The media furor didn't die down after the press conference as they'd hoped. Natalie was supremely annoyed. She'd spent two weeks stuck inside the house on bed rest, and now she felt like a prisoner in her own home again, as going out meant dealing with reporters. The national attention seemed to have subsided, but the story was still a local sensation, thanks to Adrian's city-wide fame.

When Drs. Bell and Hector arrived on Friday evening, Natalie felt she had to apologize for the phalanx of reporters that still manned the public sidewalk outside her home. "Has it been like this all week?" Dr. Hector asked, glancing out the window.

"Yes," Natalie admitted. "We were hoping they'd lose interest and go away after a few days, but it didn't happen."

"How aggravating." But Dr. Hector smiled at her. "You seem to be holding up well under the stress, though."

Natalie flushed, pleased she thought so. "I guess it's making the limited activity easier to manage, since I really don't want to leave the house if I can help it."

"Silver linings," Dr. Bell said. His smile grew wider as Adrian came down the stairs. "Hello, Adrian."

He nodded at him and Dr. Hector. "Thanks for coming by."

"It's our pleasure," Dr. Hector said, reaching into her large burgundy leather purse. She drew out a stethoscope. "Well, Natalie, ready for the moment of truth?"

They went upstairs to her bedroom, where Natalie patiently submitted to Dr. Hector's examination as Adrian and Dr. Bell waited downstairs. It was thorough, just as the doctor had promised several weeks before. The doctor checked her lungs, felt her ribs, examined her forehead, and inspected her chest incision, just as Dr. Harmon had. She also insisted on watching Natalie weigh herself, and even looked in her medicine cabinet to inspect her remaining bottles of painkillers.

Once she was done, it was Dr. Bell's turn. He quizzed her thoroughly about her mental state. Natalie openly admitted to the nightmares, even though they had lessened in frequency, the panic attack the previous Sunday, and her inability to even think about driving again. Dr. Bell didn't seem surprised by any of her revelations, leading her to suspect that he'd already heard about them from Adrian.

The two doctors quietly conferred in the kitchen while Adrian and Natalie waited in the living room. Natalie couldn't stay still. She alternately drummed her fingers and picked at the couch cushions until Adrian grabbed her hands and held them tightly. "Relax," he urged.

"I can't," she said, shooting an anxious look in the direction of the kitchen. "What if she thinks I'm not healed enough for June fourth?"

"Then we'll get married on July thirtieth instead."

"Adrian, I don't want to wait that long." The heat in her gaze had him blushing. "Waiting until June is going to be hard enough the way it is."

"I know," he said, his throat tight with longing. "But we'll manage, whatever happens."

Drs. Bell and Hector came in then, and they jumped to their feet. "Well?" Natalie said nervously.

The two doctors exchanged a glance. "I'm very pleased with your progress," Dr. Hector said, unable to keep from smiling. "Keep on recovering at this rate, and you'll be back to one hundred percent in no time. You're cleared for June."

"Yes!" Natalie crowed. She threw herself into Adrian's arms, and they hugged in mutual jubilation.

"It's very good timing," Dr. Hector said, "especially since I offered Sharona a job this morning."

"You did?" Adrian said, his eyes wide with surprise. Sharona hadn't said a thing to them about it.

"She didn't want to officially accept until after I examined Natalie," Dr. Hector explained. "But I'm going to call her later tonight with my findings, and I hope she'll formally accept then."

"I'll call her, too, and tell her she's fired, effective immediately," Natalie said, laughing.

"There's just one caveat," Dr. Bell said, tempering their enthusiasm a little. "I would like to start regular sessions with you, Natalie. We don't want any more panic attacks before – or on – the big day, and I don't like the sound of those nightmares, either."

"I understand," Natalie said, sounding more than a little relieved. "I'll call your office first thing on Monday to schedule an appointment. I promise."

"See that you do," he said, but he was smiling. "Now, regarding your unwelcome visitors – " He glanced out the window. "I think you should give an interview."

Adrian shook his head immediately. "Dr. Bell, I really don't want – "

"I know," Dr. Bell interrupted. "You don't want your private lives all over the television or the papers. But if you give one interview to someone you can trust to be fair, and not play up the more… sensational… side of things, it'll serve to satisfy public curiosity. And once the facts are out, it'll make the paparazzi over there lose interest in hounding you."

Natalie touched Adrian's hand. "Maybe we should consider it."

"I don't trust anyone in the media," he protested.

"What about that journalist at the Dispatch who always writes about you?" Dr. Bell asked. "I've always found her articles fair and objective."

Adrian frowned. "She wrote an article about our engagement."

"I saw it," Dr. Bell said, nodding. "It struck me as a very balanced and respectful piece. It said she called you for comment, didn't it?"

He nodded grudgingly.

"Many reporters wouldn't have done even that much," Dr. Bell said reasonably. "But she tried to give you the opportunity to comment before she ran the story."

Adrian and Natalie shared a long, contemplative glance. "We'll think about it," Adrian said at last.

"We'd best be going, as we've taken up enough of your time," Dr. Hector said smoothly. "But I do hope we'll get one of those wedding invitations."

"Count on it," Natalie said, smiling.


After long discussions with Natalie over the weekend, Adrian ended up calling Susanne Campana on Monday. She was enthusiastic about his request for an interview, so much so that she volunteered to come that evening. He could sense an air of disappointment around the reporters still camped out on their sidewalk when she pulled into their driveway, and he hoped fervently that Dr. Bell was right about the interview dispelling the media attention.

Susanne Campana gave him a dazzling smile when he opened the front door and ushered her inside. "Thank you so much for this opportunity, Mr. Monk. I was thrilled beyond words when you called this morning." She was an attractive Latina woman in her mid-thirties, with ringlets of dark silky hair, skin the color of café au lait, and huge dark eyes. She was also surprisingly tall, towering over Natalie and even two inches above himself at a height of nearly six feet. Monk saw with a practiced eye that she was really five foot nine, but wore three inch heels to augment her height. She looked faintly familiar, although, to his chagrin, he couldn't recall where he'd seen her before. Her picture had never appeared with her byline that he could remember.

"To be completely honest, Ms. Campana," he said, closing the door, "I'm still not entirely sure this is a good idea, but – " He glanced at Natalie, who had risen from the couch to greet the reporter, "we felt we had to do something to get the vultures out there to lose interest."

"I understand," Susanne said warmly. "I promise you that I'm not interested in making a sensation, but only in reporting the truth. I used to work with your late wife, you know."

"What?" He took a step back in his shock. "You worked with Trudy?"

She nodded. "I was an intern at the Chronicle when she was a reporter there. She taught me a lot. It's one of the reasons I've followed your career so closely."

Adrian's eyes narrowed as his brain rapidly flipped through a mental file. "You were Susie Hernandez?"

Her eyes widened in surprise. "Hernandez is my maiden name, yes."

"Trudy mentioned you occasionally," he said. Another memory flashed before his eyes, and he suddenly realized where he'd seen her before. "And… you were at her funeral, weren't you?"

"That's right," she confirmed. "I wasn't sure you'd remember."

"He remembers everything," Natalie said, slipping an arm around his waist.

Susanne grinned. "Of course he does."

Trudy had spoken highly of her, Adrian recalled. She'd been impressed by the intern's tenacity and her willingness to learn. It made him feel much better about the interview ahead. Trudy would have refused to work with anyone, intern or otherwise, if she'd had any doubts about their integrity, or their dedication to their craft.

They seated themselves in the living room. Adrian and Natalie sat on the sofa, holding hands tightly, while Susanne took the chair next to the couch. She took out a small tape recorder – much slimmer and sleeker than the one that Adrian remembered Trudy using – and, after setting it on the coffee table, turned it on. "Do I have your permission to record this interview?" she asked.

Both Adrian and Natalie gave verbal assent, and Susanne, for the benefit of the recorder, stated her name, their names, the date, and the time. "Now, I'm going to ask a lot of questions, and many of them will be very personal," she said, "but they're going to be mostly for my own information, so that I can get a thorough picture. If you want something off the record, just say so, all right?" At their nods, she got down to business.

"I'm going to start with the big question that's on everyone's mind at the moment," she said. "When exactly did you find out about the connection between your late spouses?"

"About four months ago. To be precise, it was the day after Christmas," Adrian said. "I found some files of Trudy's that I'd had no idea existed until that day. With the files, there was a cassette tape labeled with my name. In that tape, Trudy named Natalie's late husband as a confidential informant."

"How did you find the files?"

Adrian explained about the last Christmas gift from Trudy he'd kept under his tree for so many years, and where it had led.

"What made you decide to open it at last?" Susanne asked. She leaned forward slightly, eager for his answer.

"I – " He fumbled a little, glancing at Natalie. She seemed equally as interested as Susanne. "I'm not entirely sure. In hindsight, I think it was because a part of me had made the decision to… well… to move on, but I couldn't do that until I'd... tied up some loose ends. Trudy's last gift was one of them."

"Did Ms. Teeger play a role in your decision to move on?"

He flushed. "Again, in hindsight… I think she was the reason. But I didn't fully understand that at the time."

"So, at the time you discovered the connection between Mitch and Trudy, the two of you weren't… involved?"

"Not romantically, no," Natalie said, shaking her head.

"When did that come about?"

Sensing that Adrian was feeling rather tongue-tied, Natalie decided to continue the story. "It was a few days after Christmas, I guess, that we… mutually admitted our feelings for one another."

"Mr. Monk indicated his feelings for you predated the discovery of Trudy's files. What about yours for him? Did they predate the discovery as well?"

She flushed, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. "They did."

At her admission, Adrian sat up straight. He turned to look at her.

"May I ask how long?" Susanne said gently.

"I – " Natalie almost considered fibbing for a moment, but she couldn't bring herself to be less than wholly honest, especially in view of Adrian's candor. "Around two years, I guess."

Adrian couldn't contain his surprise. "Two years?" She'd had romantic feelings for him for that long? Leland had suggested as much to him, but he hadn't really believed it. How was it possible that he, one of the world's greatest detectives, had been so completely oblivious to what was right in front of his eyes?

"Was there a specific moment?" Susanne pressed, ignoring Adrian's comment. "When you realized your feelings went deeper than friendship?"

"It was when I thought he was dead," Natalie said, her voice starting to tremble. She swallowed hard, making an effort to steady herself. "For days, I thought he was dead. And then I found out he wasn't, and I – " She swallowed again. "I went to find him, and when I saw him, alive, I just… I went a little crazy, I think." A self-conscious smile touched her lips. "But, like Adrian, I don't think I fully understood why at the time."

She'd kissed him, all over his face, Adrian remembered. Not on the lips, although she'd come close once or twice. How had he been so blind?

"That was during the incident with Sheriff Rollins and the parade bomb," Susanne said, and Natalie nodded.

"What about you, Mr. Monk?" Susanne asked, smoothly switching targets. "How long do you think your feelings had existed?"

"Not that long," he said, still floored by Natalie's admission. "You wrote, as I recall, an article about the case with the voodoo dolls?"

Susanne nodded as Natalie shuddered at the memory.

"Natalie was being attacked in the ambulance," he said, his eyes distant as he recalled the event. "I could see her struggling with Angeline Dilworth, and I was worried sick. After we managed to run the ambulance off the road, I ran over to it, opened the doors, and pulled her into my arms. And for a while there… I didn't want to let her go."

Natalie remembered that moment clearly. He'd thrown open the ambulance doors and grabbed for her. She'd collapsed into his arms with weak relief… and he'd hugged her to him, something he'd never done before.

Adrian blushed, having said more than he'd intended. "It still took me a while – a long while – afterwards to figure out what I was feeling, and why."

"What was the catalyst that led the two of you to finally acknowledge your feelings for each other? Was it the discovery of Mitch and Trudy's connection?"

"I think so," Adrian said, glancing at Natalie for confirmation.

She nodded. "We had a lot of complicated feelings to work through, related to their cases, and it sort of… brought all of our emotions to the surface."

"You said earlier that your involvement started a few days after Christmas. Was there a dramatic moment of truth, or was it more understated?"

"There was a moment of truth for me," Adrian said, squeezing Natalie's hand. "It was during the hostage situation with Wallace Dougal. I realized, right then, that I was in love with her, and later that night, after everything had calmed down and we were back at my place, I told her so."

Susanne turned keen eyes to Natalie. "And did you reciprocate at that time?"

Natalie shook her head. "Not right away. I still had some reservations. It wasn't until New Year's Eve that I… responded in kind."

"At the Gala?" Susanne said knowingly.

Adrian and Natalie both laughed. "Yes, at the Gala," Adrian confirmed. "I don't suppose you'd be interested in sharing the source who saw us 'dancing intimately'?"

"I never reveal my sources, Mr. Monk," Susanne said, her eyes dancing with humor. "I will say, however, that having a brother in the SFPD means that I know a lot of cops, many of whom were in attendance that night."

The interview continued along the same lines for about an hour more. At times, both Adrian and Natalie forgot they were talking with a reporter; she had a clever way of making them feel like they were old friends just chatting about this and that. Trudy had mastered that ability as well, Adrian recalled.

He told the story of their engagement, but kept the part about Natalie's initial reaction to his proposal off the record; they discussed Natalie's accident (but studiously avoided any mention of the argument that had preceded it) and her favorable prognosis, as well as the wedding now definitely planned for June fourth (Cassandra had, that very morning, given their printer the green light to print and mail the invitations). Both of them expressed their pride and pleasure at the awards being granted to both Trudy and Mitch by the Navy.

Adrian breathed a sigh of relief when Susanne turned her recorder off. He'd talked much more freely than he'd anticipated, and he hoped desperately that his trust in her wasn't misplaced. His gut told him it wasn't, so he tried not to second-guess his own instincts.

"Once again, Mr. Monk, it was a pleasure," Susanne said. She offered Natalie a handshake. "And thank you, Ms. Teeger, for your time, and your candor."

"Do you know when the story will be published?" Natalie asked.

"My editor has big plans for the front page of the Sunday edition," Susanne said with a smile. "But below the fold, he says. I just hope I can get it written in time."

Somehow, Adrian didn't doubt that she would. He ushered her out, and the minute the door was shut, he turned to face Natalie. "Two years?"

From where she was still seated on the couch, Natalie blushed. "I guess kissing you all over your face wasn't an obvious clue?"

"It should have been." He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling like a fool. "I don't know why it wasn't."

She tilted her head and smiled. "Well, as I recall, we were a little busy trying to save our own lives at the time… and then trying to save the governor's life."

"That's true," he acknowledged, "but afterwards, you'd think the notion would have at least occurred to me."

She shook her head. "You probably just dismissed it as me being overexcited."

He flushed. That was precisely what he'd done. But now that he looked back, really looked back, at their interactions over the past two years, he could see other clues. Her suggestion that they should kiss while on a stakeout outside Patrick Kloster's house. Their argument after she'd started working as a lottery hostess, which had been more like a couple's argument than one between an employer and employee. Her eyes shining with pride during the special about his 100th case. Her shriek of terror after he'd been shot by John Kuramoto, and the fact she'd nearly worked herself to death afterwards to make up for what had happened — in fact, now that he thought about it, Leland Stottlemeyer had all but told him the truth at Kuramoto's crime scene. The fervent embrace she'd given him after he'd been rescued from Karl Torini. He could think of a dozen other instances.

"I'm an idiot," he said with dawning realization. It was like he'd just solved a case. He felt like he should launch into a "here's what happened" spiel.

"You're not an idiot," Natalie laughed. "Maybe a little oblivious, but not an idiot."

"What would you have done if I'd never stopped being oblivious?" he asked curiously.

She shrugged. "We would have just gone on as we were, I guess."

He cocked his head. "You would have been content with that?"

Sighing, she stretched and settled back against the couch cushions. "I was happy being with you as your assistant, and your friend. I thought it was too much to hope for anything more. I never expected you to reciprocate my feelings, Adrian, not in a million years. You have no idea what a shock it was when you did."

"I was rather shocked myself," he admitted. He eased down on the couch beside her. "I wasn't expecting to fall in love with you."

She snorted. "That makes two of us."

"Well," he said, matching her pose and leaning back against the couch cushions, "I guess that only leaves one problem."

She turned her head toward his. "What problem?"

"How I'm going to keep myself from making love to you tonight." He smiled ruefully. "I'm feeling the need to make up for my idiocy."

She leaned over and kissed him, lightly. "You have the whole rest of our lives, starting on our wedding night, to do that." At his pained look, she smirked slightly. "It was your idea, and I'm holding you to it if it kills me. Which it might very well do."

"What if it kills me?" he asked plaintively.

"You somehow managed to restrain yourself around me for several years," she reminded him, laughing at his hangdog expression. "I think you can make it six more weeks."

"I didn't know what I was missing then," he said mournfully. He shifted to sit up, his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. "If I had known what you were capable of, I would have grabbed you the very first day you walked into my apartment, and had my way with you on the foyer floor."

"Adrian!" Shocked, but secretly a little flattered, she playfully punched his shoulder.

"What?" he protested. "It's true."

"No, it's not," she said, shaking her head a little at the very idea of him even considering making love on the floor, even as a joke. "But I'm pleased that you think so."

"Pleased enough to make me eat my words about the whole wedding night thing?" he asked hopefully.

She smiled sweetly. "No."

"Damn," he sighed, and settled back on the couch.