Long Time Running - By Hannah Foster Page 0,20

wouldn't," Sarah paused to clear her throat. " I wouldn't know about that."

"Is he married? Seeing anyone?" She asked curiously, her interest much more ambivalent than when she had asked her sister the same question about Eric.

"No." Sarah said crisply, getting up from Nathalie's bed to pour a glass of water.

"Then I would bet money that he's still sleeping with anyone he can. We always were in awe of how women fell at his feet-"

"Nat." Sarah interrupted.

She carried on. "I never saw the attraction but to each their own."

"Nat!" She said firmly.

"What?" Her green eyes widened at her brusque tone.

"I don't want to talk about Andrew."

"Okay. What do you want to talk about?" Nathalie queried. As she saw shadows descending in Sarah's green eyes, she slowly shook her head. "No." Nathalie whispered.

"Nat, we have to..." Sarah stated calmly, no longer able to live with the lie they had set in motion all those years ago.

Not having slept for more than a handful of hours since Nathalie had arrived at the hospital, Sarah was resolute in her need to tell her that she not only knew where Jack was but had been in an odd, but workable, co-parent relationship with Eric.

"No we don't!" she screamed in reply. "We don't have to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it." She pleaded, her chest heaving as she gulped urgently at the air.

"What's going on?" Keith demanded from the doorway, his eyes taking in Sarah's rigid stance and the tears streaming unabashedly down Nathalie's face.

"My sister and I were just talking." Sarah said, quickly adopting her prosecutor's stance blocking his path.

"Looks like you were doing the talking, Ms. Grant." His eyes reverted back to Nathalie, clearly in the throes of an all too familiar panic attack.

"Nat," Sarah began as she moved toward her sister's bed.

"No!" she screamed, folding her self up into a corner of the hospital bed, shrinking from her approach.

"Ms. Grant, please leave." Keith's tone was quiet and calm.

"What?" Sarah asked incredulously.

"I asked you to leave. Your sister doesn't want you here." Keith stated firmly.

Sarah nodded as Nathalie continued to shake. "Nat," Sarah said softly, tears shinning in her eyes "Nat, I will be back later. I love you."

Keith sat on the edge of the hospital bed and softly stroked Nathalie's hand as her breathing returned to normal.

"You okay?" he asked.

Nathalie nodded mutely as she put her head back on her pillow and closed her eyes, trying to gain control of her breathing. Once again closing him out.

#

"Hey," Eric said standing quickly from his desk as Sarah entered his office. "How'd it go?"

Sarah sat down quietly on the leather couch in his office and folded her hands together. "Where's Jack?" she asked calmly despite her heart thrashing against her chest.

"I asked Drew to take him to the cafeteria for ice cream so we could talk."

Sarah nodded solemnly as she met his eyes. "I didn't tell her."

Eric rocked back in his chair as if hit by a blow to his chest. He had allowed himself to hope that after years of denying to the world, and Jack, that he was the little boy's father that things may be starting to change.

When Sarah called him yesterday and told him she was ready to tell her the truth about Jack, he was caught up in a whirlwind of what ifs. While he and Sarah had settled into an uneasy alliance of partnering to raise Jack, Eric had no illusions that Sarah held all the cards in this situation and Eric desperately wanted to claim his son.

"You didn't tell her?" he echoed. "Why?" he whispered, unable to hide his disdain.

"I started to broach the subject and she...she..." Sarah, who made a living at her ability to speak eloquently and passionately, stumbled for the words to describe her sister's reaction.

"She what? She had a seizure?" Eric asked as he clenched the arms of his chair as he began to push himself to rise.

"No!" Sarah assured him as she put a hand out to stay his departure. "No, she didn't have a seizure, I don't know what to call it. I have never seen her act this way, even after..." Sarah halted suddenly.

"Even after what, Sarah?" Eric asked bitterly, knowing with certainty that she would not answer the question. He had asked too many similar ones in the past and gotten nowhere.

As expected, she shook her head in response. "It was almost like she was having a panic attack, I guess."

Eric recalled his conversation with