Without A Trace - Paternity Eternal

Summary: Another day, another case...but its Martin who's missing. Is the team ready for the secrets they will divulge?

Disclaimer: I own nothing...unfortunately

Author's Note: I'm glad everyone seems to like! This is the last major chapter, but an epilogue is coming up just to round things off...now to find out what happened to Martin!

Chapter Nine: Family

4.5 Hours Found

Sam did not like the look on the surgeons face. She noticed his blood spattered scrubs and cringed, immediately fearing the worse.

"He's out of surgery," the surgeon began. Everyone in the small waiting room stood up, urging the doctor to continue. Sam could sense the 'but' coming. "But there were some complications."

"Complications?" asked Jack, voicing the thoughts of the room.

"He flat lined a couple of times during the surgery," the surgeon explained. Sam ran the idea through her head, trying to process the information. His heart had stopped. He had actually died, repetitively. The surgeon wasn't finished. "There was a huge amount of blood loss which may have starved the brain of oxygen for an extended period of time. That and the head wound may add up to some serious psychological problems, like amnesia. The skull shattered next to his right eye and there is damage dangerously near the orbital nerve. He may have lost his sight in one eye. But his vital signs are stable and improving, which is good. We won't know if he has suffered any permanent long term damage till he wakes up."

"Can we see him?" demanded Sam.

"He's under sedatives and he needs to rest. I'm afraid I'll have to limit visits to family only for now." The surgeon left the waiting room. Sam glanced over at Jessie and Anya, jealous that they could see him when she couldn't. Jessie shared a concerned and sympathetic look and then led Anya out, following the surgeon.

Sam settled back into her hard plastic chair and gazed around at the rest of her team. They were her family. They were Martin's family. Just because they weren't related by blood they had to wait. Sam wondered whether if she had stayed with Martin all those years ago; would she be his true family now?

-

Jessie held Anya's hand as they walked the stark white corridor and approached the door to Martin's room. They paused by the door and Jessie kneeled in front of Anya. "Anya sweetie? I need you to listen to me. When daddy went missing, the bad men hurt him. But the nice doctors fixed him up. When we go in there to see him, he's gonna look a bit different. I don't want you to worry okay. He's gonna be alright."

Anya nodded, her eight year old mind not quite grasping what her aunt was getting at, but knowing that she wasn't to be frightened. She had to be strong, like daddy.

Convinced that Anya understood, Jessie pushed open the door and the pair walked inside. Tears welled up in Jessie's eyes as she saw what had happened to her brother-in-law. His skin was as pale and as cold as ice. He looked so weak, relying on the beeping machines to keep him going. Tubes ran from his arms and a heart monitor bleeped regularly. He looked so...so...

"He looks like a pirate," Anya stated simply. She ran up to his bedside and climbed up onto the thin mattress so that she hovered over his sleeping form. "He's got a patch like Long John Silver!"

The wound next to his right eye had been sutured closed, but was swollen and red. A small piece of cotton wool had been taped over his eye so he had a patch. Jessie laughed outwardly at Anya's description, but internally she worried. Would they let him stay as an FBI Agent if he was half-blind?

Jessie scooped Anya up in her arms and hugged her close, as much to comfort the girl as to comfort herself. Anya leaned forward and whispered. "Did you see mommy with the angels?"

The tears that had threatened to fall all day finally dripped down Jessie's cheeks.

36 Hours Found

Jack could barely restrain his anger as he sat opposite Jason Hartley. Vivian hovered to the side, 'observing'. She was truly there to stop Jack when his rage got the better of him. This was the only way they had been allowed to interrogate Jason themselves. Van Doren was concealed behind the one-way window watching the interview warily.

"We know what you did. You killed Suzanne Lake as well as kidnapped and attempted to kill Agent Fitzgerald. Now why the hell did you do it?" demanded Jack. They had spent the last hour going over the events of that day, and Jack was growing impatient.

Jason shrugged. "For one thing; I didn't kill Suzanne. That was Eddie. Everything was Eddie's idea. You'll have to ask him why we did it. Oh wait, you can't. You killed him."

"It's pretty easy to blame everything on your dead brother isn't it?" goaded Jack. Jay instantly tensed, his hands curling into fists.

"I'm not blaming him," Jay said darkly, his voice low and level. "I am just telling you the truth."

"Oh really," replied Jack. "It was all Eddie's idea right? So why are all the victims directly related to you? Why do you have all the motive?"

"About a year ago I ran into Suzanne. She was in New York for some reason. I recognised her instantly. You never forget that figure." Jay smiled dirtily at the memory. "She had a little girl with her. We ended up talking. Turns out the kid was seven and eight years before I had gotten with her mother. I connected the dots. I was the father."

"But you aren't Anya's father," Vivian interrupted. "You do know that right?"

Jason smirked. "I do now. But I didn't then. I told my brother that I had a kid. He was pretty pleased to hear it, told me I should get involved. So I tried. Suzanne wouldn't let me though. She got all defensive and wouldn't let me see the girl. I kept trying for half a year, but she wasn't having none of it. So I told Eddie. Three months ago, Eddie convinced me that I'd have to take the kid."

"That's when the pair of you confronted Suzanne in the parking lot," Vivian filled in.

"She still wouldn't let us have the girl. She said some stuff about paternity tests and what have you, but I weren't listening. Eddie shot her, not me. No loss though."

"No loss?" seethed Jack, grating his teeth to prevent himself from shouting. "A little girl's mother is dead!"

"And? What does it matter? She was gonna have me as a father. We were gonna grab her then, in the parking lot, but a bunch of rent-a-cops chased us. Didn't catch us though. Couldn't even give a decent description. The case went cold and the kid got shipped to New York."

"To be with her actual father," Vivian said coldly.

"Whatever. Eddie found out where they were. We hired that Andy guy to get the dad out of the way so that we could grab the girl. But then it went wrong. The girl wasn't in the apartment and we couldn't find her. We knew where Andy would be and caught up. The guy wouldn't pull over; so we made him."

"Seriously injuring an FBI Agent in the process," inputted Jack. The man across from him had no remorse, just a self centred drive to get what he wanted. It made Jack sick to the stomach.

"Collateral damage," Jason remarked off-handedly. "We drove to Spalding Street and locked the pair of them up. We let 'em simmer for a while, Eddie thought the FBI guy might be more cooperative if he bled out a bit. But then Andy got out, so we had to move." Jay's demeanour changed slightly. He seemed less sure of himself. "But then I got cold feet. I told Eddie we should cut and run. He said we had to get rid of the FBI guy, he could identify us. We could've shot him, but Eddie thought it'd be more fun to beat him. That's probably why he's still alive."

Jack didn't want to admit the truth in that statement. He plastered a satisfied sneer on his face. "You're going to prison for a very long time."

Why were hospitals so blindingly bright? Martin smirked at his own use of words. He blinked his one good eye to adjust it to the onslaught of white light. His right eye was sealed closed by the patch. The doctors had already told him about the possibility of being half-blind. He had woken up a few hours before and they had analysed him to make sure his brain was functioning and that he had no memory loss.

Thankfully he couldn't feel the pain he should be in because of the morphine drip. He had been wary of accepting pain killers considering his history, but he knew he would never go back to that again now. And it was all because of Anya. He smiled to himself. His first visitor when he had woken up was his daughter. She had been happy and safe and had told him about her plan to get a parrot for a pet to match his snazzy eye-patch.

The door to his room opened and his three favourite girls entered. Little Anya literally bounced over to his bedside, followed by her Aunt Jessie. Martin had been glad that Anya had family to look after her while he was otherwise incapacitated. Then Sam followed. Her beautiful blonde hair hung around her face and she smiled warmly at him. "Hey sleepy-head."

"Hey you guys," he greeted. His voice was still weak from his ordeal, but that didn't mean he wouldn't talk.

"How you feeling?" asked Sam, concern filling her eyes. He gave her a thumbs-up to confirm his situation. "Good. You feel up to agreeing to something?"

Martin creased his brow in confusion and suspicion. "Depends what it is."

Jessie took the seat by his bed and Anya climbed up to sit on her lap. "Well, my leave that I took to come here and find you runs out tomorrow. I can't take any more time off to stay here and look after Anya. So you got a choice. You can either let Anya come back to Ohio with me and stay with my mother, or..."

"Or, you could let me move into your apartment and I'll look after the pair of you," finished Sam. Martin met her eyes and must have appeared unconvinced as Sam continued. "Anya's only just gotten settled at her new school and you're gonna need taking care of when they finally let you outta here. It makes sense and you know it."

"I'll agree on one condition." Martin bargained. Sam gestured for him to continue. "You never say I need 'taking care of' in front of Danny. I still got my pride you know."

Sam smiled and bent down to give him a hug. It lasted a few seconds longer than a hug between friends.

Yay! Martin's okay! Jay's locked in prison! Sam's moving into Martin's apartment! Woot! :D

Short epilogue coming up full of general fluffiness. I love happy endings!

Thanks to dsajflkdsahf for reviewing as well as RRSherlock for both reviews!