I'd like to thank everyone who has been reading this fic and especially those who have taken the time to leave a review (and with special thanks to Nans and Mila, who I can't thank privately). I very much appreciate it and quite honestly, it's pretty inspiring! And finally a very grateful shout-out to my friend, N, who gave me some excellent beta help!

"You had me arrested?" The rather incredulous question was asked in a very irate voice by a very angry woman. She was standing in the lobby of the Santa Barbara Police Station while Lee Crane signed the papers for her release. "I can't believe you had me arrested!"

Lee Crane knew the young woman had a temper. He'd seen her fury unleashed once before when a pushy botanist had insisted on barging unannounced into the admiral's office. Angie had very nearly forechecked the man and then gave him a verbal lashing that left the botanist backing out of the office, apologizing profusely. At the time Lee had hoped to never be on the receiving end of her anger. He wished now he had remembered that. Ushering her by the elbow towards the door, persisting even when she brushed him off, he said, "I'm sorry. I didn't know what else to do to get you to stay."

"Asking would have been a start. I can't believe you had me arrested!"

"I read your letter. You seemed to be hell-bent on leaving. I wanted to talk to you before you left." They were outside now, in the shadows of palm trees and puffy, white clouds. "Angie, I know you went to his room and something happened that upset you."

Brushing off his hand once and for all, she huffed. "Nothing happened." She was walking at a brisk pace, to where she had no idea.

Jogging ahead of her, Lee came to a stop in front of her, essentially blocking her way. "Angie, please."

"No, Lee. I know what you're going to say and you're wrong. I hurt him, don't you see? I remind him of her and every time he sees me, he'll remember what happened. I won't do that to him and I won't do that to myself."

"Please tell me what happened."

"I told you, nothing happened."

"Something happened. Something made you run away."

"Is that what he thinks? That I ran away from him?" She hated that he might think that of her, that she'd run away from him, but it was true.

"No, he doesn't think that. He doesn't know that you left Los Gatos actually."

"You haven't told him?" She was angry again, leveling an accusatory scowl his way, making Lee realize the admiral wasn't the only one who could cast a withering glare.

"Doc's afraid if we tell him it'll just make his recovery that much slower."

"So not only am I responsible for shooting him, I'm also responsible for him not getting better." She needed to sit down somewhere, anywhere, before her legs gave out. Thankfully, there was a vacant bench near the bus stop.

"No, of course not." He sat down next to her, the breeze ruffling his hair. "It's just, well, he feels responsible for what happened to you and in his mind the fact that you haven't been by to see him just exacerbates that."

"But that's not true. Not at all!"

"He doesn't know that."

"You could tell him. He'll listen to you. I know he did everything he could. She had him chained up like an animal but he tried to fight. He told me to tell them everything I could remember and I did. I thought it would help but it didn't. They were going to kill me but something changed her mind." Her hands rested in her lap, her hands fidgeting.

Lee could tell by the look on her face that she was there in that room relaying everything as she remembered it.

"She gave me a shot of something that made my heart race so fast I thought it was going to kill me." She tilted her head, remembering some specific detail that she hadn't before. "I thought it was me but it was him," she said, distantly.

Confused by her disjointed words, Lee was confused. "What was him?"

"The cry. It was like nothing I'd ever heard before. Agonizing and sickening." She turned to look at Lee. "That must have been when she stabbed him. My God, Lee no wonder he's afraid of me." She stood up from the bench and walked away, turning the corner and disappearing from view.

And this time Lee Crane did nothing to stop her.

Santa Barbara – Three Days Later

Nelson leaned heavily against the railing, looking out at the ocean, the breeze ruffling his auburn hair, as the distant sound of the surf crashed against the rocky shore. The tide was going out and soon the tidal pools would be exposed, stranding starfish and anemones until the sea returned to claim them. The simple pleasure of walking along the beach - he missed that. If Lydia Parrish had wanted to hurt him, she well and truly had succeeded. She'd banished him to land for the foreseeable future and had taken away everything he held in esteem: the institute, Seaview, Angie. He was Doctor Jamieson's captive now, destined to spend the next four to six weeks resting, recuperating, and rehabbing. And when he returned to the institute, what then? Would Angie even be there? She hadn't been to see him. She hadn't called. And despite his numerous questions, all he'd ever been told was that she was taking some time off. Deep down, he knew it was a lie. They were trying to protect him but he'd had enough! He wanted to know the truth. If she couldn't look at him, couldn't bear to be around him, then he wanted, no, he needed to know.

Looking but not seeing the bright morning sunshine glint off the approaching waves, he heard the swish of the door as it opened and closed. Not bothering to turn around, he knew by the sound of the footsteps who it wasn't.

"You're not supposed to be out of bed, on your feet, or out here." Jamie had gotten a call that the admiral was missing. Fortunately, he knew where to look. The Med Bay at N.I.M.R. had one of the best views of the coast and Nelson knew where to find a quiet place to enjoy it. Given the amount of time he'd spent at Med Bay, Doc was convinced that the admiral had the area designed as his own personal escape. Noticing the wheelchair off to the side, and knowing how difficult it was for him to get out of bed, much less wheel himself down the long corridor with only one good arm, Jamie suspected he'd had help making his escape in the form of one Francis Sharkey. Being in the wheelchair wasn't really an issue but being on his feet was.

"Apparently, I'm not supposed to be a lot of things but I am." He let out a deep breath, wincing at the catch, and yearned for a cigarette. "She left, didn't she?"

"Yes. She turned in her resignation to Lee when we were still in Los Gatos. Both Lee and I tried to change her mind but she's convinced you'll still make the association. She thinks it's best to leave." Jamie had expected some sort of argument, a rant, a protest, anything that said he'd fight to keep her. Instead there was nothing. So at the risk of having his own head handed to him, Jamie tried another tactic. "You know she's in love with you, don't you?"

"Yes."

Jamie saw the involuntary shudder in Nelson's shoulders and frowned. He'd hoped the tremors would stop by now. "And you? How do you feel about her?"

This time he did turn around so quickly he nearly lost his balance, waving off Jamie when he'd started towards him. Putting a hand on his chest, feeling the pull of the stitches and the ensuing pain, he grimaced. "How I feel about her is irrelevant," he said, his face pinched.

It went completely against all of Jamie's medical training not to force Nelson back into the wheelchair and take him inside but he couldn't do it. Not yet anyway. Jamie saw beneath the pained expression, saw the sorrow etched in the lines in his face, and realized that despite what he said, it had everything to do with how he felt about her. His simple question had exposed something that Nelson had been struggling with for quite some time. His heart and his conscience were waging an internal war and his heart was losing.

"It is relevant. If you want something, you fight for it. I've never known you to give up so easily."

"Obviously, this is what she wants. I'm not going to ask her to stay if she doesn't want to."

Doc crossed his arms. "Stubborn."

Nelson cocked an eyebrow, letting Jamie know he was giving him a long leash but he shouldn't run too far with it.

Ignoring him, feeling a sense of exasperated annoyance at the man's apparent passive acceptance, Jamie stood his ground and glared back. "You didn't answer the question. How do you feel about her?"

Nelson frowned but not for the reasons Jamie might have thought. He'd been on his feet too long and now his already throbbing leg was logging vehement protests. He needed to sit down but he didn't want Jamie to know. The doctor would just send him back to bed, back to four white walls that reminded him too much of that room. Leaning against the railing and managing to take some of the weight off his left leg, he looked past Jamieson at the large, pink hibiscus next to the building. "I care for her a great deal."

Ordinarily Jamie wouldn't have pushed him. He'd already gotten one visual warning and regardless what kind of physical shape the admiral was in, he still signed Jamie's paycheck. But there was an undercurrent here, one that needed to be exposed for the sake of two people. So Jamie asked again, bracing himself for the possible explosion. "But do you love her?"

It never came. Instead, Nelson tugged on his earlobe, silent for a long time as he thought about the question. He'd pleaded for her life, offering to give them whatever they wanted. Was it love, guilt, or just a sense of duty that drove him? Whatever it was, he wasn't ready to confess it to Dr. Jamieson. "I don't know. But if she wants to leave, I won't stop her. Please tell Captain Crane not to press the issue and accept her resignation. I'll write her a letter of recommendation as well."

Jamie let out an audible sigh. He had a deep respect for the admiral, considered him a good friend. But there were times that he wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake some sense into him. This was one of those times. "So you're just going to let her go and wash your hands of it?"

Shuddering as another tremor hit him, Nelson slowly turned his gaze to the doctor's. "Will, this is what she wants. I put her in a situation that got her hurt and quite correctly, she holds me responsible."

Jamie shook his head. "She doesn't hold you responsible. She shot you. If anything, she feels responsible for nearly killing you."

"Is that why she was avoiding me? Did she think that I would hold that against her?" The revelation hit him full force, taking the air from his lungs. Turning away from Jamie, he leaned heavily on the railing. "Tell me the truth, Will. Is that what she thought?"

Jamie had talked to Lee. He knew it was more complicated than a simple yes or no answer. But he also knew he couldn't speak for Angie. "I don't know. I never got the chance to speak to her." And that was the honest truth.

"She never came to visit me and now she's made it very clear that she wants to leave. I'm not going to try to change her mind."

Frustrated, Jamie wanted to lay into the man, tell him all the reasons he should fight for her, but seeing the dark circles under his eyes, the slump in his shoulders, it suddenly became apparent that this was not a decision to appease Angie. Her decision to leave, especially without saying good-bye, hurt him deeply and now he was trying to distance himself. From the look of it though, he was failing miserably.

Jamie was about to give up when something the admiral said narrowed his eyes. "But she did visit you." He said the thought out loud and then looked at the admiral, seeing confused blue eyes looking back at him. "She did visit you. It was just before that infection in your shoulder blew up and we had to rush you back to surgery."

He shook his head. "No, I would have remembered."

"Harry, your temperature was 104. You were delirious. You couldn't have remembered your own name."

"Why didn't she come back?"

"Because she left Los Gatos. She left her resignation with Lee and drove herself back here."

"Why? Something must have happened!" The brief exertion sent another jag of pain through his chest.

This time Jamie stepped forward, reaching out to put his hand on the man's shoulder. "You need to sit down."

He shrugged off Jamie's hand with a terse, "I'm fine."

Shaking his head, Jamie silently cursed the bull-headedness of a certain four-star admiral. "If something happened, she wouldn't tell us. She just said that she needed to leave."

"Did she say where she's going?"

"Back to Texas where her family is."

She needed to leave. Obviously, she needed to be as far away from him as possible. "Has she already left?"

"I believe she's flying out in the morning." Jamie looked at Harry expectantly, almost willing him to say he'd like to see her before she left. If that were the case, Jamie would personally drive him over. Instead, all the got from the man was silence.

Standing as straight as he could, he turned his back to Jamie, returning his gaze to the ocean. "If you talk to her, please tell her," he stopped, closing his eyes, gathering his thoughts. "Please thank her for her service." Pursing his lips together, he lowered his head. "And tell her that I will miss her very much."

-xxx-

Angie Moreira sat in the passenger seat of the sedan, silently watching the endless rows of crops through the rolled up window and grateful for air conditioning. She'd been happy to see her sister-in-law, Gayle, and her nephew when they met her at the airport in Corpus Christi but now thoughts of him, of leaving without at least saying good-bye, dominated her mind, just as they had since she'd left Santa Barbara. She knew she'd done the right thing - the pros outweighed the cons – but she couldn't shake the feeling that she had run away or what he must think about her now.

She knew she had to put that life behind her, start a new life here in South Texas, surrounded by people who loved her; people who didn't know or care about her past. Maybe she could reconnect with an old boyfriend, settle down, and raise a family. That's what she was supposed to do, wasn't it? Not waste her time on man who didn't love her.

"Hey? Are you okay? You haven't said much."

Angie turned away from the window and forced a smile. "I'm fine. Just thinking."

"You never mentioned why you decided to leave Santa Barbara. I thought you had a really good job at some research place working for that admiral."

That admiral. Yes, she'd made the right choice. "I had a very good job working for Admiral Nelson but you know, I just thought it was time for a change."

"Well, we're glad you're back, aren't we, Nathan?"

"Yes!" the boy answered, emphatically. "You get to stay in our guest bedroom. Mommy says you're not a guest though. You're family!"

"That's right," Gayle said, the sadness etched in her sister-in-laws' face not going unnoticed. There was a story to tell but nothing she'd question now. Maybe later, over a bottle of wine when the boy was asleep. "You're family and you can stay as long as you like."

"Thank you," Angie said, her gaze returning to the endless rows of crops and her thoughts preoccupied by the man she'd left behind.

-xxx-

Sitting in an airport lounge, the blonde woman crossed one leg over the other, letting one red Etienne Aigner pump dangle off her heel, and sipped her rum and coke.

"What do you do, Miss?"

Leveling her gaze on the gentleman asking the question and smiling sweetly, she said, "I look for things, I extract what I want, and then I dispose of them."

The smile on the man's face quickly faded as the image of a barracuda flashed through his mind. Getting up from his seat, he hurried across the lounge to a place as far away from her as possible.

Picking up his abandoned copy of the Santa Barbara Press, she leafed through paper, her gaze fixing on page two. He was wearing the dark uniform, his expression not a smile yet not smug. Several years ago, she would have thought he was very handsome. Now she found the sight of him loathsome. Scanning down the brief article, she found all she needed to know. He was alive. The stupid secretary couldn't even accomplish one simple task.

Tossing aside the paper and balling her hands into fists, she stood from her chair, and straightened her skirt. "This isn't over," she said to no one in particular as she exited the lounge and disappeared into the throng of hurried travelers, the click of her heels echoing on the tile floor.

-End-

Please don't hate me. I know this ending will make some of you (most of you) very unhappy but it's how I always planned to end it. Rest assured though, there will be a sequel and like Lydia Parrish says, this isn't over.