Never Judge

"It is with a heavy heart that I am reporting to you now, live from Saints Hospital. The Chan family has confirmed the passing of Actor and Doctor, Eric Chan." The reporter said as Katerina sat inside the hospital, in her sister-in-law's office accompanied by her friends and family.

It had been a week since Eric had passed. Katerina and the rest for the Chan family had chosen to keep news of his death from the public while those involved in what was now called the Raja Incident, were tired and publicly charged.

Almost all of them were dead having fallen to Ian's trap on the island.

To the public, Jim Walker had lost his mind. He had murdered everyone members of their group, blamed it on the Chan family who had failed to save his wife and children.

The official story was that a deranged Jim Walker managed to convince William Trent that the only way to get revenge was to attack the Chans. Since Miguel and Nichole were not often seen in public, they went after Eric.

When Eric was shot there were too many witnesses, but for days the Chan family told everyone that he was merely recovering.

That was until earlier that day when Katerina Sebastian informed the public of Eric's death.

"You just need to sign this." Mien told Katerina as he handed her the marriage certificate that Eric had prepared beforehand.

"Why would he have you do this, did he know?" Katrina asked as she stared blankly at the piece of paper with Eric's signature on it.

"He left a letter. He told me to give it to you if the worst case scenario happened." Mien handed her a sealed envelope. It was quite thick, making Katerina wonder what was inside.

"You don't have to read it." Alexi hovered around his sister. All eyes were on Katerina, everyone was worried about her.

They were all in pain, but they knew she was hurting the most.

"I know." Katerina nodded as she placed the envelope in her bag and took a deep breath. She knew the letter was not for her to read in front of their friends and family. "Why did you only give this to me now?"

"I didn't know where Mr. Chan had kept it." Mien said with a guilty look on his face. "His instructions had been to give it to you the moment-"

Mien paused and looked down, unable to continue saying what he had to.

"The moment he passed." Katerina's tone was sad, but she no longer had tears to cry. She needed to focus on moving forward. Her tears would not bring Eric back.

"Yes, but Mr. Chan never expected it to happen so soon. So the documents were still with him and I had to search his safes and all the hidden places in his home." Mien guiltily explained.

Katerina nodded as she took out a pen and signed the document. She found it quite amusing that Eric had back dated it to when she had agreed to become his wife. The day the world found out that he was a member of the illustrious Chan family.

"You don't have to do this, you don't have to speak in front of them." Cedric told Katerina as he leaned against the wall, giving her a worried look. "Both Adrianna and Ayanna have texted me ten times already trying to convince me to tell you not to do this."

"But I have to, I want to." Katerina said as she looked at the document in front of her.

She was now officially Mrs. Chan, a pregnant widow.

"I'll visit Adrianna and Ayanna after this." Katerina said with a small smile as she stood up and took a deep breath.

"Are you sure about this? I can do this for you, he was my brother after all." Miguel looked at Katerina with worry.

"I'm sure." Katerina nodded as she lifted her chin and tidied her clothes. "Let's go."

The media were all waiting outside, at first they were noisy, shouting for answers, but when they saw Katerina, they all went silent.

It was the first time that Katerina was walking around without hiding her pregnancy. The cameras flashed as the reporters took photos of a pregnant Katerina.

"You can do this." Alexi told his sister as he pulled her into a hug and let her walk up to the podium to speak.

She cleared her throat as she looked out into the audience and gave them a very sad smile.

Looking at the paper in her hand with her prepared speech, she looked up and closed her eyes, folding the paper and placing it in her pocket.

"She's going off script." Miguel said as he gave Cedric a concerned look. He knew that Cedric had helped Katerina craft the image she wanted to portray today.

"She'll be fine." Cedric chuckled as he shook his head. "You are being way too overprotective. You keep forgetting who she is and what she has achieved on her own"

"On the day Eric proposed to me, we got married. We preferred to keep it quiet, so we had a civil ceremony, just him and us." Katerina explained. "A few months ago, we found out that we were expecting our first child and Eric was so excited to be a father."

The crowd was silent as she took a deep breath.

"A week ago, my husband, Eric Chan succumbed to his injuries."  The reporters were shocked to hear the news. From what they heard Eric had just passed away that morning. "As you can all understand this has been very painful for me and the rest of our family. All I ask is for you to respect our mourning."

With that Katerina ended her speech, thanked the crowd and left, returning to the safety of the hospital.

As soon as the doors closed behind her, Katerina fell into her brother's arms and began to sob.

"Don't worry, Kat." Alexi said as he gently stroked Katerina's back. "We'll be here for you and your child. Always."