Dr. Samuel Harmon, Natalie's primary surgeon, came in shortly after and introduced himself. He was a tall, robust man with a shock of thick white hair and piercing green eyes. "Ah, the famous detective, Mr. Monk. I've heard a lot about you," he said, shaking Adrian's hand. He didn't seem fazed when Adrian pulled a wipe from the package in his pocket, which indicated he had indeed heard a lot about him. "My colleague, Dr. Hector, is a big fan."

"At the moment," Adrian said, "I'm a big fan of yours. Dr. Hector said you're the best thoracic surgeon in California."

He smiled modestly. "Perhaps one of them."

He looked around, including Julie and the Davenports in the conversation. "I wanted to let you know that I'm very pleased with Natalie's progress so far," he informed them. "She's tolerated the stress of both her injuries and the surgery remarkably well. I expect her to regain consciousness sometime this afternoon, and I've instructed the nurses to page me the moment she wakes so that we can remove the ventilator. Once we're confident she can manage without it — and I'm not expecting otherwise — we'll move her out if the ICU and into a standard room."

"How long does she need to be here? In the hospital, I mean?" Bobby Davenport asked.

"We'll need to monitor her condition carefully over the next several days, but, barring any complications, we'll release her from the hospital next week, with prescribed bed rest for two, perhaps three weeks thereafter, depending on her progress, and limited activity for the following six to eight weeks," Dr. Harmon replied.

He looked at Adrian. "I recommend hiring a home health nurse during the period she's on bed rest, longer if possible. It can be immensely stressful for the primary caregiver to shoulder the burden themselves. And while family can certainly be helpful in these situations," he said, smiling at Julie, "a trained professional who can monitor her care and condition would be optimal."

Adrian nodded. If Natalie needed a nurse, then he would find her one. It was as simple as that. "Can I stay with her now?"

He nodded. "Of course. Visiting hours are eleven a.m. to eight p.m., and you're all welcome to stay with her until the nurses kick you out." His eyes twinkled. "Try not to have too many people in the room at once, though. Quiet and rest are the best healers, as Dr. Hector likes to say."

He started to shake Adrian's hand again, then thought better of it and shook Bobby Davenport's instead. "If you have any questions or concerns, have the nurses page me, or you can call my pager or my office line." He gave Adrian a business card.

"Thank you, Doctor," Adrian said, tucking it carefully away.

He nodded at them and left the room.

"Why don't you go and sit with her for a while, Adrian?" Bobby said. "We can take turns so we don't crowd the room."

He nodded gratefully. "All right. I'll let you know if anything changes."

Once in Natalie's room, he pulled a chair to her bedside and sat down. She looked much the same as she had the night before, fragile and broken. Her hand was resting limply on the bedspread, and after he sat down he took it into his own, gingerly, being careful not to disturb her IV.

He sat with her for over an hour, sometimes talking, sometimes just remaining silent and holding her hand. He'd begun to think that he should get up, go see if Julie wanted to sit with her mother for a while, when a slight motion from the bed caught his attention. Had her eyelids moved? He leaned forward, holding his breath and watching her closely, and was rewarded by seeing her lashes flicker weakly. She made a small sound, almost like a moan, but so soft it was barely audible.

"Natalie?" he said, feeling her hand tremble in his. "It's Adrian. Can you hear me? Open your eyes, Natalie, and look at me. I'm right here with you." He talked to her encouragingly, watching her eyelids flutter each time he spoke. At last, she opened her eyes fully, blinking a few times before focusing her gaze on his face.

Adrian was so elated he felt he'd burst from it. "Hi, sweetheart," he said, gently stroking her hair away from her face. "Welcome back. I'm so happy to see you."

He could tell from her expression that she was extremely disoriented. "You were in an accident," he told her, "and you're in the hospital. But you're going to be fine. I promise."

Her hand — the one he wasn't holding — lifted feebly and she touched the tube at her mouth, her confused expression changing to one of panic. She made a small sound of distress. "It's a ventilator, to help you breathe," he told her, making his voice as soothing as he could. "I'm going to have the doctor paged so he can take it out."

Dr. Harmon arrived remarkably quickly after he was summoned by the nurse on duty, and his face was wreathed in smiles as he bent over Natalie and introduced himself. "We're going to remove this ventilator tube so you can breathe on your own, all right?" he said kindly. "Mr. Monk, if you could, please wait over by the window so the nurses and I have room to work."

Reluctantly, he released her hand and retreated to where the doctor had indicated. He watched, a trifle fearfully, as the doctor slowly and gently eased the tube up out of her throat, with the nurses suctioning fluid as he did so. "There we are," the doctor said as it came completely out of her mouth.

Natalie coughed weakly, wincing in pain.

"Your throat is going to be sore for a little while, but it should pass," the doctor said gently. "Try not to move too much; your ribs have been injured, and you have a surgical incision in your chest, so you need to stay as still as possible."

Dr. Harmon turned to Adrian and nodded, and he rushed back to Natalie's side, taking her hand.

Natalie lay against the pillow, breathing heavily — a little too heavily, it seemed to Adrian – and wheezing slightly. Dr. Harmon took out a stethoscope and listened to her lungs for a few minutes, then frowned and glanced at one of her monitors. He turned to a nurse and spoke rapidly and quietly; Adrian caught the phrase "supplemental oxygen."

The nurse he'd spoken to swiftly unwrapped some narrow plastic tubing from its sterile packaging and attached it to a flowmeter on the wall above Natalie's bed. "We're just going to give you some oxygen to help you breathe a little easier, all right?" Dr. Harmon said. He took the nasal cannula that the nurse handed to him and gently inserted it into Natalie's nostrils, then nodded at the nurse to turn on the flow of oxygen as he adjusted the tubes over her ears.

"There we are," he said, as the strain on her face began to fade. Her breathing eased off, and the doctor nodded as he listened to her lungs with the stethoscope again. "That's the ticket. We'll keep you on that oxygen for a little while, just to help out."

He removed the stethoscope's prongs from his ears, but left it hanging around his neck, and took a small flashlight from his breast pocket. "I'm going to look at your pupils now, just to make sure everything looks good." He looked at one, then the other, and nodded in satisfaction. "Very nice. You have lovely eyes, my dear." He smiled and patted her hand. "Now, let's try a little bit of talking, shall we? Do you know where you are?"

She blinked twice, and then said, "Hospital." Her voice was weak and scratchy, but Adrian felt like turning cartwheels at the sound of it all the same.

Dr. Harmon smiled encouragingly. "That's right." He placed a hand on Adrian's shoulder. "And who is this handsome fellow at your bedside?"

Her gaze tracked to him, and it seemed like she tried to smile but couldn't quite manage it. "Adrian," she rasped. He swallowed the lump in his throat but was unable to stop tears from springing to his eyes as he patted her hand.

"Good," the doctor said approvingly. He checked something on her IV. "Other than your sore throat, are you in any pain right now?" he asked.

"No," she said, following his movements with her eyes.

"Is there anything we can get you?"

Her brow furrowed for a moment. "Julie?"

Adrian smiled. "I'll go get her for you," he said. "She wants to see you too. I'll be right back, okay?" She nodded feebly, and he felt as though he were floating on air as he walked as fast as he could to the waiting room.

"She's awake!" he burst out as he opened the door. Bobby, Peggy, and Julie alternately sprang from their seats at his announcement, excitement on their faces.

"The doctor removed the ventilator already," Adrian said, nearly breathless from exhilaration. "She was having a little trouble breathing at first so he put her on oxygen, and that seemed to help. She's asking for Julie."

"She is?" Julie's face lit up with delight.

"Go on," Adrian said, steering her toward the doorway. "Go see her." Julie rushed out.

Bobby and Peggy were hugging one another in their joy. When they pulled him into the hug as well, he didn't mind at all. He was too happy and relieved to think about anything else. "She said my name," he said, nearly babbling but not caring. "She knows where she is."

"Wonderful news," Bobby said, smiling broadly. "Can we see her?"

"I don't see why not," Adrian said, "although we'll want to make sure we don't overwhelm her. She's pretty disoriented at the moment."

"Why don't you go back to her room," Bobby suggested, "and you can send Julie out to get us once she's ready."

Peggy laid a hand on his arm. "Ask her if she wants to see me, first," she said quietly. "If not, I'll stay back here."

He nodded in acknowledgement and hurried back to Natalie's room. Dr. Harmon was still there, writing something in her chart. Julie was perched in the chair Adrian had vacated, holding her mother's hand and speaking softly.

"Ah, there you are," Dr. Harmon said, spotting him in the doorway as he tucked Natalie's chart away. "I'm going to keep her on oxygen for the next twenty-four hours," he told Adrian in a low voice. "Due to her initial breathing difficulty, she'll spend the night in the ICU, just in case, and if she does well we'll move her to a standard room tomorrow."

He glanced over at Julie and smiled. "Visitors are fine, but try to keep it to one or two people at a time for now, just to make it easier for her. The sedative is still wearing off, so don't be alarmed if she's occasionally confused or drifts in and out of sleep. And be sure to let the nurse know if it seems like she's in pain — sometimes it takes trial and error to get the right dosage of pain medication."

"I will," he promised.

Dr. Harmon patted him on the arm. "I'll be back to check on her tomorrow morning."

After the doctor had gone, Adrian pulled up a chair to the other side of the bed, opposite Julie. "Mom, Adrian's back," Julie told her.

Natalie slowly turned her head to look at him. "Hey," she said weakly.

"Hey," he said gently. "I love you."

She managed a smile — it was tiny, and tremulous, but it was there. "Love you," she said, her voice barely a whisper. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then opened them again, as if summoning her strength. "Julie said — my parents?"

"Yes," he answered, stroking her hair. "Your father and mother are both here. They're in the waiting room right now. They'd like to see you, if you're feeling up to it."

"Mom too?" she asked.

"Yeah," he confirmed. "Is it okay if she comes in?"

Natalie nodded. Julie smiled, and patted her mother's hand. "I'll go get them," she said. She returned a few minutes later with Peggy and Bobby in tow. Adrian moved away from the bed so that they could approach. He hovered in the doorway with Julie, unwilling to leave Natalie for long.

"Hi, Kitten," Bobby said. He kissed Natalie's forehead and took her hand.

"Hello, darling," Peggy said. She smoothed a hand over Natalie's hair.

They talked to her quietly for a few minutes, and then Natalie's eyelids began to droop. She was asleep when Peggy and Bobby crept away from her bedside and out the door.

They took turns staying with her for the rest of the day and into the evening. True to what Dr. Harmon had said, she drifted in and out of sleep, and was occasionally confused during her periods of consciousness. Once, she had asked Julie if Mitch was coming. "Not right now," Julie had answered cryptically, but her mother had drifted off again.

Visiting hours ended at eight o'clock that evening, and Adrian was forced to kiss her goodnight. He hated leaving her, but the nurses assured him that she'd be in good hands. He promised her he'd return at the stroke of eleven the next morning, once visiting hours resumed.