Tuesday

September 17, 1996

8:00 PM

Miami Hospital

Natalia opened her eyes to find herself in a hospital room. Quickly, she examined the room. Nick was on right of her, leaning his head against the window and talking to a nurse. Natalia looked at Nick for a long moment before what was going on hit her. She frantically moved her right hand, which was wrapped in gauze across her abdomen. Both Nick and the nursed glanced over before she could sit up.

"Calm down," Nick ordered as he placed his hand on her shoulder gently to restrain her from sitting up.

"You did this!" Natalia yelled with tears streaming down her face.

Nick's cheeks turned red and he chuckled a bit, "Must be the meds." He rolled his eyes.

The nurse knitted her eyebrows and nodded, "I'll give you two a few minutes."

After the nurse left the room, Nick pulled up a chair and sat down right in front Natalia's hospital bed. He took a deep breath. "Your baby is fine."

"What?" Natalia gasped.

"I missed," He said, sounding disappointed.

"I'm gonna put your ass in jail," Natalia growled as she reached for her cell phone that was on the table.

He grabbed her hand without hesitation. "No. You're not. The doctors think you did this to yourself. It's going to stay like that."

"What makes you think that?"

"The doctors said if the knife went even a few inches farther, the baby wouldn't have made it. Tell me Nat, you would do anything to keep this baby safe, right?"

"Of course..."

"Then, don't fuck with me," he hissed.

Nick picked up a pen from the table behind him and began writing on a wrinkled receipt from his pocket. He handed it to her shortly after.

"What is this?" Natalia asked, squinting at the numbers.

"It's the number of the family who's going to adopt your baby."

Thursday

September 19, 1996

2:40 PM

Miami Dade Lab

Jesse briskly walked into the lab, where Natalia was working as a lab tech at the time for the FBI. She was swapping DNA off a gun found on a crime scene, found earlier that day. He walked up behind her and gripped her shoulders gently.

"Hey," he whispered into his ear.

Natalia jumped and turned around quickly. Jesse was standing there with his hands in his pockets and smiling innocently.

"You scared the hell out of me," Natalia shook her head as she laughed.

"So did you. Why were you in the hospital?" Jesse said in a serious tone.

"Um, I was making dinner and I accidentally cut my wrist with a knife. It was pretty deep."

"Sounds like it hurt."

"Oh, it did," Natalia said under her breath.

"So, how did the knife end up by our baby?" Jesse asked, taking her by surprise.

Natalia's could feel her heart stop for a second. "What? How do you know that?"

"It was Nick, wasn't it?"

"No, I was drunk," Natalia felt like her cheeks were on fire.

"You wouldn't put a knife to that baby even if you were drunk, Nat," he argued.

"I don't want to talk about this now."

"So, when do you want to talk about it? When our baby is dead?" Jesse began to lose his temper.

"That's not going to happen," Natalia whispered. "I found a family who's going to adopt..."

"You're not going to keep it...?"

Natalia bit her bottom lip. She could tell Jesse was disappointed. "No."

"Who is this family?"

"Jake and Emily Bayer, They're friends of Nick."

"No...I don't trust him, Natalia. That means I don't trust his friends either."

"Well, I'm meeting them on Saturday whether you like it or not," Natalia replied, walking out of the room.

"You're just going to do this without me?" Jesse called after her.

She didn't answer. Jesse slammed his fists against the glass table in frustration.