"Okay, now why do you think that Barbara knows what's going on?" Kyung asked Brian as they headed towards the nurses station.

"When I was going back into Nick's room I saw her standing out in front of it. I can't begin to describe the expression on her face. She looked torn. When I started to talk to her she looked like she wanted to tell me something, but then suddenly she got scared and ran down the hall. It was really strange." Brian explained.

Kyung pondered that. "You know, she is Dr. Minnick's nurse. She has been working under him for a long time, as far as I know. Isn't Dr. Minnick one of the doctors working with Nick? Like with the induced coma?"

Brian nodded slowly. Things were starting to click, but there were still too many missing pieces. "Something's not right with all this."

"I agree." Kyung said. They reached the nurses station and Kyung went to go talk to Monica. She returned a moment later smiling.

"What?" Brian asked anxiously.

"She is in his office." Kyung grinned smugly.

They headed down there quickly and stopped in front of the door. Brian lifted his hand to knock.

"Please...what...are doing...wrong! Do...damage...this boy's..." The distressed voice froze Brian's fist mid-air.

"What the..." He murmured. Kyung looked just as shocked as he was.

"I...haven't...anything." The voice rose. "I need to go take care of my patient now!" Then the noise of a phone slamming down was heard and Brian and Kyung looked at each other.

"Now what?" Kyung whispered.

Before Brian could respond, the door was flung open and Brian and Kyung found themselves staring at a very surprised Barbara.

Barbara found herself in a panic when she came face to face with Brian and Kyung. Without thinking, she quickly tried to slam the door shut in their faces but was met with resistance as Brian placed his hand against the door, preventing it from closing.

“We need to talk,” Brian said in a calm, even voice.

Barbara McKean hung her head. “I know. Please, come in.”

She opened the door to her office and directed Brian and Kyung to a small sofa in the adjoining office which Brian and Kyung assumed to be Dr. Minnick’s office.

“I... I don’t know where to begin exactly.”

“The beginning is always a good place to start,” Brian suggested with a slight smile.

Nurse McKean let out a slow, even breath and closed her eyes. The ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner broke the uncomfortable silence, as if to mock them.

“I have been Dr. Minnick’s staff nurse for over twenty years. We first worked together in his office and then in the emergency room here at the hospital. When Dr. Minnick decided to open a neuro office in the hospital, I jumped at the chance to join his practice.” Barbara stopped and shifted nervously in her seat.

“Okay, you said neuro, so we’re assuming that doctor was assigned to Nick’s case for the induced coma?” Kyung asked, hoping to stimulate some answers from the nurse.

She nodded her head. “Dr. Minnick is tops in this field. He has done this job for years error free until now,” Barabara’s voice trailed off.

Brian placed a hand on the nurse’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”

Barbara looked up and quickly wiped the tears from her eyes. Brian’s eyes locked onto hers. She quickly looked away, not wishing to look into his eyes and see the pain that losing his friend was causing him.

“Please, just tell us, we will protect you if that’s what you’re afraid of,” Brian begged in a calm voice.

Barbara shook her head. “I’m afraid to. I could lose everything----

“Nick has already lost pretty much his life dammit, you have something you’re hiding and we need to know,” Kyung spat out. She ignored the pleading looks that Brian was giving her. She knew that he disapproved of her going in with both feet and not looking but Kyung didn’t care. She needed to get to the bottom of this. It was affecting Lizz therefore it was affecting her as well.

“Okay, alright,” Nurse McKean quietly pleaded. She reached behind her and pulled a tissue out of the box on Dr. Minnick’s oak desk and dabbed her eyes with it. She took in a deep breath and slowly began her explanation.

“When Dr. Minnick was called for consult on your friend Nick, I pretty much logged this case as one that would be routine. They had Nick prepped for the induction and everything appeared to go smoothly. I noticed doctor seemed to be rather arrogant or flamboyant on this particular case, which is not typical for doctor to be. He is always very methodical about every case he is on but for some reason things were crashing around him and he didn’t seem to know how to go about repairing things.”

“Things? What kind of things?” Brian pressed for more answers.

“Well, um, as they were injecting the meds on the patient, his BP soared to a dangerously high rate,” Barbara stated.

“Exactly how high was it?” Kyung asked.

“I recall once his blood pressure was 245/123.”

Kyung gasped. Brian looked at Kyung and then back at the nurse.

Just as Nurse McKean was going to talk about her findings in Nick’s chart, the door to the office swung open and Dr. Minnick entered the room.

“Who do we have here?”

“This is just family of your patient in ICU, Bobby McMasters,” Barbara lied.

Brian looked at her face, puzzled. He couldn’t understand why this nurse was still covering for the doctor.

“I will keep you informed of your brother’s progress later. Thanks for stopping, we are happy to see family involved in a patient’s recovery. Nurse McKean flashed a look of desperation at Brian. She tried her best to brush them off.

Brian was done playing games with this nurse. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. I want to know what is going on with Nick Carter. We need answers and we need them NOW!”

I looked at Lizz feeling awful knowing that I couldn’t reach out and hold her while she was hurting. I wanted to ask her questions, dammit, I needed to ask her questions, but I was unable to communicate with her.

“I... I am o... okay,” Lizz stammered through her tears.

I managed to squeeze her hand again, willing her to look into my eyes.

Lizz looked up at Nick and met his gaze. All sorts of thoughts were flooding through her mind. Their situation and how it could have been different if she had logged online an hour before he got so damned desperate. She knew there was nothing she could do about it now. Here she was stuck with kidneys that were failing her and Nick lying in bed trapped in a body that wouldn’t work for him.

“We do make a pathetic couple right now, ya know?” Lizz joked.

I managed a slight smile back at her. I appreciated that she still could keep a sense of humor about her. God knows we needed that.

As I looked in the doorway to see who was coming into my room, my heart sank. It was that girl that had been in the other day and started taking pictures. I remembered her. How could I communicate this to Lizz? I mentally cursed myself and tried to think of something to say to get her to leave.

The monitors next to my bed started to sound alarms, I knew my heart was racing, I couldn’t help it. I wanted to shout at this girl.

Terri nonchalantly entered the room. She had gone to a novelty store on her lunch hour and bought a camera that she could rig inside her scrubs. She placed her hand on the button and started clicking away at the couple, hoping that she was getting this on film.

“GET OWT,” I managed to yell, surprised at how thick my voice sounded and how garbled.

“Oh my god, your voice! You can’t talk can you?” Terri asked, a shocked tone in her voice. “This is going to be more money for sure.”

Lizz narrowed her eyes at the girl. “So you’re the one.”

Terri spun around towards Lizz. “So what if I am? Not a whole hell of a lot you can do about it is there. Just look at you! You are one foot away from taking a dirt nap,” Terri hissed.

I stared at this girl. What the hell was Lizz talking about her being the one?

How would she know that this girl took pictures of me?

“And you are one foot away from prison bitch!” Lizz shouted.

I still couldn’t figure out what was going on. Then she said something that I knew would change my life forever.

“The National Enquirer paid me top dollar for this story and I am going to keep sending them stuff and there is nothing you can do to stop me!”

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. Lizz was trying to get out of her chair and I couldn’t stop her. My heart felt like it was going to explode, I tried to calm myself down, but nothing was working....nothing at all.

“ELIZABETH HULFORD! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Kyung shouted as she and Brian entered the room.

Terri tried to quickly slip out of the room behind Brian. Lizz was about to yell out for someone to stop her, but Brian recognized her and realized something was not right.

“Whoa there, I think you have some explaining to do,” Brian ordered, his voice was unnaturally low.

"What did you tell them?" Dr. Minnick glared at Barbara, his voice full of menace.

"N...nothing. I d...didn't tell them anything!" Barbara cried.

"Oh really? Then why was that boy asking about Nick Carter if he was family of Bobby McMasters?" He snarled.

"I...I don't know. May...maybe he was just being curious." Barbara's voice was shaking. She was terrified that this would be the end of her job. Then she realized that she wasn't sure she even wanted to work under Dr. Minnick anymore. The man before her was not the same person she had known for the past twenty years. Or was it possible that she had been wrong about him all this time? That made her angry.

"Right! You expect me to believe that line of bullshit?" He sneered.

"I don't care what you believe! How do you think it looked when you ordered them out of here like that? 'Get out of here before I call security?!' How obvious was that?!" She shot back.

Dr. Minnick raised his eyebrows at her tone. Then he spoke in a low, intimidating voice. "You know full well that your job is on the line here. Now I want to know, what exactly did you tell them?"