Henry pulled onto the farm road and quickly parked. The sun had just set. He had wanted to be back sooner but things had spiraled with work and it had taken longer than he would have liked to escape again. The first thing he did was race to the stables. They were dark, and while a couple horses peaked out of their stalls to watch his approach, Buttercup's stall was empty. His heart lurched. He was too late. Elizabeth had had to say goodbye to her horse alone.

Henry raced back to the main house, eager to comfort his wife in her grief. He didn't care how awkward it might be after their fight. Stepping into the house he called, "Elizabeth?" The house was dark, only a single lamp in the family room was on. He circled to the kitchen but it too was abandoned. "Elizabeth?" Henry called again, but was met with more silence. Something nagged at him and made his pulse quicken. Racing up the stairs he thought for sure he'd find her in bed, possibly crying. Henry entered the bedroom, his eyes widening in shock. Elizabeth was in the doorway to the bathroom, face down, unmoving. Racing to her, Henry called her name, and shook her shoulder but there was no response. He gently turned her over, her face was pale and her skin hot and clammy. "Come on, Babe." His voice was pleading as he patted her cheek. Still, she didn't move. In a panic Henry's eyes swept around the bathroom, as if looking for an answer, or a solution. His eyes spotted the pill bottle on the sink counter. He lunged for it and felt his heart hammer painfully in his chest. It was empty. That wasn't right. He had been keeping track of her medicine intake. He had secretly been checking her purse to make sure she wasn't falling victim to its addictive powers. He needn't have worried since Elizabeth knew the risks. Henry had seen her taking Alieve, and IBuprofen plenty, but this bottle had remained half full. At least a dozen small pills had been inside of it just yesterday. His brain flet slow to comprehend what he was seeing. "No. No, no, no," he whispered to himself. There wasn't time to ponder. He put the pill bottle in his jacket and immediately scooped up his wife. He raced down the stairs and out the front door. The DS agents quickly opened the car door upon seeing him. "Hospital. NOW!" Henry said as he hurriedly got into the SUV with his wife still in his arms. He adjusted her next to him and held her tightly.

"We'll be there in fifteen minutes, Sir. I've called the head so they are ready," Matt said tightly from the front.

Henry remained quiet. He was checking Elizabeth's pulse. It was slow and shallow. Her breathing seemed strained. His brain shouted that they didn't have fifteen minutes! Overdosing happened quickly, and he had no idea when she had taken those pills. His thoughts were spiraling.

A few minutes passed, Henry had no idea how many. He just clung to his wife and continued to check her breathing and pulse. She was burning up. Without warning her body tensed. Henry watched helplessly as Elizabeths' body seized. He was alarmed to find she wasn't breathing. He clung to her, making sure she didn't hit her body on the side of the door. "Matt! How far?"

"Pulling up now," Matt said with urgency. The car made a tight turn, bumped along a speed bump and skidded to a halt in front of emergency room doors.

Elizabeth had stopped trembling and gone limp in Henry's arms. The car door was pulled open and someone reached in to take her from him. They laid her on a gurney and Henry hurriedly exited the vehicle to see a group of medical personnel already surrounding his wife. He watched someone slam an oxygen mask on his wife's face, another placed a pressure cuff on her arm. They were talking quickly to one another in a language that seemed foreign. Things like BP too low, fever, non responsive, O2 dropping. They were wheeling her inside and down the hall. Henry jogged to keep up and said loudly, "She had a seizure on the way here."

A middle aged man looked at him sternly, nodded, and then said to the surrounding staff, "Right, get her into the intensive unit."

Henry watched them continue to wheel Elizabeth further down the hall. He made to follow but was pushed back by the man who had given the order. "You need to stay here. We'll update you when we know what's going on."

The man turned to leave but Henry reached out to him and grabbed him by the arm. "I found this near her. It should have been half full, but it was empty," Henry stated with panic as he pushed the pill bottle into the man's hand. The man took the bottle and frowned. "Thank you." Without another word the man rushed down the hall and out of sight.

Henry stood unmoving. He was drawn out of his stupor when a woman touched his arm. "Sir, if you'll follow me I'll take you to a private waiting area." Numbly, he followed her, barely aware that one of the DS agents also was with him. "You can wait here, there is water and coffee in the corner," the woman said as she left with a sad smile.

Henry sagged into a chair. His mind was jumbled. How could this be happening? His mind was spiraled back to their college years. He shook his head as if to clear it. She had promised….she would tell someone if….How could she? Did she really want to give up and leave it all behind? Was it that bad? He knew things had been hard. He knew they were in a bad place but had he been so blind that he hadn't seen her spiraling? Henry ran through the last two weeks in his mind trying to figure out what he had missed. The more he thought, the more the guilt ate at him. He had been distant because he thought she needed space. He had seen how tired she was. He had seen that lost, almost numb, distant look in her eyes on several occasions. He had seen that look on her back in their college days too. How had he not connected the dots? She had been quiet and withdrawn. Then she had to say goodbye to her horse. One of her best friends and comforts. Alone. Ultimately, he had been too wrapped up in his own pain to put the pieces together. He abruptly stood, pacing, running his hands through his hair in an agitated manner. He groaned as his heart broke. He had not been there for her. Again. Tears clung to his eyelashes. His heart hammered in his chest. He could lose her. Again. What if he hadn't arrived in time to save her? How could she leave him like this? How could she leave her kids like this? Anger raged inside of him at that thought. The anger turned inward, and he hated himself at that moment. Hated that he was angry at her, hated that he was here, hated the crushing despair that threatened to tear him apart.

It felt like he had been waiting for eternity. His muscles ached from the hard chairs. But he couldn't make himself move. Glancing at his watch for the hundredth time, Henry bit his lip and swallowed hard. It had been two hours. He was ready to rage to whoever would listen that he needed to know what the hell was going on with his wife, NOW! He was torn between impatience and hope that if he hadn't heard anything yet, that must mean she was still alive. The door to the room opened and he jumped up, making his body protest after sitting for so long. Henry couldn't get his dry mouth to move. He just waited for the same middle aged man from before to speak.

"Dr. Mccord? I am Dr. Johanson," the man extended his hand. Henry shook it as a reflex. "Your wife is stabilized for the moment."

Henry swallowed thickly, "The moment?"

"Yes, and we hope it stays that way."

"The pills-" Henry stumbled on his question.

Dr. Johanson shook his head, "She did not take the pills, Dr. McCord."

Henry furrowed his brow in confusion, "What?"

"We found no trace of the drug in her system," Dr. Johanson explained. "Which was very fortunate, of course. If she had taken those pills, in her condition, there would likely have been nothing we could do for her."

"What's wrong with her then?" Henry asked, still feeling on unstable ground.

"The Secretary has an infection," Dr. Johanson said.

The ground continued to fall out from under Henry. "Infection? How…? I don't understand. When she got hurt weeks ago, they gave her antibiotics and said the burns would be fine."

"Please, sit down," the doctor directed. "When we were assessing her, she had a small gash on her right calf. The skin was raised and the wound was discolored. Do you know when she got this wound?"

Henry shook his head, feeling shaken that he had missed more than he realized. "I don't know. She didn't say anything about it. I noticed her limping yesterday though."

"It looks a few days old," Dr. Johnson stated. "The infection seems to have set in within the last day or so. It was good you got her to us so early on. How often did she change her bandages?"

Henry blinked back tears. "She was told to change them every few days. But, I'm not exactly sure when…." He trailed off breathing heavily. "She showered just yesterday, so she had to have changed them then. Wouldn't she have seen it was infected?" He felt confused and frustrated.

"It's alright," Dr. Johanson said, reaching to touch Henry's arm. "She may have seen that it was looking a bit irritated and she probably put something on it, or I suspect she would have had a more severe case."

Henry's voice broke as he asked, "Will she be alright?"

With a serious expression Dr. Johanson said, "We would have preferred to treat this infection earlier. We have her on very strong antibiotics. She has an IV administering fluids to help keep her hydrated as well as keep her blood pressure from dropping. Out of an abundance of caution, we removed the infected skin around the cut. We flushed and cleaned the wound and applied a strong antibacterial cream directly to the area. We will be keeping an eye on it for the next couple of days. She will have a scar where the tissue was cut away. Her fever has gone down considerably. The speed and intensity of her fever was the cause for her seizure on the way here. No permanent damage was sustained because of it. She should make a full recovery."

Henry nodded, taking it all in. Dr. Johanson continued, "She will be here for 2-3 days at best. I feel I need to mention that we are monitoring her for sepsis. She has some symptoms that may be a sign of that. But it could also just be her body's reaction to her recent trauma. But we are hopeful it hasn't gotten that far."

Henry felt like he had been punched. He had trouble taking a breath. Sepsis was serious. People didn't recover easily if at all from it. He took a deep breath to slow his heart down. "Thank you," Henry said. "Can I see her?"

"Of course. Follow me. She is sleeping but could wake up anytime," he explained.

Henry felt a sense of Deja vu sitting beside his wife's hospital bed. She had more color than when he had last seen her. Once again, an oxygen tube ran along her face and into her nose. He took her hand but there was no reaction. He breathed deeply and choked on his tears. He would fix this. He had to. A few minutes passed and his nerves had him googling symptoms and after effects of sepsis. What he found was not uplifting. Patients often experienced nightmares, flash backs, panic attacks, extreme weakness and fatigue, insomnia, anxiety, itchy skin, low immune system , and a myriad of other symptoms. Henry threw his phone into the chair with frustration. His gut was churning at the thought of his wife in such a state. It wasn't fair. Elizabeth didn't deserve this. He felt like he was reeling. He had gone from thinking she was going to die from overdosing to hearing she had a wound he knew nothing about and that infection had set in to the point they were monitoring her for a life threatening condition. He sighed heavily and rubbed his tired eyes. He thanked God that he had gotten her to the hospital today and not two days from now. He despised himself for being so out of touch with his wife's needs and vowed to do better. His thoughts returned to the empty pill bottle. He knew it had been half full. He would need to talk to Elizabeth about what had happened to the rest. He had a lot to talk to her about it would seem. In reflection it seemed obvious how much she had been struggling, and yet he had unconsciously ignored it. Dimitri was dead. It hurt. It burned. Talia needed help and he could do something about that. But he would do it WITH his wife, not against her. He couldn't fix everything. Some things were not able to be fixed. Yes, Dimitri was dead. But Elizabeth was alive. And there were still some things that he COULD fix. He put his marriage at the top of that list.

You guys, I am alive! My excuse is I am just busy, and this is not a priority, it's a privilege for me to find time to do this. But here I am again. Hope there a few people still reading. Please drop a review for me, whether good or bad. I love to read the reviews and it will hopefully motivate me to write again soon. I will warn you that I pumped this chapter out in a single sit down session, no editing done. So, sorry if it's crap but at least I wrote something.