Happy Monday everyone... my life should now be returning to normal (hurray!) so regular daily chapters can renew.

Thanks for the reviews as always.

SPOILERS - this week - The kids plan their wedding present, Scott makes a confession and David makes a discovery

...

The following morning Bianca prepared herself for surgery. Marissa had dropped by before work with the kids to wish her love and luck. Erica and Jackson were going to be visiting afterwards. She wasn't in danger of being lonely today.

…

Frankie entered with David Hayward just before one o'clock. David had elected to do the surgery. He had been the last doctor to operate on her calf and was the best qualified to know what they would find under the mass of scar tissue.

"Did you have a good night?" David asked as he picked up her medical file.

"I had an excellent night." said Bianca straightening up and smiling.

Frankie smiled too.

"…Yes I heard about your late night visitor." he said.

Bianca's cheeks pinked slightly and she coughed to hide her embarrassment.

"Marissa just needed to talk." she said innocently.

Frankie nodded but he wore a knowing smile.

"Well I'll have you home soon." said David kindly before stepping to one side to let the orderlies in with the trolley that would be taking Bianca to the operating room.

Bianca however held David's gaze.

"Just promise me that you won't dose me with your serum while I'm under."

"I wouldn't." David protested.

Frankie patted his arm.

"I wouldn't let him." the younger doctor added. "Trust me Bianca you are the best hands."

…

David scrubbed up for surgery but his mind was elsewhere. He had been working hard over the last weeks to solve the problems with his Orpheus serum. He had taken Frankie's advice and gotten copies of his original research back from the Mexican authorities. Going back over the records of his old patients he was still struggling to find the pattern.

"Are you ready?" Frankie asked lifting him from his thoughts.

"I am." he said

David followed Frankie through to the operating room. Bianca was unconscious, lying face down on the bed her left leg exposed.

David felt her way down her calf, familiarising himself with the tendons and muscles under the skin and how the scar tissue had distorted them.

Looking at the rough scaring left by his makeshift surgery David's thoughts went back to just how ill Bianca all those weeks ago and the infection he'd been forced to cut out of her. When he'd then been made to inject the Orpheus serum into her spine he'd been so worried it would kill her in her weakened state; instead it seemed to have worked the miracle he always knew it would...

David paused he scalpel inches from the first incision.

…Her weakened state…

David had great success with his Orpheus treatment at the start but he began his experiments on the near dead. With the exception of Leora his 'patients' had always been barely viable and it had always been a fight to bring them back from the brink. He'd succeeded each time. Bringing Greenlee back with her body shattered from the crash, bringing Dixie back after her internal organs had been shut down by poison; even while he was treating Erica's nerve damage she had been recovering from organ failure.

Could it be that Orpheus only work when his patient's body was fighting another ailment?

David's mind quickly went through Bianca's recover and failures. When he had first treated her paralysis she had been recovering from a gunshot wound but the biggest change happened after the physical shock of falling out of bed… Her next treatment had been to restore the degrading nerves on her left side, Globonox's tampering with his drugs had caused him to poison his patient and then Ricky's attempt at murder had so nearly succeeded. Bianca had a lot to recover from that time too and she did, but she was in such a rush to get home she wouldn't let him finish the treatment… And this time… this time she had been starved and delirious with fever and suddenly sensation in her paralysed leg had returned…

David had always believed that a healthy patient would respond better to his formula, could it really be that the opposite was true?

"…David… DAVID!"

David became aware of Frankie calling his name.

"Yes." he said returning his focus to the scalpel in his hand.

"David, are you alright? You zoned out there for a moment."

"I was just planning the incision." he said, bluffing his way through his distracted thoughts.

He made the first cut.

If that was true and Orpheus only worked on the sick then it might be already too late for Bianca, he might already be too late to save her leg. David looked up briefly at Bianca's unconscious form. She was so much fitter and healthier now. Once she had recovered from this minor surgery she could go home to her family. Her leg was always going to be damaged; there was no rescuing it now. If he was right about his theory she was now too healthy for his serum to work.

David got on with Bianca's surgery. He tried to keep his focus but all the while his mind was busy with the thought that he might have solved the problem with Orpheus after all. If he went back over he notes he would probably have enough evidence to prove it.

For Orpheus to work you had to be sick already?

…