Disclaimer: As always I can claim nothing. If I owned anything I probably wouldn't be here.

Summary: Lydecker has a daughter. Read and find out.

Author's Note: This story has been off the web for a while. I really enjoyed writing it so I'm revamping it now, adding more to the chapters and filling any plot holes or rifts. Adding meat to the bones so to say. I thought it deserved it.

Prologue

Still no change. It was too early to tell. Go home. You look like hell. The doctors had told the man many things, but still nothing would shift him from the bedside chair where he'd been holding a vigil for the past two days. The steaming cup of coffee a nurse dropped for him has gone cold on the side table next to the newspaper he's been neglecting to read. All he can focus on now, think about now, is the child on the bed barely visible beneath the tangle of wires and tubing sustaining the life that nearly slipped away.

A nurse opens the door and asks if he needed anything. A somber holiday ballad can be heard in the distance playing from the nurse's station. When no reply is given other than a cold stare the nurse nods, whispers a faint word of understanding and shuts the door, shutting out the music with it.

The man stands. It was always a good idea to keep the blood flowing and pacing might help his anxiety. So he starts back and forth across the room, letting his thoughts wander. How could he have been so blind? Everything had been in front of him from the beginning. All of this – all of the pain – could have been avoided if he'd only seen it sooner. But it was too late for that. It was done. No regrets.

A small sound from the bed draws his attention. The figure beneath the wires and tubes, the figure of a slim teenage girl has shifted slightly, but still not awakened. The breath catches in the man's throat and a smile hits his lips. It's the first sign of life he's seen other than the lines and beeps of the monitors. He leans in and brushes aside the hair that's fallen across her face. So peaceful now, but that wouldn't last. No regrets. His decision had been made and made again. She was his own flesh and blood. His own daughter and yet this was only the beginning of her journey home. She would hate him for it if she knew, but he had done and would continue to do what was required of him. The world was a dangerous place and he had done his best to prepare her for that. No regrets.

The door opens again. The same nurse pops her head in the room. "Colonel Lydecker? There's a call for you."

He nods an acknowledgment and thanks her. He walks out of the hospital room only once glancing back at the girl in the bed through the barred windows.