"What do you think happened to Oldin?" one of the taller and older men asked Sutton as he sat down at the table to have lunch.

"Two guesses Raymore," Sutton replied in a cold and completely un-amused voice, looking up from his tray of barely edible food to glare at the man. "First one doesn't count." He hoped using the favourite quip of Elizabeth's might cheer him up slightly, but it only made him worry more. 

All the men sitting at the table started muttering to each other about what each of them had heard about what went down between Elizabeth and Warden McNeill; each had their own story and version of events. Some stories were quite fantastic including another attempted jailbreak, others only containing nothing less than heart break and were unfortunately far more likely. 

Raymore looked across the table at Sutton in confusion, not exactly understanding what the man had meant.

"Go and ask the Associate Warden what happened and if she's still alive, he'll tell you." Sutton had planned to do that anyway once he had finished his lunch but thought to himself that if he could kill two birds with one stone then why not.

Raymore nodded his head at the idea still a little confused about the situation and left the table to go and see the Associate Warden who was standing in the exact place where McNeill usually would.

"Excuse me sir," Raymore said in a quiet voice as he approached the young but still intimidating Associate Warden. "Don't mean to disturb you sir, but can you tell me what happened to Oldin?"

Thomas looked the tall man up and down with a glare of defiance and control. "What's it any of your business Raymore?"

"She's usually back for the next meal is all sir," the convict replied in the same quiet tone, not meeting Thomas's glare but instead staring intently at the tiled floor beneath his feet.

"She's in the hospital." Thomas nodded his head and looked around the mess hall. "She will be fine, eventually."

"Is she still breathing?" Raymore asked only semi-consciously and truly fearing for Elizabeth's health.

"She's unconscious at the present moment, but Miss Adams says it isn't too serious and it wasn't caused from any sort of physical harm that could have been inflicted on her."

Raymore nodded his head at this new information and slowly walked back to the table, trying to digest it all and not quite understanding why she was unconscious in the hospital but hadn't been harmed.

"Well?" Sutton asked quickly. Everyone at the table had instantly fallen silent and were looking at Raymore for details of what had happened to their dark angel. All the inmates of Alcatraz that Elizabeth had befriended had grown accustomed to her presence throughout their days. The 'in' jokes, her quick quips and comebacks, their concern and her cold brush offs over her bruises and lacerations that would only just begin to heal before becoming black and bleeding again overnight. She was a small spark of light in a dark and haunting future. 

"She's in the hospital," Raymore replied still a little dazed and confused, his eyes not focusing on anything in particular but rather staring straight through into space. "And he said that she's unconscious."

The rest of their lunch was eaten in complete silence other than the sound of metal forks and spoons scraping against ceramic bowls and noisy chewing. No one sitting at the table even turned their head an inch to another person. Most of them didn't even turn their heads away from their trays of food. Most of the men at the prison had seen this happen before and all feared the same outcome would occur this time around.

After lunch they had recreation time again and most of the inmates went back out into the large concrete yard while others went down to the library or back to their cells for a rest.

Sutton decided to linger in the library looking over a few books that Elizabeth had recommended and he had once promised himself he would read before heading out to the recreation yard again. As he passed by the Associate Warden who was on his way back to his office Sutton stopped and asked, "what's the chance that Oldin will wake up sir?"

"You'll have to talk to Miss Adams about that." Thomas's voice was cold and careless, and he started back to his office again, walking past Sutton without a care.

"Am I allowed to go and see her?" Sutton called after Thomas as he continued on in the direction he was originally heading.

The Associate Warden stopped in his tracks and looked at one of the guards standing next to him. With a soft nudge in the stomach he ordered, "take him to see Miss Adams."

The guard nodded his head at the order as Thomas continued on his way to the offices. The middle-aged man with a well-rounded stomach and a growing bold patch on the top of his head hurriedly escorted Sutton directly to the hospital wing then continued on his own way as Sutton walked down the stairs.

Sutton looked around for Miss Adams who was nowhere to be seen and pulled up a folding chair beside Elizabeth's bed. She had been changed into a blue hospital gown and the white bed sheet was pulled right up to her chest, only Elizabeth's arms, shoulders and head were exposed. Sutton looked over the pretty woman who appeared to be no more than soundly sleeping in the bed and was amazed that she didn't have any new injuries around her face and arms.

"She, she doesn't have any new bruises," Sutton stammered to himself slightly in confusion as his eyes carefully looked at the old bruises and lacerations, searching for evidence of fresh trauma. Only the bruises around her chin and maybe a few around her face seemed to be darker than the morning.

"No," Miss Adams interjected in her Irish accent as she walked out of the medicine room and saw the inmate sitting beside Elizabeth's bed. "She's mostly unharmed. This time. Other than a few superficial cuts on her stomach, and the emotional trauma of course."

"Then, how? How is it?" Sutton was confused and completely lost for words wondering how Elizabeth could have ended up in this state if it wasn't another beating that she had painfully endured as all her inmate friends had expected. "Why is she like this?"

"I wish I knew." The pretty middle-aged nurse pulled her dark ringlets of hair back off her face and pulled a chair up next to the friend of the dark angel, speaking to him with compassion and sorrow for the beautiful woman. "Mr. McNeill didn't physically harm her enough to cause this though, or even anything close to this."

"But I thought, after last time." Sutton spoke quietly as he looked over Elizabeth, it was complete shock that kept him from speaking in his normal tone. "With Davies still in a coma on the mainland, we all thought that the same thing had happened to Elizabeth."

"So did I, but the Warden said he didn't lay a single finger on her, other than the cuts but he can't seem to explain why he did that to the poor girl." Miss Adams heaved out a great sigh of remorse and leant forward in her chair, reaching out to hold Elizabeth's hand in her own and wishing she could do more. "Of course I didn't believe him at first but I completely checked her over and there is practically no new bruising, not compared to what she usually has at least. He was telling the truth, he didn't touch her, at least not on the outside."

"What?" Sutton didn't understand the last part the nurse had said or what she was getting at. His brain immediately went to the possibility of rape and a cold shiver went down his spine.

"I think he might just be in love with her, and if I can read the signs in the way I think I can, she might just be in love with him too. Only the good Lord above knows how or why though." With a shake of her head the nurse stood and left Sutton looking over Elizabeth as she silently slumbered in the hospital bed.

* * * * *

During dinner that evening Warden McNeill took up his usual position in the dining hall with the inmates and watched over them for any signs of trouble, instead of being with his family that he had called out to the Island only a few days before. He missed the company of his children but didn't want them to see him in the mood he was in. 

At 6:40 he returned to his large office to fill out some paperwork or at least fill in some time with odd jobs that he had been meaning to do. In his emotional state he couldn't work up the motivation to do any of them so instead he decided to go for a walk around the rather large Island grounds.

McNeill walked down to the industries building where numerous things were built by the inmates during work time and then shipped back to the mainland for sale. He walked through the large shed for quite some time looking around for an answer to all of his unasked questions continually chasing themselves around in his head, but found none. Instead he headed out to the model industries building at the end of the peninsula to watch the sun set over the water.

Sitting on the large rocks of the peninsula darkness slowly fell around the Warden and still no answer came to him as he looked up at the twinkling stars in the dark blue sky above. The light wind had an icy chill about it that would last now until winter broke in a few months. Standing to his feet he thought it was probably time he walked back to his house on the Island where his wife and two beautiful children would be waiting for him. Dawn deserved some answers.

Dinner was already on the set table when he got there and his family was just sitting down to eat their meal, with or without him as it would be.

"What are we having?" the Warden asked casually as he sat down at the head of the table. He pulled his serviette out from under his fork and knife and laid it across his leg, smiling at his two young children that were a splitting image of him as a boy.

"Chicken and pasta." With a slight smile at his presence his beautiful and elegant wife, with her long blonde locks of hair swept gracefully over one shoulder, took the aluminum foil lids off the trays the cafeteria ladies had bought around for them. There was a tray with a whole roast chicken on it and on the other one was a huge bowl of pasta. The officers of Alcatraz Island and their families always got the decent food while the inmates survived on whatever was left over to cook with.

During dinner McNeill kept the conversation with his two energetic young boys and how they were going at school mainly, they talked about what new things they were learning in each of their various classes.

After dinner McNeill kissed each of his young boys' goodnight on the forehead, wished them both sweet and charming dreams and gave them a big endearing hug each before they went off to their beds.

Dawn tucked her boys into their beds with a kiss for each of them as she does every other night, flicked on a nightlight for little Ryan, then walked into the kitchen and started running the hot water for the dishes.

"Leave them," McNeill said in little more than a whisper as he walked past his wife in the kitchen through to the lounge room. "Come and sit down with me, we need to talk about some things."

Dawn turned off the hot water tap that had just started to warm up, wiped her hands dry on a tea towel and walked through to the lounge room where her husband was waiting for her. With a hand on his forehead and his eyes closed the Warden stood in the middle of the room waiting for her. A pang of anticipation and anxiety grabbed at her stomach as she walked past her husband. Dawn sat down in one of the smaller single-seater couches in the room, one ankle tucked gracefully behind the other. Just like Elizabeth used to.

McNeill walked over to his beautiful wife who was looking up at him. He knelt down in front of her, his knees on the floor beside her feet, and rested both of his hands on her knees. A look of sorrow and apology flooding his now soft blue-gray eyes. "You know I don't like you going through the prison."

Dawn was getting sick of this beating around the bush she seemed to be doing so often with the man she called her husband. "Nicholas, I know you are sleeping with your secretary," she whispered, looking into his eyes she once loved so very much and couldn't dream of being without. But that was in the past now. 

"I was," the Warden whispered in response as he nodded his head and dropped the gaze of his eyes to the pearl necklace draping stylishly around her slender neck and the locks of blonde hair that fell around it.

"And I know that you're beating the inmates." Tears swelled in the pretty woman's bright blue eyes as she confessed to her husband the things she knew about him and what happened in this prison. It was just like after the war again.

McNeill nodded his head and dropped it onto his hands that were still resting upon her knees, holding back tears and hoping that he wouldn't hear the words that would inevitably escape his wife's beautiful lips.

"And I saw what you did to Elizabeth." Dawn's tone was so hushed the Warden almost missed that final blow. 

But he heard it. McNeill nodded his head but didn't move or say a word. His grip tightened slightly around Dawn's knees as he held back the tears that were threatening to flow forward from the realization of what he had done. Again.

Dawn reached a hand forward and ran it through his hair soothingly. She noticed how many grey hairs were starting to show through the once thick and dark brown locks. She had always loved his hair.

McNeill looked up at his wife, his blue-gray eyes glistening with unshed tears. "Can I talk now?"

Dawn put her hands on top of her husbands and sat forward slightly on the chain in anticipation of what he had to say, not only that but she wanted to show that she was there for him and wanted to sort all these horrible things out and be a family once again.

"I promised you the Executioner was put to bed, gone, only a figment of my past. I'm sorry that I wasn't able to keep that promise. I thought leaving the military, pursuing a career in corrections to make people better people would help keep the Executioner at bay. But I needed him. Not long after coming to Alcatraz I needed him, to help keep some of the prisoners in line. And it felt good Dawn. I hate myself for saying this but it felt good to know that the Executioner was being unleashed on people who deserved it again. It completed me.

"I know you're sleeping with someone when you're back on the mainland Dawn, please just tell me who it is." McNeill pleaded with his wife for the truth, his eyes glistening with tears and begging for her to forgive him for the things he had done.

Dawn paused and looked into her husbands' pleading eyes, knowing full well that the truth of her affair would kill him but needing to tell him all the same. "It's Peter," she whispered quietly as her bright blue eyes filled with tears and ran slowly down her cheeks.

After this information was served to him McNeill couldn't speak or even move for minutes, it was like he was dreaming a horrible nightmare and couldn't wake up. "How could you do that?" he pulled his hands out from under hers and stood up, walking over to the other end of the room and leaning against the fireplace.

Peter, of all people. The man that had served beside him for many years. The man that had seen the same atrocities and war crimes as McNeill himself. The man that Dawn had fought so hard for on that fateful day that they first met.

Dawn looked over at the Warden with indignation and stood from her chair. "How could I?" waving her arms theatrically the anger pulsed through Dawn's body. "Let's leave The Executioner in bed at the moment. You have the nerve to stand there and ask me 'how could I' sleep with another person? How about you Nicholas? Are you immune to the rules that you bind me with? How could you go and sleep with your secretary? Thomas's girlfriend of all women, and I know there's more than just her," Dawn was yelling now. Frustration and annoyance shining through her voice like a burst of sunshine through the black clouds.

McNeill stood in his position leaning against the fireplace and shook his head, knowing what would come next and pleading with his wife not to ask her next question. "Please don't say it Dawn."

"How could you beat Elizabeth?Elizabeth,Nicholas! After all the conversations we had through the time she was being trialed,the pictures in the newspaper, the amount of times I told you I believed in the Angel! I can understand if you have to show the inmates how to behave properly every now and then, but this? I just don't understand how you could look into that innocent woman's eyes and beat her the way you did. And so many times!"

"You had to go and say it didn't you, why Dawn? Why?" he yelled back harshly in frustration. When he noticed he was clutching his fingers he knew that the Executioner was on the brink of being released yet again. He loosened his grip on the mantle and took a deep breath, calming himself down slightly. "I don't know, okay Dawn. I don't know how I did it to her. I don't really even know why. My job demands that I keep all the inmates in line and if need be I have the permission to use brutal force. Oldin was not complying with the rules and I understand that that is no excuse for what happened but all I know right now is that I shouldn't have done it. And I wish I could take it all back."

"You're damn right you shouldn't have done it Nicholas, god knows what you were thinking! I couldn't believe what you did to that poor woman, the torture you put her through is unbelievable! I never once thought that my husband could do such things to anyone anymore, let alone an innocent woman who was wrongly incarcerated. Is there anything else you want to tell me while I'm here?" Dawn asked as anger took a hold of her body and her beautiful blue eyes threw a deadly glare at McNeill.

"Just one more thing," McNeill couldn't bring himself to look at his wife as the statement he was about to utter rolled through his brain over and over, instead he gazed deeply into the unlit fireplace.

"Well let me guess Nicholas, you're going to hire someone to kill the president for you? No it wouldn't be that simple, you want to kill him yourself. Am I right Nicholas, tell me am I anywhere near close?" Dawn spat back at the Warden in frustration, her disgust for him and his actions was palpable. Deep down she knew exactly what he was going to say, because for a long time now she wanted to say it herself but never could bring herself to do it.

"I, I want a divorce," McNeill whispered still looking into the unlit fireplace with his back turned to his cheating wife, the woman he once loved so much and still held a deep affection for.

"Excuse me?" her voice was nothing more than a choked whisper. Dawn knew it was coming but that didn't lessen the blow at all and her bright blue eyes betrayed the shock that was pulsing through her body a million miles an hour. Taking a step back Dawn fell into the seat that she was in moments ago.

"I want a divorce." The Warden turned and walked back to where his wife was sitting in the chair and he knelt down in front of her again, his cold hands resting upon his wife's knees. His blue-gray eyes were full of tears and a look of deep sorrow covered his face, he had never wanted it to come to this. What had happened? They were so young and in love once, a world of opportunity available to them after the war, and now they were here, having this life changing