Angel JJK - Hello! I'm going to, don't worry! But I'm glad you like!!

Bmangaka - The snow lasted one day. I was gutted. Especially as the rest of the country has virtually run out of grit. And, do you think I'm going to be that mean?

ambercsiny - I'm sorry I made you cry - I hope I don't do the same in this chapter!

sparkyCSI - I don't know - my muses went on the warpath, demanded I write something which is gonna be end up being chapters away... and then they forced me to write what I've sent you. I have an interview next week - but I can't let myself get excited about it. Then I get disappointed!

Sammich - Hey y'all! I hope I haven't done lasting damage! I'm glad you're all enjoying, and I'm sorry she got you addicted!

Trizzy - I'm going to stop being mean soon - i promise! Luke Perry in BtVS? Wow, that's going back some! But yeah, that's when he was cute! There's gonna be good - I need to plan a wedding!

meadow567 - You have inspired me to write a spin off piece - an alternative ending, of sorts, because I loved the idea of Mac seeing her, and I'd already written the chapters after this. I like that name. And I hope the writing happens soon!

Madison Bellows - My muses are attacking me with two stories at the moment, which is going to result in me not getting much sleep! Boo! But yay on an update from you!

Axellia's Note: My medical knowledge comes from fourteen seasons of ER and four and a bit of Grey's Anatomy. If it's wrong, it's because I don't have a medical degree!

Axellia's Second Note: Lyrics don't belong to me. They're Howie Day's!

Ax's third note - sparky is my amazing beta - so mucho thanks!

Ax's fourth note - Gus isn't mine! She belongs to Madison Bellows!

What The Eyes Can't See

Chapter 204: Goodbye my lover, goodbye my friend. You have been the one

Nicolette Turner swept into the hospital still wearing the flour coated apron she had been wearing when Lindsay had called, and hurried up to the room her daughter was in. 'Taylor,' she cried. 'La mia ragazza bella.'

'Nicolette?' Flack greeted his voice breaking.

'Oh, Donnie, il mio amore,' she sobbed, throwing her arms around him. 'What happened?'

'She got shot, Nicolette,' he explained.

Nicolette stepped back and stared up at him, giving him a look that left him in no doubt that Taylor took after her mother. 'How?'

'She saved me,' he told her. And was rewarded by Nicolette's hand connecting with his face.

'You were supposed to be protecting her,' she cried. 'It was your job to be saving her,' she sobbed as she hit at him again.

Flack stared down at Taylor and shut his eyes. In his mind, Nicolette was right. All he had done for the last day was replay the scene in his head, again and again. It should have been him there. That bullet had been fired at him, and somehow Taylor had appeared out of nowhere. And he deserved every single one of the slaps Nicolette was giving him – every single one of them, even if he was feeling too numb to actually feel the pain.

'What is going on here?' Mac cried as he and Stella charged into the room and pulled the grieving woman off of Flack.

'It's alright, Mac,' Flack told him, watching his fiancé's mother collapse into Stella, sobbing her heart out. 'She's right.'

Mac looked between the two and frowned. 'Mrs. Turner, I don't know what Don has said, but this was not his fault. It was not your fault,' he repeated, looking at the detective.

Flack stared back at him before crumpling back into his chair.

---

Taylor sighed in frustration. She didn't know how long she had been there, or even, where she was. The sun wasn't moving to give her any indication, and Luke wasn't giving anything away. Beneath her toes, the surf dragged the sand away, before the cool water came rushing back over them. 'Should I be worried about the lack of sunscreen?' Taylor asked the only other person nearby.

'Do you think you should be worried about sunscreen?' he asked her.

Taylor looked sideways at him. 'I'm in Hell, aren't I?'

'Do you think you're in Hell?'

Taylor turned, sending water flying. 'Are you going to answer every question with a question? Because I'm going to ignore you.'

---

'Hey,' Gus called softly, entering the room and sitting down in a spare chair.

Flack looked over at the blonde and frowned. 'I don't need to see a therapist, Broussard.'

'Good job I'm not here as one then, isn't it?' she retorted, meeting and holding his gaze.

He broke the stare first, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes as he looked over at Taylor. 'I… I don't think I can do it, Gus,' he whispered, his voice catching on several occasions.

'Do what?'

'Say goodbye. I'm not ready.'

'I don't think anybody ever is,' Gus told him. 'But what you have to ask yourself is what would Taylor want?'

---

'I don't understand your obsession with House,' Flack muttered, glancing down at Taylor who was curled up in his arms, watching the show intently.

'Shhh,' she hushed him.

'Well it's probably Lupus. Or cancer.'

With a small growl in the back of her throat, Taylor reached for the remote and hit pause (whoever decided it was possible to pause live television was a genius) and glared up at Flack. 'It's the bubonic plague,' she told him haughtily.

'So you've seen this already?' Flack asked in amusement. Of course she had seen it already. And so had he. She'd gotten the first season on DVD and they'd watched them all one weekend. This was probably the third or fourth time they'd watched this episode. 'Don't you think the plague is a little farfetched?'

Taylor scowled. 'House specializes in all the weird diseases. Is it that hard to believe that the plague hasn't been eradicated?'

Flack chuckled. 'No, it's just the chances of it turning up in America are extremely slim.'

'I don't watch it for the medicine,' Taylor muttered, rolling her eyes. 'I watch it for Hugh Laurie.'

Flack blinked. 'Really?'

'Oh God, yeah,' Taylor confirmed.

'But he's a jerk and he's not really got the best bedside manner.'

'To be honest, Don, I really wouldn't be interested in what he was like at the side of the bed. Unless I was ill. Then he could be a jerk.'

Flack stared down in amazement.

'What?' Taylor asked. 'He's strangely hot.'

'No,' Flack said, shaking his head. 'I just wanted to check that you didn't think this was some kind of reality TV show. If you get ill from the plague, or from anything, House isn't going to be able to save you.'

'I know,' Taylor told him. She frowned and pulled herself upright so that she was facing him. 'Don.'

'Am I going to like the next thing out of your mouth?' he asked her suspiciously.

'I don't want any heroics.'

'Huh?'

'Don't get me wrong, I'd want you to let the doctors do everything that they can-'

'Whoa!' Flack exclaimed. 'I don't think we need to be having this discussion.'

'I think we do,' Taylor told him. 'If something happened to me, I'd need you to make the difficult decisions.'

'Taylor!'

Taylor shook her head. 'My dad is never in the country. I don't even know what he's doing half the time. And mama would want what's best for her. I need you to be the person who does what's right for me. Please.'

Flack sighed. 'Fine.'

'I don't want to be kept alive by a machine if there's no chance I'm ever going to wake up. And I don't want to be cremated. I want to be buried. Here in New York. It's my home now.'

'Taylor,' Flack sighed.

'Promise me, Don,' Taylor pleaded, staring earnestly at him.

'I promise,' he sighed.

Taylor smiled. 'Good. Because I also want to be buried with a cell phone, just in case. And everyone is going to have to wear pink to the funeral.'

'Okay, the cell phone I get, but pink? Do you really see me in pink?'

Taylor grinned cheekily. 'Right now, I see you in nothing.'

---

'She would have wanted us to keep her alive,' Nicolette told the doctor.

Flack looked down at love of his life, feeling his body pulsing in time to the mechanical rhythm of the machine breathing for Taylor. Her bruises were showing now, and her body was looking even more frail than usual – she looked lost, even in a single bed.

'No,' said Flack.

'Excuse me?' Nicolette asked, staring at the detective.

'She wouldn't want it. She doesn't want it,' he corrected himself.

'We are not killing my daughter,' Nicolette shrieked. 'She could still wake up from this.'

Flack looked at the doctor with the last glimmer of hope he had. The doctor slowly shook his head and that glimmer died in his eyes. 'She's already gone,' he choked.

'No,' Nicolette cried, breaking down into sobs. 'We are not turning the machine off.'

Captain Turner took a step forward and wrapped his arms around his wife. 'She's gone, love. And Taylor knew what she was doing when she gave Don power of attorney. She knew he'd be able to do what we couldn't.' He nodded at the doctor. 'We're ready when you are.'

---

'Are you an angel?' Taylor asked, only managing to ignore Luke for a short time.

'Do you think I'm an angel?' he asked her, a twinkling to his golden eyes – they reminded Taylor of her mother's wedding band, almost yellow.

'Has it ever occurred to you that the reason I'm asking these questions is because I don't know the answer?' she asked him, frustrated to the point she was ready to tear her hair out.

Luke gave her a warm smile and slid his hand up and down the surfboard. 'Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I'm not answering the questions because you already know the answer?'

Taylor glared at him, mouth ready for a retort, but nothing came. As the realization set in, so did the shakiness to her knees and she crumbled to the warm sand below her. 'Oh crap,' she muttered.

'Do you surf?' he asked her.

Taylor looked up at him in disbelief. 'Are you kidding me?'

Luke smiled again. 'I find it quite fun. The water is always different, always changing. Sometimes it can throw out the biggest ride of your life, others can be the biggest wipeout you've experienced. Here the water is beautiful, clear and fresh. Other places it's filled with waste, colorful, tropical fish, or sharks. A new challenge every time you swim out into it, and at the same time it's still the same of sea.'

Taylor only just refrained from rolling her eyes as she glared up at him. 'Is that supposed to be some lame ass attempt at a metaphor about life? Because it sucked.'

Luke shrugged. 'No. I just like surfing.' He stuck his board in the sand and sat down next to her.

'This is hell, isn't it? Taylor muttered.

'I thought you said I was an angel?' Luke responded.

'Yeah, but I'm stuck on this desert island, with no apparent way off, with a guy for company who does little than answer my questions with either more questions, or gives ambiguous answers,' she frowned. 'Or is this one of those dreams where I've been watching too much of a TV show and now I'm dreaming that I'm stuck in it?' Taylor tilted her head to analyze Luke's profile. 'You do kinda have that whole "Boone" thing going on... although he's dead. And I'm just going in circles.' She sighed. 'Where am I?'

Luke brought his knees up, resting his arms on them. 'Taylor, you have a choice to make.'

Taylor gave him a sideways look. 'If you're about to tell me I have to pick between heaven and hell-'

'It depends on your definition of them both,' Luke cut her off.

'And are you going to elaborate or is this one of this just going to be another day in the life of situations?' Taylor asked him warily.

'Do you want it to be?'

Taylor slammed her fists into the sand, sending grains flying, before leaping to her feet and glaring down at Luke. 'No. That's not what I want. For once in my complicated life, I want someone to tell me what's going on, without me having to decipher annoying clues, without having to learn a different language, without having to wait for eternity for things to make sense. I am sick to my back teeth with all this crap. Every day it's the same thing, and every day I'm living a different version of the same event. So no, for once, I want you to tell me straight. What the hell is going on?'

'Taylor, we brought you here because we thought this appearance would be calming to you. Reassuring.'

'Calming? This might be paradise to most, but to me, it isn't. It's strange and disconcerting.'

'You would like something more reassuring?' Luke asked, still remaining calm.

'Yeah,' Taylor told him.

The scenery changed. Gone were the white sandy beaches and the crystal clear sea. Instead, she was in her old apartment which looked like it had never been ravaged by a fire. 'Interesting,' she muttered.

---

Flack sat by Taylor's bed and pulled his guitar into his lap. 'For months you've been begging me to play you something,' he told her. 'I'm sorry I had to wait until now to do that, but I wanted to be good enough for you; I didn't want to let you down,' he gave a short laugh. 'It's your favorite.'

'The dawn is breaking
A light shining through
You're barely waking
And I'm tangled up in you
Yeah

When I'm open, you're closed
Where I follow, you'll go
I worry I won't see your face
Light up again'

---

Taylor wandered around the apartment with a small frown on her face. 'Alright, I've changed my mind, this isn't relaxing either,' she muttered.

'Where would you prefer to be?' Luke asked her. They were both still wearing their swimwear, but the surfboard had disappeared.

Taylor shook her head. 'No, I don't want more time wasted over where I feel most comfortable. The fact is, the place I'm most comfortable is when I'm surrounded by the people that I love.'

'Even with all the ghosts?'

Taylor walked over to the window and looked out. But instead of seeing the familiar New York City streets, she saw the beach she had been on only moments ago. She turned to Luke. 'Are you kidding me?'

He shrugged. 'I like the beach.'

Taylor gave him a tight smile. 'Right.' There was a quiet rustling, and then she became aware of something sniffing at her feet. She looked down. 'Wilbur?' She looked back to Luke. 'I'm dead, aren't I?'

Luke shrugged. 'Not yet.'

Taylor's lips disappeared into a thin line. 'I beg your pardon?'

'It's your call. You have done more in the two years than we would ever hope for someone to do in a lifetime, Taylor. We're proud of you.'

Taylor dropped heavily onto the couch. 'What?' she whispered.

'What happens next is your choice. You can move on to the next level – you're ready.'

'And what if I'm not?' Taylor asked him.

Luke smiled. 'That's the choice you've got to make.'

'Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to rhyme
Out of the doubt that fills my mind
I somehow find
You and I collide

I'm quiet you know
You make a first impression
I've found I'm scared to know I'm always on your mind'

'What's that?' she asked as a song began to drift through the apartment.

'What do you think it is?'

Taylor shut her eyes, biting at her lip. Finally she shook her head. 'I'm not ready to give you an answer now,' she told him. 'I need some time.'

'Taylor, time is up to you,' Luke smiled. 'There's no pressure here.'

'Can I ask something,' she frowned. 'And actually get a straight answer?'

Luke nodded.

'What if I pick the wrong choice?'

Luke smiled and headed for the door to her bedroom. 'Taylor, you're at a crossroads in your life. You have three paths in front of you, and it's completely up to you. Whatever choice you make will be the right one.' He grinned. 'Do you know how long I've been waiting to tell someone that?'

'What's the third choice?'

Luke frowned. 'Well, that's the choice we hope you don't make, because you certainly don't deserve to go that way.'

'Hell?' she asked.

'You're better than that,' he told her, avoiding giving her an answer. 'Either way, whether you believe it or not, you already know the answer. I'll be through here, waiting. Take your time.' He walked into the bedroom, shutting the door behind him.

Taylor took a breath and scooped Wilbur up into her arms, before settling back into the chair.

'Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the stars refuse to shine
Out of the back you fall in time
I somehow find
You and I collide
Don't stop here I've lost my place I'm close behind

Even the best fall down sometimes
Even the wrong words seem to ryhme
Out of the doubt that fills your mind
You finally find
You and I collide'

Taylor got to her feet, setting the pig down in the seat in her place. Determination on her face, she headed for the door Luke had passed though not so long ago. She gave her apartment one last look around and smiled before stepping through.

She should have known she would have wound up back on that beach. But now it was reassuring. She headed up to the ocean, stepped into the waves and allowed the warm water to break over her feet as she stared out to sea, watching Luke surf.

---

'You finally find
You and I collide
You finally find
You and I collide'

Flack set the guitar down on the floor. With tears streaming down his face, he leant over and kissed his fiancé. 'Bye Taylor,' he whispered. He turned to the doctor and nodded.

Checking that her parents were also ready, Doctor Singh walked over to the bed and turned the heart monitor off. Next, he unclipped the tube which was supplying her with oxygen and stepped back.

Flack sat there, the tears running freely as he watched Taylor, his eyes drawn to the steady rise and fall of her chest. He sat forward and placed a hand over her heart. 'She has a heartbeat.'

The doctor nodded. 'That's normal. It's the residual flow from the bypass.'

Flack shook his head. 'No, look. I can feel it.'

With a frown, the doctor hurried over and placed his stethoscope on her heart. As the frown increased, he turned and switched the heart monitor back on. Sure enough, there was a steady heartbeat. 'Huh?'

'Huh?' Captain Turner questioned. 'What does "huh" mean?'

The doctor turned. 'I, uh... she should be dead, Captain Turner. I don't know why she isn't.'

'Maybe your tests were wrong,' Captain Turner suggested.

'We don't take things like this as a joke, sir,' the doctor told him. 'We do every test possible to check before we come to you with something like that. And we get it verified by another doctor. Taylor should be dead. I have no idea who, or what, is looking after her, but something is keeping her here.'

There was a squeal as Flack's chair went screeching back behind him as he rose to his feet. 'I'm sorry,' he muttered to Taylor. And then he turned and left the room, not looking back.

'Is she...?' Danny asked as Flack walked past.

Flack ignored him and strode past him, disappearing down the corridor.

Next to Danny, Angell burst into tears.

Seconds after Flack had gone, Captain Jack came out. 'She's alive,' he announced, a smile on his face. 'She's still asleep, but she's alive.'

I'm going to stop being mean on the cliffhangers now. I promise!