Never Judge

"That assistant is me right?" Ian asked with an unsure tone.

"Did you leave your brains at home or something?" Miguel teased.

​​

"Ian who else could it be." Cedric said, rolling his eyes. Ian never second guessed himself with anything, except when it came to Nicole. She seemed to make him insecure about himself.

"Okay, okay, I was just making sure." Ian said as he watched the mocking expressions on the two men\'s faces. "Go on."

"Okay, now I see how there could be an issue." Cedric laughed. "But do you think he would go to Nicole to talk about that? I mean Nicole was pregnant and there is no doubt on who the father is."

"It\'s possible that the topic may have come up. But from what I know about Nicole and how she manages the hospital, she has these weekly catch ups with the department heads. He runs the radiology department." Miguel casually explained.

"I still doubt that an ex would make Nicole go into labor so soon." Ian said as he thought of how emotionally resilient Nicole was.

"I doubt that too. Plus Dr. Ashe is extremely professional. Well except when Nicole broke up with him." Miguel explained.

"Nicole broke up with him publicly?" Cedric asked. "That\'s quite surprising for Nicole." 

"She didn\'t have a choice." Miguel said with a shrug. "She\'s been telling him that she didn\'t have any romantic feelings for him but he kept chasing her. When she met Ian and wanted to date him she told Dr. Ashe that she liked someone else. Dr. Ashe is a nice guy, he just fell hard for Nicole. So when he continued to pursue her Nicole confronted him in front of almost all the department heads at Saints."

"Do you think he would confront her when she was already pregnant?" Cedric asked.

"Well, traditionally, if you truly love someone and that someone got pregnant you would marry the person right?" Miguel asked.

"Our case is different." Ian scoffed.

"Exactly, that\'s why I said traditionally." Miguel said as he rolled his eyes at Ian. "My suspicion is that he thought the reason why Nicole remained unmarried is because the baby\'s dad left her."

"But I met Dr. Ash." Ian said. "He didn\'t sound like he still loved Nicole or anything." 

"Then something must have happened when he confronted Nicole." Miguel said with a shrug. "And don\'t forget. We never told any of the employees that you were Tristan\'s dad, just like you asked. So they simply assumed you were on loan from the Reyes Family. He would have no reason to be antagonistic of you."

"Miguel, why don\'t we look at what the cameras recorded. Dr. Ashe might have been scheduled to meet with her but I don\'t remember anyone mentioning him being around when her water broke." Cedric said as he recalled what people said about the day Nicole gave birth.

"Done!" Miguel suddenly said. "I\'ve set it to play the last hour before Nicole gave birth, but I placed it on fast forward so that we don\'t need to sit here for an hour." Miguel said with a laugh as he pressed play.

Cedric watched as the familiar hallway outside Nicole\'s office came to life, it was normally busy with doctors and administrative staff walking back and forth. He saw the mahogany doors that led to Nicole\'s office while her assistant sat at a desk outside.

"This was at 2:25 pm. So in a while Nicole should be leaving to go to the board meeting." Miguel said as he looked at the timestamp and Nicole\'s schedule. 

After a few seconds they spotted Nicole\'s assistant enter her office and then come out carrying some documents. Nicole quickly came out after her and walked towards the direction of the boardroom.

"Nothing seems off at this time, Nicole even seems happy." Ian said as he observed her expression. "So we can rule out anything before the board meeting."

"Okay, let me speed it up." Miguel said as he clicked a button. 

The time stamp now read 5:25 pm. They still hadn\'t seen Nicole return from the meeting so Miguel continued to speed the video. 

"That\'s Dr. Santos waiting outside her office." Miguel pointed out as they saw the doctor arrive.

"It seems that the board meeting actually went on longer than Nicole expected." Cedric said as he continued to watch the video.

"Ah, there!" Ian said as he spotted Nicole arrive with her assistant in tow. Miguel played it back and kept it at normal speed.

"Zoom in on her facial expression." Cedric said. "We need to see if anything from the board meeting caused her any distress."

Miguel nodded and did as asked and did a few things to the program, soon it showed a bubble with a percentage hovering above each person\'s head.

"If it\'s green, the person is happy, yellow is for a neutral mood, and red for a negative mood. The program reads it based on facial expressions and lip reading based on what is said." Miguel informed them.

"Do we have these in our building too?" Cedric asked Miguel. 

"Nah, the tech is new so I was actually testing it out for a year before offering it to clients." Miguel said with a shrug. "I tried it on Nicole\'s office because I thought nothing like this ever happens there, so it would be a controlled environment. I guess I was wrong. Although it seems like it may have been a good thing that I tested it outside my sister\'s office."

"So, it\'s all green except for Dr. Santos." Ian said as he kept his attention focused on the screen. He had one priority, his main priority always, Nicole.

"Yeah, based on her expression though it seems that she is just anxious because Nicole is late." Miguel pointed out. "See, as soon as my sister comes into the picture the mood shifts."

"Wow, this is really impressive tech Miguel. Have some installed here as soon as you have the stocks." Cedric said with a smile.

"Okay, let\'s fast forward it again." Miguel said as he clicked on the screen.