The doctor walks in. Things are still tense. It is palpable and I imagine hard to ignore.

"Everything okay?" he inquires.

I quickly rein in my emotions. I'm getting better at it, having so much practice lately.

"Thank you for coming so quickly." I give him my full attention.

He nods and walks over to Tina. "Happy to see those eyes open," he tells her.

"I'm numb, on this whole side." I hate seeing how frightened Tina looks as she speaks.

The doctor reaches over and removes the bandage from the side of her head. He inspects the incision. They shaved Tina's hair in that area.

He pulls out a flashlight and checks out her pupils. "What's your name?"

"Tina Worthington-Bragin."

I smile when she adds in that last part in and she tries to smile back.

"Bragin? So, you two are related?"

"I'm his sister. Adopted."

"That explains a lot. Where do you live?"

"4222 Fuller Street. I have an apartment there. Why are you asking me all of these questions?"

"Just checking your memory. What month were you born?"

"October. Why aren't you answering my question?"

"In due time, Tina. Can you move your fingers for me?"

I watch as her fingers move and Tina's eyes light up with surprise.

"And your toes?"

Again, she can move them.

"There is a very good chance the numbness that you feel will subside in a few days."

"And if it doesn't?" Tina asks being ever practical.

"Then we'll deal with it then. Do you have any pain?"

"I have a headache and my throat is sore."

"I'll have a nurse give you some medicine for the pain. Your throat is sore from the breathing tube used during surgery. I'll have them give you some ice chips. It'll help with the discomfort."

"How long will she be here?" I ask.

"Depends on her recovery. Most often times its 24 hours. Since she's experiencing numbness, we may need to hold her longer."

Tina I can tell has a ton more questions, she isn't asking. I guess she figures it can all wait until they figure out the first problem. Then something occurs to her, I can see it written on her face.

"The funeral? The viewing?!"

The doctor looks at me for an explanation.

"Our father has passed recently. He is to be buried this Saturday."

"You really have been through a lot."  He smiles at me sympathetically.

"I know this may be difficult for you but your health must come first. We'll have to play it by ear," the doctor informs Tina.

Tina's eyes fill up with tears. "You mean I may not be able to attend?"

I took Tina's hand in mine. "He's right, Tina. You have to put yourself first. You know my... our father would totally agree with that."

"I just..."

I wipe a tear away from her cheek. "You were right there when he died, Tina. You're the only one who truly got to say goodbye. He'll understand. You have to focus on getting better. You have to put yourself first."

Tina reluctantly accepts. "Okay."

"I'll have the nurse get you that pain medicine and ice chips," the doctor adds.

"Are they going to rebandage her head?" I ask, surprised this is all the doctor had to offer.

"No, it will be left uncovered from here on out. No showering for at least 5 days. The sutures will be removed in about 7 to 10 days during your follow-up visit. This is not a quick process, Tina. It's going to take time, about 6 weeks before you're fully healed. You have to patient."

"I guess that's why you call us that?"

"What?"

"Patients. Because you're always telling us to wait for something."

The doctor chuckles. "There's no healer like time."

"Thank you," I tell the doctor. I shake his hand and he leaves. A few minutes later Tina is set up with some ice chips and her medicine.

"We'll see how you do with that, and if you hold it down. You can order a liquid diet for tonight's dinner," the nurse informs her. "In fact, it may be best if you call before the kitchen closes to put in your order."

"Thank you, I will," Tina tells her and the nurse was on her way.

"I can't believe I won't be there?" Tina's shoulders slump, this has to be hard for her.

"You don't know that, yet? One thing at a time. At least you know the numbness doesn't affect you using your body, right?"

"I guess that is something," Tina concedes.

"We're going to let you rest, okay? We'll back later to check on you."

"Okay," Tina agrees.

"Do you want me to call you fiancé?"

"No, I don't want to worry him. He's so far away, and there's little he can do for me."

"Can I offer you some brotherly advice?"

Tina smirks. "Can I stop you?"

I give her a sarcastic grin. "No."

"Then what have you got for me?"

"If I was Brian. I'd want to know. I would be pretty pissed off if I found out later that you kept something so important from me. It may even be seen that you don't trust me."

Tina bit her lower lip as she thought this over. "I'll give it more thought."

"I'm glad," I kiss the top of her head. "Try and get some sleep. I promise to be back later."

Tina nods and I held my hand out to Cat who has been sitting quietly in the corner. She takes it.

When we leave the room. I ask, "Did you drive here?"

"Yes."

"Let's go home."

"Tina will pull through," Cat affirms, squeezing my hand.

"I have to hope that she will. But right now, I'd like some time to focus on us."

"Us?" Her brows crease in confusion.

"You thought I was cheating on you."

"Not really, I knew if anything happened between you and Tina it was while we were apart."

I frown at her knowing that wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. Not to Cat.

"I understand why you would think that way," I say getting into her car, "but I really would have hoped you'd have asked me about it before you would just bolt like you were about to do."

Cat pauses putting on her seat belt and pushes my legs out of the way so she can pull something out from under the seat. She places a folder on my lap.

"The pictures?" I ask and Cat nods, buckling her belt, turning on the car, and heading back to my house.

I'm not sure I want to open that folder. It feels like I'd be opening Pandora's box. I place my palm on top of it.

"Cat I need you to understand. I would never betray you. I love you far, too much. You and the baby mean everything to me. I'm sorry you were put through this, but I hope I've proven myself to you enough for you to trust in what I'm saying."

Cat glances at the folder and back at me. "I didn't want to believe it."

I sigh and opened the folder. I can't believe what I'm looking at, either. To see me in those situations which I knew were perfectly innocent, looking anything but... inflames my anger towards Liam and his father.

"When did she sleepover?" Cat asks glancing at the picture in my hand, that I'm partially crinkling in my tightened grip.

"The night I was with you at William's," I say glancing up at Cat and her eyes dart back to the road. I hate that she still looks conflicted. I get it. Seeing these pictures and taking them out of context, would appear damning but it bothers me she doesn't trust me more, and it hurt how easily she chose to walk away. Dillion's words of warning echo in my mind.

"These were all taken the same day. This first one was me treating Tina to ice cream at the diner because I nearly killed us both when I drifted off to sleep and had an episode in her car."

"Oh my God!" Cat exclaims, daring another glance at me.

"Frankly, I think she let me off easy. This was when I told her I was staying behind to try and fix things with you. She kissed me on the cheek as a friend. Nothing more. As you can see in the photo, I didn't even touch her."

"I did notice that, I ..."

I hold up the picture of Tina in the doorway. "The nightgown is my Mom's. I didn't come home that night. I was making love to you. I came home to discover Tina stayed the night because she was afraid of my Mom being left alone. This was before I learned my mother has Alzheimer's."

"I'm sorry, Alex. You don't need to explain."

"Obviously, I do. You were about to walk away and not look back over these pictures."

I'd seen her shoulders slump and her head hung low. "I just couldn't go through it again."

"What? You couldn't go through what again?"

"I couldn't go through, being with someone who I thought wanted to be with someone else. Liam was with so many girls. More and more of them seem to pop up every day. I hear all the stories now that we're not together. I guess people either think I already knew and that's what broke us up, or that they want to unburden themselves because they were keeping the secret of Liam's cheating from me and now, they don't have to. Whatever the reason, it hurts. Each and every time," she confesses to me.

"I would never do that to you," I reiterate feeling stupid having to do so.

"I know you wouldn't."

"Do you? I don't think you do. For 4 years I closed myself off from everyone, my family, my only friend. Love for me was not an option. I was obsessed with finding out who killed my brother. Every year that passed with no results I sank further into despair knowing I couldn't save him in life and I couldn't get justice for him in death. I was useless, or so I felt until William came along with, he a friend who needed a place to stay."

Cat gives me a tear-filled smile. "What happened next?" she asks me.

"I let her into my apartment but somehow she found her way into my heart."

"Oh, Alex."

"You gave me purpose again, Cat. In essence, you gave me a reason to live. If you didn't stay, if you didn't fall in love with me, I'd still be walking around this planet an empty shell. This, what I'm dealing with now, would have probably been the end of me."

I can see my words scare her but I need her to understand.

"You would have..." Cat couldn't bring herself to say it.

"I don't know. I know I would have wanted to. I'd have nothing left. I may have stuck it out to take care of my mom, but I'd hate to think of the person, I'd become. You Cat, you are the reason I have faith things can get better, that there's hope in this world. Do you really think I'd be foolish enough to want to see that disappear again?"

"No, I just feared perhaps you found it with someone else."

"There is no one else. Not for me. There never will be. But I need you to be certain. I need you to be sure, because how quick you were willing to walk away today, hurt."

"I'm sorry but you understand why, don't you?"

"I understand you were under a misconception put there by your toxic relationship with Liam. That's what I understand and it's becoming increasingly harder for me to ignore."

"It's his father not him," Cat tries to reason.

The fact that she still is trying to defend him eats away at me. I fold my hands and clasp them together, thinking of how much I wish they were around Liam's neck. I want to scream. I want to yell but I don't want to stress Cat out and I don't want to become the bad guy here.

I have to remember right now I'm the hero, not Liam. I'm the good guy, not Liam but if I'm not careful, like an illness he'll infect Cat and me and wear us down. Then it won't matter that I'm right. I'll have lost her and everything I care about.

"Can we move on from this subject?"

Cat sighs but agrees.

"Thank you." I feel physically and mentally drained and rest my head back on the seat but roll down the window to let some cold air in, fearful that I'd slip into another episode as I had with Tina.

When we pull in front of my family's house, laughter bubbles up inside of me and trickles out. Cat looks over at me with a raised eyebrow. "I can't believe I'm actually happy to be home," I try to explain. What a difference a few days can make?

We go inside. I brought the pictures in with me.

"What are going to do with those?" Cat asks.

"This," I say and I go into the kitchen to find a lighter. I set them on fire, throw them into the fireplace, and happily watch them burn. Cat stands next to me and I put my arm around her and we watch the flames turn those pictures to ash together.

"I'm sorry I walked away but you did too, you know?"

"Yes, but I was walking away to protect you. You were walking away to protect yourself... from me."

"God, when you say it that way it sounds so horrible," Cat admits. I turn her into a hug and hold her in my arms.

"You were given to reason to doubt. It's hard. I get that, but now you know the truth. So, what's next?" I ask and she stiffens in my arms.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean now we know for certain Liam's Dad is looking to take you to court."

"Do we know that for certain? He may have been planning it, but that doesn't mean he's going to go through with it?"

"So, you want me to stand by and do nothing?"

"I don't want to start a war where there is none," Cat answers.

I sigh and release her. I walk over to the sofa and flop upon it. My head rests on the back of the chair. Cat sits next to me.

"Alex, if we keep Liam on our side, there will be no reason to fight. I'm not keeping this baby from him so he has no reason to take it from me."

"Liam knew what his Dad was planning this entire time he was cozying up to you. That doesn't bother you at all?"

"Yes, it bothers me. But what if he's just trying to do the same thing."

"What do mean?" I ask turning my head to look at her.

"What if Liam was just trying to protect me from you?"

My hands run over my face in frustration. "There is nothing to protect you from!"

"Do you remember what Liam was like when he thought you had beat me up?"

"Yes, and I was innocent then, too."

"True but don't you think he'd take the same stance in regards to me if his Dad showed him those pictures. Who knows how long he had them? If his intention was to hurt me, he would have shoved them in my face, but he didn't. He left them for me to make up my own mind."

"I think you're giving him way too much credit."

Cat grimaces at me.

"Sorry, but that would take a level of forethought I really don't think your Ex possess."

Cat shrugs. "It still doesn't change the fact that I'm not going to pick a fight with him. I need him on my side."

"No," I say sitting up a little straighter. "You think you need him on your side, but if his father decides to go after custody, he will do so after the paternity test shows the baby is Liam's. He'll wait and during that time he will prepare a case against you. Trying to show you're an unfit mother and using me to do so."

"Cat, please I beg of you. Don't ask me to sit idly by and let that happen. You ask too, much." I didn't want to say those words to her but I refuse to lie to her just to make her feel better.

Cat sat worrying her bottom lip. "What do you suggest?"

"I suggest we use my resources to establish a counter case against Liam. We need to be prepared. Maybe we'll get lucky and never have to use the information we gather against him but I for one would feel better, knowing it's there. It may even give us some leverage."

"Leverage?" Cat looks like she is having difficulty following my train of thought, and I am surprised as it is a bit chaotic at the moment.

"A man, like Liam's father, values his family's reputation. If our case is sound enough and would portray Liam in a bad light then he may be willing to concede or settle out of court. The last thing he'll want us doing is dragging his name through the mud."

"Must we fight dirty?" Cat asks obviously not liking this idea.

"Fighting dirty means we'd be lying, Cat. Like the evidence that Liam showed you. As convincing as it was, it was no more than a lie. I plan to use the truth in our favor. How he cheated on you? How he was the cause of you being hospitalized on more than one occasion? How he made an appointment at the clinic to abort your baby."

Cat flinches at my last statement.

"I hate this. I've been trying so hard to put all that behind me. To move forward. To focus on the future. Instead, I'll be in harm's way again and I hate it."

"I won't let anyone hurt you. No one is going to take this baby from you. You have my guarantee on it."

Cat's gaze focuses on my face but I can't tell what she is thinking and it irks me.

"This is not how I want to bring this baby into the world, in the midst of fighting, anger, and lies."

"You didn't ask for this fight, Cat but you're in it whether you wish to acknowledge it or not. I'm only asking that I be allowed to prepare you for it. So you don't walk into the fray unarmed. I want to protect you."

"I know," Cat says, but she looks so defeated and deflated. I silently cursed Liam and his family for bringing this upon her.

"Please, let me protect you?"

Cat gave her consent with a simple nod. Relief floods my body. I sigh deeply.

"Thank you," I say pulling her into my arms and she lets me hold her. I lift her chin so she can see my face. "I love you, Cat Fischer. I promise I will do everything within my power to make sure you have no reason to worry about anything but this precious life growing within you. No one is going this baby from you. No one."

Cat nods again and I seal my promise with a kiss.