I opened my eyes. I could see bright light through the blind and curtain and could hear dogs barking outside. Oh my God! Jane found us and got inside the wall! I thought. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I thought we were safe here! I sat up. Doc was on his feet and looking at my monitor as he pulled his clothes on. “Meredith, stay in bed!” he said as I swung my legs over the bed and reached for my pants on the chair beside it. We were both naked because we’d made love before going to sleep.

“No way, Doc. If that’s Jane, I have a few things to say to her and a few knuckles that want to meet her face again!”

“If it’s Jane, you are not going to assault her in front of a bunch of police officers!”

“I can tell her off!”

“Just relax. Your heart is racing and your blood pressure is high. You need to calm down.”

“I’ll calm down when that witch is caught and behind bars.”

“If that’s her out there, then both things are a done deal.”

I got my pants on, then took the cardiac leads off. Doc saw what I was doing, stopped getting dressed and ran around the bed. He grabbed my hand and said “Back on the monitor, Meredith.”

“No, Doc. I’m coming out there with you.”

“Then I’ll put the portable one on.” He gave up on trying to get me to stay in bed.

We finished dressing and I followed him down the hall to the living room where we sat on the sofa to wait and see if anyone would come and tell us what was going on. We could hear voices outside. Eventually, the dogs stopped barking.

“Doc, in a way, I hope that is Jane out there. It would mean this nightmare is over.”

“I feel the same, hon.”

Finally, about a half hour later, there was a knock at the door. Doc got up from the sofa and answered it. It was Zack, one of the night patrol officers. He brought his dog, Turner, in with him.

“I saw your light on and thought you would want to know what was going on”, he said to us. “We found someone coming over the wall. He put a ladder up against it and somehow got another one on the inside to use to climb down. He’s just a kid of 16 who says he wanted to see what was inside the wall. At this point, we don’t have reason to disbelieve him. He’s on his way to the station to be held there. Randall will question him when he gets to work later this morning. You two can go back to bed without worry. You are safe.”

After he left, Doc and I went back to the bedroom and got undressed. He put me back on the overnight monitor. Julian was very quiet and had an angry look on his face. I knew something was wrong. I asked him “Doc, what’s wrong, honey? You look like you could kill right now.”

“I could.”

“Julian, sit down beside me.” He sat down. I put my arm around him. “What is it? Talk to me, honey.”

“It’s just this whole situation, Meredith. I’m mad at Jane for causing so much stress and pain.” Mad is not an emotion Doc feels often.

“You have every right to be, Doc. We’ve been through the wringer.”

“You more than me, hon.”

“Doc, she has caused you lots of suffering. Physical and emotional, years ago when you two were together. Emotional now. Emotional is just as hard as physical. You’ve had to do emergency surgery on me twice in as many days, you’ve been taking care of me ever since, staying with me 24/7 at the hospital. You watched me send my horses off so they could be safe. And you have been watching my heart monitor for the last couple weeks. I know it’s worrying you to no end and I know the stress of being woken up like this is affecting my readings and that worries you. You are also worried about my infection and me getting dirty the other day. I get why, too - because of what happened years ago. And then being woke up tonight with all the commotion of someone getting inside the compound and thinking it might be Jane, fearing that it was, but also hoping it was so that it would mean she was caught, then the combined relief and letdown of it not being her. I know all this stress has to be taking it‘s toll on you. And I know you miss your clinic terribly, just like I miss my horses.”

“I feel like I don’t have a right to feel stressed, given what you’ve been through.” He looked at me and I could see tears in his eyes.

“Like I said, Doc… emotional stress can be just as hard as physical.” I wiped a tear from the corner of his eye with my finger, then hugged him as tight as I could - he’s bigger than me, which means I have shorter arms. “We’ll get through this, Julian - together.”

He sighed and rested his chin on my head. “Hon, I love you.”

“I love you too, Julian.”

We sat like that for a while, then got back into bed. Usually, we sleep with him holding me. This time, he lay his head on my chest and I stroked his hair until we nodded off.

Due to being up in the middle of the night, we slept in. We had been sleeping a bit later than we were accustomed to since coming to the safe house but this day we slept even longer into the morning. We tried to keep occupied while waiting for word about the intruder.

Finally, when Doc was doing lunch dishes, Randall and Dana came by to update us on what had happened. “I don’t have a lot of news”, Randall said. “It is a boy of 16 who got in. He told Zack he was curious about what was behind the wall, but on further questioning by me, he said it was a dare by some of his friends.”

Doc and I looked at each other. I seldom back down from a dare, so I could understand why the teen followed through.

“As I told you the other day”, Dana said “we have no reason to believe Jane has found you and we still feel that way. This boy was pretty darn scared at getting caught - he was more afraid of what his parents will do to him than of the dogs that he thought were going to tear him apart. I can’t see Jane using someone so young and so timid to do anything for her.

“There has been no word on her. The police in your area think she may have given up, but they want you to stay here for a while longer, just to be on the safe side.”

“Oh God, I hope she’s given up”, I said.

“She may very well have, especially if she truly cares about Julian and realizes that him joining her would mean he would have to give up his career and always be on the run”, Randall surmised. “Most people would not want to put someone they love and care about through that.

“Julian, I have everything arranged to take Meredith in for those tests. The EKG and cardiogram are set up for Tuesday afternoon next week. She can get an x-ray without an appointment and they said you can fill out the requisition when you get there. We will arrange transportation and, of course, accompany you the whole time.”

“Thank you, Randall. Meredith and I had kind of hoped that the intruder was Jane as it would mean she is caught and in jail and no longer a threat.”

“They will get her, Julian. She will slip up - most of them do. We’ll see you both on Tuesday, unless something comes up before then.”

The weekend was uneventful. Doc and I spent our time as we had been doing since Day 1- reading, watching tv, playing Scrabble. I was itching to get outside for a bit, even if it was just him pushing me around the compound in the wheelchair, but Randall felt it best not to for the time being.

At Julian’s request, Dana got us some candles and incense and we had a “date night at home” on Sunday. He cooked a nice roast and we had dinner by candlelight. He even left the dishes in the sink to do the next day. That was monumental.

He found a soft music station online and we went to the living room and sat on the sofa. I lay in his arms. We couldn’t dance because of my broken foot, so we sat like that for a while, talking and just enjoying being with each other. Then we made our way to the bedroom, where Doc had more candles set up. He lit them, then gave me a massage. He had let me be off the monitor for the evening even though I’d been off it all day, but insisted I go back on after the massage, even though we weren’t quite done with our evening yet.

Later, when we were going to sleep, I said “Doc, you didn’t take a video for Dr Hampton.”

“He doesn’t need to know *every* time we are intimate, Meredith. The one I sent the other day should suffice.”

“Thank you for tonight, honey. I needed that.”

“I figured you did. I hope it helped.”

“It sure did!”

After a couple minutes, he asked “Meredith, are you still awake?”

“Yes, Doc.”

“Hon, how long do you want to be with me?” What???? I turned over and looked at him in the moonlight coming through the blind. We had gotten the okay to open them after there were no more intruders for a few days, but we had forgotten to close the curtain that night.

“Doc, what kind of question is that?”

“Well, some people want to be together a short time, others a long time and some somewhere in between. Which do you want?”

“Doc, if I only wanted to be with you a short time, I’d not have asked you to move in with me.”

“So, you want long term?”

“Yes, Silly!”

“How long?”

“Doc, what has gotten into you?”

“I don’t know, hon. I guess I’m feeling a little insecure.”

“That’s very unlike you, Doc.”

“I know, but all this has got me wondering if you might think that maybe being with me is too stressful.”

“I thought we agreed to get through this together?”

“We did, but what comes after this?”

“We go back to our life on the farm.”

“For how long?”

“Until I get tired of you and kick you out!” I gave him a playful slap on his chest. He had a scared look on his face. “I’m teasing you, Doc! Why are you so insecure tonight?”

“I don’t know, hon. I’m sorry. I’ve ruined our date night.”

“You have not ruined it.” I got serious. “Julian, I don’t know where this is coming from, but the fact is you are feeling insecure tonight. Let me reassure you, honey. I don’t ever want to be without you. I know we’ve only been together for five months or so - officially. You spent a lot of time at my place for the preceding few months. It’s not a lot of time to some people, but I knew months ago that I want to be with you forever. Please don’t ever doubt that. I will be here, no matter what we are going through.”

“When did you know, hon? That you wanted to be with me?”

“I think it started when I came out of that coma when I had that bad bout of pneumonia and I found out you had been by my side for the 8 days I’d been in the hospital. When Curt reamed me out and told me that you had refused to leave except for a few times to go home and shower. But you know when I *really* knew? When we went to that barn dance and you danced every slow dance with me and held me so close. And then the next morning after you’d brought breakfast up to my bedroom. After we ate, I fell asleep. I woke up a while later and you were lying on the bed with your arm around me. It felt so right.”

“You know when I knew I wanted to be with you, hon?”

“When, Doc?”

“When you were in my office and refusing to have surgery for that cyst and you were saying you were going to be working in the hayfields. I told you I forbade you to and you looked at me with such defiance and said “What are you going to do?” and I said I might take you over my knee and spank you. You said you might like that. I was so embarrassed but I also wanted to reach out and take you over my knee right then and there, spank you and then make love to you. Obviously, I couldn’t.”

“Wow, Doc. I had no idea you felt like that way back then.”

“Even before then, I liked you. But I knew you’d had a bad experience with Watters, though you had never said exactly what happened. I had to be completely professional for fear of you running off and never seeing another doctor again. I couldn’t risk that as you needed to be seeing an ob/gyn. I also knew that if anything were ever to happen between us, I had to go slow and not scare you.”

“You are so special, Julian.”

“Why didn’t you let on, hon?”

“Well, it took me a while to be sure that is what I wanted. There seemed to be so many things standing in our way. I suspected for a while that I was Ms Hottie, though.”

“What do mean by that? What was standing in our way?”

“The fact that I was your patient is at the top of the list. I didn’t see any way to get past that.”

“It’s not an issue, hon. The doctor just has to hand over the patient’s care to another doctor. I admit that I had to inquire about it myself as I wasn’t sure.”

“I didn’t know that, Doc.”

“What else was there, hon?”

“That you were a city boy and I a country girl. Also, the fact we are so different.”

“I think you told me once that opposites can attract.”

“Yep. And they sure can!”

“I’m glad we had this talk, hon.”

“Me, too, Julian.”

“Ready to go to sleep?”

“No.”

“Good. I‘m not, either.” He kissed me.

The next day, Scott Fletcher from the police force at home called Doc. He asked him to put him on speaker phone so that I could hear, too. After we had exchanged greetings, Scott said “I have some news for you.”

“I’m not sure I like the sound of that”, I said.

“I haven’t called until now as I wanted all the information in first. Last week someone set fire to a car on a road about 10 minutes from your farm. A passerby saw it and called it in to the fire department. They were able to put it out, but a lot of damage was done. However, one of the VINs was readable.” VIN is Vehicle Identification Number, it’s placed in a few places in a car. “The car is Jane‘s. We found charred bones in it. At first we thought they were Jane‘s, but the police in Vancouver obtained DNA samples from her home and fortunately, forensics got some DNA from a couple of the bones. The samples are not a match.”

“What the hell?” I asked. “If the bones aren’t hers, who’s are they? And how did they get in her car?”

“We think they are from a grave that was dug up a couple hours away. It’s an old grave and the casket had sunk in, allowing the person to get some of the bones out without having to try to open it. They did not take them all, just a few were missing. We are running DNA tests on them to compare to the bones found in the car, but we are pretty sure what the results will be.”

“Good God!” Doc exclaimed. “She has gone off the deep end.”

“Why?” I asked Dana. “Why would she do that?”

“She sent you an email, Meredith. I can read it to you if you like.”

“Please do.”

“It says ‘Meredith, this will be my last email to you. I give up. Julian loves you more than he ever loved me. Even if he were to come to me now, it would be because I forced him to and his heart would not be in it. It would always be with you. I see that now. I will never bother either of you again. Jane’. It was sent before the burning car was called in.”

“I don’t trust her”, Doc said. “This sounds just too easy.”

“I tend to agree with you, Julian. We think she put the bones in the car, banking on them being destroyed enough that we wouldn’t be able to get DNA from them. I don’t think she expected someone to see it. It was on a very lightly travelled side road. Also, there was a purse in it and her driver‘s licence was in the glove box. There was no other ID or cell phone. It looks like she left one piece of ID somewhere where she thought it might still be identifiable after a fire. She wanted us to think she died in there.

“So that we would relax and go back home. Then she would strike”, I said.

“Either that or she’s planning on starting over somewhere with a new identity and hoping that if we think she’s dead, all BOLOs on her will be cancelled and nobody will be looking for her.”

“Which do you think it is?” Doc asked the detective.

“A combination. She probably wants the heat off her as far as the cops go, and wants you two to go home and not suspect a thing. That is not going to happen. You are staying right there for the time being.”

I sighed. “I’m so ready for this to be over, Scott”, I said. “I miss my farm and Julian misses his job and we both miss our friends.”

“If there are financial worries, I can see about looking into the victims of crime compensation fund.”

“Oh, no - that is not an issue at all, Scott. We’re just missing our reasonably normal life.”

“That is understandable, Meredith. Are you able to occupy yourselves without getting too bored? I can see if Randall can get you anything you need for entertainment.”

“We’re fine”, Doc told him. “Randall and Dana have given us lots of reading material, movies etc. They have been so good to us.”

“I hear you had a bit of an adventure, Meredith.”

“You mean the mare that was having trouble foaling? Yes, I’m glad I could help.”

“You need to be careful about leaving the compound, though. Don’t go anywhere unless you have to.”

“I had to, Scott. Their vet was more than an hour away from being able to get here.”

“Scott”, Doc interrupted, “Some advice from me - don’t get into it with her. It was a horse in distress. Nothing could have kept her from going short of chaining her up. And even then, she’d probably have done a Houdini and got out of them.”

The detective laughed. “Thanks for the warning, Julian. Seriously, though, it‘s especially important now to stay there, since we don‘t know what Jane is up to.”

“We have those tests for Meredith tomorrow. Can we still do that?”

“If you think it can’t wait.”

“It’s probably just the stress affecting her readings, but I would really like to make sure there’s nothing else to it.”

“Ok then, go do it. You will have police escorts. I’ll be in touch when there’s more news.”

We said goodbye and Doc and I just sat there on the sofa in stunned silence. Finally, I spoke. “I can’t believe she raided a grave!”

“Me either”, Doc said.

At that moment, my stomach decided to betray me. I got up from the sofa and not even thinking to get my crutches, ran - as best as I could run - to the bathroom.

“Meredith! Do not walk on that foot!”

“No time, Doc - I’m gonna be sick.”

He got up and followed me down the hall to the house bathroom, then held on to me as I bent over the toilet so that I wouldn’t fall over due to my ankle. When I was finished, he got me a glass of water to rinse my mouth with. Then he got a washcloth and washed my face. “In the bedroom”, he said when he was done. “Here’s your crutches.”

I hobbled to the bedroom and sat down on the bed. “Do you want to lie down?” he asked. I nodded. “It’s lunch time, but I don’t think either of us is hungry.” I shook my head no. “I’m going to put you on the monitor and we’ll both lie down for a while. How is your foot?”

“It’s okay, Doc.”

He helped me get into my gown and onto the monitor, then he took his pants and shirt off and lay down on the bed with me.

“Doc, my side hurts.”

“Which side? Left?”

“Yes.”

“Let me see, hon.” He pulled my gown up and loosened the tape on my dressing and pulled it up from the bottom. “I’m going to wash my hands, I’ll be right back.” When he was back, he felt around the incision site. I yelped.

“It looks redder, hon. I’m going to up your antibiotic dose and tomorrow, I’m going to get Randall to take us to the hospital after your echo and x-ray. I want you seen in the ER and the open part of your wound cultured.” It still had not completely closed over.

I sighed. “Doc, can you just up my meds and see if that works? I’m so sick of hospitals.”

“No, hon. I’m not playing around with this. We’re going to be near a hospital tomorrow, so I’m taking you in. I know you’re tired of it, but if I can get it cultured, I’ll know exactly what kind of infection it is and be able to get you on the best antibiotic for it. Please don’t give me a hard time about it.”

“I’m not going to, Julian.”

“Thank you, hon.” He changed the dressing, then got back in bed with me, snuggling up to me from behind and held me close. I was trembling. “We’re going to be okay, hon. I can feel it. She won’t win.”

“I hope you’re right, Doc.”