After seducing her intern at work, Rachel calls her ex-husband, Joshua, and attempts a reconciliation. They admit they still have feelings for each other, despite the conflicts in their personalities. And after years of fruitless struggle, Rachel begins to think the time has come to consider acceding to her children's wishes that they be allowed to choose their own career paths

We rejoin the story on Sunday evening, two nights after Rachel's conversation with Josh.

It was quiet in the hospital. Too quiet.

Doctors walked along the cool, florescent-lit hallways on silent feet, speaking to each other in low voices. Nurses at their stations leaned close, their conversations all but unheard. Janitors and support staff swept and mopped, cooked and cleaned, moving noiselessly from one room to the next. Even visitors spoke in hushed whispers, as if sickness and disease were malignant demons who would cast their unwelcome attention on them if they talked too loudly.

In one room in the Intensive Care Unit, a woman lay in a sleep so deep and dreamless it was all but indistinguishable from death. An eternity seemed to last between each slow rise and fall of her chest. The monitor which registered her heartbeats paused mockingly between each harsh beep. In her dark, silent sleep, her face held an unearthly calm, as if it was beyond all trouble and care.

An unbiased observer, which Yasna was not, would say that despite scrapes and bruises, this woman was incredibly attractive. Her golden skin was clear and firm over the sculpted bones of her face, her lips red and full, her attractively tousled hair long and curling, reaching far past her shoulders. Tall for a woman, her body was sweetly curved, with deftly carved thighs, full hips, and breasts that were Lush and ripe for a lover's touch.

Yasna Marafi stood at the bedside and silently begged the woman to open her eyes. Ever since she had been brought in, three days before, she had been obsessed with her and the mysterious malady which ailed her.

Her fingers itched for the touch of her skin, her lips burned for the feel of her mouth. She knew, deep in her secret heart, that with her eyes open and her face alive with wit and humor, the woman who her chart identified as Althea Carpenter would be gloriously, incredibly, incandescently beautiful. A beauty to make men and women throw themselves in her path for one smile from her lips, one touch from her hand, one word from her mouth. Despite every professional scruple, she ached to take her in her arms, to peel away the unflattering hospital gown and revel in the wonders of her body.

A voice spoke at her elbow, making her jump.

“No change, Doctor

Marafi?"

“None, Doctor Webb," she replied with a sideways glance at her colleague, making her voice detached and clinical. "Heartbeat and respiration are very slow, but not life-threatening. No sign of any external trauma, except the cuts and bruises she got when she fell flat on her face on the sidewalk outside her home. The bloodwork is completely clean. No drugs, no unusual deficiencies.

“We gave her a CAT scan yesterday. The vertebrae at the base of her spine are unusually thick, but no other abnormalities." She clenched her hands in impotent anger.

“No concussion, no aneurysms, no blood clots, no signs of a stroke or a heart attack. I've set her up with an

IV drip, so she doesn't starve or die of thirst while we wait for her to wake up.

“So what the hell is wrong with her?" Yasna's voice was quietly furious. "If she wasn't lying here in front of me, I would say the tests showed an abnormally healthy woman, not one who should be in a coma. You've been in this business a long time, Mike," she said. "What do you think? Have you ever seen anything like this before?"

The older doctor frowned, his fingers drumming on his thigh. He shook his head and shrugged.

“The human body is strange, Yasna," he said.

“I've been practicing for nearly forty years, and I see things that surprise me every day. I've seen people who look to be on their deathbeds recover and walk out the door. And I've seen people who Look completely healthy die from raging fevers in the blink of an eye.

“I would say to look for signs of some sort of viral or bacterial infection. See if you can find if she's been out of the country. She might have picked up a disease we're not familiar with. And she does have an elevated temperature," he said, glancing at her chart.