Consciousness for Katherine began as a prickling along her ribcage and the steady buzz of electronic equipment in her ears. In the blackness, she could envision a streak of nerves along her side pulsing and flaring as she struggled to find her way to the light. As the blackness began to recede, the prickling morphed into sharp stinging and then into a kind of breath-stealing, searing throb.

"Hu-hu-huh!" She cried as she came fully aware of the pain.

As her limbs jerked, another, less intense injury made itself known on her calf. She groaned, then felt the reassuring squeeze of someone's large hand on her forearm.

"Kat?" Came a familiar murmur. "Are you awake?"

One by one, she lifted her heavy lids and blinked several times until Leem came into focus. She realized she was in a hospital room, stretched out on a bed. The lights had been dimmed but they were still bright enough to cause her to squint. She shifted again on her narrow mattress. Her arms and legs felt sluggish and her heart beat like the thrum of hummingbird wings in her chest.

"Leem?" She rasped.

She studied his atypically handsome face anxiously. His greyish green eyes were dark underneath a heavy brow and the corners of his full lips tense. He had a conflicted, pensive expression but otherwise looked in perfect health. She tried to remember why she might have thought differently. Then she saw a rush of images and heard the echoes of gunshots as she vividly recalled her most recent harrowing memories. She jolted, tried to sit up, but her head swam and she felt sick to her stomach. She inhaled a hiss of air between her teeth.

"Whoa, there, Miss Kat," Leem cajoled. "You're safe, you're a wee bit damaged, but safe. Just rest, okay?"

She drew in a shuddering breath. The pain along her ribs was excruciating.

"Unh," she groaned. "Christ, I hurt. Was I-I shot?"

Leem moved closer, leaned over her reclined form and brushed hair back from her face. "Yes, you mad woman. You took two bullets that should have been mine ta catch. One sliced your lower leg which they stitched up, the other ricocheted off your rib but not before bustin' it in a few pieces. You had surgery and got a couple pins holding the bone together. You'll heal, though. You're lucky your Dr. Ross was such a terrible shot."

Kat clutched at his arm and lifted her head from the thin pillow. "Dr. Ross!?"

Leem's eyes went nearly black. He cricked his neck.

"He's dead, Kat. Unfortunately that first shot of yours didn't quite incapacitate him. I unloaded the rest of my clip into the sorry son of a bitch after he shot you."

"Does Mycroft know? Do they know what Dr. Ross was up to?"

"Yeah, shit's hittin' the fan, Kat. All thanks to you. The past day has been nuts. Fil cracked the encrypted files ya sent him with a bit of help from Sherlock and they've been clearing house rootin' out all the professor's co-conspirators. It's all out there now. Mycroft thinks you won't have anything to worry about after this."

She breathed a sigh of relief but winced as another knife of pain lanced her side. "A-ah, shit!"

Katherine closed her eyes and let her head fall back as she sucked in air over and over to will away the agony blossoming along her side. Large, strong fingers threaded between hers and a hand stroked her head.

"Squeeze my hand, Kat," her companion said softly. "I know it hurts, I'm sorry."

She nodded and continued to breathe as she gripped him firmly but soon, trembled all over from the effort to control the pain. Tears rolled from her lids and down her cheeks. She felt a thumb brush them away and then lips press to her forehead.

"I'm sorry, Kat," Leem whispered, "they didn't want to give ya too much medication on account of your, um, current health status. Do ya want me to go get the nurse? I don't know how much they can do for you. Ya might just have to bear it-"

She was about to nod but there was an odd undercurrent in his voice.

"Wh-wh-what do you mean about my 'health status'?" She asked.

All manner of apocalyptic scenarios ran through her mind. Had they discovered something while she was unconscious? Did she have a massive tumor or raging venereal disease or some other terminal illness?

He swallowed. "Ah, let me just go get the nurse . . ."

Leem tried to stand up but she grasped at his arm and refused to let go. "Leem Coley, spill it, n-now."

Whatever was wrong with her, she wanted to hear it from him. He sat back down with a strange, almost guilty look on his face like a pup who had stolen food from the table. His eyes dropped to the floor and he fiddled with the edge of the cot's sheet. He opened his mouth to speak several times, his lips formed words but speech seemed to falter him. Finally, he inhaled a chest-filling breath and looked up at her with eyes a little too large for his face.

"Y-You are . . . " He closed his eyes briefly and raised his brows, "you're expectin'. . . a baby, that is. You're pregnant."

If ever there was an effective, non-medicinal pain reliever, that kind of news would be it. Katherine blinked at him too many times to count, her ribs completely forgotten. She searched his face. It had to be some kind of joke. She had been taking her birth control steadily, well, except for the last little while during all the chaos of fleeing to and from Eastern Europe. She slapped a hand over her mouth. They'd had sex all of two times but the most recent was barely a week or so ago. She must have become pregnant the very first time they'd had sex.

"Oh my god," she whispered.

Leem folded her other hand between his and stared down at it as he rubbed his fingers over her flesh. "N-Now, I don't want ta assume too much but it's very recent accordin' to the docs an' as far as I know, you hadn't been with anyone else. So, um, yeah, what I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry for you findin' yourself in this position but I'll support you whatever you want ta do . . . if you don't plan ta keep it, you can ask for medication. They just wanted to see what you preferred first before . . . b-before dosing the little one any further."

Katherine raised her head, looked down at her midsection and slid her free hand over her belly which was beneath the layers of bedding and her hospital gown. She didn't feel any different yet somehow, she knew what he spoke was the truth. She let her head fall again. A lingering weakness made it hard for her to do anything except lie there. The information seeped through her consciousness and sunk in. She was pregnant . . . with his baby. Their eyes met and she felt herself flush all over.

"Kat, d-do you want me to get someone?"

She shook her head quickly, her decision instantly made. "No, no, I can manage. I don't want any medication."

Leem appeared to breathe a sigh of relief and then proceeded to look flustered. His face turned pink and he cleared his throat.

"Alright, then," he murmured. "Mm, ahem, is there anything else I can get you? Are you thirsty? Hungry?"

Katherine couldn't fathom eating. Her stomach felt a bit queasy. Lord, was that her run-in with death or the baby? Baby! Her whole life had been focused on education, research, and her career. She had all but given up on finding a man she could settle down with and have a family. No one had seemed to want a headstrong math professor with a taste for misadventure as a partner. Her eyes flicked to Leem. She would give her left arm to know what he was thinking at that instance. Was he upset?

"I'm not hungry, thank-you," she replied finally.

Her voice sounded thready and thin. The pain in her ribs returned with a vengeance and she shut her eyes once more.

"Shite, I shouldn't have told you all that yet," Leem muttered. "You're pale. How are you feeling, Sweetheart?"

Her heart skipped a beat. Sweetheart! That had to be a slip of the tongue.

"I'm not going to lie, it hurts a lot. I feel like someone struck me with a sledgehammer."

Leem's fingers worked their way over her scalp and massaged it gingerly. Hope sparked within her. He was comforting her, he was there, he hadn't run screaming into the night with this earth-shattering revelation.

"Ah, well, you're managin' it better than I did the first time I got shot. I was moanin' like a beached manatee. Just relax and try not ta move too much. Eventually your body will find a way to numb itself."

She nodded. His fingers were working a kind of magic. She felt herself drift a bit, away from the pain and away from consciousness. She was exhausted, in actual fact. That bit of time awake had sapped her already low energy reserves. The more he rubbed her scalp, the more her thoughts seemed to scatter.

"I'm sorry, Leem," she mumbled. "I almost got you killed twice."

He laughed. The low vibration of it rolled over her like a soothing balm.

"Don't worry about it," his voice had begun to fade.

"But I screwed up, didn't I? I made a mess of things."

Lips feathered against her forehead again. "No, Kat, you did good."

His voice, a little more distant, was the last thing she heard before falling asleep.

"You did good."