Very quickly the heat rose in the room. The fire was growing wilder and wilder, gaining territory, and filling up the room with smoke.

Conrad tried to free his hands, but it was useless. He then did the only thing he could. He called out for help.

He was finding it harder and harder to breathe but kept calling out. The fire was getting closer to Julia, and he would have given anything to be somewhere else with her.

The smoke was rendering his visibility difficult, and he could hardly see her anymore through the thickness of it.

Suddenly, the door was kicked in and he saw shadows through the smoke. Within seconds, his father, Randolph, Al, and AJ were kneeling around him.

"Conrad! Hang on!" yelled his father as they tried to free him.

"Julia!" yelled Conrad, "you need to get her out, she's in bad shape, she's running out of time."

Al and AJ stood instantly and looked around the room, but they couldn't see anything.

"Where?" yelled Al.

"On the left, ten feet away, there's a second pole" said Conrad as Randolph started to saw the cable tie with his car keys. He watched helplessly as AJ and Al disappeared.

Once the cable tie was severed, Conrad stood with the help of his father and started out toward where Julia had been.

Marshall and Randolph held him back and pushed him out of the room and into the corridor.

"I can't leave her!" said Conrad as he tried to push his father away.

"They'll get her out, son. Just give them a few minutes."

His eyes remained on the door and without realizing it tears were flowing from his eyes. He couldn't lose her; it wasn't an option.

A few minutes later, AJ and Al walked out of the room. AJ was carrying a lifeless Julia as he locked eyes with Conrad.

"She's still alive but we're running out of time."

He turned his attention to Randolph as he set out toward the elevators.

"I need a gurney the minute we step out of the elevator on the surgical floor. I need all hands-on deck, meaning you, Al, and Mina. Have O neg bags available and launch the massive transfusion protocol."

Randolph nodded and hastened out in front of them as he took his phone out.

Al's assistant and nurses were waiting for them with a gurney the minute they stepped off the elevator. AJ placed her down on it delicately before rushing into the scrub room to prep, where Mina was already waiting for him.

As they started to wheel her toward the automatic doors that led inside the OR, Conrad grabbed the railing and stopped it.

Al watched speechless as Conrad caressed the side of her face, then kissed her blood-drained lips. He then removed his lips and placed them next to her ear.

"Be strong and shoot for the moon," he whispered. In asking her to shoot for the moon, further out than any star, he was begging her to fight harder than she had ever fought in her life. He knew a star or anywhere in between wouldn't be enough to save her. "I love you and I plan on telling you that when you're awake and every day from that moment on."

Al swallowed. Conrad hadn't done those things or said that because they had been in a life-threatening situation, it was obvious that he loved her, and he knew he had lost his chance at ever winning Julia back.

Marshall took Conrad by the shoulders and pulled him back gently.

"Let's go!" said Al as he followed the gurney inside the OR and disappeared.

Conrad paced the gallery as he watched the surgery. It had been an hour and they were still trying to fix the injured organs.

"There's nothing to salvage from the gallbladder," said Randolph as he looked at it and touched it. He looked at the nurse. "Fifteen-blade."

Al checked her intestines, part of them had been torn by the bullet.

"I need to resect the small intestine. Ten-blade."

Kit rushed into the gallery and gasped upon seeing Julia on the operating table tended to by four surgeons. She had heard that she and Conrad had been injured, but she was far from thinking it was this bad.

"How is she?" she asked Conrad never removing her eyes from the table.

"She's hanging in there. They need to remove her gallbladder and part of her intestine. They've only found one of the two bullets so far."

Kit nodded. "She's strong, Conrad. She'll pull through."

"I don't know what I'll do if I lose her," he said his eyes fixated on the only part of her he could see, her face.

"No matter what happens, don't ever doubt that she didn't fight to come back."

He nodded and then started to cough. He knew that both he and Julia had inhaled quite a lot of smoke. He coughed again and then stumbled a bit losing his balance.

"You inhaled smoke, Conrad. You need to get an x-ray and get oxygen," said Kit as she placed her hand on his bent over back.

The gallery door opened.

He shook his head. "I'm not leaving her."

"Son, there is nothing you can do for Julia right now. When she wakes up, she's going to need you. You've done all you could, let them take over."

Conrad straightened and looked at his father who was accompanied by Devon.

Marshall searched Conrad's eyes and saw so much pain, it hurt him too. He felt just as awful as Conrad did. He had promised to look out for Julia, keep her safe, and he had failed. He knew he should never have let her go down there alone. "I'll stay here and keep you posted until you're done."

"Come on Conrad, let us take care of you," said Devon. "Julia can't see you like this."

Conrad nodded and followed Kit and Devon out of the gallery and down to the ER.

Everyone watched silently as they entered the ER. There were all now fully aware of what had happened, and they trembled with fear hoping that Julia would make it.

Devon took his blood pressure, oxygen level and listened to his lungs. As Kit cleaned his head wound, Devon called over the portable X-ray to check Conrad's lungs.

He gave a sigh of relief. They were hit, but not too badly. Conrad was a doctor, and he knew upon looking at the x-ray that he was lucky.

"Your sat is still a bit low, I'll give you a bronchodilator and hopefully it will improve."

Conrad sat impatiently as he did the nebulizer and Kit stitched the side of his head. He was impatient to head back up to the OR. His father had texted him that there was no new information and that she was stable, but still, he needed to be there.

As the nebulizer improved drastically his saturation and knowing they wouldn't be able to keep him in the ER longer, they agreed to let him loose.