A/N: Wow, William's arrival sure did stir up some emotion! :) Let's see what he wants.

"What the hell are you doing here?" I snapped, the short hair at the base of my skull starting to stand up. William was socially awkward, but even he understood that sitting across from someone and staring them down while they slept was terrifying. The man wasn't dense, after all.

"I came to see my brother, and I thought that we could have a nice chat," he said, his voice saccharine sweet despite the scowl he was giving me. My heart had started pounding in my chest. Something was not right about this visit at all. William seemed to sense my discomfort and feed off of it as he continued speaking. "But when I got here, you were fast asleep, so I decided to wait."

"Really? You felt the need to see your brother twice in the same week?" I snarked. I could tell just by his appearance that he hadn't even told his brother he was coming to the rehab. William was there to see one person, and that person wasn't Jeffrey Sheridan.

William's sole response was to shrug in the seat, as if he didn't need to justify his presence in my room at the rehab. I looked around quickly, wondering just how long he had been there and what he might have gotten into while I was fast asleep. William continued to stare at me as I caught my bearings.

"You're creeping me out William," I said as I sat up and pushed myself further away from him on the bed. He remained seated in the guest chair, and though he didn't make a move toward me, I felt even more threatened.

"Good," he snarled, continuing to try and stare me down. I'd looked at homicide suspects that blinked more often than this guy did.

I sat up, and felt around on the bed for my cell phone. It was time to call someone to get this guy out of my room.

"Looking for this?" William asked, holding my phone up and waving it back and forth slightly, taunting me with it the way someone might taunt a dog with a treat that they had no intention of giving to the dog.

"Listen, I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but you give me that phone and you get the hell out of my room," I barked, hoping my raised voice would attract someone's attention. No such luck though. How was it that I could sneak off to go use the bathroom unattended and attract the attention of a nurse, but I could have what was quickly becoming a cantankerous argument in my room and no one stuck their head in to see what was wrong? A quick look at the clock on the wall told me it was time for people to switch from one therapy to another, or to go from therapy down to a follow up with Dr. Grossberg. The nurses would be busy moving patients back and forth. Of course they wouldn't be paying attention to me at that point. I suspected that William knew that, and that's why he chose that time of day to make his appearance. I wondered how he knew I didn't have therapy that day.

"Or what?" he asked, leering at me, swinging the nurse call button around on it's cord in circles next to the chair. "What are you going to do about it, Jane? Are you going to cry for your phone the same way you cried for Maura when she didn't want you?"

"I'll scream. I'll have every nurse, doctor, aide and therapist in here faster than you can blink," I said confidently, even though I knew hardly anyone able-bodied was on the floor and close to my room at that point. It was all I could do. I was in no shape to fight this guy off, I realized quickly, the thought terrifying me. I had no gun there, no weapons at all, really, and I could not run away.

"And what will you tell them? That the director's brother interrupted your nap? Do you have any idea how many people you jumped over to get into this bed, Jane? And you sit here and sleep all day? On Maura's dime?" he snapped, his face flushing red, eyes flashing in anger.

"I didn't have therapy today because I had testing at the hospital. I was just resting. I've been going to therapy regularly," I said, trying to calm him down.

"I'm sure you've been working really hard to impress Maura, right?" He stared right at me, the malice in his voice and in his expression sending chills down my spine. He wasn't calming down, he was simmering, just waiting to boil over in anger. I realized that there was probably nothing I could say or do that would calm him down at that point, and I wondered for a split second if this is what Maura had to deal with whenever William got like this around her. Where was the sweet, bumbling William that had swept Maura off her feet at that conference? Nobody saw this side of him in the beginning.

I tried to keep my tone neutral when I responded to him. The thought of provoking William was tempting, but I reminded myself that I had no means of defense and it looked like William wouldn't hesitate to try and hurt me somehow. "I've been working really hard to get better, William. Whether Maura finds that impressive or not isn't really your concern."

"Anything about Maura is my concern, Jane! Don't you know that? Or did you spend so much time pining away for her that you were blind to my feelings for her?" He was getting angrier by the second. I didn't know if I should let him blow up and cause a scene, or continue to try and defuse the situation. I thought about it for a second before I replied.

"I knew you loved her, William. That's why I left, remember?"

"You left because you were a selfish closet case, Jane!" William spat. "You knew Maura was never going to want to be with you! She never wanted you!"

"But she did want to be with me," I said simply, and it sent him flying into a rage.

"Right, that's why she came to find you in New York! Because she wanted to be with you sooooo much!"

"William, you know she didn't come to find me in New York, and you know the reasons why she didn't. What you seem to not remember is that you broke things off with her," I reminded him.

"That was rather unfortunate. An ill-calculated threat I had to follow through on. I'd seen how torn up she was about you leaving, but I never really thought she'd chase after you that day. And back then, I really did need a break from her. Who would want to watch her cry over you constantly? That's all she did. It was like she didn't even see me. But you left, and things started to work back out in my favor. She was miserable, but I never let her forget I was around, and it was only a matter of time before I would have her begging me to take her back again. But then you had to go and get hurt, and she forgot about me again," he paused, having no idea just how incoherent he sounded, before he turned back to me and sneering.

"You're a sick bastard. The fact that you even gave Maura an ultimatum the day I left made you an asshole, but the fact that you had planned out the situation and made her choose makes you selfish and twisted. And rubbing salt in her emotional wounds wasn't the way to make her remember you were still around. It just alienated her even further and caused her so much pain. How dare you hurt her like that?" I yelled.

William dropped his voice so low I had to lean in to hear him. "It was easy enough for you to hurt her that way, Jane. It was easy enough for you to walk away from her. I did the same thing. Maybe neither one of us was right, but don't you dare judge me for doing exactly the same thing you did. You hurt her too. And she hurt both of us, whether you are willing to admit that or not. This is not something simple, not something cut-and-dried."

All I could do was stare at him in shock. It was true, what he said. We'd both walked away from Maura. We'd both hurt her terribly. Maybe I wasn't so different from this psychopath after all.

But then I remembered something. I'd been trying to make things right with Maura for a month now. I apologized to her. Told her I loved her. I told Maura I'd be there for her and care for her the way she had been for me all along. Moreover, Maura had forgiven me. I made things right with her, or at least had been trying to.

William, on the other hand, was either incapable of understanding the difference between himself and I, or he simply refused to acknowledge it.

Maura's words from the car a few nights before rang in my ears. William had known Maura well enough to say exactly what would hurt Maura the most. Maybe that's what he was doing with me now. Maybe he knew me better than I knew him, and he was using it to his advantage. It was an advantage I couldn't give him. I refused to give it to him.

"I may have walked away from her, but my reason for doing so wasn't to hurt her. My reason for walking away was to give her an opportunity to be happy. To give us both the break we needed so she could make a life with you and I could start over fresh. I walked away so I wouldn't have to see what I couldn't have, William. You walked away because you knew it would devastate Maura. You went out of your way to hurt her."

William stood up and tossed the nurse call button as far from the bed as its cord would allow. He then threw my phone at me before walking over to the side of the bed to stand over me, his breath sour against my face. "It must kill you to be her second choice, doesn't it Jane? Does it make you ache to know that she chose me over you, and that you were second pickings?"

He didn't even seem to be following our conversation anymore, if you could call it a conversation. He was just sorting through his bag of tricks, looking for whatever he could say that would hurt me the most. William had begun to sweat, small beads of it running down the side of his face, where I could see his pulse throbbing. This man was unhinged, and a danger to everyone, primarily me in that moment. "Well?" he demanded, aggravated at my slow responses to his questioning.

"No, I've never actually felt that way because Maura has never made me feel like I was her second choice. And in case you haven't noticed, she's with me now, and this isn't a competition," I spat, no longer caring about defusing the situation. The situation was long since past the point of defusing.

William's face was beet red and his hands were clenched into fists. I could feel his furor washing over me in waves. I was treading on dangerous ground and wondering if this was the William that Maura had seen the day I left for New York.

"I wanted to talk to Maura last night, and you interfered with that. Just like you interfered with everything else that ever had to do with Maura and me," he growled. He didn't say it, but I could clearly feel the "and you'll pay for that dearly," that he left unspoken.

I almost laughed. This guy was beyond reason. He really had lost his mind. Could he really think that Maura would have wanted anything to do with him at the restaurant the night before? "You sick bastard, she wants nothing to do with you! We were just there to have dinner. How could we know you would go there too? And Maura didn't seem too perturbed at the idea of leaving without you speaking to her. In fact, after we left, she told me how you treated her after your breakup and her miscarriage, and of how she wants nothing to do with you. I'm glad you couldn't have the chance to hurt her again last night. You're a sick man, William, and she doesn't want you."

"Oh, she will," he said confidently, ready for one of his never-ending speeches. He stood up straighter, squaring his shoulders, as if he were getting ready to stand behind a podium and lecture. "See, I can give her everything you can't, Jane. I have the means to give Maura the life she truly deserves, and I plan to give it to her. I know what it's like to live in the lap of luxury, and I know what Maura is used to, and what she wants. Wealth, kids, and her every wish fulfilled," he boasted. "What can you give her? Aside from grief and mounting medical bills," he added.

"She doesn't want any of that with you," I retorted.

"And you can't give her any of it, so she can't have it with you. That means her choice is the person who can give her what she wants or the person who can't. It won't take her long to make up her mind, and we both know who she would choose," he said.

Did he really think Maura would want to choose between us? Did he really think that Maura would ever go back to him? How far out of touch with reality had William gotten in the last nine months?

"She already made her choice, William. Don't you know that? Don't you remember who she ran after the day I left? You made her choose, and she chose me. And now there's nothing left for her to choose. She's happy. She deserves to be happy and she is. You're nothing more than a sad part of her past, William."

"Don't be too sure of that, Jane."

"Don't be too sure of what?" I had no idea what he could be referring to, because it was pretty obvious to me that Maura would never want anything to do with this guy ever again. "It must make you sick that she prefers a crippled woman to you, doesn't it? Or are you still all upset about the fact that even when she was marrying you, she loved me and she knew she loved me? Which is it, Billy-boy? Because whatever it is that makes you into this kind of asshole, it's not what Maura's looking for in a life partner. She's never going to want you. You're sick. You need help. You're fucking delusional, bordering on psychopathic. And you're an idiot to think that she would ever want to be with you after what you did to her."

"Oh, we'll see about that," William said calmly as he walked out of the room, as if we hadn't even argued at all.

I stared after him as he left, shocked to the point that I had almost wondered if what had just happened had really actually taken place. William had thrown down the gauntlet, challenging me to win Maura's affections.

But I knew Maura's affections rested with me. There wasn't a single doubt in my mind, even after William's mind games that afternoon. I wasn't worried about him winning Maura back, but I was worried about what lengths he would go to in order to win her back, and who or what he would try to destroy in the process. The thought sent a terrified shiver down my spine.

It took me several minutes to calm down enough to call Maura. I don't know what happened to William in the months between when he broke up with Maura and now, but he was clearly a twisted sonofabitch that bordered on dangerous. Maura needed to know about it. She needed to protect herself. I had to try three times before I could get the phone to dial Maura, that's how rattled I was.

"Jane?" Maura asked as she answered the phone. "Is everything okay? I expected you to call me earlier."

"No, listen. William was just here," I said, still rather breathless and shaking.

"At the hospital?" Maura asked, puzzled. "He works there, in the phlebotomy lab, remember? He's a hematopathologist. His department will handle your blood work in conjunction with the phlebotomy lab," Maura explained patiently.

"No, he was here, at the rehab. In my room! Staring at me and waiting for me to wake up. He had taken my phone and was doing something with it while he waited."

"What?" Maura gasped. "Why would he do that? That's just... I don't even know what that is. It's not right," Maura finally decided.

"He, he's like, crazy, Maura. I told him flat out that he was creeping me out and he said 'good'! He was up in my face, angry and boiling over with rage. I really think he's lost his mind! He was very threatening!"

"I'm calling security. I'll call you right back," Maura said quickly. "Use the nurse call button to get someone in there with you," she ordered.

"No, Maura, he left. Don't do that. He's gone." I decided not to tell her that the nurse call button was halfway across the room, where it had landed when William had tossed it away. That he would even think of taking away a means for me to ask for help was terrifying. William was cold and calculating, and not to be underestimated.

"What did he want?" Maura asked, now sounding just as scared as I had been.

I swallowed hard, trying to hide some of my fear. "You."