He pulled up in front of her house. They had spent the past two-day weekend at the Lodge in Pine Mountain. They had gone on walks, swam and made love every chance they got.

"I'll see you in three days," he said as he leaned in and kissed her.

He was heading to Florida for a physician's conference with Devon.

"Three days sounds like an eternity."

He knew what she meant. It was becoming hard on them when they were apart.

"You'll be so busy you won't see time pass," he said reassuringly. Even though the words had been destined for her, he was also trying to convince himself.

He saw her bite her lower lip like she did occasionally when she was hesitant about something. "Maybe I can come pick you up at the airport."

He arched his brow. "Devon will be with me."

"I know."

"Is this your way of telling me you want us to go public?"

"I don't want to hide or find ploys anymore to be around you."

"Are you sure?"

He was sure. But he needed to know that she was too.

"I'm happy Conrad. Happier than I've been in a long time, and I don't see why I would want to hide how I feel about you anymore."

He reached out his hand and cupped her face. "You make me extremely happy too. I'll send you the flight details as soon as I have them."

She leaned her head in his hand and smiled. "OK."

He kissed her again and then watched heavy hearted as she let herself into the house. He drove home and packed his bags. At 5pm, the car that was to bring him and Devon to the airport arrived and he left.

As he and Devon sat in their seats waiting for the rest of the plane to board, his phone beeped. He unlocked it and went to the message that had come in.

"Have a safe flight. I miss you."

He smiled.

"I miss you too. I'll call you when I get to the hotel."

He put his phone on airplane mode and put it away in his backpack.

"OK, you want to tell me who has gotten under your skin?" asked Devon playfully.

It was obvious that Conrad was hardly ever with them anymore and always in a good mood… a better mood than he usually was in.

Conrad smiled. "Not yet, but I promise when I do, you'll be the first to know."

"Ha! I knew it. She must be special if she's managed to get your undivided attention."

"Oh, trust me, she is and much more."

To keep herself occupied, Julia added a few rotations to her work schedule, allowing herself to be in multiple surgeries. She and Conrad had spoken a couple of times but only for a couple of minutes and they texted each other as soon as they could.

On the afternoon of the day Conrad was supposed to come back from Florida, Julia headed up to the executive floor for a meeting with Randolph. He was standing over his office table looking at documents when she knocked on the door.

He raised his head and waved her in. "Hi Julia, come on in."

She walked over to him. "Hello Randolph. What have you got for me?"

"The board has given the green light for the trauma OR and also a skills and continuous training lab."

She beamed. "That's great news. We are getting closer to filling in all the requirements to put in our request for level three."

He smiled as well. "Yes. You've managed to do a lot over the past couple of months you've been here. The board is raving about it and so is Red Rock Medical."

She was thrilled to hear it even if she could care less about Red Rock Medical.

"Now," he said as he pointed to what appeared to be the blueprint of the hospital, "we need to find a spot to put that lab."

She leaned over the blueprints. "I'm sure there is a room available somewhere."

"There is," replied Randolph as he put his hands in his pockets, "but only on the basement floors."

"Well, the advantage is that it would be quiet and isolated from the rest of the hospital chaos and other departments."

Randolph pulled out his hands and flipped a few of the pages over. "There are four basement floors: A, B, C and D. A and B are at full capacity."

"What's in C?" asked Julia.

"Not much, only a few rooms that hold archives."

He pulled up the floorplan of level C. "Let's see what decent sized room we can find."

She leaned over it with him. "We need to make sure that we've got all the piping and electricity set up."

He nodded in agreement. He pointed to one of the rooms that seemed rather big. "What about this one? C163?"

She blinked a couple of times and was immediately brought back to her discussion the night she gave Marshall the flash drive. He and his team had tried everything they could to identify what C184 could have meant but they had come up empty handed. They had hit a cul-de-sac and were back to square one.

She scanned the floorplan and identified the room labelled C184. It was on the opposite side of the room Randolph had mentioned.

"I'll go down and have a look at room C163," she said finding the perfect excuse to head down and check if her intuition was right.

"Really? I'd go with you, but I've got a surgery in fifteen minutes."

"Yeah, don't worry about it, I'll go scout it out. After all, it's the basement what could possibly go wrong?"

He laughed at her joke. "Alright. I'll come find you after my surgery and you can tell me what you thought about it. If it suits you and the requirements, then we need to start moving in on the specifications."

She took a picture of the floorplan with her phone. "Don't want to get lost," she said.

"Well, if you don't show up after my surgery, I'll send in the search and rescue team," said Randolph jokingly as he returned to his desk and took his white coat.

"I'll see you later," she said as she walked out of his office determined to go hunting for what she had been longing to find for a long time.

As she reached the elevator, she took out her cellphone and dialed an unknown number. The call went directly to voicemail, and she left a quick message.

"It's me. I think I finally found what C184 is. It's a room in the hospital C level basement. I'm going to go see what I can find. I'll let you know."