When Liz woke up two days later, she found that she was in a pleasant room with bouquets surrounding her bed. She saw that her arm was connected to an IV machine, and she realized that she was in the hospital.

As Liz gazed around the room, she noticed that her best friends were there, asleep. Macey McHenry was on a chair, looking like a model, despite being asleep. Bex Baxter had thrown herself onto a chair, and was sleeping in a precarious position on that chair. Last of all, was Cammie Morgan. She had pulled a stool up to the foot of Liz's bed, and had fallen asleep on her folded arms.

Liz smiled gratefully as she watched her friends sleep peacefully.

The bedroom door creaked open, and the lady who had stopped her car poked her head through the door, and smiled brightly at Liz, before shutting the door again.

This noise awoke Bex, who was sleeping the closest to the door, and since she was in a precarious position, she fell onto the tiled floor.

She looked sheepishly up at Liz, before getting up from the floor.

"Hello, Bookworm." She said affectionately, once she had gotten up from the floor. "How are you doing?"

Bex inwardly kicked herself, knowing that that was probably the worst question to ask someone who had been abused.

"Okay, I suppose," Liz replied thoughtfully, "is Ellie alright?"

Liz had just remembered her younger sister. She was furious with herself that she had forgotten about Ellie.

People usually thought that Liz, because she simply wanted to work at the desk, that she didn't notice occurrences, and that she wasn't as diligent and smart as all the girls in the CoveOps class. The thing is…that's just not true.

Liz noticed when Bex quickly glanced left, before she answered quickly, "She's perfectly fine."

Liz took a deep breath, before asking the question again, in a carefully controlled voice. "Is…Ellie…alright?"

Bex slowly shook her head, and said, "She's…stable, at the moment. The doctors think that she may pull through…but they're not sure."

Liz took a deep breath to calm her nerves, before nodding. She tried to smile, but she couldn't without her eyes tearing up. She shrugged, her voice breaking, as she said, "I wanted to protect her, and I didn't do that. She's my little sister. Even if she can be as annoying as heck, I love her. That's all there is to it, and…now…if she doesn't survive it's my fault. It's my entire fault…" She flung her face into her pillow, and her small, fragile body began to shake in time with her sobs.

Liz's weeping woke the rest of the girls up, and for that Bex was almost glad that Liz was crying. Almost. Her cries were so heart-breaking, that anyone who heard them wanted to cry with her.

Even Bex felt tears trying to surface. When she looked over at Macey, she saw that there were streaks of mascara traveling down her face, as she tried to comfort Liz. Cammie and Bex looked awkwardly at each other, before going over to Liz.

0oo0oo0

"Thank you for everything you've done for Elizabeth." Mrs. Morgan politely shook Summer Adams hand.

"How did you find us?" Abby cocked her head curiously.

"Oh…well…I found out where Elizabeth went to school, and I called your Administration office. I hope I didn't disturb you." Summer replied just as politely, although there was a tinge of apology in her words.

Abby smirked slightly, looking at Joe, hoping that he too, would find it rather funny. She couldn't possibly disturb them, even this early. They had been having meetings about the best strategies to take down the Circle for weeks now.

But when Abby looked at Joe, Joe didn't smirk back. Joe wasn't even looking in her direction. He was staring at the lady who had saved Liz's life. His face was more open and full with emotions than she had ever seen them before, and even that much emotion was hardly enough to see what was really going on in the man's head.

Joe saw Abby looking at him out of the corner of his eye, and quickly masked his face. He cursed himself for being such an open book. He continued looking at Summer, only this time he was careful to make it look like he was simply interested in the conversation, and was politely listening.

"Anyways, if it's okay, I'd like to come visit Elizabeth again sometime, as well as, Ellie." Summer asked, although it wasn't exactly a question, it was rather more of a demand, hidden subtly in a question-like form.

Of course, when you're surrounded by highly-trained operative, which she was, then no matter how subtly you try to phrase your demand, they will always be able to tell that it's a question.

Rachel looked at Joe and Abby, trying to send the distress she was feeling, and that she had no idea what to say to the question/demand. Unfortunately for Mrs. Morgan, neither of them were much help.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible." A British voice came from behind Summer, and when she spun around, she saw none other than Agent Townsend, although of course, she didn't know he was an agent.

"May I ask why that's not possible?" Summer asked curiously, trying to stretch her height as much as she could, although even when she stretched herself she wasn't that tall.

"Because it would be inconvenient, and it may prohibit their recovery process." Townsend replied coolly.

Summer scoffed at this remark, but before she made a come-back, Joe Solomon jumped into the conversation which was heading south.

"Ms. Adams, may I ask if you're married?"

Summer looked at him, taken aback by the question. "No, I'm not," she answered indifferently.

Joe nodded his head, knowingly. "I was just curious, sorry for the straightforwardness."

Summer waved it away, before handing her business card to Rachel Morgan, and heading towards the exit.

After Summer was out of earshot, Abby turned on Joe, "Well, that was definitely straightforward! What was that about?"

Joe shook his head, "Nothing…it was nothing." He stared down the hallway that Summer had walked down. "Nothing of importance anyways."

Townsend looked at his, his curiosity piqued. He waited until the ladies had left, to go check on Liz, and see if Ellie was still stable.

"What was it about?"

"Nothing, I already said it was nothing." Joe answered irritated.

"Alright, alright. It's just that, well, I never thought of you as the straightforward type of person. And you seemed to need to convince yourself that it was nothing more than the rest of us." Edward held his hands up in mock surrender.

Joe just stared at him. He seemed like he was about to say something, but was interrupted by screaming.

"Ellie's going to live, Ellie's going to live!" Macey ran screaming into a room, which the both of them assumed was Liz's.