pe—'

'She's already dead,' Lisa interjected.

'Nitsa is...?'

'She died the day you went into the hospital.'

He tipped his head forward just slightly to press her forehead to his. 'She's in Geneva.'

Lisa tensed up. 'Is she in danger?'

'She'll be moving slowly. There's no way she flew directly into Geneva. I bet she went to Paris, Frankfurt or London, some big city, and she'll go from there to her final destination,' Jackson said, opening his eyes and focusing on hers. 'I did the same thing when I was working. Leave a kind of muddled trail.'

There was a paused before Lisa leaned forward, pressing her lips lightly to his. Once the little impromptu kiss broke, she spoke. 'You have to go after her.'

'Lisa, I can't...'

'I want both of you home before the babies are born,' she replied, pressing a finger to his lips. 'No one but you will be able to accomplish that in the time I have.'

'Lisa, no, you have to understand,' Jackson continued, his fingers brushing against the pad of her finger. 'I'm not set for release yet.'

'Take Augustine with you.'

'She's on the no-fly list.'

'Give her Eleni's papers.'

Jackson both loved and hated Lisa's train of thought in this instance. He had a vague recollection of some identifications he found in the pockets of his coat, identifications for people named Christian and Solange Poulain, a Swiss married couple.

'Yeah... Augustine's going to have to pretend to be pregnant,' he said, thinking back to the photograph on the identification. 'I don't think Eleni weighed more than about eighty-five pounds, and it's very apparent in the photograph. Thank God her height isn't written on there... there has to be a difference of at least eight or nine inches between the two of them.'

'I'm sure we can work something out. She can wear some of my maternity clothes, and since she's in the medical field, she can probably get one of those fake stomachs they make the high schoolers wear to scare them away from sex.'

Jackson found himself laughing at the thought of the horrible suits they brought to his boarding school, thinking more specifically about the look on Melissa's face when she wore one of them. 'Well, we have that worked out, but what about the problem of me being discharged?'

'Gisa's a psychiatric nurse. Tell your therapist that she'll keep a good eye on you.'