Cal held the note that Ruth had sent him in hands, looking over at the telephone. However, if he was calling her chances were high that this stupid Spanish wife would answer it again. Then another thought came to Cal's mind – Fabrizio. Cal recalled that Italian and Spanish weren't that differently, surely he would understand her and could ask her about Ruth.

"I already told you that I won't call your girlfriend," Fabrizio answered thinking that he was talking about Clarissa again.

"No, I want you the phone a woman in Boston. Ruth was staying with her, but last time there was this Spanish woman, at least I think she was Spanish – and she didn't understand me. You just have to ask her about Ruth. That's all I want," Cal explained to him.

Fabrizio nodded, finding that Cal had in fact changed for the better. He couldn't imagine him caring about anyone else but him, when coming here for the first time.

….

"Ci dispiace, è possibile parlare con la signora Dewitt Bukater?" Fabrizio began.

Rose was taken aback at first, but she recognized the voice.

It was Fabrizio. Now maybe everything would be alright. She could tell him about Jack. Rose didn't care anymore about Cal finding out. She was tired and worn out and she needed someone – a friend – someone she could trust more than ever.

Even with not understanding Italian, Rose knew that he had asked her about her mother. Cal must've told him of his latest phone call here.

Apparently Ruth hadn't told him of her arrest.

Something that could indeed be seen as her favour as Rose had to admit to herself…she put the receiver down for a moment silently whispering to herself.

"Now, I'm going to summon up help for you, Jack," she spoke up, what she thought only to herself, but she was being watched.

On the other side, she could hear Fabrizio signing awaiting her answer.

"Fab…," she started, when the line suddenly went dead.

Rose didn't know that Roger had cut it.

…

Fabrizio looked quite stunned, when the line was suddenly dead. He held up the receiver for some time until Cal asked him how it had gone.

"And? What did she say? Is Ruth there?" he wanted to know.

This voice…it was so….Fabrizio thought that he had heard it before, but he couldn't place.

"I've no idea. We were interrupted," he told Cal. "In fact I don't think that she was there."

"What do you mean, you were interrupted?" Cal was angry again.

"Like I said, the line went inactive," Fabrizio said to him. "But I…," he stopped realizing he couldn't just tell Cal. "We could just tried once more later," he eventually offered, but Cal overruled it.

"I've tried to call her two times and I think that's enough. If she wants to call him, she knows my number. And if she should choose that she wants nothing more to do with me, it's fine with me too," Cal spat out clearly not having the most highest opinion about Ruth. "Now well, it looks like we've both lost a friend, Fabrizio. How about some drink? I could use one."

Fabrizio quietly nodded to the offer, still not able to get the voice out of his head.

….

Roger moved his arms from behind around Rose's stomach, caressing her belly. He led his head on her shoulder and watched her and himself looking in the mirror.

"You'll see, when this baby is born everything will be alright. I look forward to being a father," he told her.

Rose closed her eyes for a moment trying to visualize Jack's arms around her, but she wasn't very successful. Roger was again sweating and smelling of alcohol and smoke and that awful perfume, which alone was making Rose want to throw up.

She wriggled out of his embrace and run over to the bathroom, holding her hair up with one hand, while vomiting into the toilet bowl.

"Are you alright?" she heard Roger asking her from outside.

Surely Jack would've helped her up and everything. Rose whipped her mouth clean and drank some water, determined that she was going to see him once more today.

…..

Roger had rejected to accompany her. Rose knew whom he was visiting. He hadn't much about Mrs Pearson the past days, but Rose was aware of them regularly meeting. At least she didn't have to work for this horrible woman anymore.

She went over to the reception desk, where she was instantly warmly greeted.

"Ah, yes, Mrs Dawson, we were already wondering, when we would be seeing her again," one nurse said to her.

Rose weakly smiled back. She could imagine a nice place to visit Jack.

"I'm going to come with you, Mrs Dawson. I've to check on him anyway."

When they arrived in his room, Rose immediately went over to take his hand, while the nurse was checking on his pulse.

"He's really much calmer, when you're here, Mrs Dawson," she said very friendly biting her lip not knowing, if she should tell her.

"Is something wrong?"

"I…I don't know if…"

"Please, if it's something to do with Jack, you've got to tell me. I can live with the truth," Rose begged her while looking at Jack.

If Jack had to die, it was better that she was told now so she would be able to deal with it. Not that it would hurt any less, but at least she had time to adjust to it.

"Alright, if you say so...," the nurse started swallowing a lump "…his brother was here a few days ago and well…now of course I don't want to talk badly about people behind their back, but…you see I don't know what he told him, but I've never noticed your husband so tense and distressed before."

For sure the nurse knew as well that Roger Lindsay wasn't Jack's brother, but she hadn't been the one to let him in for that matter. Some thought that Roger Lindsay was Rose's new lover, other's that he was just a friend, but whatever it was they didn't really like him here.

Brother?

Rose was alerted looking at her for a second, before gazing back at Jack, who was silently breathing. A strain of hair had fallen into his face, which Rose moved gently away.

The nurse didn't have the guts to tell her the whole truth, which was that it Jack didn't wake up in a few days, ate and drank something than he would surely die. It was bad enough already and she felt sorry for this woman, who obviously was now setting her heart on the false man.

"But Jack doesn't have…," she said more to herself than to the nurse.

"I'm going to leave you alone now, Mrs Dawson. I wish you well, both of you."

Rose mumbled a Thank You, knowing straightaway whom she had been talking about.